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Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–8.Back to highlights
- Colonial and Regulator years · 1680–1774
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
- Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865
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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.
Part of Orange County during the Civil War, 1861–1865 · 42 events
People: Cornelia Phillips Spencer · Smith D. Atkins
- Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
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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.
- Civil rights era · 1945–1975
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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.
People: Howard N. Lee
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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.
