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Orange County Indexed

Chronology

Key events from Orange County history: 100 highlights to start, then the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, each connected to the index. A storyline gathers many dated events into one history, such as the Regulator crisis.

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7 dated events match your filters.

Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–7.Back to highlights

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7 dated events
1786Revolution and early republic
  1. Revolution and early republic · 1775–1799
  2. Sterling Harris builds the house on East Queen Street later called Heartsease

    Construction or physical change · 115 East Queen Street, Hillsborough

    Sterling Harris built the one-and-a-half-story core of the house about 1786. Polly Burke bought it in 1810 and added a bay, and Dennis Heartt's family named it Heartsease after 1837.

    Subject: Heartsease

  3. Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865
  4. Polly Burke buys her house on East Queen Street

    Property or economic transaction · Hillsborough, Heartsease (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.

    Subject: Heartsease

  5. Mary W. Burke deeds her Queen Street house to George Johnston, keeping one room

    Property or economic transaction · Heartsease, East Queen Street, Hillsborough

    Governor Thomas Burke's daughter Mary W. Burke sold her East Queen Street house and lot, later called Heartsease, to George Johnston for one dollar and kept the use of one room for herself. The next year Johnston gave up his claim for the same sum.

    People: George Johnston

    Subject: Heartsease

  6. Polly Burke's Queen Street house passes to Dennis Heartt's family

    Property or economic transaction · Hillsborough, Heartsease (East Queen Street)

    On May 4, 1837, Mary W. Burke, then living in Alabama, gave Dr. James Webb power of attorney to dispose of her remaining Hillsborough property. Her East Queen Street house was sold that year to the family of Recorder editor Dennis Heartt, who named it Heartsease and added a Greek Revival wing about 1840.

    People: James Webb · Dennis Heartt

    Subject: Hillsborough Recorder · Heartsease

  7. Dennis Heartt's family adds a two-story wing to Heartsease

    Construction or physical change · 115 East Queen Street, Hillsborough

    After buying Polly Burke's Queen Street house in 1837, the family of Recorder editor Dennis Heartt named it Heartsease and built a two-story Greek Revival wing on its west side about 1840.

    Subject: Heartsease

  8. The 1850 census finds Dennis Heartt's printers and apprentices living at Heartsease

    Statistic or record · Heartsease, East Queen Street, Hillsborough

    The 1850 census listed editor Dennis Heartt's household at Heartsease with his two daughters, his son Edwin with his wife and small daughter, two young printers, and four boys aged eleven to eighteen entered as students who were probably apprentices at the Hillsborough Recorder.

    People: Dennis Heartt

    Subject: Heartsease

  9. Civil rights era · 1945–1975
  10. Heartsease is listed in the National Register

    Naming or commemoration · Heartsease, Hillsborough

    On April 11, 1973 the National Park Service listed Heartsease in Hillsborough in the National Register of Historic Places.

    Subject: Heartsease

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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 1, 2026.

Two mice reading back to back against a leaf, with the hand-lettered words Friends of the Orange County Public Library
Illustration by Caldecott Medalist Matthew Cordell, gifted to the Friends 2026