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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.

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13 dated events match your filters.

Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–13.Back to highlights

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13 dated events
1770Colonial and Regulator years
  1. Colonial and Regulator years · 1680–1774
  2. Hillsborough officials and merchants pledge to defend one another after the riot

    Protest or organizing · Hillsborough

    Just after the September 1770 riot, Francis Nash, Edmund Fanning, Alexander Martin, Thomas Henderson, Jesse Benton, William Johnston, Adlai Osborne and others formed an association for mutual aid and protection. Many members lived too far apart to help one another in a sudden emergency.

    Part of The Regulator crisis, 1766–1771 · 90 events

    People: Francis Nash · Edmund Fanning · Alexander Martin · Jesse Benton · William Johnston · Adlai Osborne

  3. Regulators disrupt the Hillsborough Superior Court

    Protest or organizing · Hillsborough

    About 150 Regulators crowded the Hillsborough Superior Court, beat the lawyer John Williams, Edmund Fanning and others, and forced Judge Richard Henderson to adjourn; he fled that night. The next day the crowd tore down Fanning's house and wrote mocking judgments on the court docket.

    Part of The Regulator crisis, 1766–1771 · 90 events

    People: Herman Husband · Edmund Fanning · Richard Henderson · Alexander Martin · Thomas Hart

  4. David Caldwell goes between Tryon's camp and the Regulators before the Battle of Alamance

    Alamance battlefield (then Orange County)

    At the request of his parishioners, some of them Regulators, Caldwell visited Governor Tryon's camp on May 15 with Alexander Martin to urge mild measures. On the morning of the battle he was riding along the Regulator lines urging the men to go home when the order to fire was given.

    People: William Tryon · Alexander Martin

  5. Revolution and early republic · 1775–1799
  6. Provincial Congress at Hillsborough names Alexander Martin lieutenant colonel of the Second North Carolina Regiment

    Appointment, election or service · Hillsborough

    Alexander Martin attended the Third Provincial Congress at Hillsborough as a delegate from Guilford County. On September 1, 1775, the Congress named the officers of its two new regiments of Continental troops, with Robert Howe as colonel and Martin as lieutenant colonel of the Second Regiment.

    People: Robert Howe

  7. General Assembly charters an academy near Hillsborough named Science Hall

    Founding or opening · Hillsborough

    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

  8. General Assembly meets at Hillsborough and creates a Board of War

    Founding or opening · Hillsborough

    Meeting at Hillsborough under Governor Abner Nash, the Assembly levied a provision tax in kind to supply the army and navy, passed acts on treason trials and confiscated property, and created a five-member Board of War. The Board of War held its first meeting in Hillsborough on September 14, 1780.

    People: Alexander Martin · Abner Nash · Thomas Benbury

  9. Board of War, led by Alexander Martin, directs the war effort from Hillsborough

    Founding or opening · Hillsborough

    The Board of War created by the General Assembly first met at Hillsborough on September 14, 1780, with Alexander Martin, John Penn and Oroondates Davis present. Through the fall it issued orders for arms, provisions and militia from the town and ran a shoe factory there for the army, then rose in late November to sit at Halifax from December 1.

    People: John Penn

  10. Alexander Martin takes the oath as acting governor while Burke is in enemy hands

    Appointment, election or service · Colonel Williams's, Granville County

    Three weeks after Fanning carried Governor Burke out of Hillsborough, Alexander Martin, Speaker of the Senate, qualified before the Council of State at Colonel Williams's in Granville County and took up the administration. He told the council that the government must be supported and the most vigorous and decisive measures taken against so daring an enemy.

    People: Alexander Martin · Thomas Burke

  11. General Assembly at Hillsborough elects Alexander Martin governor and grants western land to Continental soldiers

    Appointment, election or service · Hillsborough

    The Assembly met at Hillsborough, heard Governor Thomas Burke's message about his capture, and elected Alexander Martin governor on April 22. Its laws granted land in a western military reservation to officers and soldiers of the Continental line and directed the sale of confiscated Loyalist estates.

    People: Alexander Martin · Thomas Benbury · Hugh Williamson · Thomas Burke

  12. General Assembly at Hillsborough opens the western land office and passes an act of pardon

    Law, policy or court · Hillsborough

    Meeting at Hillsborough, the Assembly re-elected Alexander Martin governor and chose Hugh Williamson, Benjamin Hawkins, Abner Nash and Richard Dobbs Spaight as delegates to Congress. Its laws opened a land office for western lands to redeem specie certificates and pay army arrears, and an Act of Pardon and Oblivion covered wartime offenses, with exceptions.

    People: Alexander Martin · Abner Nash · Hugh Williamson · Richard Dobbs Spaight · Richard Caswell · Benjamin Hawkins

  13. General Assembly at Hillsborough cedes the state's western lands to Congress

    Law, policy or court · Hillsborough

    The spring 1784 Assembly at Hillsborough passed an act ceding to Congress the state's claim to lands west of the Appalachian Mountains and an act giving Congress power to levy import duties. The House of Commons chose Thomas Benbury as speaker and elected Hugh Williamson and Richard Dobbs Spaight as delegates to Congress.

    People: Alexander Martin · Hugh Williamson · Thomas Benbury · Richard Dobbs Spaight

  14. William Lenoir is chosen the first president of the university's trustees

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    At the board's second meeting, held at Fayetteville, the trustees made William Lenoir of Wilkes County their president and elected State Comptroller John Craven treasurer. Lenoir soon gave up the chair and Governor Alexander Martin succeeded him.

    People: William Lenoir · Alexander Martin

  15. Meeting in Hillsborough, UNC's trustees adopt the ordinance placing the university within fifteen miles of Cyprett's Bridge

    Law, policy or court · Chapel Hill

    Twenty-five of the university's forty trustees gathered at Hillsborough on August 2, 1792. They balloted for Cyprett's Bridge as the center point on August 3 and on August 4 adopted the ordinance fixing a fifteen-mile radius and naming the site commissioners. In early November a commission chaired by Frederick Hargett toured the area and recommended New Hope Chapel Hill in southern Orange County.

    People: Alexander Martin · Hugh Williamson · Richard Dobbs Spaight

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