Skip to content

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.

Search and filters

Search and filters · 1 active

6 dated events match your filters.

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

Earliest first. Scroll sideways, or use the arrows.

6 dated events
1841Antebellum and Civil War
  1. Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865
  2. Moses Ashley Curtis becomes rector of St. Matthew's Church in Hillsborough

    Appointment, election or service · St. Matthew's Episcopal Church, Hillsborough

    Curtis, an Episcopal priest who had taught at the church school in Raleigh, accepted a call to St. Matthew's Church in Hillsborough in June 1841. He did his botanical and fungus research from the town while serving the parish.

    Subject: St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church

  3. Moses Ashley Curtis leaves St. Matthew's for Society Hill, South Carolina

    Appointment, election or service · St. Matthew's Episcopal Church, Hillsborough

    Rector and botanist Moses Ashley Curtis moved from Hillsborough to Society Hill, South Carolina, ending his first period at St. Matthew's.

    Subject: St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church

  4. Moses Ashley Curtis returns to St. Matthew's in Hillsborough

    Appointment, election or service · St. Matthew's Episcopal Church, Hillsborough

    After about ten years at Society Hill, S.C., Curtis came back to St. Matthew's Church in Hillsborough in February 1857, and stayed until his death in 1872; he was buried in the churchyard.

    Subject: St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church

  5. Charles Tew chooses a site west of Hillsborough for a military academy

    Founding or opening · Hillsborough

    In late July 1858 Charles C. Tew, with Moses A. Curtis and A. S. Galliard, searched Hillsborough for a school site and settled on a 40-acre tract about a mile and a half west of town near the new North Carolina Railroad. They engaged the Columbia architect John A. Kay, and local builders John Berry and Henry Richards built the barracks and commandant's house.

    Part of Orange County’s nineteenth-century academies · 102 events

    People: John Berry · Moses Ashley Curtis

    Subject: North Carolina Railroad · Hillsborough Military Academy

  6. Bishop Atkinson consecrates St. Mary's Chapel

    Naming or commemoration · St. Mary's Chapel

    The St. Mary's Chapel building in eastern Orange County was consecrated by Bishop Atkinson with the Rev. Dr. Curtis taking part.

    People: Moses Ashley Curtis

    Subject: St. Mary’s Chapel

  7. Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899
  8. St. Matthew's rector Moses Ashley Curtis dies

    Life event · St. Matthew's Episcopal Church, Hillsborough

    Moses Ashley Curtis, rector of St. Matthew's for twenty-one years and a botanist of international standing, died at 64. The font and a south window in the church are his memorials.

    Subject: St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church

Suggest a correction to an entry →

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