Orange County, North Carolina Abstracts of the Minutes of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, 1752-1766

By: Ruth Herndon Shields, Pub. 1965, reprinted 2021, 182 pages, Index, soft cover, ISBN #0-89308-456-6.


Orange County was created in 1752 from Granville, Johnston and Bladen Counties with Granville having been formed from Edgecombe County. Rowan County was formed as the western boundary of Orange in 1753. Counties formed from Orange were Guilford and Randolph in 1770 with Rockingham taken from Guilford in 1785, Chatham in 1770 with a small portion of it taken to become part of Wake County in 1770, and in 1771 Caswell County was taken from Orange with Person County taken from Caswell in 1792. The court was held 4 times a year and heard such cases of assault, batteries, trespass, all breaches of the peace. They held authority of administration in intestate estates and orphans, granted license to build water grist mills, to taverns and ordinaries, and to build and maintain public ferries. The court also appointed Constables and Overseers of Roads, and named the men who lived within the bounds to keep them in repair, as well as recommending three persons to the Governor, of whom one was made Sheriff, as well as imposing taxes for roads, courthouses and goals, appointed all county officers, civil and military, all lists of Jurors and probates of Wills. These records are extremely valuable for the researcher, especially if an ancestor died intestate (without a will), and in some instances a person may be listed in these court records and nowhere else in the county records