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The county

Orange County

Formed in 1752 from parts of Bladen, Granville and Johnston counties and named for William of Orange, with Hillsborough as its seat from 1754. Its first bounds were far larger: Chatham, Wake, Guilford, Caswell, Alamance and Durham counties were all formed in whole or in part from Orange.

Source: NCpedia: Orange County

7,177 indexed works are connected with this place. 134 held at OCPL →

Themes here. The subjects the index files most often under Orange County.

In the chronology

Storylines set here, earliest first. Each has its own page.

Occaneechi Town and the Great Trading Path1680–2024 · 48 events · Occaneechi Town on the Eno, occupied from about 1680 to 1710, was where John Lawson stopped in 1701 on the trading path that ran from Virginia to the Catawba. Archaeologists located the village at the Fredricks site in 1983, and the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation, recognized by the state in 2002, rebuilt a replica village there and dedicated a highway marker in 2024. Farm labor in rural Orange County1859–2022 · 16 events · Tobacco spread from Washington Duke’s turn to the crop in 1859, and after emancipation many freedpeople worked the land as tenants and sharecroppers; the 1930 census counted tenants on about a third of the county’s farms. Farm Security Administration loans reached Black farmers from 1938, tenancy fell sharply in the 1950s, and by 2022 the census counted 36 migrant workers on the county’s farms. Racial-terror lynchings in Orange County1869–1898 · 17 events · Six people are documented as lynched in Orange County: Washington Morrow, Thomas Jefferson Morrow, Daniel Morrow, Wright Malone and Cyrus Guy in 1869, and Manly McCauley in 1898. In September 2022 the county commissioners apologized for racial-terror lynchings and approved markers, citing five cases without naming the victims. Kirk-Holden War connections, 1870October 1869–March 1871 · 11 events · Governor Holden named Orange County in his October 1869 warning about Klan violence, Hillsborough men were named in a Klan plot against Senator T. M. Shoffner, and Kirk's militia arrested Josiah Turner Jr. at Hillsborough in August 1870. Orange men Frederick N. Strudwick, William A. Graham and John W. Graham then helped bring, prosecute and decide Holden's impeachment. Polio and vaccination1944–1964 · 11 events · Polio closed the county’s schools in 1944 and 1948, the University pool in 1950 and two UNC football games in 1952, and the county’s polio chapter bought iron lungs. The first Salk vaccinations reached first and second graders in 1955, and more than 25,000 residents took the Sabin oral vaccine on one Sunday in 1964. Cane Creek Reservoir and Bingham Township1961 to 1989 · 20 events · From the first engineering studies of 1961 to the filling of the reservoir in 1989: OWASA's Cane Creek Reservoir, the watershed land purchases, and the Bingham Township farm families displaced.
Show all 12 storylines
Speaker Ban controversy, 1963–19681963–1968 · 29 events · The General Assembly passed the Speaker Ban on June 26, 1963, barring known Communists and people who had pleaded the Fifth Amendment from speaking on state campuses. In March 1966 Frank Wilkinson and Herbert Aptheker spoke to UNC students from the Franklin Street side of the wall, and a federal court struck the law down on February 19, 1968. Health care across language and immigration1967–2024 · 12 events · From the student-run SHAC clinic of 1967 to UNC’s interpreter services, the CAMPOS program and the Center for Latino Health of 2008, care for the county’s newcomers has grown with its languages, and the health department was serving clients in almost 20 languages by 2014. El Futuro’s bilingual mental health work in Carrboro and the refugee wellness program of 2015 carry it on. Orange County landfill campaign1972 to 2013 · 31 events · The Eubanks Road landfill opened beside the Rogers Road community in 1972; four decades of expansions, lawsuits and the neighborhood's demands ended with its closure in 2013. Latino migration to Carrboro and Chapel Hill1990 to present · 29 events · Latin American families began arriving in Carrboro and Chapel Hill in the 1990s: the neighborhoods and workplaces that received them, and the institutions they built. Burmese and Karen refugee communities2005 to present · 22 events · Refugee families from Burma began resettling in Chapel Hill and Carrboro in 2005: the schools, gardens and congregations that grew with them. COVID-19 in Orange County, 2020–20222020 to 2022 · 31 events · From the first cases in March 2020 to the last emergency measures in 2022: closures, remote school, the health department's response, mutual aid, and the pandemic's unequal weight.

Other dated events here: sixteen of 738, the highlights and a sample of the rest spread across the years, in date order. See all 738 dated events in the chronology →

Earliest first. Scroll sideways, or use the arrows.

16 dated events
  1. Herman Husband, the Regulators’ pamphleteer, was born

    Life event · Countywide

    Herman Husband was born in Cecil County, Maryland, to an Anglican family and later became a Quaker. He settled at Sandy Creek, then in Orange County and now in Randolph County, where he reprinted and circulated political pamphlets and became a leading voice of the protest against county officers.

  2. Battle of Alamance

    Violence or armed conflict · Present-day Alamance County; then Orange County

    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.

    Part of The Regulator crisis, 1766–1771 · 90 events

    People: William Tryon · Herman Husband

  3. Indian families from Virginia settle the Texas community in northern Orange County

    Migration or settlement · Orange County

    Charles Whitmore, Jesse Whitmore and Jacob Jeffries appear on the Orange County return used for the 1790 federal census, which was compiled from a tax list of 1787. Families of the same names had moved southwest from Greensville County in Virginia, and by 1820 the settlement later called Texas, or Pleasant Grove, was intact, with the Corn and Jeffries families holding tracts of several hundred acres.

  4. The county tax list counts 36 white polls and 82 taxable enslaved people in Hillsborough town

    Statistic or record · Orange County

    Orange County's 1790 tax list returned 2,272 polls and 406,106 acres across its eight districts, with a separate list for Hillsborough town showing 36 white polls against 82 black polls. William Hooper was charged for 22 of them, John Taylor for 10 and Francis Childs for 5.

    People: William Hooper · Walter Alves

  5. Thomas Ruffin issues the State v. Mann decision

    Law, policy or court · Countywide

    Thomas Ruffin of Hillsborough, newly seated on the North Carolina Supreme Court, wrote the opinion in State v. Mann, overturning the conviction of John Mann of Edenton for shooting Lydia, an enslaved woman he had hired, as she fled a whipping. Ruffin held that a master's power must be absolute, and abolitionists later cited the ruling widely.

    People: Thomas Ruffin · Lydia

  6. Orange County has 15 academies with 470 pupils

    Statistic or record · Orange County

    The count for 1850 found fifteen private academies in the county, teaching 470 students.

  7. Washington Morrow, Thomas Jefferson Morrow and Daniel Morrow are lynched

    Violence or armed conflict · Countywide

    Early on August 7, 1869, about 100 disguised white men took Washington Morrow and his brother Nelson from the Hillsborough jail, where they were held on barn-burning charges, and shot Washington as they fled; he died of the wound. On October 14 a mob hanged their father, Thomas Jefferson Morrow, and their uncle, Daniel Morrow.

    Part of Racial-terror lynchings in Orange County · 17 events

    People: Washington Morrow · Daniel Morrow · Jefferson Morrow

    Subject: Orange County jail, Hillsborough

  8. Mary Owen Graham is endorsed as supervisor of Orange County's canning clubs

    Appointment, election or service · Orange County

    The commissioners approved Graham, of Charlotte, to lead the county's canning clubs, the start of extension work with farm women. In 1916 they renewed $250 a year for tomato club work.

  9. Census counts tenants on about a third of Orange County farms

    Statistic or record · Orange County

    Tenants operated 643 of 1,870 Orange County farms in 1930 (34.4 percent), 718 of 1,956 in 1935 (36.7 percent) and 687 of 2,043 in 1940 (33.6 percent). Of the 1940 tenants, 514 were share tenants and croppers.

  10. District health department holds midwife classes across Orange County

    Health or relief action · Orange County

    Classes for midwives were held at Efland and Hillsboro and began for those in and near Chapel Hill at the health department offices, with attendance required before a permit to practice would be issued. Health officer W. P. Richardson said 17 percent of births in the county were attended by midwives, against 31 percent statewide.

    Part of Public health in rural Orange County · 26 events

  11. Hyconeechee Regional Library is established

    Founding or opening · Countywide

    The three county library systems incorporated as one region to enlarge book collections, run a shared bookmobile and provide trained supervision. The regional board held its second meeting on September 13, 1948 at the Confederate Memorial Library in Hillsboro, with Sydney Green of Orange County as president and Mrs. Douglas Davis as regional librarian.

    Subject: Orange County Public Library

  12. Census counts Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro in

    Statistic or record · Orange County

    The 1960 census counted 42,970 people in Orange County, 12,573 in Chapel Hill and 1,997 in Carrboro. Chapel Hill township had 25,030, up from 18,222 in 1950.

  13. Friends of the Orange County Public Library is founded

    Founding or opening · Countywide

    Residents organized the Friends of the Orange County Public Library on November 5, 1981, to raise money and advocate for a county library preparing to move into larger quarters in Hillsborough. The group incorporated on May 3, 1982, and the IRS recognized it as a 501(c)(3) charity in June 1983.

    Subject: Orange County Public Library

  14. Hurricane Fran strikes Orange County

    Disaster or outbreak · Countywide

    Hurricane Fran came ashore on the night of September 5, 1996 and crossed to the Triangle overnight. In Chapel Hill winds topped 70 mph, falling trees caused about 29,000 power outages and UNC cancelled classes, and the Eno at Hillsborough hit a record flow. No one in Orange County was killed.

    Part of Hurricane Fran, September 1996 · 12 events

  15. Refugees from Burma begin arriving in Orange County in larger numbers

    Migration or settlement · Orange County

    All 55 refugee direct arrivals recorded in Orange County in fiscal year 2006-2007 came from Burma. A second resettlement agency, the Triangle office of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, opened.

  16. Orange County's clerk of superior court is honored for work in guardianship law

    Award or honor · Orange County

    Kleinschmidt received the Isabella Award at the National Probate Judges Conference for his contributions to guardianship and probate law. The award is named for judge Isabella Horton Grant and goes to people whose leadership improves guardianship laws, court administration and practice.

The county’s shape through time

Orange County as the legislature drew and redrew it, from the vast county of 1752 to the county of today. Choose a date to see its outline then; the dashed lines are its other shapes.

County outlines: Atlas of Historical County Boundaries, The Newberry Library. Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Maps of Orange County

Dated maps that show this place, oldest first: town plans, county, road and soil maps, fire insurance sheets and the U.S. Geological Survey’s topographic maps, each linked to the library or archive that holds it. The USGS maps are free to download.

  1. A Plan of the Camp and Battle of Alamance, the 16th May 1771. Between the Provincials of North Carolina, Commanded by His Excellency Governor Tryon. and Rebels who styled themselves Regulators. Survey'd and Drawn by C. J. Sauthier. DPLA
  2. Map of Orange County UNC
  3. Property maps of the North Carolina Railroad. No. 3. DPLA
  4. The North Carolina Railroad Map, Book 3 Durham
  5. Map of Orange County, N.C. UNC
  6. Map showing rural free delivery route no. 3 from Chapel Hill, Orange County, N.C. UNC
  7. A map of Orange County, N.C. UNC
  8. Orange County soil map (map, Chapel Hill Historical Society) CH Historical Society
  9. Soil map, North Carolina, Orange County sheet Duke
  10. Topography, Chapel Hill and vicinity, Orange County, North Carolina. UNC
  11. Rosemary Street Residence for Dr. J.B. Bullitt Basement Plan DPLA
  12. Soil Survey of Orange County NC Cardinal
Show 8 more maps
  1. School map, Orange County, North Carolina. UNC
  2. Map of Orange County, North Carolina UNC
  3. North Carolina County Road Survey of Orange County DPLA
  4. Forest cover map of the New Hope Creek Division-Duke Forest : July 1, 1931. Duke
  5. North Carolina County Road Survey of Orange County DPLA
  6. Map of Orange County, N.C. : 1939 UNC
  7. An atlas for Orange County, North Carolina UNC
  8. Aerial Survey of Orange County (map, Chapel Hill Historical Society) CH Historical Society

Indexed works

Related works found in catalogs and archives across North Carolina, the most widely held first, novels aside. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it.

Narrow these works. Each link opens the search already limited to this place. Counts are indexed works, not copies on a shelf; a work can carry more than one period or place.

Widely held

To Free A Family

Nathans, Sydney · 2012 · Harvard University Press

Sydney Nathans's biography of Mary Walker, an enslaved woman from Orange County who escaped to the North in the mid nineteenth century and spent the following decades in Cambridge, Massachusetts, working to free the family she had left behind. Chapter titles trace her flight, her years among Northern friends, a rescue plot, a long silence, and the reunion that gives the book its close. Published 2012 by Harvard University Press, 330 pages with 20 pages of plates, illustrations and maps.

Reviewed in Choice Reviews Online (2012), Civil War Book Review (2012).

Miss Mary's Money

Jones, H. G. · 2014 · McFarland & Co.

H. G. Jones follows the fortune of Mary Ruffin Smith (1814-1885), the unmarried heiress whose Orange and Chatham County lands passed at her death to the University of North Carolina and the Episcopal Church. Chapters profile her grandfather Francis Jones, then trace the bequest through a quarrel among Episcopalians over Price Creek, the Chapel of the Cross and the university's buildings. A December 1885 New York Times report called the gift money; Jones shows it was land. Published by McFarland in 2014, 231 pages.

The Pelican Guide to Hillsborough, Historic Orange County, North Carolina

Dula, Lucile Noell · 1989

Lucile Noell Dula's guidebook to Hillsborough and its historic buildings, published by Pelican in 1989. It pairs a tour of the town with notes on its history, in 128 illustrated pages with a bibliography. Part of the Wall Local History Collection.

Kinship and Neighborhood in a Southern Community

Kenzer, Robert C. · 1987 · University of Tennessee Press

Robert C. Kenzer's study of kinship and neighborhood in Orange County between 1849 and 1881, the decades before and after the Civil War, tracing family ties and neighborhood networks through the county's records. Published by the University of Tennessee Press in 1987, 251 pages with illustrations, maps, portraits and a bibliography. Topics include kinship, neighborhoods and social conditions in the county in the nineteenth century.

Reviewed in Choice Reviews Online (1988), Journal of American History (1988), The American Historical Review (1989), The Journal of Southern History (1989), Civil War history (1989), Journal of Social History (1989).

Horace Williams

Winston, Sr., Robert Watson · 1942 · The University of North Carolina press

Robert Watson Winston's biography of Henry Horace Williams (1858-1940), who taught philosophy at the University of North Carolina for half a century, subtitled gadfly of Chapel Hill. Published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1942, 309 pages with frontispiece and portraits; this copy is autographed. Topics include educators in Chapel Hill and the university's history.

Reviewed in Social Forces (1943).

The Age of Orange: Political and Intellectual Leadership in North Carolina, 1752-1861

Blackwelder, Ruth · 1961

Ruth Blackwelder's study of political and intellectual leadership in Orange County and North Carolina from 1752 to 1861, published in Charlotte by W. Loftin in 1961. Topics include state politics and government, intellectual life before the Civil War, and county genealogy. It runs 216 pages with illustrations and a bibliography. Part of the Wall Local History Collection.

Show 2 more

Ribbons of Color Along the Eno River

2021

Collected first-hand and second-hand stories from the Eno River valley as told from the standpoint of African Americans and Native people who have lived along the river in Orange and Durham counties, from prehistory to the present day. Issued by the Eno River Association in Durham as volume 10, number 2 of the Eno Journal, 2021, 106 pages with illustrations.

Recently indexed: Adolphus Williamson Mangum : memorial address delivered in the chapel of the university, Sunday, May 31st, 1891 (1891) · Catalogue, &c of the University of North Carolina [1834-1835] (1834) · Dr. James Phillips (1882) · Giles Mebane (1900) · Gordon Gray : a collection of mounted clippings chiefly from North Carolina newspapers through 1971 [sic] (1947) · Gordon Gray : a collection of mounted clippings chiefly from North Carolina newspapers through 1975 (1947)

Search all 7,177 indexed works →

Start at OCPL

Books in OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection whose titles, catalog subjects, or descriptions match this place. The Friends’ recommended starting points are labelled.

  • Start here · NC 975.656 NOR The History of Orange County: Part I Nash, Frank · 1910

    Frank Nash's History of Orange County, Part I, as it appeared in the North Carolina Booklet for October 1910 (volume 10, number 2), published in Raleigh by the North Carolina Society, Daughters of the Revolution. This copy is detached from the periodical and runs from page 55 to page 113. An early narrative history of the county.

  • Foundational · NC 975.656 MCB An Orange County Childhood McBroom, Ruth Gates · 1983

    Ruth Gates McBroom's memoir of growing up in Orange County, N.C., a personal account of family life, manners and customs in the county as one family remembered them. Published in 1983 by B. Holloway, 80 pages with portraits.

  • Foundational · NC 975.656 ORA Orange County--1752-1952 1953

    Hugh Talmage Lefler and Paul W. Wager's history of Orange County across its first two centuries, 1752 to 1952, prepared for the county's bicentennial. It covers government and politics, biography and the county's families, and doubles as a genealogical reference. Published in Chapel Hill by the Orange Printshop in 1953, 389 pages with illustrations and an index; this copy is a later reprint.

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  • Start here · NC 664.72 ORANGE Orange County, North Carolina, Mill Records (1782-1859) 2010

    Images of the Orange County mill petitions, 1782 to 1859, compiled by Stewart E. Dunaway from originals in the North Carolina Archives and issued in a revised edition dated July 18, 2010 that draws in his Paterson Mill research. The 218 pages carry facsimiles of the petitions with partial transcriptions and maps. Petitions to build or keep a gristmill went before the county court and name the petitioner and the stream.

  • Foundational · NC 975.656 ORANGE Working for A Living: A Special Exhibit by the Orange County Historical Museum, March-December 2024 Orange County Historical Museum (N.C.) · 2024

    Exhibit publication from the Orange County Historical Museum for its special exhibit on working life, shown in Hillsborough from March to December 2024 and concerned with the county's trades and industrial arts. Produced by the museum in 2024, it documents Orange County and Hillsborough history through the work people did.

  • Foundational · NC 306.363 SCARLETT Sheer Resilience : An Untold Story of A Free Community of Color in Orange County, N.C Scarlett, Beverly A. · 2024

    Beverly A. Scarlett's 2024 study of a free community of color in nineteenth-century Orange County, drawing on apprenticeship and freedmen's records among other county sources.

  • Foundational · NC 975.656 BOLDUC African Americans of Durham & Orange Counties: An Oral History Bolduc, Jean · 2016

    Jean Bolduc's 2016 collection of interviews with African American residents of Durham and Orange counties, presented as short biographies. The subjects are Floyd McKissick (1922-1991), the first African American admitted to UNC's law school, Walter Jackson, Brenda Stephens, Nate Davis, poet Jaki Shelton Green, Jackie Wagstaff, Diane Wright and Michelle Johnson, with a closing chapter on the Ku Klux Klan. 125 pages with illustrations.

  • Foundational · NC 305.409 WHE Where My Feet Have Taken Me: A Collection of Short Stories by Women and Girls Living in Orange County, NC 2005

    A collection of short stories written by women and girls living in Orange County, N.C., published in 2005 for Women's History Month.

  • Foundational · 975.656 RYAN Orange County Trio: Hillsborough, Chapel Hill, and Carrboro, North Carolina, Histories and Tour Guides Ryan, Elizabeth Shreve · 2004

    Elizabeth Shreve Ryan's combined histories and tour guides for Hillsborough, Chapel Hill and Carrboro, the three towns of Orange County, with the University of North Carolina treated alongside Chapel Hill. Each town gets a narrative history and a tour of its streets and buildings. Published by Chapel Hill Press in 2004, 369 pages with illustrations and maps.

Research sources

Background context 5

Background from selected state and local sources

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Places to visit 6

Maps, surveys, and the ground itself

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Read contemporary evidence 17

Newspapers, photographs, and records of the time

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Search beyond the index 5

Other catalogs, databases, and guides worth searching

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  • NC LIVE: prepared search for Orange County NC LIVE 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

Ask locally 6

Local organizations that preserve the story and can help you go further

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Background reading at OCPL

Held in OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection. Selected because their titles or catalog subjects provide wider historical context for this place; they may not discuss the Orange County place directly.

  • Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection William Churton, Colonial Surveyor of North Carolina (1711-1768) Dunaway, Stewart E. · 2004

    William Churton, surveyor for Earl Granville, came to the colonies around 1749 and in 1754 laid out the town that became Hillsborough, the Orange County seat. Stewart E. Dunaway's life history of him follows his surveying career and his family, illustrated with maps and facsimiles and closing with a bibliography and an index. Published by the author in Hillsborough in 2017 through Lulu; 166 pages.

    Subjects in the OCPL catalog record: Churton, William, 1710-1767; Churton family; Surveyors -- North Carolina -- Biography OCPL call number: NC 929.2 DUNAWAY
  • Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection The Descendants of Matthew McCauley Neville, David Lindsay · 2001 Subjects in the OCPL catalog record: McCauley family; Neville family; Lloyd family OCPL call number: NC 929.209 NEV
  • Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection Revolutionary Leaders of North Carolina Connor, R. D. W. · 1971

    Lectures on North Carolina's Revolutionary generation that R. D. W. Connor gave at the State Normal and Industrial College in the spring of 1913. A survey of the colony and state from 1765 to 1790 is followed by studies of four leaders: John Harvey, Cornelius Harnett, Richard Caswell and Samuel Johnston. Published in 1916 as the college's Historical Publications no. 2; reprinted in 1971, 125 pages.

    Subjects in the Library of Congress catalog record: North Carolina -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783; Harvey, John, 1725?-1775; Harnett, Cornelius, 1723-1781 OCPL call number: NC 920 CON

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More to discover

Keep Reading Local

The Friends connect people with new library materials, local writers and publishers, and resources documenting Orange County.

Two mice reading back to back against a leaf, with the hand-lettered words Friends of the Orange County Public Library
Illustration by Caldecott Medalist Matthew Cordell, gifted to the Friends 2026