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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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4 dated events match your filters.

Searched the full chronology of 6,998 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–4.Back to highlights

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4 dated events
1836Antebellum and Civil War
  1. Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865
  2. Isaac J. Collier and Kendall B. Waitt go into partnership in a Chapel Hill cabinet shop

    Chapel Hill

    After his short-lived partnership with Jones Watson, Isaac J. Collier had joined Kendall B. Waitt, a Chapel Hill artisan from Massachusetts, in a cabinet shop by 1836. The two worked together for years, later as building contractors.

    People: Kendall B. Waitt

  3. Dabney Cosby takes the masonry subcontract for the lengthening of Old East and Old West

    Property or economic transaction · University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

    Chapel Hill contractors Isaac J. Collier and Kendall B. Waitt subcontracted the masonry of the university additions to Cosby, who put enslaved workmen including the brothers Osborne and Albert on the job. Cosby and the architect Alexander Jackson Davis quarrelled over the drawings, and president David L. Swain asked the Hillsborough builder John Berry to look at the brickwork, which Berry reported was defective.

    People: John Berry · David L. Swain · Alexander Jackson Davis · Isaac J. Collier · Kendall B. Waitt

    Subject: Old East · Old West

  4. The university awards Isaac J. Collier and Kendall B. Waitt the contract for the Old East and Old West additions

    University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

    On December 23, 1844, Collier and Waitt won the contract to build A. J. Davis's three-story brick additions to Old East and Old West, at $9,360. They subcontracted the masonry to Dabney Cosby; the next day trustee secretary Charles Manly asked that they hire his enslaved carpenters.

    People: Alexander Jackson Davis · Dabney Cosby · Charles Manly · Kendall B. Waitt

    Subject: Old East · Old West

  5. Literary societies move into new halls in the enlarged Old East and Old West

    Construction or physical change · Old East

    The northward extensions of Old East and Old West, designed by A. J. Davis and built by Isaac J. Collier and Kendall B. Waitt for $9,360, were finished in 1848 with debating halls and library alcoves for the two societies. At the Dialectic opening James Mebane, the society's first president in 1795, sat beside the student president, Kemp P. Battle.

    People: Samuel (Samuel Field) Phillips · Alexander Jackson Davis · Kemp Plummer Battle · Isaac J. Collier · Samuel Field Phillips · James Mebane · Kendall B. Waitt

    Subject: Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies · Old East · Old West

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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