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Nash, Hillsboro, Colonial and Revolutionary (1903).Open the sourceAll sources
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Colonial and Regulator years · 1680–1774
- 1750s
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Daniel Weldon settles as the county town's first lawyer
Daniel Weldon was the first lawyer to live in the new town. He came about 1754, stayed some six years and then drops out of the public records.
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The Orange County court moves to the new town on the Eno
Nash dates the county court's first sitting at the new county town to 1754, the year Churton laid off the town.
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Former governor George Burrington pledges 30,000 acres of the Haw Old Fields to Samuel Strudwick
To secure a debt then grown to about 2,000 pounds, Burrington conveyed 40,000 acres to Strudwick by lease and release with a mortgage clause, 30,000 of them in the Haw Old Fields. General John Guise, who acquired Burrington's right of redemption, passed it to Strudwick on September 28, 1761.
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James Watson succeeds Richard Caswell as clerk of the Orange County court
Watson, one of the town's first residents, was the second clerk of the county court from 1755 to 1763. He was named register of the county in 1772 and was reappointed under the state government shortly before his death.
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Herman Husband buys two town lots from William Churton
Years before he became a Regulator leader, Herman Husband bought two lots in Corbinton from William Churton and built a house on them. He lived in the town only a few months.
- 1760s
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Edmund Fanning qualifies as register of Orange County
Fanning, a lawyer who came to the county town in 1762, qualified as register in March 1763. He went on to buy several town lots and build a large house on the later site of the Masonic Lodge.
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William Few moves his family to a farm a mile from town and keeps a tavern
Few bought 200 acres near the town, later called the Kirkland place, and moved his family there from their mill farm lower down the Eno. He kept a tavern at the house while the family still ran the mill.
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Samuel Strudwick meets the settlers on his Haw Fields land
Strudwick, who came over with Governor Tryon in 1764 to take up the Haw Fields tract, found it held by people claiming under Burrington and by squatters. Near the end of 1766 he met a large number of them, and those present agreed to recognize his title.
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The Assembly fixes the Orange County court at Hillsborough for good
Twelve years after the county court first sat at the town, the colonial Assembly made that location permanent in November 1766, the same month the town took the name Hillsborough.
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Governor Tryon reports that Hillsborough has hardly twenty families
Writing to the colonial secretary about the town's new name, Tryon put its resident households at scarcely twenty but predicted it would soon be the leading inland town of the province.
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William Johnston and James Thackston go into business as Hillsborough merchants
Johnston, a Scottish merchant of means related to the Johnston governors, came to Hillsborough and formed a partnership with James Thackston. Their store stood at the southwest corner of King and Churton streets.
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The superior court sits at Hillsborough for the first time
Nash writes that no superior court was held at Hillsborough before the March 1768 term. Until then Orange lay first in the Halifax and later in the Salisbury district.
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Tenants on Samuel Strudwick's Haw Fields land meet to keep possession by force
Francis Nash reported to Edmund Fanning that Strudwick's tenants had formed an association to hold his lands against him and had met in the Haw Fields the day before he wrote.
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Regulators whip Orange County sheriff John Lea
The one serious disturbance Nash records in the county between October 1768 and the 1770 riot was the whipping of Sheriff John Lea in 1769.
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Governor Tryon buys county land and two Hillsborough lots
Tryon bought a large tract in the county and two lots in the town, and put up a house on the lots. His private secretary, Isaac Edwards, also bought and built in Hillsborough.
- 1770s
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Hillsborough officials and merchants pledge to defend one another after the riot
Just after the September 1770 riot, Francis Nash, Edmund Fanning, Alexander Martin, Thomas Henderson, Jesse Benton, William Johnston, Adlai Osborne and others formed an association for mutual aid and protection. Many members lived too far apart to help one another in a sudden emergency.
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William Few conveys his home place near Hillsborough to John Butler
In debt and weighing a move to Georgia, Few deeded the Kirkland place east of town to his friend John Butler, sheriff that year. Butler in turn sold the tract to the Scottish merchant Ralph MacNair on July 23, 1771.
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Tryon makes Hillsborough a borough and market town
Hillsborough became a borough, with its own member in the Assembly, and a chartered market town. Edmund Fanning sat for the new borough when the Assembly met at New Bern that December.
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Regulators stone Johnston and Thackston's store, where Edmund Fanning took refuge
During the riot at the Hillsborough superior court, Edmund Fanning broke loose from the crowd dragging him from the courtroom and fled into the store of William Johnston and James Thackston. The Regulators attacked the building with stones and brickbats and broke everything they could reach.
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A mounted troop of Regulators rides through Hillsborough firing pistols
A troop of mounted Regulators, turned back from its march on New Bern, came down on Hillsborough, drove residents indoors, took liquor at the tavern and galloped through the streets firing pistols before riding off. Nash says they did no great damage.
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Regulators marching on New Bern turn back at Haw River
Regulators from Rowan, Orange and Granville gathered under James Hunter to march on New Bern, where Herman Husband was jailed. They broke up at Haw River on hearing that a grand jury had declined to indict him and he had been released on February 8.
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Tryon's army camps on the south bank of the Eno opposite Hillsborough
Marching west from New Bern, Tryon's army entered Orange by an old road past Patterson's and camped across the Eno from the town on May 9. A hospital and a supply depot were set up at Hillsborough, and on May 11 the army marched through town and west along the later Graham road.
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Colonel John Ashe commands the guard left at Hillsborough
When Tryon's army marched west from its camp across the Eno in May 1771, two of the four Orange County companies under Edmund Fanning stayed behind as a guard for Hillsborough under Colonel John Ashe. They rejoined the army before the Battle of Alamance.
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Tryon's army returns to Hillsborough with its Regulator prisoners
The army came back on June 14 and the next day marched through town with drums beating and oak sprigs in their hats before camping a mile east. The special court of oyer and terminer, opened May 30 and adjourned to await the prisoners, then resumed and tried fourteen men for treason.
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Governor Tryon's army turns its horses onto the Few farm's crops
Back at Hillsborough in mid-June 1771 after the Battle of Alamance, Governor William Tryon's army turned its horses onto the wheat, barley and oats of the Few farm a mile east of town, where William Few Sr. had given bond for Regulator leaders. The family left for Georgia that winter.
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The Hillsborough superior court holds its first term since the 1770 riot
For the first time in a year and a half the district court sat at Hillsborough, with Judges Maurice Moore and Richard Henderson presiding and about 300 cases on its dockets. Thomas Clark qualified as clerk, and a suit by James Few against Francis Nash was entered as abated by the plaintiff's hanging.
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Thomas Burke is admitted as an attorney and settles at Hillsborough
Burke, born in Ireland and trained as a physician, had practiced law in Virginia before coming to Hillsborough. He was admitted as an attorney in March 1772 and later lived two miles northeast of town.
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Thomas Hart is Orange County's only member at the first Provincial Convention
When North Carolina's first Provincial Convention met on August 25, 1774 and chose delegates to the first Continental Congress, Thomas Hart alone sat for Orange County and the borough of Hillsborough sent no one.
Revolution and early republic · 1775–1799
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Orange County chooses a committee of safety
Orange had no committee of safety until the summer of 1775, and Samuel Johnston wrote on August 14 that one had been chosen. By 1776 John Hogan was its chairman and James Hogg its secretary; its records for 1775 and 1776 are lost.
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The Provincial Congress names Orange County's minutemen and militia officers
Orange was to raise three companies of minutemen, and James Thackston was named colonel of minutemen for the Hillsborough district. For the county militia the Congress named John Hogan colonel, John Butler lieutenant colonel, William Moore first major and Nathaniel Rochester second major.
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Hillsborough has seventy or eighty houses when the Congress meets
At the time of the 1775 Congress the town held about seventy or eighty houses and three or four hundred people, and residents found lodging for nearly two hundred delegates and visitors.
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George Micklejohn swears allegiance to the state and is released from parole
Taken prisoner after Moore's Creek, the Hillsborough rector was paroled on May 3, 1776 to Perquimans County, then ordered moved there in July when he was found still in Orange. On November 24 he took the oath of allegiance before the Halifax Congress and was discharged, and he later lived at Thomas Person's Goshen in Granville.
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Orange County votes again after the Halifax Congress voids its October return
The Congress first upheld the sitting Orange members on November 21, then on November 28 ordered a new election run by named commissioners over as many as three days. Held December 10, it returned Thomas Burke, Nathaniel Rochester, Alexander Mebane, John Butler and John McCabe, who took their seats just before the state constitution was adopted.
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Hillsborough gets its first regular Presbyterian services
After years of occasional preaching in the courthouse by David Caldwell, John DeBow and others, the Rev. Alexander McMillan began regular services there in 1777, shared with Little River and New Hope. Presbytery deposed him in September 1778, and the town had no organized Presbyterian church for many years.
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William Courtney is one of the first Hillsborough town commissioners under the state
When the new state government was organized, the commissioners for the town of Hillsborough were William Johnston, James Hogg, John Sheels (Shields), William Courtney and James Watson.
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William Courtney represents the town of Hillsborough in the House of Commons
Courtney held Hillsborough's borough seat in the House of Commons in the Assemblies of 1777 and 1778. At the August 1778 session held in Hillsborough he sat on joint committees on Indian affairs and on claims.
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The superior court sits at Hillsborough for the first time in five years
Judges Samuel Ashe and James Iredell opened the March 1778 term in the old courthouse, with Waightstill Avery prosecuting and John Henderson of Granville as grand jury foreman. The district court had not sat since September 1772, when the quarrel between Governor Martin and the Assembly over the court law shut the courts.
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Orange magistrates tender the state oath across the county
The county court named two magistrates in each district to offer the oath to people suspected of disloyalty, and they returned lists of those who took and refused it to the May 1778 term. At that term James Hogg, William Johnston and Samuel Strudwick were cited again, and those who still declined were given sixty days to leave.
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The Assembly at Hillsborough clears Thomas Burke in his quarrel with Congress
Congress had referred Burke's conduct to North Carolina after he walked out to break a quorum and sent back a rough answer when summoned. A joint committee chaired by William Hooper reported on August 14 that he was answerable only to the state, and the Assembly, which had re-elected him to Congress two days earlier, adopted the report.
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Hillsborough gathers supplies and light horse for the South Carolina campaign
As the state sent troops to aid South Carolina in 1779, supplies for the militia were collected at Hillsborough and a regiment of light horse under General Allen Jones assembled there. Hillsborough district militia under John Butler fought at Stono Ferry on June 20.
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John Hogan sits as Orange County's state senator
For the 1779 General Assembly, Colonel John Hogan was Orange County's senator, with Mark Patterson and William McCauley as its members in the House of Commons and Thomas Tulloch for the borough of Hillsborough.
- 1780s
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Colonel John Gunby of Maryland commands the Hillsborough garrison
With more than a thousand troops in and around the town, among them Buford's horse and the Maryland Continentals, Colonel Gunby of the First Maryland Regiment served as commandant through the last months of 1780 and into January 1781. His 400 to 500 Marylanders were barefoot until shoes came from Maryland.
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Samuel Strudwick asks the Assembly to stop taxing him on the whole Haw Fields
Strudwick petitioned for relief from taxes on the entire Haw Fields tract, saying settlers had blocked his court-ordered survey and, since the Revolution, had taken state patents on nearly all of the 30,000 acres, even his own house and plantation.
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Thomas Burke takes up his neighbors' complaints against army plundering
Home from Congress in 1780, Burke found troops around Hillsborough grazing horses on growing corn, pulling down haystacks and taking cattle, wagons and smokehouse stores. He warned local officials, wrote to the president of Congress and to General Gates, and Nash credits him with largely stopping the abuse in Orange.
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William Courtney serves as state senator for Orange County
In 1780 William Courtney was Orange County's senator in the General Assembly, while William McCauley and Mark Patterson represented the county and Thomas Tulloch the town in the House of Commons.
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Samuel Strudwick asks Thomas Burke for help as settlers threaten his Haw Fields plantation
Strudwick wrote Burke that a man named Bowles, who held a new patent for a small plantation in sight of his house, meant to take the peaches from his orchard to distill and said he could raise a posse to do it, and that another settler who had patented Strudwick's own house might drive the family into the woods. He asked Burke what he should do.
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South Carolina's Governor John Rutledge takes refuge in Hillsborough
After Camden the town filled with fugitives, and Rutledge, Tadeusz Kosciuszko and Daniel Morgan were among those there. It was so crowded that Attorney General Iredell and Judge Williams, arriving for the October superior court, found beds only at Burke's house two miles out, and Rutledge moved into town to share a bed with John Penn of the Board of War.
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Civil authorities hold four Maryland soldiers for robbing a house south of Hillsborough
Four free Black soldiers of the First Maryland Regiment, Leonard Turner, Valentine Murrin, Thomas Thompson and John Adams, were charged with robbing Joseph Hastings's house and abusing him and his wife. Major McIntosh took them from the civil officers by force, but Colonel Gunby returned them to the sheriff when the magistrates appealed, and they were bound over for trial but never tried.
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Loyalists rob James Hogg at his Hillsborough house during Fanning's raid
During David Fanning's raid on Hillsborough on September 12, 1781, Loyalists ransacked James Hogg's house on Cameron Street and took his watch, buckles and keys until an officer posted a guard. Poplar Hill, sometimes named as the scene, was not built until about 1793.
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Hillsborough's count at the end of the war: forty white polls and sixty-seven enslaved people
At the close of the Revolution the town listed forty white taxable men and sixty-seven enslaved people between the ages of twelve and fifty, which Nash reads as a population of about three hundred.
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Samuel Strudwick's long Haw Fields lawsuits come to an end
Litigation between Strudwick and settlers on the Haw Fields tract, begun a few years after his 1766 meeting with them, ended in 1788 with Strudwick having lost about a third of the property.
- 1790s
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William Hooper dies in Hillsborough
Hooper, one of North Carolina's three signers of the Declaration of Independence, died at Hillsborough in his forty-ninth year and was buried there.
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James Hogg moves across the Eno to Poplar Hill
Hogg, who owned the land along the south bank of the Eno opposite the town, lived east of Hillsborough on the later Cameron property until 1793 or 1794. He then moved across the river to Poplar Hill, later the site of Julian S. Carr's Occoneechee Farm.
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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.
