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Orange County Indexed

Chronology

Key events from Orange County history: 100 highlights to start, then the full chronology of 6,998 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 6,998 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–8.Back to highlights

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8 dated events
1854Antebellum and Civil War
  1. Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865
  2. James Phillips keeps weather records at Chapel Hill

    Statistic or record · Chapel Hill

    From 1854 to 1862 Professor James Phillips kept weather records at Chapel Hill. They survive in the Southern Historical Collection alongside Chapel Hill records kept from December 1879 to 1882 by Professors W. B. Phillips and Francis Preston Venable.

    People: Francis Preston Venable · William Battle Phillips

  3. Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899
  4. James Cole Taylor works as an assistant at the state experiment station in Smith Hall

    Chapel Hill

    James C. Taylor and William B. Phillips, Chapel Hill graduates of 1877, worked as assistants at the state's fertilizer control and experiment station at the university, with W. Warnecke of Germany and A. D. Mickle of Chapel Hill. The station had four rooms in Smith Hall.

    People: William Battle Phillips

    Subject: Smith Hall (Playmakers Theatre)

  5. The reopened university graduates its first class

    Award or honor · Chapel Hill

    At the 1877 commencement five men took degrees, William Battle Phillips of Chapel Hill a Ph.B. and Julian M. Baker, Frank M. Fremont, Joseph C. Powell and James C. Taylor the B.S. The 1876 commencement had had no graduates.

    People: James Cole Taylor · William Battle Phillips

  6. James Lee Love wins the Phillips Mathematical Prize

    Award or honor · UNC campus, Chapel Hill

    The sons of Charles Phillips had offered a prize for the best sophomore in mathematics. Love's marks in trigonometry and analytic geometry so far outran the class that Professor Ralph H. Graves dropped the planned examination and gave him the prize on his year's record; it came at commencement as thirty dollars with a letter from William B. Phillips.

    People: William Battle Phillips · Ralph Henry Graves (1851-1889)

  7. Horace Williams earns a master's degree at the university

    Life event · Chapel Hill

    Williams entered the state university at Chapel Hill in 1879 and in 1883 took both the B.A. and an M.A. His M.A. and William Battle Phillips's Ph.D., conferred at the same commencement, were the first advanced degrees the reopened university granted for further study. Before 1875 any graduate could receive the A.M. three years after the B.A.

    People: William Battle Phillips

  8. William Battle Phillips receives the university's first doctorate after the reopening

    Award or honor · Chapel Hill

    In 1883 William Battle Phillips, one of the five graduates of 1877, received a Doctor of Philosophy, the first doctorate in Battle's list of degrees granted since the 1875 reopening.

    People: William Battle Phillips

  9. The university lets go its new professors of mining, teaching and biology

    Closing or ending · UNC, Chapel Hill

    With the land-grant income moved to the new A. and M. College, the trustees could not pay the chairs added in 1885. William B. Phillips (mining and metallurgy), Nelson B. Henry (pedagogy) and George F. Atkinson (biology) left in the summer of 1888, and Love, assistant professor of mathematics, was kept one more year.

    People: William Battle Phillips · George Francis Atkinson · James Lee Love · John Manning

  10. Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
  11. 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 · William Battle 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 3, 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