Albion W. Tourgee

Life and Orange County connections

Dated events connected with this person, in date order. See these 7 dated events in the chronology →

1. late 1866 to August 1867 The Union League organizes Black voters in Orange County The Republican Union League, organized in Orange, Alamance and Guilford by Albion W. Tourgee, its first state president, recruited nearly every Black man who would vote before the 1867 election. It had faded by the end of 1870. People: William W. Holden, Albion W. Tourgee Place: Orange CountyLefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 114-115
2. 1868 or 1869 A trustee committee including Albion W. Tourgee finds the university not bound to pay its bank debt On Edward Cantwell's motion the Reconstruction trustees named Cantwell, Justice E. G. Reade and Albion W. Tourgee to inquire into the university's debts. Their report held that the university was not legally or equitably bound to pay its debt to the bank, since it could not buy bank stock on credit, and that the Cameron and Swain debts should be scaled down. Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: Edward Cantwell, E. G. ReadeSearch the index · Documenting the American South: Kemp P. Battle, History of the University of North Carolina, vol. II (1912), p. 13
3. November 9 to 13, 1868 Judge Tourgee holds Orange's first superior court under the new constitution The first superior court held in Orange under the 1868 constitution and the new code of procedure sat at Hillsborough a week late, with Judge Albion W. Tourgee presiding. About sixty state cases were on the docket; four Black defendants, two men and two women, were arraigned for the murder of one woman's husband and their trial was put off to the next term, and the grand jury presented the judges who had campaigned in the late election and all secret political societies. Tourgee left on Friday for the university trustees' meeting with only two civil cases tried. Place: Court house, HillsboroughSearch the index · Hillsborough Recorder, November 18, 1868, p. 2
4. late 1868 or early 1869 Trustees vote to found a university branch for Black students near Raleigh On Victor C. Barringer's motion the Reconstruction trustees called for a school for Black students near Raleigh equal to the one at Chapel Hill, and on Albion W. Tourgee's motion made it a branch of the university, with Tod R. Caldwell moving that at least 100 acres be bought. Nothing came of it, nor of a later proposal to give Black students a third of the land-scrip money or of Tourgee's request for equal white and Black departments under one board. People: Tod Robinson Caldwell, Albion W. Tourgee Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: Victor C. BarringerDocumenting the American South: Kemp P. Battle, History of the University of North Carolina, vol. II (1912), p. 8
5. about December 1871 Five Orange men arrested on Judge Tourgee's order slip away from the officer Five Orange men arrested on Judge Tourgee's order during the Alamance court slipped away from the officer one at a time; a report reached the judge that disguised men had taken them, which the paper denied. People: Albion W. Tourgee Place: Orange CountyHillsborough Recorder, January 3, 1872, p. 3
6. late October 1873 Orange Superior Court dismisses the assault case against W. W. Holden under the amnesty act Judge Tourgee dismissed the indictment of former Governor W. W. Holden for the 1870 arrest of Josiah Turner Jr. by Lt. John Hunnicutt of the state troops, ruling it covered by the amnesty and pardon act of March 3, 1873; Turner, the prosecutor, was first denied an appeal and then granted one. People: W. W. Holden, Josiah Turner Jr., Albion W. Tourgee Place: Court house, Hillsborough · Also named: John HunnicuttHillsborough Recorder, November 5, 1873, p. 3
7. May 1874 to January 1875 The new trustees sue Solomon Pool and Alexander McIver at Orange Superior Court and win possession of the university in the Supreme Court At the May 1874 term of Orange Superior Court the new board brought one action against Superintendent Alexander McIver, who held the university's seal and books and had agreed to a friendly test suit, and another against Solomon Pool for the buildings. Judge Albion W. Tourgee ruled against the trustees; John W. Graham and James A. Graham of Hillsborough argued for them without fee, as did B. F. Moore and William H. Battle on appeal in June 1874. At its January term 1875 the state Supreme Court decided for the university on every point, and possession passed to Andrew Mickle, the board's agent, with the seal, books and papers going to Treasurer Kemp Battle. People: Solomon Pool, Kemp Plummer Battle, Alexander McIver, John W. Graham, Andrew Mickle, Albion W. Tourgee, Bartholomew F. Moore, James Augustus Graham, William Horn Battle Place: Orange County Superior Court, HillsboroughInternet Archive: Kemp P. Battle, History of the University of North Carolina, vol. 2 (1912), full text