Chronology

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1. Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865

2. about 1830
   Founding or opening · Davis School House Orange Methodist Church is organized at the Davis School House

   Alexander Gattis and neighbors organized Orange Methodist Church in the Davis School House near the Wash Fowler home. The congregation built its first church about 1838.

3. 1833
   Founding or opening · Collier & Watson cabinet shop, Franklin Street, Chapel Hill (site unknown) Isaac J. Collier and Jones Watson open a cabinetmaking business

   The two men started making furniture on Franklin Street in 1833. After the partnership dissolved in the later 1830s, Collier kept the business going.

4. by 1836
   Chapel Hill Isaac J. Collier and Kendall B. Waitt go into partnership in a Chapel Hill cabinet shop

   After his short-lived partnership with Jones Watson, Isaac J. Collier had joined Kendall B. Waitt, a Chapel Hill artisan from Massachusetts, in a cabinet shop by 1836. The two worked together for years, later as building contractors.

5. 1844–1848
   Property or economic transaction · University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Dabney Cosby takes the masonry subcontract for the lengthening of Old East and Old West

   Chapel Hill contractors Isaac J. Collier and Kendall B. Waitt subcontracted the masonry of the university additions to Cosby, who put enslaved workmen including the brothers Osborne and Albert on the job. Cosby and the architect Alexander Jackson Davis quarrelled over the drawings, and president David L. Swain asked the Hillsborough builder John Berry to look at the brickwork, which Berry reported was defective.

6. 1844
   Chapel of the Cross, Chapel Hill Isaac J. Collier serves as contractor for the Chapel of the Cross

   Chapel Hill woodworker and builder Isaac J. Collier was the contractor for the Episcopal Chapel of the Cross on East Franklin Street, built to a design by the Philadelphia architect Thomas U. Walter.

7. December 23, 1844
   University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill The university awards Isaac J. Collier and Kendall B. Waitt the contract for the Old East and Old West additions

   On December 23, 1844, Collier and Waitt won the contract to build A. J. Davis's three-story brick additions to Old East and Old West, at $9,360. They subcontracted the masonry to Dabney Cosby; the next day trustee secretary Charles Manly asked that they hire his enslaved carpenters.

8. 1848
   Construction or physical change · Old East Literary societies move into new halls in the enlarged Old East and Old West

   The northward extensions of Old East and Old West, designed by A. J. Davis and built by Isaac J. Collier and Kendall B. Waitt for $9,360, were finished in 1848 with debating halls and library alcoves for the two societies. At the Dialectic opening James Mebane, the society's first president in 1795, sat beside the student president, Kemp P. Battle.

9. 1851
   Chapel Hill Isaac J. Collier finishes a house for Elizabeth Nunn

   In September 1851 Lucy Battle wrote her husband that Isaac J. Collier was completing a house for Elizabeth Nunn, widow of a Chapel Hill innkeeper, one of several modest frame houses he built in the village.

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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.