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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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22 dated events match your filters.

Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–22.Back to highlights

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22 dated events
1842Antebellum and Civil War
  1. Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865
  2. Charles Phillips joins New Hope church

    Life event · New Hope

    James Phillips's son Charles, later a minister and teacher at the university, joined the church at New Hope. He often preached there with his father in later years.

    Subject: New Hope Presbyterian Church

  3. Alumni gather at Chapel Hill and organize the university's Alumni Association

    Chapel Hill

    Graduates meeting at commencement organized the Alumni Association with former governor Morehead in the chair. At the 1844 meeting they adopted a constitution and chose Morehead as the association's first president.

    People: William A. Graham · Charles Phillips · William Horn Battle

  4. Charles Phillips returns to Chapel Hill as a tutor of mathematics

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    Phillips accepted a call from President David L. Swain in July 1844 to return to the University of North Carolina as his father's assistant. He held the post of tutor of mathematics until 1853.

    People: David L. Swain · James Phillips

  5. David L. Swain and Charles Phillips transfer from New Hope to the Chapel Hill church

    Life event · New Hope

    University president David L. Swain, who first joined a church at New Hope, and Charles Phillips were released by letter to the Presbyterian church at Chapel Hill.

    People: Charles Phillips

    Subject: New Hope Presbyterian Church · University Presbyterian Church

  6. Dabney Cosby builds the Presbyterian church on Franklin Street

    Construction or physical change · Chapel Hill

    After the university work Cosby built a small Tuscan style church designed by Alexander Jackson Davis for the Chapel Hill Presbyterian congregation, whose members included university president David L. Swain. In March 1848 the congregation member Charles Phillips wrote to Davis that the mason could not match the lilac gray color specified for the outside. The building no longer stands.

    People: David L. Swain · Charles Phillips · Alexander Jackson Davis

    Subject: University Presbyterian Church

  7. The Rev. William Mercer Green buys an East Franklin Street lot and builds a house

    Construction or physical change · 513 East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill

    Episcopal minister William Mercer Green bought the lot at 513 East Franklin Street in 1847 and had a two-story frame house built there before he sold it, two years later, to Charles Phillips, professor of engineering and mathematics.

    People: Charles Phillips

  8. Charles Phillips buys the house William Mercer Green built on East Franklin

    Property or economic transaction · Green-Phillips house, 513 East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill

    Professor Charles Phillips bought the house at 513 East Franklin, just east of his father's, from the Rev. William Mercer Green, who had built it a few years earlier and was leaving to become Episcopal bishop of Mississippi. Phillips lived there until his death in 1889.

  9. The Presbyterian church on Franklin Street is finished and dedicated

    Naming or commemoration · Presbyterian Church, East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill

    Built with money and effort from James and Charles Phillips, Elisha Mitchell and President Swain, the small Presbyterian church on the old Grand Avenue ground was completed and formally dedicated.

    People: James Phillips · Charles Phillips · Elisha Mitchell · David L. Swain

  10. University library moved from South Building to Smith Hall

    Construction or physical change · Smith Hall

    The university's books were taken from the president's lecture room in South Building to the new Smith Hall, and Hubbard, Charles Phillips and the librarian were told to prepare a catalogue. At the start of the Civil War the books were stored in a room of the East Building.

    People: Charles Phillips · F. M. (Fordyce Mitchell) Hubbard

    Subject: UNC Libraries · South Building · Smith Hall (Playmakers Theatre) · Old East

  11. School for the Application of Science to the Arts opens

    Founding or opening · Smith Hall

    Under a trustee resolution of 1852 the university opened a scientific school with departments of civil engineering, under Charles Phillips, and of chemistry applied to agriculture and the arts, under Benjamin S. Hedrick, with a laboratory in the basement of Smith Hall. Its students could earn a Bachelor of Science in about two and a half years.

    People: Charles Phillips · Benjamin Sherwood Hedrick

    Subject: Smith Hall (Playmakers Theatre)

  12. The legislature charters four plank road companies through Orange County

    Founding or opening · 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.

    People: Charles Phillips · Edmund Strudwick · Andrew Mickle

  13. Charles Phillips serves as stated supply for the Chapel Hill Presbyterian Church

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    Phillips was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Orange in December 1857 and served as stated supply for the Chapel Hill Presbyterian Church from 1857 to 1868. He taught and superintended the church Sunday school and with his wife started a Sunday school for Black residents.

    Subject: University Presbyterian Church

  14. Thirty Chapel Hill families pool money to buy corn

    Health or relief action · Chapel Hill

    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.

    People: Charles Phillips · David L. Swain · Andrew Mickle

  15. Wheeler's cavalry reaches Chapel Hill and posts a guard on the university

    Violence or armed conflict · Chapel Hill

    Confederate cavalry under General Joseph Wheeler reached Chapel Hill, and at the request of alumnus James P. Coffin, Wheeler detailed Lieutenant McBurney Broyles and fifteen men to report to President Swain and protect the university's books and apparatus. Wheeler's headquarters were opposite the Episcopal church.

    Part of Orange County during the Civil War, 1861–1865 · 42 events

    People: David L. Swain · Charles Phillips

  16. Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899
  17. Charles Phillips is ordained at New Hope Church in Orange County

    Appointment, election or service · Orange County

    Phillips was ordained on 14 April 1866 at Orange County's New Hope Church, which had long been under the pastoral charge of his father James Phillips. Orange Presbytery had convened there on Wednesday, April 11, and ordained Phillips and Calvin H. Wiley during the meeting.

    People: James Phillips

    Subject: New Hope Presbyterian Church

  18. Swain and the faculty resign as trustees plan a new university

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    At a meeting Governor Jonathan Worth called to face the university's collapse, Charles Phillips presented the resignations of President Swain, Professors Hubbard, Fetter and Smith, law professor William H. Battle and himself, and the trustees adopted Kemp P. Battle's resolution for a committee to plan an elective university system with higher standards.

    People: David L. Swain · Charles Phillips · Jonathan Worth · Kemp Plummer Battle

  19. Charles Phillips is dismissed from the university faculty

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    When the state's Reconstruction government reorganized the University of North Carolina in 1868, Phillips was dismissed from the faculty. He took a professorship at Davidson College in February 1869.

    Part of The university closes and reopens · 46 events

  20. David L. Swain dies after a buggy accident

    Life event · Chapel Hill

    Weeks after the Reconstruction board of trustees accepted his resignation, David L. Swain was thrown on August 11, 1868, from a buggy pulled by the horse General Sherman had given him. He seemed to be recovering but died on August 27 and was buried on August 29 in the garden of his Chapel Hill home; Charles Phillips preached his funeral sermon.

    People: Charles Phillips

  21. Charles Phillips returns to Chapel Hill and chairs the faculty

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    When the University of North Carolina reopened in 1875, Phillips was invited back as professor of mathematics and served as chairman of the faculty during his first year. Illness forced his retirement in 1879, when he became the first professor emeritus named by the trustees.

    Part of The university closes and reopens · 46 events

    People: Cornelia Phillips Spencer

  22. Faculty dismisses five students for a mock revival meeting

    Protest or organizing · Chapel Hill

    During a revival in a village church, a group of students staged a burlesque meeting with mock sermons, and the faculty dismissed five of them despite petitions from townswomen and both literary societies. When classmates marched the five out of town, Charles Phillips stopped the procession at his house and turned it back, and four of the five later returned and graduated.

    People: Charles Phillips

  23. Professor emeritus Charles Phillips dies

    Life event · Chapel Hill

    Phillips, who came to Chapel Hill at four, graduated in 1841, taught mathematics for decades and chaired the faculty at the 1875 reopening, died ten years after retiring. He was buried in the Chapel Hill cemetery, and a tablet in the Presbyterian church records his work in building it.

    Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

  24. Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
  25. Phillips Hall opens, named for three Phillips family teachers

    Naming or commemoration · Chapel Hill, Phillips Hall

    Phillips Hall opened on the Chapel Hill campus in 1919, honoring three members of the Phillips family who taught at the university in the nineteenth century: James Phillips, his son Charles Phillips and his grandson William Battle Phillips.

    People: Charles Phillips

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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 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