Skip to content

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.

Search and filters

Search and filters · 1 active

13 dated events match your filters.

Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–13.Back to highlights

Earliest first. Scroll sideways, or use the arrows.

13 dated events
1926Early twentieth century
  1. Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
  2. Black farmers Joe B. Brooks and John W. Jones organize Jones Grove Missionary Baptist Church

    Founding or opening · Jones Grove Missionary Baptist Church, Jones Grove Church Road off Coleman Loop Road, Hillsborough vicinity

    African American farmers Joe Bethel Brooks and John William Jones founded the Jones Grove congregation north of Hillsboro. Its members were close to Lea's (now Lee's) Chapel Baptist Church at Cedar Grove, where the Brooks family lived.

    Subject: Jones Grove Missionary Baptist Church

  3. Joseph H. Jones deeds a quarter acre of his farm to the Jones Grove church trustees

    Property or economic transaction · Jones Grove Missionary Baptist Church, Jones Grove Church Road off Coleman Loop Road, Hillsborough vicinity

    John Jones's father, Joseph H. Jones, gave a quarter-acre of his farm to the trustees of the new Jones Grove congregation: his son John, Joe Brooks and Joe's brother William Brooks. The deed also marks the line of the Ridge Road School lot to the south.

    Subject: Jones Grove Missionary Baptist Church

  4. Jones Grove Missionary Baptist Church dedicates its first sanctuary

    Construction or physical change · Jones Grove Missionary Baptist Church, Jones Grove Church Road off Coleman Loop Road, Hillsborough vicinity

    Members and neighbors built a front-gable weatherboarded church, finished early in 1928, with Buck Jacobs giving a large cash gift, William Brooks the sand and Aldolphus Hester the logs; John Jones hauled lumber in a white neighbor's truck. Rev. Joe B. Brooks led the dedication.

    Subject: Jones Grove Missionary Baptist Church

  5. Civil rights era · 1945–1975
  6. Rev. Joe B. Brooks, founding pastor of Jones Grove, dies

    Life event · Jones Grove Missionary Baptist Church, Jones Grove Church Road off Coleman Loop Road, Hillsborough vicinity

    Joe Bethel Brooks, a farmer who helped found Jones Grove Missionary Baptist Church in 1926, led it as pastor until his death.

    Subject: Jones Grove Missionary Baptist Church

  7. Rev. George W. Davis of Durham becomes pastor of Jones Grove

    Appointment, election or service · Jones Grove Missionary Baptist Church, Jones Grove Church Road off Coleman Loop Road, Hillsborough vicinity

    Rev. George W. Davis took charge of the Jones Grove congregation after Joe Brooks's death and served for twenty years, a period that saw the frame church replaced.

    Subject: Jones Grove Missionary Baptist Church

  8. Jones Grove dedicates a concrete-block church built by its own members

    Construction or physical change · Jones Grove Missionary Baptist Church, Jones Grove Church Road off Coleman Loop Road, Hillsborough vicinity

    Congregants Otha Thompson and A. J. Breeze served as general contractors and Thomas Watkins supplied lumber for a front-gable concrete-block sanctuary paid for with members' gifts. The 1928 frame church to the west was torn down when it was done.

    Subject: Jones Grove Missionary Baptist Church

  9. Jones Grove adds a rear wing to its church

    Construction or physical change · Jones Grove Missionary Baptist Church, Jones Grove Church Road off Coleman Loop Road, Hillsborough vicinity

    In the mid-1970s the congregation built a rear addition holding the pastor's office, restrooms and a baptismal pool, and covered the sanctuary walls with wood-look paneling.

    Subject: Jones Grove Missionary Baptist Church

  10. Rev. Theodore C. Nicholson begins a 41-year pastorate at Jones Grove

    Appointment, election or service · Jones Grove Missionary Baptist Church, Jones Grove Church Road off Coleman Loop Road, Hillsborough vicinity

    Rev. Theodore C. Nicholson of Durham led Jones Grove Missionary Baptist Church from 1975 to May 30, 2016. During his tenure he ordained six associate pastors, among them his wife Bessie M. Nicholson.

    Subject: Jones Grove Missionary Baptist Church

  11. Recent decades · 1976–2026
  12. Jones Grove builds a fellowship hall on land given by the Brooks family

    Construction or physical change · Jones Grove Missionary Baptist Church, Jones Grove Church Road off Coleman Loop Road, Hillsborough vicinity

    Luther A. Brooks, son of the founding pastor, and his wife Catherine gave a tenth of an acre east of the church for a fellowship hall, begun in spring 1990 and finished in January 1991.

    Subject: Jones Grove Missionary Baptist Church

  13. Jones Grove names its fellowship hall for the Brooks family

    Naming or commemoration · Jones Grove Missionary Baptist Church, Jones Grove Church Road off Coleman Loop Road, Hillsborough vicinity

    The congregation named its 1991 fellowship hall in honor of the Brooks family, who had founded, led and given land to the church.

    Subject: Jones Grove Missionary Baptist Church

  14. Jones Grove pays off its mortgage and adds a steeple built by a deacon

    Construction or physical change · Jones Grove Missionary Baptist Church, Jones Grove Church Road off Coleman Loop Road, Hillsborough vicinity

    The congregation marked the end of its mortgage along with the year's improvements: new carpet, lights and pew cushions, and a steeple that deacon Gotha C. Watkins built and gave.

    Subject: Jones Grove Missionary Baptist Church

  15. Emma Torian Jones gives her home lot beside Ridge Road School to Jones Grove Church

    Property or economic transaction · Ridge Road School, 2705 Coleman Loop Road (formerly Ridge Road), Hillsborough vicinity

    Emma Torian Jones donated the lot west of the school, where she and her husband had lived since the 1960s, to Jones Grove Missionary Baptist Church; the house was later torn down, returning the ground to woods. The Torian heirs had also deeded the school parcel to the church.

    Subject: Jones Grove Missionary Baptist Church · Ridge Road School

  16. Tremaine Royster becomes the fourth pastor of Jones Grove

    Appointment, election or service · Jones Grove Missionary Baptist Church, Jones Grove Church Road off Coleman Loop Road, Hillsborough vicinity

    Tremaine Royster became Jones Grove Missionary Baptist Church's fourth pastor; the church, which owns Ridge Road School, also runs a food bank.

    Subject: Jones Grove Missionary Baptist Church

Suggest a correction to an entry →

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 2, 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