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Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–32.Back to highlights
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Revolution and early republic · 1775–1799
- 1790s
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James Hogg moves across the Eno to Poplar Hill
Hogg, who owned the land along the south bank of the Eno opposite the town, lived east of Hillsborough on the later Cameron property until 1793 or 1794. He then moved across the river to Poplar Hill, later the site of Julian S. Carr's Occoneechee Farm.
Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865
- 1840s
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Julian Shakespeare Carr, later Carrboro's namesake, is born in Chapel Hill
Julian S. Carr was born in Chapel Hill on October 12, 1845, the son of the Franklin Street merchant John Wesley Carr, and later studied at the university. He built tobacco, banking and textile fortunes in Durham, and his Durham Hosiery Mills went on to own both Carrboro mills; the town took his name in 1913.
Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899
- 1870s
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John W. Carr gives $100 toward reopening the university
John W. Carr of Chapel Hill paid $100 to the subscription of nearly $20,000 raised to revive the university in 1875, alongside $500 from his son Julian S. Carr of Durham.
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Fire guts Person Hall
Person Hall, the old chapel finished in 1798 and recently given to the chemistry department, burned on February 6, 1877, apparently from a stovepipe set too close to a roof rafter. The thick walls stood, the loss came to about $1,000, and gifts from A. F. Redd, J. S. Carr and others paid to restore it.
- 1880s
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Robert F. Hoke raises subscriptions to run the railroad toward Chapel Hill
When iron prices rose in 1880 and shipping ore to Pennsylvania furnaces paid, Gen. Robert F. Hoke, who owned most of Iron Mountain north of Chapel Hill, began organizing the branch line from University Station. His Iron Mountain Company put up $6,000, the largest single pledge, and Julian S. Carr was among the other subscribers.
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From West End to Carrboro: railroad, mills, and a new town
In 1882 a university railroad spur ended a mile west of Chapel Hill, and the settlement of West End grew around its boxcar depot. Thomas Lloyd opened a gin and grist mill in 1883 and the Alberta Cotton Mill in 1899, which Julian Carr's Durham Hosiery bought in 1909. Incorporated as Venable in 1911, the town became Carrboro in 1913.
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Alumni build the university's first gymnasium off university land
After the dancing ban, a chartered Gymnasium Association sold $10 shares to alumni and built a hall 110 by 45 feet on its own land, rented to the university for exercise and used for the 1885 commencement ball. The building later became Commons Hall, the student dining hall.
- 1890s
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Alumni pledge an endowment for a chair of history
At the 1890 commencement banquet, alumni answered a call to endow a chair of history: Julian S. Carr pledged $10,000 and Judge James Grant offered to make up the balance. Battle then visited alumni in the larger towns to complete the fund.
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Julian S. Carr buys Poplar Hill south of the Eno and renames the estate Occoneechee Farm
John Wall Norwood sold Poplar Hill, the house James Hogg had built about 1794 on the south bank of the Eno, to the Durham industrialist Julian S. Carr, who renamed the property Occoneechee Farm. Carr enlarged and altered the house over the next three decades.
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Julian S. Carr rebuilds the Occoneechee mineral spring with a marble basin and a rustic spring house
On his new Occoneechee Farm, Carr had the old mineral spring cleaned out and extended, set a marble basin in it, laid a cement floor and covered it with a rustic spring house with seats for visitors. The Orange County Observer described the finished work in September 1891.
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Julian S. Carr nearly finishes a large stock barn at Occoneechee Farm
Carr's new stock barn at his Occoneechee plantation near Hillsboro was a brick and frame building 42 by 155 feet, with stalls for horses, mares and foals, storage for 500 tons of hay and an elevator.
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Julian S. Carr builds a fieldstone gate wall at the entrance to Occoneechee Farm
Carr put up a stone gate wall at the farm entrance, two curving walls of fieldstone gathered on the farm, one on each side of the driveway, set with round pillars capped by stacked round stones. The Durham Daily Globe reprinted the Orange County Observer's description in December 1891.
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Julian S. Carr's new club house at Occoneechee Farm is shown to an excursion from Raleigh
Julian S. Carr hosted students of the A. and M. College and their friends at Occoneechee Farm with a barbecue. The visitors toured his new rustic club house, with its stone fireplace, pool table, piano and a clock that played "Carolina."
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Alumni pledge money for an Alumni Hall at the centennial banquet
At the banquet marking a hundred years since the university opened, alumni and classes pledged gifts toward an Alumni Hall, led by Julian S. Carr with $3,000 and Thomas M. Holt with $1,000. The building, modeled on the Boston Public Library, had its cornerstone laid in 1898.
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Thomas F. Lloyd builds the Alberta Cotton Mill
Lloyd built the Alberta Cotton Mill beside the railroad in West End in 1898 and 1899, the brick mill that later became Durham Hosiery Mill No. 4 and then Carr Mill Mall.
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Julian S. Carr gives money to finish the Carr Building dormitory
Carr, born in Chapel Hill, gave $3,000 in 1899 to finish the dormitory named for him. In 1900 Winston praised it as a gift from a son of the village whose family name had once hung over a small store there.
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The Bank of Chapel Hill is established
Founded in 1899 with $10,000 authorized and $2,500 paid in, it was the county's first bank after the Civil War. Julian S. Carr was its first president, and by 1953 it held $8,500,000 in assets.
Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
- 1900s
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Julian S. Carr gives the university the Carr Building
At the 1900 commencement the trustees accepted the Carr Building, a three-story dormitory that Julian S. Carr paid for at a cost of $18,000. It was designed by Pearson and Ashe and housed seventy-four students.
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Lightning burns the race track barn at Occoneechee Farm
During an electrical storm, lightning struck the "Pocahontas" or race track barn on Julian Carr's Occoneechee Farm, destroying it with its feed and farm machinery. No livestock were inside, and the loss was insured.
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Julian Carr's Durham Hosiery Mills buys the Alberta Mill
In early February 1909 Julian S. Carr and his sons closed a deal for both the Alberta Cotton Mill that Thomas F. Lloyd had built at West End and the Blanche Hosiery Mill, to change hands on April 1 and run together as Durham Hosiery Mills' Mill No. 4. The deeds were recorded in March.
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Alumni pledge forty-one endowed scholarships
At the 1909 alumni luncheon, classes and local alumni groups promised to endow forty-one scholarships of $1,000 each. Julian S. Carr gave five named for J. Johnston Pettigrew for sons of Confederate soldiers, and Edgar Love two named for Cornelia Phillips Spencer.
- 1910s
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The university grants diplomas to students who left for the Confederate army
The faculty and trustees voted to give A.B. diplomas to surviving students who had left their classes to join the Confederate army, and the war classes of 1861 to 1868 were called at the 1911 commencement.
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Venable is renamed Carrboro
A 1913 act of the General Assembly changed the name of the Town of Venable to Carrboro. Julian S. Carr, owner of the local mill since 1909, had asked UNC president Francis Venable's consent in January 1913, and the town's own history says Carr agreed to supply the community with electricity.
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The Lloyd yarn mill becomes Durham Hosiery Mill No. 7
The Thomas F. Lloyd Manufacturing Company mill was sold to Durham Hosiery Mills, which ran it as Mill No. 7 alongside Mill No. 4, the former Alberta mill.
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Silent Sam
On June 2, 1913, the United Daughters of the Confederacy and UNC alumni dedicated a Confederate soldier statue in McCorkle Place, and Julian Carr's dedication speech boasted of whipping a Black woman. The monument drew decades of protest until demonstrators pulled it down on August 20, 2018.
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UNC's Confederate Monument is dedicated
On the second day of commencement Major H. A. London introduced Governor Craig; Mrs. London presented the monument to the trustees for the UDC, President Francis P. Venable accepted it for the university, and Julian S. Carr spoke for the students of 1861. Carr's speech, which praised the Confederate army and recounted his horsewhipping of a Black woman in the village in 1865, is the part now most remembered.
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Julian S. Carr endows a scholarship on his class's fiftieth anniversary
At the 1916 commencement, fifty years after his class was due to graduate, Durham industrialist Julian S. Carr gave $4,000 to endow a scholarship fund. Treasury Secretary William G. McAdoo gave the address.
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A winter cyclone wrecks the dairy barn at Occoneechee Farm
A storm on a Friday night damaged every building on Julian Carr's Occoneechee Farm and demolished the dairy barn, killing a number of blooded cows. Carr began rebuilding at once.
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Carrboro opens an influenza diet kitchen in the mill club rooms
When influenza spread from the university to Carrboro, a volunteer nursing committee worked night and day, and J. S. Carr gave the club rooms for a diet kitchen and paid its costs. For two weeks Mrs. R. B. Lawson and Mrs. Arthur Blackwood served at least seven gallons of soup a day, and orderlies checked homes each morning.
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Hillsborough holds the county homecoming celebration for returned soldiers
On July 16, 1919, about 15,000 people came to Hillsborough to welcome home Orange County's soldiers and sailors, with a parade, Gov. Bickett's address at the court house and a dinner for about a thousand guests in Cameron Park. J. Cheshire Webb chaired the celebration, and the county Red Cross voted $300 toward its cost, money the celebration fund turned out not to need.
- 1920s
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Julian Carr's Occoneechee Farm is sold at auction in small farms
Occoneechee Farm, divided into small farms along the Durham-Greensboro highway a mile from Hillsboro, was sold at auction with its personal property. Carr had already sold his Holstein herd to Chapel Hill dairyman C. H. Weaver.
Recent decades · 1976–2026
- 2020s
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UNC trustees vote to remove Josephus Daniels’s name from the student stores building
On July 29, 2020 the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees voted 11 to 2 to remove four names from campus buildings, among them Josephus Daniels. The Daniels Building became UNC Student Stores, and the names of Charles Brantley Aycock, Julian Shakespeare Carr and Thomas Ruffin Sr. were removed at the same meeting.
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Compiled and maintained by the Friends of the Orange County Public Library from county records, the sources named on each card, and the index’s event pages. Last updated October 2, 2026.
