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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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8 dated events match your filters.

Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–8.Back to highlights

Entries

  1. Colonial and Regulator years · 1680–1774

  2. Protest or organizing · Orange County Ralph McNair presses Herman Husband to adopt a petition written by the officers

    After the May confrontation at Hillsborough, the county officers sent Husband, through Ralph McNair, a petition of their own drafting in which the Regulators would call their conduct illegal and withdraw their charges. McNair warned that Fanning would report the case to Tryon as treason if it was refused, and the Regulators instead named their own committee to lay their papers before the governor.

  3. Property or economic transaction · Kirkland place, near Hillsborough William Few conveys his home place near Hillsborough to John Butler

    In debt and weighing a move to Georgia, Few deeded the Kirkland place east of town to his friend John Butler, sheriff that year. Butler in turn sold the tract to the Scottish merchant Ralph MacNair on July 23, 1771.

  4. Hillsborough Ralph McNair's house is attacked on the night of the Hillsborough court riot

    On the night after the Regulators broke up the superior court, parties of them patrolled Hillsborough's streets, and McNair's house was attacked and its windows broken along with those of several other houses. McNair gave a sworn account on October 9, 1770.

  5. Violence or armed conflict · Hillsborough Regulators pull down and plunder Edmund Fanning's house in Hillsborough

    The morning after the court broke up and Judge Henderson slipped out of town, the Regulators went to Fanning's house, smashed the furniture, emptied the cellar, carried his papers into the street and left the house almost demolished. Witnesses also heard them drink damnation to King George and success to the Pretender.

  6. Hillsborough Governor Tryon's army buys supplies at Ralph McNair's Hillsborough store

    On his expedition against the Regulators, Governor William Tryon bought supplies at McNair's Hillsborough store, including Delft bowls and gilt tin cups.

  7. Appointment, election or service · Orange County Orange County elects Francis Nash to a seat left by Herman Husband's expulsion

    With John Pryor dead and Herman Husband expelled from the Assembly, Orange County filled the two vacant seats in 1771 with Ralph McNair and Francis Nash, both strong opponents of the Regulators. Nash had fought against the Regulators at Alamance that year as a militia captain.

  8. Revolution and early republic · 1775–1799

  9. Appointment, election or service · New Bern Orange County sends Thomas Burke, John Kinchen and Francis Nash to the second Provincial Congress

    The second Provincial Congress met at New Bern a day ahead of the royal legislature, with Burke, Kinchen and Nash as Orange's delegates. In the legislature itself Orange sat Ralph McNair and Thomas Hart, and Thomas Nash sat for Hillsborough.

  10. Property or economic transaction · William Courtney's Yellow House, 141 East King Street, Hillsborough William Courtney buys the East King Street lots from Ralph McNair

    William Courtney bought from Ralph McNair the lots at 141 East King Street where the house later called William Courtney's Yellow House stands.

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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 1, 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