Chronology

Washington Duke completes the farmhouse now called Duke Homestead

Having built up more than three hundred acres from 1847, Washington Duke finished a house for his family on his Orange County farm in time for his marriage to Artelia Roney in December 1852. The house, in the part of the county that became Durham County in 1881, is now Duke Homestead.

North Carolina Railroad finished to Durham's Station

On December 20, 1854 the Recorder reported trains running daily from Raleigh to within a mile and a half of Durham's Station, whose warehouse was finished. The railroad was completed to Durham's Station, then a single house on Dr. Bartlett Durham's plantation in Orange County, and the company gave legislators a free ride there. From then until 1882 a two-horse hack line between Chapel Hill and Durham replaced the four-horse stage to Raleigh.

Part of Railroads through Orange, 1849–1900 · 82 events

People: Samuel (Samuel Field) Phillips · Samuel Field Phillips

Subject: North Carolina Railroad

Orange flour starts going to Wilmington by rail from Durham's Station

After the first Wilmington merchant known to visit the section came through, several loads of flour were hauled to Durham's Station (now Durham County) to be sent to Wilmington. Until then produce carried on the North Carolina Railroad had gone to Norfolk and Portsmouth.

Part of Durham’s rise while part of Orange, 1850s–1881 · 40 events

Subject: North Carolina Railroad

John A. McMannen pays $4,000 for land at Durham's Depot

Mr. McMannen bought property at Durham's Depot (now Durham County) for $4,000, land that had sold a few years before for $225, put his son in charge of the place and planned a storehouse for the neighborhood trade. In late May he advertised to lay off a town there in half-acre lots, giving away every other lot to anyone who would bond to build within a year and barring the sale of liquor.

Part of Durham’s rise while part of Orange, 1850s–1881 · 40 events

A small smoking-tobacco factory opens by the depot at Durham's Station

Built beside the tracks and worked by free Black and white laborers, the plant was the start of the tobacco industry that later made Durham a factory town.

Part of Durham’s rise while part of Orange, 1850s–1881 · 40 events

Raleigh stonecutters McCowan and Grier take freestone from a quarry at Durham's Station

By late September 1858 the Raleigh stone and marble cutters McCowan and Grier were taking building freestone from their quarry at Durham's Station on the North Carolina Railroad (now Durham County). State geologist Ebenezer Emmons examined the samples and judged the fine-grained stone good enough for carving and for the outside of buildings.

Part of Durham’s rise while part of Orange, 1850s–1881 · 40 events

Subject: North Carolina Railroad

Washington Duke turns from cotton to tobacco on his Orange County farm

After a failed cotton crop, Washington Duke began growing tobacco in 1859 on his farm, then in Orange County, following favorable publicity among Orange County farmers. The farm used the labor of an enslaved girl, Caroline, bought in 1855, and later a leased enslaved man, Jim, who worked in tobacco.

People: Washington Duke

Dr. Bartlett L. Durham dies at Durham's Station

Dr. Bartlett L. Durham, the physician whose name the railroad station carried, died at his home at Durham's Station, aged about 37.

Durham's Station ships 1,733 barrels of flour in two months

Durham's Station sent out 1,733 barrels of flour and 1,013 bushels of corn in March and April, along with wheat and cotton. Nearly all the flour went to Rowland and Brothers in Norfolk, the corn west along the North Carolina Railroad, and the wheat and cotton to Petersburg.

Part of Durham’s rise while part of Orange, 1850s–1881 · 40 events

Subject: North Carolina Railroad

Volunteers at Durham's form a company called the Orange Greys

Volunteers at Durham's Station began forming a military company in April 1861 and took the name Orange Greys. Paul C. Cameron addressed the company, which received a donation of $500.

People: Paul C. Cameron

Washington Duke begins manufacturing smoking tobacco on his farm

Back from Confederate service, Washington Duke starts making smoking tobacco on his Orange County farm, the start of the business his sons later built into W. Duke and Sons.

Part of Durham’s rise while part of Orange, 1850s–1881 · 40 events

People: Washington Duke

The legislature incorporates the Durham Academy

Among the acts of its first postwar session, the General Assembly incorporated the Durham Academy in Orange County.

R. F. Morris & Son form a partnership to make Durham smoking tobacco at Durham's Station

Robert F. Morris and his son Edward W. Morris, with William H. Willard as a special partner who put in $5,000 in cash, formed the limited partnership of R. F. Morris & Son to manufacture tobacco, especially 'the famous Durham Smoking Tobacco,' and to keep a small general store at Durham's Station (now Durham County). The partnership ran from September 1, 1866, to September 1, 1869.

Part of Durham’s rise while part of Orange, 1850s–1881 · 40 events

The legislature authorizes the Durham North-Carolina Industrial Association

The General Assembly passed an act authorizing the formation of the Durham North-Carolina Industrial Association in Orange County, an early act of incorporation for the Durham's Station community (now Durham County).

Part of Durham’s rise while part of Orange, 1850s–1881 · 40 events

Freedpeople at Durham's Station buy land and build a school house

Lt. Thomas H. Hay went to Durham's on August 10, 1868 to establish a school. By August 27 the freedpeople had bought land and were putting up a building for 60 scholars and would pay a teacher's board; Hay asked $150 toward a salary for James Stagg, a white man the freedmen wanted, judging that the two small rival schools then kept by Empson Moore and George Bradshaw were doing little good. Bradshaw was teaching the freedmen's school at Durham's in November.

Part of The Freedmen’s Bureau office at Hillsborough, 1866–1868 · 84 events

The Dukes move their tobacco business into a wooden factory in Durham

The Duke family's smoking tobacco business outgrows the farm and moves into a wooden factory at Durham, then still part of Orange County.

Part of Durham’s rise while part of Orange, 1850s–1881 · 40 events

People: Washington Duke

Durham counts thirteen tobacco factories as H. A. Reams opens the Durham Tobacco Warehouse

Durham, now Durham County, was reported to have thirteen tobacco factories, and H. A. Reams set the opening sale of his Durham Tobacco Warehouse for May 18.

Part of Durham’s rise while part of Orange, 1850s–1881 · 40 events

W. T. Blackwell has rival tobacco maker Wright arrested at Hillsborough in the Durham brand dispute

Blackwell, the Durham smoking tobacco maker, had his rival Wright of Pittsylvania Court House, Virginia, arrested by the sheriff at the Hillsborough depot in their quarrel over the Durham brand; Wright waited in town for bail.

The Plant newspaper is published at Durham

The Plant, a newspaper edited by a Mr. Green, was being published at Durham, now Durham County.

W. T. Blackwell's new tobacco warehouse at Durham fills to overflowing

Blackwell built at Durham, now Durham County, what the paper called the prettiest warehouse in the South, and a Durham letter of February 1872 reported it filled to overflowing.

Part of Durham’s rise while part of Orange, 1850s–1881 · 40 events

The Blackwell v. Wright trademark case is moved from Orange to Alamance

On the defendant Wright's motion, the Orange Superior Court moved to Alamance County the original Blackwell v. Wright suit over the Durham Smoking Tobacco trademark, after his counsel said the real plaintiffs W. T. Blackwell, Julian S. Carr and Day had too much local influence.

People: Julian S. Carr

The Panic of 1873 keeps the Hillsborough and Durham tobacco warehouses closed

The financial panic kept the tobacco warehouses at Hillsborough, Durham, now Durham County, and Richmond and Danville from opening for the season; by mid-December a Durham warehouse was selling again at low prices.

Webb, Roulhac & Cameron prepare to move their tobacco business from Hillsborough to Durham

The Hillsborough Recorder reported that the tobacco firm of Webb, Roulhac & Cameron was about to move to Durham, where it had been offered better terms. The paper said the town could ill spare them.

Part of Durham’s rise while part of Orange, 1850s–1881 · 40 events

The state Press Association's excursion visits Durham's tobacco factories

A special train carrying the North Carolina Press Association stopped at Durham, where S. F. Tomlinson welcomed the editors for the Board of Trade in the Reams & Walker warehouse and Maj. Englehard replied. The visitors saw brands of R. F. Morris & Co., R. T. Faucett, W. R. Hughes and Z. I. Lyon & Co. and toured the W. T. Blackwell plug factory.

The legislature extends Durham's town limits and charters a bank there

The General Assembly granted Durham, then in Orange County and now Durham County, a charter for a bank and an extension of its town limits on the same day.

Part of Durham’s rise while part of Orange, 1850s–1881 · 40 events

Hands strike at Blackwell's tobacco factory in Durham

The hands at Blackwell's tobacco factory in Durham, then in Orange County and now Durham County, struck work one morning about breakfast time and walked out. The firm went to Petersburg and brought back forty hands to take the strikers' places.

The Durham Herald begins publication

A new weekly, the Herald, issued its first number at Durham by late March; by May the Recorder counted it the third paper then published in Orange County, alongside the Recorder and the Durham Tobacco Plant.

The Durham Board of Trade calls a convention of the district's tobacco men

Citing the 'very unsatisfactory condition' of the tobacco trade, the Board of Trade of the town of Durham resolved to call all manufacturers and dealers of manufactured tobacco in the congressional district, peddlers included, to a convention at Raleigh, and invited the internal revenue commissioner and collectors to attend.

Fire destroys R. T. Faucett & Co.'s tobacco factory and Col. Parrish's carriage factory at Durham

A fire at Durham about five o'clock in the afternoon destroyed the tobacco factory of R. T. Faucett & Co., the carriage factory of Col. Parrish and five or six small buildings. It was thought to have started from the engine and caught the factory roof; most of the plug and smoking tobacco was saved, the machinery was lost, and the factory carried about $4,500 insurance.

Durham Baptists raise a large brick church

A large brick Baptist church was going up in the center of Durham (now Durham County) in the fall of 1877, one of the few buildings then under way downtown while new houses spread through the suburbs. It was finished by December 1878, with a steeple about 140 feet high.

Part of Durham’s rise while part of Orange, 1850s–1881 · 40 events

Durham counts four tobacco sale warehouses and about fourteen factories

Durham (now Durham County) had four large tobacco sale warehouses holding sales four times a week and about fourteen factories by early November 1877, along with a smut-machine factory, sash and blind factories, steam sawmills, cotton gins and a factory making smoking-tobacco bags. Its railroad warehouse forwarded more freight than any station on the line that was not a transfer point.

Part of Durham’s rise while part of Orange, 1850s–1881 · 40 events

Joseph Blount Cheshire Jr. starts monthly Episcopal services in Durham

Cheshire, then serving the Chapel of the Cross, began the services that led in 1881 to the founding of St. Philip's in Durham.

Part of Durham’s rise while part of Orange, 1850s–1881 · 40 events

Work begins on a brick Methodist church at Durham

Work began on a new Methodist church at Durham, planned as a large Gothic brick building with a steeple 200 feet high; it was still going up in December.

Part of Durham’s rise while part of Orange, 1850s–1881 · 40 events

Tobacco manufacturing in Orange narrows to Hillsborough and Durham

Federal revenue laws had closed Orange's country tobacco factories, leaving manufacturing only in Hillsborough and Durham, where twenty or more factories worked, enough by the paper's count to make Orange fifth in the state.

W. T. Blackwell and Julian S. Carr buy out a partner in W. T. Blackwell & Co.

William T. Blackwell and Julian S. Carr bought the interest of their third partner in the Durham smoking tobacco firm of W. T. Blackwell & Co., which went on under the same name.

E. H. Pogue moves his tobacco manufacturing from Hillsborough to Durham

Pogue, a tobacco dealer since 1866 alongside his tinware and general merchandise trade, began making plug tobacco at a factory in Hillsborough in 1872 or 1873. In 1879 he moved the business to Durham, where E. H. Pogue & Son made granulated and long-cut smoking tobacco, while Pogue kept his home in Hillsborough.

Part of Durham’s rise while part of Orange, 1850s–1881 · 40 events

John D. Cameron moves the Recorder from Hillsborough to Durham, ending fifty-nine years of publication in the county seat

Cameron carried the paper fifteen miles east to the tobacco town, where it continued as the Durham Recorder, published every Wednesday. The last issue under the Hillsborough title in the digitized run is March 5, 1879; the first Durham issue there is July 2, 1879.

Subject: Hillsborough Recorder

Fire sweeps the business district of Durham

Fire broke out early on a Saturday morning in Styron & Co.'s dry goods store from a defective stove flue and burned about twenty stores and other buildings in Durham, then part of Orange County, with losses put at about $75,000. The chemical engine and the townspeople saved the depot and the rest of the business district, the tobacco firms lost nothing, and the Durham Light Infantry guarded property under Mayor Link.

Hillsborough's commissioners protest the bill to divide Orange County

At their regular meeting the Hillsborough town commissioners resolved against Caleb R. Green's bill to cut Durham County out of Orange, protesting that the question had never been put before the people, and named a committee of about a hundred citizens headed by the mayor to go to Raleigh and memorialize the legislature against it.

People: Paul C. Cameron · John W. Graham