Chronology

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1. Colonial and Regulator years · 1680–1774

2. 1768
   Founding or opening · New Sharon Methodist Church New Sharon Methodist Church is organized

   The church list dates New Sharon Methodist Church in Orange County to 1768, making it the oldest Methodist congregation the chapter names.

3. Civil rights era · 1945–1975

4. 1949
   Construction or physical change · New Sharon Church New Sharon Church members build a $50,000 church and pay for it in a year

   Members of New Sharon Church, most of them poultry farmers, put up a $50,000 building in 1949 and cleared the cost within one year.

5. March 9, 1958
   Construction or physical change · Lot 94, Hillsborough Hillsborough and New Sharon Methodists dedicate the parsonage they built together

   The two churches put up a new parsonage on lot 94 in 1957-58 at a cost of about $22,000 and dedicated it on a Sunday afternoon in March 1958, with W. A. Seawell as pastor and Taylor Bivins chairing the building committee.

6. about 1960
   Appointment, election or service · Hillsborough Methodist Church, Hillsborough Hillsborough and New Sharon Methodist churches each become a station church

   Two years after they finished their shared parsonage, Hillsborough and New Sharon left the charge arrangement and each became a station church with its own pastor.

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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 2, 2026.