Chronology

Search and filters

Entries

1. Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865

2. March 1823
   Property or economic transaction · Ruffin-Roulhac House, Churton and Orange streets, Hillsborough Martin Hanks sells his lot and house at Churton and Orange streets to William H. Phillips

   Martin Hanks sold town lot 181 to William H. Phillips for $650, a price that shows a house already stood there.

3. 1825
   Property or economic transaction · Ruffin-Roulhac House, Churton and Orange streets, Hillsborough Francis L. Hawks buys the house at Churton and Orange streets

   William H. Phillips sold the house to Francis Lister Hawks, then reporter to the state supreme court. While living there Hawks left the law to study theology under William Mercer Green of St. Matthew's and was ordained deacon in 1827; he later became a noted Episcopal clergyman and historian.

4. 1830
   Property or economic transaction · Ruffin-Roulhac House, Churton and Orange streets, Hillsborough Frances Blount buys the Hawks house and the lot beside it

   Walker Anderson, acting for Francis L. Hawks, sold the house to Frances Blount, who is thought to have been renting it. She also bought the neighboring lot 180 that year.

5. about 1830
   Construction or physical change · Ruffin-Roulhac House, Churton and Orange streets, Hillsborough Frances Blount enlarges the house to a center-passage plan

   Soon after buying it, Frances Blount added two rooms to the east side of the one-and-a-half-story house, turning its side-hall plan into the center-passage form it keeps today.

6. Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899

7. November 1866
   Property or economic transaction · Ruffin-Roulhac House, Churton and Orange streets, Hillsborough Thomas Ruffin buys six lots next to his Hillsborough house from Pride Jones

   Thomas Ruffin bought lots 177, 178, 179, 204, 205 and 206, which adjoined the house he had acquired the year before, from Pride Jones.

8. 1870
   Property or economic transaction · Ruffin-Roulhac House, Churton and Orange streets, Hillsborough Anne Ruffin buys the last two lots and the Ruffin place fills a whole town block

   Completing a purchase begun before her husband's death, Anne M. Ruffin bought lots 202 and 203. The Ruffin property then took in an entire block of about ten acres, which was still intact in 1971.

9. Early twentieth century · 1900–1944

10. March term 1904
    Property or economic transaction · Ruffin-Roulhac House, Churton and Orange streets, Hillsborough The superior court orders the old Ruffin place sold to Nannie Russell Roulhac

    Under a superior court judgment, Allen J. Ruffin was named commissioner to convey the ten-acre Ruffin place to Mrs. Nannie Russell Roulhac of Rockingham County for $100 in cash and a mortgage note of $1,455.

11. about 1908
    Construction or physical change · Ruffin-Roulhac House, Churton and Orange streets, Hillsborough Nannie Roulhac remodels the Ruffin house

    Mrs. Nannie Russell Roulhac remodeled the house after buying it, though the main block kept its 1830 form.

12. 1909
    Property or economic transaction · Ruffin-Roulhac House, Churton and Orange streets, Hillsborough Nannie Roulhac dies and her son William Sterling Roulhac inherits the Ruffin house

    At the death of Nannie Russell Roulhac the house and block passed to her son, William Sterling Roulhac.

13. Civil rights era · 1945–1975

14. 1954
    Property or economic transaction · Ruffin-Roulhac House, Churton and Orange streets, Hillsborough William Sterling Roulhac dies and leaves the Ruffin house to his wife Charlotte

    William Sterling Roulhac died and left the property to his wife, Charlotte Trant Roulhac, who owned it when the town of Hillsborough began negotiating to buy it for government offices.

Suggest a correction to an entry →

A dated event is a fact, filed on the page of the subject it belongs to: a person, a place, a theme, or a named event or history. Pages are subjects, with their own works and sources; the Place, community, or institution filter also gathers the institutions that recur in the entries without a page of their own. The page opens on the highlights; a search or any filter looks through every dated event and storyline, and each filter’s counts say how many entries choosing it would show alongside the others. A storyline is a longer history that gathers related dated events, and each storyline’s page lists its own. Counts give dated events and storylines separately. Dates come from the sources named on the cards and from the index’s event pages; where sources disagree, the card follows the county records. Entries marked approximate or needing research say so on the card; the rest were checked against the source named on it. The correction link under the entries opens the contact form; name the entry and its date and the Friends will check the source. Suggest an event →

Compiled and maintained by the Friends of the Orange County Public Library from county records, the sources named on each card, and the index’s event pages. Last updated October 4, 2026.