Caswell County Top "50" Events

 Top "50"

Below is a list of the top-fifty events relating to Caswell County, North Carolina. The order is approximately chronological. Comments are welcome. Click images to see a larger version.

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1. In the 1750s the first settlers arrived in what would become Orange County (established 1755) and then Caswell County (established 1777)

2. Hart's Chapel founded (became Bethesda Presbyterian Church) (1765)

3. Revolutionary War (1775-1783)

4. Caswell County created from Orange County (1777)

5. Leasburg established as first county seat (1783)

6. Milton established (1796)

7. President George Washington slept at the Dudley Gatewood house (1791)

8. Person County carved from Caswell County (1792)

9. County seat moved to Caswell Courthouse (became Yanceyville) (1792)

10. First Caswell County bank opened in Milton (c.1818)

11. Thomas Day Moved to Milton (1824)

12. Bartlett Yancey, Jr. Died (1828)

13. Milton Cotton Mill opened (1836)

14. NC Senator Calvin Graves cast deciding vote on NC Railroad (1848)

15. Bright-Leaf tobacco process perfected on Slade farm (1850s)

16. Bank of Yanceyville established (1853)

17. Danville-Yanceyville Plank Road Opened (1856)

18. Caswell County Courthouse completed (1861)

19. Civil War (1861-1865)

20. NC Senator John Walter (Chicken) Stephens killed (1870)

21. Kirk-Holden War (1870)

22. First African-American Caswell County Commissioner (1872)

23. Milton and Sutherlin Narrow-Gauge Railroad operational (1878)

24. Yanceyville Colored Academy Incorporated (1897)

25. New Caswell County Jail built in Yanceyville (1906)

26. Trial of Henrietta Jeffries (1913)

27. World War I (1917-1918)

28. First Caswell County Fair (1918)

29. First Agricultural Extension Agent (1920s)

30. Confederate Memorial Statue unveiled and dedicated (1921)

31. The Caswell Messenger established (1926)

32. Nicholas Longworth Dillard Arrived in Yanceyville (1930)

33. Maud Florance Gatewood born (1934)

34. First Home Economics Extension Agent (1935)

35. Yanceyville Rotary Club established (1937)

36. Caswell Knitting Mill opened in Yanceyville (1939)

37. World War II (1941-1945)

38. SS Caswell County Launched at Wilmington, NC (1944)

39. Atwater Hosiery Mills (became Royal Hosiery Mills) opened in Yanceyville (1948)

40. Milton Hotel burned (1951)

41. Caswell County Courthouse Fire (1951)

42. Trial of James Mack (Matt) Ingram (three trials: 1951-1953)

43. Ivy Bluff Prison Escape (1959) 

44. Swinson Couple Trial (1959) 

45. Public school integration

   

(a) Trial of Jasper Brown (1963)

(b) Jeffers v. Whitley (school desegregation lawsuits: 1950s-1960s). Photograph: defendant Thomas Harrison Whitley, who fought against integration.

(c) Piedmont Academy Established 

46. Hanover Mills opened in Yanceyville (1961)

47. Trial (and conviction) of Bobby Edward Poteat (former Caswell County Sheriff) (1978)

48. Farmer Lake completed (1986)

49. Bartlett Yancey High School Boys Basketball State Champions (1988)

50. First African-American Caswell County Sheriff (Tony Durden) (2017)

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Possible additions/replacements:

Lea's Chapel (1750)

First Caswell County Board of Commissioners (1868)

Bartlett Yancey School building completed in Yanceyville (1924)

Yanceyville Sanitary District established (1936)

Caswell Theatre opened in Yanceyville (1938)

Caswell County Training School building completed in Yanceyville (1951)

Yanceyville Fire Department established