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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
- Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899
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Six freedmen's schools are running in Orange County
By 1868 six schools for freed people had been set up in the county, paid for mostly by the Freedmen's Bureau and Quaker missions, with Black families giving what they could.
People: Robert G. Fitzgerald
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Robert G. Fitzgerald comes to Hillsborough to teach a freedmen's school
Fitzgerald, a Union Navy and cavalry veteran who had taught freedpeople in Amelia County, Virginia, came to Hillsborough through the Friends' Freedmen's Association of Philadelphia to teach at a new school for Black students.
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Robert Fitzgerald and his brother start a brick kiln
Robert G. Fitzgerald, who came to Hillsborough in January 1868 to teach a freedmen's school, set up a brick kiln in partnership with his brother; his diaries through 1871 record its supplies and labor. His brother Richard was selling bricks in Durham by 1869.
People: Robert G. Fitzgerald
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Thomas Fitzgerald buys Woodside, where his son Robert builds a freedmen's school
Thomas Fitzgerald, whose son Robert had persuaded the family to move from Pennsylvania, bought Woodside, a 158-acre plantation six miles east of Hillsborough, from Robert J. Jeffreys for $1,200 in April 1869, with Robert writing the deed. Robert built a freedmen's school on the property, and the family also farmed and ran a tannery and brick making there.
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Robert G. Fitzgerald marries Cornelia Smith of Chapel Hill
Fitzgerald married Cornelia Smith, a niece of Mary Ruffin Smith, the Chapel Hill benefactor of the university. Their granddaughter Pauli Murray later told the family's story in Proud Shoes.
People: Pauli Murray
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Mary Pauline Fitzgerald is baptized at St. Matthew's
The seven-month-old daughter of the freedmen's teacher Robert G. Fitzgerald and his wife Cornelia was baptized at St. Matthew's, her mother standing as sponsor. As Pauline Fitzgerald Dame she later raised her niece, Pauli Murray.
People: Robert G. Fitzgerald
Subject: St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church
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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.
