Chronology

James Hogg moves to Hillsborough and opens his company's office there

The merchant James Hogg, who had brought emigrants from Scotland to North Carolina in 1774, moved from Cross Creek to Hillsborough about 1775 to open his company's office, and lived at Old House on his land east of town.

Orange County chooses a committee of safety

Orange had no committee of safety until the summer of 1775, and Samuel Johnston wrote on August 14 that one had been chosen. By 1776 John Hogan was its chairman and James Hogg its secretary; its records for 1775 and 1776 are lost.

People: James Hogg · Samuel Johnston

James Hogg sits on the Hillsborough board of commissioners

James Hogg, a member of the Hillsborough Committee of Safety during the Revolution, sat on the town's board of commissioners in 1777.

Merchants who traded with Britain are ordered to swear allegiance or leave

Under a state act, the August court cited fourteen merchants and agents, among them James Hogg, and only Nathaniel Rochester and John Hogan took the oath. The court ordered everyone who failed to appear or to swear, Quakers excepted, to leave for Europe or the West Indies within sixty days.

People: James Hogg · Nathaniel Rochester

Orange magistrates tender the state oath across the county

The county court named two magistrates in each district to offer the oath to people suspected of disloyalty, and they returned lists of those who took and refused it to the May 1778 term. At that term James Hogg, William Johnston and Samuel Strudwick were cited again, and those who still declined were given sixty days to leave.

People: James Hogg · William Johnston

General Assembly charters an academy near Hillsborough named Science Hall

Meeting at Halifax, the General Assembly passed an act to establish an academy in the neighborhood of Hillsborough, naming William Hooper, Thomas Burke, Nathaniel Rochester, James Hogg and others as trustees. The act named the school Science Hall and gave its trustees the same powers as those of Liberty Hall in Mecklenburg County.

People: Alexander Martin · Nathaniel Rochester · Thomas Hart · James Hogg · Thomas Burke · William Hooper · William Johnston

Subject: Hillsborough Academy

Loyalists rob James Hogg at his Hillsborough house during Fanning's raid

During David Fanning's raid on Hillsborough on September 12, 1781, Loyalists ransacked James Hogg's house on Cameron Street and took his watch, buckles and keys until an officer posted a guard. Poplar Hill, sometimes named as the scene, was not built until about 1793.

Continental officers organize the North Carolina Society of the Cincinnati at James Hogg's cabin

Former officers of the North Carolina Continental line gathered near Hillsborough in a cabin owned by the merchant James Hogg and founded the state's Society of the Cincinnati. They elected Jethro Sumner president, Thomas Clark vice president and Adam Boyd secretary. Sixty-six of the roughly six hundred commissioned officers the state sent to the war joined by contributing a month's pay.

People: James Hogg · Adam Boyd

William Hooper divides enslaved people among his children

At Hillsborough, William Hooper gave his son Thomas Hogg Hooper a woman named Judah and her child Jack, in place of Tom, a man Robert Hogg had willed to Thomas and whom Hooper had sold to Samuel Campbell for 120 pounds. The same day, to put his children on an equal footing, he made over Pat and her son Alfred to his daughter Elizabeth and sold a girl named Molly to his son William, each transfer completed by handing a silver spoon to James Hogg as trustee.

People: William Hooper · James Hogg

The university's trustees hold their first meeting, at Fayetteville

Senate Speaker Charles Johnson chaired the meeting, and Alexander Mebane and James Hogg attended for Orange County. Davie and Hogg were charged with printing the two subscription papers, one under the charter's terms and one for outright gifts.

People: James Hogg · William Richardson Davie

Trustees adopt a university seal showing Apollo and the rising sun

A committee of James Hogg, Alfred Moore and John Haywood, given sole power to choose a device for the corporation's seal, picked the face of Apollo with the rising sun, meant to stand for the dawn of higher education in the state.

People: James Hogg · John Haywood

James Hogg of Hillsborough gathers Orange County land and money for the university site

Hogg, a Hillsborough merchant who sat on the commission that fixed the university's place, brought in pledges of land and about 1,600 dollars from people in Orange County for the New Hope Chapel Hill site. The ground chosen lay roughly twelve miles from Hillsborough on the road running from Petersburg through the town and on south to Pittsboro.

Willie Jones views New Hope Chapel Hill as a university commissioner and signs for the site

Jones was one of six commissioners the trustees sent to fix the seat of the university. On November 5, 1792 he handed the commissioners Joel Lane's offer of 640 acres in Wake County; the commissioners then went on to view New Hope Chapel Hill in Orange County, where they took offers of 1,390 acres and about 798 pounds. Jones signed the report.

People: James Hogg · David Stone · Joel Lane

James Hogg moves across the Eno to Poplar Hill

Hogg, who owned the land along the south bank of the Eno opposite the town, lived east of Hillsborough on the later Cameron property until 1793 or 1794. He then moved across the river to Poplar Hill, later the site of Julian S. Carr's Occoneechee Farm.

People: Julian S. Carr

Subject: Occoneechee Farm

UNC holds its first public examination, announced by Governor Spaight

The University's first public examination took place at Chapel Hill on July 13, 1795, after notice appeared in the newspapers over the signature of Governor Richard Dobbs Spaight. The governor's wife, Mary Spaight, was the only woman present, and about a dozen men attended, including William R. Davie, James Hogg, Alfred Moore and James Glasgow.

People: James Hogg · William Richardson Davie

James Hogg sells Poplar Hill to his son-in-law William Norwood

James Hogg, who had built the house later called Poplar Hill on an 1,100-acre tract on the south bank of the Eno, sells the estate in 1803 to his son-in-law William Norwood. It later became the home of John Wall Norwood.

People: William Norwood

James Hogg builds a large house on Franklin Street

James Hogg acquired the eastern half of Lot #11 from William R. Davie when his son Gavin entered the university, and built a ten-room house there. Debts forced him to sell in 1806, though he kept living in it; the house later passed to merchants and became the core of the Central Hotel.

Subject: Central Hotel (Chapel Hill)

James Hogg dies and is buried in Hillsborough

James Hogg, the Scottish merchant who came to North Carolina in 1774 and pressed the trustees to put the university at Chapel Hill, died on November 9, 1804. He is buried in Hillsborough two blocks north of the site of his state highway marker on Churton Street.

The James Hogg House on the Burnside grounds is torn down

The house associated with James Hogg, the Revolutionary-era merchant, was demolished in the 1940s. The remains of one chimney still stand northeast of Burnside.

Subject: Burnside

A state highway marker for James Hogg is cast for Churton Street in Hillsborough

The North Carolina Highway Historical Marker Program cast marker G-108 for James Hogg, the Scottish-born merchant and university trustee. It stands on South Churton Street and points to his home half a mile east and his grave two blocks north.