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Hugh T. Lefler and Paul Wager (eds.), Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953): The county's bicentennial history, written by many contributors. It draws on earlier histories and questionnaires sent to churches and communities. Some dates conflict with other records.Open the sourceAll sources
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Colonial and Regulator years · 1670–1774
- 1670s
-
John Lederer visits the Eno people near present Hillsborough
The German physician described an Eno town on the Eno River laid out around a playing field, with large grain harvests and a government guided by its elders. About fourteen miles away he also met the Shakori, placed by the book on the Haw River near the Haw Fields.
- 1740s
-
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.
-
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.
- 1750s
-
Alexander Mebane, the first sheriff, returns 1,113 taxables
As Orange County's first sheriff, Mebane returned 1,113 tithables for 1752 and 1753. The book reckons this at about 4,000 people when the county was formed.
-
Ludwig Clapp's 640-acre grant on the Alamance is recorded
Clapp was one of the German Lutheran pioneers who took up land west of the Haw River, in country that is now Alamance County.
-
Marmaduke Kimbrough enters 640 acres on Pole Cat Creek
Kimbrough, who took the contract for the county's first courthouse, entered a 640-acre tract on Pole Cat Creek.
-
Orange County begins with fifty taxable enslaved people
When the county was organized its tax lists showed fifty enslaved Black taxables, thirty-five men and fifteen women, a small number for a county of small farms.
-
William Blackwood's grant on Buffalo Creek is entered
Blackwood's Buffalo Creek tract was entered at the land grant office. Blackwoods were among the families who also settled the New Hope section of eastern Orange.
-
The Orange County court holds its first session at John Gray's house
Eight justices of the peace held the county's first Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions at John Gray's house near the Eno River, with Alexander Mebane as sheriff and Richard Caswell as clerk. They named fifteen road commissioners and several constables and laid a poll tax of one shilling on each tithable.
-
The county court contracts for a courthouse and prison near Piney Ford
The justices chose a site north of the Haw River within two miles of Piney Ford and gave Marmaduke Kimbrough the contract for a frame courthouse and a log prison. They met at the site in December, but the buildings were probably never finished.
-
William Churton presents his commission as public register
At the December court, Lord Granville's surveyor William Churton showed the governor's commission naming him the county's public register, the office later called register of deeds. He went on to lay out the county seat.
-
Presbyterians found Grier's Church at High Towers
Grier's Presbyterian Church at High Towers, in the part of Orange that later became Caswell County, was the first Presbyterian church in the new county.
-
The creation of Rowan County gives Orange a western boundary
Orange had no fixed western line until Rowan was formed. The new county also left the planned courthouse site at Piney Ford only fifteen miles from Orange's western edge.
-
Justices recommend John Gray for sheriff
With Alexander Mebane's term running out, the court sent the governor three names, with 10 votes for John Gray, 8 for Lawrence Thompson and 6 for James Dickey. Gray, the justices' favorite, was appointed.
-
Clerk Richard Caswell reports the county's tithables
Caswell's return for 1754 counted 950 white taxable polls and 50 Black ones, 35 men and 15 women. At a shilling a poll, the county's share of the provincial tax came to no more than 50 pounds.
-
The Assembly moves the county seat to the Eno crossing of the Western path
Judging the Piney Ford site too far west, the Assembly directed that the courthouse, prison and stocks stand where the Western path crossed the Eno, on land where James Watson lived. The site, just east of the present courthouse, was the start of Hillsborough.
-
The county court names trustees for Corbin Town
James Watson, Josiah Dixon and Lawrence Thompson became commissioners and trustees of the county seat, then called Corbin Town after Francis Corbin, Earl Granville's land agent.
-
The county court sets the price of county-made beer in the ordinaries
The justices ordered that beer brewed in the county sell for four pence a quart in Orange County's ordinaries until further notice. Fixing tavern prices was one of the court's regular powers.
-
Town treasurer John Patterson is told to hold back ten shillings a lot for public use
The county court directed Patterson to keep ten shillings sterling from the price of each Corbin Town lot for public purposes.
-
A law orders a road from Orange courthouse to the Cape Fear
The act was not carried out at once, and in the meantime farmers cut their own rough roads across the county.
-
Alexander Mebane, Josiah Dixon and William Churton lay out Hillsborough's first prison
Lot No. 1 in the town was set aside for the market house, courthouse, prison, pillory and stocks.
-
Eight percent of Orange families hold people in slavery
In 1755 only 8 percent of the county's families held enslaved people, and the largest holder, Mark Morgan, held six.
-
Gilbert Strayhorn's grant on Prestwood Creek is entered
Strayhorn's Prestwood Creek tract was one of many grants entered along the county's streams in its first years.
-
Lawrence Thompson is appointed sheriff of Orange County
In 1755 the county court sent the governor three names for sheriff, John Patterson, Lawrence Thompson and Alexander Mebane, and Thompson received the appointment. He had run second to John Gray in the justices' vote two years before.
-
Orange counts 950 white taxables but only 490 men on its militia list
The book explains the gap by the county's many Quakers, whose pacifism kept them off the muster rolls.
-
Presbyterians found Hawfields Church
Hawfields Presbyterian Church was founded in the part of Orange County that is now eastern Alamance. Henry Pattillo later served as its pastor.
-
The first Orange County courthouse is built at Hillsborough
A frame courthouse went up at the new county seat in 1755. Until then the court had met in private homes.
-
Hugh Laughlin and Thomas Lindley start a grist mill on Cane Creek
In 1756 Laughlin and Lindley started grinding at a mill on Cane Creek, the first mill in that part of the county. For more than a century people called it Lindley's Mill, and afterward Sutphin Mill.
-
Hillsborough's first courthouse is ready for use
Until it opened, the county court met at the home of James Watson. It was the first of the four courthouses Hillsborough has had.
-
James Hunter holds land on Stinking Quarter and Sandy creeks
Hunter, later a leader of the Regulators, had land on these creeks in western Orange by 1757.
-
Joseph Maddock builds Hillsborough's first prison
Maddock had the log prison pinned to the ground to make it more secure.
-
The sheriff is ordered to provide stocks, a pillory and a whipping post
The order for these instruments of public punishment at the county seat came the same year the first prison was built.
-
Thomas Lloyd's grant on Mark Creek is entered
Lloyd, one of Orange County's first members in the General Assembly, led the Welsh settlers who made homes between Hillsborough and present Chatham County.
- 1760s
-
Glasgow merchants Buchanan, Hastie and Company run a store in Orange County
Scottish traders began doing business in the county in the 1760s, and this Glasgow firm kept one of its many North Carolina stores here.
-
Little River Presbyterian Church is organized
Hugh McAden led the organization of Little River Presbyterian Church, with Henry Pattillo as its first pastor.
-
A second jail with a stockade goes up at Hillsborough
A ten-foot stockade was built around the jail and stocks for twenty-four pounds, with Thomas Hart and Francis Nash overseeing the work.
-
William Nunn serves as sheriff of Orange County
William Nunn, one of the most prominent of the first residents of Hillsborough, was sheriff of Orange County in 1765.
-
A Deep River meeting drafts Regulator Advertisement Number Two
Meeting in Herman Husband's neighborhood, settlers wrote a second paper and chose William Cox and William Masset to attend the Maddock's Mill meeting on October 10. It asked the county's assemblymen, vestrymen and officers to come and answer their questions.
-
James Watson brings Edmund Fanning's answer to the Regulators' meeting at Maddock's Mill
When none of the county's officers came to the meeting, Watson arrived alone late in the day with word from Fanning that he considered it an insurrection. The delegates drew up Regulator Advertisement Number Three in his presence; Watson called it just and reasonable and promised to give copies to the county officials.
-
Edmund Fanning tells the November court he has answered the farmers' complaints
Speaking for the county officers, Fanning rejected the protest and reported that he had written its organizers a reply he expected to end the matter.
-
New Sharon Methodist Church is organized
The church list dates New Sharon Methodist Church in Orange County to 1768, making it the oldest Methodist congregation the chapter names.
-
Orange farmers swear scores of depositions against county officers
They accused Sheriff William Nunn and his deputies of seizing deer skins, livestock, a gun and cloth, and one man swore he had paid clerk Francis Nash for letters of administration he never received.
-
Orange farmers draw up Regulator Advertisement Number Four
The paper set out the members' pledges on taxes and officers' fees, attendance at meetings, shared costs and majority rule.
-
Edmund Fanning writes Governor Tryon that Orange is in revolt
Two weeks after Regulators rescued a seized horse at Hillsborough, Fanning reported people across the county binding themselves by oath to refuse taxes, and said he and other officers expected an attack.
-
Tryon orders the Regulators home and puts seven counties' militia on alert
Answering Fanning, the governor issued one proclamation to the people and another to militia officers in Bute, Halifax, Granville, Rowan, Mecklenburg, Cumberland and Johnston counties to stand ready to march to his aid.
-
James Hunter and Rednap Howell present the Regulators' petition to Tryon at Brunswick
The petition, Advertisement Number Nine, carried 474 names, 31 of them written in German. Tryon told the Regulators to give up their name and pay their taxes, but he also warned officers against excess fees and had the lawful fees published.
-
Justice James Thackston reports William Butler vowing not to pay the palace tax
Thackston told former sheriff Tyree Harris that Butler said the Regulators would pay nothing toward the governor's house at New Bern for three years, and that some two hundred Regulators had threatened anyone who seized their goods.
-
Hillsborough's town commissioners sign the earliest town deed on record
James Watson, William Nunn, Edmund Fanning and Francis Nash, acting as commissioners for the town, sign the earliest of the Hillsborough town deeds kept by the Orange County register of deeds.
-
Samuel Devinney and John Philip Hartzo are convicted over the horse rescue
Each was fined 25 pounds and given three months in jail, but Tryon soon freed the prisoners and put off collecting their fines for three months.
-
Tryon pardons the 1768 protesters except thirteen named leaders
His proclamation left out men including James Hunter, Herman Husband, Ninian Bell Hamilton and William Payne.
-
Tryon issues a general pardon for the 1768 disturbances
The proclamation extended to fines and forfeitures for everyone involved in the Orange County troubles of the year before.
- 1770s
-
Herman Husband publishes An Impartial Relation
His account of the Regulation traced the first disturbances to Orange County while granting that Granville and Halifax had been in the same dispute years earlier.
-
Northern Orange residents petition for a county of their own
They told the General Assembly that travel to the county's musters and courts was a heavy burden. Caswell County was not formed until 1777.
-
Orange Presbytery forms as North Carolina's first presbytery
The pastors of the early Orange County Presbyterian churches and other ministers formed Orange Presbytery, the first presbytery in North Carolina.
-
A district jail is built at Hillsborough
It replaced the second county jail, which had burned.
-
The Assembly passes the Johnston Riot Act against the Regulators
Named for its author Samuel Johnston, the law let riot cases be tried in any county, outlawed anyone who resisted or evaded arrest, and allowed the governor to use troops against the Regulators. The Crown later condemned parts of it.
-
Morgan Edwards reports 1,500 families have left since Alamance
The Baptist preacher and traveler wrote that many more were waiting to sell their farms and follow. The book says many former Regulators went to the Tennessee country.
-
English traveler J. F. D. Smyth finds German-speaking districts west of Hillsborough
Traveling in western Orange, Smyth had trouble in some places finding anyone who understood English, a sign of how many Germans had settled there.
Revolution and early republic · 1775–1799
-
Orange County sends Thomas Burke, John Kinchen and Francis Nash to the second Provincial Congress
The second Provincial Congress met at New Bern a day ahead of the royal legislature, with Burke, Kinchen and Nash as Orange's delegates. In the legislature itself Orange sat Ralph McNair and Thomas Hart, and Thomas Nash sat for Hillsborough.
-
The Provincial Congress forms the Hillsborough District and its committee of safety
The Congress grouped Orange, Granville, Chatham and Wake counties into a Hillsborough District with a thirteen-member committee of safety; John Atkinson, John Butler and William Johnston sat for Orange. Thomas Person and John Kinchen represented the district on the Provincial Council.
-
The Provincial Congress at Hillsborough adopts William Hooper's resolution of loyalty to George III
Two days before it dissolved, the Congress unanimously passed a resolution from Hooper professing its members' support for the king's succession, even as it raised troops and money for defense.
-
Orange County militia join Griffith Rutherford's campaign against the Cherokee
Orange was first asked for 500 men and could not raise them; the quota was cut to 300, which was met. Officers from the county included Major Hugh Tinnin and Captains William Williams and William Murray, with Jacob Albright as drummer.
-
Michael Holt turns back from the Loyalist march and later takes the Whig oath
Holt took a commission from Governor Martin and started for the Loyalist gathering at Cross Creek, but turned for home with some of his men. After his arrest he was permitted to take the Whig oath of allegiance, as James Hunter later was.
-
Orange County militia under James Thackston hold Cross Creek during the Loyalist rising
Militia bound east against Donald MacDonald's Loyalists gathered at Hillsborough, and Thackston's Orange contingent occupied Cross Creek (now Fayetteville), denying the Loyalists a refuge. The rising ended at Moore's Creek Bridge on February 27, 1776, a battle the Orange men did not fight in.
-
Crowds force the Orange County polls to close four times in the election for the fifth Provincial Congress
The whole county, then taking in later Caswell, Alamance, Person and Durham, voted only at the Hillsborough courthouse, and the crush of voters forced four halts; by sunset about a quarter had voted. The winners, James Saunders, William Moore, John McCabe, John Atkinson and John Paine, faced a petition to keep them from their seats.
-
The new state constitution provides for public schools and a university
Section 41 of the constitution adopted at Halifax, modeled on Pennsylvania's, told the legislature to establish schools and to promote learning in one or more universities. Orange's delegates voted on it, and it became the legal basis for chartering UNC.
-
Thomas Burke of Hillsborough is elected to the Continental Congress
The last Provincial Congress chose Burke with William Hooper and Joseph Hewes. Apart from April to August 1778 he served until April 12, 1781, sitting on 108 committees.
-
James Watson becomes register of Orange County and a Hillsborough commissioner under the new state
When county government resumed under statehood in 1777, James Watson was the county's register and one of the first commissioners of the town of Hillsborough, with William Johnston, James Hogg, John Shields and William Courtney.
-
The Orange County court sits for the first time under the new state
The May 1777 court recorded 22 justices commissioned by Governor Richard Caswell, and eleven took the state oath and their seats. It named Alexander Mebane Jr., son of the first sheriff, as the first sheriff under statehood and county treasurer, and appointed 33 road overseers.
-
The county court jails Charles Richardson for refusing the oath of allegiance
Called before the court as a suspicious person, Richardson would not swear allegiance to the state. The court sent him to jail until he took the oath and paid the fees.
-
The county court orders the Hillsborough District jail to hold Continental deserters
At its May 1777 term the court told the jailer of Hillsborough District to take in any Continental Army soldiers arrested as deserters by a justice of the peace anywhere in the district.
-
The county court orders the road from Bennehan's to New Hope Chapel finished
The road ordered earlier from Richard Bennehan's to New Hope Chapel had been cleared only as far as John Patterson's, so the May 1777 court named an overseer to clear the rest.
-
Merchants who traded with Britain are ordered to swear allegiance or leave
Under a state act, the August court cited fourteen merchants and agents, among them James Hogg, and only Nathaniel Rochester and John Hogan took the oath. The court ordered everyone who failed to appear or to swear, Quakers excepted, to leave for Europe or the West Indies within sixty days.
-
The county court binds James Empey not to recruit soldiers for another state
The August 1777 court made Empey give security for his good behavior and for not evading the state law by recruiting men in North Carolina for another state. Robert Baker and William Armstrong were his sureties at fifty pounds each.
-
Brigadier General Francis Nash of Hillsborough is killed at Germantown
Nash, promoted to brigadier general, died leading North Carolina troops at the Battle of Germantown in Pennsylvania. Word reached Orange County that October.
-
Absalom Tatom becomes assistant quartermaster and keeper of the arsenal at Hillsborough
During the Revolution, Continental officer Absalom Tatom takes charge of the state's arsenal at Hillsborough as assistant quartermaster.
-
Drought shuts down the state gun factory near Hillsborough
The factory's shop sat beside a creek on Thomas Burke's land about two miles northeast of town, and a dry summer left the creek too low to drive its wheel. The dry spell slowed the paper mill as well, and the Assembly gave John Hogan more time to earn the paper bounty.
-
The Assembly orders a new courthouse built at Hillsborough
Nathaniel Rochester and William Courtney oversaw the work. Planned in brick but built of wood because of wartime shortages, it was one room about 40 by 25 feet near the present courthouse site and served until fire destroyed it in late 1789 or 1790.
-
The Assembly sets Orange County's quota of clothing for the state's troops
A statewide act passed at New Bern fixed each county's share of supplies for soldiers in the field. Orange owed 73 hats, 306 yards of linen, 146 yards of wool, 146 pairs of shoes and 146 pairs of stockings.
-
John Hogan is appointed trustee for Orange County
The county court named John Hogan trustee, the office later called county treasurer, under a bond of 1,500 pounds. The book dates the treasurer's office in Orange from 1778 to its abolition in 1948.
-
The Presbytery removes Alexander McMillan, who had led Presbyterian worship in Hillsborough
McMillan had held regular services in the courthouse jointly with the Little River and New Hope congregations until the Presbytery deposed him for misconduct. For some years afterward Hillsborough had no regular Presbyterian services.
-
Hillsborough becomes a depot for the army's supplies
As the war moved south the town became a collection and storage point for army supplies, and the governor split his time between Halifax and Hillsborough.
-
Orange County militia serve at Stono Ferry in South Carolina
Under General John Butler, militia from Orange took part in Benjamin Lincoln's attack on the British at Stono Ferry.
- 1780s
-
Most Orange enslavers hold fewer than ten people
By 1780, 95 percent of the county's enslavers held fewer than ten people and 3 percent held twenty or more.
-
Baron de Kalb halts at Hillsborough with 2,000 Continental troops
De Kalb's force, marching to relieve Charleston after it had already fallen, stopped at Hillsborough and used up the area's provisions before moving south.
-
The Board of War makes the courthouse a storehouse and the church a hospital
With supply wagons crowding every road into Hillsborough, the board designated the courthouse a storehouse and ordered the church repaired for use as a hospital.
-
Gates marches the southern army out of Hillsborough toward Salisbury
The Board of War concluded that Hillsborough and Orange County could not feed the army through the winter and persuaded Gates to move toward Salisbury, where provisions were thought to be more plentiful.
-
Nathanael Greene reaches Hillsborough in search of his new command
Named by Washington to succeed Gates, Greene arrived to find the army already gone and hurried after it.
-
Cornwallis marches his army out of Hillsborough
With his commissary reporting that town and county could no longer feed the army, Cornwallis left before his proclamation's deadline and camped on Alamance Creek between the Deep and Haw rivers.
-
British soldiers pave the crossing of King and Churton streets
To keep his men busy and away from plunder, Cornwallis had stone laid near his artillery park for 150 yards in each direction from the intersection of King and Churton streets.
-
The Assembly elects Thomas Burke of Hillsborough governor
Meeting at Wake Court House, the General Assembly chose Burke. He ran the government from Halifax for his first two months.
-
Colonel Alexander Mebane rides to warn John Butler after Fanning's raid on Hillsborough
When David Fanning's Loyalists marched out of Hillsborough with Governor Thomas Burke and other prisoners, Alexander Mebane, a colonel in the local militia, rode to warn General John Butler, who then laid the ambush at Lindley's Mill.
-
Governor Burke returns to Hillsborough and raises a company against the Loyalists
Hearing that Loyalists were plundering in southern Orange and that David Fanning was active again, Burke came to Hillsborough and formed a mixed infantry and cavalry company under a Captain Allen of New Hope to guard the area's Whigs.
-
The Assembly levies a tax on the Hillsborough District to repair the courthouse, stocks and streets
An act taxed residents of the district and the town, with the money going to repair the courthouse and stocks and the town's streets.
-
A brick courthouse replaces the first one at Hillsborough
The county's second courthouse, built of brick, went up in 1782. The book says fire destroyed it seven years later and a wooden courthouse followed in 1790.
-
Hillsborough collects meat for Greene's army and holds prisoners of war
Alexander Mebane, commissioner of specific supplies for Orange, gathered more than 2,000 pounds of salt and fresh meat at Hillsborough for Greene's army in South Carolina. The town jail held British and Loyalist prisoners while exchanges were negotiated.
-
William Hooper makes the Nash house in Hillsborough his home
The house Francis Nash built in 1772 became the home of William Hooper, signer of the Declaration of Independence, in 1782. William A. Graham lived there in the 1860s.
-
Thomas Burke returns to Hillsborough and takes up the governorship again
After leaving his parole on James Island, Burke resumed his duties at Hillsborough. His breach of parole drew criticism from many constituents and a dispute between Greene and the British.
-
Three of David Fanning's men are hanged at Hillsborough
Seven captured raiders were tried before Judge John Williams, with Alfred Moore prosecuting and William R. Davie defending in his first case. Three were hanged despite Fanning's threats, and Burke commuted the other four sentences to a year in the Continental army.
-
A false alarm of a Fanning attack turns the legislators out into Hillsborough's streets
With the General Assembly in session and General John Butler guarding it with 200 county militia, members were roused from bed and paraded in the streets before the report proved false. Fanning had in fact married and fled to South Carolina.
-
William Moore is named commissioner of confiscated Loyalist estates for the Hillsborough District
The April Assembly at Hillsborough appointed commissioners to deal with estates taken from Loyalists, electing William Moore for the Hillsborough District.
-
The Assembly names Thomas Davis state printer and tells him to set up his press at Hillsborough
On the last day of the session Davis was appointed public printer and directed to establish his press in Hillsborough as soon as he could, to print the state's laws and legislative journals there.
-
A post route is opened between Hillsborough and Richmond
The route was part of a push, gaining ground in 1783, to make Hillsborough the permanent seat of state government.
-
Hawfields residents petition the House of Commons against Justice John Steel
Orange County people objecting to the conduct of Steel, a justice of the peace in the Hawfields, sent a memorial to the Commons. It went to committee, and Steel resigned before any action was taken.
-
Orange County citizens petition to bar members of the Society of the Cincinnati from the Assembly
At the New Bern session county residents asked that members of the officers' society be kept out of the legislature. John Butler, Orange's representative and himself eligible to join, introduced a bill to that end, which was never acted on.
-
A bill to make Hillsborough the state capital fails by four votes
Hillsborough's backers pressed the question from session to session, and in 1785 a bill to fix the capital there lost 41 to 37.
-
The North Carolina Gazette begins publication at Hillsborough
The North Carolina Gazette of Hillsborough, apparently the county's first regular newspaper, appeared in 1785. The only surviving copy with an imprint, dated February 16, 1786, was printed by Robert Ferguson for Thomas Davis.
-
The county court names a jury to lay off a road from McCauley's mill to Hillsborough
At the week-long August 1786 term, held by justices John Butler, William McCauley and William Ansley, the court named a jury to mark the best and most direct road from McCauley's mill to Hillsborough. The same term licensed three taverns and named tax collectors for all seven taxing districts.
-
The Assembly orders the state treasurer and comptroller to move their offices to Hillsborough
Meeting at Fayetteville, the Assembly directed both officers to take their offices and records to Hillsborough so they would be convenient to most of the state's people. The comptroller was slow to comply, and a year later the order was repeated.
-
A county bridge over the Flat River at Island Ford is finished
James and John Carrington, appointed to let and oversee the work, reported the bridge on John Carrington's land completed to contract. The court allowed their account of 370 pounds.
-
The Grand Lodge of North Carolina holds its first regular meeting at Hillsborough
Seven months after Masonic delegates organized the Grand Lodge of North Carolina at Tarboro, it held its first regular meeting in Hillsborough, while the ratification convention was in session there.
-
Cane Creek Baptist Church is organized
Thomas Cates and members of the Cates family organized Cane Creek Baptist Church, the oldest Baptist church on the chapter's list. It later planted Antioch and Mars Hill churches.
-
William McCauley serves as sheriff of Orange County
Lefler and Wager's list of Orange County sheriffs gives William McCauley for 1789 to 1790, between John Nichols (1787) and John Sloss (1791 to 1793).
-
A road jury reroutes the road from Hillsborough to General Person's around a hill
On Theophilus Thompson's petition, a jury of twelve laid off a new line taking the road from town to General Person's around a hill. The court ordered Thompson to open it and Richard Williams and his hands to keep it in repair.
-
Benjamin Smith gives the university 20,000 acres of western land
Davie announced at the trustees' first meeting that Smith of Brunswick County had given land he received for Revolutionary service, in what became Obion County, Tennessee. It sold some 25 years later for $14,000, and Smith Hall, now the Playmakers Theatre, bears his name.
-
The university's trustees hold their first meeting, at Fayetteville
Senate Speaker Charles Johnson chaired the meeting, and Alexander Mebane and James Hogg attended for Orange County; House Speaker Stephen Cabarrus was among the other trustees present. Davie and Hogg were charged with printing the two subscription papers, one under the charter's terms and one for outright gifts.
-
The Assembly grants the university the proceeds of escheated property
Alongside the charter, a second act gave the new university the proceeds from property that fell to the state for want of heirs.
-
The Assembly lets Orange County's wardens of the poor build a poorhouse
A bill passed in December 1789 gave the wardens of the poor of Orange, Franklin and Surry counties power to put up poorhouses. The book cannot say whether Orange built one then or only in the 1820s.
- 1790s
-
The first federal census counts 2,060 enslaved people in Orange County
The first federal census counted 12,216 people in Orange County: 10,055 white residents, 2,060 enslaved people and 101 other free persons. No other Piedmont county held as many enslaved people, and Richard Bennehan (24) and William Hooper (22, in Hillsborough) were the largest holders.
-
The Assembly lends the university trustees 5,000 pounds for its buildings
Trustees meeting at New Bern named a committee to seek the loan, and Davie argued for it before the Commons. It passed 57 to 53 in the Commons and 28 to 21 in the Senate.
-
The House of Commons rejects a bill to withhold the university's loan
John Leigh of Edgecombe County had offered the bill on the last day of 1791, two days after the loan passed.
-
Trustees name John Williams to the committee that will build the university and lay off Chapel Hill
On the day they fixed the university at New Hope Chapel Hill, the trustees appointed seven commissioners to erect its buildings and lay off an adjoining town of 24 two-acre and six four-acre lots.
-
Building commissioners contract with George Daniel for 350,000 bricks for the university
Meeting at Hillsborough, the commissioners engaged Daniel, of Orange County, to make and deliver the bricks at forty shillings per thousand.
-
James Patterson of Chatham County is hired to build the university's first building
The commissioners contracted with Patterson for 2,500 pounds to build a house about 96 feet long and 40 feet wide. It became Old East, the first building raised on the campus of a state university in the United States.
-
Orange County leads the state in pledges to the university
By July, Davie and Willie Jones reported 909 pounds 4 shillings pledged in Orange against 804 pounds in Halifax, out of $6,723 statewide. William Cain and Walter Alves of Orange were among the three largest subscribers at $200 each, and Jesse Neville of Orange gave $100.
-
Commissioners mark out the sites of the university's buildings and grounds
Davie, Alfred Moore, Alexander Mebane and Thomas Blount met on the Chapel Hill tract and fixed the building sites, with land set aside for offices, avenues and ornamental grounds.
-
The first town lots in Chapel Hill are sold at auction
After the Old East cornerstone was laid, the commissioners auctioned the village lots on the spot; 29 lots brought more than 1,500 pounds, and one was held back for the president's house.
-
Alexander Mebane takes his seat as Orange County's first member of Congress
Alexander Mebane of the Hawfields, a former Orange County sheriff, sits in the Third Congress, the first on the book's list of congressmen from Orange.
-
James Mebane serves as the first president of the Dialectic Society
Orange County student James Mebane is the first president of the university's Dialectic Society, one of the two student debating societies formed in the university's first year.
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Samuel Hopkins opens the accounts of Chapel Hill's first post office
Samuel Hopkins, the first postmaster appointed for Chapel Hill, files his first account with the Post Office as of July 1, 1795, the earliest record of the village post office.
-
Richard Stanford begins about twenty years as congressman for the Hillsborough district
Richard Stanford, who was not born in Orange, won the Hillsborough district seat in Congress in 1796 and kept it for about twenty years. He started out a Jeffersonian Republican and later broke with Jefferson.
-
James O'Kelly organizes Damascus Christian Church
James O'Kelly, who had broken with the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1792, organized Damascus Christian Church near the Orange, Durham and Chatham lines and served as its first pastor.
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Eagle Lodge meets in Chapel Hill and initiates Joseph Caldwell
By special dispensation, Hillsborough's Eagle Lodge met in Chapel Hill and made Masons of Joseph Caldwell, then presiding professor of the university, and three other faculty members.
-
The legislature authorizes another district jail at Hillsborough
The act provided for a new jail to serve the Hillsborough district.
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The legislature lets the county court levy a tax for public buildings
The court could set the rate it needed for improvements, within caps on polls, land and town property.
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Hillsborough's Dr. James Webb helps organize the first state medical society
Dr. James Webb, the leading physician in Orange, was among the small group who organized the North Carolina Medical Society at Raleigh on December 17, 1799; its charter was dated December 23. Webb served as one of its censors, who examined men wishing to practice.
Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865
- 1800s
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Edmund Strudwick is born at Long Meadow
Edmund Strudwick, later a physician and surgeon, was born on March 25, 1802, at Long Meadow, five miles north of Hillsborough. He went to Bingham School and earned his medical degree at the University of Pennsylvania.
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Mount Carmel Baptist Church is organized at Pritchard's Mill
Mount Carmel Baptist Church began at Pritchard's Mill in 1803 and moved to its later site in 1873, when it built the church still in use in 1953.
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Richard Henderson becomes head of Hillsborough Academy
In 1804 Hillsborough Academy announced Richard Henderson, formerly a professor at the university, as its head.
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Cane Creek Baptists organize the Haw River Mountain Church, later Antioch
Cane Creek Baptist Church set up a new congregation called Haw River Mountain Church, which moved in 1830 and became Antioch Baptist Church.
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Methodists organize a church in Hillsborough
A Methodist congregation was organized in Hillsborough about 1807.
- 1810s
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John H. Pickard is principal of Hawfield Academy
Hawfield Academy, about ten miles west of Hillsborough, had John H. Pickard as principal from 1812 to 1814. The school had earlier been led by William Paisley.
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Orange County's enslaved people are valued at nearly two thirds of its land
The 1815 valuation put the county's enslaved population at $1,216,347 and all its land at $1,917,993.
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William Huntington opens his own silversmith business in Hillsborough
Trained by his father, the engraver Roswell Huntington, William Huntington sets up his own Hillsborough shop, selling silver along with gravestones, flour and medicine and running a blacksmith shop.
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Thomas Ruffin of Hillsborough is chosen Speaker of the House of Commons
Ruffin, sitting for the borough of Hillsborough, was elected Speaker in the 1816 session, his last in the legislature before he became a superior court judge.
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Archibald D. Murphey submits his Report on Education to the General Assembly
While state senator for Orange, Murphey laid before the Assembly a plan for primary schools, academies and more state support for the university. The book calls it the first definite plan for public education offered in North Carolina.
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Archibald D. Murphey becomes a Superior Court judge
Archibald D. Murphey left the state senate, where he had represented Orange since 1812, to become a judge of the Superior Court in 1818.
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Mary Mendenhall keeps Union School near Woody's Ferry on the Haw
In 1818 Union School, about a mile south of Woody's Ferry on the Haw River in Orange County, was in the charge of Mary Mendenhall.
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Hillsborough Academy publishes its rules for students
Under principal John Witherspoon, Hillsborough Academy printed its rules of conduct in the Raleigh Register. Students had to attend daily worship, stay out of stores and taverns, avoid liquor, and keep the Sabbath.
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An auxiliary Colonization Society is reported active in Chapel Hill
The Reverend William Meade reported a thriving Chapel Hill branch of the American Colonization Society, which promoted sending free Black people to Liberia.
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Eagle Lodge is revived at Hillsborough after twenty dormant years
Eagle Lodge, silent since 1799, was revived under a new number, 71. The Grand Lodge restored its original number, 19, in 1932.
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Elijah Graves announces Mrs. Graves' Female School at Long Meadows
In 1819 the Rev. Elijah Graves announced Mrs. Graves' Female School at Long Meadows, six miles northwest of Hillsborough.
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St. Mary's Chapel is admitted to the Episcopal convention
The St. Mary's congregation in eastern Orange County was received into the Episcopal convention of North Carolina, two years after the diocese was formed.
- 1820s
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Eagle Lodge votes money toward a male academy in Hillsborough
A year after its revival, Eagle Lodge voted to put money toward building a male academy in Hillsborough.
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Lebanon Methodist Church is organized
Lebanon Methodist Church was organized in rural Orange County in 1820.
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A. Mason opens the Eagle Hotel at Mason Hall
Mason advertised in February 1820 that his seven-room house at Mason Hall was nearly finished and open to travelers and summer visitors. Guests could read newspapers from across the country in his hall.
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William Kirkland opens a cash store in Hillsborough
Kirkland advertised in February 1820 a new cash store in his former house, stocked with cloth, blankets, guns, tools and hardware. He also sought a young clerk.
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D. Yarbrough opens a grocery store in Hillsborough
Yarbrough advertised in May 1820 a cash-only grocery in Mr. Bacon's former shoe shop, selling coffee, sugar, rum, brandy, wine, tea, china, glass, nails and powder.
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Eagle Lodge runs a lottery to pay for its Masonic Hall
Eagle Lodge held a lottery over eleven years and used the proceeds to build the Masonic Hall in Hillsborough, still in use in 1953.
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The Hillsborough Recorder calls slavery a misfortune and urges colonization
Editor Dennis Heartt wrote that slavery harmed the state but argued against freeing people to remain in North Carolina. He proposed sending free Black people to Africa at public expense and asked the legislature to act.
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Archibald D. Murphey's trustees advertise thirty to forty enslaved people for sale
In a notice dated October 30, 1821, James Webb and David Yarbrough, holding Archibald D. Murphey's property in trust, advertised between thirty and forty enslaved people for sale on December 11 at Murphey's Haw River mills, together with his lands. Lefler and Wager call the number unmatched in Orange sale notices, where most sales involved one or a few people.
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Bethlehem Presbyterian Church is organized
Elisha Mitchell, Elijah Graves and Samuel Child led the organization of Bethlehem Presbyterian Church, which built its first church the next year.
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John Faddis warns the public not to trade with the men he holds in slavery
Faddis ran a notice in the Hillsborough Recorder naming Jim, Joe, Alfred and Peter and threatening to prosecute anyone who sold them liquor or traded with them without his written leave.
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John Rogers runs Hillsborough Academy
John Rogers ran Hillsborough Academy from 1822 to 1826, when W. J. Bingham succeeded him.
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Mount Moriah Baptist Church is organized
Mount Moriah Baptist Church, a white congregation, was organized in 1823.
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The Hillsborough Recorder shop prints The Discipline of Friends and A Solemn Address to Youth
Besides the weekly paper, Dennis Heartt's Recorder office printed pamphlets. Two surviving titles from 1823 are The Discipline of Friends, for Quaker use, and A Solemn Address to Youth.
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Willie P. Mangum begins his service in the U.S. House of Representatives
Mangum, a former superior court judge, took a seat in Congress for the district in 1823 and served two terms before resigning in 1826.
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The wardens of the poor buy 470 acres for a county poorhouse
Enoch Thompson deeded about 470 acres to the Wardens of the Poor of Orange County for $800, for a poorhouse and the support of paupers there. The poorhouse on this land stayed in use until 1941.
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University Lodge No. 80 is chartered at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill's first Masonic lodge, University Lodge No. 80, was chartered. It stopped meeting in 1849 as older members died or moved away.
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Orange County votes for Andrew Jackson in the presidential election
In the vote for presidential electors on November 11, 1824, Orange gave the Jackson ticket 638 votes to 591 for the William H. Crawford ticket, even though its congressman Willie P. Mangum backed Crawford. The county voted for Jackson again in 1828 (1,036 to 440) and 1832 (759 to 170 for Clay).
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A branch Manumission Society meeting at Trotter's Creek issues an address against slavery
Meeting at Trotter's Creek, a branch of the Manumission Society, strong among Orange Quakers, adopted an address calling on citizens to end slavery by consent and to open schools to Black as well as white children.
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People freed by David Patterson of Orange sail for Liberia
Under the auspices of the Colonization Society, the formerly enslaved people of David Patterson left for Liberia in 1825.
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The Orange County Sunday School Union asks the Assembly to fund its schools
The Orange County Sunday School Union petitioned the General Assembly for 25 cents a year per pupil for its 22 Sunday schools, which taught 800 to 1,000 children, many from poor families, to read. John Scott of Hillsborough presented it in the House of Commons, which turned it down.
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Hillsborough's market house is torn down
The town clock, which had hung in the market-house tower after leaving the old Episcopal church steeple, was put in storage until the new courthouse was finished.
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John Witherspoon opens a private boarding school
The Raleigh Register announced the Rev. John Witherspoon's Private Boarding School for opening in 1826. The school seems to have run until 1830 or later.
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Orange Superior Court tries Jim, Sherod and Harry, three enslaved men
The 1828 term convicted Jim, held by Willie P. Mangum, of manslaughter in the death of another enslaved man and ordered 39 lashes. Sherod got 15 lashes for larceny, and Harry was sentenced to death for burglary but won a new trial on appeal.
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Bethlehem School on Cane Creek offers college preparation under George W. Morrow
Bethlehem School, on Cane Creek twelve miles from Hillsborough, offered studies to prepare boys for college under George W. Morrow in 1829.
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Elijah Graves opens a female school at Walnut Grove
In 1829 Elijah Graves advertised a school for girls that he would run at Walnut Grove, near the Pittsboro road and twelve miles from Hillsborough.
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George Laws becomes a deputy sheriff of Orange County
Laws, a carpenter as a young man, was a deputy sheriff in 1829. He later served as clerk of court for more than thirty years.
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An Orange County mass meeting calls for state aid to roads and river navigation
Friends of internal improvement met at the court house in Hillsborough on April 20, 1829, with Thomas Clancy in the chair and Dennis Heartt as secretary. After the Rev. Joseph Caldwell spoke on the county's want of markets, Caldwell, Duncan Cameron and Cadwallader Jones were named to draft an address. At the adjourned meeting on May 25, chaired by Dr. James Webb, the meeting adopted the address to the people of Orange, which held that a fund for internal improvement must be raised by taxation, and had 500 copies printed for circulation in the county.
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The county court levies a tax on Black polls to pay for the patrol
Along with its taxes for county costs and the poor, the August 1829 court ordered ten cents collected on each Black poll to pay the patrol, the county's slave patrol.
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Thomas Clancy advertises Lucy and her five children for sale
Pressed for money, Clancy offered a woman named Lucy and her five children, the eldest about thirteen, saying he preferred to sell the family together to a buyer in or near Hillsborough.
- 1830s
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Fred Hartgrove, a free Black man, holds three enslaved people
The 1830 records show Hartgrove holding three people and Lucy Peters, also free and Black, holding one. No free Black resident of Orange held anyone in 1860.
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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. Its early records are lost: Lefler and Wager give about 1830, and the church's own tradition 1832. The congregation had trustees by October 1836, when Gattis and Thomas King deeded them land, and built its first church about 1838.
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The census finds Orange County's enslaved population at its peak
The 1830 census counted 7,339 enslaved people beside 15,918 white residents, a little under 31 percent of the county. The number fell afterward through sales, migration, manumission and the loss of territory to new counties.
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The legislature elects Willie P. Mangum to the United States Senate
Mangum, then a Jacksonian Democrat, was chosen senator in 1830. He broke with Jackson over the bank deposits and resigned when a Democratic legislature instructed him to vote to expunge the censure of Jackson.
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W. Anderson opens a female boarding school near Hillsborough
In 1830 W. Anderson announced Anderson's Female Boarding School within a mile of Hillsborough. It took a limited number of pupils and ran at least through 1836.
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Judge William Gaston predicts the end of slavery in a UNC commencement address
Gaston told the university's graduates and guests that slavery would be overthrown. The book says the audience applauded the speech but rejected its antislavery message.
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Mount Zion Christian Church is organized
Thomas Reeves led the organization of Mount Zion Christian Church and built its first church in 1833.
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Pleasant Green Methodist Church is organized
Pleasant Green Methodist Church was organized about 1832 by a group of local families.
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The Recorder shop prints Letters on Popular Education
The Hillsborough Recorder office printed Letters on Popular Education Addressed to the People of North Carolina in 1832.
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White Cross Church, later an AME congregation, is organized
The church list dates the White Cross congregation and its first building to May 1832. It was rebuilt in 1921 and was an African Methodist Episcopal church by 1953.
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Thomas Ruffin becomes Chief Justice of North Carolina
Ruffin, elected an associate justice in 1829 after putting the state bank back in order, became Chief Justice in 1833 and held the post until he retired to his farm in 1852.
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Duncan Cameron of Orange is elected president of the state Colonization Society
Cameron, a leading Orange planter and banker, took the presidency of the North Carolina branch of the colonization movement in 1834.
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Fairfield Presbyterian Church is organized
Fairfield Presbyterian Church was organized with Samuel Paisley as its first pastor.
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Lemuel Lynch sets up as a silversmith and jeweler in Hillsborough
Lemuel Lynch, who learned his trade from William Huntington and had kept shops in Greensboro and Concord, begins working in Hillsborough, where he stayed for the rest of his life. He had first worked in Hillsborough in 1828, when Huntington sold him his stock of materials and rented him his tools and shop from August 1, calling him an attentive, industrious young man and a good workman.
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Members of Cane Creek organize Mars Hill Baptist Church
Members of Cane Creek Baptist Church organized Mars Hill Baptist Church, near the old Eno Quaker burying ground off the Hillsborough-Schley road.
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I. C. Patridge opens the University Hotel in Chapel Hill
Patridge advertised in December 1834 that he had opened a public house at Chapel Hill across from Watts' Hotel, with new stables and an ostler.
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A. Mickle serves as Orange County's register of deeds
Lefler and Wager's list of Orange County registers of deeds gives A. Mickle in the office from 1835 to 1849, between J. McKerall and John Laws.
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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 4, 2026.
