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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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27 dated events match your filters.

Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–27.Back to highlights

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27 dated events
1866Reconstruction and the New South
  1. Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899
  2. Quakers open a freedmen's school in Chapel Hill

    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill

    In 1866 Philadelphia Friends opened a school for Black children in Chapel Hill; by early 1867 it had been running more than half a year with 248 pupils, in a rented house while the freedpeople built a school and house of worship on a fifty-dollar lot the Friends had bought. The school, which came to stand on the land near West Franklin Street and Merritt Mill Road that Benjamin Craig and Green Cordal bought in 1866, merged into Orange County Training School in 1917.

    Part of Freedom, schools, and Black community-building after emancipation · 45 events

    People: Green Cordal · Benjamin Craig

    Subject: Orange County Training School / Lincoln High School

  3. Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
  4. Hackney's school on Merritt Mill Road is bought for a public training school

    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill

    Louis Hackney had opened his school for Black students on Merritt Mill Road in 1912. In 1916 the property was bought for a public training school for Black students, after Black residents raised $3,000 toward the purchase.

    People: Louis H. Hackney

    Subject: Orange County Training School / Lincoln High School

  5. Robert and Mollie Malone open Orange County Training School on the old Hackney campus

    Founding or opening · Orange County Training School, Merritt Mill Road, Chapel Hill

    Principal Robert E. Malone, his wife Mollie Holmes Malone as domestic science teacher, and two other teachers began classes in academic, industrial and farm subjects at the county's new training school for Black students. Black residents had raised $3,000 toward the board's 1916 purchase of the Hackney campus on Merritt Mill Road.

    Subject: Orange County Training School / Lincoln High School

  6. Orange County Training School enrolls 215 students

    Statistic or record · Orange County Training School, Merritt Mill Road, Chapel Hill

    Two years after it opened on the former Hackney campus in Chapel Hill, the county's training school for Black students had 215 enrolled.

    Subject: Orange County Training School / Lincoln High School

  7. Orange County Training School burns

    Disaster or outbreak · Countywide

    On June 12, 1922, a kitchen fire started by boarders in the neighboring Flanner-Carr House destroyed the Orange County Training School building, the Flanner-Carr House and several outbuildings. Classes met in scattered places until a Rosenwald-funded brick school opened in Northside in 1924.

    Part of Segregated schooling and the rise of Lincoln and Central High Schools · 45 events

    Subject: Orange County Training School / Lincoln High School

  8. Kennon Cheek helps negotiate the land swap that brought Hackney's school to Northside

    Property or economic transaction · Northside, Chapel Hill

    Cheek's daughter Marian Cheek Jackson said he was instrumental in negotiating the 1924 land swap that moved Hackney's Educational and Industrial School from South Merritt Mill Road into the Northside community.

    Part of Northside, Pine Knolls, and Tin Top · 43 events

    Subject: Orange County Training School / Lincoln High School

  9. Orange County Training School opens a Rosenwald campus

    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill

    The Orange County Training School's new brick building for Black students rose on land given by Henry Strowd at the north end of Church Street in Northside, Chapel Hill. Its cornerstone was laid on Labor Day 1924 and it opened late that year; the Rosenwald Fund gave $1,500 of its $23,112 cost, Black residents $500.

    Part of Segregated schooling and the rise of Lincoln and Central High Schools · 45 events

    Subject: Orange County Training School / Lincoln High School

  10. The county board moves $30,000 in building money to Efland and sets the order of its new schools

    Law, policy or court · Orange County

    The board shifted $15,000 each from the White Cross and Caldwell building funds to Efland, reasoning that Efland had the greater need, a local tax with an eight-month term, and a paved road for school trucks. It then fixed the building order as Efland, White Cross, Orange County Training School, Orange Grove and Caldwell.

    Subject: Orange County Training School / Lincoln High School · Efland schools

  11. Annual benefit football games fund Chapel Hill's Black public health nurse

    Health or relief action · Chapel Hill

    From 1927 a yearly football game played by Black teams on Fetzer Field, sponsored by the University YMCA, raised money for the public health nurse serving Chapel Hill's Black community, a project run by the Community Club. The 1941 game involved the Orange County Training School and raised $275 net.

    Subject: Orange County Training School / Lincoln High School · University YMCA

  12. A new Chapel Hill High School opens on Columbia Street

    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill

    Chapel Hill's new high school for white students, beside the Pittsboro road on what is now South Columbia Street, opened to classes on October 5, 1936, three weeks late. Built for $106,000 with Public Works Administration aid to plans by Atwood and Weeks, it came in the same federal program that built an addition at the Orange County Training School.

    Subject: Chapel Hill High School · Orange County Training School / Lincoln High School

  13. Wartime day nursery opens for the children of Black working mothers in Chapel Hill and Carrboro

    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill

    A federally funded day nursery for Black children opened at the Orange County Training School, caring for thirty children aged two to six from 7:15 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. while their mothers worked. Parents paid for food, and by October 1944 two nursery schools were running, one in the Masonic building on the edge of Carrboro and one on Brooks Street.

    Subject: Orange County Training School / Lincoln High School

  14. Civil rights era · 1945–1975
  15. Orange County Training School is renamed Lincoln High School

    Naming or commemoration · Chapel Hill

    In March 1949 the Parent-Teachers Association of the Orange County Training School, Chapel Hill's school for Black students, voted to rename it Lincoln High School and sent the request to the superintendent and school board. By May 13, 1949, the Chapel Hill Weekly reported that the name had been changed.

    People: Charles A. McDougle

    Subject: Orange County Training School / Lincoln High School

  16. Principal C. A. McDougle opens Lincoln High School's year under its new name

    Chapel Hill

    The Chapel Hill Weekly reported that Lincoln High School, the town's school for Black students, would open at 8:30 a.m. on Monday, September 12, 1949, as announced by Principal C. A. McDougle. The faculty list printed with the notice includes elementary teacher Mrs. Lucille R. McDougle and high school teacher Reginald D. Smith.

    Subject: Orange County Training School / Lincoln High School

  17. Lincoln High School opens on Merritt Mill Road

    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill

    In 1951 Lincoln High School, Chapel Hill's high school for Black students, moved from the old Orange County Training School building on Caldwell Street to a new building on Merritt Mill Road, and the old building became Northside Elementary. Lincoln used the Merritt Mill Road campus until 1966; the building is now the school district's Lincoln Center.

    People: Charles A. McDougle

    Subject: Orange County Training School / Lincoln High School · Northside School

  18. Hilliard Caldwell leads the Chapel Hill chapter of the New Farmers of America

    Appointment, election or service · Lincoln High School, Chapel Hill

    The Lincoln High School paper reported a prosperous 1954 to 1955 year for the chapter under Caldwell, its president, and printed his own account of the chapter's work.

    Subject: Orange County Training School / Lincoln High School

  19. Hilliard Caldwell writes the Negro Community news column for the Chapel Hill News Leader

    Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill

    Caldwell was named as correspondent at the head of the column, which carried news of Black Chapel Hill and asked Lincoln High School graduates to send in their college addresses for the next week's issue.

    Subject: Orange County Training School / Lincoln High School · The Chapel Hill News

  20. Hubert Robinson is named Man of the Year

    Award or honor · Lincoln High School, Chapel Hill

    After Robinson was re-elected alderman with the highest vote on the ticket, a group of Black citizens representing churches, fraternal organizations and civic clubs named him Man of the Year and gave a reception in his honor at the Lincoln High School gymtorium on June 11.

    Subject: Orange County Training School / Lincoln High School

  21. Lincoln High prepares to open with sixteen teachers and about four hundred pupils

    Statistic or record · Chapel Hill

    In the Chapel Hill News Leader's back to school report, Principal C. A. McDougle said Lincoln High School would have sixteen teachers and that enrollment would probably reach 400, against 381 on the first day of the previous year. Two of the teachers were new that year.

    Subject: Orange County Training School / Lincoln High School

  22. Lincoln High students picket Colonial Drug and sit in at the Bus Station Cafe

    Protest or organizing · Chapel Hill

    The day after the sit-in, nearly 100 Black high school students picketed Colonial Drug after manager John Carswell roped off its booths, while others filled the counter at the Bus Station Cafe until proprietor Leo Eliadis closed it and were served standing at the Long Meadow Dairy Bar.

    Part of Chapel Hill freedom movement, 1960–1964 · 35 events

    People: Harold Foster · Hilliard Caldwell

    Subject: Orange County Training School / Lincoln High School

  23. The Chapel Hill sit-in movement forms an executive committee and retains counsel

    Protest or organizing · Chapel Hill

    At a Tuesday night meeting the Lincoln High demonstrators and their adult supporters organized, set up an executive committee to coordinate the lunch-counter protests and acquired legal counsel.

    Part of Chapel Hill freedom movement, 1960–1964 · 35 events

    People: Harold Foster · Hilliard Caldwell

    Subject: Orange County Training School / Lincoln High School

  24. Lincoln High's football team wins an undefeated state championship

    Competition or sporting achievement · Chapel Hill

    Coach William D. Peerman's Lincoln High Tigers won the state 2-A football championship for Black high schools on November 22, 1961, beating previously unbeaten Ridgeview High of Hickory 22-0 to finish 12-0. The season was unbeaten but not unscored upon: Harnett High scored six points in the eastern title game.

    People: Charles A. McDougle

    Subject: Orange County Training School / Lincoln High School

  25. James Brittian is expelled from Lincoln High School after a civil rights march

    Life event · Chapel Hill

    Brittian, a student at the segregated Lincoln High School, was expelled for taking part in a civil rights protest march. He then became chairman of the Student Commission, a branch of the Chapel Hill Freedom Commission.

    Part of Segregated schooling and the rise of Lincoln and Central High Schools · 45 events

    Subject: Orange County Training School / Lincoln High School

  26. Gloria Williams asks the school board to readmit boycotting Lincoln High students

    Protest or organizing · Chapel Hill

    At the Chapel Hill school board meeting, Mrs. Gloria Williams, speaking for parents of students who had joined the Chapel Hill Freedom Committee's boycott of Lincoln High School, asked that all of them be readmitted. The board upheld the expulsion of two senior leaders, Henry Sanford and James Brittain, after Superintendent Howard Thompson said he would resign if they returned.

    Part of Segregated schooling and the rise of Lincoln and Central High Schools · 45 events

    Subject: Orange County Training School / Lincoln High School · Chapel Hill and Carrboro city schools

  27. Integrated Chapel Hill High opens on High School Road

    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill

    A new Chapel Hill High School campus opened on High School Road in 1966 as the town's first racially integrated high school, taking in the white student body from the Franklin Street school together with Lincoln High's students. Under freedom of choice the board had planned for white students to occupy the building a year before Black students joined, but Black students applied together for 1966 so that the school would not first be seen as belonging to the white students.

    Part of Segregated schooling and the rise of Lincoln and Central High Schools · 45 events

    Subject: Chapel Hill High School · Orange County Training School / Lincoln High School

  28. Lincoln High School closes during integration

    Closing or ending · Chapel Hill

    Lincoln High on Merritt Mill Road, the Black high school led since 1946 by principal C. A. McDougle, stopped operating as a secondary school in 1966 and its students were reassigned to the new Chapel Hill High, completing the desegregation of the district's schools. McDougle became an assistant principal there and Lincoln's championship football coach William D. Peerman was made an assistant coach after a contested board vote; Lincoln's name, colors, mascot and much of its memorabilia were not carried over.

    Part of School desegregation in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, 1959–1967 · 24 events

    People: Charles A. McDougle

    Subject: Orange County Training School / Lincoln High School · Chapel Hill High School

  29. Chapel Hill High School graduates its first desegregated class

    Chapel Hill

    The class of 1967 was the first to finish at the merged Chapel Hill High School. The school board then debated the fate of the empty Lincoln building through 1969 and 1970, and voted to keep it for school use after sustained objection from Black residents to selling it.

    People: Robert Campbell · Stella Nickerson

    Subject: Chapel Hill High School · Orange County Training School / Lincoln High School

  30. Recent decades · 1976–2026
  31. A new Northside Elementary opened on the old Training School grounds

    Founding or opening · 350 Caldwell Street, Chapel Hill

    The Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools opened a new Northside Elementary on the former Orange County Training School site. In 2012 neighbors had rallied to make sure the new school kept the Northside name.

    Subject: Orange County Training School / Lincoln High School · Chapel Hill and Carrboro city schools · Northside School

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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.

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Illustration by Caldecott Medalist Matthew Cordell, gifted to the Friends 2026