Chronology

The Bureau office at Hillsborough tries freedpeople's claims against white residents

In the spring of 1866 the Bureau officers at Hillsborough sat as a court on freedpeople's complaints, and this file holds three Orange cases. On May 20 Brevet Captain George H. Penniman ordered a white man who failed to appear to pay a freedman $100 in wages or go to the county jail for 30 days (a new trial was granted, and Porter dismissed the case on September 2 on evidence the debt was paid); on May 22 Penniman ruled that a mule four white men had taken from a freedman's plough was government property and ordered the seller to refund the freedman, and in June Porter reheard a freedman's claim to a threshing machine because no record of the first hearing survived.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Black residents of Hillsborough ask the Bureau to find teachers for their children

On May 31, 1866, Lieutenant Isaac Porter reported that Black families in Hillsborough had asked him to get teachers and that the town had enough children for a school of 100 to 125 pupils. His application went to the Bureau's state superintendent of education, F. A. Fiske, on June 2.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Lieutenant Isaac Porter takes charge of the Freedmen's Bureau office at Hillsborough

By May 22, 1866, Second Lieutenant Isaac Porter of the Veteran Reserve Corps was the Bureau's assistant superintendent for the sub-district of Orange at Hillsborough, finishing cases begun by Brevet Captain George H. Penniman; an earlier officer, Lieutenant Crockett, had left no record of the cases he tried. In June Porter also had the Alamance sub-district, four counties in all (Orange, Person, Alamance and Caswell), and headquarters refused him a clerk for lack of funds although he had lost his left arm.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

The Bureau office at Hillsborough reviews apprenticeships made by the Orange County court

In June 1866 two complaints about Black youths bound out by the Orange County court reached Lieutenant Isaac Porter. On June 2 he upheld the court's indenture of a boy against his mother's plea to have him back, judging her unfit and noting that the court bound white children the same way, and headquarters had him countersign the indenture; on June 25 headquarters sent him a young man bound before the war who said he had received nothing but clothing in more than six years and no wages since returning in November 1865, with orders to investigate.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Bureau headquarters declines to overturn a magistrate's judgment against a freedman

On August 14, 1866, Lieutenant Isaac Porter reported that an Orange magistrate had given a $15 judgment against a freedman for a horse sold to him two weeks before Lee's surrender, while he was still enslaved, although Porter had written to the magistrate that the horse was branded government property and that no legal claim could lie against an enslaved man. Headquarters answered that his only remedy was a higher civil court, and on August 29 ruled that by giving security to stay execution he had accepted the county court's jurisdiction and the Bureau could not help him.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

The Bureau's school superintendent seeks Quaker teachers for Chapel Hill and Bane's School House

After Lieutenant Isaac Porter answered a schools survey on September 24, 1866, superintendent F. A. Fiske wrote on October 6 that he expected the Friends of Philadelphia, through their superintendent George Dixon, to send two teachers to Hillsborough and would try to get them to send others to Chapel Hill and to Bane's School House, though the society's funds were low. On October 15 Porter reported that Black residents throughout the sub-district were providing schools for themselves with much success, while in his view the schooling of poor whites was entirely neglected.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

People: George Dixon

The Bureau office warns that Orange County provides only for its white poor

Asked what suffering to expect in the coming winter, Lieutenant Isaac Porter replied on October 15, 1866, that helpless Black people in Orange would lack food and clothing because the county provided only for white paupers. The chairman of the wardens of the poor told him the November county court would take up provision for the Black poor, and Porter added that no one would suffer for want of protection while the government kept a Bureau officer there.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Subject: Orange County poorhouse (County Home)

The Bureau disputes a coroner's verdict clearing C. C. Tinnen in the shooting of Bill Fuller

On the night of November 2, 1866, Bill Fuller, a Black youth, was fatally wounded in the leg when C. C. Tinnen fired a gun out a window to break up a freedmen's corn shucking at his place, and a coroner's jury the next day found he meant no harm. Lieutenant Isaac Porter reported on November 9 that only two of the fifteen or twenty people present had been examined and that justice had not been sought, and on November 23 the acting assistant commissioner ruled the verdict unjustified by the evidence and ordered a complaint made to the civil authorities to bring the case to trial.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Seventeen freedpeople at Hillsborough seek passage to a Mississippi plantation

On November 20, 1866, Lieutenant Isaac Porter asked the Bureau to carry 17 freedpeople from Hillsborough to Commerce, Mississippi, to work on George P. Collins's plantation, where Collins and neighboring planters proposed a church and school. Most had been moved from the Deep South during the war and wanted to return, and with the farms they had lived on now rented to white tenants Porter judged they could not support themselves in Orange; headquarters refused on November 23 because they were not shown to be dependent.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

The Hillsborough Bureau office approves 62 labor contracts

The office's tally of labor contracts made and approved totals 62 from November 1866 to August 1867, most in the winter hiring season: 9 in November, 13 in December, 7 in January and 14 in February, then 4 in March, 8 in May, 4 in June and one each in July and August. In June 1867 Porter wrote that his orders kept him out of contract disputes unless a Bureau officer or agent had witnessed or approved the contract.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

The Hillsborough Bureau office hears about twenty freedpeople's claims for wages and crops

Between November 1866 and August 1867 Porter's office settled four claims over crop shares and rent by umpire and sent about fourteen claims for wages, crop shares and small debts, from $2.40 to $70, to the civil authorities. It also held hearings of its own, dismissing a wage claim in November 1866 after the employer's books showed payment, and in February 1867 ordering a deputy sheriff to release hay that a freedman claimed as his share under a contract approved by an earlier Bureau officer, Lt. N. N. Crockett, a case dismissed when the freedman did not appear.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

The Hillsborough Bureau office records nine attacks on freedpeople

Porter's register of outrages for November 1866 to July 1867 lists the killing of a freedman and eight assaults and batteries on Black men and women, most sent to magistrates on warrants; in one case in February 1867 two white men beat two freedmen, and one was bound over to the county court while the other fled. Through the same months Porter's twice-monthly reports to Raleigh each said no outrages had been reported in the period they covered.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

A Black newspaper editor from Baltimore canvasses Hillsborough for subscribers

George T. Cook, a Black editor from Baltimore, spent a day in Hillsborough about December 1, 1866, taking subscriptions for his paper among Black residents, and on December 3 wrote from Hillsborough to the Bureau that Guilford County's courts dealt unjustly with Black people. The assistant commissioner's office, which thought him a sensationalist, asked Lt. Isaac Porter about him; Porter replied on December 18 that he had not met Cook and knew of the visit only from Black residents.

The Bureau investigates reports that a Hillsborough freedmen's teacher was shot at and driven away

Warren Yardley of Germantown, Pennsylvania, wrote on January 23, 1867, that citizens near Hillsborough had fired at him and forced out the teacher Mr. Leeds, and General O. O. Howard ordered the school reestablished and guarded if that were so. Lt. Isaac Porter reported on February 5 that Leeds and his school had met only threats and insults from one drunken man and two or three failed demonstrations, that Leeds had never missed a day of teaching, and that in Porter's judgment local sentiment was against any interference with the school.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Orange County court has four Black people publicly whipped for stealing

The Hillsborough Bureau office's record of corporal punishment by the civil authorities notes that at the February 1867 term of the Orange County court, with James C. Turrentine presiding, four Black people were publicly whipped for stealing. Three weeks earlier Lt. Isaac Porter had reported no corporal punishment in the sub-district since the army's order forbidding whipping had been suspended.

People: James C. Turrentine

Orange County court binds out eight Black children as apprentices with the Bureau officer attending

Lt. Isaac Porter attended the February 1867 term of the Orange County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions at Hillsborough, with James C. Turrentine presiding and John W. Graham as county solicitor, and reported that the court made eight indentures of apprenticeship of Black children, all in his view in keeping with the Bureau's circular, and cancelled none. At the May term he reported no indentures made or cancelled.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

People: James C. Turrentine · John W. Graham

Lt. Isaac Porter reports that the Bureau has issued no rations in Orange in a year

Asked how many people deserved a share of Northern relief, Porter wrote that the Bureau had issued no rations in the sub-district in the past year and that he knew of no pressing need the county authorities did not meet, but put at about 300 the number to whom help would be a relief. His twice-monthly reports from November 1866 to June 1867 likewise reported no rations issued and called the freedpeople's condition generally satisfactory, adding in December 1866 that nearly all were employed at reasonable wages.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Milly Johnson of Chapel Hill asks the Bureau to recover children taken from her in slavery

On March 26, 1867, Milly Johnson, a freedwoman living in Chapel Hill, asked the Bureau at Hillsborough to help her find five children sold or kept by former owners in Virginia and North Carolina, among them a daughter her former owner Albert Elliott had carried off after the surrender, claiming her until she was 21. Lieutenant Isaac Porter vouched for her account and sent it up on April 2; Virginia agents could not find the children sold there, and on July 31 the assistant commissioner ordered Elliott to return the daughter at his own expense, which he promised to do before October 1. On June 14 Porter wrote her that one daughter had left her owner in 1865 and was thought to be in Washington, that a son sold in 1859 through a Richmond firm could not be traced because its books had burned, and that her former husband was living in Essex County, Virginia.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Lt. Isaac Porter reports four freedmen's schools running in Orange and the Hillsborough school closed

In his school report Porter listed schools at Chapel Hill with an estimated average attendance of 150, the Oaks with 40, Durham's with 75 and Mebanesville with 80, while the Hillsborough school, with about 140 pupils, was organized but without teachers, having closed on Saturday, March 23. He recommended night schools and books for adult freedpeople, teachers who were Black or native white, and a school to train Black teachers.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

The Bureau and James C. Turrentine distribute 150 bushels of corn to Orange County's poor

The Bureau told Lt. Isaac Porter on April 10, 1867, that 150 bushels of corn given by citizens of Philadelphia were coming for Orange County's destitute, to be shared without regard to race, politics or religion under his and James C. Turrentine's supervision. When the shipment went to Charlotte by mistake, the Bureau's quartermaster paid $225 for 150 bushels bought locally, and Porter later reported that no distinction of color had been made: all eleven applicants from Chapel Hill were Black and all received corn.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

People: James C. Turrentine

Lt. Isaac Porter reports that talk of land and houses is drawing freedpeople from their crops

In his monthly report Porter wrote that a report circulating widely among Orange's freedpeople, that they were to be given land and houses, was in his judgment doing harm by leading some to neglect their crops or stop work. He said he had tried to correct the idea but found it hard while some of the state's newspapers encouraged such hopes.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Freedpeople ask the Hillsborough Bureau office to recover children held by employers and former owners

Between April 1867 and July 1868 the office took up nine complaints over Black children kept by white employers, former owners or masters under indentures, eight of them from parents or a grandparent. Lt. Isaac Porter ordered one employer in June 1867 to give a boy back to his mother as his lawful guardian and found bindings in Person County lawful, and in 1868 the agents ordered a child delivered to its parent, left a granddaughter with her grandmother and warned a master that ill treatment would cost him his apprentice.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Lt. Isaac Porter recommends men to register Orange County's voters under the Reconstruction Acts

Porter wrote to the governor on May 13, 1867, that he knew Messrs. Laws and Blackwood, applicants to be registrars for Orange County, and thought them qualified and acceptable to citizens of both races. On May 15 he sent the Bureau's state headquarters the names of persons to act as registrars and inspectors of elections in each of Orange's election districts.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Lt. Isaac Porter takes charge of Orange and Person counties for the Bureau from Hillsborough

Under a Bureau circular of June 18, 1867, Porter reported that he had assumed the duties of assistant sub-assistant commissioner for Orange and Person counties with headquarters at Hillsborough. From June 1 his office had dealt directly with the assistant commissioner's headquarters in Raleigh instead of the Central District office.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Cicero M. Faucett is confirmed as clerk of the Bureau office at Hillsborough

On July 17, 1867, the Bureau in Washington appointed C. M. Faucett clerk at Hillsborough at $60 a month from July 1, confirming a post he had held since February. Refused a clerk in June 1866, Lieutenant Isaac Porter had employed Frederick Nash by August 1866 and Thomas A. Wilbon, at $59.50 a month, in November and December 1866.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

The Bureau office at Hillsborough draws corn and bacon for the destitute and proposes ending rations

Lt. Isaac Porter drew 5,600 pounds of corn and 800 pounds of bacon in July 1867 for the destitute of the sub-district of Orange, which then also took in Person County, and by August 2 had issued 2,996 pounds of corn and 428 of bacon. His ten-day returns show more white than Black recipients (51 whites and 41 freedpeople in the period ending August 5), and he advised stopping the issue after that month; he reported none issued in September.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Freedpeople near White Oak Spring gather 75 children for a school

Aaron Wilson and others of Orange County wrote the Bureau office at Hillsborough that they had signed up 75 Black children for a school within reach of the White Oak Spring school house and church, and recommended Jos. W. McKee as teacher.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Lt. Isaac Porter sends the Bureau his annual report for the sub-district of Orange

For the year ending September 25, 1867, Porter counted 15 labor contracts made and 81 approved, 5 cases tried and 47 settled by arbitration, 71 accounts drawn up for freedpeople to collect, and 23 applications by freedpeople for children, 15 of them granted after investigation. He put average wages at $9 a month for men and $6 for women, said few contracts were submitted and none of the Homestead Act was used, and blamed most complaints of idleness on loose contracts, though in his judgment some freedmen had lately grown inclined to be idle.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

The Bureau relieves Lt. Isaac Porter and puts Orange County under its Raleigh agent

Special Orders No. 120 relieved Porter from Bureau duty in North Carolina and added Orange and Person counties to the sub-division of Wake and Chatham under Dr. H. C. Vogell at Raleigh, to whom Porter was to turn over the Bureau's property. The Hillsboro letter book then has no entries until late February 1868.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Mayor Calvin E. Parish reports that no Hillsborough commissioner can take the test oath

With the town's annual election due the first Saturday in February, Mayor C. E. Parish told the military post commander at Raleigh that none of Hillsborough's sitting commissioners could take the test oath required of officeholders, though all were willing to keep serving, and that no white man in town could take it. On February 6 the post referred his letter to James Carle, the Bureau agent at Hillsborough, asking him to recommend a complete list of town officers who could take the oath.

The Bureau assigns agent Charles B. Whittemore to Hillsborough in charge of Orange and Person counties

Special Orders No. 19 from the Bureau's headquarters in Raleigh assigned agent C. B. Whittemore to Hillsborough in charge of Orange and Person counties, relieving agent James Carle. Whittemore's school report for March says he had then been at Hillsborough one month.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Bureau agent James Carle reports five freedmen's day schools and fifty districts without schools in Orange

The Hillsborough office's school report for February 1868 listed day schools at Hillsborough, taught by Misses Harris and Allen, Cedar Grove (Frank Whitted), Pleasant Green (William Douglass), the Ridge (London Moore) and Durham's (George Bradshaw). It counted 50 school districts without schools and about 6,000 children of both races who might attend, though it advised organizing schools in no more than half of them; agent James Carle had written to men in Orange and Person for the figures.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Agent Whittemore makes a planter divide a crop with two freedmen after two former Confederate officers vouch for them

In his first case, agent Charles B. Whittemore heard two freedmen's claims to shares of a crop raised on a planter's farm about twelve miles from Hillsborough. Robert Bingham and Maj. William B. Lynch, who told him they had been Confederate officers with no love for Yankees, came with the freedmen and said they were faithful and industrious men about to be robbed of their dues. Whittemore ordered the crop held, on March 24 awarded one freedman 920 sticks of tobacco and 50 bushels of corn, and on April 17 sent Deputy Sheriff J. M. Blackwood to weigh and divide the rest.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

People: Robert Bingham · W. B. (William Bingham) Lynch

Agent Charles B. Whittemore counts 26 freedmen's schools in Orange and Person, most of them Sabbath schools

Whittemore's March 1868 report counted 26 freedmen's schools in his two counties, 6 day schools, 2 night schools and 18 Sabbath schools, with 15 teachers, 7 white and 8 Black. Five of the day schools were in Orange, at Hillsborough, Cedar Grove, Pleasant Green, the Ridge and Durham's; he put the Black children without schools at about 1,000 and wrote that at planting time nearly all children outside the towns were needed at work.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Agent Whittemore summons Orange County employers in more than thirty claims brought by freedpeople

Between early March and mid-May 1868 Whittemore wrote more than thirty letters ordering white employers and neighbors to settle claims brought by freedpeople, mostly for unpaid wages or withheld shares of the 1867 crop, and a few over cows, a horse and land, or to appear at his office and explain. He threatened to send an officer to seize crops, told one debtor that bankruptcy did not cancel a wage claim, and ordered another to answer a girl's complaint that he had whipped her and kept her clothes.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Robert Allen is driven from his farm near Ridge Meeting House over his Republican vote

Robert Allen, a Black sharecropper living about six miles west of Hillsborough near Ridge Meeting House, told the Bureau that his landlord, Daniel F. Thompson, ordered him to leave because he would not vote as Thompson wished. Allen said that late on the night of Monday, April 20, 1868, a man came to his door with a musket, claimed that twenty or thirty men surrounded the house and that Thompson had offered $300 for his scalp because he was a Radical, and warned that the family would be killed if they stayed; Allen left the next day. Thompson swore that he never ordered Allen off the place, and on May 27 the assistant commissioner sent Allen's complaint to the Hillsborough office for settlement. Agent Charles B. Whittemore, who doubted the landlord's counter-charge that Allen meant to burn his buildings and break into his smokehouse, heard it on April 29 and decided it in Allen's favor on May 13.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

A freedman is shot on a plantation near South Lowell, and the Bureau orders the planter arrested

Agent Charles B. Whittemore wrote Sheriff John Turner on April 25, 1868 that a Black man, named in his letter as Ned Gate, had been shot at Henry F. Gate's plantation near Turner's Mills or South Lowell on Thursday, April 23, during the election, and had died the next night, and told the sheriff to arrest Gate and hand him to the military at Raleigh. In June George Dixon of the Philadelphia Friends wrote to the Hillsborough office that a freedman named Ned Bumpass had been killed for voting the Radical ticket by a man he named as Quincy Gates, who was still at large; the office's register lists a letter on the murder of Ned Bumpass, and the two reports may be of the same killing.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

The Bureau agent orders a Mebaneville landowner to pay Jordan White for railroad cordwood

On April 24, 1868, Whittemore settled Jordan White's complaint against Addison E. Wilson, on whose land near the North Carolina Railroad White had cleared ground and cut wood, by ordering Wilson to pay him for 22 cords and a dollar a cord on 27 more and to let him stay and work his part of the place until November 1. Wilson asked for a new hearing on April 27, and Benjamin F. Mebane, William Bingham and Robert Bingham signed a statement that the custom of giving the wood to whoever cleared the land did not hold along the railroad, where wood had a cash value. White wrote to Gen. Nelson A. Miles on June 10 that the ruling had been turned against him at a hearing he was not called to; the case went to Lt. Thomas H. Hay and was closed on October 30 with a $7.50 judgment from a justice of the peace.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

People: Benjamin Franklin Mebane · William Bingham (1835-1873) · Robert Bingham

The Hillsborough Bureau office dockets about sixty complaints in the summer of

From May 14 to October 16, 1868, the office's complaint docket recorded about 60 cases, some 50 of them from Orange and the rest from Person, most of them claims by freedpeople for wages, crop shares or small debts from 1867, which agents Manchester W. Weld, Charles B. Whittemore and Thomas H. Hay usually settled with awards of a few dollars, a few bushels of corn or a lien on the tobacco crop. The office also told a magistrate to recall warrants against a freedman, had the sheriff enforce an agent's order, and from late July sent more cases to the new justices of the peace, among them William F. Strayhorn.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Lt. Thomas H. Hay is ordered to Hillsborough to take charge of Orange and Person counties

Special Orders No. 48 sent Hay, a first lieutenant of the 42nd Infantry, to Hillsborough to take charge of the two counties. It ended a quick turnover of agents: Charles B. Whittemore was relieved on May 9, Manchester W. Weld reported for duty on May 13 and took twenty days' leave on May 18 with clerk George Raynes left in charge, and Hay was signing letters at Hillsborough by May 20.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Lt. Thomas H. Hay finds about 150 people in Orange County in need of relief

After talking with white and Black residents from all parts of the county, Hay reported little destitution bordering on starvation, but some old, feeble and sick people of both races, and a few widows of Confederate soldiers with families, who needed help; he put the number at no more than 150. With the wardens of the poor giving outdoor relief besides keeping 24 inmates at the poorhouse, and their chairman agreeing to take cases he referred, Hay asked that 4,000 rations be kept at Hillsborough for emergencies until the early crops came in.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Subject: Orange County poorhouse (County Home)

Thomas H. Hay's freedmen's court at Hillsborough decides Orange cases

From May 23 to July 11, 1868, papers headed 'In Freedmens Court, Orange Co.' record seven Orange cases before Thomas H. Hay, first lieutenant in the 42nd Infantry and brevet major, the Bureau's officer at Hillsborough: four wage or account claims, a debt over pledged corn, a marriage dispute and an assault charge; he also tried four Person County cases at Roxboro on June 1-6. In each money claim in these papers with a recorded decision the freedperson won all or part, in sums from $5.55 to $35 in Orange and up to $107.97 in Person, paid at the Hillsborough office or collected by the sheriff.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Lt. Thomas H. Hay reports on the May term of the Orange County court and its cases against Black defendants

Hay attended the term that sat from May 25 to May 30, 1868 under chairman James C. Turrentine with John W. Graham as county solicitor. The court made indentures binding Black children and cancelled the indentures of five. In state cases against Black defendants, petit larceny brought four convictions, three acquittals and one continuance, bastardy two convictions and two continuances, and keeping a disorderly house one conviction.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

People: James C. Turrentine · John W. Graham

The Bureau sends sick freedmen from Hillsborough to its Salisbury hospital until it stops taking patients

In June and July 1868 Lt. Thomas H. Hay got transportation for two poor, sick freedmen to the Freedmen's Hospital at Salisbury, saying the county poorhouse had no means to care for them. When he recommended a third, from Flat River, in October, headquarters replied on October 23 that with the Bureau soon closing no more patients would be received, and Hay advised sending the man to the poorhouse on a county commissioner's order.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Destitute Orange residents, white and Black, apply to the Bureau office at Hillsborough for rations

In July 1868 the Hillsborough office received about 112 certificates asking rations for about 116 destitute people, 57 described as Black or freed, 51 as white and 8 not stated, most of them old, sick, disabled, widowed or caring for children. Justices of the peace and other residents of Hillsborough, Chapel Hill, Durham, Rock Spring, Caldwell and St. Mark's district signed them, Josiah Turner Jr. among them, and the white applicants included a veteran of the War of 1812 and a Confederate soldier who had lost a leg near Petersburg. Notes on two show rations paid to one applicant on July 13 and refused to another.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

People: Josiah Turner Jr.

The Hillsborough Bureau office sends freedpeople's assault complaints to the magistrates, one against Pride Jones

A freedwoman's complaint of July 1, 1868, that a white man had beaten her that day went to justice Andrew Murdock, who bound him over to court, and a freedman's complaint of assault on July 13 went to the same justice to have the accused bound over. A Chapel Hill freedman beaten by several men on July 2 settled for $10 and costs, and a wife's complaint of a violent beating by her husband was sent to justice Washington Jordan to bind him to keep the peace.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

The Philadelphia Friends' association owns the freedmen's schoolhouse at Hillsborough and lends it to the Methodists

George Dixon wrote on June 26, 1868, that the Friends' teachers at the Hillsborough freedmen's school would leave early the next week and that the association had tried to keep a teacher for the youngest pupils through the summer. He said the schoolhouse belonged to the Philadelphia association, which let the Methodists preach in it without any claim to the property, and asked that they keep it in repair for the three months.

People: George Dixon

Lt. Thomas H. Hay praises Hillsborough's Howard Freedmen's School and asks the Philadelphia Friends for more teachers

Writing to the secretary of the Friends' Freedmen's Association of Philadelphia, Hay called the Howard Freedmen's School at Hillsborough one of the most flourishing he had seen in the South and its teachers, Misses Harris and Allen, competent and faithful, and said nearly every freedman in town wanted them back after their vacation. He asked whether the association could send three or four teachers by September 1 for schools he was organizing.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Lt. Thomas H. Hay reports twenty cases settled in June and freedmen's schools closed for the summer

Hay investigated and settled twenty cases in June 1868, eighteen brought by freedmen and two by white men, and judged the freedmen to be working better than a year before. Some schools had closed for the summer, with children in the fields and some Northern teachers recalled for three months; he expected all to reopen in the fall and at least four new ones to start. Orange County needed some rations, nearly as many for whites as for Black residents.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

A Chapel Hill magistrate and his son beat Mills Saunders while he is held on a civil warrant

On July 1, 1868, constable Judd McDade brought Mills Saunders, a Black farm worker, to magistrate Jones Watson's store at Chapel Hill on a civil warrant from his employer; when Saunders said he had business to attend to on the Bureau's advice, Watson and his son Charles went at him with chairs, Saunders struck the son with his stick, and Watson, by his own account, hit Saunders with the stick near the post office. McDade tied Saunders's hands and led him back to the store, and the next day Hay summoned the Watsons, McDade and the employer to answer a charge of cruel and unjustifiable assault and battery. On July 6 Lt. Thomas H. Hay heard Saunders's charge at Hillsborough, with witnesses who included former sheriff H. B. Guthrie, who had seen the magistrate strike him, and Black neighbors who called the magistrate fair; the parties settled, the defendants paying the costs and $10, and Hay also gave Saunders $18.02 in wages.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

People: Hugh B. Guthrie

Freedpeople at Cedar Grove put up a school house and win Bureau rent for it

Trustees led by Sam F. Martin wrote on July 4, 1868 that they were putting up an 18 by 20 foot school building at Cedar Grove and would open with 20 scholars, and asked the Bureau for $8 a month for a year. Lt. Thomas H. Hay, who had visited on July 2 and met the leading Black men of the district, recommended it, and on July 28 the superintendent of education agreed to pay $8 a month rent, to go to John F. Masters.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Professor Charles Phillips certifies aged Chapel Hill residents for Bureau rations

On July 8 and 9, 1868, Charles Phillips, signing as professor in the University of North Carolina, wrote certificates asking the Bureau to give food to an aged, bedridden freedwoman of the village and to an elderly couple. He wrote that the want of patronage to the University had so reduced the means of the people who had long helped the couple that they had to turn to the Bureau, and Jones Watson, J.P., A. Mickle and H. B. Guthrie endorsed his statements.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

People: Charles Phillips · Jones Watson · Hugh B. Guthrie

Chapel Hill freedmen seek Bureau aid for a building that Lt. Hay judges is meant as a Baptist church

Thomas Kirby and others of Chapel Hill wrote Gen. O. O. Howard on July 15, 1868 asking help to build a school house on land they had secured. The superintendent of education advised against it because the Bureau had already helped build one school there. Lt. Thomas H. Hay reported a school house of 44 by 22 feet already standing, enough for all the Black children who would attend, judged that the letter's main object was a house of worship for Chapel Hill's Black Baptists, and recommended refusal.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

St. Mark's district residents tell the Bureau that county relief has failed

On July 28, 1868, four residents of St. Mark's district wrote to Hay asking Bureau provisions for a very old woman who had been a charge on the county for many years, saying her efforts to get relief from the county had now failed. They wrote that the neighborhood would have fed her as before but that hardly anyone had surplus grain or meat, and Samuel Lynch, a former warden of the poor, vouched for them.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Lt. Thomas H. Hay reports ten freedmen's day schools in Orange and Person, nearly all with Black teachers

In his first school report from Hillsborough, Hay listed five day schools in Orange, at Hillsborough, Chapel Hill, Durham's, Bains and Cedar Grove, and five in Person, with 10 of the 11 teachers Black. The schoolhouses at Hillsborough and Chapel Hill belonged to the Friends' Freedmen's Association of Philadelphia and those at Bains and Cedar Grove to the freedpeople, who in Hay's judgment could scarcely make a living and could give little toward schools.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Lt. Thomas H. Hay reports whites refusing Bureau summonses since the state's return to the Union

Hay reported 23 complaints in July 1868, 21 by Black residents against whites and 2 by whites against Black residents, of which 11 were settled and the rest referred or pending. Since North Carolina's readmission, he wrote, whites were less willing to obey his summonses and claimed every case belonged in state or county courts, and many were driving freedmen off the farms where they worked on trivial excuses. He asked that the Bureau keep hearing freedpeople's complaints through the year, since the civil courts were too slow for people who lived by their daily labor.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

The Bureau distributes 5,620 pounds of corn and 836 pounds of bacon among Orange County's destitute

Lt. Thomas H. Hay reported that 5,620 pounds of corn and 836 pounds of bacon were given out among the destitute of Orange County during July 1868, about equally between white and Black recipients.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Freedpeople at Durham's Station buy land and build a school house

Lt. Thomas H. Hay went to Durham's on August 10, 1868 to establish a school. By August 27 the freedpeople had bought land and were putting up a building for 60 scholars and would pay a teacher's board; Hay asked $150 toward a salary for James Stagg, a white man the freedmen wanted, judging that the two small rival schools then kept by Empson Moore and George Bradshaw were doing little good. Bradshaw was teaching the freedmen's school at Durham's in November.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Four people are held in the Orange County jail for the killing of Smith Green

Lt. Thomas H. Hay reported that Smith Green's widow and three others were in the county jail awaiting trial for his murder at the superior court term beginning November 2, 1868, and sent up the coroner's inquest and testimony. Her mother had asked the Bureau's agent at Elizabeth City about the case.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Lt. Thomas H. Hay reports threats to turn freedmen off farms for their politics

In his August 1868 report Hay wrote that threats to dismiss freedmen from plantations were sometimes made on account of their political opinions but few had been carried out. In September he knew of one dismissal for politics, in which the employer would pay; in October he found politics taking much of the freedmen's time but expected no serious trouble on election day; and on November 30 he reported the election excitement over and few such threats carried out.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Freedpeople at Bains put up a school house on their own land

In August 1868 Lt. Thomas H. Hay reported a school under way at Bains, about five miles from Hillsborough, where the freedpeople had built a school house on land they owned and 35 pupils were taught by a man Hay judged incompetent; trustees led by Orange Holman asked on September 30 for $8 a month rent for a house Hay found would hold about 50. James A. Whitted was the teacher by October; in November he had 30 on the roll and 25 attending, and Hay asked help for him as a faithful man the freedmen could pay little.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Raleigh ends the Hillsborough Bureau clerk's post, citing the Bureau's coming close

Headquarters told Major Thomas H. Hay that George Raynes's appointment as clerk of the Hillsborough office would be revoked on September 15 and that, with the Bureau soon to close, no other clerk would be hired; Raynes was given transportation to New York City. A new clerk, Theo Josephs, was nonetheless ordered to report to Hay on September 21, and the Secretary of War revoked his appointment as of November 10 as no longer needed.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Esther Anderson arrives to teach Hillsborough's freedmen's school

Lt. Thomas H. Hay reported that Miss Anderson, the new teacher for Hillsborough sent by the Friends' Freedmen's Association of Philadelphia, arrived the night of September 25, 1868. In November he wrote on her behalf that her October salary had not come and she was behind on her board.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Chapel Hill's freedmen's school gets Bureau money for repairs and desks

Trustees led by Ben J. Craig reported 90 scholars on September 28, 1868, and said the Friends' Freedmen's Association of Philadelphia had paid $50 for the school and $30 toward the building, to which the Bureau had given $70. In November the teacher counted 42 day, 15 night and 50 Sunday scholars. The Bureau allowed $50, Richard Mayo did $48 of carpentry on the building, twelve desks made at Hillsborough went to the school in late December, and the trustees drew $12 a month rent.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

A freedmen's school opens at Cotton Run and closes when its teacher resigns

Trustees led by Samuel Ellison wrote on October 3, 1868 that they had rented a building and engaged a teacher and would open with 35 scholars, soon 45, and asked the Bureau for $8 a month. Lt. Thomas H. Hay, who called the neighborhood very poor, recommended the aid and named Empson Moore the teacher, but on November 12 reported the school suspended because Moore had resigned.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Lt. Thomas H. Hay cancels apprenticeships made by an earlier Bureau officer and returns children to their parents

Between October and December 1868 Hay voided three sets of indentures that had bound nine Black children to Orange County masters, made by Capt. Crockett, the Bureau officer at Hillsborough in 1865-66, as improperly executed. Five children were taken from a minister near Chapel Hill and delivered to their father on October 8 after the father complained to Governor Holden, two boys were returned to their mother on November 27, and two girls were released in December.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Trustees open a freedmen's school at a chapel near Chapel Hill

Trustees led by Nelson O'Kelly wrote on October 12, 1868 that they had a school building and a teacher at a chapel in Orange County and could send 40 children, and asked $8 a month for rent. Lt. Thomas H. Hay called the trustees among the most reliable Black men in the county and the teacher competent, and had offered $6 a month toward the salary of teacher John Weaver if they would board him and send 35 scholars.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Freedpeople at New Hope rent a building and hire a teacher for a school

Trustees led by Nelson Kirklin wrote from New Hope that they had rented a school building and secured a teacher and could send about 40 scholars, and asked the Bureau for $10 a month during the school season. Lt. Thomas H. Hay recommended the aid, citing the many Black children of the neighborhood and the freedmen's poverty, and visited the school in November.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Three justices, one of them Black, investigate a fight and a shooting at Durham's

Governor W. W. Holden sent Lt. Thomas H. Hay and J.P. W. F. Strayhorn the complaint of freedman Henry Goss that Samuel Rodgers, a white man, had struck him and that he struck back in self-defense. On October 30, 1868 Strayhorn, Hay and Richard Mayo, a Black justice of the peace, found an affray in which both men were to blame and Rodgers was worst hurt, and sent it to superior court; when Rodgers had been reported killed, a party set out to arrest Goss and Theophilus Chavis, and someone fired a pistol as Chavis ran, but who fired, or at whom, could not be learned, and Hay saw no need for troops at Durham's.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

People: W. W. Holden

Georgianna Rumbley opens the freedmen's school at Cedar Grove

The Friends' Freedmen's Association of Philadelphia sent Rumbley to teach at Cedar Grove, where the freedpeople guaranteed her board, fuel and light. She went reluctantly after being told the place was dull, but by October 24 Lt. Thomas H. Hay reported the school open since the first week of October and better supplied with books and maps than any in the district except Hillsborough's.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

New freedmen's schools open at Banocks Chapel, Cotton Run and New Hope, all with Black teachers

Hay's October 1868 report counted 13 day schools in Orange and Person, adding schools at Banocks Chapel near Chapel Hill (John Weaver), Cotton Run and New Hope (London Moore) to those at Hillsborough, Chapel Hill, Durham's, Bains and Cedar Grove. All 11 teachers were Black, among them R. G. Fitzgerald and E. E. Anderson at Hillsborough, James Whitted at Bains and Georgianna Rumbley at Cedar Grove, and the freedpeople owned the schoolhouses at Banocks Chapel, Bains and Cedar Grove.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

People: Robert G. Fitzgerald

A Cedar Grove meeting expels Samuel H. Martin from the freedmen's school committee

At a meeting called by trustees Augustus Allison and Arthur Anderson, the people of Cedar Grove voted unanimously to expel Samuel H. Martin from the freedmen's school committee, elected John Clark in his place, and agreed that the teacher Georgiana Rumbley should receive the Bureau's rent check. The Bureau's superintendent of education had held back the school's $8 monthly rent in October after getting no reports from the school Martin had taught.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Freedmen around Hillsborough ask about railroad work near Raleigh

Lt. Thomas H. Hay asked headquarters on November 23, 1868 about a report among local freedmen that many hands were wanted on a railroad near Raleigh, saying many would go for better wages. The reply said the president of the Chatham Railroad wanted 60 or 70 hands at once and 1,000 more before Christmas, at $10 a month and rations. On December 15 Hay asked the road's superintendent for terms for several white and Black applicants.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Lt. Thomas H. Hay counts about 330 day pupils in Orange County's freedmen's schools

Hay's table for the month ending November 30, 1868, gave enrollment at eight Orange schools: Hillsborough 71 day, 20 night and 100 Sunday scholars; Chapel Hill and Cedar Grove 56 day pupils each; Barracks Chapel 42; Durham's 35; New Hope 27; Bains 25; and Mrs. Richardson's school at Hillsborough 18, with Cotton Run lacking a teacher. The Durham's schoolhouse belonged to its Black teacher George Bradshaw, and Fannie Culver at Chapel Hill was the only white teacher in the two counties.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Major Hay orders Sheriff John Turner to return two Black children held by a white man

Major Thomas H. Hay ordered Orange County Sheriff John Turner to go to the house of a white man whom Hay found to be illegally holding two Black girls and to deliver them to the freedwoman who was the mother of one and aunt of the other. Deputy Sheriff W. H. Jordan served the order and handed over the children on December 18.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

Lt. Thomas H. Hay tries to talk teacher Robert G. Fitzgerald out of running for clerk

Hay wrote privately to Alfred H. Jones, superintendent of the Friends' Freedmen's Association schools, that Fitzgerald, a teacher at Hillsborough, was thinking of standing for clerk at the municipal election due the next month. Hay had told him it was unwise, saying he could not do his duty to the association's school and the clerk's office both and that it did not look well for a teacher to be a politician.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

The Bureau closes its Hillsborough office as Lt. Thomas H. Hay rejoins his regiment

Army Special Orders No. 305 of December 22, 1868 relieved Hay from Bureau duty to rejoin the 42nd Infantry from December 31, and the assistant commissioner told him to send all the office's books, papers and property to the chief quartermaster at Raleigh. Hay transferred the property by the North Carolina Railroad on December 26 and left Hillsborough on December 31.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events