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Orange County Indexed

Chronology

Key events from Orange County history: 100 highlights to start, then the full chronology of 6,368 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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5 dated events match your filters.

Searched the full chronology of 6,368 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–5.Back to highlights

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5 dated events
1879Reconstruction and the New South
  1. Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899
  2. Toney and Nellie Strayhorn, formerly enslaved, bought thirty acres in what became Carrboro

    Property or economic transaction · 109 Jones Ferry Road, Carrboro

    The Strayhorns bought about thirty acres and built a one-room log cabin at what is now 109 Jones Ferry Road, and their son William built the house next door at 107 in 1915. Toney Strayhorn is remembered as a founder of First Baptist Church in Chapel Hill, and the house is still owned by a great-granddaughter.

    People: Toney Strayhorn · William Strayhorn

    Subject: Toney and Nellie Strayhorn House and William Strayhorn House

  3. Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
  4. The Strayhorn log cabin on Jones Ferry Road reaches its two-story form

    Construction or physical change · Toney Strayhorn House, 109 Jones Ferry Road, Carrboro

    Toney Strayhorn, born enslaved in Orange County, became a farmer and brick mason and in the late 1800s built a one-room log cabin on his tract. He and later his son William enlarged it until, by about 1910, it stood two stories high with a rear ell and big brick end chimneys that show the family's skill.

    People: Toney Strayhorn · William Strayhorn

    Subject: Toney and Nellie Strayhorn House and William Strayhorn House

  5. Contractor Charles Craige builds a gambrel-roofed bungalow for mason William Strayhorn

    Construction or physical change · William Strayhorn House, 107 Jones Ferry Road, Carrboro

    The house at 107 Jones Ferry Road was built for William and Margie Strayhorn beside the home of his father Toney, head of a family of brick masons. William died young in 1933; his daughter Laura and her husband Albert Reaves kept the house in 1983.

    People: William Strayhorn

    Subject: Toney and Nellie Strayhorn House and William Strayhorn House

  6. Toney and William Strayhorn begin Carrboro Baptist's brick church

    Construction or physical change · Carrboro Baptist Church, 100 North Greensboro Street, Carrboro

    When the Rev. J. B. Davis called for full-time services, the Baptists traded their lot for a larger Durham Hosiery lot on North Greensboro Street and hired the Strayhorns, who laid the foundation and ground-floor walls in 1921. Money ran short and work stopped until 1924, a break visible in two shades of brick.

    People: Toney Strayhorn · William Strayhorn

    Subject: Carrboro Baptist Church (Century Center)

  7. A Hillsborough jury acquits the driver who killed William Strayhorn and his daughter of manslaughter

    Hillsborough

    On August 6, 1933, Ernest Glaston of Saxapahaw, driving on the wrong side of the road, struck the car bringing the Strayhorn family home to Carrboro from church in Burlington; Algia McCoy died at once and her father William Strayhorn died later in a Durham hospital. At the superior court in Hillsborough a jury acquitted Glaston of manslaughter but convicted him of hit-and-run, and Judge Devin suspended a six-month road sentence on payment of $350 to the families.

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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 January 1, 1970.

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