Chronology

Search and filters

Entries

1. Colonial and Regulator years · 1680–1774

2. later 1771
   Law, policy or court · Orange County Outlawed Regulator leaders petition Governor Martin for pardon

   From hiding, some in South Carolina, Jeremiah Field, Ninian Bell Hamilton, Matthew Hamilton, James Hunter, Thomas Welborn, William Butler and John Fruit asked the new governor, Josiah Martin, for pardon. The Assembly asked mercy for all but Husband, Butler and Howell, but Martin waited because Tryon had left the matter to the Crown.

3. May 16, 1771
   Violence or armed conflict · Present-day Alamance County; then Orange County Battle of Alamance

   Governor William Tryon's militia defeated the Regulators at Alamance. James Few, captured on the field, was hanged at Tryon's camp the next day.

4. May 17, 1771
   Law, policy or court · Tryon's camp on Alamance Creek (then Orange County) Tryon proclaims a pardon for Regulators who come into camp, lay down their arms and take the oath

   From the camp Tryon offered the King's free pardon for all treasons and rebellions to anyone who came in by May 21, surrendered his arms, swore allegiance, promised to pay his taxes and submitted to the law, excepting the outlawed leaders and the prisoners already in camp. Further proclamations on May 21, 24 and 31 and June 11 extended the terms.

5. May 21-28, 1771
   Violence or armed conflict · Sandy Creek (then Orange County, now Randolph County) Tryon's army camps a week at Sandy Creek after Alamance

   Five days after the battle the army marched to Sandy Creek, the home district of Husband and many Regulators, and stayed a week, taking supplies from the people and giving them the oath of allegiance. It moved west on May 29.

6. June 9, 1771
   Law, policy or court · Bethabara Tryon offers 100 pounds and a thousand acres for Husband, Hunter, Howell and Butler, dead or alive

   Marching back toward Hillsborough, Tryon proclaimed from Bethabara that Herman Husband, James Hunter, Rednap Howell and William Butler stood outlawed and liable to be shot by anyone, and offered one hundred pounds and one thousand acres of land to whoever brought any of them into his or General Waddell's camp.

7. June 14, 1771
   Law, policy or court · Hillsborough Tryon's army returns to Hillsborough with its Regulator prisoners

   The army came back on June 14 and the next day marched through town with drums beating and oak sprigs in their hats before camping a mile east. The special court of oyer and terminer, opened May 30 and adjourned to await the prisoners, then resumed and tried fourteen men for treason.

8. June 19, 1771
   Law, policy or court · Hillsborough Regulators are tried and executed at Hillsborough

   After the Battle of Alamance, Regulator prisoners were tried at Hillsborough and twelve were condemned for treason. Six were pardoned; on June 19 Governor Tryon's army marched the others to a gallows east of town and hanged them, among them Benjamin Merrill, Robert Messer, Robert Matear and James Pugh. James Few had been hanged at camp on May 17.

9. June 20, 1771
   Closing or ending · Hillsborough Tryon takes leave of his army at Hillsborough and hands the command to Colonel Ashe

   Having received at Hillsborough camp the King's command to go at once to govern New York, Tryon thanked the officers and men for their conduct through the campaign, gave the army to Colonel John Ashe to march to Colonel Bryan's and disband by counties, and ordered the artillery escorted to New Bern and the horses taken in battle sold for the public. He reached New Bern on June 24 and sailed on the 30th.

10. December 14, 1771
    Law, policy or court · Fort George, New York Tryon, now governor of New York, asks the King's free pardon for the six reprieved Regulators

    Writing from Fort George in New York, Tryon named the six men convicted of high treason at the Hillsborough court in June whose executions he had suspended at the army officers' request, James Stewart, James Emmerson, William Brown, Forester Mercer, James Copeland and Harmon Cox, and repeated his request that the King grant them a free pardon.

11. Civil rights era · 1945–1975

12. 1963
    Naming or commemoration · Hillsborough The Colonial Dames erect a marble monument to the hanged Regulators beside the Hughes Academy schoolhouse

    In 1963 the North Carolina Society of the Colonial Dames of America erected a marble slab monument to the six Regulators hanged at Hillsborough in June 1771, placing it next to the historic Hughes Academy schoolhouse in Hillsborough. The men's grave, thought to lie near the Eno, has never been found.

Suggest a correction to an entry →

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 3, 2026.