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Local figure

George Laws

George Laws, born in Orange County, lived about 57 years in Hillsborough and served as deputy sheriff, clerk of the county court and, by 1871, clerk of the superior court and judge of probate. In February 1871 he told a U.S. Senate committee about Black men hanged in the county by disguised white men.

Source: U.S. Senate: Report on the Alleged Outrages in the Southern States by the Select Committee of the Senate (1871), testimony of George Laws, February 15, 1871, pp. 190-191 (Internet Archive)

Orange County Indexed has not yet linked an indexed work directly to George Laws. The biography and the dated events on this page provide sources about George Laws’ life and work.

Search works on Racial-terror lynchings in Orange County Research sources View background reading ↓

Life and Orange County connections

Dated events connected with this person, earliest first. See these 9 dated events in the chronology →

  1. George Laws becomes a deputy sheriff of Orange County Laws, a carpenter in his early years, became a deputy sheriff in 1829, the start of more than forty years in county offices at Hillsborough.Search the index · Lefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 333
  2. George Laws becomes clerk of the Orange County court Laws succeeded Joseph Allison as clerk of the county court of pleas and quarter sessions at Hillsborough. Under the 1868 constitution he became clerk of the superior court and judge of probate.Search the index · Lefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 357
  3. George Laws carries the Orange magistrates' petition for a jury court to Governor Holden With no courts open in the county after the Confederate surrender, the magistrates appointed by the provisional governor petitioned for a jury court twice a year. Laws carried the petition to Governor William W. Holden, who refused it. People: William W. HoldenSearch the index · U.S. Senate: Report on the Alleged Outrages in the Southern States by the Select Committee of the Senate (1871), testimony of George Laws, February 15, 1871, pp. 190-191 (Internet Archive)
  4. George Laws chairs the stewards of the Hillsborough Methodist church In 1866, when Hillsborough Station took in Hillsborough, Cedar Grove, Walnut Grove, Lebanon and New Sharon, Laws was chairman of its Board of Stewards. As treasurer in 1867 he told members that if they wanted preaching they must pay for it.Search the index · Pauline O. Lloyd and Allen A. Lloyd, History of the Churches of Hillsborough, N.C., ca. 1766-1962 (1963), scan p. 88
  5. Orange County's first elected board of commissioners takes office Elected in April 1868 at the election that ratified the new constitution, five commissioners qualified at the courthouse and chose Lemuel Lynch chairman, replacing the old county court of justices. Within days the newly elected sheriff, treasurer, register of deeds and clerk of superior court gave their bonds. People: John U. Kirkland, Jones Watson, David C. Parks, George Laws, Lemuel LynchSearch the index · Lefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 193
  6. Hillsborough men ask Governor Holden to commission Pride Jones against the Klan On March 5, 1870 six Hillsborough men, among them J. W. Norwood, James Webb and Henry K. Nash, recommended to Governor Holden that Pride Jones be made a militia captain to put down night riding. Holden sent the commission on March 7 and Jones accepted on March 9. The raids soon stopped, and Jones resigned after four weeks. People: William W. Holden, Pride Jones, George LawsTrial of William W. Holden, Governor of North Carolina (1871), vol. 2, pp. 1158-1164
  7. U.S. Senate committee hears Orange County testimony on Klan violence A Senate select committee created on January 19, 1871 took testimony in Washington on Klan violence in North Carolina. Orange County witnesses, including Hillsborough constable W. G. Turrentine, court clerk George Laws and editor Josiah Turner Jr., described the 1869 jail raid, hangings and whippings in the county. The committee reported on March 10, 1871. People: George LawsU.S. Senate: Report on the Alleged Outrages in the Southern States by the Select Committee of the Senate, March 10, 1871 (Internet Archive)
  8. George Laws dies in office as Orange County's clerk of superior court Laws died in May 1881 while serving as judge of probate and clerk of the superior court of Orange County, after about half a century in the county's service.Search the index · DigitalNC: Orange County Observer, May 14, 1881, p. 2
  9. Dr. Pride Jones serves as Orange County clerk of superior court Dr. Pride Jones followed George Laws, clerk for thirty years, as clerk of the superior court of Orange County and held the office from 1883 to 1888, when Samuel M. Gattis succeeded him. People: George LawsSearch the index · Lefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 357

Places in this person’s story

Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first. The map shows them all.

Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors. Site locations from the N.C. State Historic Preservation Office survey, Open Orange and OpenStreetMap; town and community pins mark the middle of their mapped buildings.

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Named with them in the chronology

People named in the same dated entries as George Laws, those sharing the most entries first. Each line links one of the shared entries in the chronology, where its source is cited. A shared entry shows these people in the same event, not how well they knew each other.

Background on Racial-terror lynchings in Orange County

These works give background on Racial-terror lynchings in Orange County, the wider story this person is part of. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it.

Orange County, N.C. Road Records

Dunaway, Stewart E. · 2008

Three volumes of historic Orange County road records compiled by Stewart E. Dunaway and self-published through Lulu.com in 2008, with maps. The documents, reproduced as facsimiles and sometimes transcribed, include petitions for new roads, requests for road upkeep, bridge records and papers explaining why roads were rerouted. Road petitions name the householders along a route. The third volume also gathers records connected with Cyrus Guy's lynching in Orange County in 1869.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 388.1 ORANGE NC Cardinal Durham

John H. Wheeler (1806-1882) Diaries and Papers

Wheeler, John H. · 1854

Diaries and papers of John Hill Wheeler of Hertford County, historian, legislator, state treasurer from 1843 to 1845 and minister to Nicaragua from 1854 to 1857. The diaries, a broken run from 1854 to 1882, follow his social and political life in Washington, D.C. University commencements at Chapel Hill and his work on North Carolina history also come up. State Archives of North Carolina, MfP.51.

State Archives of NC

Calvin J. Cowles (1821-1907) Papers

Cowles, Calvin J. (Calvin Josiah), 1821-1907 · 1817

Papers of Calvin J. Cowles, 1817 to 1885. A Wilkes County merchant, Cowles was a Unionist Whig and later a Republican, presided over the Constitutional Convention of 1868 and ran the United States Branch Mint at Charlotte from 1869 to 1884. Early letters involve his father and business partner Josiah of Surry County. Reconstruction, Governor W. W. Holden and Orange County come up. State Archives of North Carolina, PC.111.

State Archives of NC

David L. Swain papers, 1807-1877 (bulk 1833-1868)

Swain, David L. (David Lowry), 1801-1868 · 1807

David L. Swain, 1801 to 1868, served as governor of North Carolina and then as president of the university at Chapel Hill. His papers span 1807 to 1877 with the bulk from 1833 to 1868. Subjects include Cornelia Phillips Spencer, Elisha Mitchell, W. W. Holden and Thomas Ruffin, and cover state politics, railroads, and records of enslaved people. Microfilm reels were made in 1949 and 1974.

UNC

William Andrew Jeffreys (1817-1845) and Family Papers

Jeffreys family · 1786

Papers of William Andrew Jeffreys, Franklin County lawyer and state senator, and his uncle Robert N. Jeffreys of Wake County, 1786 to 1883. They include grand jury indictments and road reports from 1839 to 1842, an 1844 plan for a literary, scientific and military academy in Raleigh, and family letters on plantations, slavery, politics and travel. Chapel Hill and the Hillsborough Military Academy come up. State Archives of North Carolina, PC.66.

State Archives of NC

Crabtree Jones Papers

Jones family · 1771

Papers of the Jones family of Crabtree in Wake County, 1771 to 1940: planter and legislator Nathaniel Jones (died 1828), his son Kimbrough Jones (died 1866), Mary Warren Jones, and Kimbrough Jones Jr. and his wife Mary Green Jones. Topics include plantations and enslaved people, cotton, politics and the Civil War. Chapel Hill also comes up. State Archives of North Carolina, PC.105.

State Archives of NC
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John Heritage Bryan (1798-1870) Collection

Bryan, John Heritage, 1798-1870 · 1716

Papers of John Heritage Bryan (1798 to 1870), New Bern lawyer, legislator and Whig congressman from 1825 to 1829, dating 1716 to 1907. His letters mostly follow social life in the towns and plantations of eastern North Carolina, chiefly New Bern and Raleigh, from the 1820s to the 1860s, and touch the university at Chapel Hill and the Hillsborough Academy.

State Archives of NC

Lynchings (Chapel Hill Historical Society vertical file)

Undated newspaper clippings and photocopied articles on lynchings, gathered in the Chapel Hill History series of the Chapel Hill Historical Society's Vertical File Collection.

CH Historical Society

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