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Orange County Indexed

Chronology

Key events from Orange County history: 100 highlights to start, then the full chronology of 6,998 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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3 dated events match your filters.

Searched the full chronology of 6,998 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–3.Back to highlights

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3 dated events
1840Antebellum and Civil War
  1. Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865
  2. Jesse Hargrave opens a general store whose upstairs room serves the Methodists

    Founding or opening · Hargrave's store, Franklin Street, Chapel Hill

    Jesse Hargrave, in Chapel Hill since 1835, had a general store on Franklin Street by 1840, and bought the Yancey house the same year. In the 1840s (from about 1843) the Methodists, who had first met in Miles Davis's house, used the store's upstairs room, a former Masonic hall that Charles Deems named Bethesda.

    People: Jesse Hargrave

  3. Charles F. Deems preaches to Chapel Hill Methodists in the hall he names Bethesda

    Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill

    While a professor, Deems preached to the village Methodists, at their invitation, in the upper story of Jesse Hargrave's store, a former Masonic lodge room he named Bethesda. After he left the university in 1848, ministers were regularly appointed to the Chapel Hill charge.

    People: Jesse Hargrave

    Subject: University United Methodist Church

  4. The General Assembly passes an act incorporating Chapel Hill under five commissioners

    Law, policy or court · Chapel Hill

    Chapter 330 of the 1850-51 session laws, ratified January 29, 1851, made Manuel Fetter, Jesse Hargrave, Patterson H. McDade, Elisha Mitchell and Jones Watson the commissioners of Chapel Hill, with five commissioners to be elected each February after. They were to choose a magistrate of police, treasurer, constable and clerk and fix the town's bounds.

    People: Elisha Mitchell · Jones Watson · Manuel Fetter · Jesse Hargrave · Patterson H. McDade

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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 3, 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