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Searched the full chronology of 9,006 dated events and 77 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–50.Back to highlights
- Colonial and Regulator years · 1680–1774
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Quakers set up Cane Creek Monthly Meeting in the country that became Orange County
About thirty Quaker families from Pennsylvania had settled near Cane Creek by 1751. Abigail Pike and Rachel Wright traveled 200 miles to the Perquimans County quarterly meeting for authority to organize, and the first monthly meeting was held on October 7, 1751. It is the oldest Quaker meeting in the North Carolina Piedmont.
People: Rachel Wright
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St. Mary's congregation is established
Anglicans established St. Mary's Chapel about 1759 on land given by Thomas Holden, about seven miles northeast of Hillsborough, to serve northern Orange County. The congregation joined the Episcopal convention in 1819 and built the present brick chapel, consecrated in 1859; regular services ended in the early 1930s.
Subject: St. Mary’s Chapel
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The Regulator crisis
Orange County farmers organized in 1766 against high fees, taxes and dishonest county officers, calling a meeting at Maddock's Mill that October. Protest turned violent at the Hillsborough court in September 1770 and ended with the Regulators' defeat at Alamance on May 16, 1771 and the hanging of six at Hillsborough on June 19.
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Thomas Hart buys Joseph Maddock's mill on the Eno
Joseph Maddock, a Quaker who had run the grist mill on the Eno west of Hillsborough since 1755, sold it to Thomas Hart, a friend of Governor William Tryon, who built it up with a sawmill, oil mill, fulling mill, distillery, tannery and other works. This is the mill, known as Hart's Mill, that a British guard held in February 1781.
People: Thomas Hart · William Tryon
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Regulators are tried and executed at Hillsborough
After the Battle of Alamance, Regulator prisoners were tried at Hillsborough and twelve were condemned for treason. Six were pardoned; on June 19 Governor Tryon's army marched the others to a gallows east of town and hanged them, among them Benjamin Merrill, Robert Messer, Robert Matear and James Pugh. James Few had been hanged at camp on May 17.
Part of The Regulator crisis, 1766–1771 · 116 events
People: William Tryon
- Revolution and early republic · 1775–1799
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Pyle's defeat near the Haw River
Henry Lee's Legion and Andrew Pickens's militia attacked a few hundred Loyalist recruits under Dr. John Pyle who were riding to join Cornwallis at Hillsborough. Mistaking Lee's men for Tarleton's cavalry, the Loyalists were cut down, with more than 90 killed, on Michael Holt's land, then in Orange County and now in southern Alamance.
People: Andrew Pickens
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Jesse Benton's son Thomas Hart Benton is born near Hart's Mill
Thomas Hart Benton, later a U.S. senator from Missouri, was born in 1782 at Hart's Mill near Hillsborough, the son of Jesse and Ann Gooch Benton.
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Hillsborough Academy opens in the old Anglican church
The school chartered as Science Hall opened as Hillsborough Academy in the old Anglican church, which an act of the 1784 Hillsborough session had ordered repaired for a school and a free meeting house. It never thrived and closed in 1790.
Subject: Hillsborough Academy
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University of North Carolina is chartered
Meeting in Fayetteville, the General Assembly adopted William R. Davie's bill chartering the University of North Carolina. The act named some forty trustees and, instead of an appropriation, gave the school escheated property and uncollected debts; the trustees later placed it in southern Orange County, where Chapel Hill grew up around it.
People: William Richardson Davie
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Hinton James arrives as UNC’s first student
Hinton James became UNC’s first student on February 12, 1795.
People: Hinton James
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UNC holds its first commencement
UNC’s first graduating class included Hinton James and six other students.
- Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865
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Orange County’s nineteenth-century academies
Hillsborough Academy opened on a larger plan under Andrew Flinn in October 1801 and grew under William J. Bingham, principal from 1827 until 1844, when he left to open his own school at the Oaks. The Burwell School for girls ran from 1837 to 1857. The Nash and Kollock School opened in 1858 and Hillsborough Military Academy in January 1859. The military academy closed for a time in 1865 at the end of the Civil War.
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James Hogg dies and is buried in Hillsborough
James Hogg, the Scottish merchant who came to North Carolina in 1774 and pressed the trustees to put the university at Chapel Hill, died on November 9, 1804. He is buried in Hillsborough two blocks north of the site of his state highway marker on Churton Street.
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Thomas Ruffin qualifies to practice law and settles at Hillsborough
Ruffin finished his legal studies under Archibald D. Murphey in Rockingham County and qualified to practice law in 1808. He moved to Hillsborough on June 9, 1809, and built his practice there; William A. Graham later read law with him.
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Archibald D. Murphey serves Orange County in the state senate
Archibald D. Murphey was elected to the legislature from Orange County in 1812 and sat in the state senate until 1818. There he proposed a publicly financed system of schools in a report he finished on November 29, 1817, and in 1819 he followed it with his memoir on internal improvements.
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Thomas Ruffin represents Hillsborough in the House of Commons
Ruffin sat for the town of Hillsborough in the North Carolina House of Commons in 1813, 1815 and 1816, until he was elected a Superior Court judge at the age of twenty-nine.
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Hillsborough Academy is rechartered
Hillsborough Academy received a new charter from the General Assembly in 1814.
Subject: Hillsborough Academy
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Willie P. Mangum represents Orange County in the House of Commons
In 1818, a year after his admission to the bar, Willie P. Mangum was elected to the House of Commons for Orange County, where he promoted constitutional reform.
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Caldwell Institute closes in Hillsborough
The Caldwell Institute ended in 1850 after five years in Hillsborough.
Subject: Hillsborough Academy · Caldwell Institute
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Hillsborough Academy is revived under Benjamin Huske and Ralph Graves
After the Caldwell Institute closed, Alexander Wilson and Ralph H. Graves opened a classical school at Hillsborough on January 14, 1851. Wilson left for Burnt Shop in Alamance that spring, and on June 14 Benjamin R. Huske accepted the town's offer of the Academy building free of rent. With Graves he revived the Hillsborough Academy, which ran until 1858.
People: Ralph Henry Graves (1851-1889)
Subject: Hillsborough Academy · Caldwell Institute
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William Bingham takes over the family school at the Oaks and incorporates it
With his brother Robert in the army and his father in declining health, William Bingham was running the school at the Oaks by 1864. That year he incorporated it as the Bingham School, a military and classical academy, and in December moved it to Mebaneville.
Part of Orange County’s nineteenth-century academies · 189 events
People: William James Bingham · Robert Bingham
Subject: Bingham School
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Bingham School moves from the Oaks to Mebaneville
William Bingham and Robert Bingham, sons of William James Bingham, moved the school, late in 1864 or in 1865, to a site east of Mebane's Station on the North Carolina Railroad, after the legislature incorporated it in 1864 as a military and classical academy. The highway marker's 1865 may be when classes began at the new site.
People: Robert Bingham · William Bingham (1835-1873) · William James Bingham
Subject: Bingham School · North Carolina Railroad
- Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899
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The Berry family moves to Sunnyside south of Hillsborough
Dr. John and Mary Strayhorn Berry moved from their West King Street house, now known as Two Chimneys, to Sunnyside, the Berry family plantation two miles south of town. Mary Berry tutored her daughter Harriet at home until she was twelve.
People: Harriet Morehead Berry
Subject: Sunnyside (John Berry farm)
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Bingham School leaves Orange County for Asheville
After fire destroyed the academic buildings and dormitories at the Mebane campus in December 1890, Robert Bingham moved the school to Asheville in 1891. A Presbyterian High School then used the old grounds at Mebane, paid for mostly by Col. William Bingham's widow; his son Herbert became its principal in 1896, and in 1897 her son-in-law Preston Lewis Gray took it over and named it the William Bingham School.
People: Robert Bingham
Subject: Bingham School
- Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
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Harriet Berry works for the state Geological and Economic Survey in Chapel Hill
Berry began work in Chapel Hill with the North Carolina Geological and Economic Survey in 1901 and rose from stenographer to secretary and, in 1917, acting head. She left in 1921, the year her Good Roads lobbying produced the state highway commission law.
People: Joseph Hyde Pratt
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Elizabeth Cotten composes Freight Train
At about age eleven, growing up near the railroad tracks in the settlement that became Carrboro, Elizabeth Cotten wrote "Freight Train." She played a right-handed guitar upside down, and the song became a folk standard after Folkways released her recording in 1958.
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J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton joins the UNC history faculty
Hamilton, born in Hillsborough and trained at Columbia under William A. Dunning, was appointed associate professor of history at the University of North Carolina. He served the university until he retired in 1951.
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Billy Strayhorn, who spent boyhood summers in Hillsborough, was born
Composer and pianist Billy Strayhorn was born in Dayton, Ohio. From about age five he stayed with his grandparents at Margaret Lane and Hillsborough Avenue in Hillsborough, attended his first year of school there, learned piano in their home, and spent breaks and summers in the town into his early teens.
People: Billy Strayhorn
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Billy Strayhorn stays with his grandparents in Hillsborough and starts school
From about age five Strayhorn came from Ohio with his mother and siblings to his grandparents' house at the corner of Margaret Lane and Hillsborough Avenue, attended his first year of school in the town, and took to the piano his grandparents kept. He returned for breaks and summers into his early teens.
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Nash builds his own house in Chapel Hill
Nash designed and built a Colonial Revival house in Chapel Hill as his personal residence, at the address now numbered 124 South Boundary Street. The state listed it on the National Register on October 26, 2017 as the property most closely associated with his career.
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Hamilton announces plans for a manuscript collection at UNC
Hamilton announced plans for what he first called the National Southern Collection of manuscripts at the university. It became the Southern Historical Collection after Sarah Graham Kenan's gift in 1930.
Subject: UNC Libraries
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The Southern Historical Collection is established
In 1930 Sarah Graham Kenan of Wilmington gave UNC $25,000 to buy books, letters and diaries for the Southern Historical Collection being gathered by history professor J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton, who became its first director. Kept in the new library, it grew into a leading repository of manuscripts on the American South.
People: J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton
Subject: UNC Libraries
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The state casts a highway marker for Governor Thomas Burke's capture at Hillsborough
The North Carolina highway marker G-16, cast in 1939, stands on Churton Street in Hillsborough. It records that Governor Burke was captured in the town by David Fanning and his Tories on September 12, 1781, and taken to Charleston.
- Civil rights era · 1945–1975
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Fonty Flock wins the spring race at Occoneechee
Fonty Flock won the spring NASCAR Grand National race at Occoneechee Speedway, with Frank Mundy second and Bill Blair third.
Part of Occoneechee Speedway, Hillsborough · 35 events
Subject: Occoneechee Speedway
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Fonty Flock wins at Occoneechee weeks after his Darlington victory
Fonty Flock, winner of the Southern 500 at Darlington, won the October Grand National race at Occoneechee Speedway weeks after his 500-mile Darlington victory.
Part of Occoneechee Speedway, Hillsborough · 35 events
Subject: Occoneechee Speedway
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Manly Wade Wellman teaches creative writing at the university
Wellman taught creative writing classes in the Evening College of the University of North Carolina and was known for helping new writers.
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Richard Petty wins his first race at Orange Speedway
Richard Petty, 23, took the pole and led all 110 laps of the September 100-mile race at Orange Speedway, finishing a lap ahead of Ned Jarrett. His father Lee had won the track's May race.
Part of Occoneechee Speedway, Hillsborough · 35 events
People: Lee Petty
Subject: Occoneechee Speedway
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The Colonial Dames erect a marble monument to the hanged Regulators beside the Hughes Academy schoolhouse
In 1963 the North Carolina Society of the Colonial Dames of America erected a marble slab monument to the six Regulators hanged at Hillsborough in June 1771, placing it next to the historic Hughes Academy schoolhouse in Hillsborough. The men's grave, thought to lie near the Eno, has never been found.
Part of The Regulator crisis, 1766–1771 · 116 events
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Richard Petty wins the Hillsborough 150 during his ten-race streak
Richard Petty's win in the Hillsborough 150 at Orange Speedway was the eighth of ten straight victories in 1967, the season he won a record 27 races.
Part of Occoneechee Speedway, Hillsborough · 35 events
Subject: Occoneechee Speedway
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UNC names its new history building Hamilton Hall
The university named the new building occupied by its History Department for J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton, founder of the Southern Historical Collection.
- Recent decades · 1976–2026
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The Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation today
The Eno-Occaneechi Indian Association formed in 1984, took the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation name in 1994 and won state recognition in 2002 after a decade of petitions and a court ruling. The band bought land for its tribal grounds near Pleasant Grove in 2004, rebuilt the replica village at Hillsborough, and dedicated a state highway marker in 2024.
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I-40 through Orange County is named the Harriet Morehead Berry Freeway
The Board of Transportation named a section of Interstate 40 through Orange County for Berry, the Hillsborough-born Good Roads campaigner. A state highway marker to her was cast the same year for NC 86 at I-40 north of Chapel Hill.
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Vermont Royster receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom
Vermont Royster, who had returned to UNC as a professor after retiring from The Wall Street Journal, received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1986.
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A state highway marker for Hamilton is cast for Churton Street in Hillsborough
The North Carolina highway historical marker G-103, which marks Hamilton's birthplace half a block west as historian, professor and founder of the Southern Historical Collection, was first cast in 1989 for US 70 Business (Churton Street) in Hillsborough.
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A state highway marker for James Hogg is cast for Churton Street in Hillsborough
The North Carolina Highway Historical Marker Program cast marker G-108 for James Hogg, the Scottish-born merchant and university trustee. It stands on South Churton Street and points to his home half a mile east and his grave two blocks north.
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A state highway marker for Elizabeth Keckly goes up on North Churton Street in Hillsborough
North Carolina highway marker G-115, cast in 2002, stands on North Churton Street at Union Street in Hillsborough. It records Keckly as a Burwell family slave who lived there in the 1830s, bought her freedom in 1855, dressed Mary Todd Lincoln and published her memoir in 1868.
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North Carolina recognizes the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation
Following the 2001 appeals ruling, the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation became the eighth tribe officially recognized by the State of North Carolina through the Commission of Indian Affairs.
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Renaming of Hamilton Hall is recommended
After a reevaluation of Hamilton's career, the building housing UNC's History Department was recommended for a name change. Critics pointed to his white supremacist Reconstruction scholarship and to a manuscript collection gathered from white families.
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State highway marker for the Occaneechi Indian Tribe dedicated at the tribal center
North Carolina dedicated highway historical marker G-142, which notes the band's 2002 state recognition, at the Occaneechi Tribal Center on Dailey Store Road, and the tribe opened a new community center the same day.
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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.
