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Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–8.Back to highlights
Entries
Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899
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Allen J. Ruffin and James H. Webb Jr. found the Eno Cotton Mill
Ruffin and Webb, both of old Hillsborough families, founded the Eno Cotton Mill on the north bank of the Eno west of town, chartered by special act of the General Assembly in 1896. It was the first textile mill in Hillsborough and in present-day Orange County.
Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
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The superior court orders the old Ruffin place sold to Nannie Russell Roulhac
Under a superior court judgment, Allen J. Ruffin was named commissioner to convey the ten-acre Ruffin place to Mrs. Nannie Russell Roulhac of Rockingham County for $100 in cash and a mortgage note of $1,455.
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Shepperd Strudwick buys Allen Ruffin's land north of the future Bellevue mill
Four years before the Bellevue mill was built, Strudwick acquired the tract north of the site from Ruffin, one of the Eno Cotton Mill's founders, probably to build company housing there.
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Allen J. and Annie Gray Ruffin buy the James A. Cheek House
The Cheek family, owners since about 1875, sells the Italianate house at 219 North Churton Street to Allen J. and Annie Gray Ruffin in 1908. Annie Gray Ruffin, by then a widow, sold it to Houston J. Walker in 1919.
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Eno Methodist Church is founded in West Hillsborough
Eno Methodist Church began with services upstairs in the Eno Cotton Mill's company store; in 1908 Allen Ruffin gave land in West Hillsborough and the frame church went up. It had 147 members in 1953.
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The Eno Methodist congregation builds its church on land given by Allen Ruffin
The congregation formed for Eno Cotton Mill workers first met in an upper room of a mill building. In 1908 it moved into a simple front-gabled frame church with pointed-arch windows and a small belfry, on land Ruffin donated facing the mill across the railroad tracks.
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Eno Cotton Mill rents its village houses to workers for 25 cents a week
Owners Allen J. Ruffin and James H. Webb built a company village for their fast-growing workforce and in 1915 were renting the houses to employees for a quarter a week. The 1924 Sanborn map shows about 100 mill houses west and south of the mill.
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Houston J. Walker buys the James A. Cheek House from Annie Gray Ruffin
Annie Gray Ruffin, widowed since she and Allen J. Ruffin bought the Cheek house in 1908, sold it to Houston J. Walker. Three years later Walker and his son Allen H. Walker Sr. opened Walker's Funeral Home in Hillsborough.
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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.
