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Colonial and Regulator years · 1680–1774
- 1740s
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Settlers from Pennsylvania and Virginia come down the Great Wagon Road into the Haw and Eno country
From the 1740s families moving south from Pennsylvania, Maryland and western Virginia along the Great Wagon Road took up land in the Piedmont backcountry that became Orange County in 1752. Quaker families reached the Cane Creek country by this route, and German and Scotch-Irish families entered the colony the same way.
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William Hooper, signer of the Declaration and a Hillsborough resident, was born
William Hooper was born in Boston; he later lived in Hillsborough.
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The Granville District land office grants the land that became Orange County
The country on the Eno, Haw and Little River lay inside Earl Granville's one eighth share of Carolina, set off in 1742 and run from Edenton through agents including Francis Corbin and Thomas Child. Grants of unclaimed land were made from 1748 until Granville's death in 1763, and William Churton was the surveyor who mapped much of the district.
- 1750s
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The Great Trading Path across the Eno becomes the settlers' wagon road
The Indian route that Virginia traders had used since the 1670s crossed the Flat and Little rivers, forded the Eno at the place where the county town was laid out, and crossed the Haw near Swepsonville. After colonists reached the Piedmont in the mid eighteenth century the path was widened into a wagon road, and it is drawn on the colonial maps of Moseley, Collet and Mouzon.
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Orange County is created
The colonial assembly formed Orange County from portions of Bladen, Granville, and Johnston counties. Its original boundaries were far larger than those of present-day Orange County.
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Richard Caswell serves as the first clerk of the Orange County court
Caswell, a deputy clerk in Johnston County, became the first clerk of the court of the newly formed Orange County. He held the post only briefly and resigned on being appointed high sheriff of Johnston.
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The town on the Eno is incorporated as Childsburg
The town William Churton had laid out in 1754 as Corbin Town or Corbinton was incorporated by act of assembly in 1759 as Childsburg, named for Thomas Child, the colony's attorney general. It was renamed Hillsborough in 1766.
- 1760s
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Abner Nash settles briefly in Hillsborough and builds the town's first mill on the Eno
The Virginia lawyer Abner Nash moved to Hillsborough, then called Childsburgh, in 1762 or early 1763 with his younger brother Francis. He bought town lots, dammed the Eno River and built the town's first mill before moving to Halifax by 1764.
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Francis Nash becomes clerk of the Orange County court
Having settled at Childsburgh (Hillsborough), where he kept a store and a law practice, Francis Nash became clerk of the Orange County court in 1763. A superior court clerkship at Hillsborough was possible only after the 1767-68 act made the town a district court seat, with its first term in March 1768.
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Henry Pattillo becomes pastor of the Hawfields, Eno and Little River churches
Henry Pattillo moved to Orange County as pastor of the Hawfields, Eno and Little River Presbyterian churches and served them for nine years, becoming known as "Father Pattillo." He was the first regularly installed minister at Eno.
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Henry Pattillo keeps a classical school in his Orange County home
While pastor of the Hawfields, Eno and Little River churches, Pattillo began a classical school for men in his home.
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Childsburgh is renamed Hillsborough
Childsburgh was renamed Hillsborough in honor of Wills Hill, Earl of Hillsborough.
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William Few takes over management of a second family farm near Hillsborough
In 1767 William Few Sr. bought another farm about seven miles from Hillsborough, and his son William, then nineteen, took over its management.
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Clerk Francis Nash is cleared of charging illegal fees
In the first Regulator complaints against Orange County officials in 1768, the clerk Francis Nash was accused of taking illegal fees. He was exonerated.
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Deputy attorney general John Williams signs the order jailing Herman Husband and William Butler
Appointed deputy attorney general for the Hillsborough district in 1768, Williams signed the order that sent the Regulator leaders Husband and Butler to jail after the April disturbance in Hillsborough. NCpedia suggests this is why the rioters beat him in 1770.
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George Micklejohn carries messages between the Regulators and the authorities
During the 1768 unrest the Hillsborough rector acted several times as a courier between the Regulators and the authorities, seeking a peaceful settlement. The Regulators called him "our Rector."
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Nathaniel Rochester goes to work for a Hillsborough merchant
At sixteen Rochester took employment with James Monroe, a Scottish merchant in Hillsborough, the seat of Orange County. Within two years he was made clerk of the vestry of St. Matthew's Parish.
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Regulator William Butler serves as an Orange County tax collector and deputy sheriff
William Butler, a farmer living near Sandy Creek, was appointed a county tax collector in Orange County in 1768 and a deputy sheriff in 1770, in the same years he emerged as a principal leader of the Regulators.
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Thomas Hart begins a term as Orange County sheriff and is made militia captain and commissary
Thomas Hart began his second term as sheriff of Orange County in 1768. The same year he was made a captain in the Orange County militia and commissary for the troops of Orange and Granville counties.
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George Micklejohn preaches to Tryon's militia at Hillsborough
Before Governor Tryon and the troops raised against the Regulators, Micklejohn preached on the important duty of subjection to the civil powers. Tryon had the sermon printed and distributed, and it cost Micklejohn favour with opponents of royal authority.
- 1770s
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Lawyer John Kinchen moves from Halifax to Hillsborough
Kinchen sold 1,300 acres in Northampton County and moved to Hillsborough to practise law in Orange County's growing courts. He kept his law office in town and bought a plantation called Tar Hill in the St. Mary's community, staying about ten years.
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Regulators name the Orange County sheriff one of two officials charging fair fees
John Butler of the Hawfields was sheriff of Orange County in 1770, at the height of the Regulator crisis, and testified to the General Assembly that the Regulators had obstructed him in carrying out his duties. A Regulator petition of October 1770 nonetheless named him as one of only two public officials charging fair fees for their services.
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Governor Tryon's army buys supplies at Ralph McNair's Hillsborough store
On his expedition against the Regulators, Governor William Tryon bought supplies at McNair's Hillsborough store, including Delft bowls and gilt tin cups.
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Regulator leader Thomas Person is held in irons at Hillsborough
After the Battle of Alamance, Governor Tryon had Thomas Person seized and held in irons in Hillsborough for three weeks, during which he was marched to the gallows and back. He was released without trial.
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James Thackston raises a company of Orange County militia against the Regulators
Thackston enlisted sixty-two Orange County men into a militia company for the 1771 campaign against the Regulators.
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Willie Jones is made Tryon's aide-de-camp on the march into Orange County
Jones marched into Orange County with Governor William Tryon's colonial militia and was appointed Tryon's aide-de-camp on May 15, 1771, the day before Tryon defeated the Regulators at Alamance. Several days later he was sent to raid the plantation of the Regulator leader Herman Husband.
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Battle of Alamance
Governor William Tryon's militia defeated the Regulators at Alamance. James Few, captured on the field, was hanged at Tryon's camp the next day.
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Francis Nash builds his house on West Tryon Street
Francis Nash built the house now called the Nash-Hooper House on West Tryon Street in Hillsborough in 1772, on land bought from Isaac Edwards. After his death in 1777 it passed through other hands to William Hooper in 1782.
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Rochester becomes a partner in a Hillsborough store
Rochester joined James Monroe and John Hamilton as a partner in a Hillsborough store in 1773. The business prospered but was liquidated in 1775 as the Revolution approached.
Revolution and early republic · 1775–1799
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James Hogg moves to Hillsborough and opens his company's office there
The merchant James Hogg, who had brought emigrants from Scotland to North Carolina in 1774, moved from Cross Creek to Hillsborough about 1775 to open his company's office, and lived at Old House on his land east of town.
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William Johnston produces gunpowder, lead and flints at Snow Hill
During the Revolution Hillsborough merchant William Johnston apparently produced gunpowder, lead and rifle flints at his Snow Hill plantation northeast of the town.
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Richard Bennehan buys the land that began the Stagville plantation
Bennehan bought land northeast of Snow Hill on the west side of the Flat River, the start of what became the Stagville-Fairntosh plantation complex.
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Rochester is named to a commission to set up a gun factory near Hillsborough
The commission was to establish a gun factory near Hillsborough, and Rochester led a wagon train to Philadelphia to obtain iron for it. Illness later that year ended his military service.
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William Hooper signs the Declaration of Independence
William Hooper signed the Declaration in Philadelphia. He later became a Hillsborough resident.
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A special Hillsborough District court fails to sit when John Penn does not appear
Governor Richard Caswell named John Kinchen and John Penn judges of a special court of oyer and terminer for the Hillsborough District. Penn did not come, Kinchen would not sit alone, and no court was held.
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James Hogg sits on the Hillsborough board of commissioners
James Hogg, a member of the Hillsborough Committee of Safety during the Revolution, sat on the town's board of commissioners in 1777.
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Rochester serves as clerk of the Orange County court
Rochester resigned his seat in the first General Assembly of the state to become clerk of court. He was also commissioned to supervise the building of a new courthouse and to help establish an academy in the Hillsborough area, and he gave up the clerkship in 1778 because its fees did not cover the expenses of the office.
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Rochester opens a Hillsborough store with Thomas Hart and James Brown
The partnership was successful and Rochester began putting his earnings into real estate. The business was liquidated in 1780 when British occupation of Hillsborough became a probability, and Hart moved his family to Maryland.
- 1780s
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James Thackston gathers Continental recruits and returned deserters at Hillsborough
With the Southern army broken at Camden in August 1780, the Board of War sent Lieutenant Colonel Thackston to collect fresh recruits and returning deserters at Hillsborough. By the middle of November he had gathered just sixteen men.
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General Assembly at Hillsborough relieves Richard Caswell of command of the state militia
After commanding the North Carolina militia in the defeat at Camden, Caswell reported to the General Assembly sitting at Hillsborough. On September 12 the Assembly took his illness into account and relieved him temporarily of command of the state militia, leaving him the separate command of the North Carolina Partisan Rangers.
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David Fanning raids Hillsborough and captures Governor Burke
Fanning’s Loyalists captured Governor Thomas Burke during a surprise raid on Hillsborough.
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Butler's militia ambushes Fanning's Loyalists at Lindley's Mill
The day after David Fanning's raid carried Governor Thomas Burke out of Hillsborough, John Butler rode with about four hundred militia to the ford where the Wilmington road crossed Cane Creek at Lindley's Mill and laid an ambush with Colonel Robert Mebane. The opening volley killed Colonel Hector McNeil, but Fanning organized a flanking attack that drove the militia from the field, and the prisoners went on to Wilmington.
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Thomas Burke dies at Tyaquin
Thomas Burke died at his farm near Hillsborough after serving as North Carolina’s governor.
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Thomas Lloyd signs his lands and enslaved people over to his sons-in-law
To keep his property from confiscation as a Loyalist, Thomas Lloyd conveyed his lands and the people he enslaved to his sons-in-law Daniel and John Hogan for nominal sums and leased them straight back. His property was never confiscated.
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Richard Bennehan buys land from Judith Stagg and opens the Stagville Store
After William Johnston's death in 1785 Bennehan opened his own store, on land he bought from Judith Stagg, which became the Stagville Store.
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Benjamin Smith serves as a trustee of the university
Benjamin Smith of Brunswick County, the university's first donor, sat on its board of trustees from the charter of 1789 until 1824, and was president of the board in 1810 while governor.
- 1790s
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Richard Stanford opens an academy in the Hawfields
Richard Stanford, who had come to the Hawfields district of Orange County from Maryland in 1789, opened an academy there. Thomas Hart Benton was among his early pupils.
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Richard Bennehan gives shells for mortar for Old East
Bennehan donated fifty bushels of shells for making mortar for the university's first building. In 1796 he gave an air pump and thirty-two books.
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Charles Wilson Harris joins the new university as professor of mathematics
Harris joined the faculty in March 1795, weeks after the university opened, as professor of mathematics. On June 3, 1795 he organized the students into the debating club that became the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies.
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Charles Wilson Harris acts as presiding professor
After David Ker resigned under pressure from the trustees in the summer of 1796, Harris acted as presiding professor until his own resignation that December. He had persuaded Joseph Caldwell to join the faculty in October 1796.
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Pleasant Henderson is chosen steward of the university
Pleasant Henderson moved from Mt. Pleasant to Chapel Hill in 1797 and was chosen steward of the University of North Carolina, following John Taylor in the post. A UNC Libraries exhibit records that he owned nineteen enslaved people.
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Duncan Cameron sets up as a lawyer at Hillsborough
Cameron was admitted to the North Carolina bar in 1798 and, after a brief practice at Martinsville in Guilford County, established himself as a successful attorney at Hillsborough. A rivalry with another young Hillsborough lawyer, William Duffy, followed.
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Archibald D. Murphey graduates from the university and joins its faculty
Archibald D. Murphey graduated with honors from the University at Chapel Hill in 1799 and was hired at once as a tutor. The next year he became professor of languages, one of three faculty members, and also served as librarian before resigning to study law in Hillsborough.
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Richard Bennehan builds the Stagville house
Bennehan built the house he called Stagville. By then he owned about 4,000 acres, worked by 44 or more enslaved people. The same year he joined the university's board of trustees.
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Judge John Williams falls ill while holding court at Hillsborough
Williams, on the superior court bench since 1779, became ill while presiding at Hillsborough. He died at Montpelier, his Granville County plantation, on October 10, 1799.
Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865
- 1800s
-
Cameron becomes a trustee of the University of North Carolina
Cameron joined the board of trustees of the University of North Carolina in 1802, while he was practicing law at Hillsborough.
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Pleasant Henderson gives up the stewardship and opens a store
Henderson gave up the university stewardship in 1802 and declined the trusteeship he was elected to. About this time he went into business as Henderson and Searcy, and he kept his Chapel Hill residence while serving as clerk of the House of Commons from 1807 to 1830.
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William Gaston serves as a trustee of the university
William Gaston sat on the university's board of trustees from 1802 until his death in January 1844, some forty-two years.
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William Norwood gives $100 toward finishing South Building
William Norwood of Hillsborough contributed $100 toward finishing South Building at the university.
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William Norwood represents the borough of Hillsborough in the House of Commons
Hillsborough lawyer William Norwood was elected to the House of Commons for the borough of Hillsborough in 1806 and reelected in 1807.
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Frederick Nash is elected a trustee of the University of North Carolina
Nash was elected a trustee of the University of North Carolina in 1807 and remained an active supporter of the university. It awarded him an LL.D. in 1853.
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Frederick Nash moves from New Bern to Hillsborough
Nash and his wife left New Bern for Hillsborough in 1807 seeking a healthier climate. There he bought a small one-story house, an office and cabins for slave quarters from Duncan Cameron.
- 1810s
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Dr. James Webb serves as Hillsborough agent of the Bank of Cape Fear
In 1810 Dr. James Webb was appointed Hillsborough agent, or cashier, of the branch of the Bank of the Cape Fear, a post he held until 1846. The branch rented a small building on West King Street, and many of its stockholder lists, dividend records and at least one ledger survive.
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Polly Burke buys her house on East Queen Street
Mary Williams Burke, the only child of Governor Thomas Burke, bought a modest house on East Queen Street in Hillsborough for four hundred dollars on June 5, 1810, when she was twenty-eight. She added the east bay to the house, which was later enlarged and named Heartsease.
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Frederick Nash represents Orange County in the House of Commons
Nash sat for Orange County in the House of Commons in 1814, 1816 and 1817. He was speaker of the house in 1814.
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William Norwood becomes a trustee of Hillsborough Academy
William Norwood was a trustee of Hillsborough Academy by 1816 and chaired its board in 1826.
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Witherspoon takes charge of the Hillsborough Academy
Returning to Hillsborough at twenty-five, Witherspoon took a double charge: the pastorate of the newly built Presbyterian church and the principalship of the closely allied Hillsborough Academy. He gave up the academy sometime after 1819.
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Polly Burke helps organize the Hillsborough Presbyterian Church
In September 1816 Mary W. Burke joined eight other people and the Rev. John Knox Witherspoon to organize the Hillsborough Presbyterian Church, which acquired the town's brick church built in 1810. She rented pew 13 on the first pew list and supported the church for the next eighteen years.
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Hillsborough physician James S. Smith serves in Congress
James Strudwick Smith, an Orange County-born physician who had studied medicine with Dr. James Webb of Hillsborough, represented the Hillsborough district in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Congresses from March 4, 1817, to March 3, 1821. He was defeated when he sought a third term.
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Dr. James Webb deeds land for Polly Burke's log schoolhouse
On November 6, 1817, Dr. James Webb deeded to his neighbor Mary W. Burke a strip of his lot on East Queen Street, where a log schoolhouse was built for her to teach the Webb children. Known as Miss Polly Burke's School, it took neighborhood children from about 1818 to 1834 and is cited as a forerunner of the Burwell School.
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George E. Badger serves as a trustee of the university
George E. Badger sat on the university's board of trustees from 1818 to 1844. He was one of the first members of its executive committee in 1835, served on its land committee and as its counsel in the Tennessee land suits, and moved the creation of a chair of modern languages.
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William Woods Holden is born near Hillsborough
William Woods Holden, later editor of the North Carolina Standard and governor, was born near Hillsborough to Thomas Holden and Priscilla Woods. His grandfather had moved to Orange County to farm, and from age six he was raised by his stepmother, Sally Nichols Holden.
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Denison Olmsted begins teaching chemistry at Chapel Hill
Appointed in November 1817 to the university's new professorship of chemistry, Olmsted spent a year studying with Benjamin Silliman at Yale and began teaching at Chapel Hill in the fall of 1819. He stayed until the end of 1825, when Elisha Mitchell succeeded him.
- 1820s
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Josiah Turner Jr. is born in Hillsborough
Josiah Turner Jr. was born in Hillsborough, the eldest son of Josiah and Eliza Evans Turner. His father was a longtime sheriff and large landowner in Orange County.
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Hugh Waddell begins practising law in Hillsborough
Waddell, an 1818 graduate of the university, began to practise law in Hillsborough and Orange County in 1823 and kept his practice there until 1867, when he moved to Wilmington.
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Jonathan Worth comes to Hillsborough to read law under Archibald D. Murphey
Worth moved to Hillsborough to study law with the judge Archibald DeBow Murphey, who became his mentor. In 1824 he married Murphey's niece, Martitia Daniel, and then settled in Asheboro to practice.
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William Norwood is elected first junior warden of the reorganized St. Matthew's Church
When St. Matthew's Episcopal Church in Hillsborough was reorganized, William Norwood was elected its first junior warden.
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Fire destroys Witherspoon's farmhouse and the Orange Presbytery records
The fire burned the Witherspoons' rural home a mile and a half south of Hillsborough and its contents, including all but one volume of the old records of Orange Presbytery, which Witherspoon held as stated clerk. Losses were put at about 3,000 dollars and the house was rebuilt.
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Frederick Nash represents the town of Hillsborough in the House of Commons
Having earlier sat for Orange County, Nash represented the town of Hillsborough itself in the House of Commons in 1828 and 1829.
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Orange County sends Hugh Waddell to the House of Commons
Waddell was elected to the House of Commons from Orange County for the 1828-29 session and again in 1835, and then served Orange in the state senate in five sessions between 1836 and 1848, as president of the senate in 1836.
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William W. Holden serves as an apprentice printer at the Hillsborough Recorder
At about age ten Holden was apprenticed as a printer's devil to Dennis Heartt, editor of the Hillsborough Recorder, who was responsible for his early education and political views. He struck out on his own at about sixteen, working first for the Milton Chronicle.
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William A. Graham establishes a law practice in Hillsborough
Graham read law with Thomas Ruffin of Orange County and, having taken his county and superior court licences, had established a practice among the Hillsborough bar by March 1828. He kept a law practice until his death and in time owned three plantations worked by enslaved people.
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George Moses Horton publishes The Hope of Liberty
George Moses Horton’s The Hope of Liberty was published in Raleigh, with supporters hoping sales could finance his freedom.
- 1830s
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Giles Mebane stays at Chapel Hill as a university tutor
After graduating from the University of North Carolina in 1831, Giles Mebane remained in Chapel Hill as a tutor before starting to practice law.
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Hentz leaves the university and Chapel Hill for Kentucky
Hentz left the university in 1831. The local Presbyterian community had frowned on his Roman Catholic upbringing and suspected his politics, and after he left French was dropped from the curriculum.
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John DeBerniere Hooper teaches at the university as tutor and professor
After graduating in 1831 Hooper stayed in Chapel Hill as a tutor in languages, became professor of modern languages in July 1836 and professor of Latin in 1838. He and his wife left Chapel Hill in 1848 to teach and farm near Littleton.
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Cadwallader Jones graduates from the University of North Carolina
Jones, the son of Cadwallader and Rebecca Edwards Long Jones of West Hill near Hillsborough, took his degree at Chapel Hill in 1832.
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James Phillips is licensed to preach and later serves New Hope Presbyterian Church
Mathematics professor James Phillips joined the Presbyterian church in 1832 and was licensed to preach by Orange Presbytery in 1833. He was later ordained and installed as minister of New Hope Presbyterian Church, about seven miles outside Chapel Hill, and shared the university chapel work with Elisha Mitchell.
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Peter Dromgoole disappears from Chapel Hill
Peter Pelham Dromgoole came to Chapel Hill in January 1833, failed the university's entrance examination and studied under a tutor. That spring, after bitter letters with his father, he vanished from his lodgings, leaving most of his belongings and a debt to a Chapel Hill merchant.
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William A. Graham represents Hillsborough and then Orange County in the House of Commons
Graham was borough representative from Hillsborough in the legislatures of 1833, 1834 and 1835. After the constitutional reforms of 1835 he represented Orange County in the House of Commons in the 1836, 1838 and 1840 sessions, and he was speaker in the last two.
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Witherspoon ends seventeen years as pastor at Hillsborough
Witherspoon severed his connection with the Hillsborough Presbyterian Church and moved to Camden, South Carolina. His advocacy of religious education, Sunday schools and preaching for enslaved people had strained relations with his congregation.
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John Wall Norwood becomes treasurer and then a ruling elder of the Hillsborough Presbyterian Church
In 1834 Norwood succeeded the silversmith William Huntington as treasurer of the Hillsborough Presbyterian Church. In 1835 he was confirmed a ruling elder, a post he held until his death.
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Lemuel Lynch and William Huntington work as partners in Hillsborough
Back in Hillsborough by March 1834, the silversmith Lemuel Lynch went into a two-year partnership with John Huntington; their notices in the Hillsborough Recorder are signed John Huntington and Lemuel Lynch. Lynch had trained in William Huntington's shop. Afterward he kept his shop alone, perhaps with help from his sons or apprentices.
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Polly Burke leaves Hillsborough for Alabama
In August 1834 Mary W. Burke sold most of her household goods and moved to Greensboro, Alabama, with her niece's family, part of a wider migration of Hillsborough people to Alabama. After her nephew-in-law died there she settled in Marion, where she taught again for many years.
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Dr. James Webb builds the Presbyterian Sessions House in the Old Town Cemetery
In 1835 Dr. James Webb took a ninety-nine-year lease on the southeast corner of Hillsborough's Old Town Cemetery lot and built a frame Sessions House with a bell tower there. It served as the Presbyterian Sunday school room and later as a public library until 1934.
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Jones begins practicing law at Hillsborough
Jones began his legal career in Hillsborough in 1836 and practiced there until he moved his family to a cotton plantation near Rock Hill, South Carolina, in 1857. He sat in the House of Commons for the 1840, 1842, 1848 and 1850 sessions and became solicitor of the Fourth Judicial District in April 1843.
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Burwell School for young women operates
Robert and Margaret Anna Burwell operated their Hillsborough school for girls from 1837 to 1857.
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The Burwell School and the Burwell household
Anna Burwell opened a school for girls in Hillsborough in 1837 that ran until the family moved to Charlotte in 1857. In the same household Elizabeth Hobbs, later Elizabeth Keckly, was enslaved from 1835, beaten at Anna Burwell’s urging and subjected to years of sexual coercion before being sent back to Virginia in 1842; she bought her freedom in 1855.
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Manuel Fetter is elected professor of ancient languages
The trustees chose Manuel Fetter of New York to succeed William Hooper as professor of ancient languages. President Swain had first favored Henry Tutwiler of Alabama, but when Tutwiler withdrew he named Fetter over William E. Anderson of Hillsborough.
- 1840s
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Jones serves as a trustee of the University of North Carolina
Jones was a trustee of his own university from 1840 until 1857, the years he was practicing law at Hillsborough.
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Lemuel Lynch is appointed a justice of the peace
Lynch was appointed a justice of the peace in 1841 and afterward held court in Hillsborough.
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Moses Ashley Curtis becomes rector of St. Matthew's Church in Hillsborough
Curtis, an Episcopal priest who had taught at the church school in Raleigh, accepted a call to St. Matthew's Church in Hillsborough in June 1841. He did his botanical and fungus research from the town while serving the parish.
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Charles F. Deems joins the UNC faculty
President David L. Swain brought Deems, a young Methodist preacher, onto the faculty in 1842 as adjunct professor of rhetoric and logic, to have a Methodist among the professors. He resigned in 1848 for Randolph-Macon College.
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John Wall Norwood restores Poplar Hill
Following his father's death in 1842, Norwood restored Poplar Hill, the Hogg and Norwood family home on the Eno, from the house to its lawns and gardens. Old roses were brought from Wilmington and new beds and hedges laid out.
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Frederick Nash and Hugh Waddell open a law school in Hillsborough
Frederick Nash and Hugh Waddell gave notice on November 1, 1841 that they would open a school at Hillsborough to prepare young men for the bar from January 1, 1842, if at least eight students enrolled.
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Dr. James Webb is declared bankrupt and his goods are auctioned
Dr. James Webb was declared bankrupt on November 1, 1842, and his possessions were sold at public auction on December 11. His friends and neighbors bought back nearly everything offered for him and his family.
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Giles Mebane represents Orange County in the House of Commons
Giles Mebane sat for Orange County in the House of Commons from 1844 to 1849, until the western part of the county, where he was from, became Alamance County.
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David L. Swain organizes the Historical Society of the University of North Carolina
In January 1844 President David L. Swain announced the Historical Society of the University of North Carolina, with himself as president and the whole faculty as its executive committee. It set out to copy colonial records in British repositories and to collect North Carolina books, newspapers and papers at the university.
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Charles Phillips returns to Chapel Hill as a tutor of mathematics
Phillips accepted a call from President David L. Swain in July 1844 to return to the University of North Carolina as his father's assistant. He held the post of tutor of mathematics until 1853.
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Hillsborough citizens pay to refit the academy building for the Caldwell Institute
Townspeople paid for the repair and enlargement of the Hillsborough Academy building so that the Caldwell Institute could move in from Greensboro. The older school was absorbed into the institute under Alexander Wilson.
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Josiah Turner Jr. is admitted to the bar after studying law in Hillsborough
After schooling at the Caldwell Institute in Greensboro and a year at the University of North Carolina, Josiah Turner Jr. studied law for two years in Hillsborough and was admitted to the bar in about 1845. He soon built a large practice.
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Samuel F. Phillips opens a law practice in Chapel Hill
Phillips, who had grown up in Chapel Hill after his family moved there in 1826, studied law under President David L. Swain and in the new university law school, then began practising in Chapel Hill when he came of age in 1845.
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William Horn Battle becomes the university's professor of law
After teaching law from his office in Chapel Hill, Battle was professor of law at the university by 1845, and the university began offering the bachelor of law degree.
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Samuel Wellwood Hughes opens a classical school for boys near Cedar Grove
Samuel Wellwood Hughes opened his own academy in northern Orange County in January 1845. First called Cedar Grove Academy and later Hughes' Academy, it offered classical and mathematical courses modeled on the Bingham School and ran until his death in 1884.
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Witherspoon's farm Tusculum is sold at the courthouse door
Dr. Edmund Strudwick, who had long held the mortgages, bought the farm at public sale. Susan Witherspoon was allowed to stay on at Tusculum by Strudwick's provision.
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Builder John Berry enlarges a St. Mary's Road farmhouse into Sunny Side, his country home
John Berry, the Hillsborough brickmason and builder, enlarged and remodeled an older farmhouse on St. Mary's Road as a home for himself and named it Sunny Side. He kept his library there and lived there until his death in 1870.
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Caldwell Institute enrollment peaks at 100 in Hillsborough
Under Alexander Wilson the school reached a peak enrollment of 100 students in 1848. Attendance fell back to 68 the next year, and in 1850 the trustees voted to discontinue it.
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Solomon Pool studies at the university in Chapel Hill
Solomon Pool entered the University of North Carolina in 1849 at the age of seventeen and graduated in 1853 as the second honor student in a class of fifty-nine. He was a member of the Philanthropic Society while in Chapel Hill.
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Giles Mebane introduces the bill to form Alamance County from western Orange
On January 1, 1849, Giles Mebane, a member for Orange County, introduced a bill to create a new county from part of Orange. It passed, and he named the county Alamance.
- 1850s
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Samuel W. Hughes is named to Orange County's first board for examining teachers
On March 12, 1850, Samuel Wellwood Hughes was appointed to the first Orange County board to examine teachers for the common schools. In February 1852 he was also appointed to the county Board of Superintendents of Common Schools.
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Fordyce M. Hubbard serves as rector of the Chapel of the Cross
While teaching Latin at the university, the Rev. Fordyce M. Hubbard served as rector of the Chapel of the Cross, Chapel Hill's Episcopal church, from about 1851 until 1853. He took charge of the parish again after Francis W. Hilliard resigned in July 1865 and stayed until he left in late 1868.
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Frederick Strudwick graduates and begins practising law in Hillsborough
Frederick Nash Strudwick, born in Hillsborough on 27 June 1833 and schooled there, graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1851 and then began a law practice in Hillsborough.
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Zebulon Vance studies law at Chapel Hill
Vance entered the University of North Carolina early in 1851 and spent the rest of the year at Chapel Hill studying law under Judge William H. Battle and Samuel F. Phillips. He obtained his law licence in December 1851 and set up an office at Asheville early in 1852.
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Nancy Hilliard sells the Eagle Hotel, renamed the Union Hotel
In the early 1850s Miss Nancy Hilliard, long the students' and travelers' landlady, sold her hotel interest for $10,000 to Hugh B. Guthrie, who renamed the Eagle the Union Hotel. She went on to run the North Carolina Railroad eating house at Company Shops.
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James Strudwick Smith dies
James Strudwick Smith died on December 7, 1852. His family lived out their lives at the Smith Level Road house outside Chapel Hill, and his daughter Mary Ruffin Smith later gave land to the University of North Carolina.
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Witherspoon dies at Tusculum and is buried in the Old Town Cemetery
He died penniless at the Tusculum farmhouse on the thirty-seventh anniversary of the organization of the Hillsborough Presbyterian Church. His funeral was held in that church and he was buried nearby in the Nash-Strudwick plot of the Old Town Cemetery, where the congregation and townspeople paid for the obelisk over his grave.
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Solomon Pool becomes tutor of mathematics at the university
Pool was appointed tutor of mathematics at the University of North Carolina in December 1853, months after his own graduation. He received an honorary alumni master of arts degree in 1856.
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Richard H. Battle teaches at the university as a tutor
After graduating with first honors in 1854, Richard H. Battle stayed in Chapel Hill as a tutor of mathematics and Greek until 1858, reading law with his father, the law professor William H. Battle, and serving on the vestry of the Chapel of the Cross.
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Samuel F. Phillips teaches in the university law school
From 1854 to 1859 Phillips taught in the university law school at Chapel Hill.
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Benjamin Hedrick is appointed the university's professor of analytical and agricultural chemistry
The university appointed Benjamin Sherwood Hedrick to its new chair of analytical and agricultural chemistry. He held it until the trustees' executive committee dismissed him in October 1856.
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Elizabeth Keckly purchases freedom for herself and her son
Elizabeth Keckly purchased freedom for herself and her son in St. Louis, after earlier enslavement in Hillsborough.
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Orange County elects John Wall Norwood to the General Assembly
Norwood entered public life in 1856 when Orange County elected him a representative in the General Assembly, where he served until 1858.
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Samuel F. Phillips represents Orange County in the House of Commons
A Whig, Phillips was elected to the House of Commons in 1856 and 1858 and again in 1864 and 1865, representing Orange, and was chosen speaker in 1865. He moved to Raleigh in 1867.
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Dr. William P. Mallett moves his medical practice to Chapel Hill
After about fifteen years of practice in Fayetteville, Mallett moved to Chapel Hill so his children could attend the university. He treated villagers and students there for more than thirty years.
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The university dismisses Benjamin S. Hedrick over his Free Soil views
In 1856 faculty member Benjamin S. Hedrick admitted and defended in the newspapers his preference for the Free Soil party. President David L. Swain disapproved of his speaking out, and on October 18, 1856 the trustees' executive committee, meeting in Raleigh, dismissed Hedrick and paid his salary to the end of the session; Swain objected only that the committee had taken authority belonging to the full board.
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John Kimberly is elected the university's professor of agricultural chemistry
The university elected John Kimberly, a Harvard-trained chemist then teaching in eastern North Carolina, to the chair of agricultural chemistry in place of the dismissed Benjamin Hedrick.
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Robert Bingham becomes a partner in his father's school at the Oaks
After graduating from the University of North Carolina in 1857, Robert Bingham was admitted in July as junior partner in his father's school at the Oaks, which took the firm name W. J. Bingham and Sons. His brother William was also a partner.
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Adolphus W. Mangum serves as pastor of the Chapel Hill Methodist church
The Methodist minister Adolphus Williamson Mangum, born at Locust Grove on the Flat River in what was then Orange County, was pastor of the Methodist church in Chapel Hill in 1858 and 1859.
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New East and New West are built to William Percival's design
To house more students, the university built two dormitories with classrooms and debating society halls on either side of Old East and Old West, to designs by the English architect William Percival, with Thomas Coates as contractor. Work began in June 1858, and the faculty announced on July 31, 1861 that the buildings were ready to occupy.
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Frederick Nash dies in Hillsborough and is buried in the Old Town Cemetery
Nash fell ill returning from a synod meeting at New Bern and died at his Hillsborough home on Saturday, December 4, 1858, in his seventy-eighth year, while serving as chief justice of the state supreme court. He was buried in the Hillsborough Old Town Cemetery.
- 1860s
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John Kimberly expands laboratory teaching at the university
Back in Chapel Hill after a year of study abroad in 1859, John Kimberly expanded laboratory instruction in chemistry and introduced the university's first laboratory fee for supplies.
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William H. S. Burgwyn enters the University of North Carolina
Burgwyn entered the University of North Carolina as a freshman in 1860, after schooling near Baltimore and at Horner's School in Oxford. He left in 1861 because of illness.
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John Wall Norwood and Paul C. Cameron run relief for Orange County soldiers' families
Through the Civil War, Norwood and Paul C. Cameron oversaw aid to the families of Orange County men in the army, working out of Norwood's law office. In August 1864 they reported that between 1,500 and 2,000 county men had served.
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Solomon Pool is promoted to adjunct professor of mathematics
Pool was promoted to adjunct professor of mathematics in 1861 and held the position for six years. In 1866 he took leave to become a United States deputy appraiser in North Carolina on the understanding that the university need not reemploy him until it had need of him.
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William H. S. Burgwyn enrolls as a cadet at the Hillsborough Military Academy
Later in 1861 Burgwyn entered the Hillsborough Military Academy as a cadet. By the autumn he had been appointed drill master of the camp of instruction near Raleigh, and he was then elected a lieutenant in the Thirty-fifth North Carolina Regiment.
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Young men enroll at Chapel Hill in the Orange Light Infantry
William F. Strowd and other young men of the area, who had begun organizing a volunteer company on April 6, 1861, met at Chapel Hill on April 22 and enrolled for six months. As the Orange Light Infantry they were mustered into state service at Raleigh on May 13.
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Orange County elects William A. Graham to the secession convention
Graham had led Union men in defeating a February 1861 referendum to call a convention on disunion. After Fort Sumter he was elected by a large margin to represent Orange County in the Constitutional Convention of May 1861, where he stood unsuccessfully for the presidency of the convention before voting for secession.
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Robert Bingham goes to war with an Orange County militia company
Robert Bingham, a member of an Orange County militia company, enlisted in state service with his fellow members on March 8, 1862, and on March 25 was elected captain of Company G, Forty-fourth North Carolina Infantry. He was captured in June 1863 and held in Union prisons until he was exchanged in 1864.
Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899
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Charles Phillips is ordained at New Hope Church in Orange County
Phillips was ordained on 14 April 1866 at Orange County's New Hope Church, which had long been under the pastoral charge of his father James Phillips. Orange Presbytery had convened there on Wednesday, April 11, and ordained Phillips and Calvin H. Wiley during the meeting.
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Charles Phillips is dismissed from the university faculty
When the state's Reconstruction government reorganized the University of North Carolina in 1868, Phillips was dismissed from the faculty. He took a professorship at Davidson College in February 1869.
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William H. S. Burgwyn graduates from the university with first honors
After the Civil War Burgwyn re-entered the University of North Carolina as a sophomore and graduated in June 1868 with first honors, delivering the Latin salutatory address. He was a member of the Philanthropic Society.
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Alexander McIver joins the reorganized faculty as professor of mathematics
McIver, a Moore County native who had graduated first in the class of 1853 and taught briefly as a tutor, came from Davidson College to teach mathematics on the Republican faculty that reopened the university under Solomon Pool.
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Solomon Pool accepts the presidency of the university
Pool accepted the presidency of the University of North Carolina in 1869 at a salary of fifteen hundred dollars and was permitted to keep his federal appraiser post at the same time. Governor William W. Holden had taken charge of the board of trustees to secure a president with Republican affiliations.
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Robert G. Fitzgerald marries Cornelia Smith of Chapel Hill
Fitzgerald married Cornelia Smith, a niece of Mary Ruffin Smith, the Chapel Hill benefactor of the university. Their granddaughter Pauli Murray later told the family's story in Proud Shoes.
- 1870s
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Builder John Berry dies at Sunny Side while starting the Berry Building
John Berry, the self-taught builder of the Orange County Courthouse and a longtime state legislator, died of pneumonia at his home Sunny Side at 72. He had caught cold that winter while beginning his last project, a two-story brick store and ballroom downtown known as the Berry Building.
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Joseph E. Pogue clerks in his brother E. H. Pogue's Hillsborough store
At 18, Joseph Ezekiel Pogue left East Tennessee for Hillsborough, where he clerked in the general store of his brother, E. H. Pogue, until September 1871. He then became a traveling salesman for a tobacco factory, the start of a tobacco career that took him to Henderson in 1875 and Raleigh in 1885.
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Frederick Strudwick takes an unexpired Orange County seat in the House
In February 1870 Strudwick, a Democrat, was chosen to fill the unexpired term of J. J. Allison in the North Carolina House of Representatives. He was elected to a full two-year term that August.
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Strudwick is kept off the impeachment managers because of his Klan reputation
After guiding the impeachment resolution through the house judiciary committee and the full house, Strudwick was not chosen as a manager for the senate trial. It was feared that his widely known association with the Ku Klux Klan would make the proceedings look like a Klan prosecution.
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Joseph Blount Cheshire studies law under William K. Ruffin at Hillsborough
Cheshire read law for several months under William K. Ruffin of Hillsborough, a son of Chief Justice Thomas Ruffin. He then worked three months in a Tarboro law office and was licensed in January 1872.
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Solomon Pool asks alumni and friends to pay the university's debts
In January 1871 Pool addressed alumni and friends of the university and pleaded for money to pay off its debts. The appeal came too late, and the trustees decided that the institution should close on 1 February 1871.
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Orange County elects John Wall Norwood to the state Senate
Norwood was elected state senator for Orange in 1872. His speech on the amnesty bill, given in the Senate on January 27, 1873, was printed as a pamphlet.
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Robert Bingham takes charge of the Bingham School near Mebane
When his brother William died in 1873, Robert Bingham became headmaster of the Bingham School, which had moved from the Oaks to Mebane. In May 1879 he bought out his cousin William B. Lynch's interest and became sole proprietor.
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John Manning serves on the university's Board of Trustees
John Manning became a trustee of the University of North Carolina in 1874 and held the post for two decades, through the university's 1875 reopening.
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Adolphus W. Mangum joins the faculty of the reopened university
When the university reopened in 1875 Mangum became professor of mental and moral science, history and English language and literature. He taught until he died in Chapel Hill in May 1890 and was buried in the old Chapel Hill Cemetery.
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Charles Phillips returns to Chapel Hill and chairs the faculty
When the University of North Carolina reopened in 1875, Phillips was invited back as professor of mathematics and served as chairman of the faculty during his first year. Illness forced his retirement in 1879, when he became the first professor emeritus named by the trustees.
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John DeBerniere Hooper returns as professor of Greek and French when the university reopens
When the university reopened in 1875 Hooper was appointed professor of Greek and French. He resigned in October 1885 because of illness and died at his Chapel Hill home in January 1886.
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Ralph Henry Graves joins the faculty of the reopened university
Ralph Henry Graves returned to Chapel Hill in 1875 as professor of engineering at the newly reopened University of North Carolina. He later taught mathematics and held his professorship until his death in 1889.
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William A. Graham dies and is buried at Hillsborough
Graham died unexpectedly at Saratoga Springs, New York, on 11 August 1875, where he had gone for a meeting of the Virginia and Maryland arbitration commission. He was buried in the cemetery adjacent to the Hillsborough Presbyterian Church. He had been elected a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1875 but died before it assembled.
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Joseph Blount Cheshire is assigned to the Chapel of the Cross in Chapel Hill
Ordered deacon at Tarboro on 21 April 1878, Cheshire was assigned by Bishop Thomas Atkinson to the Chapel of the Cross in Chapel Hill at the request of university president Kemp P. Battle. He served his diaconate there under Robert Sutton, rector of the Pittsboro parish.
- 1880s
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Locke Craig teaches at the university and at a Chapel Hill school
After graduating from the university at nineteen, Locke Craig taught chemistry there for a short time and taught at a private school in Chapel Hill. Kemp Battle listed him among graduates then teaching as "Craig at Chapel Hill."
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William George Randall walks from Burke County to Chapel Hill to enter the university
Randall walked to Chapel Hill in the fall of 1880, was interviewed by President Kemp Battle and was helped by the Deems Fund. The Dialectic Society paid him as its librarian, the first year the post carried a salary.
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Joseph Blount Cheshire is ordained priest two years after coming to Chapel Hill
Cheshire was ordained priest on 30 May 1880 by Bishop Theodore B. Lyman in St. Paul's Church, Winston, two years after going to Chapel Hill. While based at the Chapel of the Cross he also organized a mission at Durham and built a church there named for St. Philip the Deacon.
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John Manning teaches law at the university
Elected professor of law in 1881, John Manning taught at Chapel Hill while keeping a private practice, and law enrollment grew from seven students to eighty-seven by 1897-98.
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Joseph Blount Cheshire leaves Chapel Hill to become rector at Charlotte
In the spring of 1881 Cheshire accepted a call to St. Peter's Church in Charlotte, ending about three years at the Chapel of the Cross. He was elected bishop of North Carolina in 1893.
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William H. S. Burgwyn is appointed a trustee of the University of North Carolina
Burgwyn was appointed a trustee of the University of North Carolina in 1883, the year after he returned to the state and settled at Henderson.
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Eben Alexander comes to Chapel Hill as professor of Greek
Eben Alexander, who had taught ancient languages at East Tennessee University for thirteen years, accepted the professorship of Greek at the University of North Carolina in 1886 and moved to Chapel Hill.
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Frank Porter Graham was born
Frank Porter Graham was born in Fayetteville; he later led UNC.
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Frederick Strudwick co-owns and edits the Hillsborough Recorder
On 10 August 1887 Strudwick and C. E. Parish became co-owners and editors of the Hillsborough Recorder. Their first issue promised a firm and conservative stand on matters of public welfare and a thoroughly Democratic line in politics. Strudwick left the paper after the issue of 8 March 1888.
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Samuel M. Gattis becomes chairman of the Orange County Democratic executive committee
In the year he began practicing law in Hillsborough, Gattis was elected chairman of the Orange County Democratic executive committee and a delegate to the party's national convention.
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Samuel M. Gattis becomes clerk of the Orange County superior court
Judge Gilmer appointed the young Hillsborough lawyer clerk of the superior court after Dr. Pride Jones resigned. Gattis was elected to the office in 1889 and held it until 1894.
- 1890s
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Robert Worth Bingham wins the university's Representative Medal
As a University of North Carolina student, Robert Worth Bingham won the Representative Medal in 1890 for his oration "Manifest Destiny and Manifest Duty."
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Frederick Strudwick dies and Hillsborough holds a meeting in his honor
Strudwick died on 29 July 1890 after an illness of several months and was buried in the Hillsborough Cemetery. A special town meeting led by C. E. Parish was convened in his honor. Between the legislature and his death he had served as solicitor for the Fifth District for eight years.
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David G. Worth pays to refit Gerrard Hall with numbered chairs
David G. Worth of Wilmington gave $500 toward remodeling the university chapel, Gerrard Hall, where chairs replaced the old benches. Each student was given a numbered seat so monitors could report absences from morning prayers.
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Charles Baskerville plays fullback for Carolina
Baskerville was fullback and manager of the Carolina football squads of 1892, 1893 and 1894.
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Collier Cobb joins the UNC faculty to teach geology
Cobb returned to Chapel Hill as assistant professor of geology and later headed the geology department. He taught at the university for forty years.
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Frank Nash returns to Hillsborough to live and write
After breakdowns in health ended most of his Tarboro law practice, Frank Nash moved back to Hillsborough, where he had grown up at the Nash-Kollock school. He stayed about twenty years and began writing historical romances and local history.
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Paul Green, playwright of The Lost Colony and an outspoken opponent of segregation, was born
Paul Green was born in Harnett County and entered UNC in 1916.
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Ernest Graves plays fullback on the undefeated 1898 Carolina football team
Graves, a Chapel Hill native, played fullback for the university and was a member of its undefeated, untied team of 1898. He scored 131 points in his Carolina football career.
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M. C. S. Noble joins the university as professor of pedagogy
Marcus Cicero Stephens Noble, superintendent of the Wilmington schools, was elected professor of pedagogy at the University of North Carolina by the trustees meeting at Raleigh on January 26, 1898. He also directed the university's summer school.
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Robert Worth Bingham endows a debate prize at the university
Robert Worth Bingham, a UNC alumnus practicing law in Louisville, endowed the university's Robert Worth Bingham prize in debate.
Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
- 1900s
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Charles Baskerville heads UNC's chemistry department
When Francis P. Venable became university president in 1900, Baskerville succeeded him as chairman of the chemistry department, Smith Professor and director of the chemical laboratory, posts he held until 1904.
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Ernest Graves captains the Carolina baseball team
Graves, the team's catcher, captained the university baseball team in 1900, the year he graduated.
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Thomas Wolfe, who came to Chapel Hill as a student in 1916, was born
Thomas Wolfe was born in Asheville and entered UNC in 1916.
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Charles E. Maddry serves as superintendent of the Orange County schools
While a student at the University of North Carolina, Charles Edward Maddry served as superintendent of the Orange County schools.
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Isaac Hall Manning joins the UNC medical faculty
Manning came to the School of Medicine in 1901 as professor of physiology and began teaching bacteriology in 1902.
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Josephus Daniels serves on the University of North Carolina board of trustees
Daniels became a member of the university board of trustees in 1901 and remained an active trustee until his death in 1948. During the 1920s he pressed for consolidating the state colleges at Chapel Hill, Raleigh and Greensboro into one university, and in 1930 he championed Frank P. Graham to succeed Harry Woodburn Chase as president.
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Josiah Turner Jr. dies at his Hillsborough home
Josiah Turner Jr., former Confederate congressman and editor of the Raleigh Sentinel, died at his home in Hillsborough and was buried in the churchyard of St. Matthew's Church.
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Charles E. Maddry is pastor of First Baptist Church, Hillsborough
Charles Edward Maddry was pastor of the First Baptist Church in Hillsborough while finishing his studies at the University of North Carolina.
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Shepperd Strudwick brings his family back to Hillsborough
Shepperd Strudwick, a native of Hillsborough, returned to the town with his family when his son Clement, born in Tennessee in April 1900, was two.
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Charles E. Maddry is ordained at the Chapel Hill Baptist Church
Charles Edward Maddry was ordained to the Baptist ministry at the Chapel Hill Baptist Church, now University Baptist Church.
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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.
