The full story
In May 1791 the county court gave Anne Hooper, widow of William Hooper, leave to free John, a man she held in slavery, for his meritorious service. Over the next two decades it decreed freedom under the wills of James Armstrong, for Cicero in 1797, and William Freeman of Bertie County, for Sam, to be known as Samuel Freeman, in 1798 and for his mother Rachel and her children Billy and Sukey, to be known as Rachel, Billy and Sukey Joel, in 1800. Under Major Absalom Tatom's will it freed five people in 1803, and in 1809, on his trustees' petition, nine, the five and Sally's four children, all to be known by the name Tatom. On Pleasant Henderson's petition it freed Abram as Abraham Manso in 1809. The court ordered Jethro Pettiford, a free boy of color offered for sale as a slave, returned to his mother in 1797, and discharged Joseph Lantorn in 1810 and George Simms in 1817, both jailed on suspicion of being runaways, once they satisfied the justices they were free. Africa Parker, a free man of color, ran a distillery in Hillsborough in 1799 and was licensed at his house there in 1800.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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).
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.
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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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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Sources and research tools for this storyline. Research guide: Follow an event across several accounts.
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