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11 dated events match your filters.
Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–11.Back to highlights
- Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865
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Orange Methodist Church is organized at the Davis School House
Alexander Gattis and neighbors organized Orange Methodist Church in the Davis School House near the Wash Fowler home. The congregation built its first church about 1838.
People: Jones Watson
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Isaac J. Collier and Jones Watson open a cabinetmaking business
The two men started making furniture on Franklin Street in 1833. After the partnership dissolved in the later 1830s, Collier kept the business going.
People: Jones Watson
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Jones Watson buys Barbee's old store and house for a drugstore
Jones Watson acquired Sidney Barbee's former house and store on the south side of the street, the old James Hogg property, and probably ran his drugstore from the store before remodeling both buildings. By 1858 they had become his Central Hotel.
People: Jones Watson
Subject: Central Hotel (Chapel Hill)
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The General Assembly passes an act incorporating Chapel Hill under five commissioners
Chapter 330 of the 1850-51 session laws, ratified January 29, 1851, made Manuel Fetter, Jesse Hargrave, Patterson H. McDade, Elisha Mitchell and Jones Watson the commissioners of Chapel Hill, with five commissioners to be elected each February after. They were to choose a magistrate of police, treasurer, constable and clerk and fix the town's bounds.
People: Manuel Fetter · Elisha Mitchell · Jones Watson
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Jones Watson opens the Central Hotel
Watson remodeled and enlarged the old James Hogg house and the Barbee store beside it into the Central Hotel, which had several shops on the ground. It appears on the maps through 1868.
People: Jones Watson
Subject: Central Hotel (Chapel Hill)
- Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899
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Orange County's first elected board of commissioners takes office
Elected in April 1868 at the election that ratified the new constitution, five commissioners qualified at the courthouse and chose Lemuel Lynch chairman, replacing the old county court of justices. Within days the newly elected sheriff, treasurer, register of deeds and clerk of superior court gave their bonds.
People: John U. Kirkland · Jones Watson · David C. Parks
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Orange County holds its first township elections
Voters in each township chose magistrates, a clerk, a constable and school committeemen for the first time. In Chapel Hill Township 540 of 565 registered voters cast ballots.
People: William Kirkland · Jones Watson · Andrew Mickle · John Wesley Carr
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Orange County names a three-man Board of Education and a panel of teacher examiners
Under the Reconstruction school law the county had a Board of Education of W. N. Patterson, J. T. Hogan and Jones Watson in 1872. Samuel W. Hughes and Charles Curtis were among the county examiners who licensed teachers that year.
People: Samuel Wellwood Hughes · Jones Watson
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Jones Watson and Pride Jones are elected to the state House for Orange County
Running as Conservative (Democratic) candidates, Jones Watson and Dr. Pride Jones won Orange County's two seats in the state House of Representatives in the August 1872 election.
People: Pride Jones
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Jones Watson serves as mayor of Chapel Hill
Jones Watson, one of the five commissioners named in the town's 1851 charter, was mayor of Chapel Hill in 1882, an office the town's charter had created in 1879. His brother John H. Watson followed him in 1883.
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Dr. Abner B. Roberson buys the Central Hotel and moves his drugstore into it
After the hotel's owner, Jones Watson, died, Dr. Roberson bought the Central Hotel, moved his drugstore into it with Clyde Eubanks as druggist, and leased the hotel's management to 'Bunn' Patterson. Adam A. Kluttz opened a store called the Glass Front in the many-windowed west end of the building.
People: Jones Watson · Abner Benton Roberson · Clyde Eubanks · Adam Alexander Kluttz
Subject: Central Hotel (Chapel Hill)
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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.
