Chronology

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1. Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865

2. 1835 to 1849
   Hillsborough A. Mickle serves as Orange County's register of deeds

   Lefler and Wager's list of Orange County registers of deeds gives A. Mickle in the office from 1835 to 1849, between J. McKerall and John Laws.

3. between 1844 and 1848
   Construction or physical change · Union Church (Village Chapel), Franklin Street, Chapel Hill The Union Church is moved off Franklin Street and becomes a school

   When the university sold the Grand Avenue ground to Andrew Mickle and Richard James Ashe and the Presbyterians, the little Union Church was moved away from Franklin Street and later used as the village school.

4. 1846
   Construction or physical change · Highlands, 205 US 70A, Hillsborough Andrew Mickle turns the log schoolhouse at Highlands into a house

   The log school built south of the Eno around 1844 was converted to a residence, and Andrew Mickle added a three-bay, two-story side-hall section in 1846. Paul C. Cameron enlarged it again in 1857.

5. after 1855
   Chapel Hill Chapel Hill merchants, John W. Carr among them, agree not to sell to minor students on credit

   After the state's new laws on student contracts were sent to them, most of the village merchants pledged not to sell on credit to students under age without written leave from a parent or guardian, for eighteen months and subject to the faculty's approval. John W. Carr was one of nine signers.

6. 1855
   Founding or opening · Orange County The legislature charters four plank road companies through Orange County

   The 1855 charters were for roads from Chapel Hill to Morrisville and to Durhamsville, from Hillsborough to Chapel Hill, and from Hillsborough to Milton, with capital from $20,000 to $150,000. The book could not say which, if any, were built.

7. 1857
   Construction or physical change · Highlands, 205 US 70A, Hillsborough Paul C. Cameron enlarges Highlands, the former log schoolhouse south of the Eno

   Paul C. Cameron added two bays to Highlands, giving it the center-hall plan it keeps. The house had begun about 1844 as a log school and was made a dwelling by Andrew Mickle in 1846.

8. by 1858
   Founding or opening · University Bookstore, East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill Charles P. Mallett keeps the University Bookstore on Franklin Street

   Mallett's University Bookstore was one of four businesses the book first maps in 1858, along with Andrew Mickle's dry goods, John R. Hutchins's clothing store and C. Gottenburg's mattress shop. All may have opened before 1853.

9. 1861 to 1865
   Chapel Hill Andrew Mickle refuses to raise his prices as Confederate money falls

   Andrew Mickle was prospering as a merchant when the Civil War began, but he held that it was wrong to raise his prices when his neighbors could hardly get money. As the currency fell he sold his goods for much less than cost and lost his fortune.

10. November 1862
    Health or relief action · Chapel Hill Thirty Chapel Hill families pool money to buy corn

    Amid wartime scarcity, thirty heads of families sent Andrew Mickle to buy corn in a better-supplied district; he brought back about 1,921 bushels by rail to Durham and wagon from there, at $6.75 a barrel delivered. The livery keeper John H. Watson took ninety barrels, President Swain 33 and Judge Battle 24.

11. Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899

12. August 5, 1869
    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Township Orange County holds its first township elections

    Voters in each township chose magistrates, a clerk, a constable and school committeemen for the first time. In Chapel Hill Township 540 of 565 registered voters cast ballots.

13. 1874 to 1875
    Chapel Hill Andrew Mickle serves as Chapel Hill's magistrate of police

    Under the town charter the commissioners chose a magistrate of police to preside at their meetings, and Andrew Mickle held the office in 1874 and 1875. In March 1870 a rival group of citizens claiming to be the town's officers had named him to the post, which the sitting board said was without authority of law.

14. May 1874 to January 1875
    Law, policy or court · Orange County Superior Court, Hillsborough The new trustees sue Solomon Pool and Alexander McIver at Orange Superior Court and win possession of the university in the Supreme Court

    At the May 1874 term of Orange Superior Court the new board brought one action against Superintendent Alexander McIver, who held the university's seal and books and had agreed to a friendly test suit, and another against Solomon Pool for the buildings. Judge Albion W. Tourgee ruled against the trustees; John W. Graham and James A. Graham of Hillsborough argued for them without fee, as did B. F. Moore and William H. Battle on appeal in June 1874. At its January term 1875 the state Supreme Court decided for the university on every point, and possession passed to Andrew Mickle, the board's agent, with the seal, books and papers going to Treasurer Kemp Battle.

15. June 16, 1875
    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Andrew Mickle becomes bursar of the reopened university

    Electing the reopened university's professors, the trustees broke with the old practice of making a professor bursar and chose Andrew Mickle, the Chapel Hill merchant who had acted as their agent, at $400 a year. He held the post until he left to live with his children in Texas in the early 1880s.

16. May 19, 1877
    Chapel Hill Andrew Mickle is appointed Chapel Hill postmaster

    Andrew Mickle was appointed postmaster at Chapel Hill on May 19, 1877, succeeding Hugh B. Guthrie. Thomas M. Kirkland followed him on January 31, 1881.

17. summer 1878
    Chapel Hill Bursar Andrew Mickle helps poor teachers through the university's summer normal school

    At the summer normal school the university lent its dormitories and bedding and let teachers cook for themselves, so that many lived on $4 or $5 a month. Andrew Mickle, the school's business agent, worked tirelessly to advise and help those who needed it.

18. 1882
    Founding or opening · H. H. Patterson's store, Franklin Street, Chapel Hill Henry H. 'Hoot' Patterson opens a general merchandise store

    Henry Houston 'Hoot' Patterson, a Civil War veteran married to Dr. Thomas Hogan's daughter Mary, started a general merchandise business in the building Andrew Mickle had used. Bryant calls it very successful.

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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.