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

Theme

Law, Courts & Justice

The courthouse at Hillsborough, its judges and lawyers, the trials that drew crowds, and the jail behind them.

In briefThe courthouse at Hillsborough saw the Regulators riot in 1770 and hang in 1771, Thomas Ruffin’s State v. Mann decision, the Kirk-Holden War arrests and lynchings that never came to trial, and in the 20th century the desegregation suits, Dickson v. Sitterson and the killing of James Cates. The storylines follow those cases and the jail behind them.

722 works about Law, Courts & Justice are indexed here. 38 held at OCPL →

Search these works Research sources View indexed works ↓
The Orange County Courthouse at Hillsborough.

Events and storylines

Named events and storylines the index follows in detail. Each has its own page.

Hillsborough court riot, September 1770Regulators storm the Hillsborough court and beat Edmund Fanning Regulator executions at Hillsborough, June 1771Six Regulators hanged after the Battle of Alamance Kirk-Holden War connections, 1870Orange County actors in the 1870 crisis: Josiah Turner, Frederick Nash Strudwick and William A. Graham Racial-terror lynchings in Orange CountySix 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. The county’s 2022 resolution apologized and approved markers without naming them Dickson v. Sitterson, 1966–1968The federal case that struck down the Speaker Ban Killing of James Cates, 1970The Chapel Hill man killed in the Pit at UNC in November 1970; headings are still being sought
Show all 49 events and storylines
Desegregating the University of North Carolina, 1933–1955Five Black students began law school classes on June 22, 1951, after the courts barred the university from refusing them; the first Black undergraduates, the Frasier brothers and John Brandon, followed in 1955 Deah Barakat, Yusor Abu-Salha and Razan Abu-Salha, 2015Three students killed at their Chapel Hill home on February 10, 2015, and how the university and town remembered them The congressional Ku Klux hearings, 1871Orange County in the sworn testimony Congress took in 1871: the county’s witnesses, the Klan violence they described, and their conflicting accounts The county patrol, 1787–1829The 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 Hillsborough’s courthouse, jail, pillory and stocks, 1752–1837The county’s public buildings at Hillsborough in the court minutes: repairs and a stockade for the jail, the pillory and stocks, the taxes and treasurers for public buildings, a public clock, and the courtroom refitted The Reverie Lingerie plant, strike and lawsuits, 1955–1962A New York lingerie maker’s sewing plant at Hillsborough: the town’s drive to build it a home, the 1957 strike for a union, the fire that destroyed the struck plant, the labor board’s findings and the arson trial Mothers and the county court’s bindings, 1777–1868Mothers in the apprentice records: women who asked the court to bind their children to masters they chose, who swore complaints or sued out habeas corpus for them, and whose children the court returned to them or bound to them Runaway apprentice notices, 1821–1867Newspaper notices in which masters advertised their runaway apprentices and bound girls, warned others not to harbor or employ them, and offered rewards, most of them a cent or a few cents Fluoridating Chapel Hill’s and Hillsboro’s water, 1951–1964How Chapel Hill and Hillsboro came to add fluoride to their water: Chapel Hill’s 1951 vote, the Lions Club campaign and Hillsboro’s start in 1960, the University’s postal poll, the lawsuit that held Chapel Hill back, and the aldermen’s pressure until fluoridation began in 1964 Orange County’s House seat changes hands, 1963How Orange County’s seat in the state House passed through three holders in 1963: John W. Umstead Jr.’s resignation, L. J. Phipps’s short term before he left to lead the American Legion, and the one-vote nomination of Edwin J. Hamlin The 1898 white supremacy campaign in Orange CountyThe 1898 election in Orange County as the papers reported it: the Populists’ silver union, the Democratic and Populist tickets, the lynching of Manly McCauley near Chapel Hill, the new voters registered, and the Democrats’ white supremacy appeal on election eve Hazing at the University and the death of Isaac Rand, 1906–1913Hazing at the University from a 1906 shooting to the death of freshman Isaac William Rand in 1912: the attack on the freshman cottage, the faculty inquiry and dismissals, the pulpit and legislative response, and the manslaughter trial at Hillsborough The county road bonds of 1911–1912How Orange County came to borrow for its roads: the Good Roads Association and Joseph Hyde Pratt’s talk, the bond election called off in 1911, the Chapel Hill citizens’ committee, the 1912 vote for $250,000, and the test of the road law Republicans take the Orange County courthouse, 1916–1917How Orange County elected a full Republican ticket in 1916 and what followed at the courthouse: the outgoing Democratic sheriff’s fight over collecting the 1916 taxes, and the new board’s moves against Democratic officeholders in January 1917 The Central Highway route fight, 1921–1922The fights over where Orange County’s new hard-surfaced roads would run after the 1921 Highway Act: the eastern and western routes from Chapel Hill to Hillsboro, Hillsborough’s protests against the Central Highway route north of the courthouse, the Eno bridge, and John Sprunt Hill burned in effigy Orange County’s 1925 jail, 1923–1996How Orange County replaced its old jail at Hillsborough: the grand jury’s call for a secure jail in 1924, the Colonial brick building begun east of the courthouse in 1925, the $65,000 in bonds that paid for it, and its use once built Orange County in the 1928 election and the new county board, 1928–1929Orange County in the 1928 election and after: the enlarged Chapel Hill precinct, Hoover’s county majority and Smith’s Chapel Hill vote, the new sheriff and commissioners, the student voting charge, George Johnston’s bedside oath, resignation and death, and John Hanner’s return as chairman Chapel Hill’s 1938 town hall and its later uses, 1938–1989How Chapel Hill built its town hall at Rosemary and Columbia streets with PWA help: the grant and the bond vote of 1938, John M. Booker’s call for a Franklin Street site, the contract, the move-in and dedication of 1939, the Roberson portrait and the old buildings cleared Orange County’s elections of 1936, 1938 and 1940Orange County’s Democratic primaries and runoff of 1936, with Sandy Graham’s large county vote for governor and B. J. Howard’s House nomination, and the 1938 general election, with Collier Cobb Jr. named to the ticket and Carl T. Durham sent to Congress The University’s debts and the sale of its Tennessee lands, 1830–1837How the University’s trustees worked their way out of debt in the 1830s: the crisis of 1830, the state loan they refused, the land and bank stock sales, the executive committee of 1835, the sale of the Tennessee lands and the endowment put into Bank of the State shares Internal improvements and the 1833 Hillsborough railroad convention, 1828–1837How Orange County pressed for roads, river navigation and a railroad from 1828 to 1837: James Mebane’s flour boat, the early railroad and navigation meetings, the 1833 internal improvement convention at Hillsborough, the call for two-fifths state aid and the county’s later delegates and appointments Dividing Orange: the fight that made Alamance County, 1842–1851How western Orange won a county of its own: the 1842 and 1844 fights over a new courthouse tax and a central division, the two votes that rejected division, Giles Mebane’s bill of 1849, the referendum, the first Alamance court and lots in Graham, and the settled line Building the Orange County courthouse, 1842–1846How Orange County built the courthouse that still stands in Hillsborough: the justices’ refusal of 1842, the $8,000 tax of 1844, John Berry’s contract and the Masonic cornerstone, the old wooden courthouse sold and moved, and the town clock set in the new cupola Building the State University Railroad, 1879–1883How the State University Railroad was built from University Station to Chapel Hill: the 1879 charter, the fight over a Durham route, the convict force and its deaths, the grading and track laying, the first train of February 1882, the last spikes and the mail and telegraph that followed Building Memorial Hall, 1883–1885How a proposed monument to David L. Swain became Memorial Hall: Governor Jarvis’s promise at the 1883 commencement, the prison brick, the winter halt, the canvass for memorial tablets, the architect’s death, Paul C. Cameron’s loan and the dedication of June 3, 1885 The killing of student Jacob Freeze and the trials, 1886–1887How the killing of University student Jacob A. Freeze at Chapel Hill in October 1886 went through the courts: the clash at Jack Barbee’s house, the indictment of five Black men, the manslaughter convictions at Hillsborough, a failed jail break and the trip to the penitentiary The Bingham School at Mebane after the 1890 fire, 1890–1913How a school carried on at the old Bingham School grounds near Mebane after the 1890 fire and the move to Asheville: the Presbyterian High School, Herbert Bingham’s brief charge, Preston Lewis Gray’s William Bingham School, the 1898 fight over the name and the later enrollments Macadam for Hillsborough: the township road tax, bonds and paved streets, 1900–1908How Hillsborough Township paid for and laid its first macadam: the township road tax of 1900, the rock crusher and King Street work of 1905, the $40,000 road bond election of 1907, the chain gang and the paving of Churton Street in 1908 Hillsborough as the southern army’s base after Camden, 1780How Hillsborough served as the southern army’s base in 1780: de Kalb’s halt, Gates’s regrouping of the army after Camden, the General Assembly and its Board of War, the courthouse and church turned to army use, the crowded town, the march to Salisbury and Greene’s arrival The test of allegiance in Orange County, 1775–1782How Orange County’s Revolutionary authorities used the oath of allegiance: the 1775 efforts to win over former Regulators and people of scruple, Michael Holt’s oath, the Loyalist estates inventoried, the county court’s citations of suspects and merchants, the sixty-day orders to leave and the 1782 commissioner of confiscated estates Bridging Morgan Creek: McCauley’s and Merritt’s mills, 1793–1818How the county court bridged Morgan Creek where the Fayetteville road crossed it: Matthew McCauley’s public mill, the bridge site, the commissioners and inspectors, the nine-to-nine vote on Tobias Rogers’s pay, Henry Merritt’s mill and toll bridge and the county’s payment to Merritt in 1818 The trustees’ disruptions policy, 1969–1974How the UNC trustees wrote a policy against campus disruption in 1969 and how it was used: the executive committee’s rule during the food workers’ strike, the disorders subcommittee, the hearing boards, the Moratorium Day warning and hearing, and the protests against it into 1970 Taxing the University’s property, 1974–1980How Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro tried to tax University property from 1974 to 1979: the first assessments under the revised state law, the claims on the Carolina Inn, the airport and the utilities, the towns’ complaint about Southern Bell, and the 1979 rulings of the Property Tax Commission and Superior Court Black admissions at UNC: Bakke, Dean Renwick and the university affairs office, 1977–1983How Black admissions at UNC were argued over from 1977 to 1979: Dean Hayden Renwick’s appointment and report, the Bakke debate and the white applicants’ suit against the law school, Renwick’s charges and the University’s answers, the law school’s new policy, the Long Committee’s report and the larger Black freshman class of 1979 Chapel Hill answers the Greensboro killings and verdicts, 1979–1984How Chapel Hill answered the 1979 Greensboro killings and the trials that followed: the 1979 vigil and the march kept to the sidewalks, the November 1980 vigils, rally and petitions after the acquittals, the 1981 symposium, and the April 1984 rally, vigil and teach-in after the federal verdict Rosemary Square and the Rosemary Street deck, 1985–1994How Chapel Hill tried to turn its Rosemary Street parking lot into Rosemary Square between 1985 and 1989: the contract with the Fraser Company, the approvals and Jim Wallace’s opposition, the residents’ suit settled by the N.C. Supreme Court, five extensions, the unsold condominium-hotel units and the developers’ withdrawal in April 1989 The South Building shanties and sit-ins, 1986–1987How anti-apartheid students at UNC built shanties in front of South Building in March 1986 to press for divestment: the chancellor’s permission, the rallies, vigils and rival wall, the removal on April 7, the April sit-in, the November shanty and arrests, and the January 1987 acquittals Protests against CIA recruiting at UNC, 1985–1990How UNC students protested CIA recruiting on campus between 1985 and 1989: the rallies, the 1987 Hanes Hall arrests, the 1988 fast and the canceled law school interviews, the trustees’ resolution and the Coalition for Freedom to Dissent, the Honor Court case and the 1989 tower climb and mock graveyard Discrimination grievances in the UNC police, 1987–1994How University police officers contested the promotions in the department’s June 1987 reorganization: the grievances and the student rallies of 1987, the chancellor’s denial, Officer Keith Edwards’s appeals and hearings, the public safety director’s reassignment in 1989, the federal inquiries and the 1992 jury verdict Internationalist Books and the killing of Bob Sheldon, 1991–1993How Internationalist Books on West Rosemary Street went on after its founder, Bob Sheldon, was shot in the store in February 1991: the mourning and vigils, the friends’ committee and reward, the reopening with volunteers, the passing of the store to its board and the march a year later Orange County’s civil rights ordinance, 1987–1994How Orange County came to a civil rights ordinance between 1987 and 1994: the Human Relations Commission, the draft ordinance and Sen. Howard Lee’s bill, the fight over its threatening-speech clause, the push to add sexual orientation, and the votes that brought it into Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough Orange County in the 1994 electionHow Orange County voted in 1993 and 1994: the race for district attorney, the field for three county commissioner seats, the May primary, the new single ballot counted by computer, and the November results for the commissioners, the sheriff, the state Senate, Congress and the farmland bond The Grateful Dead at the Smith Center, 1993–1994How the Grateful Dead’s 1993 shows at the Smith Center led to a drug checkpoint, a near-riot and a chancellor’s ban, how fans rallied to bring the band back, and how Chancellor Hardin lifted the ban in 1994

More storylines

Other storylines that include this theme, in date order. Each has its own page.

StorylineThe sheriff and the taxes: Orange County's sheriffs, 1752–17771752–1777 · 19 events · In colonial Orange County the sheriff collected the taxes, and how sheriffs and their deputies collected them became a grievance that fed the Regulation. The governor chose sheriffs from names the county court sent him, beginning with Alexander Mebane, who returned 1,113 tithables for 1752 and 1753. Thomas Hart's short account and the Assembly bill excusing him from taxes, deputies' seizures of deer skins and livestock, and Tyree Harris's extra charge on late payers came before the 1768 depositions and the rescue of a seized horse at Hillsborough. Regulators whipped Sheriff John Lea in 1769. In 1777 the first court under statehood named Mebane's son sheriff. StorylineThe Hillsborough district superior court, 1767–18061767–1806 · 18 events · The district superior court made Hillsborough a court town, and in the Regulator years it became the place where the Regulators' quarrel with the county officers was fought out. Set at Hillsborough by an act of 1767, it first sat in March 1768. Its September 1768 term tried William Butler and Herman Husband and found Edmund Fanning guilty; later terms threw out the Regulators' bills, and in September 1770 about 150 Regulators broke up the court. Shut by the court-law quarrel after 1772, it sat again on March 24, 1778, and Hillsborough kept its hold on the circuit until the act of 1806. StorylineThomas Burke of Hillsborough, 1772–17891772–1789 · 15 events · Thomas Burke went from a Hillsborough law practice to the Continental Congress and the governor's office, and Orange County sent him to each stage of the Revolution. Douglass credits him with drafting Orange's 1776 instructions to the Halifax Congress, and he sat on the committee whose report empowered the delegates to join in declaring independence. The Assembly at Hillsborough cleared him in 1778 in his quarrel with Congress. Elected governor in 1781, he was captured in David Fanning's raid, broke his parole to return, and died near Hillsborough in 1783. In 1789 the court let his executor sell four people the estate held in slavery. StorylineOrange County's militia in the Revolution, 1775–17791775–1779 · 17 events · Orange County had to field a Revolutionary militia in a district the Council of Safety thought full of disaffected persons. The Provincial Congress named the county's officers in 1775, and in February 1776 Orange men held Cross Creek while Nathaniel Rochester took about 500 retreating Loyalists prisoner. In April 1776 the congress split the militia into Northern and Southern regiments under John Butler and James Saunders. Asked for 500 men against the Cherokee, Orange met a quota of 300. By 1778 the county owed the state's troops 73 hats and 146 pairs of shoes, and in 1779 Hillsborough became an army depot as Orange militia fought at Stono Ferry. StorylineThe Bentons at Hartford: Jesse Benton and the young Thomas Hart Benton, 1780–17991780–1799 · 10 events · When Thomas Hart left Orange in 1780, Hartford and its mills passed to Jesse Benton, and his letters to Hart show what the war and the drought of 1782 cost the place. Benton backed the Science Hall academy and claimed 23,931 acres in the west, but he died in 1790 with his estate heavily in debt, and his will let his executors sell Hartford and its mills. His son Thomas Hart Benton, born in 1782 and later a U.S. senator from Missouri, left Hartford for the university and was expelled from the Philanthropic Society in March 1799 for taking his roommates' money. StorylineNaming the father: bastardy bonds and support awards in the county court, 1784–18181784–1818 · 34 events · When a single woman in Orange County had a child, the bastardy law aimed to keep the child from becoming a charge on the county: the man she named as father gave a bond and could be ordered to pay support, called the usual allowance of £27 by 1796. From 1784 to 1818 the county court took these bonds, set awards, sent for men who resisted and let juries decide when a man denied it. Some women gave the bond themselves, mothers sued to collect, the court sometimes paid others to keep a child, and some named men married the mother within days.
Show all 52 storylines
StorylineMoorefields, from Alfred Moore to the National Register1785–1972 · 8 events · Built about 1785 near Hillsborough as the summer home of Alfred Moore, whom President John Adams later appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, Moorefields stayed with Moore's descendants for more than a century. Local tradition held that Thomas Hart Benton and Mrs. Henry Clay were born there, though both were born before the house was built. On Moore's death in 1810 it passed to his son Alfred, a speaker of the House of Commons, and in 1837 to the younger Moore's son-in-law, Francis Nash Waddell. It was advertised for public sale in 1913. Edward T. Draper-Savage, related to the family by marriage, restored it from 1949, and it entered the National Register in 1972. StorylineFree children of color and the apprentice law, 1786–18641786–1864 · 102 events · Free families of color could lose their children to the county court, which bound them out as apprentices until they came of age. Some orders kept children with their families, as when the court ordered Jethro Pettiford, a free boy who had been offered for sale, returned to his mother in 1797. After an act of 1826–27 let courts bind out children of free people of color whose parents were not habitually at work, Mark Chilton counted their share of the court's apprentices rising from 12 to 44 percent. Through the 1840s and 1850s the court called in whole families, binding children as young as fifteen months, and its orders ran into 1864. StorylineThe University's escheats and confiscated lands in the legislature, 1789–18181789–1818 · 9 events · The University was granted escheats, the property of people who died without heirs, in 1789, and unsold confiscated Loyalist lands, chiefly Henry Eustace McCulloch's claims, in 1794. Its suits over those claims angered landholders, and in 1800 the legislature repealed both grants. In 1804 the courts held that the peace treaty protected McCulloch, and the money collected was refunded. In 1805 the Assembly restored the escheats and made the governor president of the trustees. By 1809 the trustees had escheat attorneys in ten districts, and in 1818 the board counted on Tennessee land warrants to pay for a new chair of rhetoric and logic. StorylineThe Revill family and the county court, 1790–18331790–1833 · 14 events · Across three generations the county court bound out the children of the Revill family, a free family of color, to masters as apprentices. Between 1790 and 1803 it bound Revill children to Robert Neil, Andrew Brooks, William F. Strudwick, Jesse Rice and William Cain; Charity was bound before she was three. In 1812 it bound Charity's daughter Susannah, fifteen months old, to Robert Eaton. When Eaton sold his claim on her in 1826, she won a writ of habeas corpus, and Judge Thomas Ruffin ruled the sale void, holding that an apprentice could not be sold without the court's leave. The bindings went on into 1833. StorylineFreedom and free people of color in the county court, 1791–18171791–1817 · 13 events · Freedom from slavery in Orange County passed through the county court, which granted it under wills and petitions and judged the claims of free Black people held as slaves or runaways. In May 1791 it let Anne Hooper, widow of William Hooper, free John for his meritorious service. Over the next two decades it decreed freedom under the wills of James Armstrong, William Freeman and Major Absalom Tatom and on Pleasant Henderson's petition, often with new names such as Samuel Freeman and Tatom. It ordered Jethro Pettiford, a free boy offered for sale, returned to his mother in 1797, and discharged Joseph Lantorn and George Simms, jailed as suspected runaways, once they satisfied the justices they were free. StorylineChapel Hill's first inns and taverns, 1793–18051793–1805 · 7 events · The county court licensed Chapel Hill's first taverns as taverns at the University, beginning in 1793 with James Patterson, Old East's contractor, whose inn was the starting point of the cornerstone procession. William and Betsy Nunn bought it in 1795 and added a tavern, the trustees barred students from taverns without leave in 1796, and John Taylor Sr. opened a second tavern by 1799. Betsy Nunn ran the inn from about 1805 until her death, and it stayed in the Nunn family for more than half a century. StorylineThe county court tries enslaved defendants, 1793–18281793–1828 · 12 events · Enslaved men accused of crimes in Orange County were tried at Hillsborough, first before a called court of justices and freeholders and later before juries in the county and Superior courts. Between 1793 and 1828 some were discharged when no one proved the charge and juries acquitted others of murder, while the court sentenced Bob to whipping, mutilation and branding, Joshua and Jim to hang, and Sam to branding under the benefit of clergy. In 1818 the court bound over Samuel Strudwick for the death of a woman he enslaved and had whipped. StorylineBinding out: the county court and its apprentices' masters, 1801–18211801–1821 · 7 events · Binding a child out made a master responsible for the child's food, clothing, schooling and trade, and the Orange County court kept the power to take the child back. From 1801 it required every child to be bound out to be produced in court, and in 1807 it wrote reading, writing and ciphering into three bindings. Between 1812 and 1825 it heard sworn complaints that masters failed to clothe, feed or lodge their apprentices or beat them, summoned the masters to show cause, and cancelled or rescinded indentures. StorylineZedekiah Husbands, from bound boy to master, 1813–18371813–1837 · 6 events · Bound out as an apprentice by the county court, Zedekiah Husbands became a millwright and had to fight that court for his nephew. The court bound him to Joseph Woody in 1813 and, now calling him a boy of color, to John Crawford in 1817. In 1833 it bound his nephew Daniel Burnett to John Jones; Husbands petitioned the Superior Court, Judge William Norwood halted the binding, and in 1834 the court bound Daniel to him. Jones later swore he had been told the court refused Husbands the boy because he was a man of color. Mark Chilton found Husbands one of very few people of color to own land in the county before the Civil War. StorylineAgricultural societies and fairs in Orange County, 1821–18571821–1857 · 13 events · Orange County farmers organized agricultural societies repeatedly between 1821 and 1857. The Cane Creek Agricultural Society, reporting in 1821 that the county's wheat crop had largely failed, asked farmers to report their improvements and trials. A county society formed at Hillsborough in 1822, with Duncan Cameron as president, offered premiums and planned a cattle show, and in 1841 a grand jury proposed another. In 1853 the Orange County Society for the Promotion of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts was organized under Paul C. Cameron. At its first fair, in 1854, Cameron predicted that the coming railroad would shake farmers out of their old habits. The society bought fair grounds near the depot in 1856 and held fairs through 1857. StorylineTemperance and the liquor question in Orange County, 1825–18591825–1859 · 14 events · Treating voters with liquor, and the liquor trade itself, drew organized opposition in Orange County from 1825 to 1859. In 1825 a court house meeting declared treating injurious to morality, and about 1827 the university trustees won a law against distilling or selling liquor at or near Chapel Hill. Temperance societies spread from 1829; by 1834 the Hawfields and Cross Roads society counted 437 members, and at least nine or ten distilleries had stopped. In 1841 Hillsborough men formed a Washington Temperance Society. In 1854 the county voted against the liquor 'Reform' question, but the 1855 Revised Code barred liquor sales within two miles of Chapel Hill, and in 1859 the village banned traveling liquor sellers. StorylineThe Mayo children and the county court, 1828–18531828–1853 · 7 events · Again and again the county court bound out the children of the Mayo family, a free family of color, as apprentices, moving them from master to master. In 1835 it bound four Mayho children to three men, then in February 1836 rescinded those orders and bound all four to their mother, Elizabeth Mayho. It bound William Mayho to a cabinetmaker in 1843 and moved Samuel Mayhoe to Josiah Turner Sr. in 1850, and in 1851 it bound James and William Mayo to Dr. Edmund Strudwick, who was to hire them out to support their blind grandfather, Manuel. In 1853, with Strudwick and Henry Crabtree both claiming James's services, the court found him 21 and discharged him from his indentures. StorylineOrange County's common schools, 1840–18531840–1853 · 12 events · When the federal census of 1840 counted 6,463 Orange County children between five and twenty, fewer than 500 of them were enrolled in school. After county voters accepted the 1839 school law, the county court levied a school tax and the county was laid off in districts. A common school opened in the Hawfield district near Gravelly Hill in May 1840, and the Recorder urged the other districts to follow. By the 1844-45 term 57 common schools taught only white children. In 1850 Samuel Wellwood Hughes was appointed to what NCpedia calls the first Orange County board to examine teachers, and the earliest written record of the schools, for 1853, showed 2,507 of 4,447 children attending. StorylineThe Nash and Bailey law school at Hillsborough, 1842–18591842–1859 · 6 events · Two separate plans for teaching law at Hillsborough became one school in 1850, when Frederick Nash and John L. Bailey joined forces. Nash and Hugh Waddell had announced a school in 1841 to prepare young men for the bar, and in 1845 Bailey moved to Hillsborough from Elizabeth City and announced a law school of his own. Together Nash and Bailey charged $100 for the whole course and held a moot court once a week. Nash, by then chief justice of the state supreme court, died at his Hillsborough home in 1858. In 1859 Bailey moved to Black Mountain, where he and his son proposed a new law school; it ran until the Civil War. StorylineGovernor Holden’s impeachment and trial, 1870–1871December 1870–March 1871 · 20 events · Frederick N. Strudwick of Orange moved to impeach Governor William W. Holden on December 9, 1870. Article III charged the August 1870 arrest of Josiah Turner Jr. at Hillsborough; William A. Graham joined the prosecution, Turner and other Orange witnesses testified, and on March 22, 1871 the state Senate convicted Holden, 37 to 12 on that article, and removed him from office on the motion of Senator John W. Graham of Orange. StorylineThe revenue officers' killing of Henry McMannen, 18901890 · 6 events · On February 25, 1890 federal revenue officers searching for illicit stills shot Henry McMannen, a Black man, dead at his house in Little River Township. The officers said he had fired a shotgun at agent S. Kirkpatrick; others in the county said he was killed without cause, and the Rev. Sam P. Terry swore out murder warrants. Judge Armfield let the officers go after the sheriff gave them up to the U.S. marshal, and the Orange grand jury indicted five of them for murder. Federal Judge Dick freed all five by late April; the Observer wrote that the people would not be satisfied. In August the state dropped its charges against three of them. StorylineThe Occoneechee Mountain quarry, its convicts and its Italian laborers, 1900–19061900–1906 · 6 events · Convicts did much of the work at the Southern Stone Company's quarry on Occoneechee Mountain, begun in the late 1800s, whose gravel surfaced Hillsborough's sidewalks and crossings by 1902. In early 1903 more than a hundred state convicts came from Mitchell County, and another gang from Raleigh, to get out stone for ballasting the North Carolina Railroad. That April a guard shot dead a convict named Stevens, who was serving thirty years for murder, when he broke for liberty. In January 1904 the state convicts were taken back to the penitentiary at Raleigh. In August 1906 nearly thirty Italian workers came to work in the quarry, and quarrying on the mountain went on at least until about 1910. StorylineProhibition and the blockaders in Orange County, 1901–19301901–1930 · 22 events · Hillsborough's fight over its saloons gave way to a long struggle against illegal stills across Orange County. In 1903 the town elected a board chosen mostly on the prohibition ticket, which refused every saloon license, and the barrooms closed that June. In 1905 the county commissioners refused the licenses a new town board recommended, and the town voted against liquor dispensaries. The county voted against state prohibition in 1908, though the state carried it, and in 1919 Orange's representative voted against ratifying national prohibition. Blockading, the illegal distilling of whiskey, went on: in 1920 Louis Graves wrote in the New Republic that Orange had the largest distilling operations in the state, and officers kept capturing stills through 1930. StorylineChapel Hill's police chiefs, 1919–19281919–1928 · 7 events · In February 1919 Chapel Hill's new police chief resigned after a week, and in May the aldermen chose S. F. Long, who had held the post before. Long left the town force in 1923 to police the contractors' camp at the University building works, and George Featherstone, formerly of the Durham police, took his place. The mayor and town manager suspended Featherstone in April 1924 for helping an Ohio officer take a wanted man out of the state before his lawyer could contest extradition, and he was reinstated within weeks. In 1925 William T. Sloan became acting chief, and when Sloan became sheriff in 1928, his assistant, H. L. Rigsbee, succeeded him. StorylineChapel Hill’s sewers and the Bolin Creek plant, 1923–19441923–1944 · 34 events · In 1923 about four homes in ten in Chapel Hill lacked water and sewer connections, and from then to 1944 the town and the University built and kept enlarging a sewer system and a disposal plant in the Bolin Creek valley. In 1925 the town contracted for a plant in Strowd's Lowgrounds, with the University agreeing to pay half the cost. Neighbors downstream sued or claimed damages over sewage, odors and flies. A Church Street main in 1926 gave the Black neighborhood there complete service. A new plant went into operation in 1931, a 1937 pumping station let every home within the town limits connect, and in 1944 the aldermen moved to enlarge the long-inadequate plant again. StorylineChapel Hill and its dogs, 1923–19481923–1948 · 13 events · For a quarter century Chapel Hill and Orange County contended with stray dogs and repeated outbreaks of rabies, answering each with muzzles, leashes, quarantines and the shooting of dogs at large. In 1926 an outbreak put fifteen people under the Pasteur treatment, a course of rabies vaccine injections, and the aldermen ordered loose dogs muzzled and leashed or shot. Police shot loose dogs in 1929, and from 1932 a town pound killed unclaimed dogs. The county began vaccinating dogs in 1936, and outbreaks brought quarantines in 1937, 1940 and 1941. In 1948, with about 8,000 dogs thought unvaccinated, the commissioners ordered vaccination checks in every community. StorylineChapel Hill against billboards and street banners, 1924–19621924–1962 · 9 events · From 1924 to 1962 Chapel Hill's clubwomen, Boy Scouts and aldermen worked to clear billboards and advertising signs from the village and the highways into town. In 1924 the Community Club protested commercial sign-boards, and in 1925 the Boy Scouts took down nearly all the signs on the Durham highway to the county line. Under the 1928 zoning ordinance the board of adjustment ordered every billboard removed by 1930, but the town attorney found the ban invalid. In 1932 the aldermen resolved to help remove billboards at curves. After billboard companies ignored the 1955 zoning ordinance's deadline, the town in 1962 reached an agreement with General Outdoor Advertising to take down its billboards in the suburban zoning district. StorylineTraffic, parking and the drive against speeding in Chapel Hill, 1925–19581925–1958 · 12 events · By 1925 growing car traffic was crowding Chapel Hill's streets, and for more than thirty years the aldermen answered with new rules on parking and speed. They changed the parking angle, made Franklin Street a through street in 1930, and in 1934, after complaints of cars racing along the main street, put a motorcycle officer on the traffic laws, and 25 or 30 students were soon fined. After a schoolgirl was struck by a student's car, a boys' safety patrol began guarding crossings near the school. In 1956 businesses opened what the News called the town's first customer parking lot, and in 1958 the aldermen backed a plan for about 437 metered spaces downtown. StorylineChapel Hill's recorder's court, 1928–19641928–1964 · 9 events · Chapel Hill's recorder's court, which voters approved 93 to 8 in 1929, tried the township's misdemeanors in town. At its first session, on June 3, 1929, with C. P. Hinshaw on the bench, six cases were tried, and by March 1931 it had tried 780, only five of them appealed, while Superior Court terms at Hillsboro shrank from about five days to three. From 1931 town voters elected the judge, and in 1937 more than 200 residents petitioned to keep that election. In 1947 it sentenced Joseph Felmet to the county roads on the bus seating charge. In 1964 L. J. Phipps, first its judge in 1933, returned to the bench. StorylineCarrboro’s Mill No. 7: munitions plant to woolen mill, 1942–19551942–1950s · 25 events · In 1942 National Munitions Corporation turned Carrboro's empty Mill No. 7 into a shell-loading plant for Navy anti-aircraft ammunition. It grew to more than 500 workers, won the Army-Navy E award in January 1943 and renewals after it, and closed on August 17, 1945, when the Navy canceled its contracts. Pacific Mills of Boston had bought the old Mill No. 4 building that January and opened Carrboro Woolen Mills there in April 1945; it bought Mill No. 7 as well, with the deed filed in May 1946, and in 1947 the government sued National Munitions over excessive war profits. Pacific Mills later closed the Carrboro woolen operation, in the mid-1950s by one account and the early 1960s by another. StorylineCarrboro’s school and the Chapel Hill district, 1950–19591950–1959 · 52 events · In 1950 Carrboro's school committeemen told the county board that Carrboro preferred to stay in the county school unit rather than join a larger Chapel Hill tax district. By 1953 the school was crowded and a grand jury called its building extremely shabby; a state survey team recommended a new site and a merger with the Chapel Hill unit. The state split the Carrboro-White Cross district in 1954, and the county bought a site behind the new Carrboro Methodist Church, later enlarged to about 18 acres. After flooded rooms and a fallen ceiling in 1955, Carrboro parents debated the merger, and the district committee voted to stay in the county unit. In August 1958 Carrboro voters approved joining the Chapel Hill district, 713 to 303; the new elementary school opened, and in 1959 the old building was sold to the town. StorylineChoosing Orange County's sheriff, 1954–19861954–1986 · 12 events · In 1954 Odell H. Clayton won a Democratic runoff to succeed Sheriff S. T. Latta, and when he died in office in 1959 the commissioners appointed his deputy C. D. (Buck) Knight. Knight faced challengers in 1974 and 1978, when the Daily Tar Heel called Harriet B. Alford the first woman candidate for sheriff. In 1982 Chapel Hill detective captain Lindy Pendergrass won the runoff to succeed him, and the county honored Knight after 23 years as sheriff. Pendergrass was re-elected in 1986 over the only Republican in any county race. StorylineThe fight over Sunday racing, 1956–19581956–1958 · 9 events · When new race tracks in Orange County held races on Sundays, ministers led a fight to stop them that ended in the state Supreme Court. In April 1956 the Rev. W. I. Conway asked the county commissioners to stop the races at a jalopy track near his church, and about 100 people formed the Orange County Anti-Racing Association, but the county attorney said a ban needed special legislation. In 1957 the legislature passed Senator Edwin S. Lanier's bill barring races on Sundays and after 6 p.m. After Orange Speedway, Inc. sued, the state Supreme Court struck the act down on January 10, 1958, and Sunday racing returned with a 100-mile Grand National race won by Buck Baker. StorylineSchool desegregation in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, 1954–19701956–1970 · 74 events · In 1956 and 1957 Preston Weaver applied to move his son from Northside School to the white Chapel Hill Elementary, and in 1958 the county school board refused applications from the Vickers and Walden families for places at the new white Carrboro Elementary. After the school board refused in 1959 to admit ten-year-old Stanley Vickers to Carrboro Elementary, his parents sued, and their 1961 win in federal court set the Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools on the course to desegregation. In 1966 all-Black Lincoln High merged into Chapel Hill High, and Lincoln's name, colors and mascot were left behind. In the fall of 1969 Black students protested at the town's junior and senior high schools. In September about 150 walked out of Guy B. Phillips Junior High for about an hour over the choice of cheerleaders, and the principal said the school was weighing a three-to-one white-to-Black quota for all school organizations. In November the school board reprimanded, but kept on, a Chapel Hill High teacher who Black students said had called a Black student a racial slur. On November 11 about 200 Black students presented demands to the principal, among them more Black teachers and an Afro-American studies department, and the day ended in broken windows, injuries and police. The next night about 500 Black parents and students took their grievances to the board at First Baptist Church, and on November 17 the board promised a biracial grievance committee and renewed efforts to hire Black teachers, and Black students ended their boycott of Chapel Hill High. In February 1970 the city schools reported every school racially balanced, with Black enrollment of 22 to 36 percent, while only about 12 percent of teachers were Black. StorylineSpeaker Ban controversy, 1962–19681962–1968 · 60 events · In October 1962 the Division Three area of the state American Legion, meeting in Chapel Hill, endorsed a Chapel Hill post resolution by Col. Henry E. Royall asking for an investigation of possible leftist influences on the UNC campus. 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. StorylineWall speeches at the campus line, 19661966–2011 · 20 events · In 1966 the trustees barred Frank Wilkinson and Herbert Aptheker from the campus under the Speaker Ban law, so each spoke to students across the stone wall at McCorkle Place from the Franklin Street sidewalk. Students and the two speakers sued in Dickson v. Sitterson, a federal court struck the law down in 1968, and a marker went up at the wall in 2011. StorylineCarrboro’s Black political firsts1969–2024 · 30 events · Braxton Foushee became Carrboro’s first Black alderman in 1969 and Robert Drakeford its first Black mayor in 1977, followed by Richard Knight Jr. as town manager, Hilliard Caldwell and Joal Hall Broun on the board, and Walter Horton as police chief in 2013. Barbara Foushee was sworn in as the first Black woman mayor in 2023, and the town named the Drakeford Library Complex in 2024. StorylineThe student-fee suits against the Daily Tar Heel and the BSM, 1970–19831970–1983 · 14 events · UNC students voted in 1970 to keep funding the Daily Tar Heel from student fees, and a 1971 bill in the state Senate to end such funding was reported unfavorably in committee. Four students sued in 1972 to stop fee support of the paper, and in 1974 a federal judge ruled against them. That June two law students sued to end fee funding of the Black Student Movement, which opened its membership to all students and joined the suit as a defendant. In 1975 a judge dismissed the BSM suit as moot, in 1976 the U.S. Supreme Court let the rulings for the Daily Tar Heel stand, and in 1979 three students sued again over the paper's political endorsements. A federal judge ruled for the University in the 1979 suit in 1982, and the Fourth Circuit affirmed in 1983. StorylineCarrboro’s water bill fights with the University and OWASA, 1970–19821970–1982 · 8 events · When the University raised its water rate in 1970, Carrboro paid at the old rate and the state sued the town, which answered that the University held a water monopoly. From 1979 Carrboro refused to pay OWASA's higher fire hydrant fees; OWASA sued, a judge ordered the town to pay in 1981, and after losing in the Court of Appeals the town took the case to the N.C. Supreme Court in 1982. StorylineChapel Hill and the New Hope dam (Jordan Lake), 1970–19831970–1983 · 11 events · As the New Hope Dam went up downstream in 1970, Chapel Hill's aldermen asked for a study of its environmental effects and of the water standards the town would have to meet. ECOS joined a suit against the Army Corps of Engineers in 1971, and after a 1972 public hearing that ran about 3 to 1 against the dam, the aldermen voted to join the suit. The town kept up the fight after the Corps moved to fill the lake in 1976 and appealed a 1977 ruling that let it go ahead, but in 1979 the aldermen dropped the suit. The Corps closed the dam gates in 1981, and in 1983 the Town Council asked the state to rate the lake for swimming rather than drinking water. StorylineObscenity prosecutions and PHE, from Carrboro to Hillsborough, 1971–19941971–1994 · 18 events · In 1971 an Adam & Eve contraceptive shop opened on Columbia Street, which the Daily Tar Heel called the first of its kind in the country. In 1986 District Attorney Carl Fox issued guidelines under the state's new obscenity law, and a federal-state task force raided PHE Inc., the Adam and Eve mail-order company west of Carrboro. In 1990 the company sued the Justice Department over threatened prosecutions in several places at once, and a federal judge barred multiple indictments. Postal inspectors raided PHE again in 1992; no charges were filed. In 1993 Hillsborough's Board of Adjustment refused PHE's move to town, but a judge cleared it, PHE settled its federal case, and it moved into its Hillsborough building in 1994. StorylineThe Minority Court and the guaranteed minority seats, 1973–19841973–1984 · 18 events · In 1973 UNC's student attorney general ended the Minority Court, which let Black defendants be tried by a court with three minority justices added. After the Black Student Movement pressed for it, the court was restored that November, and a reform of the student courts approved in 1973 and 1974 wrote minority members into the new Undergraduate Court, which took effect in October 1974. Two students' 1974 suit, Uzzell v. Friday, also challenged the guaranteed minority seats on the Campus Governing Council and the Honor Court. A federal appeals court struck them down in 1977 and again in 1979, after the Supreme Court's Bakke decision, and late in 1979 it agreed to hear the case once more. The appeals court sent the case back to the district court in 1980, and in 1984, after a trial in Durham, Judge Frank W. Bullock Jr. ruled the reserved seats unconstitutional. StorylineCondominium conversions in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, 1973–19841973–1984 · 19 events · Chapel Hill's aldermen approved condominium projects in 1973, with Mayor Howard Lee breaking ties, and turned one down in 1974. From 1980, with rental housing short, the Town Council refused conversions of Graham Court and The Oaks, then approved The Oaks in 1981, and a judge ruled that the town could not stop a realty firm's conversions. Conversions spread in Carrboro and Chapel Hill through 1983. StorylineThe 1974 apartment foreclosures in Chapel Hill and Carrboro1974 · 5 events · In the fall of 1974 Roberts Associates, builder of most of the apartment complexes around Chapel Hill and Carrboro, left tenants of its new Old Well Apartments without appliances and owed Carrboro back taxes, then filed for reorganization in November as lenders moved to auction five of its complexes. Foreclosure also began that month on the Foxcroft and Chateau apartments. StorylineChapel Hill's police chiefs and the public safety department, 1975–19941975–1994 · 20 events · Chapel Hill hired Sidney Hilliard from Florida as police chief in 1975; after he resigned in 1977, Herman Stone, who had joined the force in 1949, led the department until he retired in January 1987. A 1985 consultant's report proposed merging police and fire into a public safety department, and the council created a public safety director's post in 1987, but the town put off filling it. Arnold Gold, interim chief since Stone's retirement, became chief in 1988. Cal Horton was public safety director by 1990, when the town named Daniel Jones fire chief. In 1991 the council moved to split the public safety department into police and fire departments, and after Gold retired in 1992 Ralph Pendergraph became chief. In October 1993 the council ended the cross-trained public safety system and split police and fire services, and in 1994 Chapel Hill and Carrboro agreed to run their fire departments in cooperation. StorylinePublic drinking and the drinking age in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, 1980–19861980–1986 · 13 events · Chapel Hill extended its ban on drinking in public to parks in 1980 and began strict enforcement in August 1981, with plainclothes officers on Franklin Street and near fraternity court. A plan let those cited before October 6 take an alcohol course and have the charge dismissed, and arrests rose through 1982. That fall the Town Council created a task force to look at alcohol problems beyond police enforcement. Carrboro banned drinking beer and wine on town property in 1985. As the state drinking age rose to 21 in 1986, UNC barred students under 21 from drinking on campus, a crowd of up to 10,000 took over Franklin Street on the last legal night, and Chancellor Christopher Fordham banned public drinking on campus. StorylineCrimestoppers in Orange County, 1981–19931981–1993 · 4 events · Chapel Hill started a Crimestoppers program in 1981, paying rewards for anonymous tips to the police. Orange County Crimestoppers began publicizing one unsolved crime a week in 1984. In 1993, saying many in southern Orange County felt the county line was not theirs, organizers opened Chapel Hill-Carrboro Crimestoppers, a confidential tip line of its own. StorylineCarrboro’s LGBTQ municipal firsts1990 to present · 21 events · From the 1990 equal employment policy and the 1994 domestic partnership ordinance, through Mike Nelson's mayoralty and Lydia Lavelle's, to the 2021 nondiscrimination ordinance: the town acts that made Carrboro a series of firsts. StorylineGun rules in Chapel Hill, Carrboro and at UNC, 1990–19941990–1994 · 17 events · In 1990 Joe Herzenberg asked Chapel Hill's town attorney to study local gun control, and the attorney reported that the town could not ban handgun sales. In April 1992 the Town Council adopted Herzenberg's ordinance barring guns on town property, at street fairs and on public transportation, and UNC banned concealed weapons in its Code of Student Conduct. After crowded hearings Chapel Hill adopted five more gun ordinances in November 1993, Carrboro formed a study committee, and in 1994 Buy Back the Hill bought about 100 guns from residents. StorylineChapel Hill's crime and drug task force, 1991–19941991–1994 · 15 events · Council member Roosevelt Wilkerson proposed a task force on violent crime and drugs in December 1990, and Chapel Hill set it up under social work dean John Turner early in 1991. It heard arguments over the downtown shelter and the NAACP's call for jobs for Black youth, and in October 1991 the council began carrying out its 49 recommendations. In 1992 Carrboro joined a joint task force, police planned new patrol districts, and Pine Knolls and public housing residents pressed for action on drug dealing. In 1993 a $30,000 gift from The Village Companies paid for unarmed civilian patrols downtown, and in October 1994 the task force disbanded seven of its nine committees. StorylineRacial discrimination complaints in Chapel Hill’s town departments, 1993–19951993–1995 · 4 events · In 1993 Chapel Hill upheld one of four racial discrimination complaints by transportation workers. In 1994 a Black maintenance worker sued the town over racial harassment, including a noose hung in the garage, and settled for $50,000. In 1995 the Black Public Works Association filed a discrimination grievance against the town.

Indexed works

Works about Law, Courts & Justice from library and archive catalogs. The most widely held appear first; novels are not shown here. Follow a link to find a copy or view the material.

Filter these works by material, period, or place. Counts refer to works, not individual copies. A work may appear under more than one period or place.

Material

Histories 345Letters & correspondence 92Biography 62Genealogy 58Interviews 35other types 168

Period

Colonial era (to 1775) 1717th century 2218th century 210Revolution (1775–1783) 12819th century 157Civil War (1861–1865) 4620th century 92World War II era 10

Place

North Carolina (statewide) 489Orange County 470Hillsborough 287Chapel Hill 167Granville County (neighboring) 34Eno River 31

Widely held

Chapel Hill Murder and Mayhem

Jackson, Rick · 2023

Rick Jackson's true crime history of Chapel Hill, published by The History Press in 2023, in 28 short chapters. Cases include the Efland bank robbery, the execution of John Henry Breeze, the unsolved murder of Suellen Evans, the killing at the Internationalist Bookstore and the death of Eve Carson.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Murder.

NC Cardinal UNC Duke NC State NCCU Durham Library of Congress Davidson Methodist Wingate UNCSA CH Historical Society

The Story of the Institute of Government, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Coates, Albert McKinley · 1981

Albert Coates's own account of the Institute of Government at the University of North Carolina, which he founded, subtitled 'out of a classroom in Chapel Hill' and published in 1981. The 303 pages trace the institute's history and its role in educating North Carolina's public officials.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Coates, Albert, 1896-1989.

NC Cardinal UNC Duke NC State NCCU Durham Library of Congress UNCSA CH Historical Society

Memories of an Old-Time Tar Heel

Battle, Kemp Plummer · 1945

Kemp Plummer Battle's memoir, published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1945, 296 pages with plates and portraits. Battle, a lawyer, state treasurer and president of the university from 1876 to 1891, recalls North Carolina manners, customs and public life across the nineteenth century, with Chapel Hill and the university's reopening after Reconstruction at the center.

Included because: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: Lawyers -- North Carolina -- Biography.

Reviewed in Journal of American History (1946), The Journal of Southern History (1946).

Duke NC State NC Cardinal Durham Chapel Hill PL NCCU UNC CH Historical Society Library of Congress

Communists on Campus

Billingsley, William J. · 1999 · University of Georgia Press

William J. Billingsley's history of the Speaker Ban Law, the 1963 North Carolina statute that barred known Communists from speaking on state campuses, and the fight over it at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. The subtitle sets the scope: race, politics and the public university in sixties North Carolina. It treats academic freedom, anti-communist movements and free speech in the state. University of Georgia Press, 1999, 308 pages with eight pages of plates.

Included because: Catalog heading in the NCCU record: Universities and colleges -- Law and legislation.

Reviewed in Academe (2000), The American Historical Review (2001), The Journal of Southern History (2001), Journal of American History (2001), The Journal of Politics (2001).

Duke NC State NC Cardinal Durham Chapel Hill PL NCCU UNC Library of Congress

Hillsboro, Colonial and Revolutionary

Nash, Frank · 1953

Francis Nash's history of Hillsborough in colonial and Revolutionary times, first published in 1903 and reprinted in 1953 by Edwards & Broughton with an index and a sketch of the author. Topics include the Regulator Insurrection of 1766 to 1771, the Revolution and local genealogy.

Included because: The record names this subject alongside a heading for the county or its towns.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 975.656 NAS NC Cardinal UNC Durham Library of Congress Wake Forest Davidson DPLA

The Good Government Man

Covington, Jr., Howard E. · 2010

Howard E. Covington Jr.'s biography of Albert Coates (1896-1989), the law professor who founded the Institute of Government at the University of North Carolina and led it through its early years. Topics include Coates as a law teacher and the institute's history as a center for the study of public administration in Chapel Hill. Published in 2010 by the University Library at Chapel Hill, 322 pages with 32 pages of plates.

Included because: Catalog heading in the Durham record: Coates, Albert, 1896-1989.

Read free online · UNC Libraries NC Cardinal UNC Duke NC State Durham Crossref Library of Congress
Show 2 more

African Americans of Durham and Orange counties : an oral history

Bolduc, Jean · 2016 · The History Press

Jean Bolduc's collection of oral history interviews with Black residents of Durham and Orange counties, published by The History Press in 2016, 125 pages with photographs and portraits. The narrators are the poet Jaki Shelton Green, civil rights lawyer Floyd McKissick, Walter Jackson, Nate Davis, Brenda Stephens, Diane Wright, Jackie Wagstaff and Michelle Johnson, and a closing chapter deals with the Ku Klux Klan. The interviews document Black life and race relations in the two counties across the twentieth century.

Included because: The record names this subject alongside a heading for the county or its towns.

NC Cardinal Duke Durham Wake Forest CH Historical Society UNC

Abstracts of the Minutes of the Inferior Court of Pleas & Quarter Sessions of Orange County, N.C

1966

Abstracts of the minutes of Orange County's Inferior Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions for 1777 to 1788, the county court of justices of the peace in the Revolutionary years. The abstracts name the people who came before the court. First published in Charlotte in 1966 and later reprinted from Greenville, South Carolina, in three paginated sections with a map.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Court records.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 929.375 HAU NC Cardinal UNC Duke Library of Congress Wake Forest

Recently indexed: Biographical sketch of Hon. T.C. Manning (1886) · [Campus conversation on sexual assault website archives] · Charter, constitution, by-laws and proceedings of the meeting of organization of the North Carolina Bar Association : February, 1899 (1899) · Chief Justice Gale, of North Carolina (1893) · Chief Justice Little : with some account of his descendants (1895) · Consumer rights handbook : a student's guide to the law (1981)

Search all 722 indexed works →

Start at OCPL

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

  • Start here · NC 929.375 HAU Orange County, North Carolina Court Minutes Haun, Weynette Parks · 1991

    Weynette Parks Haun's edition of the Orange County court minutes, published by the compiler in Durham in 1991 in five books covering 1752 to 1761, 1762 to 1766, 1777 to 1786, 1787 to 1793 and 1794 to 1797, with maps. Minutes of the colonial and early federal county court give the names of jurors, officers, litigants, road hands, apprentices and estate administrators.

  • Foundational · NC 929.375 HAU Abstracts of the Minutes of the Inferior Court of Pleas & Quarter Sessions of Orange County, N.C: 1777-1788 1966

    Abstracts of the minutes of Orange County's Inferior Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions for 1777 to 1788, the county court of justices of the peace in the Revolutionary years. The abstracts name the people who came before the court. First published in Charlotte in 1966 and later reprinted from Greenville, South Carolina, in three paginated sections with a map.

  • Foundational · NC 929.375 HILLSBOR Hillsborough District Court Civil Action Concerning Land (1778-1806) 2011

    Stewart E. Dunaway's abstracts of civil suits over land heard in the Hillsborough District Superior Court between 1778 and 1806. The district covered Orange, Wake, Granville, Caswell, Person, Chatham and Randolph counties, and the papers concern boundaries, ownership and disputed tracts. Published through Lulu in 2011, 337 pages with illustrations, maps and facsimiles.

Show 6 more
  • Foundational · NC 929.375 ORANGE Orange County Court Civil Action Concerning Land (1778-1832) 2011

    Abstracts of civil actions concerning land heard in the Orange County Superior Court between 1778 and 1832, the disputes over grants, titles and boundaries that followed the Revolution. Published in 2011. Suits of this kind name parties, neighbors and watercourses.

  • Foundational · NC 929.375 HAUN Hillsborough District, North Carolina Superior Court Minutes Haun, Weynette Parks · 1993

    Weynette Parks Haun's edition of the minutes of the Superior Court of Law and Equity for the Hillsborough District, the court that sat at Hillsborough and heard cases from several surrounding counties in the colonial and early statehood years. Three books cover 1768 to 1791, 1789 to 1798 and 1794 to 1802, and the names recorded make the set a source for Orange County genealogy. Self-published in 1993 in three volumes.

  • Foundational · NC 333.3 IND An Index to the Town Lots of Hillsborough: Orange County, North Carolina 1982

    An index to the town lots of Hillsborough, Orange County, compiled in 1982 as a guide to the deeds and court records that trace each lot's ownership.

  • Rebecca Wall Collection · NC 929.375 ORANGE Orange County, N.C., Superior Court Civil Action Concerning Land: Volume 2, 1835-1869 2012

    Second volume of abstracts of civil actions concerning land in the Orange County Superior Court, covering 1835 to 1869, published in 2012. Suits over titles, grants and boundaries name parties, tracts and neighbors.

  • Foundational · NC 333.3 DUNAWAY Chapel Hill, N.C. History of Town Lots (1790-1930s) Dunaway, Stewart E. · 2014

    Deed transcripts for the town lots of Chapel Hill and adjoining land from 1790 to the 1930s, compiled by Stewart E. Dunaway. Each transcript keeps only the working facts: grantor and grantee, price, acreage and the metes and bounds of the parcel. Self-published in 2014 as Issue 1G, 702 pages with maps and facsimiles.

  • Foundational · NC 333.3 DUNAWAY Hillsborough, North Carolina History of Town Lots: The Complete Reference Guide Dunaway, Stewart E. · 2013

    Stewart E. Dunaway worked through Hillsborough, N.C., lot by lot, giving each town lot a synopsis of its history, a plat showing where it sits and transcripts of the deeds he could locate for it. The second issue runs to 720 pages with illustrations, maps and facsimiles.

In the chronology

A selection of 12 events from the 2,401 chronology entries for this theme, including highlights and examples from different years. See all 2,401 dated events in the chronology →

  1. Alexander Mebane, the first sheriff, returns 1,113 taxables As Orange County's first sheriff, Mebane returned 1,113 tithables for 1752 and 1753. The book reckons this at about 4,000 people when the county was formed. Place: Orange County · Also named: Alexander MebaneLefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 14
  2. Battle of Alamance 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. People: William Tryon, Herman Husband, Robert Palmer, James Few Place: Present-day Alamance County; then Orange CountyNCpedia
  3. David Fanning raids Hillsborough and captures Governor Burke Fanning’s Loyalists captured Governor Thomas Burke during a surprise raid on Hillsborough. People: David Fanning, Thomas Burke Place: HillsboroughNCpedia — David Fanning
  4. Hillsborough Convention declines to ratify the Constitution Meeting at St. Matthew's Church in Hillsborough, delegates defeated a motion to ratify the Constitution 184 to 84 on August 1, 1788. On August 2 they voted to neither ratify nor reject it until a declaration of rights and amendments went before Congress. People: Samuel Johnston, Richard Dobbs Spaight, Willie Jones, James Iredell Place: Hillsborough · Also mentions: St. Matthew's ChurchColonial and State Records of North Carolina, vol. 22, pp. 1-35: Minutes of the North Carolina Constitutional Convention at Hillsborough
  5. Thomas Ruffin issues the State v. Mann decision 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 Place: Countywide · Also named: John MannAfrican American Intellectual History Society, Black Perspectives: Sally Greene, State v. Mann: Lydia's Journey (February 23, 2022)
  6. Orange Superior Court sends Wesley Watson and seven others to the whipping post At the fall term of Orange Superior Court at Hillsborough, Judge Fowle had eight people whipped, four white and four Black, most of them for theft. Wesley Watson, described in evidence as a wartime deserter who had broken jail twice and led a band that robbed people in Orange and nearby counties, was sentenced for stealing a mule to thirty-nine lashes at once and more at the November and March terms, despite a plea for mercy from his counsel Josiah Turner Jr. People: Josiah Turner Jr. Place: Court house, Hillsborough · Also named: Wesley WatsonSearch the index · Hillsborough Recorder, September 26, 1866, p. 2
  7. Journey of Reconciliation comes to Chapel Hill Interracial riders testing segregation on interstate buses reached Chapel Hill on April 12, 1947. The next day police arrested four of them at the bus station and a white cab driver struck rider James Peck. Convicted in Orange County, Bayard Rustin, Igal Roodenko and Joe Felmet surrendered at the Hillsborough courthouse on March 21, 1949 to serve chain-gang sentences. People: Bayard Rustin, George Houser, Igal Roodenko, Joseph A. Felmet Place: Chapel Hill · Also mentions: Hillsborough courthouseTown of Chapel Hill: Information packet for Freedom Riders resolution (Council agenda, January 28, 2008) · Also: The Daily Tar Heel, February 27, 1976, p. 1
  8. Central High students march and Orange County schools integrate In 1968 Black students at Central High School in Hillsborough walked out and marched to protest a plan for phased desegregation. After Central's last class graduated that spring, its high school students moved to Orange High, ending the county's dual school system in 1968–69. Place: Hillsborough · Also mentions: Central High School, Orange HighAlliance for Historic Hillsborough: Central High School/Agnes Kindergarten
  9. The UNC trustees adopt six temporary speaker rules in place of the voided regulations A week after the ruling the trustees approved, over Senator Tom White's plea to proceed calmly, six interim rules on the manner of a speaker's appearance (a senior faculty member presiding at the chancellor's request, public forums, balanced views, audience questions, sponsorship by recognized student groups), with the items the court had struck removed, pending further study by the executive committee on March 8. People: William C. Friday, J. Carlyle Sitterson Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: Tom WhiteThe Daily Tar Heel, February 27, 1968, p. 1
  10. James Cates is killed outside the UNC Student Union James Lewis Cates Jr., 22, a Black Chapel Hill resident, was stabbed outside the UNC Student Union shortly before 2 a.m. during an all-night dance, in a clash with members of Durham's Storm Troopers motorcycle gang, and died at North Carolina Memorial Hospital. Three white men charged in his death were acquitted by an all-white jury in 1971. People: James L. Cates Jr. Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: James Lewis Cates Jr. · Also mentions: North Carolina Memorial HospitalThe Daily Tar Heel, November 22, 1970, p. 1
  11. North Carolina recognizes the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation Following the 2001 appeals ruling, the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation became the eighth tribe officially recognized by the State of North Carolina through the Commission of Indian Affairs. Place: Orange and Alamance countiesNC DNCR: Occaneechi Indian Tribe (G-142)
  12. Orange County's clerk of superior court is honored for work in guardianship law 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. People: Mark Kleinschmidt Place: Orange CountySearch the index · North Carolina Judicial Branch: Orange County Clerk Mark Kleinschmidt Honored Nationally for Leadership in Guardianship Law

See all 2,401 dated events in the chronology →

Places in this theme

Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first. The map shows the 89 with a known location.

Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors. Site locations from the N.C. State Historic Preservation Office survey, Open Orange, Orange County GIS, OpenStreetMap and a few other published sources named on each site’s page; town and community pins show approximate locations.

Show 105 more

All places and the county map →

Research sources

Sources and research tools for this subject. Research guide: How to research with Orange County Indexed.

Background 8

Show all 8

National Register files

Records of the time 6

Show all 6

Collections and databases 9

Show all 9

Local help

Background reading at OCPL

Books from OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection that provide broader context. They may not discuss Law, Courts & Justice directly.

  • Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection Dead and Gone: Classic Crimes of North Carolina Wellman, Manly Wade · 1954

    Chapel Hill writer Manly Wade Wellman retells ten notorious North Carolina murders committed between 1808 and 1914, among them the case of Tom Dula, the Tom Dooley of the ballad. The victims range from a Confederate general and an orphan girl to a small boy and a political boss. Published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1954, 190 pages, it won the Edgar Award for best fact crime book.

    Subjects in the Library of Congress catalog record: Murder -- North Carolina; Crime -- North Carolina OCPL call number: NC 364 WEL
  • Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection Life and Correspondence of James Iredell: One of the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States McRee, Griffith J. · 1857

    Griffith J. McRee's life of James Iredell, the North Carolinian whom George Washington appointed to the first United States Supreme Court, where he served from 1790 until his death in 1799, combining a narrative of his career with his correspondence. Published by D. Appleton of New York in two volumes, the first dated 1857.

    Subjects in the Library of Congress catalog record: Iredell, James, 1751-1799 OCPL call number: NC BIO IREDELL MCR
  • Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection The County Court in North Carolina Before 1750 McCain, Paul Moffatt · 1954

    Paul M. McCain traces North Carolina's county courts from the founding of the colony to 1750, including the years when counties were still called precincts. The courts governed the counties as well as judging cases. Duke University Press published the study in 1954 as series 31 of the Trinity College Historical Society's Historical Papers; 163 pages with a map and a bibliography.

    Subjects in the Library of Congress catalog record: North Carolina -- County courts OCPL call number: NC 347.756 MCC
  • Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection Wake County, North Carolina, County Court Minutes North Carolina · 1977

    Minutes of the Wake County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions from 1771 to 1811, published by Weynette Parks Haun of Durham in eight books between 1977 and 1995, with a gap for 1785 and 1786; each book is indexed. Wake was cut from Cumberland, Johnston and Orange counties in 1771, and its first court met that same year.

    Subjects in the Library of Congress catalog record: Court records -- North Carolina -- Wake County OCPL call number: NC 347.756 NORTH

Search the Wall Collection for related books →

Related themes

Politics & Government →UNC & Campus Life →Schools & Education →Wars & Military Service →Colonial Orange County →Families, Land & Genealogy →

Picture: Library of Congress photograph, late 1930s; public domain. Image credits →

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