Shaping Orange County's Future Final Full Report

Browse Search

Orange County - 200 years ago The start of this period, 1775, found America still a British colony, but not for very much longer. It was a time of incredible change and development for Orange County and the Nation. The United States declared its independence, created a constitution, and set legal precedents with landmark cases decided by the Supreme Court. As the 18th century concluded, divisiveness over the issue of slavery grew stronger. The US finally banned the importation of Africans for slavery in 1807. SNAPSHOT -- 1800 • Thomas Jefferson is elected President of the United States. • Approximately 60 million buffalo roam the Great Plains. • African - Americans in Philadelphia petition congress to end slavery. • US population: 5,308,483 • Orange County population: 15,657 (Orange County at this time included parts of what is now Durham County) In Orange County, most farms tended to be small subsistence farms rather than the expansive plantations found in other parts of the south. In fact, three - quarters of the landowners owned less than 500 acres of land, most of it uncleared, and only three percent of landowners held more than 1,000 acres. While these Orange County agriculturists were much less dependent on slavery than other southern counties, 20% of our population in 1790 was enslaved. This number had risen to 27% by 1800. The most pressing local political issues of this period, however, were not generally related to agriculture and slavery, but rather to independence, taxation, and the creation of a new government. Orange County (created in 1752) was in its infancy as a political entity and was working hard to determine its place in regional and state politics. In 1782, Hillsborough was even selected as the state capital, although it lost that place to Raleigh only a year later. In 1789, the University of North Carolina, the first state - supported university in the country, was chartered and surveyed on top of New Hope Chapel Hill. In the early 1800s, places like Cedar Grove, Caldwell, Oaks, and White Cross were all important centers for local farming communities. While Hillsborough remained the primary economic hub for the region, these smaller communities played an important role as supply stations for everyday goods and services and as gathering points for social activities. Overall, the character of Orange County during this period was agricultural, with burgeoning institutions of government and education, and a population largely of Scots -Irish and German extraction. Bustling with activity and growth, it continued to play a major role in the region as an economic and political center, and even had a stake in larger, national issues as well. 7