S Proclamation Proclamation Celebrating 250th Anniversary of Orange County

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s ° 9&302 ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS TO PROCLAIM A YEARLONG CELEBRATION BEGINNING SEPTEMBER 9, 2002 TO COMMEMORATE THE 250TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDING OF ORANGE COUNTY WHEREAS, on September 9, 1752, a new county was born of the North Carolina colonial back country — a county that spanned the area from present-day Greensboro to present-day Cary, from the Virginia line to the Uwharrie mountains, and WHEREAS, on that day Orange County became a reality as the first colonial Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions was held at Grayfields along the Eno River, and WHEREAS, the new County - originally inhabited by the Occaneechi/Saponi nation and other native American tribes — included 4,000 persons and a land area of 3,500 square miles, including all of present day Alamance, Caswell, Person, Durham and Chatham counties as well as parts of Wake, Lee, Randolph, Guilford and Rockingham counties, and WHEREAS, as citizens of one of the oldest Piedmont counties, Orange County's 120,000 residents have much to celebrate, including ➢ A commitment to education, from the founding of the University of North Carolina, the nation's first state university when it opened in 1795, through the development of six freedmen's schools formed in Orange County by 1868, to local school systems rated among the best in the southeastern United States. ➢ A will to preserve cultural and natural resources such as the County's tapestry of distinctive buildings, neighborhoods, farmlands and natural treasures like Occoneechee Mountain, the N.C. Botanical Garden, and the Eno River Corridor. ➢ A growing diversity, beginning with the Indian nations, recast by the arrival of people from Europe and Africa, and shaped recently by the addition of many persons from Asia, Latin America and other places around the globe.