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Searched the full chronology of 6,577 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–3.Back to highlights
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Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865
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Elias Dodson holds Hillsborough's first known Baptist services in the courthouse
Elias Dodson, a Virginia-born graduate of William and Mary, preached in the courthouse and is the first Baptist minister the authors could find holding services in town. When the county built a new courthouse he bought the old one for the Baptists.
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The Old Orange County Courthouse is moved up Churton Street to Queen Street
After the county built a new courthouse, its commissioners advertised the old wooden courthouse for sale at the November 1845 county court, to be removed from the court square. The Baptist missionary Elias Dodson bought it, and by about 1847 it stood at the corner of Churton and Queen streets as a church. The building later became the freedmen's school and then the home of Dickerson Chapel AME Church.
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First Baptist Church of Hillsborough is organized in the old courthouse
The First Baptist Church was organized in Hillsborough and met in the former 1790 courthouse building, now Dickerson Chapel, until 1862, while it raised its own church building on a lot acquired between 1854 and 1860.
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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.