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Orange County Indexed

Chronology

Key events from Orange County history: 100 highlights to start, then the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, each connected to the index. A storyline gathers many dated events into one history, such as the Regulator crisis.

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4 dated events match your filters.

Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–4.Back to highlights

Entries

  1. Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899

  2. Chapel Hill Locke Craig teaches at the university and at a Chapel Hill school

    After graduating from the university at nineteen, Locke Craig taught chemistry there for a short time and taught at a private school in Chapel Hill. Kemp Battle listed him among graduates then teaching as "Craig at Chapel Hill."

  3. Naming or commemoration · Chapel Hill Seniors begin the class tree and Class Day custom

    The class of 1880, led by its president Thomas H. Battle, planted a sugar maple at the edge of the Forbidden Ground after Class Day speeches that included one by Charles B. Aycock. Later classes kept the custom, planting a water oak in 1882 and a white pine in 1883.

  4. Early twentieth century · 1900–1944

  5. Naming or commemoration · Chapel Hill 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.

  6. Appointment, election or service · Memorial Hall, UNC, Chapel Hill Edward Kidder Graham is inaugurated president in Memorial Hall

    A procession of about 1,400 marched to Memorial Hall, where Chief Justice Walter Clark gave Graham the oath and Governor Locke Craig presided. Graham's address cast the state university as the instrument of democracy. Three former presidents walked with him in the procession.

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A dated event is a fact, filed on the page of the subject it belongs to: a person, a place, a theme, or a named event or history. Pages are subjects, with their own works and sources; the Place, community, or institution filter also gathers the institutions that recur in the entries without a page of their own. The page opens on the highlights; a search or any filter looks through every dated event and storyline, and each filter’s counts say how many entries choosing it would show alongside the others. A storyline is a longer history that gathers related dated events, and each storyline’s page lists its own. Counts give dated events and storylines separately. Dates come from the sources named on the cards and from the index’s event pages; where sources disagree, the card follows the county records. Entries marked approximate or needing research say so on the card; the rest were checked against the source named on it. The correction link under the entries opens the contact form; name the entry and its date and the Friends will check the source. Suggest an event →

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.

Two mice reading back to back against a leaf, with the hand-lettered words Friends of the Orange County Public Library
Illustration by Caldecott Medalist Matthew Cordell, gifted to the Friends 2026