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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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Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–16.Back to highlights

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  1. Colonial and Regulator years · 1680–1774

  2. Protest or organizing · Deep River A Deep River meeting drafts Regulator Advertisement Number Two

    Meeting in Herman Husband's neighborhood, settlers wrote a second paper and chose William Cox and William Masset to attend the Maddock's Mill meeting on October 10. It asked the county's assemblymen, vestrymen and officers to come and answer their questions.

  3. Protest or organizing · Hillsborough Orange County's first Regulator paper invokes the Stamp Act resistance

    An Orange County notice of August 1766, later called Regulators' Advertisement No. 1, praised the Sons of Liberty for resisting the Stamp Act and asked each neighborhood to send men to a meeting at Maddock's Mill to question local officers.

  4. Protest or organizing · Countywide Farmers met at Maddock’s Mill to press the county’s officers to account for fees and taxes

    Delegates from Orange County neighborhoods met at Maddock's Mill to ask their assemblymen and vestrymen how public money was spent. The officers refused to attend, and the meeting resolved that such conferences between voters and their representatives should be held every year.

  5. Law, policy or court · Hillsborough Edmund Fanning tells the November court he has answered the farmers' complaints

    Speaking for the county officers, Fanning rejected the protest and reported that he had written its organizers a reply he expected to end the matter.

  6. Protest or organizing · Hillsborough Sandy Creek men challenge the register's deed fees in the Orange County court

    Using a copy of the province's revised laws bought jointly by two men, one of them a county justice, two Sandy Creek men copied the lawful fees for registering deeds and objected in court to what they were charged. Threatened with arrest for contempt, they gave up, and the justice who half owned the book was soon put out of his commission.

  7. Protest or organizing · Orange County Settlers west of the Haw River call Orange County's representatives and vestry to a settlement at the courthouse

    Inhabitants on the west side of the Haw River addressed Orange County's Assembly men and vestrymen, asking them to fix a day before the next court to meet at the courthouse and settle accounts of taxes and officers' fees, and declaring they would pay no more taxes until they had a full settlement.

  8. Protest or organizing · Orange County Regulators ask Orange County's late sheriff and a vestryman to bring the tax accounts

    Meeting again, the Regulators asked the former sheriff and a vestryman to meet their committee with lists of taxables, insolvents and public spending, and asked the county's assemblymen to come and show the law for the fees charged on deeds. Two men were chosen to carry the request, but the seizure of a Regulator's mare days later overtook it.

  9. Protest or organizing · Thomas Lindley's A general Regulator meeting agrees to send twelve men to meet county officials at Thomas Lindley's

    The meeting agreed to send twelve men and then named thirteen, among them Herman Husband, James Hunter and Rednap Howell, to gather at Lindley's on May 11 in hope of meeting representatives of the officers. The arrests of Husband and William Butler broke up the plan.

  10. Protest or organizing · Orange County More than 400 Orange County inhabitants sign a petition to the governor and council

    At the April 30 meeting the Regulators drew up a petition to the governor and council in the name of the inhabitants of Orange County, to be held back unless the officers failed to settle. Herman Husband, not yet a Regulator, was among more than 400 signers.

  11. Protest or organizing · Orange County Regulators meeting at George Sally's appoint a committee of eight to petition Governor Tryon

    Having agreed after the May confrontation to submit their case to the governor, the Regulators met at George Sally's in Orange County, declared their loyalty to King George and named William Moffitt, William Cox, Harmon Cox, John Low, John Marshall, James Hunter, Rednap Howell and George Hendry to gather the complaints into a petition and to implore the governor's pardon in the most submissive manner.

  12. Protest or organizing · Orange County Orange Regulators send their papers to the Regulators of Anson County

    Asked by the Anson County Regulators how to organize, the Orange Regulators sent them a copy of their May 21 proceedings, to keep them from running into errors, and promised more papers. Bassett thinks this advice helped turn the Anson movement toward petitioning that August.

  13. Protest or organizing · Orange County Ralph McNair presses Herman Husband to adopt a petition written by the officers

    After the May confrontation at Hillsborough, the county officers sent Husband, through Ralph McNair, a petition of their own drafting in which the Regulators would call their conduct illegal and withdraw their charges. McNair warned that Fanning would report the case to Tryon as treason if it was refused, and the Regulators instead named their own committee to lay their papers before the governor.

  14. Protest or organizing · Orange County Regulators hear the governor's letter from the sheriff and resolve to petition the Assembly

    At a Regulator meeting called to answer Tryon's reply, the Orange sheriff read a letter and proclamation telling them to submit to tax collection. The sheriff and his deputy swore the crowd refused and threatened them; Husband said the people only told the sheriff they would take the matter to the Assembly, and the meeting sent Tryon an answer saying so.

  15. Protest or organizing · Hillsborough Eight Regulator leaders meet Governor Tryon at Hillsborough and are refused a committee to examine the county's taxes

    A week after their letter was delivered, eight principal Regulators met Tryon in Hillsborough and asked that their grievances be settled by a committee reviewing the county's tax accounts. Tryon refused, telling them the law was the only channel for redress, and the next day sent a letter to the inhabitants south of the Haw.

  16. Violence or armed conflict · Hillsborough Eight hundred Regulators gather within a mile of Hillsborough, face Tryon's militia and disperse

    With the superior court sitting under guard of more than a thousand militia, upwards of eight hundred Regulators appeared within a mile of Hillsborough on September 22. A council of war set terms: surrender nine leaders, lay down arms and promise to pay taxes. The Regulators asked for the night to answer and by the next morning had dispersed, about thirty coming in to give up their arms.

  17. Law, policy or court · Hillsborough A Hillsborough jury finds Edmund Fanning guilty on an indictment

    In the same superior court term that tried the Regulator leaders, the King's indictment against Edmund Fanning went to a jury on September 27, which found him guilty. The day before, Herman Husband had surrendered William Butler to the court, and both men entered 500 pound bonds to abide its sentence.

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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