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Local figure

James Mebane

James Mebane (1774–1857) was born at the Hawfields in Orange County, a son of Alexander Mebane Jr. He entered the University of North Carolina with its first students in 1795 and was the first president of the Dialectic Society. He sat many terms in the legislature, was Speaker of the House of Commons in 1820-21, and served as a university trustee from 1811 until his death.

Source: NCpedia: Mebane, James

Orange County Indexed has not yet linked an indexed work directly to James Mebane. The biography and the dated events on this page provide sources about James Mebane’s life and work. If you know a useful source, tell us.

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Life and Orange County connections

Dated events connected with this person, earliest first. See these 3 dated events in the chronology →

  1. James Mebane serves as the first president of the Dialectic Society Orange County student James Mebane is the first president of the university's Dialectic Society, one of the two student debating societies formed in the university's first year. People: James MebaneLefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 334
  2. Trustees offer the university's Chapel Hill lands for sale Pressed by debt, the trustees named William Polk, James Mebane and James Webb to offer the unimproved university lands around Chapel Hill for sale. Only a small sum came in, from the sale of the Preparatory School acre; that school had been closed for more than ten years. People: James Webb, William Polk, James MebaneSearch the index · Documenting the American South: Kemp P. Battle, History of the University of North Carolina, vol. I (1907), p. 334
  3. Literary societies move into new halls in the enlarged Old East and Old West The northward extensions of Old East and Old West, designed by A. J. Davis and built by Isaac J. Collier and Kendall B. Waitt for $9,360, were finished in 1848 with debating halls and library alcoves for the two societies. At the Dialectic opening James Mebane, the society's first president in 1795, sat beside the student president, Kemp P. Battle. People: Samuel (Samuel Field) Phillips, Alexander Jackson Davis, Kemp Plummer Battle, Isaac J. Collier, Samuel Field Phillips, James Mebane, Kendall B. WaittSearch the index · Documenting the American South: Kemp P. Battle, History of the University of North Carolina, vol. I (1907), p. 513

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 the 3 with a known location.

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 James Mebane, 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.

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Collections and databases

  • NC LIVE: prepared search for James Mebane Library card An advanced search of the state’s shared databases already scoped to Orange County’s places and this subject; edit it freely, and sign in through your North Carolina library to read
  • Ancestry Library Edition In the libraryOrange County Public Library Census, birth, death and marriage records, and more, free on the public computers at OCPL libraries

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