Chronology

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1. Colonial and Regulator years · 1680–1774

2. 1756
   Law, policy or court · Orange County The Assembly re-creates Orange County and St. Matthew's Parish by a new act

   The 1752 act that made Orange a county and the parish of St. Matthew's appears to have been voided by royal proclamation, so the colonial Assembly passed a fresh act in 1756 setting up both again.

3. Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865

4. 1824
   Property or economic transaction · St. Matthew's Episcopal Church, Hillsborough (old church lot at Churton and Tryon streets) The new St. Matthew's vestry decides not to claim the old parish church from the Presbyterians

   When St. Matthew's was organized, some vestrymen proposed asserting the parish's colonial title to the old church lot at Churton and Tryon, then used by the Presbyterians. Thomas Ruffin argued that pressing the claim would set neighbors against each other and offered his own land for a new church and churchyard instead.

5. 1824
   Property or economic transaction · St. Matthew's Episcopal Church, Hillsborough Thomas Ruffin gives the land for St. Matthew's Church

   Thomas Ruffin donated the hill on the east side of town where St. Matthew's church and churchyard stand, as a thank offering tied to his courtship of Anne Kirkland there. He offered the land in 1824, when the new vestry chose not to claim the old church lot; the formal deed followed on April 10, 1854.

6. 1838
   Naming or commemoration · St. Matthew's Episcopal Church, Hillsborough churchyard The St. Matthew's vestry grants William Mercer Green's request to be buried in its churchyard

   On resigning as first rector to move to Chapel Hill, William Mercer Green formally asked the vestry that he be buried in St. Matthew's churchyard when he died, and the vestry recorded a resolution granting it.

7. Early twentieth century · 1900–1944

8. 1925
   Publication, speech or performance · St. Matthew's Episcopal Church, Hillsborough St. Matthew's vestry publishes Bishop Cheshire's centennial history of the parish

   At the vestry's order, the address Bishop Joseph Blount Cheshire gave at the parish's hundredth anniversary on August 24, 1924, was printed with a foreword by the rector, giving St. Matthew's a printed history from colonial St. Matthew's Parish to the 1920s.

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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.