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Searched the full chronology of 6,368 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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Francis D. Winston is the first student to arrive for the reopening
Battle names Francis Donnell Winston of Bertie County the first student on the Hill in 1875, arriving a day ahead of other entrants with his brother Robert and Charles Bond. Bond was the only student to enter the agricultural department on opening day, and Battle calls him the first student of the first college of agriculture in the state.
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The university begins keeping Washington's Birthday as a holiday
The reopened faculty set the precedent of a holiday on February 22, and the literary societies later chose a Washington orator for the day. At the first or second observance Francis D. Winston displayed a battered hatchet he claimed had felled the cherry tree.
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Cornelia Phillips Spencer edits the Chapel Hill Weekly Ledger
For some months in 1879 Cornelia Phillips Spencer edited the Chapel Hill Weekly Ledger, with students R. P. Pell and Francis D. Winston as assistants. The book calls her the county's only woman editor; Charles B. Aycock took over from her.
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Francis D. Winston becomes a trustee of the university
Francis D. Winston of Bertie County joined the university's board of trustees in 1887, eight years after he graduated. He served on the board for more than half a century and attended sixty-one consecutive commencements.
Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
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Masons lay the cornerstone of the Carnegie library
On the Saturday of the 1907 commencement the Grand Lodge of Masons, led by Grand Master Francis D. Winston, laid the cornerstone of the new library built with Andrew Carnegie's gift. Construction had begun in October 1906.
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Alumni pledge forty-one endowed scholarships
At the 1909 alumni luncheon, classes and local alumni groups promised to endow forty-one scholarships of $1,000 each. Julian S. Carr gave five named for J. Johnston Pettigrew for sons of Confederate soldiers, and Edgar Love two named for Cornelia Phillips Spencer.
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The university grants diplomas to students who left for the Confederate army
The faculty and trustees voted to give A.B. diplomas to surviving students who had left their classes to join the Confederate army, and the war classes of 1861 to 1868 were called at the 1911 commencement.
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The university awards Francis D. Winston an honorary doctor of laws
In 1920 the University of North Carolina gave Francis D. Winston, a member of the class of 1879 and a longtime trustee, an honorary LL.D.
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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.
