Orange County was established in 1752 from Johnston, Bladen, and Granville Counties. When formed, the county was rectangular in shape, and stretched south from the Va border. It encompassed a huge area, approximately 3,500 square miles. Ten counties were formed from Orange County. White settlers had come to this area as early as 1740, but was not until the early 1750's that the population began to quickly grow. Only 20 residences paid taxes in 1748 in the area that was to become Orange County, but four years later in 1752 when Orange County was formed...1113 residences were taxed. That amounts to 1,093 new families in this area from children becoming adults, marrying into other families, plus new settlers arriving. Three communities in former Old Orange County, now present day Durham County. PRATTSBURG Prattsburg, former community in central Durham County approximately two miles east of the original railroad station for Durham. In the 1850's William Pratt refused to give a right-of-way or land for station at Prattsburg. The railroad avoided his property and as a result, Durham was established. BAHAMA, NC Bahama, a small community established in northern Durham County. Settled around 1880 and called Balltown, later renamed after three prominent families in the area, the Ball, Harris, and Mangum's...BA-HA-MA. In the 1800's a post office name here was HUNKADORA. ROUGEMONT, NC community in NW Durham County. Named for Red Mountain. French rouge, "red" and mont, "mountain" ==== NCORANGE Mailing List ==== Larry Noah - lrnoah@bigfoot.com - Listowner - NCORANGE mailing list Orange Co, NC USGenWeb site is at http://www.rootsweb.com/~ncorange