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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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7 dated events match your filters.

Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–7.Back to highlights

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7 dated events
1835Antebellum and Civil War
  1. Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865
  2. Elizabeth Hobbs is brought to Hillsborough in the household of Robert and Anna Burwell

    Slavery and freedom · Hillsborough

    When the Reverend Robert Burwell became minister of the Presbyterian church in Hillsborough, he moved his household from Virginia, bringing the enslaved Elizabeth Hobbs, later Keckly. By her own account she was nearly eighteen.

    People: Elizabeth Hobbs Keckly · Robert Armistead Burwell

  3. Schoolmaster William J. Bingham repeatedly beats Elizabeth Hobbs at Anna Burwell's urging

    Slavery and freedom · Hillsborough

    Anna Burwell had William J. Bingham, the Hillsborough schoolmaster, flog Elizabeth Hobbs over a period of weeks in an attempt to break her spirit. Her memoir says Robert Burwell also beat her, and that she was eighteen at the time.

    People: Elizabeth Hobbs Keckly · Robert Armistead Burwell · William James Bingham

  4. Alexander McKenzie Kirkland subjects Elizabeth Hobbs to about four years of sexual coercion

    Slavery and freedom · Hillsborough

    Alexander McKenzie Kirkland, a white man from a prominent Hillsborough merchant-planter family, repeatedly sexually assaulted Elizabeth Hobbs over about four years. In her memoir she did not name him and wrote that a white man pursued her for four years.

    People: Elizabeth Hobbs Keckly

  5. Elizabeth Hobbs writes to her mother from Hillsborough

    Life event · Hillsborough

    Elizabeth Hobbs wrote to her mother Agnes Hobbs in Virginia asking for news of home and saying she did not expect to see her family again. She wrote that Anna Burwell planned to go to Petersburg without her and that she had been told she would belong to Elizabeth Burwell once that daughter married. She also wrote that she had been a bridesmaid at Ann Nash's wedding a week before Christmas 1837.

    Part of The Burwell School and the Burwell household · 37 events

    People: Anna Burwell

  6. Elizabeth Hobbs gives birth to her son George in Hillsborough

    Life event · Hillsborough

    Elizabeth Hobbs gave birth to her only child, George, whose father was Alexander Kirkland. George later took the surname Kirkland.

    People: George Kirkland · Elizabeth Hobbs Keckly

  7. Elizabeth Hobbs and her son are sent from Hillsborough back to Virginia

    Slavery and freedom · Hillsborough

    The Burwells sent Elizabeth Hobbs and her son George back to Dinwiddie County, Virginia, where she rejoined her mother in the household of Ann Burwell Garland and Hugh Garland. The Garlands later took the family to St. Louis, where she bought her freedom and George's in 1855.

    People: George Kirkland · Elizabeth Hobbs Keckly

  8. Elizabeth Keckly purchases freedom for herself and her son

    Slavery and freedom · St. Louis, Missouri; earlier Hillsborough connection

    Elizabeth Keckly purchased freedom for herself and her son in St. Louis, after earlier enslavement in Hillsborough.

    Part of Elizabeth Keckly in Hillsborough

    People: George Kirkland · Elizabeth Hobbs Keckly

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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