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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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17 dated events match your filters.

Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–17.Back to highlights

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17 dated events
1802Antebellum and Civil War
  1. Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865
  2. Edmund Strudwick is born at Long Meadow

    Life event · Long Meadow

    Edmund Strudwick, later a physician and surgeon, was born on March 25, 1802, at Long Meadow, five miles north of Hillsborough. He went to Bingham School and earned his medical degree at the University of Pennsylvania.

  3. The Strudwick heirs' enslaved people are hired out under Dr. James Webb's guardianship

    Slavery and freedom · Hillsborough

    After Col. William F. Strudwick died in 1810, Dr. James Webb managed the estate for his widow and younger sons and hired out the people it held, listing them by name year after year. In 1819 two of those assigned to young Edmund Strudwick, Jim and Nelly, were sold or leased for $533 and $500.

    People: James Webb · Edmund Strudwick

  4. Dr. Edmund Strudwick begins practising medicine in Hillsborough

    Life event · Hillsborough

    After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1824 and two years in Philadelphia's almshouse and charity hospital, Edmund Strudwick began practising medicine in Hillsborough in 1826. He practised from the town, largely as a surgeon, for more than fifty years.

  5. Dr. Edmund Strudwick builds a medical office on West King Street

    Construction or physical change · 139 West King Street, Hillsborough

    Dr. Edmund Strudwick put up a one-story, two-room frame office at 139 West King Street, on the site of Edmund Fanning's law office. Dr. W. F. Strudwick later practised there and Robert Strudwick used it as a law office.

  6. The Recorder prints a county meeting's warning to abolitionists

    Publication, speech or performance · Hillsborough

    An Orange County meeting adopted a report warning "northern fanatics" not to stir up the enslaved and predicting lasting hostility between the sections if abolitionists pressed on. Its fourteen-man committee included Frederick Nash, William A. Graham, Hugh Waddell, John U. Kirkland, Dr. Edmund Strudwick and the paper's own editor, Dennis Heartt, as a secretary.

    People: Frederick Nash · William A. Graham · Hugh Waddell · John U. Kirkland · Edmund Strudwick · Dennis Heartt

    Subject: Hillsborough Recorder

  7. Dr. Edmund Strudwick buys Archibald Haralson's house on West Queen Street and enlarges it

    Property or economic transaction · Haralson-Strudwick House site, 114 West Queen Street, Hillsborough

    Dr. Edmund Strudwick bought the house from Archibald Haralson in 1837, enlarged it, and is thought to have built the brick kitchen that still stands in the rear yard. The house became known as the Haralson-Strudwick House.

    Subject: Haralson-Strudwick House and brick kitchen

  8. Commissioners seek bids to repair the Eno bridge at Hillsborough

    Construction or physical change · Eno River bridge, Hillsborough

    John U. Kirkland was one of five commissioners, with Cadwallader Jones, Edmund Strudwick, Josiah Turner and Catlett Campbell, who advertised for proposals to repair the bridge over the Eno at Hillsborough, with bids due in November.

    People: Edmund Strudwick · Cadwallader Jones · Josiah Turner Jr.

    Subject: Eno River road bridge, Hillsborough

  9. Frances Devereux deeds Primus to Dr. Edmund Strudwick

    Slavery and freedom · Hillsborough

    Five months after her husband died, Frances Devereux of Raleigh deeded Primus to Dr. Edmund Strudwick of Hillsborough. Primus later drove and gardened at the Burwell School and, after emancipation, worked at the Nash and Kollock School as Primus Smith.

    People: Edmund Strudwick · Frances (Pollock) Devereux

    Subject: Burwell School · Nash and Kollock School

  10. Witherspoon's farm Tusculum is sold at the courthouse door

    Property or economic transaction · Hillsborough

    Dr. Edmund Strudwick, who had long held the mortgages, bought the farm at public sale. Susan Witherspoon was allowed to stay on at Tusculum by Strudwick's provision.

    People: Edmund Strudwick

    Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough · Tusculum (Witherspoon farm)

  11. Dr. Edmund Strudwick leads the revival of the state medical society

    Founding or opening · Raleigh

    Edmund Strudwick of Hillsborough proposed and helped call the 1849 meeting that revived the North Carolina Medical Society, and he became its first president. His teacher James Webb was made an honorary charter member.

    People: James Webb

  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. The legislature creates North Carolina's first Board of Medical Examiners

    Law, policy or court · North Carolina

    In 1859 the state set up its first Board of Medical Examiners by law. The book credits the urging of Hillsborough's Dr. Edmund Strudwick.

    People: Edmund Strudwick

  14. A courthouse meeting in Hillsborough calls for a secession convention

    Protest or organizing · Hillsborough

    Ten days after Fort Sumter, a large crowd from across the county met at the courthouse. With Dr. Edmund Strudwick presiding and Dennis Heartt as secretary, it adopted resolutions asking the legislature to call a convention at once to pass an ordinance of secession.

    People: Edmund Strudwick · Dennis Heartt

    Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

  15. Hillsborough meeting resolves to erect a monument to Col. Charles C. Tew

    Naming or commemoration · Hillsborough Military Academy, Hillsborough

    A Hillsborough meeting chaired by M. E. Manly resolved to raise a monument to Col. Tew, killed at Sharpsburg, at or near the front of his Military Academy, and named Dr. Edmund Strudwick, Dr. Pride Jones and Thomas Webb to collect funds and build it.

    People: Charles Courtenay Tew · Edmund Strudwick · Pride Jones

    Subject: Hillsborough Military Academy

  16. Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899
  17. Orange County reports on its poorhouse to the new Board of Public Charities

    Statistic or record · Orange County poorhouse, near Efland

    Orange County's report to the state Board of Public Charities described two one-story brick buildings of six rooms each on a 400-acre tract five miles from Hillsborough. The poorhouse held 41 people, ten able to do light work, with ten deaths since July 1868.

    People: Edmund Strudwick

    Subject: Orange County poorhouse (County Home)

  18. A small office from the Turner-Strudwick grounds is moved to East Orange Street

    Construction or physical change · 110 East Orange Street, Hillsborough

    A one-story frame office on the Turner-Strudwick House lot, shown on John Bailey's 1839 map when the lot belonged to Josiah Turner Sr., was moved next door to 110 East Orange Street, two years after Edmund Strudwick of Norfolk bought the property. It was later enlarged into a house and rebuilt in 1987. It is not Dr. Edmund Strudwick's medical office on West King Street.

    Subject: Turner-Strudwick House

  19. Civil rights era · 1945–1975
  20. The Haralson-Strudwick House on West Queen Street is torn down

    Construction or physical change · Haralson-Strudwick House site, 114 West Queen Street, Hillsborough

    The antebellum house that Dr. Edmund Strudwick had enlarged was razed in 1960. Its brick kitchen was kept and enlarged as a residence, and a Dutch Colonial Revival house went up on the site in 1969.

    Subject: Haralson-Strudwick House and brick kitchen

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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