Part #3 The First Orange County Courthouse It is possible that the court met in KIMBROUGH's place of business rather than in a separate courthouse. Useage such as this were common while courthouses were under construction. That would not have been consistent with the September 1752 court directive for KIMBROUGH to have the courthouse "fit for the Reception of his Majesties Justices at their next December 1752 sitting". SAUNDERS' reference to "buildings" of similar construction suggests that both the ordinary and the courthouse were logged, floored, and covered, but not yet chinked. SAUNDERS impatient to return back to Suffolk, did not attend the Orange County court. It is possible that since he was an observer at the Granville County court, this had satisfied his curiosity, for it had left him aghast. The Granville justices, he said, "appeared like Gladiators Strip ready for fighting". He characterized the lawyers "as rather Obscene than Learned" and said they conduced "many Curious Tryals for Assault and battery" SAUNDERS' ultimate Granville court shock came when he saw "my last night's landlady indicted for fornication". It would not be Pine Ford that would develop as the seat of Orange County, nor Hillsborough, which did not exist at the time of KIMBROUGH's courthouse on the tributaries of Back Creek. The reason: swift settlement of lands along the Yadkin and the Catawba. Those areas were attracting the same type of settlers as the Haw River system, and at roughly the same time. Like original Orange County, Rowan was a mega-county. The creation of Rowan County in 1753 chopped off the vague western portion of Orange County. A little more of western Orange County would be trimmed away in 1770 when Guilford County was formed. It was clear already with the formation of Rowan, that the lands watered by the Haw River were no longer in the heart of Orange County. The area that would become Alamance County in 1849 functioned as "western Orange County". The last meeting of the Orange Court near Pine Ford was in March 1754. That year the legislature in a private bill directed a committee of the Orange County justices which included KIMBROUGH to select a new site for the courthouse, stocks, and jail. The law mandating the new courthouse near the Eno River protected KIMBROUGH's contract for the first courthouse. In July the court met in James WATSON's home near the Eno River for the first time. It met there a year until the new courthouse was ready at a site that later would become the town of Hillsborough. KIMBROUGH soon moved to Rowan County, but owned property in the "Stinking Quarter" area and also in present day Caswell County. To be continued.... Sources: State Records of North Carolina 23: pages 390, 399, 25: pages 271 and 272 N.C. Archives: Minutes of Orange County of Pleas and Quarters 1752-1755 Collet Map 1770 Mouzon Map 1775 Price-Strother Map 1808 North Carolina Archives: "Journal of a Journey to Pee Dee" by John Saunders Land Grant Records of North Carolina Volume 1 Orange County 1752-1885 by Pat Shaw Bailey