Chronology

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1. Revolution and early republic · 1775–1799

2. 1779
   Pleasant Grove, Orange County William Cain acquires the Pleasant Grove plantation on the Trading Path

   William Cain acquired the Orange County property later called Pleasant Grove, beside the old Indian Trading Path, and held it until his death in 1834.

3. 1792
   Pleasant Grove, Orange County Hillsborough builders add a Federal-style house at Cain's Pleasant Grove

   The Cains commissioned the Hillsborough builders Martin Palmer and Samuel Hopkins to build a second, Federal-style house about ten feet from the original 1775 Georgian house at Pleasant Grove.

4. Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865

5. 1800
   Pleasant Grove, Orange County William Cain is the largest landowner in Orange County, enslaving 30 people

   By 1800 William Cain owned 4,417 acres, the most of any landowner in Orange County, and enslaved 30 people at Pleasant Grove, a number he increased to 95 by 1830.

6. 1842 to 1845
   Construction or physical change · Walnut Hall, Red Mountain, Orange County (Durham County since 1881) Willie P. Mangum builds Walnut Hall at Red Mountain

   Willie P. Mangum built Walnut Hall from 1842 to 1845 as an addition to his father's house of about 1800. His wife ran the 600-acre plantation, where Mangum enslaved 20 people in 1850.

7. Early twentieth century · 1900–1944

8. 1901
   Founding or opening · Lincoln Hospital, Durham Lincoln Hospital opens in Durham for Black patients

   Dr. Aaron Moore and John Merrick won Duke family funding for a separate hospital where Black physicians and nurses treated Black patients, after Watts Hospital had excluded them. It opened in 1901 as a 50-bed frame building.

9. 1925
   Construction or physical change · Chapel Hill Nash designs Spencer Hall, the university's first dormitory for women

   Spencer Hall, designed by Nash and under construction in 1924, opened in 1925 as the first dormitory for women at the University of North Carolina; the trustees gave it Cornelia Phillips Spencer's name in 1927. It was one of a series of dormitories he designed on the campus through the 1920s.

10. 1930
    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Nash retires and leaves Chapel Hill, staying on as consulting architect

    Nash retired in 1930 and moved to Washington, D.C., but continued as the university's consulting architect until 1953, advising on later campus work.

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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.