Chronology

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1. Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865

2. May 31 to June 3, 1847
   Chapel Hill President James K. Polk returns to Chapel Hill for the university commencement

   Polk came from Raleigh by carriage with Sarah Polk and a large party, lodged at the hotel where Nancy Hilliard had built an annex for his stay, was greeted by Elisha Mitchell, the only professor left from his own student days, visited the college room he had lived in, and stayed through commencement on June 3.

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

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