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Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–24.Back to highlights
- Colonial and Regulator years · 1680–1774
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The Assembly moves the county seat to the Eno crossing of the Western path
Judging the Piney Ford site too far west, the Assembly directed that the courthouse, prison and stocks stand where the Western path crossed the Eno, on land where James Watson lived. The site, just east of the present courthouse, was the start of Hillsborough.
Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough · Orange County jail, Hillsborough
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Alexander Mebane, Josiah Dixon and William Churton lay out Hillsborough's first prison
Lot No. 1 in the town was set aside for the market house, courthouse, prison, pillory and stocks.
People: William Churton
Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough · Orange County jail, Hillsborough
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Joseph Maddock builds Hillsborough's first prison
Maddock had the log prison pinned to the ground to make it more secure.
Subject: Orange County jail, Hillsborough
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A second jail with a stockade goes up at Hillsborough
A ten-foot stockade was built around the jail and stocks for twenty-four pounds, with Thomas Hart and Francis Nash overseeing the work.
People: Thomas Hart · Francis Nash
Subject: Orange County jail, Hillsborough
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The county town becomes a courthouse village of stores, ordinaries and public buildings
William Few recalled that in 1764 the town was the metropolis of the county, where the courts were held and all public business done, a village of thirty or forty inhabitants with two or three small stores and two or three ordinary taverns, and that Scottish merchants then opened stores of European goods and a church, courthouse and jail were built. Claude Joseph Sauthier's 1768 plan of the town marks Canby's Ordinary, Nunn's Ordinary, McNair's Store, the market house, the first courthouse and the second jail.
People: William Few
Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough · Orange County jail, Hillsborough
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Dennis Bradley is acquitted at Hillsborough of burning the Granville jail
At the September 1768 superior court at Hillsborough, which also tried the Regulator cases, Dennis Bradley was tried for burning the Granville County jail and acquitted.
Subject: Orange County jail, Hillsborough
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Samuel Devinney and John Philip Hartzo are convicted over the horse rescue
Each was fined 25 pounds and given three months in jail, but Tryon soon freed the prisoners and put off collecting their fines for three months.
People: William Tryon
Subject: Orange County jail, Hillsborough
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A district jail is built at Hillsborough
It replaced the second county jail, which had burned.
Subject: Orange County jail, Hillsborough
- Revolution and early republic · 1775–1799
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The county court jails Charles Richardson for refusing the oath of allegiance
Called before the court as a suspicious person, Richardson would not swear allegiance to the state. The court sent him to jail until he took the oath and paid the fees.
Subject: Orange County jail, Hillsborough
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The county court orders the Hillsborough District jail to hold Continental deserters
At its May 1777 term the court told the jailer of Hillsborough District to take in any Continental Army soldiers arrested as deserters by a justice of the peace anywhere in the district.
Subject: Orange County jail, Hillsborough
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Hillsborough collects meat for Greene's army and holds prisoners of war
Alexander Mebane, commissioner of specific supplies for Orange, gathered more than 2,000 pounds of salt and fresh meat at Hillsborough for Greene's army in South Carolina. The town jail held British and Loyalist prisoners while exchanges were negotiated.
Subject: Orange County jail, Hillsborough
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The legislature authorizes another district jail at Hillsborough
The act provided for a new jail to serve the Hillsborough district.
Subject: Orange County jail, Hillsborough
- Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865
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Henry Harris, held as a suspected runaway, is charged with burning the Orange County jail
At the spring term of Superior Court the case against Henry Harris, a man of color charged with setting fire to the county jail, was moved to Caswell County for trial. He had been jailed as a runaway because he could not prove his freedom, and he escaped soon after.
Subject: Orange County jail, Hillsborough
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John Berry completes a stone jail at Hillsborough
Building commissioners named in 1836 planned a two-story prison forty-five by twenty-four feet at a cost of no more than $4,000, and Berry won the contract.
Subject: Orange County jail, Hillsborough
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A free man is jailed in Hillsborough for giving his free papers to an enslaved man
The 1850 census taker listed the town jail's inmates with their charges. John McAndless, a free laborer of 22, was held for "giving his free papers to a slave".
Subject: Orange County jail, Hillsborough
- Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899
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Washington Morrow, Thomas Jefferson Morrow and Daniel Morrow are lynched
Early on August 7, 1869, about 100 disguised white men took Washington Morrow and his brother Nelson from the Hillsborough jail, where they were held on barn-burning charges, and shot Washington as they fled; he died of the wound. On October 14 a mob hanged their father, Thomas Jefferson Morrow, and their uncle, Daniel Morrow.
Part of Racial-terror lynchings in Orange County · 17 events
People: Washington Morrow · Daniel Morrow · Jefferson Morrow
Subject: Orange County jail, Hillsborough
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Klansmen take two Black prisoners from jail and shoot one of them
A few nights after three barns burned in late July 1869, two Black men accused of another barn burning were taken from jail. One was let go; the other was shot and died.
Subject: Orange County jail, Hillsborough
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Hillsborough constable describes Orange County Klan killings to a U.S. Senate committee
W. G. Turrentine, a Hillsborough constable, told the Senate select committee in Washington that five Black men had been killed in Orange County and many people whipped, some for voting Republican. He described how, in August 1869, 75 to 100 disguised men forced the Hillsborough jail and shot a prisoner held on a barn-burning charge, who died.
Subject: Orange County jail, Hillsborough
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U.S. Senate committee hears Orange County testimony on Klan violence
A Senate select committee created on January 19, 1871 took testimony in Washington on Klan violence in North Carolina. Orange County witnesses, including Hillsborough constable W. G. Turrentine, court clerk George Laws and editor Josiah Turner Jr., described the 1869 jail raid, hangings and whippings in the county. The committee reported on March 10, 1871.
Part of Racial-terror lynchings in Orange County · 17 events
Subject: Orange County jail, Hillsborough
- Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
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Orange County builds a new jail
The county replaced its run-down jail with a $65,000 building, also used as a base for convicts on road work. Five years later the state took over most sentenced prisoners and the jail was often nearly empty.
Subject: Orange County jail, Hillsborough
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Civil Works crews tear down the old stone jail on Hillsborough's courthouse square
As part of a Civil Works Administration project around the courthouse, relief workers demolished the old jail, and flagstones from its walls were used for sidewalks around the square. The work was nearly done in late December and complete by late January.
Subject: Orange County jail, Hillsborough
- Civil rights era · 1945–1975
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A gasoline truck fire and explosion damage the Orange County jail
A fuel truck caught fire and exploded while at the county jail on Court Street, causing heavy damage to the building.
Subject: Orange County jail, Hillsborough
- Recent decades · 1976–2026
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The 1920s Orange County Jail on Court Street is greatly enlarged
The Neoclassical Orange County Jail at 125-131 Court Street, built in 1926 facing the courthouse with the deputy's apartment upstairs, is enlarged in 1996 with a series of flat-roofed wings reaching back to East Margaret Lane.
Subject: Orange County jail, Hillsborough
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Sheriff Pendergrass defends Orange County's enrollment in Secure Communities
At a county commissioners' meeting, Sheriff Lindy Pendergrass explained his decision to enroll the Orange County jail in the federal Secure Communities pilot, which checks the fingerprints of people booked into jail against federal databases including immigration records. Commissioners, who had resolved in 2007 not to join the 287(g) program, raised concerns but took no action.
Subject: Orange County jail, Hillsborough
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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.
