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M. C. S. Noble (University of North Carolina Bureau of Extension), The Teaching of County Geography (1915).Open the sourceAll sources
Searched the full chronology of 9,006 dated events and 77 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–17.Back to highlights
Entries
Colonial and Regulator years · 1680–1774
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Edmund Fanning settles in Hillsborough
Fanning, a New York-born Yale graduate, came to Hillsborough and soon became register of deeds for Orange County, the office whose fees made him the Regulators' chief target.
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Tradition holds that King George III gave Hillsborough its town clock
A 1915 university bulletin repeated the local account that the clock in the courthouse tower was a 1769 gift to the town from George III.
Revolution and early republic · 1775–1799
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Willie P. Mangum is born in the part of Orange County that is now Durham County
Mangum, who went on to four elections to the U.S. Senate and a term as its president pro tempore, was born in eastern Orange County.
Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
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Orange County's number of farms falls from 2,044 to 1,967
Between the 1900 and 1910 censuses the county lost 77 farms, which the bulletin read as land gathering into fewer hands. In 1910 nine owners held 500 to 999 acres each and three held more than 1,000.
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The 1910 census counts 15,064 people in Orange County
The census found 10,138 white and 4,926 Black residents, 38.6 people to the square mile against 45.3 for the state, and only seven foreign-born white residents. Chapel Hill had 1,149 people and Hillsborough 857.
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Orange County counts 5,203 school-age children and 4,193 enrolled
Of 3,316 white and 1,887 Black children of school age, 2,613 white and 1,580 Black children enrolled in 1913-14. Average daily attendance was 1,724 white and 933 Black pupils, 65 and 59 of every hundred enrolled.
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Orange County public schools average a 122-day term, with longer terms in six local-tax districts
In 1913-14 the county's public schools ran an average of 122 days, while the six districts that taxed themselves for schools averaged 154. Those districts were Hillsboro, University (Eno), Chapel Hill, Efland, Carrboro and Mount Hope.
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Orange County tax listings show white owners holding nearly thirteen times the property of Black owners
Property owned by white residents was valued at $3,695,385 and property owned by Black residents at $290,805, though Black residents made up about a third of the county's people.
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Orange County's taxable property is assessed at $6,017,399
The 1913 assessment put real estate at $2,230,212, personal property at $1,755,978 and bank stock, railroads, telegraph and telephone lines at $2,031,209. Average wealth per resident in 1910 had been $218, against $322 for the state.
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The Bingham School in the old buildings near Mebane enrolls 53 students
The preparatory school opened in the old Bingham School buildings on the Orange County side of Mebane after the original school left for Asheville had 53 students in 1913-14.
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Carrboro's mayor reports a population of 1,000
Two years after taking its present name, the mill town counted about 800 white and 200 Black residents, by figures the mayor gave the bulletin's author.
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Cotton, knitting and flour mills make up Orange County's manufacturing
Carrboro and Hillsboro had cotton and knitting mills, and Carrboro, Hillsboro and Efland had flour mills. Efland, still unincorporated, also had a factory making excelsior for packing furniture.
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Eight post offices and rural free delivery routes serve Orange County
Post offices stood at Efland, Hillsboro, Cedar Grove, Teer, Blackwood, University Station, Carrboro and Chapel Hill, and rural free delivery carried daily mail to homes in nearly every part of the county.
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Nearly three-fifths of Orange County is in forest
State forester J. S. Holmes reported that white and post oak on the poorer land yielded many railroad cross-ties each year, while second-growth pine on abandoned fields supplied most saw timber. Woods fires, mostly from carelessness, killed young trees every year.
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Orange County has 46 white public schools and two state high schools
The county ran 25 one-teacher and 21 larger white schools, 13 of them offering some high school work, and full four-year state high schools at Hillsboro and Chapel Hill that any county student could attend free. Their graduates entered the university or any state college without examination.
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Three weekly newspapers are published in Orange County
The county's weeklies in 1915 were the Orange County Observer and the Hillsboro Enterprise at Hillsborough and the Chapel Hill News.
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The university publishes M. C. S. Noble's county geography bulletin built on Orange County
The UNC Bureau of Extension issued The Teaching of County Geography as Extension Series No. 12, an outline for teachers that used Orange County as its worked example, from soils and crops to town histories and school statistics. Education dean M. C. S. Noble wrote it with help from botanist W. C. Coker, state forester J. S. Holmes and historian J. G. de R. Hamilton.
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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.
