Thomas Ruffin Jr.

Life and Orange County connections

Dated events connected with this person, in date order. See these 11 dated events in the chronology →

1. December 1870 Thomas Ruffin Jr. moves to Hillsborough and opens an insurance agency In December 1870 Thomas Ruffin Jr. moved to Hillsborough, where he opened an insurance agency before taking up the practice of law again. He lived near the town for the rest of his life.Search the index · NCpedia: Ruffin, Thomas, Jr.
2. August 1875 Thomas Ruffin Jr. and John W. Graham form the law firm of Graham & Ruffin In August 1875 Thomas Ruffin Jr. formed a law partnership in Hillsborough with John W. Graham. Apart from his two years on the state Supreme Court, the firm of Graham & Ruffin lasted until his death in 1889. People: John W. GrahamSearch the index · NCpedia: Ruffin, Thomas, Jr.
3. about 1877-1878 Thomas Ruffin Jr. and his wife Mary build the Ruffin-Hill House Thomas Ruffin Jr. and his wife Mary built an I-house with Italianate and Eastlake trim on a 47-acre tract near the burned Priestly Mangum House. Their daughter Mary Ruffin Hill and her husband Thomas Hill lived there for many years. People: Thomas Ruffin Jr.Search the index · National Register: Hillsborough Historic District Additional Documentation (2014)
4. spring term, April 30 to May 5, 1877 Orange Superior Court quashes the libel indictment brought for Josiah Turner against the Raleigh News At the spring term of Orange Superior Court under Judge Cox, the indictment against Walter Clark, John D. Cameron and the other owners and editors of the Raleigh Daily News for an alleged libel on Josiah Turner Jr. was quashed on motion of their counsel, John W. Graham and Thomas Ruffin Jr. People: Josiah Turner Jr., Walter Clark, John W. Graham, Thomas Ruffin Jr.Search the index · Hillsborough Recorder, May 9, 1877, p. 3
5. May 16, 1879 Three men hanged for a string of Chapel Hill burglaries In 1878 a band of four broke into houses in and near Chapel Hill, among them the Rev. G. W. Purefoy's on the night of August 5, and wounded the widow Margaret Hendon with an axe blade while trying to rob her. Albert Atwater, a Black man held for a lesser offense, confessed and named two white men and a Black man, Jim Carlton, Davis and Henry Andrews, who were convicted at the October 1878 term of Orange Superior Court and sentenced to death. They were hanged after the governor refused a pardon or commutation, probably in the spring of 1879: Battle dates the hanging April 16, 1878, months before the arrests. People: William P. Mallett, Thomas Ruffin Jr.Search the index · Documenting the American South: Kemp P. Battle, History of the University of North Carolina, vol. II (1912), p. 150 · Also: Hillsborough Recorder, August 14, 1878, p. 3; Hillsborough Recorder, October 30, 1878, p. 3; The Chapel Hill Ledger, May 17, 1879, p. 2
6. February 11, 1881 Governor Jarvis appoints Thomas Ruffin Jr. of Hillsborough to the state Supreme Court Governor Jarvis appointed Thomas Ruffin of Hillsborough an associate justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court in place of Justice Dillard, who had resigned, and Ruffin accepted. People: Thomas Jordan Jarvis, Thomas Ruffin Jr.Search the index · Orange County Observer (Hillsborough), February 19, 1881, p. 2
7. October 7 to 10, 1883 An Orange jury convicts Tony Borland of manslaughter after a confused verdict Tony Borland, a Black man tried at Hillsborough on removal from Durham County for killing Ellen Couch in Durham, was at first declared not guilty by the jury foreman on Sunday morning, October 7, 1883, until a poll showed the jury had agreed on manslaughter. Judge James C. MacRae, who rebuked the jury from the bench, sentenced him on October 10 to twenty years in the penitentiary. People: John W. Graham, Thomas Ruffin Jr.Search the index · Orange County Observer (Hillsborough), October 13, 1883, p. 2
8. early October 1883 Thomas Ruffin Jr. leaves the Supreme Court and rejoins John W. Graham in law practice After resigning from the North Carolina Supreme Court in September 1883, citing ill health and overwork, Judge Thomas Ruffin Jr. of Hillsborough went back into practice with Major John W. Graham, reviving their old firm of Graham & Ruffin. By early October the firm was defending Tony Borland in Orange Superior Court, and by December it advertised practice in Alamance, Caswell, Durham, Guilford, Rockingham, Person and Orange. People: John W. Graham, Thomas Ruffin Jr.Search the index · Orange County Observer (Hillsborough), October 6, 1883, p. 3
9. February 20, 1886 Fire destroys Judge Thomas Ruffin's house in Hillsborough Fire destroyed the home of Judge Thomas Ruffin about four in the afternoon while he was away at court in Greensboro. Neighbors, white and Black, saved much of the furniture and, helped by a northwest wind, all of the outbuildings; the house was not insured. People: Thomas Ruffin Jr.Search the index · Orange County Observer (Hillsborough), February 27, 1886, p. 3
10. August-September 1886 White Brothers of Mebane begin rebuilding Judge Thomas Ruffin's burned house Judge Thomas Ruffin let the contract to White Brothers of Mebane for a new dwelling on the site of his residence, which fire had destroyed the winter before, and by late September their carpenters were at work on it. People: Thomas Ruffin Jr.Search the index · Orange County Observer (Hillsborough), August 21, 1886, p. 3
11. May 23, 1889 Former Supreme Court justice Thomas Ruffin Jr. dies at Hillsborough Thomas Ruffin Jr., son of Chief Justice Ruffin, a solicitor, Confederate lieutenant colonel, superior court judge and associate justice of the state Supreme Court from 1881 to 1883, died at his home near Hillsborough; a procession led by the boys of the Peace and Beneficial Club he had founded followed him to St. Matthew's churchyard. People: Joseph W. Murphy, Thomas Ruffin Jr.Search the index · Orange County Observer (Hillsborough), June 1, 1889, p. 3