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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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12 dated events match your filters.

Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–12.Back to highlights

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12 dated events
1829Antebellum and Civil War
  1. Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865
  2. Presbyterians begin worshipping together in Chapel Hill

    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill

    Chapel Hill's Presbyterians began meeting about 1829 in homes and university buildings, with university faculty serving as ministers, according to the church's own history. The congregation's surviving session records begin in 1845, the year Lefler and Wager give for its formal organization, on June 8. Its first sanctuary on Franklin Street was dedicated September 23, 1849, and the congregation took the name University Presbyterian Church in the 1960s.

    Subject: University Presbyterian Church

  3. Chapel Hill's Presbyterians and Methodists circulate subscription papers for church buildings

    Property or economic transaction · Chapel Hill

    Swain's letter of November 1843 reported that the village Presbyterians and Methodists each had subscription papers going round to pay for churches, while the Episcopalians already had the brick walls of theirs standing. The Presbyterian church was finished in 1848 and the Methodist in 1853.

    Subject: University Presbyterian Church · University United Methodist Church

  4. David L. Swain and Charles Phillips transfer from New Hope to the Chapel Hill church

    Life event · New Hope

    University president David L. Swain, who first joined a church at New Hope, and Charles Phillips were released by letter to the Presbyterian church at Chapel Hill.

    People: Charles Phillips

    Subject: New Hope Presbyterian Church · University Presbyterian Church

  5. James Phillips buys the Village Chapel lot for the Presbyterian church

    Property or economic transaction · Chapel Hill

    Professor James Phillips, as trustee, bought for $200 the lot where the Union or Village Chapel stood, as a site for the Presbyterian church, on condition that no burials be made there. The old chapel was moved a few hundred yards north, enlarged, and long served as the village public school.

    Subject: University Presbyterian Church

  6. Dabney Cosby builds the Presbyterian church on Franklin Street

    Construction or physical change · Chapel Hill

    After the university work Cosby built a small Tuscan style church designed by Alexander Jackson Davis for the Chapel Hill Presbyterian congregation, whose members included university president David L. Swain. In March 1848 the congregation member Charles Phillips wrote to Davis that the mason could not match the lilac gray color specified for the outside. The building no longer stands.

    People: David L. Swain · Charles Phillips · Alexander Jackson Davis

    Subject: University Presbyterian Church

  7. Charles Phillips serves as stated supply for the Chapel Hill Presbyterian Church

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    Phillips was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Orange in December 1857 and served as stated supply for the Chapel Hill Presbyterian Church from 1857 to 1868. He taught and superintended the church Sunday school and with his wife started a Sunday school for Black residents.

    Subject: University Presbyterian Church

  8. Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899
  9. The Presbyterian church buys the Phillips house on East Franklin Street for a manse

    Property or economic transaction · 513 East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill

    After Charles Phillips left Chapel Hill and died in 1889, the Chapel Hill Presbyterian church bought his former home at 513 East Franklin Street and made it the minister's residence. Bryant dates the purchase to 1891.

    Subject: University Presbyterian Church

  10. James E. Fogartie is installed as pastor of New Hope and Chapel Hill

    Appointment, election or service · New Hope

    Fogartie was called to New Hope jointly with the Chapel Hill church. About the same time the synod's evangelists W. D. Morton and a Mr. Maxwell held a meeting at New Hope that added a number of members.

    Subject: New Hope Presbyterian Church · University Presbyterian Church

  11. Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
  12. William D. Moss becomes pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Chapel Hill

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    Coming from pastorates in Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia, William Dygnum Moss arrived in North Carolina in 1903 to lead the Presbyterian Church of Chapel Hill. Apart from six years in Washington, he served the congregation until his death in 1932.

    Subject: University Presbyterian Church

  13. The rebuilt Presbyterian church on Franklin Street is dedicated as Sprunt Memorial

    Naming or commemoration · Chapel Hill

    The Presbyterian church at 209 East Franklin Street, remodeled in 1919-1920 mostly at the expense of James Sprunt as a memorial to his wife, Luola Murchison Sprunt, was dedicated as the Sprunt Memorial Presbyterian Church. William D. Moss was its pastor.

    People: James Sprunt

    Subject: University Presbyterian Church

  14. Civil rights era · 1945–1975
  15. Fire destroys the Presbyterian church on East Franklin Street

    Disaster or outbreak · University Presbyterian Church, East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill

    The University Presbyterian Church burned in 1958. The congregation built a larger church on the same site three years later.

    Subject: University Presbyterian Church

  16. The Presbyterians build a larger church where the burned one stood

    Construction or physical change · University Presbyterian Church, East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill

    Three years after the 1958 fire, a new and bigger Presbyterian church went up on the old site on East Franklin Street.

    Subject: University Presbyterian Church

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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.

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