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Named event or history

Kirk-Holden War connections, 1870

Orange County actors in the 1870 crisis: Josiah Turner, Frederick Nash Strudwick and William A. Graham.

In briefGovernor 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.

3 indexed works are connected with this event.

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Josiah Turner Jr., 1919
Josiah Turner Jr., 1919

Indexed works

Related works found in catalogs and archives across North Carolina. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it.

Willie Person Mangum papers,

Mangum, Willie Person,; Mangum, Arthur,; Mangum, Charity Alston Cain

Personal and political papers of Willie Person Mangum, the Whig senator from Orange County, together with papers of Arthur Mangum and Charity Alston Cain Mangum. Correspondents include Daniel Webster, William A. Graham, David L. Swain, John Chavis and Abraham Lincoln, and other topics include plantations at Hillsborough, the estate called Walnut Hill, state politics, agriculture and education.

Why this is here: The record names this subject alongside a heading for the county or its towns.

Library of Congress

Mary Claire Engstrom photographic collection, 1930s-1979 (bulk 1950s-1976).

Engstrom, Mary Claire, 1906-1997 · 1934

Photographs gathered by Mary Claire Engstrom (1906-1997), dated from the 1930s to 1979 with most falling between the 1950s and 1976, about 2,140 items in 4.4 linear feet in UNC's North Carolina Collection. Subjects include historic buildings in Hillsborough and Orange County, the Alexander Dixon House, the Nash Hooper Graham House, Bingham School, Nash and Kollock School, the Hillsboro' Military Academy, Carrboro views, and the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery.

Why this is here: The record names this subject alongside a heading for the county or its towns.

UNC

John Heritage Bryan (1798-1870) Collection

Bryan, John Heritage, 1798-1870 · 1716

Papers of John Heritage Bryan (1798 to 1870), New Bern lawyer, legislator and Whig congressman from 1825 to 1829, dating 1716 to 1907. His letters mostly follow social life in the towns and plantations of eastern North Carolina, chiefly New Bern and Raleigh, from the 1820s to the 1860s, and touch the university at Chapel Hill and the Hillsborough Academy.

Why this is here: The record names this subject alongside a heading for the county or its towns.

State Archives of NC

Start at OCPL

Books in OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection whose titles, catalog subjects, or descriptions match this event. The Friends’ recommended starting points are labelled. Books marked Wider context cover the broader subject rather than this event itself.

  • Foundational · NC 973.8 ZUB North Carolina During Reconstruction Zuber, Richard L. · 1969

    Published in 1969 by the State Department of Archives and History, Richard L. Zuber's short history follows North Carolina through Reconstruction after the Civil War. It runs 67 pages with illustrations, facsimiles, portraits and a bibliography, and was later reprinted by the Division of Archives and History.

  • Wider context · NC 973.8 TRI Trial of William W. Holden: Governor of North Carolina, Before the Senate of North Carolina, on Impeachment by the House of Representatives for High Crimes and Misdeameanors Holden, W. W. · 1871

    Proceedings of the 1871 impeachment trial of Governor William W. Holden before the North Carolina Senate, printed at Raleigh by the Senate's order in three continuously paged volumes. Holden, born near Hillsborough, was impeached in December 1870 over the Kirk-Holden war, his militia campaign against the Ku Klux Klan in Alamance and Caswell counties. Convicted on six of eight charges in March 1871, he was the first American governor removed by impeachment.

  • Foundational · NC 973.745 NOR North Carolinians in the Era of the Civil War and Reconstruction 2008

    Paul D. Escott edits nine essays on North Carolinians from secession through Reconstruction: Piedmont disaffection, Wild's Raid and guerrilla war in the northeast, African Americans under Union occupation, soldiers and the 1864 governor's race, the war's end as seen by Chapel Hill writer Cornelia Phillips Spencer, Zebulon Vance and university president David L. Swain, women and the law, divorce at the 1868 constitutional convention, the roots of Jim Crow, and Vance's memory. UNC Press, 2008.

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  • Influential in its time · NC 975.6 HAM Reconstruction in North Carolina Hamilton, Joseph Grégoire de Roulhac · 1964

    J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton, a Hillsborough native who taught history at the University of North Carolina from 1906, grew this political history of Reconstruction in the state out of his Columbia dissertation under William A. Dunning. Columbia issued the full text in 1914 (683 pages, with a folding map); Peter Smith reprinted it in 1964. Written from the Lost Cause outlook of the Dunning school, it went unchallenged for about fifty years.

  • Wider context · NC 970.004 EVA To Die Game: The Story of the Lowry Band, Indian Guerrillas of Reconstruction Evans, William McKee · 1971

    Henry Berry Lowry and his band of Lumbee guerrillas raided plantations and eluded posses in Robeson County through Reconstruction, after the execution of Lowry's father and brother in 1865; their fight ended in 1872, when Lowry vanished after a raid on Lumberton. W. McKee Evans tells their story in this history, published by Louisiana State University Press in 1971; 282 pages with maps and portraits.

  • Wider context · NC BIO HOLDEN HOL Memoirs of W. W. Holden Holden, W. W. · 1911

    Recollections of William Woods Holden (1818 to 1892), the North Carolina governor born near Hillsborough. They run from the Democratic rise of 1850 through the Civil War and his quarrel with the Confederate government to his governorship, his use of the militia against the Ku Klux Klan and his impeachment. Published at Durham in 1911 with an introduction by William K. Boyd, as volume 2 of the Trinity College Historical Society's John Lawson monographs.

In the chronology

Dated events connected with this event, earliest first. See these 11 dated events in the chronology →

  1. Governor Holden warns Orange County it may be declared in insurrection Holden's proclamation of October 20, 1869, named Lenoir, Jones, Orange and Chatham counties and said that in Orange the jail had been forced, two Black prisoners taken out and shot, and three other Black men hanged. He warned that he would declare those counties in a state of insurrection and use the whole power of the state if the violence continued. People: William W. HoldenDigitalNC: Goldsboro Daily Messenger, October 25, 1869, page 2
  2. Klansmen from Hillsborough ride to kill Senator T. M. Shoffner and turn back A Klan party coming from Orange County that included Hillsborough legislator Frederick N. Strudwick and A. Hedgepeth of Hillsborough gathered at a Bradshaw home in Alamance County to kill state senator T. M. Shoffner, author of the anti-Klan militia bill. Dr. John A. Moore, sent by James E. Boyd, told them Shoffner had gone to Greensboro, and they turned back. People: Frederick N. StrudwickInternet Archive: Report on the Alleged Outrages in the Southern States, Senate Select Committee, March 10, 1871
  3. Hillsborough men ask Governor Holden to commission Pride Jones against the Klan On March 5, 1870 six Hillsborough men, among them J. W. Norwood, James Webb and Henry K. Nash, recommended to Governor Holden that Pride Jones be made a militia captain to put down night riding. Holden sent the commission on March 7 and Jones accepted on March 9. The raids soon stopped, and Jones resigned after four weeks. People: William W. Holden, Pride JonesTrial of William W. Holden, Governor of North Carolina (1871), vol. 2, pp. 1158-1164
  4. Kirk's militia arrests Josiah Turner Jr. at Hillsborough On August 5, 1870, a detachment of Kirk's state militia seized Raleigh Sentinel editor Josiah Turner Jr. at or near Hillsborough, took him by rail to Company Shops and then held him with Kirk's other prisoners in the Caswell County courthouse at Yanceyville. U.S. District Judge George W. Brooks ordered him discharged on August 19, 1870, on his habeas corpus petition. People: William W. Holden, Josiah Turner Jr.Internet Archive: Trial of William W. Holden, Governor of North Carolina, vol. 1 (1871)
  5. Orange County representative Frederick N. Strudwick moves to impeach Governor Holden Frederick N. Strudwick of Orange introduced the House resolution to impeach Governor William W. Holden, which the House adopted on December 14, 1870. On December 19 he chaired the Committee of the Whole that adopted the eight articles of impeachment and elected the seven House managers. People: William W. Holden, Frederick N. StrudwickInternet Archive: Trial of William W. Holden, Governor of North Carolina, vol. 1 (1871)
  6. Strudwick is kept off the impeachment managers because of his Klan reputation After guiding the impeachment resolution through the house judiciary committee and the full house, Strudwick was not chosen as a manager for the senate trial. It was feared that his widely known association with the Ku Klux Klan would make the proceedings look like a Klan prosecution. People: William W. HoldenSearch the index · NCpedia: Strudwick, Frederick Nash
  7. William A. Graham of Hillsborough joins the prosecution of Governor Holden The House managers announced to the impeachment court that former governor William A. Graham of Hillsborough, with Thomas Bragg and Augustus S. Merrimon, would act as their counsel. Graham argued points of evidence for the prosecution through the trial. People: William A. Graham, Thomas Bragg, Thomas SparrowInternet Archive: Trial of William W. Holden, Governor of North Carolina, vol. 1 (1871)
  8. Hillsborough constable describes Orange County Klan killings to a U.S. Senate committee W. G. Turrentine, a Hillsborough constable, told the Senate select committee in Washington that five Black men had been killed in Orange County and many people whipped, some for voting Republican. He described how, in August 1869, 75 to 100 disguised men forced the Hillsborough jail and shot a prisoner held on a barn-burning charge, who died.Internet Archive: Report on the Alleged Outrages in the Southern States, Senate Select Committee, March 10, 1871
  9. U.S. Senate committee hears Orange County testimony on Klan violence A Senate select committee created on January 19, 1871 took testimony in Washington on Klan violence in North Carolina. Orange County witnesses, including Hillsborough constable W. G. Turrentine, court clerk George Laws and editor Josiah Turner Jr., described the 1869 jail raid, hangings and whippings in the county. The committee reported on March 10, 1871.U.S. Senate: Report on the Alleged Outrages in the Southern States by the Select Committee of the Senate, March 10, 1871 (Internet Archive)
  10. Lucinda Morrow of Hillsborough testifies at Governor Holden's impeachment trial Called by Holden's defense, Lucinda Morrow, then living in Hillsborough, described disguised men breaking into her Cane Creek home in Orange County in the fall of 1869 and hanging her husband, Thomas Jefferson Morrow. Prosecution counsel William A. Graham objected to her evidence, and Augustus S. Merrimon argued it was irrelevant unless tied to Alamance County. People: William A. Graham, Jefferson MorrowInternet Archive: Trial of William W. Holden, Governor of North Carolina, vol. 2 (1871)
  11. Senate convicts Holden on the article charging Turner's arrest in Orange County The state Senate found Governor Holden guilty, 37 to 12, on Article III, which charged him with the unlawful arrest of Josiah Turner Jr. in Orange County on August 5, 1870, and also convicted him on Articles IV through VIII. Senator John W. Graham of Orange then offered the order of judgment removing Holden from office and barring him from state office, which the Senate adopted. People: William W. Holden, Josiah Turner Jr., John W. GrahamInternet Archive: Trial of William W. Holden, Governor of North Carolina, vol. 3 (1871)

Places in this history

Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first. The map shows them all.

Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors. Site locations from the N.C. State Historic Preservation Office survey, Open Orange and OpenStreetMap; town and community pins mark the middle of their mapped buildings.

All places and the county map →

Research sources

Background context 6

Background from selected state and local sources

Read contemporary evidence 5

Newspapers, photographs, and records of the time

Search beyond the index 4

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Related themes

Schools & Education →UNC & Campus Life →Work, Labor & Industry →

Picture: Josiah Turner Jr., 1919. Public domain. Hamilton, J. G. de Roulhac (1919) History of North Carolina: North Carolina since 1860, III, Chicago & New York: Lewis Publishing Company, p. 131; via Wikimedia Commons

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