Chronology

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1. Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899

2. 1866
   Founding or opening · Chapel Hill Quakers open a freedmen's school in Chapel Hill

   In 1866 Philadelphia Friends opened a school for Black children in Chapel Hill; by early 1867 it had been running more than half a year with 248 pupils, in a rented house while the freedpeople built a school and house of worship on a fifty-dollar lot the Friends had bought. The school, which came to stand on the land near West Franklin Street and Merritt Mill Road that Benjamin Craig and Green Cordal bought in 1866, merged into Orange County Training School in 1917.

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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.