Slavery was well established in the colony of North Carolina long before Orange County came into being. Slavery was not as important an institution in Orange County as other places. At no time did slaves constitute more than 31 percent of the total population of the county. In 1755 (3 years after its founding) only 8 percent of the families owned slaves. The largest slaveholder at that time, Mark MORGAN, had only 6 slaves. By 1780, however, 3 percent of Orange Co slaveholders had more than 20 slaves. The 1790 census showed 10,055 whites, 2,060 Negro slaves, and 101 other free persons. At that time there were 14 slaveholders who had 10 slaves or more. 4 of these 14 lived in Hillsboro. William COOPER was the largest slaveholder in Hillsboro with 22 and Richard BENNEHAN, a planter, was the largest slaveholder in the county with 24. Others who had 10 or more were George ALLEN, John TAYLOR, Matthew McCAULEY, John HOGAN, Thomas H PERKINS with 10 each; Walter ALVES with 11; William SHEPPARD and William O'NEAL with 12 each; Hardy MORGAN with 14; Alexander MEBANE with 16; and a person whose name is not known with 20. In 1860 less than half of all landowners in the county had slaves. Over 40 percent of those had only one slave. The following is a direct quote: "Most slaveholders owned a small number of slaves, hence the relationship between master and slave was very close. The master knew his slaves by name, took a personal interest in them individually, and looked upon them almost as members of his family" In 1860 the 3 largest slaveholders were I. N. PATTERSON with 106, Paul CAMERON with 98, and Henry WHITTED with 78. The above information (as much of my general information does) came from the book "Orange County - 1752-1952" edited by Hugh Lefler and Paul Wager and published in Chapel Hill in 1953. My access to the book is in the local library. I would like to purchase a copy if anyone knows where I can get it. Larry Noah - lrnoah@bigfoot.com Listowner - NCORANGE mailing list See my Ancestors at - http://www.trailerpark.com/tango/lrnoah Gedcoms & other data are at - http://members.tripod.com/~lrnoah Florence Co,SC GenWeb - http://www.rootsweb.com/~scfloren Orange Co, NC GenWeb - http://www.rootsweb.com/~ncorange ==== NCORANGE Mailing List ==== Larry Noah - lrnoah@bigfoot.com - Listowner - NCORANGE mailing list Orange Co, NC USGenWeb site is at http://www.rootsweb.com/~ncorange GENDEX at http://www.gendex.com/gendex/ has over 1400 databases on line