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Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865
- 1830s
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Orange County voters approve the new state public school plan
When the 1839 school law put tax-supported common schools to a vote in each county, Orange approved. Approving counties raised $20 per district, matched two to one from the Literary Fund.
- 1840s
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One of Orange County's first common schools opens in the Hawfield district near Gravelly Hill
Families of a school district near Gravelly Hill opened a common school under the new state system, with Mr. Burnside as teacher, and the Recorder urged the other districts to follow their example. The first session closed on August 28, when Burnside marched his scholars to the Gravelly Hill station for a spelling exhibition and Col. Tate and Maj. Nelson drilled them as a military company.
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Orange County is laid off in school districts five miles square
The chairman of the county's school superintendents announced that Orange had been divided into districts about five miles square and asked local committeemen to report their schoolhouses so the county could claim its share of the state Literary Fund. Pleasant Green became District No. 9 and St. Mary's District No. 10.
Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899
- 1860s
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Commissioners hire Silas M. Link to divide the county into townships
Link was paid $75 to lay the school districts out into townships, and the board approved his plan of eight: Hillsboro, Little River, Mangum, Durham, Patterson, Chapel Hill, Bingham and Cedar Grove. In 1877 the board split Mangum at Little River to form Lebanon Township.
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The new county commissioners name school committees for all 53 districts
Working from Silas Link's report, which listed the school districts in each new township, the board named three committeemen for every one of the county's 53 districts. Presumably they were meant to hold office until the townships could elect their own.
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A school report finds 43 schoolhouses for nearly 6,000 children
A. Hooker, late chairman of the common schools board, counted 3,667 white and 2,235 Black children in the county and only 43 schoolhouses, most run down, to serve both races. He put the need at 63 new buildings of about $100 each.
- 1870s
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Trustees refuse land for a Black school in Chapel Hill
The Chapel Hill school committee of Morgan Closs, W. H. Bunch and H. C. Andrews asked the trustees for two acres on the Pittsboro Road next to the Hubbard lot for a school for Black children, saying friends of education would pay for a schoolhouse. The board declined because the land was under mortgage.
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A public common school opens in Chapel Hill
After long delay the village's common school was running by late August 1870, taking in local boys who might otherwise have attended the Pool university as day scholars.
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Orange County names a three-man Board of Education and a panel of teacher examiners
Under the Reconstruction school law the county had a Board of Education of W. N. Patterson, J. T. Hogan and Jones Watson in 1872. Samuel W. Hughes and Charles Curtis were among the county examiners who licensed teachers that year.
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The county school board settles the school fund account with Treasurer David C. Parks
The Board of Education settled the school fund account with county treasurer D. C. Parks up to March 7, 1872. It showed $9,245.36 received from the state apportionments for 1869 to 1872 and the 1871 school poll tax, and $3,869.54 paid out to the townships.
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The school board refuses back pay to a Mangum Township teacher accused of misconduct
Thomas Anderson asked the board to pay him for two months he taught without a contract. The board sided with the township committee, finding he had no contract after March 7, 1872 and citing poor discipline and improper conduct toward girls in his school.
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The Board of Education divides the 1872 school fund among the townships by race
At its March 5, 1873 meeting the board named a teacher examining committee and apportioned the 1872 fund at the same rate per child for both races: $4,219.60 for 3,080 white children and $2,402.98 for 1,754 Black children across eight townships.
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John T. Hogan is chosen school committeeman for Hillsborough Township
When Alexander Dickens resigned as school committeeman for Hillsborough Township, the county Board of Education unanimously elected John T. Hogan in his place. At the same meeting it accepted Dr. Clop's resignation for Chapel Hill Township and chose John Hutchins.
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A county school census finds 24 more schoolhouses are needed
An 1874 count of school-age children by township found 2,380 Black children and set the need at 24 additional schoolhouses, ten of them in Hillsboro Township.
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Little River Township's school committee opens five public schools
The Little River Township school committee had set up five public schools covering nearly all its districts, one so crowded that an assistant teacher had to be hired. Local leaders were also planning a new academy near the site of the one that had burned.
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The school board orders a landowner to stop fencing off the Bethany Meeting House school
Told that William Jackson had fenced in the schoolhouse of District 15 at Bethany Meeting House and would not let school be taught, the board warned him to return the lot to the district committee or face legal action.
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The school board approves Piney Mountain as school District 53
The board recognized Piney Mountain as District No. 53 and named its committeemen. At the same meeting it ordered that no committee contract teachers beyond the money apportioned for the year.
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The school board names committeemen for 52 numbered school districts
The board's 1877 appointments name every district school in the county, from North East and Deals Creek to Prospect Hill and Orange Factory, with three committeemen for each.
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The school board creates Buckhorn school district from four neighboring districts
On petition, the board formed District No. 56, Buckhorn, from the corners of the Gravelly Hill, Ridge Meeting House, Tom's Creek and Woody's Road districts so the school would sit at their center. Elerby (No. 54) and Vickers (No. 55) districts had been formed shortly before.
- 1880s
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A one-room log schoolhouse is built for the St. Mary's school district
About 1880 a one-room log schoolhouse was built for the St. Mary's district on land given by John P. and Caroline Lockhart, about three-quarters of a mile northeast of St. Mary's Chapel; a frame school replaced it in 1904. The school moved onto chapel land only in 1917.
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The school board forms Center school district
A new District No. 57, called Center, was created with 34 white children and one Black child.
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The county commissioners form Rice's school district
The Orange County commissioners formed a new public school district named Rice's District and appointed Robert Carden, John H. Hodge and Robert Rice its school committeemen.
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A public school for white children opens in Hillsborough
A public school for white children opened in Hillsborough with Miss Maggie Reese as teacher and about thirty pupils.
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The justices and school board elect J. L. Currie county superintendent of public instruction
Meeting at the court house, the county's justices of the peace and board of education elected the Rev. James L. Currie, Presbyterian pastor at Chapel Hill, county superintendent of public instruction for two years from the first Monday in December. Currie accepted on August 9, calling the choice unexpected.
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Orange County's white teachers meet at Hillsborough to form a teachers' association
A meeting at the court house in Hillsborough took up the forming of a teachers' association for the white teachers of Orange County. Only about four teachers came, since little notice had been given, but they favored an association, read and discussed a constitution and agreed to meet again in Hillsborough; County Superintendent J. L. Currie invited the county board of education and the school committeemen to the next meeting.
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Orange County reports 33 white and 31 Black public schools
In 1884 Orange had 33 white and 31 Black public schools, with 1,369 white and 1,134 Black pupils, a term under ten weeks, and mostly log buildings. School property was valued at $3,500 for white schools and $2,500 for Black schools.
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Orange County's Black teachers petition the commissioners for a summer teachers' institute
Meeting at Hillsborough in larger numbers than ever before, the county's Black teachers adopted a petition asking the county commissioners to spend the money the law allowed on a teachers' institute for them that summer. The white association met the same day, discussed school committees, textbooks and a four-month term, and made university president K. P. Battle an honorary member.
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Black teachers of Orange County hold a teachers' institute at the court house
Seventeen Black teachers attended daily sessions of a county institute for Black teachers at the Hillsborough court house, conducted by the county superintendent, Rev. J. L. Currie, with W. V. Andrews assisting.
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Robert Bingham addresses the Orange County Teachers' Association
Major Robert Bingham of Bingham School gave an educational address to the Orange County Teachers' Association at the Hillsborough court house before a good audience of men and women.
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Black teachers meet as the Colored Teachers' Association of Orange County
Black teachers held an informal meeting of the Colored Teachers' Association of Orange County at Hillsborough and called another meeting for November 22, at which every Black teacher in the county was expected.
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The county commissioners create Grover school district No. 38
Granting a petition, the commissioners laid out a new school district, No. 38, called Grover, running from A. Toler's creek on the Roxboro road by Hawkins' mill, Willie Roberts' ford, George Parker's mill and down the Eno past Compton's mill, and named Charles Wilson, Joseph Wright and W. A. Jordan its committeemen.
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Orange County sets up its first postwar Board of Education
Under an 1885 law, Orange created its first Board of Education since the Civil War, chosen by the justices of the peace and county commissioners together. The Rev. J. L. Currie became superintendent in June 1885.
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The new Board of Education sets aside $50 for an institute for Black teachers
At its first meeting in the Hillsboro courthouse, the board created under the 1885 school law organized with Joseph Harris as chairman and voted fifty dollars to hold a training institute for the county's Black teachers.
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The school board requires the superintendent to visit every school and grade its teachers
On resolutions offered by Professor Winston, the board told Superintendent Currie to spend a day at each public school while in session, give each teacher a mark for practical skill, meet each district committee and report on where districts and schoolhouses should be, at $2.50 a day.
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State Superintendent S. M. Finger addresses the Orange County Teachers' Association
At the invitation of the county Teachers' Association, State Superintendent of Public Instruction S. M. Finger gave a public address on the public schools at the court house. The teachers and pupils of the Nash and Kollock school, Professor Henry of the University and Miss Alice Heartt, who kept a school in town, were in the audience.
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Professor Nelson B. Henry opens a teachers' institute for Orange County's white teachers
Professor Nelson B. Henry of the University opened a two-day institute for the county's white teachers at the Masonic Hall with a public lecture on education by the State on the evening of October 29. He had offered to teach methods in grammar, arithmetic, geography, reading and school management free of charge.
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Superintendent Currie's first annual report lists each district schoolhouse as log or frame
Currie's report read to the board in January 1886 gave the first district-by-district inventory of schoolhouses for both races, most of them log buildings valued at $50 to $200, and a school term averaging ten weeks.
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The school board asks the commissioners for a special tax to keep schools open four months
Superintendent Currie found the schools needed $2,000 beyond their apportionment to run the four months the law required, and the board petitioned the county commissioners to levy it. The board also set a floor of $40 for each white school and $30 for each Black school.
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Webb's tobacco warehouse in Hillsborough changes hands
Webb's Warehouse, the Hillsborough leaf-tobacco sales house, changed hands and was to reopen under a new name with C. J. Pogue of Hillsborough and J. D. English of Danville, Virginia, as proprietors.
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The school board forms the Mary Smith school district along the Chatham line
A new district in Chapel Hill Township next to Chatham County was created and its school named the Mary Smith School, District 39.
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The Webb & Co. tobacco partnership in Hillsborough is dissolved
James Webb Jr., Joseph C. Webb and George C. Corbin gave notice that their tobacco manufacturing firm, Webb & Co., was dissolved, leaving the two Webbs to collect its debts and wind up its business. The firm had been making tobacco in Hillsborough since at least 1881.
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The school board pays H. O. Strain for an acre to build the Orange Church school
The board allowed H. O. Strain $20 for one acre on which to build a schoolhouse for white children of the Orange Church district.
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The school board forms Occoneechee school district from land south of the Eno
The board created District 41, Occoneechee, from land south of the Eno River and part of the Hillsboro district.
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The school board condemns a lot for a school for Black children at Walnut Grove
After two committees were named in March and September 1887 to condemn half an acre in the Walnut Grove district, the board had the deed for the site of a schoolhouse for Black children recorded on October 1.
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The superintendent's report shows Black schools running half the term of white schools
Currie's annual report counted 33 white and 25 Black public schools. White schools averaged close to nine weeks of teaching and Black schools under four and a half, and Black women teachers earned $17 a month against $24 for white women.
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The school board authorizes a countywide summer institute for teachers
The board empowered Superintendent Currie to hold a teachers' institute for the whole county that summer.
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Superintendent Currie holds an institute for Orange County's Black teachers
County superintendent J. L. Currie held a week's institute for the county's Black teachers, three weeks after the session for white teachers. Thirteen teachers attended.
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Superintendent Currie holds the county teachers' institute for white teachers at Hillsborough
County superintendent J. L. Currie, helped by B. C. Patton and W. W. Andrews, held a week's institute for Orange County's white teachers at Hillsborough. Twenty-one teachers enrolled; the days went to the branches taught in the public schools and the evenings to lectures and debates on education that were open to the public.
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Black parents in the Cool Spring district petition for Black school committeemen
Black residents of the Cool Spring district asked the board to replace their school committee with Black members of their own choosing. The board tabled the request.
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The school board creates Cole's District at Walnut Grove on Anthony Cole's petition
After Anthony Cole petitioned for a school for about 65 children, the superintendent held a public meeting and the board set up Cole's District, No. 42, cut from parts of the Caldwell, Little River, Oak Grove and Walnut Grove districts.
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The school board runs Harmony School directly when no committee can be found
Unable to find anyone to serve as its committee, the board placed Harmony School under its own supervision so a school could be taught there.
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Justices and commissioners elect a new board of education and school superintendent
In joint session on June 3 the justices and commissioners chose John Thompson, W. V. Andrews and D. S. Parker as the county board of education. The next day, at a joint meeting of the commissioners and the new board, B. C. Patton was elected county superintendent of public instruction in place of the Rev. J. L. Currie, who had resigned.
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Orange County holds summer institutes for white and Black teachers
Superintendent B. C. Patton, assisted by W. V. Andrews and John Thompson, held a week's institute for white teachers at the Masonic Hall beginning July 22 and one for Black teachers beginning July 29; nineteen white and twenty-two Black teachers attended, and the Black teachers closed theirs with a vote of thanks.
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Edwin A. Alderman holds a week's institute for Orange County's white teachers
State institute conductor Edwin A. Alderman held a week-long institute for the county's white teachers at Hillsborough, closing on November 1 with addresses by Alderman and State Superintendent Finger at the court house on public schools and public education.
- 1890s
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B. C. Patton's report finds most Orange County schoolhouses still built of logs
Patton's annual report to the state counted 43 white and 41 Black schools with 1,425 white and 1,048 Black pupils. Thirty of the 43 white schoolhouses and 17 of the 24 Black ones were log buildings, and terms ran about twelve weeks.
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Breeze School is built near Caldwell
A plain two-room frame schoolhouse with shuttered windows was probably built at Breeze, near Caldwell, in the 1890s. It is one of the few nineteenth-century schools left in the county.
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The county board of education apportions the school fund at about 80 cents a child
Meeting on Monday, the Orange County Board of Education divided the school fund at about 80 cents per child of school age, well below earlier years, and settled with the sheriff on the school fund through December 31, 1888.
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John W. Thompson of Cedar Grove becomes superintendent of the Orange County schools
John W. Thompson, a Cedar Grove teacher, took over the county schools from B. C. Patton in June 1890. He held the post until the board was abolished in 1895 and stayed on as supervisor under the county commissioners.
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Charles D. McIver holds a county institute for white teachers at the court house
Charles D. McIver ran a week-long institute for Orange County's white public school teachers, open to the public, at the Hillsborough court house and closed it with an address on the people's relation to education. Attendance was thin, with seventeen teachers present on the third day out of more than forty in the county.
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The school board rebukes teachers who skipped Charles McIver's institute
Told that some teachers had not attended the state institute taught by Charles D. McIver, the board passed a resolution regretting their want of zeal and noting that attendance was required by law.
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The Hillsborough public school opens in the Academy with Miss Laws as teacher
The public school for Hillsborough was set to open in the Academy building on Monday, March 16, with Miss Laws, said to be an excellent teacher, in charge.
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The Orange County Teachers' Institute meets at Hillsborough under Prof. E. A. Alderman
The county Teachers' Institute opened at Hillsborough on Monday, September 21, conducted by Prof. E. A. Alderman, and ran through the week. Teachers were required by law to attend, and Alderman was to give a public address on Friday, September 25.
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Orange justices and commissioners set the 1892 levy and elect John Thompson school superintendent
At the annual joint meeting of the justices of the peace and the county commissioners, with Major D. H. Hamilton in the chair, the county and road tax rates were set and John Thompson was elected county superintendent of public education without opposition.
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Colonel George Tate is allowed to sell his county map to school committees
The board gave Colonel George Tate, maker of a map of Orange County, leave to offer it for sale to the school committee of every district.
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Justices and commissioners hold their last joint meeting
At the final joint session the justices elected John Thompson county superintendent of common schools, chose D. H. Hamilton, W. A. Maddry and M. W. Moore as commissioners, and set the 1894 tax. It closed out the justices' part in running the county.
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The county is divided into five school townships, each with a five-man committee
When the county commissioners took over the schools, the county was regrouped into five school townships (Cedar Grove, Little River, Hillsboro, Bingham and Chapel Hill), each run by a committee of five in place of the many district committees.
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The school board cuts its per-child apportionment and ties teacher pay to attendance
With little of the last tax levy collected, the board lowered its planned $1.35 a child to $1.25 for the county's 4,814 children, $6,017.50 in all, and barred the superintendent from signing pay orders for schools averaging under ten pupils.
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County commissioners take charge of the Orange County schools
From 1895 to 1897 Orange had no Board of Education or superintendent; the county commissioners ran the schools. John W. Thompson, superintendent before and after, returned in June 1897.
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The county commissioners keep the state list of public school books at lower prices
The Orange County commissioners, who then ran the county schools, kept the state list of textbooks for the public schools, at lower prices than before.
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Orange County counts 4,904 school-age children
Apportioning the public school fund, the county commissioners counted 4,904 children of school age (6 to 21) in Orange County and set aside $1.25 for each.
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County commissioners call a graded-school tax vote for the Chapel Hill school district
Acting under a new act of the legislature, the county commissioners ordered an election for May 3 in Chapel Hill School District No. 24 on a special property and poll tax to support graded schools for white and Black children. They named W. E. Lindsay, W. F. Lloyd and A. J. McDade registrars.
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A new state act restores the Orange County Board of Education under C. P. Burch
After two years of the commissioners running the schools, a legislative act brought back the county board with C. P. Burch as chairman and Albert Holmes and James Monk as members. Capt. John P. Lockhart took Monk's seat when he resigned, and the board made John W. Thompson superintendent again.
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Orange commissioners call a school-tax vote in every township
Acting under the 1897 school law, the county commissioners on June 7 ordered an election in every township on August 10 on a special tax for the public schools.
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Every Orange County township votes down the special school tax
In the statewide election on local taxes for public schools, every township in Orange County voted against the special school tax, 1,417 to 279. The tax would have added ten cents on each $100 of property and thirty cents on each poll for the township schools.
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The school board tells township committees to build frame schoolhouses and stop patching log ones
The board urged every township committee to provide more comfortable frame schoolhouses and to spend nothing more repairing old log walls.
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A new mill house on Center Street becomes the community's first school
The Alberta Cotton Mill built the house at 109 Center Street about 1898, apparently the first on that side of the street, and it was soon put to use as the village school. It went back to being a house when the Carrboro Public School opened on West Main Street about 1908.
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Orange County counts 4,820 school-age children as the school fund is divided
The county Board of Education, sitting January 3 to 5, counted 4,820 children of school age in Orange County and divided the school fund among the township districts at about $1.30 a child.
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The 1899 school report shows two and a half times as much spent on white schools as Black
Supervisor John Thompson's report for 1899 counted 50 white and 25 Black schools and $4,391.51 spent on white schools against $1,688.09 on Black schools. Almost half the schoolhouses of each race were still log.
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A legislature-appointed Board of School Directors takes over the Orange County schools
An 1899 act abolished the county Board of Education, which met for the last time on March 7, and put in its place a Board of School Directors named by the legislature. The Orange directors organized in April.
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The school board names committees for every district school, township by township
The July 1899 appointments list about 55 district schools in five townships, among them schools marked as Black at Payne's Chapel, North Side and Hillsboro, and white schools at Breeze, Efland, Rail Road and Flat Rock.
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Hillsboro Township names separate committees for the town district's white and Black schools
Meeting at the court house, the Hillsboro Township school committee appointed committeemen for each school district in the township and, because of the large number of children, named separate committees for the white and the Black schools of Hillsboro District No. 15. Major John W. Graham, James A. Cheek and C. R. Lassiter took the white school; Thomas H. Webb, N. W. Brown and Dr. J. S. Spurgeon took the Black school.
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The county school directors name township trustees and elect John Thompson superintendent
The new Orange County Board of School Directors, chaired by J. P. Lockhart, appointed school trustees for every township and elected John Thompson county superintendent. The trustees were told to organize, divide their townships into school districts and choose committeemen for each district.
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The Junior Order asks the county to build a public school house for Hillsborough
Meeting on November 15, 1899, Orange Council No. 52 of the Junior Order United American Mechanics resolved to ask the county Board of Education to spend the school money on hand and this year's taxes on a modern school building for Hillsboro township, which had 250 white children of school age and no adequate school house. The council pledged $10 to head a public subscription.
Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
- 1900s
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A one-room school for Black children is built at Hickory Grove
Hickory Grove, near White Cross, gets a one-room front-gable schoolhouse for African American children early in the twentieth century.
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The county board counts 5,056 school children and divides the school fund
The County Board of Education finished apportioning the general school fund of $6,572.80 among the townships at $1.30 for each child of school age. The new school census counted 5,056 children, 3,304 white and 1,752 Black, about 400 more than the last count. The county's $710.80 share of the legislature's special $100,000 school appropriation was held back until the state money came in.
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The school board rules the Cannadas' Chapel Hill school is not a public school
The Chapel Hill district had contracted J. W. and C. S. Cannada to teach all its school-age children, but the teachers had not met the school law. The board declared the school was not a public school and withheld pay until they complied.
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The State Farmers' Alliance, meeting near Hillsborough, asks for four-month schools and a child labor ban
Meeting at its headquarters near Hillsborough with its largest attendance in two years, the North Carolina Farmers' State Alliance petitioned the legislature for a special tax to keep public schools open four months, permanent support and free tuition at the state colleges, compulsory school attendance, a ban on employing young children in manufacturing, and reformatories for young offenders.
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Hillsboro's commissioners refuse to deed the old Female Academy to the town school
The board had asked the town to deed the old Hillsboro Female Academy lot, near E. A. Rosemond's house, to the school committee. The town offered only a ten-year lease, which the board said the law did not allow it to accept, and it told the committee to find another site.
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Charles E. Maddry serves as superintendent of the Orange County schools
While a student at the University of North Carolina, Charles Edward Maddry served as superintendent of the Orange County schools.
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The Hillsboro school committee buys the town's first public schoolhouse and lot
The committee bought a house on a two-acre lot, known as the Wash Bruce or Gill lot, from E. S. Cooley for $500. Pender says Hillsboro had never before owned a school building; the county board furnished it and paid for repairs.
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A school district is created south of White Cross on donated land
The board approved a new district south of White Cross whose land and building were given on condition that they revert when no longer used for a public school, with Sunday school and preaching allowed. Children of the Old Field school were moved to it.
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State aid pays for six rural school libraries in Orange County
The state issued warrants for its share of 210 rural school libraries, and Orange County received help for its full quota of six: five for white schools and one for a Black school at Chapel Hill.
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Cedar Grove district finishes a new $279 schoolhouse with county help
The board paid $150 from the general fund toward the new schoolhouse of Cedar Grove District No. 6, which cost $279.
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The county pays $214 toward a schoolhouse at Pleasant Green
The board paid Pleasant Green, District No. 1 of Little River Township, $214 for its school building.
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The county school board reports nine new schoolhouses and six rural libraries
Meeting at Hillsborough to apportion the school fund, the Orange County Board of Education reported nine new schoolhouses built in the past year: seven paid from the general fund, one paid by its district under the old law, and one given with an acre of land by George Pickard of White Cross. It also had six rural libraries running, the most the law allowed, and planned six more houses for 1902, though building costs left too little money for four-month terms for the county's 4,847 school-age children.
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Buckhorn residents build an academy that will also house the public school
The board approved a Gravelly Hill committee's plan to build an academy at Buckhorn and locate the public school there, retiring the old Buckhorn schoolhouse. The trustees guaranteed the board use of the building for school purposes permanently.
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Caldwell Institute gets a large new school district
A committee from Caldwell Institute asked for one district made from parts of the Wilson, Little River and Poplar Grove districts. The board approved and had the boundary surveyed.
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Orange County holds separate institutes for its white and Black teachers
Required teachers' institutes met at Hillsborough for a week, the white teachers in the court house under Prof. C. C. Crittenden of Wake Forest College and the Black teachers in a hall west of the court house under Prof. Charles H. Boyer of Raleigh, a Yale graduate, with large attendance at both. On August 23 State Superintendent J. Y. Joyner addressed the teachers of both institutes before one of the largest crowds seen in Hillsborough in years, urging consolidated districts and local school taxes.
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Caldwell asks for an election on a rural graded school
The Caldwell community asked for a vote on establishing a rural graded school, and the board asked the county commissioners to call the election.
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Hillsborough subscribers and the county school board fund a new public schoolhouse
Townspeople answered County Superintendent Charles E. Maddry's appeal with subscriptions for a new public schoolhouse at Hillsborough, where children were being turned away for lack of room, and the county board of education pledged to match every dollar so the house could be built at once; Maddry then advertised for building bids.
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Caldwell school district votes a special tax for a rural graded school
Voters in Caldwell District No. 5, Little River Township, approved a local tax for a rural graded school by 17 to 10, setting 30 cents on the $100 of property and 90 cents on each poll.
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The county board of education apportions the school fund and sets aside $1,000 for new schoolhouses
The Orange County Board of Education divided the year's school fund among about 4,700 children of school age and set aside more than $1,000 for new schoolhouses to be built in 1903.
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James Nichols begins building a new public schoolhouse for Hillsborough's white children
The Black contractor James Nichols began work on a new public school building for the white children of Hillsborough and expected to finish it in February.
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Orange County receives $1,315 in state aid to keep its schools open four months
State Superintendent J. Y. Joyner sent Orange County $1,315 as its share of the $100,000 the General Assembly voted to bring the public schools up to a four-month term.
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Orange County's Black teachers hold their institute at Hillsborough
The Orange County institute for Black teachers met at the court house in Hillsborough in the week of July 27, 1903, conducted by Prof. Charles H. Boyer of St. Augustine's School, Raleigh; on July 30 A. C. Burnett, a Black graduate of the A. and M. College at Greensboro raised near Ridge Church, spoke to it on agriculture.
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Commissioners call a special school tax election in the Chapel Hill district
On August 3, 1903, the county commissioners ordered an election in the Chapel Hill school district on September 14 to learn whether its voters would levy a special school tax, naming John O'Daniel registrar and S. W. Andrews and J. D. Webb judges.
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The county school board merges districts for new schoolhouses at Efland and near Ridge
Meeting at Efland on September 18, 1903, the county board of education merged the Efland and Railroad districts and voted a two-room schoolhouse at Efland, merged the Occoneechee and Ridge districts with a schoolhouse to be built near M. C. Ray's, and obtained a loan from the State Board of Education to build both.
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Elm Grove district voters turn down a graded school tax
At an election held at Cates' mill in Chapel Hill Township on October 12, 1903, voters of the Elm Grove district rejected a special tax to establish a graded school, 19 to 16.
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The county board of education apportions the school fund and counts the schools
Meeting on January 4 and 5, the board divided about $10,660 among the townships by the number of children: 3,077 white children (60 fewer than a year before) and 1,731 Black children (150 more). The county had 46 white and 23 Black schools; only Hillsborough, Cedar Grove and Chapel Hill townships had money enough for a four-month term, and the board resolved to cut Bingham Township's many small districts to about eight.
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Mebane School District becomes the first to tax itself for a longer school term
After a district election, the commissioners gave the sheriff a tax list for the Mebane district at 30 cents per $100 and 90 cents a poll. By 1910 special school taxes were collected in six districts.
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A frame schoolhouse replaces the log St. Mary's School
The district built a new frame school beside its log schoolhouse, about three-quarters of a mile northeast of St. Mary's Chapel, and sold the log building to Amos Wilson, who took it apart and moved it to his farm on St. Mary's Road.
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The board of education orders Chapel Hill's Black school rebuilt in Potter's Field
The county board of education ordered the superintendent to sell the Black school house and grounds in Chapel Hill and rebuild in Potter's Field, the Black settlement. At the same meeting it abolished Bethel district in Bingham Township, sending its patrons to White Cross and a neighboring district, and allowed Caldwell's patrons to vote on a local school tax.
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Superintendent Maddry reports Orange County's school figures
County Superintendent Charles E. Maddry's annual report counted 2,981 white and 1,337 Black children of school age, with 1,993 and 983 enrolled, 43 white and 23 Black districts, school property worth $9,680 for white and $2,180 for Black schools, and 15 rural libraries holding 2,000 volumes.
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The county board of education orders three new schoolhouses
Meeting with incoming superintendent John C. Hocutt, the Orange County Board of Education ordered three new schoolhouses built at once and let the contracts. It set school openings from mid-October to mid-November, with Hillsboro Township opening November 1.
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The Efland district finishes a new public school building
The new public school building for the Efland district was completed. The Observer called it one of the best, if not the best, public school buildings in the county.
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Merchant John Edward Clark builds a two-room schoolhouse on Old Oxford Road
Clark, a Chapel Hill storekeeper, replaced a one-room school he had also built on the site at 108 Old Oxford Road. In 1992 it was the only schoolhouse known in Chapel Hill from before school consolidation.
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The county cuts the public school term to three months
County superintendent John C. Hocutt shortened the current public school term from four months to three because of the cost of building and repairing schoolhouses, after consulting the state superintendent in Raleigh.
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The county counts 17 rural school libraries for white children and one for Black children
The 1905 annual statistical report found 18 rural school libraries in the county, holding 1,581 volumes in white schools and 92 in the single Black school library.
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County commissioners levy special school taxes in the Caldwell and Mebane districts
At their monthly meeting on July 3 the county commissioners levied a special school tax of 15 cents on property and 45 cents on the poll in the Caldwell school district, and 30 cents on property and 90 cents on the poll in the Mebane school district.
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Orange County teachers organize separate white and Black associations
White and Black teachers in Orange County organized separate teachers' associations, both planning monthly meetings. The Rev. A. C. Hamby was president of the white association, which held its regular monthly meeting at the court house on November 25 with County Superintendent John C. Hocutt present.
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The county teachers' institute opens at Hillsboro
The Orange County teachers' institute opened at Hillsboro under Superintendent John C. Hocutt and Ira E. D. Andrews and kept up its work through nearly two weeks of daily rain; State Auditor B. F. Dixon was to address the teachers for State Superintendent J. Y. Joyner on July 26 and 27.
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The county school board merges four districts into the University District
The Orange County Board of Education consolidated the Mt. Hermon, Cool Springs, Barbee's and Couch's school districts, all in the University Station section, into one district to be known as the University District.
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Black teachers hold their county institute at Hillsboro
Orange County's Black teachers held a county institute at Hillsboro in the first week of September, which the paper called very successful.
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Cane Creek Baptist Church votes a larger school building and sells the first one to the county
The church voted to put up a much larger building for its Orange Grove School, south of the church, and to sell the original academy building to Orange County for use as a public school.
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The school board divides the Hillsboro district and orders a two-teacher school at West Hill
The board split the Hillsboro district and ordered a school with two teachers built at West Hill, the mill section west of town.
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An educational rally at the court house urges local taxes for Orange schools
At an educational rally in the Hillsborough court house, Wake County school superintendent Judd told Orange's teachers and committeemen that local taxation was the only sound way to pay for modern schoolhouses and good teachers. Superintendent John C. Hocutt said Orange had not one local-tax district, that an election then pending was expected to carry, and that he meant to campaign for local taxes that winter; the Orange Grove school band and orchestra played.
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E. M. Highsmith becomes the first superintendent of the Chapel Hill schools
The book's list of Chapel Hill school superintendents begins with E. M. Highsmith, 1908 to 1910. Chapel Hill ran its schools as a separate unit under a special legislative charter.
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The Carrboro Public School is built on West Main Street
The one-story frame school at 114 West Main Street replaced the first school, held in a Center Street mill house, and taught seven grades under Mr. McDuffie, also the Baptist pastor. After the graded school opened late in 1921 it became the Methodist parsonage, serving until 1955.
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The county board builds the first room of Carr School for $300
Carr School in northwest Orange County, a gable-roofed weatherboarded schoolhouse, went up in 1908 with one room costing $300. The nomination names it among the few surviving frame schools the county built for Black children; it stands long vacant.
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Voters in the Hillsboro school district turn down a special school tax
Voters in a special tax district covering the town of Hillsboro and part of Hillsboro School District No. 1 defeated a proposed special tax for the public schools, with 59 voting against it.
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The Fairfield school district votes itself a special school tax
Voters in the Fairfield school district carried a special tax for their public school, and on June 1 the county commissioners levied it at 20 cents on each $100 of property in the district. In March a Charlotte Observer correspondent had listed Orange among eight North Carolina counties with no local school-tax district.
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Thomas Wingate Andrews is elected superintendent of the Orange County schools
When Hocutt resigned to give full time to church work, the board on July 6, 1908 elected T. Wingate Andrews, a new UNC graduate and grandson of the Calvander schoolmaster Calvin Andrews, to fill the unexpired term; he took office that October. He served until 1911 and prepared the county's ten-year school report for 1900-1910.
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The legislature creates the Chapel Hill Graded School District
An act ratified February 26, 1909 created the Chapel Hill Graded School District, with a special school tax and six trustees, among them Charles H. Herty and N. W. Walker, who ran its schools free of the Orange County board. Voters had to approve it in May; the city school system dates its founding to 1909.
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The county school board asks for a four-month school tax and a state high school at Andrews school house
The Orange County Board of Education asked the county commissioners to levy a special tax of 5 cents on each $100 of property and 15 cents on each poll so that every school district could have a four-month term, and applied to the State Board of Education for a state high school at the Andrews school house in Chapel Hill Township.
- 1910s
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Six Orange County districts levy special taxes for graded schools for white children
In 1910 six school districts taxed themselves to build and run larger graded schools, all of them for white children only, while Black schools stayed in one-room buildings.
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The Damascus Church School is built
A one-story frame school is built near Damascus Church southwest of Chapel Hill around 1910.
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The Smith Level School is built for white children south of Carrboro
A frame one-and-a-half-story rural school with a front gable went up on Smith Level Road about 1910. It became a dwelling in the 1930s, which cost it much of its original character.
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The county board builds a new school for white children at Efland
The board sought a state loan of $750 for a new Efland building, chose a three-acre lot of Jordan land south of the railroad, and had the superintendent hire carpenters while patrons supplied the framing and free hauling from West Hillsboro depot. It paid Mary W. Jordan $246 for the land in 1911 and sold the old Efland schoolhouse to J. R. Riley for $50 in February 1912.
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The county counts 25 rural primary schools for Black children, eight of them log
The school board recorded 25 rural primary schools for Black children in 1910, all but one run by a single teacher; eight were log buildings and the rest frame. White children had high schools in Hillsboro and Chapel Hill and 42 rural primary schools.
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The school at University is burned, and the board offers a reward for the arsonist
Fire destroyed the school building in the University community in the fall of 1910, and on November 3 the board asked the state for a $700 loan to rebuild it. In April 1911 the board offered a $100 reward, if the law allowed, for conviction of whoever had set the fire.
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The county board auctions the sites of five abandoned schools
The Orange County Board of Education sold the grounds of the old Orange Church, Barbee, Cool Spring, Mill and Couch schools to the highest bidders, most of them neighbors of the sites, for sums between $5 and $20.
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A county report finds no factory-made desks in any school for Black children
In the 1911-12 term seven of the 23 Orange County schools for Black children were log buildings. Eleven had homemade desks and the rest only benches; none had factory desks, while 28 of the 47 frame white schools did.
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Eight new rural schoolhouses go up in Orange County in one school year
Lockhart's report for 1911-12 counted four new schoolhouses for white children and four for Black children, built for $4,515 in all. Seven Black schools still met in log houses, while no white school did.
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The county board buys 2.46 acres from Mary E. Jordan for an Efland school
Early in Lockhart's term the board bought 2.46 acres at Efland from Mrs. Mary E. Jordan, paying $246, as the site for the Efland School.
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Samuel Paul Lockhart rejects the school board's re-election of Superintendent T. Wingate Andrews
At its July 1911 meeting the county board of education re-elected T. Wingate Andrews as superintendent of schools. Lockhart, a candidate for the post, said he would not abide by the result because the election was illegal, and by August he was superintendent himself.
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Samuel Paul Lockhart becomes superintendent of the Orange County schools
Lockhart, a Bingham and UNC student from the New Hope area, took over the county schools in August 1911 and set to work with the board on new schoolhouses. He served until his cousin R. H. Claytor defeated him in 1917.
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Harriet Cole's house is moved to clear a site for a public school
Mrs. Harriet Cole's house was moved several hundred feet east along West Franklin Street to make room for a planned public school.
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Orange County counts 5,203 school-age children and 4,193 enrolled
Of 3,316 white and 1,887 Black children of school age, 2,613 white and 1,580 Black children enrolled in 1913-14. Average daily attendance was 1,724 white and 933 Black pupils, 65 and 59 of every hundred enrolled.
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Orange County public schools average a 122-day term, with longer terms in six local-tax districts
In 1913-14 the county's public schools ran an average of 122 days, while the six districts that taxed themselves for schools averaged 154. Those districts were Hillsboro, University (Eno), Chapel Hill, Efland, Carrboro and Mount Hope.
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Orange County has 46 white public schools and two state high schools
The county ran 25 one-teacher and 21 larger white schools, 13 of them offering some high school work, and full four-year state high schools at Hillsboro and Chapel Hill that any county student could attend free. Their graduates entered the university or any state college without examination.
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The old Cedar Grove one-teacher schoolhouse is moved to serve Black children
When Cedar Grove's white pupils moved to the new high school, the one-teacher schoolhouse was hauled to Baxter Thompson's land and used as a school for Black children.
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The county board buys the Annie Hughes Academy to house a Cedar Grove high school
Answering a petition from Cedar Grove residents, the board offered on May 3, 1915 to buy the old Cedar Grove Academy from Annie Hughes and on May 15 paid her $1,500 for it, deeding her the lot of the one-teacher school it closed. The new Cedar Grove High School took grades one through eleven.
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The county board re-elects Superintendent Lockhart and funds an assistant for him
The Board of Education returned Samuel P. Lockhart to office and set aside $400 to pay Mary O. Graham as his assistant.
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The school board names Lula Cassidy rural supervisor and county canning agent
A week after electing Mary O. Graham supervisor, the board chose Lula Cassidy as rural supervisor and canning agent. In 1916 it put her in charge of a county-wide school commencement in Hillsboro.
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The county board orders two privies built at every school
Meeting in August 1915, the board bought desks and equipment and voted to put two privies at each county school, paying half the cost and leaving the community to pay the rest.
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Superintendent Lockhart's first township teachers' meeting meets at the Carrboro school
With rural supervisor Lula Cassidy, Lockhart set up meetings of the teachers in each township, smaller than the county meeting. The first, at the Carrboro school, drew a state education official and University School of Education staff, and the Merritt school came with all its teachers and its whole committee.
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Chapel Hill's white graded school and high school move into a new West Franklin Street building
After a school bond election in May 1915, Chapel Hill's new $35,000 graded school building went up on West Franklin Street and was in use when the public school opened on September 11, 1916. It held the grammar grades and the high school, whose enrollment had doubled to 85 in four years.
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Hackney's school on Merritt Mill Road is bought for a public training school
Louis Hackney had opened his school for Black students on Merritt Mill Road in 1912. In 1916 the property was bought for a public training school for Black students, after Black residents raised $3,000 toward the purchase.
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The Orange County school board asks Superintendent Lockhart to resign, and he refuses
The board said Lockhart had failed to adjust to the county's enlarged educational plans and would not cooperate with county supervisor Lula Cassidy. He refused to resign and stayed in office until his term ended in 1917.
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State and university educators set up a teacher-training program for Orange County
State superintendent J. Y. Joyner, rural schools chief L. C. Brogden and UNC's L. A. Williams met the county board and won approval for a 1916-17 plan of general teachers' meetings in November and March and group meetings at centers across the county, run by the UNC School of Education. Teachers were paid to attend, with a per diem and mileage for Saturday sessions.
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Black pupils of the St. Mary's district are given the old 1904 schoolhouse
When the white school moved to the chapel grounds, the 1904 frame building northeast of the chapel was turned over to the district's Black children. It was later closed and its pupils sent to the Hillsborough school.
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Cedar Grove voters approve a special school tax district
The board allowed Cedar Grove to call an election on a special school tax in July 1917, and the returns reported in September showed 34 votes for and 16 against. The board then set pay for each Cedar Grove high school teacher at $50 a month.
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Claytor's first report counts 42 one-teacher schools in Orange County
Claytor's 1917 report to the state listed 42 one-teacher schools, 19 white and 23 Black, with 2,569 white and 1,259 Black pupils. Nineteen Black schools had only benches and no desks.
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The county board pays for a school for Black children at Jordan's Grove
On July 9, 1917 the county board agreed to pay J. L. Wilson $119 to build a school for Black children "at Jordan's Grove and Grover," near Caldwell. The frame field school ran until 1951; the 1993 survey found it the only Black field school left in the county, badly deteriorated.
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The Episcopal Diocese deeds two acres by St. Mary's Chapel to the county school board
The diocese gave the Orange County Board of Education two acres of the chapel tract, west of the chapel and north of St. Mary's Road, on condition that the land be used only for a public school and return to the diocese if the school closed.
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R. H. Claytor becomes superintendent of the Orange County schools
R. H. Claytor took office as county school superintendent in September 1917 and served until July 1947. Merging the small rural schools was one of his first goals.
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The county builds a one-room St. Mary's School on the chapel grounds
The board of education put up a one-room frame school on the new lot, and the district's white pupils moved into it for the 1917-1918 term. A second room was added in 1919 and a third in 1921.
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Robert and Mollie Malone open Orange County Training School on the old Hackney campus
Principal Robert E. Malone, his wife Mollie Holmes Malone as domestic science teacher, and two other teachers began classes in academic, industrial and farm subjects at the county's new training school for Black students. Black residents had raised $3,000 toward the board's 1916 purchase of the Hackney campus on Merritt Mill Road.
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Eight local school tax districts raise $10,650 for their schools
Special school taxes supplied $10,650 of the county school fund: $4,000 from the Chapel Hill district and $6,650 from seven other local tax districts.
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Forty-one of the county's 78 public schools have a single teacher
Sixteen of the 50 white schools and 25 of the 28 Black schools had one teacher; only one Black school, with four teachers, tried any high school work. The survey named these small, scattered schools as a root problem of the county system.
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Of 5,593 school-age children in Orange County, 4,131 are enrolled
The school census listed 3,639 white and 1,954 Black children aged 6 to 21; 2,844 white and 1,287 Black children enrolled in 1918-19. About one child in four of school age was not on any school roll.
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Only 237 of the county's public school pupils, two of them Black, do high school work
About 5 percent of the 4,131 enrolled pupils were in high school grades: 235 white and 2 Black. Nine schools offered some high school work, only two a full course, and two townships had no school beyond the elementary grades.
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Orange County runs fifty public schools for white children and twenty-eight for Black children
The survey counted 78 county public schools, 50 white and 28 Black, under one superintendent. More than half the schoolhouses stood between a hundred feet and half a mile from a traveled road, and with roads nearly impassable in some months he could not visit each school more than once a year.
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Orange County spends $7.89 per enrolled child on its public schools
The county's school fund from all sources was $44,178.20, or $7.89 a child, about a dollar under the state average; the survey pointed out that most states spent over $25 a pupil. Per pupil actually in daily attendance the cost came to $15.22.
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Orange County's schoolhouses are valued at $110,000, $10,000 of it in Black schools
The survey valued the white schoolhouses at about $100,000 and the Black schoolhouses at about $10,000, not counting sites, which would raise the total past $125,000. The Chapel Hill school alone was worth $35,000, about a third of the whole.
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The survey finds the county's Black teachers better schooled than its white teachers
About a quarter of the white teachers had been to college, a sixth to a normal school, and an eighth no further than grammar school. Two-thirds of the Black teachers had attended college, so on schooling alone the survey judged them the better prepared group.
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The usual public school term in Orange County runs four months and three weeks
Most white and Black schools alike kept school for four months and three weeks a year. The survey urged the county board to lengthen the term as well as raise pay so Orange could hold trained teachers.
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Three Black school districts have no schoolhouse, and two others meet in log houses
Every white district had a schoolhouse, but the 28 Black districts had only 25: two used churches and one had no place at all. The survey judged every Black school building unsatisfactory, worst at Sunnyside, Merritt's, Cedar Grove and Maple Grove, and the first two were log houses.
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White teachers earn a median $50 a month and Black teachers $35
From visits to 46 schools, the survey put the median white teacher's pay at $50 a month and the median Black teacher's at $35, about $166 a year. Once board was paid, it reckoned, a Black teacher had under $3 a month left for clothes, books and doctors, against about $11 for a white teacher.
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White teachers' pay takes $50.50 of every $100 for the schools, Black teachers' pay $15.60
Of each $100 raised for Orange County schools, $50.50 paid white teachers and $15.60 paid Black teachers. Running costs got $4.30 for white schools and $1.60 for Black schools, building and repairs $7.30, and the Hillsboro and Chapel Hill high schools $2.10 each.
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Orange County Training School enrolls 215 students
Two years after it opened on the former Hackney campus in Chapel Hill, the county's training school for Black students had 215 enrolled.
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The county board adopts a policy of raising teachers' pay to an average of $75 a month
Shortly before the survey came out, the Orange County Board of Education decided to lift teachers' salaries to a $75 monthly average, half again the white median and more than twice the Black median the survey found.
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The county board decides to turn every one-teacher school into a two-teacher school
In January 1919 the board resolved to convert all of its one-teacher schools to two teachers, the same meeting at which it bought water coolers and erasers for the classrooms and raised the superintendent's pay.
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The county board commits $20,000 to a new Hillsboro school as a memorial to the county's war dead
The board first offered Hillsboro $5,000 for a new school plant if the town raised $2,500, then settled on $20,000, and asked that the building honor the men of the county killed in the First World War. It offered Carrboro $2,500 on condition that voters there pass a $20,000 bond issue.
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The county board sets out to close small weak schools and merge them with nearby ones
After visiting Orange Grove, which it kept as a three-teacher school, the board stated its aim of shutting small and inefficient schools and consolidating them with neighbors. The policy guided its building and busing decisions through the 1920s and 1930s.
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Edgar Wallace Knight becomes assistant superintendent of Orange County schools
In April 1919, the year he joined the UNC faculty, Knight was hired as assistant to county superintendent R. H. Claytor; the board agreed to pay him $40 a month, though later biographies describe the post as unpaid. He was still styled assistant superintendent of schools in 1923.
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The school survey proposes merging small schools around a central high school in each township
The study urged a full reorganization of districts before any new building: small primary schools feeding larger ones, and a well-equipped high school in each township. It named schools that should be merged, among them Oak Grove and White Cross in southern Bingham Township, Breeze and Union Grove at Caldwell, and Chestnut Ridge and Gravelly Hill at Gravelly Hill.
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The university's School of Education publishes a study of the Orange County public schools
At the county Board of Education's request, the School of Education at Chapel Hill surveyed the county's schools through the 1918-19 year, visiting more than 60 percent of them in person, and issued the results as an Extension Series bulletin. The study framed the schools as a business run for the county's families and offered Orange as a typical rural North Carolina county.
- 1920s
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Black families west of Hillsborough build the Gravely Hill Rosenwald School
Black families west of Hillsborough helped pay for and build Gravely Hill School, a two-teacher Rosenwald school, in the Rosenwald Fund's 1920-21 budget year. It cost $3,200: $700 from Black residents, $2,000 in public money and $500 from the Fund.
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Carr School gets its second classroom
The county board added a second room to Carr School in northwest Orange County, making it a two-room school twelve years after the first room was built.
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The Old Oxford Road schoolhouse closes as children are bused to town
Around 1920 pupils from the area began riding buses to the elementary school in Chapel Hill, and the two-room school John Edward Clark had built was made into a house.
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