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Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–15.Back to highlights
Entries
Revolution and early republic · 1775–1799
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James Hogg moves across the Eno to Poplar Hill
Hogg, who owned the land along the south bank of the Eno opposite the town, lived east of Hillsborough on the later Cameron property until 1793 or 1794. He then moved across the river to Poplar Hill, later the site of Julian S. Carr's Occoneechee Farm.
Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865
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Peter Brown Ruffin buys the land that became Margaret Lane Cemetery
According to the Alliance for Historic Hillsborough, Peter Brown Ruffin, owner of Occoneechee Farm, bought the land now called Margaret Lane Cemetery as a burial ground for people enslaved by him and his neighbor Cadwalader Jones. Plaques placed in 1987 date burials there from before 1852, and it remained a burial ground for Black residents of Hillsborough until 1931.
Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899
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Julian S. Carr buys Poplar Hill south of the Eno and renames the estate Occoneechee Farm
John Wall Norwood sold Poplar Hill, the house James Hogg had built about 1794 on the south bank of the Eno, to the Durham industrialist Julian S. Carr, who renamed the property Occoneechee Farm. Carr enlarged and altered the house over the next three decades.
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Julian S. Carr rebuilds the Occoneechee mineral spring with a marble basin and a rustic spring house
On his new Occoneechee Farm, Carr had the old mineral spring cleaned out and extended, set a marble basin in it, laid a cement floor and covered it with a rustic spring house with seats for visitors. The Orange County Observer described the finished work in September 1891.
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Julian S. Carr nearly finishes a large stock barn at Occoneechee Farm
Carr's new stock barn at his Occoneechee plantation near Hillsboro was a brick and frame building 42 by 155 feet, with stalls for horses, mares and foals, storage for 500 tons of hay and an elevator.
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Julian S. Carr builds a fieldstone gate wall at the entrance to Occoneechee Farm
Carr put up a stone gate wall at the farm entrance, two curving walls of fieldstone gathered on the farm, one on each side of the driveway, set with round pillars capped by stacked round stones. The Durham Daily Globe reprinted the Orange County Observer's description in December 1891.
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Julian S. Carr's new club house at Occoneechee Farm is shown to an excursion from Raleigh
Julian S. Carr hosted students of the A. and M. College and their friends at Occoneechee Farm with a barbecue. The visitors toured his new rustic club house, with its stone fireplace, pool table, piano and a clock that played "Carolina."
Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
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Lightning burns the race track barn at Occoneechee Farm
During an electrical storm, lightning struck the "Pocahontas" or race track barn on Julian Carr's Occoneechee Farm, destroying it with its feed and farm machinery. No livestock were inside, and the loss was insured.
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A winter cyclone wrecks the dairy barn at Occoneechee Farm
A storm on a Friday night damaged every building on Julian Carr's Occoneechee Farm and demolished the dairy barn, killing a number of blooded cows. Carr began rebuilding at once.
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A freight wreck at the Occoneechee Farm siding sets a gasoline tank car burning
Three cars of a Southern freight train, one a gasoline tank car, left the track at the Occoneechee Farm siding east of Hillsboro. The tank car caught fire and burned through the night, a flour car and a lumber car burned, and passengers were transferred around the torn-up track until repairs the next afternoon.
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Julian Carr's Occoneechee Farm is sold at auction in small farms
Occoneechee Farm, divided into small farms along the Durham-Greensboro highway a mile from Hillsboro, was sold at auction with its personal property. Carr had already sold his Holstein herd to Chapel Hill dairyman C. H. Weaver.
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The Farmers Mutual Exchange builds a slaughterhouse on Occoneechee Farm
In summer 1943 the Exchange put up an abattoir next to the Hillsborough livestock market on Occoneechee Farm. Farmers could bring cattle and hogs for slaughter at cost and collect the meat the next day.
Civil rights era · 1945–1975
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Hillsboro Speedway, Inc. buys the Occoneechee Farm racetrack tract
W. S. Murchison and J. R. Rogers sold two hundred acres of the old Occoneechee Farm, including its horse track, to Hillsboro Speedway, Inc., the company Bill France and four partners had chartered to build a stock car track. France had spotted the track while flying over Orange County.
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Occoneechee Speedway opens
Occoneechee Speedway, a one-mile dirt oval that Bill France and four North Carolina partners built on the old Occoneechee Farm horse track outside Hillsborough, opened with a 100-mile NASCAR stock car race won by Fonty Flock.
Recent decades · 1976–2026
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James J. Freeland moves Poplar Hill across the Eno to South Cameron Street
Freeland, who had moved the Gatewood House in 1978, had the Poplar Hill house hauled over the Eno River from Tuscarora Drive to a new lot at 203 South Cameron Street, just south of Burnside, on the north side of the river.
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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.
