Chronology

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1. Colonial and Regulator years · 1680–1774

2. as early as 1745
   Property or economic transaction · New Hope Creek Land grants on New Hope Creek are recorded in Bladen County

   Bladen County records show grants on New Hope Creek, in what became eastern Orange, as early as 1745, seven years before Orange County existed.

3. 1747
   Property or economic transaction · New Hope Creek Mark Morgan is granted land in the New Hope Creek section

   Morgan secured land in the New Hope Creek section of eastern Orange. By 1755 he held more enslaved people than anyone else in the county.

4. about 1750
   Migration or settlement · New Hope Hawfields families move to New Hope Creek over doubts about their Granville titles

   When word spread through the Hawfields that the land titles got through Earl Granville's agents were not genuine, William Craige, Gilbert Strayhorn and other families left and took up land on the waters of New Hope. Family tradition held that the settlers named the stream for the 'new hopes' they found there.

5. 1754 and 1755
   Property or economic transaction · New Hope Creek William Craig and Richard Caswell take up land in the New Hope area

   William Craig took Granville grants on New Hope Creek on September 6, 1754 (475 acres on Batts Creek) and March 13, 1755 (280 acres on Richland Fork), in the section of eastern Orange where Scotch-Irish families were settling. Richard Caswell held 640 acres at the forks of New Hope Creek by June 1756, when he sold them to William Blackwood.

6. June 1758
   Property or economic transaction · Richland Fork, New Hope Creek James Craig buys back the Richland Fork tract on New Hope Creek

   William Craige's Richland Fork tract, surveyed in December 1754 and deeded in September 1755, was sold to John Reaney in June 1756 and bought back from him by Craige's son James in June 1758. It was still in the family in 1891.

7. Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865

8. April 14, 1865
   Violence or armed conflict · New Hope Creek, near Chapel Hill Wheeler's Confederate cavalry fought Union pursuers at New Hope Creek east of Chapel Hill

   Retreating cavalry under Joseph Wheeler destroyed the bridge over the rain-swollen New Hope and the other bridges on the road toward Chapel Hill, then attacked Union cavalry trying to cross on fallen trees and driftwood at the Atkins plantation, about eight miles from the village. Cornelia Phillips Spencer, writing from Chapel Hill, called it the last skirmish and perhaps the last blood of the war and recorded that several men were killed on both sides.

9. Early twentieth century · 1900–1944

10. 1930s
    Construction or physical change · Whitfield Road, near Mount Moriah An owner of Durham's Erwin Cotton Mill builds a log retreat above New Hope Creek

    In the 1930s a log house was built on a steep ridge over New Hope Creek, reportedly as a getaway for Mr. Erwin of the Erwin Cotton Mill in Durham. Older log outbuildings, among them a tobacco barn, mark an earlier house site.

11. Civil rights era · 1945–1975

12. August 1969
    Law, policy or court · New Hope Creek, Orange County Fiber Industries withdraws its New Hope Creek rezoning request; commissioners chairman Carl Smith blames opponents

    Fiber Industries withdrew its request to rezone 450 acres near New Hope Creek for a plant after opposition from UNC, Duke and Mayor Howard Lee. County commissioners chairman Carl Smith blamed 'unintelligent intellectuals' and a town political 'machine', and said Lee, the town's Black mayor, was not serving Black residents by opposing the plant.

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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.