Skip to content
Orange County Public Library (opens the library’s website in a new tab)

Storyline

The county patrol, 1787–1829

The county court’s patrols over enslaved people: patrollers named for Hillsborough and the University village, the patrol taxes on Black polls, the committees that drafted patrol rules, and the licenses that let some enslaved men carry guns.

In briefFrom 1787 the Orange County court named patrols to watch the movements of enslaved people: patrols for Hillsborough, for the county's districts and, in 1799, for the neighborhood of the University. From at least 1807 the patrols were paid with a tax on each Black poll, and committees of justices drafted rules for them in 1809 and 1813. The court also licensed some enslaved men to carry guns on their owners' land, on the motions of men such as Richard Bennehan and Duncan Cameron, and twice ordered patrollers to give back guns they had taken. In 1829 Chapel Hill's first town ordinance set up a town patrol, and the county was still levying its patrol tax on Black polls.

Read the full storyRead the 14 eventsAll storylines

Read the events and sources below.

No works in the index are currently linked directly to this storyline. The works below provide background on Slavery in Orange County.

Browse all 14 works on Slavery in Orange County Research sources View background reading ↓

The full story

In March 1787 the county court named four patrollers for the town of Hillsborough to watch the movements of enslaved people, and it went on naming patrols for the town and the county's districts. In 1799 it appointed a patrol for the village and neighborhood of the University. From at least 1807 it paid the patrols with a tax of one shilling on each Black poll, and in 1812 it named patrols of two to four men in at least sixteen captains' companies. Committees of justices, Frederick Nash and William Norwood among them in 1809 and again, with Thomas Ruffin, in 1813, were named to draft rules for the patrols. The court also licensed some enslaved men to carry guns on their owners' land, on the motions of William Hooper in 1789, Richard Bennehan in 1794 and 1809, William Cain in 1802 and Duncan Cameron in 1809; in 1817 it licensed Sam, who ran Ephraim Cain's Eno plantation without a white overseer. Twice it ordered patrollers to give back guns they had taken from enslaved men. In 1829 Chapel Hill's first town ordinance set up a town patrol, and the county court was still levying a patrol tax on Black polls.

In the chronology

Events in this storyline, in date order. See these 14 dated events in the chronology →

  1. The court names four patrollers for the town of Hillsborough The court appointed Robert McIntire, Martin Cole, James Lunday and William Cummings patrollers for the town of Hillsborough. The patrol watched the movements of enslaved people; in these years the court named patrollers for the town again in 1788 and 1792 and for the St. Mary's, St. Mark's and Caswell districts from 1789.Mark Chilton, transcription of the Orange County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions minutes: February Term 1787
  2. The court lets John, a man enslaved by William Hooper, carry a gun on Hooper's land On William Hooper's motion through his attorney Jesse Benton, the court allowed John, a man Hooper held in slavery, to hunt with and carry a gun on Hooper's plantation on the Eno about two miles below Hillsborough, to protect Hooper's stock and kill game for his family. People: William Hooper, Jesse BentonMark Chilton, transcription of the Orange County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions minutes: May Term 1789
  3. The court licenses three men enslaved by Richard Bennehan to carry guns On Richard Bennehan's motion, the court ordered the chairman to grant certificates under the act of Assembly for Daniel at the Brickhouse plantation, Frank at Bennehan's Quarter plantation and Ned at his store to carry guns, Bennehan giving bond. The same term it ordered that the guns the St. Mary's District patrollers had taken from people enslaved by Bennehan, William Cain and others be returned to the owners. People: Richard BennehanMark Chilton, transcription of the Orange County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions minutes: February Term 1794
  4. The court appoints a patrol for the University village The county court appointed John Scott, William Forsyth and Samuel Hayes a patrol for the village and neighborhood of the University.Mark Chilton, transcription of the Orange County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions minutes: February Term 1799
  5. The court lets Jack and Sam, enslaved by William Cain, carry guns to hunt On William Cain's motion the county court allowed two men he held in slavery, Jack at his plantation on New Hope Creek and Sam at his plantation on Little River, to carry a gun each and hunt in his woods. Cain, with Duncan Cameron as his security, gave a bond of £100 for their behavior. People: Duncan CameronMark Chilton, transcription of the Orange County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions minutes: August Term 1802
  6. The court levies a patrol tax on Black polls and pays the patrollers The county court ordered a tax of one shilling on each Black poll to pay the patrols, and allowed £5 each, from the county trustee, to the patrollers it had found entitled to pay for the past year. It added Hugh Wilson to those entitled.Mark Chilton, transcription of the Orange County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions minutes: May Term 1807
  7. The court names a committee to draft rules for the patrols The court appointed Samuel Benton, Abner B. Bruce, James Webb, Frederick Nash and William Norwood to draft rules and regulations for governing the patrols and to report at the next term. At the same term it again levied one shilling on each Black poll outside Hillsborough to pay the patrols and allowed forty shillings each to patrollers for the past year. People: James Webb, Frederick Nash, William NorwoodMark Chilton, transcription of the Orange County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions minutes: May Term 1809
  8. The court lets four enslaved men on the Bennehan and Cameron lands carry guns The county court gave leave to carry guns to three men enslaved by Richard Bennehan, Frank Kennon at the store, Humphrey at the Little River plantations and a man at the Brick House whose name the transcription gives as Donom with a query, and to David, enslaved by Duncan Cameron at his Eno plantation. The owners gave bond and security as the law required. People: Richard Bennehan, Duncan CameronMark Chilton, transcription of the Orange County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions minutes: November Term 1809
  9. The court orders patrollers to return guns taken from Bennehan and Cameron slaves The court ordered Leonard Laws and George Laws, patrollers in what had been Captain Harris's company, now Duke's, in St. Mary's district, to return to Richard Bennehan and Duncan Cameron six guns they had taken from men the two held in slavery. People: Richard Bennehan, Duncan CameronMark Chilton, transcription of the Orange County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions minutes: November Term 1809
  10. The court levies a patrol tax on Black polls and names patrols in the captains' companies The court ordered a tax of one shilling on each Black taxable poll to pay the patrols. The same day it appointed patrols of two to four men in at least sixteen captains' companies, among them those of Michael Holt, John Graham, James Lapslie, Jehu Bird, William Holt, Richard and John Blackwood and John Kirk, and allowed pay to thirty-two men for patrol service.Mark Chilton, transcription of the Orange County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions minutes: May Term 1812
  11. The court names Thomas Ruffin and three others to draft rules for the patrols The court appointed Thomas Ruffin, Frederick Nash, William Norwood and Catlet Campbell a committee to draft rules and regulations for the government of the patrols and to report at the next term. The same term it allowed thirty men pay as patrollers, to share the patrol money equally. People: Thomas Ruffin, Frederick Nash, William NorwoodMark Chilton, transcription of the Orange County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions minutes: May Term 1813
  12. The court licenses Sam, the enslaved man who ran Ephraim Cain's Eno plantation, to carry a gun Ephraim Cain told the court that he had no white overseer on his plantation on the Eno, that the place was run by an enslaved man of his named Sam, and that no other enslaved person there held a license to carry a gun. The court granted a license for Sam to carry a gun on that plantation, on Cain's giving bond and security as the law required.Mark Chilton, transcription of the Orange County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions minutes: November Term 1817
Show all 14 dated events
  1. Chapel Hill orders its white men into patrol companies The first town ordinance divided the white men of Chapel Hill aged 21 to 50, other than the sitting commissioners, into patrol classes. Each captain had to turn out his company two nights a week from 8 or 9 in the evening and report under oath to the magistrate of police, with fines for captains and members who failed.Ordinances Passed by the Board of Commissioners for the Town of Chapel Hill (1829), scan p. 5
  2. The county court levies a tax on Black polls to pay for the patrol Along with its taxes for county costs and the poor, the August 1829 court ordered ten cents collected on each Black poll to pay the patrol, the county's slave patrol. The court minutes show it levying such patrol taxes on Black polls from at least 1807.Lefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 181 · Also: Mark Chilton, transcription of the Orange County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions minutes: May Term 1807

Background on Slavery in Orange County

Background reading on Slavery in Orange County. These works cover the broader subject and may not discuss this storyline. Follow a link to find a copy or view the material.

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.

✓ Held at OCPL NC Cardinal UNC Duke NC State NCCU Durham Library of Congress Wake Forest Davidson Methodist CH Historical Society

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).

✓ Held at OCPL · BIO WALKER NAT NC Cardinal UNC Duke NC State NCCU Durham Chapel Hill PL Library of Congress Davidson Methodist Wingate UNCSA

Descendants of Matthew McCauley

Neville, David Lindsay · 2001

David Lindsay Neville's genealogy of the descendants of Matthew McCauley (1750-1821), one of the landowners who gave land for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The Lloyd and Neville families come into it as well, and Orange County genealogy is its field. Compiled in 2001.

NC Cardinal

Hogan genealogy: the descendants of Colonel John Hogan and Mary Lloyd Hogan of Orange County, NC and Montgomery County, TN / by Cleo Greer Hogan and Charles Edw

Hogan, Cleo G. · 1998 · C.G. Hogan and C.E. Hogan

Cleo Greer Hogan and Charles Edward Hogan's genealogy of the descendants of Colonel John Hogan (about 1745-1792) and Mary Lloyd Hogan of Orange County, North Carolina, and Montgomery County, Tennessee. Self-published in 1998 in one illustrated volume with various pagings, it follows the family from the Orange County Piedmont to Tennessee.

NC Cardinal Library of Congress

The Black family in slavery and freedom, 1750-1925

Gutman, Herbert G. (Herbert George), 1928-1985 · 1976 · Pantheon Books

Herbert G. Gutman's 1976 history of African American families from 1750 to 1925, published by Pantheon Books in New York, 664 pages with 38 leaves of plates. Its Orange County connection is the Bennehan and Cameron family plantations, Stagville and Fairntosh: the book discusses the people enslaved by Richard Bennehan (1743-1825) and the Camerons, and follows family ties among them under slavery and after emancipation. Subjects include African American families and enslaved persons in Orange County.

Reviewed in The Journal of Southern History (1977), The William and Mary Quarterly (1977), The American Historical Review (1977), Journal of American History (1977), The History Teacher (1977), Political Science Quarterly (1977), Journal of Black Psychology (1978), Journal of Social History (1978), Civil War history (1978), Signs (1978).

NCCU UNC CH Historical Society Library of Congress

The Cameron Plantation in Central North Carolina (1776-1973) and Its Founder Richard Bennehan

Sanders, Charles Richard · 1974 · Sanders

Charles Richard Sanders's short history of the Cameron plantation in central North Carolina from 1776 to 1973 and of its founder Richard Bennehan, whose lands became Stagville and Fairntosh. It covers the Bennehan and Cameron families and their connection with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Published by the author in Durham in 1974, 79 pages with a plate and illustrations.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 929.209 SAN Duke Chapel Hill PL Library of Congress Davidson UNC
Show 6 more

The Papers Of Willie Person Mangum

Mangum, Willie Person · 1950 · State Dept. of Archives and History

The papers of Willie Person Mangum, 1792 to 1861, a lawyer, judge and United States senator from the part of Orange County that later became Durham County. Five volumes of correspondence published by the State Department of Archives and History beginning in 1950, arranged by date from 1807 to 1894, with illustrations, portraits and folding maps. A source for antebellum North Carolina and national politics, the Whig Party and the Mangum family.

Reviewed in The Journal of Southern History (1951), Journal of American History (1951), The Journal of Southern History (1953), Journal of American History (1953), The Journal of Southern History (1954), The Journal of Southern History (1955), The Journal of Southern History (1957), Journal of American History (1957), The American Historical Review (1957).

✓ Held at OCPL · NC BIO MANGUM SHA NC Cardinal Durham Library of Congress

Map of Orange County, N.C.

Tate, George W. · 1891 · George W. Tate

Facsimile, dated 1940, of George W. Tate's 1891 map of Orange County. It shows towns, roads, railroads such as the North Carolina Rail Road and the Chapel Hill line, residences, schools, churches, mills and mines, with portraits and pictures of buildings in the margins.

UNC DPLA Library of Congress Library of Congress Digital Collections

Walter Alves papers, 1771-1858, Orange County, North Carolina : also Kentucky and Tennessee.

Alves, Walter, 1768-1819 · 1993 · University Publications of America

University Publications of America issued this two reel microfilm edition in 1993, reproducing the Walter Alves papers of 1771 to 1858 with a printed reel guide. Alves, 1768 to 1819, was an Orange County landowner, and the material runs to real estate investment in North Carolina and Tennessee, Scottish American families, and letters with Richard Bennehan, William Boylan and John Wickham.

UNC

James Pleasant Mason diary, 1876-1893.

Mason, James Pleasant, 1827-1893 · 1876

Fifteen diary volumes kept by James Pleasant Mason (1827-1893) from 1876 to 1893, one linear foot in the Southern Historical Collection at UNC, collection 495. The diaries describe farm life and agriculture in nineteenth century North Carolina, the work of Baptist clergy under the Baptist State Convention, and social life and customs in Orange County, which is the diary's local tie.

UNC

Tintype collection, circa 1856-1900.

1856

Nineteen tintypes dated roughly 1856 to 1900 in the North Carolina Collection at UNC. The tintypes include portraits of African Americans in nineteenth century North Carolina, including enslaved people, along with families, the Roulhac family, Henry Speck Harris (1837-1863), Caesar Mills, and a soldier of the 6th North Carolina Infantry of the Confederate army. Commencement at Chapel Hill and the early University of North Carolina supply the local link.

UNC

Mary E. Strayhorn Berry papers, 1841-1944

Berry, Mary E. Strayhorn, 1854-1934 · 1841

About thirty items of Berry family papers dated 1841 to 1944, part of the Southern Historical Collection at UNC, collection 65-z. Mary E. Strayhorn Berry, 1854 to 1934, is the named creator. Topics include military life in Company G of the 27th North Carolina Infantry, bills of sale for enslaved people in Orange County, enslavers in the county, and social life around Hillsborough.

UNC

Research sources

Sources and research tools for this storyline. Research guide: Follow an event across several accounts.

Background

Collections and databases

Local help

More to discover

Keep Reading Local

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

Browse New Arrivals → Meet Local Authors → Explore Local Publishers →
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