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CORNELL
UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY
HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE
CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
3 1924 092 215 460/
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The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library.
There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text.
http://archive.org/details/cu31924092215460
BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA
OLD NORTH STATE" EDITION
THIS EDITION IS STRICTLY LIMITED TO SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY REGISTERED AND NUMBERED SETS, OF WHICH THIS IS SET NUMBER
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of Uortf) ClaroUna
From Colonial Times to the Present
Editor-in-Chief
Samuel A. Ashe
VOLUME IV
Charles L. Van Noppen
PUBLISHER
Greensboro, N, C.
MCM VI
^
Copyright, 1906 By Charles L. Van Noppen
All rights reserved
Kemp P. Battle . John C. Buxton Theo. F. Davidson Junius Davis RuFus A. Doughton Thomas J. Jarvis James Y. Joyner . Charles D. McIver William L. Poteat James H. Southgate Charles W. Tillett
Chapel Hill
Winston-Salem
. Asheville
Wilmington
Sparta
Greenville
Raleigh
. Greensboro
Wake Forest
Durham
. Charlotte
Advisory Board
Contents
Portraits
Contributors
Raleigh, Walter
Dare, Virginia
Adam, Robert
Adams, Spencer Bell
Anderson, George Burgwin
Ashe, John Baptista
Ashe, John ....
Bailey, John L. . . .
Braswell, James Craig
Bundy, Jesse Moore
BuNN, Benjamin Hickman
Burton, Hutchins Gordon
Campbell, Robert Fishburne
Cobb, Henry Wellington
CoRBETT, Michael J.
Cox, Joseph John
Cox, Jonathan Elwood
Craig, David Irvin
Craven, Braxton
IX
xi
XV
xvii I 8
19 22
28
32
36
S3
55 59 62 68
72
78 82 86 89 96 102
CONTENTS
Crawford, Leonidas Wakefield 112
Creecy, Richard Benbury ... 119
Davidson, William Lee . ...... 124
doughton, rufus alexander 1 29
Franklin, Jesse 133
Gregory, Isaac . . ■• 139
Hadley, Thomas Jefferson 146
Haid, Leo . . . 153
Harrington, Henry William . . . 158
Harvey, John ... . . . 163
Hill, William H 176
Hill, Joseph Alston 181
Hobbs, Lewis Lyndon . 184
Hobgood, Franklin P . 189
Hogun, James ........ 196
Howard, George .... 203
Hume, Thomas . 213
Hunter, Theophilus 218
Jack, James . 221
Johnson, Andrew 228
Johnston, Samuel . . 241
Jones, Allen .... 252
Jones, Thomas 256
Lawrence, Thomas . 262
Leak, Thomas Crawford ... .... 270
Leazar, Augustus . ... .... 275
MacKay, James Iver . . 284
Macon, Nathaniel ... . . . 291
Martin, Franqois-Xavier .... . 306
McQueen, Henry C. . . 315
Mendenhall, Nereus . 319
CONTENTS xiii
Miller, Robert Johnstone 325
Miller, William 328
MoTT, John James .... 331
Murphey, Archibald De Bow . . ... 340
Parker, Walter Scott 349
Parks, Hugh, Sr . . 355
Peebles, Robert Bruce . . 361
Philips, Frederick 366
PoGUE, Joseph Ezekiel 370
Robertson, Lucy H 375
Saunders, William L 381
Simpson, John 390
Spaight, Richard Dobbs, Sr 397
Spaight, Richard Dobbs, Jr 403
Speight, Richard Harrison 406
Stephen.s, John Walter 411
Stone, David 422
Tate. Samuel McDowell 430
Tourgee, Albion Winegar 440
Urmstone, John 450
Wakefield, William Haines 456
Watson, Cyrus B 460
White, Matthew H 469
Willard, Martin Stevenson 473
Womack, Thomas Brown 481
Young, Robert Simonton 488
Saunders, William L. Frontispiece
Adams, Spencer Bell facing 22
Braswell, James Craig " 55
BuNDY, Jesse Moore " 59
BuNN, Benjamin Hickman " 62
Campbell, Robert Fishburne " 72
Cobb, Henry W " 78
CoRBETT, Michael J " 82
Cox, Jonathan Elwood " 89
Craig, David Irvin " 96
Craven, Braxton " 102
Crawford, Leonidas Wakefield .... " 112
Doughton, Rufus Alexander " 129
Hadley, Thomas Jefferson " 146
Haid, Leo " i53
Hobbs, Lewis Lyndon " 184
Hobgood, Franklin P "189
Howard, George " 203
Hume, Thomas "213
Lawrence, Thomas " 262
Leak, Thomas Crawford "270
Leazar, Augustus " 275
xvi PORTRAITS
McQueen, Henry C facing 315
Mendenhall, Nereus " 319
MoTT, John James " 331
MuRPHEY, Archibald De Bow .... " 340
Parker, Walter Scott " 349
Parks, Hugh, Sr " 355
Peebles, Robert Bruce " 361
Philips, Frederick " 366
Pogue, Joseph Ezekiel " 370
Robertson, Lucy H " 375
Speight, Richard Harrison " 406
Tate, Samuel McDowell " 430
Wakefield, William Haines " 456
Watson, Cyrus B " 460
White, Matthew H " 469
Willard, Martin Stevenson " 473
Womack, Thomas Brown " 481
Young, Robert Simonton " 488
Samuel A. Ashe Robert Bingham William A. Blair, A.M., LL.D. G. Samuel Bradshaw, A.M. Benjamin H. Bunn Baylus Cade
Walter Clark, A.M., LL.D. Collier Cobb, A.M. R. D. W. Connor, Ph.B. Henry G. Connor Mrs. L. W. Crawford William E. Dodd, Ph.D. Robert Dick Douglas, A.B. Marshall De L. Haywood L. Lyndon Hobbs, A.M. William Henry Hoyt, A.M. William A,
Thomas N. Ivey, A.M , D.D. Bertha Marvin Lee Paul B. Means, A.B. Gertrude Mendenhall, B.S. James H. Myrover Frank Nash Walter L. Parsons William S. Pearson, A.B. Thomas M. Pittman George Rountree William Walter Scott Egbert W. Smith, A. B., D.D. Charles M. Stedman, A.B. Zebulon V. Taylor Stephen B. Weeks, Ph.D., LL.D. E. Payson Willard, Ph.B. Withers, A.M.
WALTER RALEIGH
iHE capital of the State of North Carohna was at its incorporation in 1792, named the City of Raleigh, in remembrance of "the Citie of Ra- leigh," which was to have been established, about two centuries before, on Roanoke Island by the English colonists under the direction of Sir Walter Raleigh ; and thus the name of that English statesman, soldier, sailor, scholar and courtier, who first conceived the idea of creating an English nation in the New World, and led the way in colonization, has been perpetuated here in the State within whose territory he made the first entrance into the wilderness of America.
The family of Raleigh was an old and honorable one of Devon- shire, but had fallen somewhat into decay ; and to retrieve his fortunes, Walter Raleigh, of Fardell, the father of the subject of this sketch, on the awakening of a mercantile spirit early in the sixteenth century, connected himself with some of the merchants of Exeter. His third wife was Catherine Campernoun, the wid- owed mother of Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Walter Gilbert, and by her Raleigh had two sons, Sir Walter and Carey Raleigh.
Catherine Champernoun was connected with Mrs. Kate Ash- ley, who indeed was aunt to her son, Sir Humphrey Gilbert ; and she was also connected with the Carey family; and Queen Eliza- it has been deemed best to insert the sketches of Walter Raleigh and Virginia Dare out of their alphabetical sequence.
NORTH CAROLINA
beth's nearest kinsman was Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon, the son of Mary Boleyn, the Queen's aunt.
When Anne Boleyn lost her head, and Elizabeth was declared illegitimate, the cast-off Princess, not then in her teens, was com- mitted to Kate Ashley, whose husband was her kinsman, and who as governess was charged with her education and oversight; and so well was this trust discharged that Elizabeth regarded Kate Ashley with filial affection. During this period of her young life it would seem that Elizabeth was intimately thrown with Hum- phrey Gilbert, the elder half-brother of Walter Raleigh, for on his departure to explore Newfoundland she sent Raleigh to him with the direction that he should send her his picture and should be careful of himself ; ''as one whom she had tendered ;" and doubtless she also knew Raleigh himself in his infancy. These circumstances and associations probably had much to do with Raleigh's subsequent career, for the Queen showed no favor to her father's kinspeople, but was evidently attached to those con- nected with her on her mother's side.
Of Raleigh's early life but little is recorded. He was born in 1552, at his father's manor house of Hayes, and the only record of his education is a meagre account that at an early age he be- came a commoner of Oriel ; had a distinguished career at Oxford, being esteemed a wit as well as a scholar, although not a student at the University for three full years.
At eighteen he was in active service as a soldier in the civil wars of France, where he remained some six years, gaining laurels and fame. In 1576 he was in Ireland, where Sir Humphrey Gil- bert had been President of Munster. It was about that time that Queen Elizabeth bestowed on Sir Humphrey a patent authorizing him to make discoveries and settlements in America, in effect conferring on him a princedom in the New World, with permis- sion to colonize his possessions with Englishmen. In this first attempt at colonization, Walter Raleigh was associated with his great half-brother, but did not accompany him on his ill-starred expedition. In 1580 and 1581 Raleigh was a soldier in Ireland, and bore dispatches to the Queen in December, 1581, remaining
WALTER RALEIGH
at court. In the following April the Queen conferred on Raleigh the command of a band of footmen in Ireland, "chiefly that our pleasure is to have our servant, Walter Raleigh, trained some time longer in that our realm for his better experience in martial affairs, and for the especial care that we have to do him good, in respect of his kindred that have served us, some of them (as you know) near about our person. These are to require you that the leading of the said band may be committed to the said Raleigh ; and for that he is, for some considerations, by us excused to stay here, our pleasure is that the said band be, in the meantime, till he repair into that our realm, delivered to some such as he shall de- pute to be his lieutenant there." Raleigh seems never to have joined his troops in Ireland, but remained at Court, where the Queen "took him for a kind of oracle.'' Particularly did he com- mend hirriself to her by an act of gallantry in spreading his fine cloak "reverentially on the ground before her Majesty, whereon the Queen trod gently over a miry slough, rewarding him after- wards with many suits for his seasonable tender of so fair a foot- cloth."
At Court Raleigh developed into a favorite courtier, and after the death of his brother, the charter of colonization being about to expire, he solicited and obtained a renewal of it. It is to be ob- served that this favor was bestowed by Elizabeth only on these two half-brothers, whose fortunes she seemed inclined to push be- yond that of others ; although it is equally true that they were both deserving of peculiar distinction because of their personal char- acteristics and attainments.
Having obtained this charter, ambitious and hopeful, Ra- leigh fitted out two barks and sent them forth under the com- mand of Amadas and an old companion-in-arms, Barlowe, who had served with him in France, giving them particular directions as to how they should proceed. Raleigh evidently proposed to avoid the bleak northern coast and to discover an eligible location for a colony in a more temperate latitude. Many gentlemen ac- companied this expedition, which indeed excited great interest among the mercantile classes of England. Observing Raleigh's
NORTH CAROLINA
directions, his admirals safely arrived at Roanoke Inlet early in July, 1584, and formally took possession of the land as the domain of Walter Raleigh under the royal grant of the English Queen. The accounts carried back were marvellous. The newly dis- covered land was a veritable Garden of Eden. The popular furor at the success of the expedition was immense, and Raleigh was the hero of the age. The Queen was transported with enthusiasm. She named the new country for herself, and bestowed upon Raleigh the honor of knighthood, and various lucrative monop- olies, and otherwise sought to advance his interests.
At great expense Raleigh the next year equipped a second ex- pedition to Virginia, and as soon as that had sailed, sent out the Davis Expedition to discover a northern route to India, from which "Davis Straits" on the ice-bound coast of North America takes its name.
It was about this time that Elizabeth entered into a treaty with the Protestants of the Netherlands, and thus gave cause for war with Spain, and there were rumors of an intended invasion of Eng- land. In this supreme moment Raleigh was called on to play an important part, and his skill in maritime as well as military affairs gave him still greater consequence. He became Lord Warden of the Stannaries and Vice-Admiral of Devon, and no man in Eng- land was more engaged in public business than he.
To build forts, to equip fleets, to muster and arm the companies of his territory were the severe duties that taxed his energies to the utmost capacity.
The first attempted settlement at Roanoke ended in disaster. Lane's Colony came to naught; so in 1587 Raleigh, whose means were now much impaired, proposed a new plan, and admitted London merchants to a share in his enterprise. Nineteen of these associates remained at home ; while thirteen, John White and a dozen others, were constituted "the Governor and Assistants of the Citie of Raleigh in Virginia." These accompanied the colony to Roanoke. White returned to England the same year for additional supplies. In March, 1588, Raleigh prepared a supply expedition to be commanded by Grenville; but a Spanish
WALTER RALEIGH
attack being imminent, the Queen forbade the departure of any vessel, and particularly assigned Grenville to duties of defence. In July, 1588, the great Spanish Armada, whose coming had been expected with such apprehensions, at length made its appearance, and Raleigh bore himself bravely in that great sea-fight. His ship was one of those which kept up the pursuit till the last, and he saw the ending of what Sir Henry Watton called "the morris dance on the waves."
The next year an expedition with supplies set sail, but meeting with hostile vessels, was beaten back to England; and Raleigh then found himself so engaged that of himself he could do nothing more, and so he made a further assignment to those already in- terested in the colony, divesting himself of nearly every right as the absolute proprietor. There was still an inhibition on the de- parture of vessels from England ; but Raleigh finding some ships whose owners desired to send them to the West Indies to trade and prey upon the Spaniards, obtained the Queen's assent to their departure on condition that they would carry relief to the colonists at "the City of Raleigh," in Virginia. And so at last White again left England in March, 1590. He found that the colonists had abandoned Roanoke Island ; and the Lost Colony of Sir Walter Raleigh has ever since lived a mystery in song and story. It is recorded, however, that Raleigh never forgot their sad fate, and between that time and 1602 he sent five separate ex- peditions for their rescue.
After the destruction of the Armada in 1588, under Raleigh's advice England boldly took the seas against the Spaniards in the contest for mastery, and every year and every month brought its new duties and its new toils. In the Fall of 1588, under his ad- vice, a great expedition carried the war into Spain, and on land and sea victory attended every blow. In 1591 it was a great expe- dition against the Azore Islands in which Raleigh's boldest cap- tain and beloved kinsman, Grenville, lost his life. The next year it was the expedition against Panama. And then came his mar- riage and consequent imprisonment — and the only hours of home life at his beautiful Manor of Sherborne, where for a season he
NORTH CAROLINA
toyed with love and revelled in the pleasures of intelligent recrea- tion. In 1595 he set sail for Guiana to explore that country. And then he gained his highest title to renown in the victory at Cadiz. There the loss of life was great, but despite all the car- nage, Raleigh pursued his intent and, though sorely wounded, did, not desist until the last Spanish flag had struck and the last enemy was vanquished. Again at Fayal he distinguished him- self, performing surprising feats of personal valor.
During all these years he also served in Parliament, and boldly grappled with questions requiring extensive information and a comprehensive understanding of the condition, the needs and re- sources of the English people.
He was truly a progressive statesman of the most advanced school ; laying down principles and policies far ahead of his day, and urging measures to relieve trade, commerce, agriculture and manufactures, to relieve of all those restrictions which had their origin in the benighted times of the Middle Ages. He was for freedom — freedom of the citizen, freedom of trade, disenthrall- ing the people from the burdens which tradition had fastened upon them. He was a prodigy in genius, a man of lofty mind, lofty purposes, and of wide intelligence. He loved knowledge and was ever a hard and systematic student, and enjoyed the pleasures that wait on a comprehensive understanding.
In the year 1603 Elizabeth died, James of Scotland fell heir to the kingdom, and an end came to the active career of Walter Raleigh, then in the meridian of his splendor and usefulness. There is a hasty line by an obscure writer that Raleigh contem- plated the possibility of a commonwealth, and it is said that his unprinted writings were treasured by John Milton, John Hamp- den, and other patriots of the next generation. But he was not charged because of his liberal principles, but for an alleged con- spiracy in the interests of Spain, in which there was no proof of his complicity. The proceeding was not a trial ; it was a measure to remove Raleigh even though at the cost of his innocent blood.
In November, 1603, the gates of the Tower closed in upon him — the poet, the scholar, the gallant seaman, the brave soldier, the
WALTER RALEIGH
admirable statesman and unswerving patriot, the first man of his time in varied accomplishments and universality of genius. For fifteen years he was confined to the Tower, and there he slaked his thirst for ambition in deep study and new lines of thought. His first recourse was chemistry, a science then little understood and not often practised. And he wrote history, ancient and modern, treatises on miHtary and maritime affairs, and on subjects well nigh covering the entire realm of knowledge. At length in the spring of 1618 Raleigh was released to go about with a keeper to make provision for a voyage in search of gold in South America. The misfortunes of that voyage ended his career. He was now charged with breaking the peace with Spain, and was executed under his old sentence.
In 1602 Raleigh had sent Mace to make further search for his colonists in Virginia. When Mace returned, Raleigh was in prison and his rights in Virginia were forfeited to the Crown. Three years later ten of Raleigh's associates in the City of Ral- eigh, together with others of his old-time friends and connections, obtained a new grant from the Crown, and, following the original instructions Raleigh had given to John White, made in 1607 a settlement on the Chesapeake, and the work of creating a new nation in the New World begun by Walter Raleigh twenty years before was continued, and the result is the United States of America.
S. A. Ashe.
VIRGINIA DARE
HE name of Virginia Dare is, speaking after the manner of men, immortal. The people of the Western Hemisphere in the centuries to come will ever recall her as the first of the English race to be born in the New World. Other names of that distant era will fade away from the remembrance of man, but in the far future, when hundreds of millions of people shall inhabit America, little Virginia Dare will still live in song and story.
Of her brief life but two incidents are recorded : she was bom; and she was baptized into the Christian faith according to the rites of the English Church — and then her life and fate were involved in impenetrable obscurity. But she was the first ■of the English-speaking race, of American birth, to behold these American skies, and to breathe the pure air of a virgin con- tinent, then uncontaminated by the oppressions of men, and which has become the home of the free and the land of Liberty ; and even the mystery attaching to her unfortunate fate imparts to her an additional interest, which grows with the passing years.
On July 4, 1584 — auspicious day — Walter Raleigh's captains, Amadas and Barlowe, first sighted land somewhere about the "Cape of Fere," and a few days later came to anchor in the un- known waters of the New World, near what we call Cape
Alexander Brown in his admirable compilation of Historical Manu- scripts, published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., in 1890, under the title oi "The Genesis of the United States,'' Vol. 1, page 184, says of the map of which the accompanying drawing is the southern part: "This chart must have been sent to England by Captain Francis Nelson, who left Virginia June 2, 1608. It illustrates Captain John Smith's 'True Rela- tion,' and was sent from Virginia with it."
The lettering on the map is difficult to decipher, some of the names, indeed, being entirely illegible. Only two names are familiar to us : Chowan and Morattic. Moratuc was the Indian name of the Roanoke River, and was continued in use until after Bertie County was settled, later than 1700.
The original map being made from some description given by an In- dian not familiar with the region, and the main purpose being to locate the Lost Colony, the prominent features of the drawing are the rivers : the Chowan, the Morattic, and a third not named, which, being next to the Roanoke, must be the Tar.
With the coast-line the Indian who gave the account was probably en- tirely unfamiliar ; and in the opinion of the Editor that feature of the map need not be considered.
Regarding the Morattic as the Roanoke River, Ocanahonan would be on a tributary of the Chowan, either on the Nottoway or the Meherrin, perhaps about Murfreesboro ; and Pananiock would be north of the Roanoke, and in Bertie County; and Pakrakwick would be about where Greenville now is on the Tar.
If, however, the coast-line plays any part in the problem, then the Mor- attic would be Pamlico Sound, and the third river would be the Neuse. Pananiock would be in Hyde County, where in the old maps Pomioc is placed, and where Smith in his map places Pananiock. And in that case Pakrakwick would be on the Neuse where Kinston now is; while Ocanahonan would be on the upper waters of the Roanoke. The Editor, however, identifies the Morattic with the Roanoke River, and places this Indian locality, Ocanahonan, on a branch of the Chowan, Pananiock, where the Lost Colony settled, would then seem to be in Ber- tie County. By reference to Lane's account, page 112, first volume of Hawks, it would seem that Lane, with whom was White, had a favor- able opinion of the "goodly highland between Muscamunge and Chaw- anook," which was in Bertie County, and there probably White designed that the settlement should be made. It is further to be observed that in the "True and Sincere Declaration" made by the Governors and Coun- cillors of the Jamestown settlement in December, 1609, they speak of having "intelligence of some of our Nation planted by Sir Walter Ra- leigh, yet alive, within fifty miles of our fort, who can open the womb and bowels of this country; as is testified by two of our Colony sent out to seek them, who (though denied by the savages speech with them) found Crosses and Letters, the Characters and assured Testimonies of Christians, newly cut in the barks of trees." (Brown's "Genesis," Vol. I, page 349.) This puts some of the Colony within fifty miles of James- town or Nansamond, and north of the Roanoke River.
^*M'
REPRODUCED FROM MAP IN ALEXANDER BROWN'S "GENESIS OF THE UNITED STATES" BY PERMISSION OF THE PUBLISHERS OF THAT VALUABLE WORK, MESSRS. HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. IN THIS REPRODUCTION THE LETTERING IS MADE MORE LEGIBLE.
VIRGINIA DARE
Hatteras. When their boats first grated upon the sand, they sprang upon the beach, and Captain Amadas proclaimed: "We take possession of this land in the right of the Queen's most excellent Majesty, as rightful Queen and Princess of the same," and then they delivered the same "over to the use of Walter Raleigh, according to her Majesty's grant and letters patent under her Highness' great seal." Some days later they went twenty miles into the Sound and came to an island which the Indians called Roanoke. After remaining two months exploring this delightful country, they returned home, and Queen Eliza- beth bestowed upon her new possessions the name of Virginia, in commemoration of herself, the Virgin Queen.
The next year, for purposes of exploration, seven ships great and small, carrying io8 men, but no women or children, set sail from England on the 9th of April, and arrived at Roanoke on July 3d. It was expected that other settlers would come to join them later. For a year they lived on Roanoke Island and explored the sounds and country. Among them were distin- guished mathematicians, scientific men, and competent draughts- men and painters, who were to investigate and make known the manners and customs of the natives and the material resources of the country. Relying on being supplied from home with needed provisions, they did not plant crops or provide for their own sustenance, and in the following Spring their stores were exhausted. In the meantime some of the Indians on the main- land had become very hostile; but the few who lived on Croatan, as that portion of the ocean banks on which Cape Hatteras is situated was called, were always friendly. After many vicissitudes, being often in peril of death from starvation and of being cut off by Indian enemies, some vessels touching, they unfortunately determined to abandon the settlement and return home. Sailing in June, they reached England safely on July 27, 1586. But hardly had they set sail before the ship bringing the promised supplies arrived, but, finding the island de- serted, it also returned to England.
A fortnight later. Sir Richard Grenville, Raleigh's cousin,
lo NORTH CAROLINA
arrived with three ships; and unwilling that the country should be abandoned, he left fifteen men in Fort Raleigh, on Roanoke Island, well supplied with provisions. The next year a permanent settlement was designed; but now Sir Walter thought it best that the Colony should be located at some more eligible harbor on the Chesapeake Bay, and gave directions accordingly. He also associated with himself in the enterprise some thirty mer- chants and adventurers, and the government of the Colony was invested in a corporation named "The Governor and Assistants of the Citie of Raleigh," of whom twelve were to go to Virginia, the others interested remaining in England.
It was also necessary that some women should accompany the Colonists, and as the settlers were not to return to England, that they take their wives and children with them. No woman had yet ventured to cross the great ocean. No woman had ever thought to separate herself from home and home ties and seek a strange life in the distant country. Doubtless to procure female Colonists strenuous efforts were made, with only partial success. But among those who were now interested in the enterprise was John White, a man who had already made three voyages to Virginia, a man of education, an artist as well as a competent manager. He had drawn the charts and maps made on previous explorations, and the pictures he had drawn and painted of the Indians and of scenes in Virginia are still pre- served in the British Museum. His daughter Eleanor had lately married Ananias Dare; and it was arranged that White should come as Governor, and Ananias Dare should be an Assistant, and that Eleanor, yet a bride, was to accompany her husband and father. This perhaps tended to induce other women to ein- bark, and sixteen of them agreed to undertake the experience of untried life in far-away Virginia. Of these ten appear to have been wives of Colonists, and with them were nine children. There were in addition 91 men, and with the Colonists were two Indians, Manteo, of the Hatteras tribe, and Towaye, then in England, who now returned to Virginia.
On the 26th of April, 1587, they departed from Portsmouth
VIRGINIA DARE ii
in one large vessel and two smaller ones, and on the 22nd of July they arrived at Hattorask. Qn reaching Roanoke Island, the Colonists could but have had their ardor dimmed and their ap- prehensions aroused by finding that the fifteen men left in Fort Raleigh a year before had been murdered by the Indians. But nevertheless they disembarked there, although their destination was intended to be at Chesapeake. At once they began to make themselves comfortable, building houses and arranging for de- fence against hostile Indians.
On the â– 13th of August an interesting ceremony took place. By direction of Sir Walter Raleigh, Manteo, one of the Hatteras Indians who had been to England and who had always been friendly with the whites, "was christened in Roanoke and called Lord thereof, and of Dasamonguepeuk," which was the name of that part of the mainland lying opposite to Roanoke Island.
Five days later, on the 18th of August, "Eleanor, daughter to the Governor, and wife to Ananias Dare, one of the Assistants, was delivered of a daughter in Roanoke, and the same was christened there the Sunday following; and because this child was the first Christian born in Virginia, she was named Virginia."
Although in the list of the Colonists no one is particularly named as a minister, or as a physician, yet without reasonable doubt the settlement must have been provided with both, and the mention of the administration of the rite of baptism without any other particulars woiild indicate that it was performed in the manner usually practised among the English people at that time, which was according to the usages of the Church of England.
The ships had now unladened their stores and began to take in wood and fresh water, and the planters also prepared their letters and tokens to send back to England. At length on the 22d of August the whole company requested the Governor to return to England "for the better and sooner obtaining of sup- plies and other necessaries for them." It had already been determined that the Colonists should remove "fifty miles
12 NORTH CAROLINA
further up into the main presently," and Governor White ob- jected to his being absent, as his "goods might be both spoiled and most of them pilfered away in the carriage, so that at his return he would be utterly unfurnished," wherefore he con- cluded that he would not go himself to England. The next day, however, they came to him again, renewing their entreaty and promising "to make him their bond under their hands and seals for the safe preserving of all his goods, so that if any part thereof was spoiled or lost, they would see it restored to him." Governor White at last yielded to their extreme entreaties, and departed from Roanoke on the 27th of August, and the two larger ships then at Hattorask sailed away, leaving only a pinnace with the Colonists.
White, who had been in three previous voyages, probably knew as much about the new country as any one. He had now come out as Governor and brought with him his daughter and valuable personal belongings. There was every reason for him to hurry back. He reached the west coast of Ireland on the 1 6th of October; but circumstances prevented his return until 1590. He left Plymouth on the 20th of March of that year, and came to anchor at Hattorask on the 15th of August, three years after he had bidden good-bye to his daughter and his little granddaughter, Virginia Dare.
After numerous distressing experiences, he approached Roan- oke Island. In his account of his voyage published in 1593, he says : "We put off from Hattorask, being the number of nineteen persons in both boats ; but before we could get to the place where our planters were left, it was so exceeding dark, that we over- shot the place a quarter of a mile. We let fall our grapnel near the shore and sounded with the trumpet a call, and afterwards many familiar English tunes of songs ; and called to them friendly ; but we had no answer; we therefore landed at daybreak. In all this way we saw in the sand the print of the savages' feet of two or three sorts trodden in the night ; and as we entered up the sandy bank, upon a tree, in the very brow thereof, were curiously carved these fair Roman letters, C. R. O., which letters presently
VIRGINIA DARE 13
we knew to signify the place where I should find the planters seated, according to a secret token agreed upon between them and me at my last departure from them ; which was, that in any way they should not fail to write or carve on the trees or posts of the doors the name of the place where they should be seated ; for at my coming away they were prepared to remove from Roan- oke fifty miles into the main." Governor White also says that he found on one of the chief trees graven the word CROATOAN without any cross or sign of distress. He also found where divers chests had been hidden and long since digged up, and much of the goods in them spoiled and scattered about; of these three were the Governor's own chests, and about the place were many of his things spoiled and broken, and his books torn from the covers, and the frames of his pictures and maps rotten and spoiled with rain, and his armor almost eaten through with rust. The Colonists had long since departed. Governor White did not have command of the ships, and although Croatoan was near by, for one reason or another no particular effort was made to search that part of the banks for the English settlers ; but the vessels bore away and eventually came to anchor in Plymouth on the 24th of October, 1590.
In subsequent years expeditions were sent to find the Lost Colony. Even as late as March, 1602, "a barque of Dartmouth, called The Concord, set sail for the northern part of Virginia; at which time likewise. Sir Walter Raleigh once more bought a barque and hired all the company for wages by the month, employing therein for chief Samuel Mace (a sufficient mariner, who had been twice before at Virginia), to find out those people which he had sent out thither by Captain White, 1587; and who, if so be they could happily light upon them, were like enough to instruct us the more perfectly in the quality of the natives."
Unfortunately all the vessels sent out had also in view the ob- taining of sassafras and other such cargoes for purposes of trade ; and coming to the coast north or south of Roanoke, they ob- tained their cargoes and returned home without entering Roan- oke Sound, and the Colonists were never discovered.
14 NORTH CAROLINA
At length the settlement was made at Jamestown in 1607, and the authorities in England gave positive directions that efforts should be made to find the Lost Colony and relieve their dis- tresses. Expeditions were sent by land and water, but without avail. Powhatan, the Emperor of the Virginia Indians, resided at the Falls on the James River, and the Indians on the Roanoke were not under his dominion. Still he had influence with them; and from friendly Indians it was learned that after the arrival of the colony at Jamestown, he had caused the settlers, who for more than twenty years had lived peaceably and intermixed with the Indians south of the Chowan, to be slaughtered, al- though some few were said to have escaped. The exploring party under Newport, in 1608, "went southward to some parts of Chowanook and the Mangoangs, to search there those left by Sir Walter Raleigh." Smith in his "True Relation," speaking of Paspehegh, the King of the few Indians who lived near Jamestown, says : "What he knew of the Dominions he spared to acquaint me with, as of certain men cloathed at a place called Ocanahonan, clothed like me."
And again : "He sent from Warraskoyack Master Scitle- more and two guides to seek for the Lost Colony of Sir Walter Raleigh. We had agreed with the King of Paspehegh to conduct two of our men to a place called Panawicke, beyond Roanoke, where he reported many men to be appareled. We landed him at Warraskoyack, where playing the villaine and deluding us for rewarde, returned within three or four days after, without going further." This was in 1608.
Alexander Brown, in his "Genesis of the United States," has reproduced a rude drawing made from Indian descriptions and sent by Thomas Nelson from Virginia in 1608 to illustrate Smith's "True Relation" in this particular matter. On this map Warraskoyack is on the Nansemond. Ocanahonan seems to be on the Nottoway. On the Tar is located "Pakrakanick," and near it on the map is a legend : "Here remayneth four men clothed that came from Roanoke to Ochanahonan." Between the Chowan and the Morratock (Roanoke River) on the map is an-
VIRGINIA DARE 15
other legend: "Here the King of Paspehegh reported our men to be, and wants to go." And that region is designated "Pananiock." From this it would seem that White's Colony, after his departure, did remove into the interior, and located in either what is now Bertie County, or south of Albemarle Sound.
William Strachey, who was Secretary of the Jamestown Colony, arriving there in 1610, in his ''Travaile in Virginia," written 1613, repeats information received by him from an Indian of Powhatan's tribe named Machumps, who had been to England, and was a man of intelligence, having friendly relations with the English, and to whom credit is due. Strachey says : "The highland is in all likelihoods a pleasant tract, and the mould fruit- ful, especially what may lye to the Southward, where at Pec- carecamek and Ochanahoen, by the relation of Machumps, the people have houses built with stone walls, and one story above another ; so taught them by the English who escaped the slaughter at Roanoke, at what time this our Colony, under the conduct of Captain Newport, landed within the Chesapeake Bay; where the people breed up tame turkeys about their houses, and take apes in the mountains; and where at Ritanoe the Weroance (the Chief) Eyanoco preserved seven of the English alive, four men, and two boys and one young mayde (who escaped and fled up the river of Chowanook) to beat his copper," etc.
And again, says Strachey : "That the men, women and chil- dren of the first plantation at Roanoke were by practize and commandment of Powhatan (he himself persuaded thereunto by his priests) miserably slaughtered, without any offence given him, either by the first planted (who twenty and od years had peaceably lyved intermyxed with those savages and were out of his territory) or by those who now are come to inhabit some parte of his desarte lands."
And still again: "He (Powhatan) doth often send unto us to temporize with us, awaiting perhaps a fit opportunity (inflamed by his furious and bloody priests) to offer us a taste of the same cup which he made our poor countrymen drink of at Roanoke."
For twenty years the Lost Colony seem to have lived on friend-
i6 NORTH CAROLINA
ly terms with the Indians bordering on Albemarle Sound ; and then on the arrival of the Jamestown settlers, Powhatan had them cut off, but few escaping. It is a bare possibility that the "young mayde" who found protection at Ritanoe, on the Chowan, was Virginia Dare, whose father, probably succeeding White as Governor, might have found means for her escape, although doubtless many children in the meantime had been born in the colony.
The only other reference in history to these unfortunate Colon- ists was made by Lawson in 1708 : "A further confirmation of this we have from the Hatteras Indians, who either then lived on Roanoke Island or much frequented it. These tell us that several of their ancestors were white people, and could talk in a book as we do ; the truth of which is confirmed by gray eyes being found frequently amongst these Indians and no others. They value themselves extremely for their affinity to the English, and are ready to do for them all friendly offices. It is probable that this settlement miscarried for want of timely supplies from Eng- land, or through the treachery of the natives, for we may reason- ably suppose that the English were forced to cohabit with them for relief and conversation ; and that in process of time they con- formed themselves to the manners of their Indian relations ; and thus we see how apt hum.an nature is to degenerate."
Lawson's book is a complete study of conditions in Carolina in 1708: of the people, the Indian tribes, their languages, manners and customs ; and of the country and its natural products. The Hatteras Indians, it would seem, were no different from the others, except gray eyes were frequently found among them ; and they had the language, manners and customs of an Indian tribe. At that time, 1708, the Hatteras Indians, occupying the sand- banks in the early days known as Croatan, had but sixteen fighting men. They were probably of Southern origin like the Cora- nines, while the other tribes of Albemarle and Pamlico were of Northern origin. In the Indian War (1711-1716) these Indians were friendly to the whites and fought for them, some of them being captured by the Indian enemy, and the tribe became very
VIRGINIA DARE 17
much impoverished, and probably was still further reduced in numbers. For 50 years at least these Indians remained in their old locality. In 1763, the Hatteras Mathaminkut Indians were still living on the coast of Hyde County. (Col Rec. vol. 6, p. 995-) What became of the remnant of that small tribe is uncertain, but the tradition of a mixed race inhabiting lands on Drowning Creek in Robeson County indicates that they may have formed a part of that settlement. It is said these people were found on Drowning Creek by the Scotch who first settled the Upper Cape Fear (1735) — about twenty years after the Indian War, when the Hatteras Indians were living on the sandbanks of Croatan. In 1754 they were described as follows : "Drowning Creek, on the head of Little Pedee, fifty families, a mixed crew, a lawless people, pos- sess the lands without patent or paying quit rents; shot a sur- veyor for coming to view vacant lands, being enclosed in great swamps." But at that time these families were not regarded as Indians, and are said to have possessed slaves, to speak the Eng- lish language, to till their lands, and practise many of the arts of civilized life, being in these respects different from any Indian tribe then known on the continent. The difference between the Hatteras Indians and the other tribes some forty years before was scarcely observable ; the change indicated above was too great to be natural, unless indeed the tribe received many accessions of families trained to civilized life.*
It may be that some few of the colonists who escaped the slaughter in 1607 made their way to the sandbanks, or that at some earlier time some of the English colonists had intermingled
*Mr. Hamilton McMillan, A.M., in 1888, wrote an account of the Croa- tan Indians of Robeson County which is instructive and of historical im- portance, connecting that tribe with the Hatteras Indians, with whom some of Raleigh's colonists appear to have co-mingled ; and in 1891 that painstaking and laborious scholar, Dr. Stephen B. Weeks, published a very valuable pamphlet in which he collated extracts from Strachey, and Smith, and the Relation of the Virginia Company bearing on the fate of the Lost Colony — that being the first publication of the kind within the knowl- edge of the Editor of this work; and the Editor desires to make his acknowledgements for information to both Mr. McMillan and Dr. Weeks.
i8 NORTH CAROLINA
their blood with these Indians ; but after a hundred years the ef- fects had disappeared, except alone in the gray eyes then found among them. Certainly no houses replaced the wigwams.
But while this faint trace of the blood of the early English set- tlers probably exists, yet there is no reason to suppose that little Virginia Dare was ever connected in any way with this tribe. Her fate, like that of her mother, is a mystery that time and circum- stances have not revealed. She, however, lives in agreeable fic- tion. It has been said : "By the Indians, Eleanor Dare, the first mother of the white race known to them, is said to have been called, in their figurative and descriptive way, 'The White Doe,' and her baby, the little Virginia, the first white infant they had ever seen, 'The White Fawn;' and there is a pretty tradition that 'after her death her spirit assumed that form — an elfin fawn — which, clad in immortal beauty, would at times be seen haunting like a tender memory the place of her birth, or gazing wistfully over the sea, as with pathetic yearning for the far-away Mother- land !" Another tradition is "that in that sweet form she was slain by her lover, a young Indian Chief, who had been told that if he shot her from ambush with a certain enchanted arrow, it would restore her to him in human form."
The venerable Colonel Creecy has also, in his pleasant way, per- petuated a "Legend of the White Doe." and Mrs. Sallie Southall Cotton has written a poem on the same subject.
But we pass these legends by, as also one perpetuated by Law- son. "I cannot forbear," said that historian, "inserting here a pleasant story that passes for an uncontested truth amongst the inhabitants of this place (Croatan) ; which is, that the ship which brought the first colonists does often appear amongst them, under sail, in a gallant posture, which they call Sir Walter Raleigh's ship, and the truth of this has been affirmed to me by men of the best credit in the country."
But not only does Virginia Dare live in story; the State of North Carolina has perpetuated her name by calling a county after her that embraces the very spot where she first saw the light of day. S. A. Ashe.
ROBERT ADAM
OBERT ADAM was the first captain of the Fayetteville Independent Light Infantry, which was organized on the 23d of August, 1793. He was a Fayetteville merchant, characterized by the thrift and steadfastness of his nationality; but the old records represent him as a man of liberal views and public spirit, and especially devoted to his com- mand, never begrudging his time or the contents of his purse in the promotion of its interests on imposing occasions — parades, celebrations, etc.
Camp Adam, a beautiful grove on Haymount, in the center of which was a large stand for public exercises, was named in honor of this gallant Scotch captain, and remained intact up to the breaking out of the Civil War. There the Fourth of July celebra- tions, May-day picnics and similar ceremonies were wont to take place. Handsome residences now cover the site of old Camp Adam. Robert Adam prospered at merchandising in Fayetteville, but in the closing years of the eighteenth century he removed to Wil- mington, and continued in business for some time, with a country place nearly opposite Wrightsville Beach. At this residence he died on the nth of June, 1801, in the zenith of his manhood, aged only forty-two years. Many years afterward his remains were exhumed, conveyed to Fayetteville and deposited in a grave in the southwest corner of old Cross Creek Cemetery.
20 NORTH CAROLINA
On a warm day of early Fall I stood beside the resting place of this sterling citizen and faithful soldier, within a few feet of the high bluff which forms the extremity of th^ inclosure. In the hot sunshine a lizard, lithe and sinuous, flashed green and gold across the old broken wall, vibrant and electric with nature's warm, glowing life; from the mill below the whirr of machinery beat the air with the throb of industrial force, and the water dashed off the mill-wheel with impatient vigor and went foaming and whirling on its way. But where I stood was the realm of repose and peace, and the majesty of silence was over all. Let the epitaph on the plain marble tablet above his head tell the short, simple story of Robert Adam's life :
"Beneath this stone are deposited the mortal remains of Robert Adam, a native of Greenock, Scotland, and for many years a merchant of Fayette- ville and Wilmington, who departed this life June ii, 1801, aged forty-two years. He was universally beloved and regretted. In his conduct and deportment through life was combined all that should adorn the Christian character and constitute the honorable man, the kind husband and affection- ate parent.
" 'Stranger, welcome to the scene —
The last in Nature's course.
The first in Wisdom's thought.' "
Robert Adam left to his successor a military corps which has achieved an illustrious history through a period of one hundred and twelve years, never having forfeited its organization or allowed it to fall into disuse from the day of its founding to the present time. It offered its services in the War of 1812, and marched toward Wilmington, going into camp near that city, but its presence on the field was not needed. Many of its members took part in the war with Mexico. It was one of the first bodies of volunteer soldiery to tender itself to the State and the Con- federacy, being Company H of the famous Bethel Regiment at Yorktown ; and during the four years following its rank and file furnished to other regiments, battalions, etc., some of the most distinguished officers in the Southern armies. It enlisted for the Spanish-American War, but was not mustered into active service,
ROBERT ADAM 21
being in Colonel Burgwyn's Regiment, its commander Major Ben- jamin R. Huske, and was encamped on Tybee Island, opposite Savannah, Georgia, until the close of hostilities.
Its peace record has been brilliant and full of stirring incidents. In its devotion to the South and the memory of the Confederate soldier, it retired from the State Guard some years ago rather than discard the honored grey when blue was adopted as the regulation color of uniform. It has since been rehabilitated, and is now Company F, Second Regiment, National State Guard, Captain N. H. McGeachy commanding. The old Independent Light Infantry now constitutes a battalion, there being a reserve corps still wearing the grey, the battalion under command of Major J. C. Vann. At the centennial celebration at Philadelphia, in 1876, the company, then commanded by Major Charles Haigh, won highest praise from prominent officers of the regular army for its bearing, drill and exercise of arms in the great parade of July 4th. It has also taken part in many other imposing public ceremonies in different parts of the country.
In 1828 the General Assembly of North Carolina, in tribute to its distinction as a corps and to its splendid service, passed a special act conferring the brevet rank of major on its captain and of captain on its lieutenants. This act is in force to-day.
The motto of the Fayetteville Independent Light Infantry is the exclamation of the great King Henry V. of England, just before the battle of Agincourt in France :
"He that hath no stomach to this fight, let him depart."
/. H. Myrover.
SPENCER BELL ADAMS
N the opening chapter of an unpublished book written by Hon. Albert J. Beveridge, member of the United States Senate from Indiana, entitled "The Young Man and the World/' he discusses the matter of man's limitations to success in these truthful words : "First let him learn his limitations; let him take time enough to think out just what he cannot do. By finding out one's limitations is not meant, of course, what society will permit you to do, but what nature will permit you to do. You have no other master than nature. Nature's limitations only are the bounds of your success. So far as your success is concerned, no man, no set of men, no society, not even all the world of humanity, is your master, but nature is. A man may make himself what he will within the limitations nature has set about him."
No man will fail of success in life who believes that his Creator designed no limitation upon his advancement save that imposed by the laws of nature. This belief or conviction or faith finds its fullest fruition in a free country. It is strangled in its infancy in a despotism where it has neither air nor room nor light in which to bud, to flower and bring forth fruit. Sometimes it seems to come as a gift direct from Heaven, regardless of environment, but as a rule it owes its origin to the natural forces which surround and envelop a man who realizes in his childhood or early youth
^c£er^y^/iy^
SPENCER BELL ADAMS 23
that his duty demands of him great efforts, and who knows by sad experience, already and so soon, that his struggle with poverty will be fierce and hard. It does not flourish amidst the vice and luxury engendered by a vast accumulation of wealth.
The supreme power of such a faith has been well illustrated in the life of Judge Spencer Bell Adams. His parents, John A. Adams and Sarah A. Adams, came from Virginia to North Caro- lina in 1857 and settled near Dobson, in Surry County. Here Judge Adams was born on the 15th of October, i860. His father was a farmer and large slave-holder. He was respected wherever known for his integrity and unflinching adherence and devotion to whatever principle or cause he believed to be right. He had strong convictions. Notwithstanding his interest apparently pointed the other way, he was intensely opposed to secession and devoted to the Union of the States. Yet when hostilities com- menced between the North and the South, he espoused the cause of his own section, and sent his sons to the battlefield, although he had no faith in the final result. He was an ardent Whig, and Judge Adams owes a part of his name to the fact that he was born during the Bell and Everett campaign, in which his father took an active part. He was called after John Bell of Tennessee, the Whig candidate for President. His mother was a Christian woman of unusual force of character, who was loved for her benevolence and kindness. She had great influence with both her husband and her children, who were devotedly attached to her.
The early days of Judge Adams were full of perplexity and severe trial. Whilst only a lad he realized that he must depend absolutely upon his own exertions. His father, whose fortune had been destroyed by the result of the Civil War, died when he was only two years of age, and his mother died when he was eleven. They left to their children only the heritage of a name loved by their neighbors and without stain or reproach. Yet young as he was, and dreary as the outlook for him seemed to be, he was not discouraged nor disheartened. He resolved to make the money necessary to defray the expenses of his education, it mattered not how severe the task. And so he did. He toiled at
24 NORTH CAROLINA
manual labor wherever he could find employment, and with his earnings paid for his board and tuition at the schools which he attended later at Riceville, Virginia, and Booneville and Rocking- ham, North Carolina. He entered the famous law school of Dick and Dillard at Greensboro in January, 1881, and remained there until February, 1882, when he obtained from the Supreme Court of North Carolina license to practise in the several courts of the State. He soon thereafter located at Yanceyville, the county seat of Caswell, and commenced a professional career which has been eminently successful, and which has won for him the respect of all who have an interest in the profession of law and love its good name.
Judge Adams has always been a Republican in his political faith, although tolerant of the opinions of others who differ with him. He has ever asserted publicly and privately that in his opinion the success and glory of our country is inseparably con- nected with the success of the Republican Party. Those who know him do not doubt his sincerity, however much they may question the accuracy of this statement. His aggressiveness, his capacity for organization, and his recognized loyalty and fidelity to its principles have given him a commanding influence in his party, of which he is an acknowledged and trusted leader. In November, 1882, he was elected clerk of the Superior Court and ex-ofRcio probate judge for Caswell County. He was reelected in 1886 by a very large majority, only twelve votes having been cast at the polls against him. He was again reelected in 1890 and 1894. He resigned this office in 1896, two years before the term for which he had been elected had expired. He was elected a judge of the Superior Court in November, 1896, and took the oath of office on December 30, 1896. Yielding to the insistent demands of his party friends, who regarded him as the strongest candidate they could possibly name, he resigned his position as a judge of the Superior Court to be a candidate for Congress in the Fifth Congressional District against Hon. W. W. Kitchin, the Democratic nominee, by whom he was defeated. He moved to Greensboro in the fall of 1898. He was elected secretary and
SPENCER BELL ADAMS 25
treasurer of the North CaroUna Railroad Company in July, 1899, and held this position until July, 1901. Li May, 1900, his party called upon him to carry its banner in a hopeless struggle. He had done so before, when he made the fight against Mr. Kitchin, a strong man, in a district overwhelmingly Democratic. Hon. Charles B. Aycock, one of the ablest, most popular and most eloquent men living in the State of North Carolina, was nominated by the Democratic Party for the office of governor. His great personal strength was supplemented by the intense feeling en- gendered by the race issue in that campaign. Judge Adams was selected by the Republican Party to make the fight against him. Although it was manifest to all that his defeat was certain by a large majority, he accepted the nomination, and made the sacrifice without a murmur. In the estimation of his political friends he gained rather than lost prestige in this campaign fought under very adverse circumstances. He was appointed by President Roosevelt, and confirmed by the Senate on the ist of July, 1902, chief judge of the Choctaw and Chickasaw Citizenship Court, a special appellate court created by act of Congress to try questions as to Indian citizenship in the Indian Territory. His associate judges were H. S. Foote, formerly of Mississippi, and W. L. Weaver, ex-member of Congress from Ohio. The work of this court was completed and its existence was terminated by limitation on the 31st of December, 1904. Judge Adams then returned to Greensboro, where he has since resided and been engaged in the practice of his profession. His business is large and lucrative.
His judicial career, both as a State and a Federal judge, won for him high praise. His conduct on the bench was marked by firmness, impartiality and courtesy to all. He sought the path of duty and followed where it led, regardless of the results to himself. A notable instance of his adherence to duty and his respect for the constitutional rights of the citizens of the State was his decision in Wood v. Bellamy. This case was heard by him at chambers at Raleigh, in April, 1896, and will be found in 120 North Carolina Reports, at page 212. In March, 1897, the "Fusion" legislature passed an act entitled "An Act to Charter
26 NORTH CAROLINA
the Eastern Hospital for the Colored Insane, and the Western Hospital for the Insane, and North Carolina Insane Asylum at Raleigh, and to Provide for their Government," which purported to repeal the charters of the North Carolina Insane Asylum at Raleigh, the Western North Carolina Insane Asylum near Mor- ganton and the Eastern North Carolina Insane Asylum near Goldsboro, and to abolish the offices of superintendent and direct- ors of such institutions and to recharter them under other names, and to create offices to be filled by officers under such designations. The object of those who passed the act was manifestly to provide places for persons of the same political faith. Public interest in the decision of the court as to the validity of the act was intense. If it was sustained and declared to be constitutional, it meant that these institutions would be at the mercy of the politicians of both political parties, as they might be respectively victorious in future contests. Wood v. Bellamy was the test case. Judge Adams ad- judged the act to be illegal and unconstitutional in so far as it at- tempted to abolish the offices of superintendent and directors of such institutions or to deprive the holders thereof of them before the expiration of the terms for which they were respectively elected and appointed. This decision was a sore disappointment to a few extreme partisans, who desired to see the act sustained ; but the best men of all political parties rejoiced that this young Republican judge rose superior to temptation and declared the law as it was, and that he was sustained by the Supreme Court of the State, to which an appeal had been taken from his decision. For the firm- ness, moral courage and learning shown by him in rendering this decision Judge Adams received unstinted praise from the most prominent and influential newspapers in the State, as well as from the people at large. At the close of his term of office as chief judge of the Choctaw and Chickasaw Citizenship Court he was complimented in very high terms by the Department of Justice at Washington, District of Columbia, for the ability and integrity with which he had discharged his duties.
The domestic life of Judge Adams has been fortunate and happy. He was married on the 19th of February, 1884, to
SPENCER BELL ADAMS
27
Miss Lizzie L. Swift of Caswell County, a lady who, by her refine- ment of character, her gentle disposition and high sense of duty to her husband and children, has made their home one of rest, contentment and happiness.
The story of the life of Judge Spencer B. Adams is well worth the study of every boy whose young life is burdened by poverty and anxiety for the future. It will teach him that in this great American Republic the avenues to honor and prosperity are open to all who recognize the dignity and honor of labor, who follow the pathway of morality and virtue and who keep the faith with their own conscience and with their fellow-men.
Charles M. Stedman.
GEORGE BURGWIN ANDERSON
NE of the many North CaroHna soldiers who rose to distinction during the War between the States was George Burgwin Anderson, who was born in the county of Orange, near Hillsboro, North CaroHna, on the 12th of April, 1831. His father was Colonel William E. Anderson, and his mother belonged to a well-known North Carolina family, whose several branches have varied the spelling of their patronymic, writing it both Burgwin and Burgwyn. Mrs. Eliza Anderson, mother of the general, was a daughter of George Burgwin, of New Hanover County.
George B. Anderson, after due preparation, entered the Uni- versity of North Carolina and remained there during the session of 1 847- 1 848. In the latter year he was appointed to a cadetship in the United States Military Academy at West Point, his stand- ing being always near the head of his class.
On graduating, the first of July, 1852, he was appointed brevet second lieutenant in the Second Dragoons, and was commissioned second lieutenant on the 21st of March, 1854. He was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant on December 13, 1855. From May 27 to September 8, 1857, and from August 8, 1858, to June 24, 1859, he held the post of regimental adjutant. The greater part of the active service of Lieutenant Anderson in the United States Army was in the West. Much of the Kansas turmoil, immediately
GEORGE BURGWIN ANDERSON 29
preceding the war, fell under his personal observation, and he marched under Colonel Albert Sydney Johnston to quiet the Mormon troubles in Utah. Upon the outbreak of the War between the States, George B. Anderson was one of the first of those de- voted Southerners who resigned from the Army of the United States — indeed. Lieutenant Anderson did not wait for North Carolina to pass her Ordinance of Secession, but resigned on the 25th of April, 1861. Upon tendering his services to North Caro- lina they were gladly accepted, and he was commissioned colonel of the Fourth regiment of State troops in May, 1861. The or- ganization of the regiment was begun at Raleigh and completed at Garysburg, and it arrived at Manassas on July 29th. Though too late to participate in the battle of Manassas, the Fourth regi- ment did garrison duty in that vicinity till March 8, 1862, when it was ordered to Clark's Mountain, near Orange Court House. Though only a colonel in rank, Anderson was now acting as com- manding officer of a brigade composed of the 49th Virginia, the 27th and 28th Georgia, and the 4th North Carolina, Major Bryan Grimes acting as colonel of the last-named command. On the 8th of April orders were received to repair to Yorktown, and here some skirmishing occurred. On the 4th of May, 1862, Yorktown was evacuated and the brigade, under Acting Brigadier General An- derson, repaired to Williamsburg, where the troops on May Sth witnessed for the first time a pitched battle, though not allowed to participate, being held in reserve. The first important battle in which the troops under Anderson were engaged was at Seven Pines, otherwise known as Fair Oaks, and his conduct in this fight won for him a commission as brigadier general. At Seven Pines, Major Grimes commanded the Fourth regiment, and Anderson was commander of the brigade, though not yet a brigadier general in point of real rank. One of the many acts of prowess which won fame for Colonel Anderson occurred at Seven Pines, when he seized the flag of the 27th Georgia Regiment, whose color-bearer had been shot down, and led a charge which captured one of the enemy's works. President Davis was present at this battle, and immediately promoted Colonel Anderson, who received his com-
30 NORTH CAROLINA
mission as brigadier general on the 9th of June, 1862. The new brigade assigned to General Anderson was composed entirely of North Carolina regiments — the 2nd, 4th and 30th. In the seven days' fight around Richmond, Anderson's brigade won a high reputation, and its commander received a wound in the hand at Malvern Hill. In the Maryland campaign, the brigade formed a part of the command of General D. H. Hill, whose single division held McClellan's whole army in check at South Mountain until the arrival of Longstreet. Having on this occasion held McClellan at bay till Jackson could capture Harper's Ferry, Hill's division three days later, on September 17, 1862, was engaged as the great battle of Antietam, known in the South as Sharpsburg. Here Anderson's brigade was again engaged, and here he received a wound which eventually proved fatal. In this battle, as was usually the case, the Confederates were largely outnumbered, Mc- Clellan's force being upwards of 87,000 men, while Lee's was less than 40,000. In this unequal conflict General Anderson was struck on the foot by a minie ball and fell to the ground. At first the wound was not thought to be of a dangerous, or even serious, na- ture. Together with his brother and aide-de-camp. Captain Walker Anderson, who had also been wounded at Sharpsburg and was afterwards killed at the Wilderness, General Anderson was carried to the home of his brother. Colonel William E. Ander- son, in Raleigh. His wound growing worse, amputation was de- cided upon, but this operation was too late. He died on the i6th of October, 1862. This event cast a gloom over the State, and at Raleigh, the capital, a public meeting, called by the Mayor, was held to take suitable action looking to his burial.
The remains of General Anderson are interred just northward of the Confederate plot in Oakwood Cemetery, at Raleigh, and a white marble shaft marks his resting place. On Confederate Memorial Day, in 1885 — May loth — General Anderson's life and military career were the theme of an eloquent and instructive ad- dress delivered by Colonel Alfred Moore Waddell, and from that are obtained many of the facts mentioned herein. Other tributes will be found in the North Carolina Confederate regimental his-
GEORGE BURGWIN ANDERSON 31
tories, where Rev. E. A. Osborne, formerly a colonel in the Con- federate Army, says : "The writer of this sketch knew him well and loved him much. He was a perfect specimen of a man in every way, a graduate of West Point, a devoted churchman, a pure and chivalrous gentleman, as modest and chaste as a woman, as brave and daring as a man could be. His was a very great loss." Later on. Colonel Osborne says : "He had a handsome figure, was a fine horseman, a splendid tactician, had a clear musical voice, a mild blue-gray eye, a fine golden beard, long and flowing, and a very commanding presence. His dis- cipline was mild, but firm ; and his patriotism of the very highest order." In the same work. General William R. Cox writes of Anderson as follows: "Physically he was a splendid specimen of young manhood, six feet in height, broad-shouldered, erect and thoughtful, and endowed with a commanding and well modulated voice." More brief, yet none the less forcible, is a tribute to General Anderson by that heroic veteran, Colonel Frank M. Parker, who says : "The State gave no finer soldier to our cause."
While General Anderson was a lieutenant in the United States Army, prior to the war, he was married on November 8, 1859, to Miss Mildred Ewing, of Louisville, Kentucky. To this union were born two children, one of whom died young; the other, George B. Anderson, Esq., still survives.
Marshall De Lancey Haywood.
JOHN BAPTISTA ASHE
' N a letter written by Colonel Pollock in February, 1718, he mentions Mr. Ashe, and about that time John Baptista Ashe married Elizabeth Swann, a daughter of Colonel Sam Swann by Elizabeth Lillington, and a sister of Speaker Sam Swann of the succeeding generation. It is probable that Mr. Ashe located in the Albemarle about the time of his marriage, and that all of his children were born in that section. He was Receiver of the "powder money" at Bath from 1723 to 1726. On January 15, 1724, Governor Burrington appeared in the colony and took the oaths of ofSce.* Mr. Ashe was a member of the old Wiltshire family of that name, and Edward Ashe, one of the Board of Trade and Plantations, having direction of the colonies, was his kinsman ; Burrington had known several members of Mr. Ashe's family in England, and was not unnaturally drawn to him in this new and wild country. By his marriage Ashe had be- come son-in-law to the wife of Colonel Maurice Moore and a nephew of Edward Moseley, and was allied with the family con- nections of the Porters and Lillingtons, which represented the interests of the people in opposition to the interests of the Lords Proprietors. Governor Burrington, through his association with Ashe, thus fell under the influence of the leading inhabitants of the Province, and he undertook to advance their purposes, being *Vol. 3, p. 371.
JOHN BAPTISTA ASHE 33
in full accord with them. Indeed it appears that the officers rep- resenting the Lords Proprietors informed their lordships that Burrington was preparing to bring about a revolution similar to that which in 1719 had wrested South Carolina from their control ; so that on the 7th day of April, 1725, the Lords Proprietors ap- pointed Sir Richard Everard to succeed Burrington. In July Everard took the oaths and dissolved the Assembly which was favorable to Burrington. The new Assembly met in November, Maurice Moore being the Speaker, and Burrington a member of the Legislature, along with Mr. Ashe. The Governor had under- taken to prorogue this Assembly before its meeting, and Ashe was appointed one of the committee to draw up a protest. The House, however, having transacted some business, of itself ad- journed to the following April agreeably to the prorogation. ""When it met, Ashe, who represented Beaufort precinct, was chosen Speaker, Speaker Moore not appearing. The House again resolved that the prorogation was illegal, and an address was pre- pared and approved and ordered to be signed by the Speaker, and delivered to the late Governor of the Province, Burrington ; and another address was prepared and signed by the Speaker and sent to the Lords Proprietors, in which the House severely arraigned the Chief Justice, Attorney General, and the Secretary as "evil- minded persons, who have for many years been the common dis- turbers of the peace and tranquillity of the Province." In all these matters Ashe was the warm friend of Burrington, and when Bur- rington because of his disorderly conduct was indicted, he ap- peared as attorney for him.
Burrington had joined with Colonel Maurice Moore in opening up the Cape Fear, and in 1725 grants were located at Old Bruns- wick and along the river, by Burrington and others. And there Ashe also located in 1727. Burrington's relations with Ashe were so friendly that on his departure from the Province and return to England he left all of his afifairs in Ashe's hands.
In 1729 the Crown purchased Carolina, and Burrington was ap- pointed the first Royal Governor of North Carolina. He recom- mended the appointment of Ashe among others as a member of
34 NORTH CAROLINA
his council, and doubtless expected his aid in his administration. But now conditions were changed, and Burrington, on his return in 1 73 1, instead of being friendly with what might be called the Popular Party in the Province, was required by the Crown to as- sert prerogatives which Ashe and his friends would not submit to. It soon appeared to the Governor that "Ashe was altogether bent on mischief."* In the council he organized opposition to the Governor and eventually controlled that body against him,f while in the House Edward Moseley exerted a potent influence in op- position to the Governor's instructions. A great contest ensued, characterized by bitterness and personal enmity. Both Ashe and Burrington resorted to the most extreme measures, and on one occasion Burrington caused Ashe's arrest and incarceration. So resolute and determined were the leaders of the Popular Party to maintain what they regarded as their chartered rights, that during Burrington's entire administration not a single Act was passed by the General Assembly. At one time it was in con- templation that Ashe should go to England to obtain Burrington's recall, but the communications of Ashe and Rice, covering charges of misconduct on the part of Burrington, and the Governor's own indiscreet letters to the Board of Trade, rendered that unnecessary ; and in the summer of 1733 Gabriel Johnston was appointed to sup- plant him ; but Governor Johnston did not arrive in the Province until June, 1734.
Ashe had joined his family connections in making the settle- ment on the Cape Fear, which at that time was a wilderness separated by a great distance from the inhabited parts of Car- teret precinct, of which it formed a part — and it may be stated in passing that many of the early deeds and grants for land on the Cape Fear are recorded at Beaufort.
On the formation of New Hanover Precinct and the passage of the Currency Act of 1729, Ashe became Treasurer of the new Precinct, and retained that office until his death. While he owned lands on Rocky Point, and had a sawmill higher up the Northeast River, his residence plantation was at Old Town; and he died *C. R. Vol. 3, p. 332. tC. R. Vol. 3, p. 331.
JOHN BAPTISTA ASHE 35
there in November, 1734. He left two sons and one daughter, the latter becoming the wife of George Moore, a son of "King" Roger Moore. The youngest son, Samuel, born 1725, was after- wards Governor of the State, 1795- 1798; the eldest son was General John Ashe, born in 1720, and distinguished for his Rev- olutionary services.
As some indication of the ideas then prevalent on the Cape Fear, the following extract is made from the will of Mr. Ashe : "I will that my slaves be kept at work on my lands, that my estate may be managed to the best advantage, so as my sons may have as liberal an education as the profits thereof will afford. And in their education I pray my executors to observe this method : Let them be taught to read and write, and be introduced into the practical part of arithmetic, not too hastily hurrying them to Latin or grammar; but after they are pretty well versed in these, let them be taught Latin and Greek. I propose this may be done in Virginia, after which let them learn French. Perhaps some Frenchman at Santee will undertake this. When they are ar- rived to years of discretion, let them study the Mathematics. To my sons when they arrive at age I recommend the pursuit or study of some profession or business (I would wish one to the law, the other to merchandise), in which let them follow their own inclinations.
"I will that my daughter be taught to write and read and some feminine accomplishments which may render her agreeable, and that she be not kept ignorant as to what appertains to a good housewife in the management of household affairs."
5. A. Ashe.
JOHN ASHE
fOHN ASHE, the eldest son of John Baptista Ashe, born in the Albemarle region in 1720, is spoken of by the historian Jones as the most chivalric hero of the Revolution. His career, at least, was remarkable for its dramatic epi- sodes. At ten years of age he was bereft of his mother, and at fourteen he lost his father, himself the oldest of three orphan children. But even under these unhappy circum- stances, his early life was fortunately cast. His uncle. Speaker Sam Swann, eminent for his virtues and public worth, was his guardian, and he was raised at Rocky Point among his kindred, the families of Colonel Maurice Moore, Edward Moseley, the Porters, Swanns and Lillingtons. He was possessed of a compe- tency, and is said to have been educated in England, and he named two of his sons after English kinsmen, from whom he doubtless at that period received some particular kindnesses. He was a read- ing man and possessed a library which he prized so highly that during the Revolution he made particular efforts to preserve it, secreting it in a huge, hollow cypress in Burgaw swamp.
A man of good address, he excelled as an orator, and perhaps in this regard he was unequalled by any of his contemporaries in North Carolina. When he came to man's estate, his elders were men of affairs, and he had to wait his turn to enter upon official life. At thirty-one he became a Justice of the Peace for New
JOHN ASHE 37
Hanover County, and the next year he was elected to the Assem- bly to succeed his uncle, Jdhn Swann, then appointed to the Council.
In 1749 John Starkey, of Onslow, who was his friend, had brought in a bill to establish a free school ; and an appropriation of 6000 pounds had been made for that purpose. The first day Ashe took his seat as a member of the Assembly, he, Ormond and Starkey were appointed a Committee to prepare an answer to the opening speech of the Governor. The answer was reported to the House by Mr. Ashe and was clear and spirited, and without a doubtful note : "We intend to frame such other laws as shall be judged needful and consistent with the circumstances of our constituents, whereby the public worship of Almighty God may be efifectually supported, the virtuous education of our youths pro- moted, our trade and navigation enlarged and encouraged."*
At the session of 1754 the Committee of Propositions and Grievances, of which Ashe was a member, reported a recom- mendation that the 6000 pounds theretofore appropriated for a public school should be used for that purpose ; but the exigencies of the moment required the Assembly to divert it for the defense of the western parts of the Province then attacked by the Indians. However, that Assembly allowed an aid of 40,000 pounds to the King, and 18,000 pounds in the same bill was appropriated to establish public schools, but for some reason the Board of Trade always withheld the King's assent, and the law was never car- ried into effect.
The year 1754 ushered in many changes in North Carolina. In that year the French and Indian War broke out, and Colonel Innes was appointed to command a regiment raised in North Carolina for the protection of Virginia. At that time John Ashe was the senior Captain of Innes' Militia Regiment, and he now became Major of that Regiment ;t and he was also an Aide of Colonel Innes, and as such went to Virginia for him on military business. He continued an active member of the Assembly, always employed on important matters; and at its session in December, 1758, when *C. R. Vol. 4, p. 1332. tVol. s, p. 163.
38 NORTH CAROLINA
the Assembly appointed an agent for the Province in London, it appointed a Committee of Correspondence to communicate with its agent, composed of Speaker Swann, Barker, Starkey, George Moore and John Ashe.* At the same session "Mr. Ashe, accord- ing to order, laid before the House an address to his Majesty," in which after mentioning the expense the province had borne in defence of the Colonies, the Assembly asked that the allowance the Crown was expected to make by way of reimbursement "might be used in purchasing a glebe for each Parish, and erecting and establishing a free school in each County. "f The address was ordered to be presented to the King, but Ashe's plan for free schools was not to materialize. Governor Dobbs had other views, and the fund allowed by the King was eventually dissipated through the contrivances of the Governor.
The antagonism between the leaders of the Assembly and the Governors, which began in the proprietary times and was more pronounced after the purchase of the Province by the Crown, continued with increasing violence during Governor Dobb's ad- ministration. The Assembly, under the control of Swann, Ashe and their associates, claimed the exclusive right of naming the Treasurers, the Agent at London, and Public Printer, and of laying taxes and directing the payment of all public moneys. The Governor denounced these leaders as being a "junto whose purpose was to absorb the powers of the Governor and Council." It was indeed a long and obstinate conflict, the popular leaders being insistent on establishing and maintaining the rights and liberties of the people and the rightful powers of the Assembly.
At the Assembly of 1762 Swann declined to serve longer as Speaker, and Ashe, who had constantly risen in importance, suc- ceeded him; and at the Assembly of February, 1764, he was re- elected to that commanding position. At the session of November, 1764, a new element entered into the political situation. Parlia- ment had adopted a resolution that the Colonies should be taxed to support the Empire, and in June a Committee of the Massa- chusetts Assembly addressed a circular letter to the other Colo- *Vol. 5, p. 1087. tVol. 5, p. 1094.
JOHN ASHE 39
nies on this subject. On November 17th Speaker Ashe laid this communication before the Assembly, and a Committee composed of the Speaker, Starkey, McGuire, Harnett and Maurice Moore was appointed to make a suitable reply to it.* In their answer North Carolina expressed her concurrence with Massachusetts. f
Another sharp conflict over the exclusive rights and privileges of -the House, not only as against the Governor and the Crown, but as against the Council, also made this session memorable ; and at its close the House formally resolved : "That the Treasurers do not pay any money out of any fund by order of the Governor and Council without the concurrence or direction of this House."
Governor Dobbs, then quite old, died on March 28, 1765, and Colonel Tryon, who had arrived some months earlier as Lieuten- ant-Governor, entered on the administration, and convened the Assembly at New-Bern on May 3rd. In addition to provincial matters, the purpose of Parliament to tax America now became a cause of irritation and excitement. That was a question so novel that public opinion was not entirely settled. In June, Otis of Massachusetts first suggested a Continental Congress, and that course was later determined on. In North Carolina the feeling was so strong, says Bancroft, "that the inhabitants set up looms for weaving their own clothes ; and South Carolina was ready to follow their example." At the May session the Assembly had been prorogued till November, and North Carolina had no oppor- tunity of appointing delegates to that first Continental Congress, which met on October 7th; and indeed, in October, Governor Tryon prorogued the Assembly again until March ; and eventu- ally he dissolved it without allowing it to meet again. The Stamp Act, passed in March, was to go into operation in the Colonies in November; but although William Houston had been appointed Stamp Master for North Carolina, the stamps had not yet arrived from England. Nevertheless the people of Wilmington and of the Cape Fear determined that the Act should not be enforced in the Province. There were several great popular demonstrations against the Act, and, on the i6th of November, Houston, having *Vol. 6, p. 1296. tBancroft.
40 NORTH CAROLINA
come to Wilmington from his home in Duplin, was seized by the people under the leadership of De Rosset and forced to resign his office.* Two days later Governor Tryon had fifty of the gentlemen of the Cape Fear to dine with him at Brunswick, and they told him that they could not permit the act to be enforced; while John Ashe, the Speaker, warned him that it would be re- sisted to blood and death.f On November 28th the stamps arrived, but, there being no Stamp Master, remained on shipboard. There was, however, a general cessation of business throughout the Province, although there was no cause for an outbreak until in January, when two merchant vessels coming into the Cape Fear were seized because their clearance papers were not duly stamped. Some days then elapsed before the law officers determined what course the Government should pursue. In the meantime the lead- ers on the Cape Fear were arranging their plans. The Mayor of Wilmington resigned, and Moses John De Rosset, a strenuous leader against the Stamp Act, was elected to replace him. Rocky Point for a generation had been the residence of Moore, Moseley, Swann, Ashe and Lillington ; and it was still the centre from which emanated the influences directing public action. The people of Onslow, Duplin and Bladen were brought together at Wilming- ton to meet those of New Hanover and Brunswick ; and they en- tered into an association: — "Detesting rebellion, yet preferring death to slavery, ... we hereby mutually and solemnly plight our faith and honor that we will at any risk whatever, and whenever called upon, unite and truly and faithfully assist each other to the best of our power in preventing entirely the opera- tion of the Stamp Act."I Of this association Bancroft says : "Still more bold, if that were possible, was the spirit in North Carolina." On that occasion John Ashe was the leading spirit. He was now to make good his warning to Governor Tryon that the people would resist to blood and death. Like some John Hampden he drew his friends around him, and at the meeting at Wilmington, on the i8th of February, he and his kinsman, Alex- ander Lillington, and Colonel Thomas Lloyd became "Directors" *VoI. 7, p. 168. tVol. 7, P. Notes III. , JVol. 7, p. i68c.
JOHN ASHE 41
to direct the movement;* and General Hugh Waddell was ap- pointed to marshal and command the citizen soldiery, numbering near 1000 armed men.f It was not a mob, but an orderly move- ment of the people under civil authority of their own appointment, with the military subordinate to the Directory, at the head of which was the Speaker of the Assembly. Accompanying the Directors were the Mayor and corporation of Wilmington, and gathered around them were all the gentlemen of the Cape FearJ — a glori- ous cavalcade of patriots intent on a high purpose and full of high resolve. But it was treason. Well might the eloquent Davis ex- claim: "Take care, John Ashe! Hugh Waddell, beware!" Marching to Brunswick, Fort Johnston was seized, the Crown offi- cials arrested, the war vessels of Great Britain defied, their com- manders constrained to surrender the detained merchant ships, and the Stamp Act was annulled in North Carolina. In triumph the people returned to their homes victors over the government and the King's forces. The effect and influence of this daring and victorious movement on the spirit of the Province can neither be estimated nor portrayed.
In a few months the news came that the obnoxious Act was re- pealed ; and that brief period of storm and rebellious action gave place to one of great joy and demonstrations of loyal attachment to the King; and in the midst of the rejoicing a new Assembly was elected. Governor Tryon had manifested his indignation at the course of Judge Maurice Moore, Ashe's brother-in-law, dur- ing the Stamp Act times, by suspending him from his office, and he keenly felt the conduct of the other insurrectionary leaders. How- ever, only the Southern counties had been offensive in their action, and the public men in the other counties had not been drawn into actual rebellion. The Assembly met in November. Ashe did not attend for some days after its meeting, and John Harvey of Per- quimans county was chosen Speaker. Ashe, however, entered actively on the business of the Assembly, and together with Fan- ning and Robert Howe was appointed on a Committee to prepare an address to his Majesty on the repeal of the Stamp Act. This *Vol. 7, p. 172. fVol. 7, p. 174. JVol. 7, p. 174.
NORTH CAROLINA
address was manly and patriotic. It referred to the action of the Colonists, to their apprehensions, to the burdens "much too heavy for us to bear," to their late unhappy situation, and expressed joy and thankfulness at the action of the King and Parliament in re- pealing the Stamp Act, ''as thereby the happiness of your subjects is secured and fixed upon the true basis of public liberty;" throughout it all, however, there were expressions of love and loy- alty to the best of Kings, and a declaration of "the glory and hap- piness of the inhabitants of this your Province of North Carolina to look upon themselves as part of the British Empire."* From Boston to Savannah joy and loyalty filled the atmosphere. In the ecstasy of the moment, the Assembly, ignoring its long and per- sistent denial of the King's prerogative to fix the seat of govern- ment at New-Bern, magnanimously petitioned the King to locate it there, and appropriated ten thousand pounds to build a palace for the Governor at that place.
Ashe's old friend Starkey, the Treasurer, had died before the previous session of the Assembly ; and a dispute had arisen, as in former years, between the Assembly and the Council as to the ex- clusive right of the Assembly to nominate the Treasurer, and at that session the vacancy was not filled. The Governor had, how- ever, appointed Sam Swann temporary Treasurer; and now the Legislature was to elect to the office. The Assembly nominated Ashe; the Council, insisting on its rights, nominated Lewis De Rosset. For a time neither body would recede ; but eventually the Council agreed itself to nominate Ashe, thinking thus to save its claim to share in the nomination ; and he became Treasurer of the Southern District.
In 1768 the Regulators having raised a riot at Hillsboro, Gov- ernor Tryon called out the militia of Rowan and Mecklenburg Counties to overawe them, and John Ashe accompanied him on that expedition as Major-General. Again in 1771, when the Regu- lators broke up the Court at Hillsboro, Governor Tryon deter- mined to suppress them by a display of military power. The Leg- islature had made no provision for this movement, and there were *Vol. 7, pp. 397-408.
JOHN ASHE 43
no funds to pay the expenses. Montfort, the Treasurer of the Northern District, refused to advance any money; but Ashe, the Treasurer of the Southern District, not only suppHed what funds he had, but issued his own notes to pay the expenses. As the re- sult of Montfort's action, no troops were raised in the Northern section. Again was Ashe appointed Major-General, and as such he participated in the Battle of Alamance; and when, after the Regulators had been dispersed and Tryon had received his ap- pointment as Governor of New York, he turned over the command of the army to Ashe and' hastened to his new post.
The next Assembly met Governor Josiah Martin in November, 1772. The Assembly in 1768 had directed the Sherififs not to col- lect a certain tax of three shillings ; and at this session it proposed to direct the Sherififs not to collect a certain tax of one shilling. The Governor declared that this would be a fraud and dissolved the House before it could place the resolution on its journal. Ashe was a member of the House, and, as Treasurer, obeyed its will in this matter and refused to require the sheriffs of his district to collect the tax. The Governor dissolved the Assembly, and there was a new election. When the Assembly met in January, 1773, Harvey was chosen Speaker in place of Caswell ; and by a com- bination between Caswell's friends and the Northern District, Cas- well defeated Ashe for Treasurer. At the Assembly that met in December, 1773, a standing Committee of Correspondence was appointed to communicate with the other Colonies, and Ashe was one of its members. The Governor dissolved that Assembly on March 28, 1774, because of disagreements over the court law and its action and spirit in regard to Continental affairs. In the prog- ress of events the Port of Boston was closed that spring, and in July the inhabitants of the Cape Fear Counties met at Wilming- ton and issued a call for the election of deputies to the first Pro- vincial Congress :* and of that body Ashe was a member. Writing on September i, 1774, Governor Martin alludes to the fact that "the Northern Counties were then controlled by Sam Johnston and that the Southern Counties were supporting John Ashe ; and *VoI. 9, p. 1016.
44 NORTH CAROLINA
that these counties, usually in antagonism, were now in harmony, and he apprehended every embarrassment from, their union." That Fall, Committees of Safety began to be formed in the sev- eral counties, and Ashe was a member of the Committee for New Hanover. He realized the necessity of resolute action, and, again gathering his friends around him, he led the way for the people to follow. Having met the situation in 1765 and 1766 with a strong hand, he now prepared to be armed and ready for the crisis he saw approaching. He had long been Colonel of the New Hanover Regiment. He now freed himself from duties to the Crown, and declining a reappointment tendered him by Governor Martin,* began to organize troops independently of the Government. On March 10, 1775, Governor Martin wrote :t "It is rumored that in the counties of Brunswick and New Hanover, the people, at the instigation of some of the leaders, have met and chosen field officers for a regiment; and that Mr. Robert Howe, formerly captain of Fort Johnston, is training some people in the former county to arms." Elsewhere the Governor reported "that Ashe had declined his appointment as colonel and had accepted the ap- pointment at the hands of the people." It was stated by survivors of the Revolution that he was the first person in North Carolina to receive a military commission from the people. After that time independent companies began to be formed in the other counties.
On March 6th the New Hanover Committee adopted an as- sociation that :l "We do most solemnly engage by the most sacred ties of honor, virtue and love of country," etc., and they resolved to "offer this paper to all citizens for their signatures." There were some of the inhabitants of the town wavering, and Gov- ernor Martin represented to the Crown that : "Ashe had, at the head of a body of 400 or 500 men, menaced the people with military executions if they did not immediately subscribe the association." Without doubt, being now an active leader in the throes of a revolution, Ashe used every influence that could be exerted to infuse zeal among the people, to fix the wavering *Vol. 10, p. 48. tVoI. 9. p. 1157. tVol. 9, p. 1 148.
JOHN ASHE 45
and to overawe those who were disinclmed to cast their fortunes with the revolutionists. He was stalwart, bold and determined. With him were his kinsmen, and Harnett and Howe, Moore and LiUington; unhappily De Rosset and Waddell, leaders in 1765, had now passed away. Harnett, Ashe, Howe and Abner Nash were particularly marked out by the Governor as proper objects of proscription because "they stand foremost among the patrons of revolt and anarchy.'' *
On May 8th the express with the news of the Battle of Lex- ington reached Wilmington; intense excitement prevailed; and Governor Martin, alarmed by the organization of an inde- pendent company at New-Bern by Abner Nash and his associates, fled from his palace and sought safety in Fort Johnston, reaching there June 2nd. From there he began to communicate with the disaffected in the interior, and he planned to strengthen the fort and garrison it with more troops. In the meantime John Harvey had died, and on May 31st Howe, Harnett and Ashe wrote Sam Johnston urging that another Provincial Congress should be at once held.f On June 12th the Committee of Safety of the Cape Fear counties took an oath of secrecy, and a week later they adopted an association binding themselves "to go forth and sac- rifice their lives and fortunes to secure freedom and safety." Three days later, on June 23rd, the Mecklenburg Resolves, supplanting the old government in Mecklenburg County and inaugurating an independent government based on the will of the people, were published in the Cape Fear Mercury; and the cry for independence from the interior gave strength to the Cape Fear leaders. J Bla- den and the sea coast counties "were pursuing the example of Mecklenburg."
Ashe determined to expel the Governor from North Carolina soil and to remove the cannon from Fort Johnston and to destroy the fortifications ; and he planned by means of fire-rafts to drive the British cruisers from the harbor. He embodied his forces, and on July i8th, being joined by detachments from Brunswick and Bladen, he marched to Fort Johnston and with his own hand ap-
*Vol. 10, p. 98. tC. R. Vol. 9, p. 1285. %C. R. Vol. 10, pp. 45, 48.
46 NORTH CAROLINA
plied the torch to the fort. His plan to drive the cruisers from the river by fire-rafts was not, however, carried into effect,* and Governor Martin continued on board his shipping, but his com- munication with the Loyalists was interrupted and very uncertain. The stimulus of this action aroused and nerved the patriots in every quarter of the Province and the Revolution went forward by leaps and bounds. A month later the third Congress met, and it invested the functions of government in a Provincial Commit- tee of Safety. Royal rule had ceased in North Carolina. Provi- sion was also made to organize military forces. Minute men were provided for, and also two regiments of Continental troops. Ashe desired the command of the first of these regiments ; but his brother-in-law, James Moore, who had greater military experi- ence, was preferred to him, receiving a majority of one vote. Without question this defeat was a source of great mortification. His proud spirit quivered with disappointment. But he knew his duty and performed it. Mr. George Hooper is quoted as saying "that he could never forget General Ashe's return from the Con- vention of Hillsboro in September, 1775. He was in a state of prodigious excitement. His object was to raise a regiment ; and he accomplished it. You cannot imagine what a commotion he stirred up. He kindled an enthusiasm in New Hanover and the adjacent counties, of which there is no parallel in thetraditionsofthe State. "f In February, 1776, the Highlanders and Regulators assembled at Cross Creek, and Colonel Moore marched against them, along with his forces being a company of Independent Rangers en- listed by Ashe, and paid a bounty by him out of his own purse ; and he fought with them at Moore's Creek. Immediately after that battle the Provincial Congress met and reorganized the militia, appointing brigadier-generals for the dififerent districts. Ashe was appointed to command in the Wilmington District. In April and May the British began to gather in the lower Cape Fear, and the militia of the State was called out to defend Wilmington. The command of that army was with General Ashe, and the force was stated to number over 9,000 men. He hemmed in the British
*Vol. 10, pp. 142, 143.
fA. M. Hooper's Memoir, University Magazine, Oct., 1854.
JOHN ASHE 47
forces, until finally the. fleet sailed away; and, the danger being passed, in August he disbanded his troops. While he thus com- manded the army, his brother was President of the Council.
He continued in active service, both in military and civil af- fairs, being constantly a member of the Congresses, and later of the Assemblies, and, cooperating with the other leaders, directing the affairs of state. In December, 1776, Caswell being elected Governor, Ashe was appointed Treasurer, and in 1777 he was elected by the Assembly, and he held that post until 1781.
When Washington was hard pressed in the Fall of 1777, the State of North Carolina offered to send a force of 5,000 militia to his aid. It being thought that this force would be sent. Gov- ernor Caswell on the 7th of February wrote to General Ashe:* "If the militia shall be ordered to march to the aid of the United States, will it be agreeable to you to command them? If it will, 'twill give me pleasure ; otherwise, I think it may be necessary for me to go with them." General Ashe, in reply, said that while in- disposed to the command, yet after the next session, if it should be not "expedient for Governor Caswell to go, and should it then be offered, I may perhaps accept it."f That detachment was not raised; but in October a detachment of 5,000 was to be sent to the South, and Governor Caswell wrote to General Ashe :| "I am now apprehensive I shall not go, and cannot think of offer- ing that appointment to any other gentleman than yourself. Let me entreat you to accept it. . . . This request I make to you not only from my own inclination that you should have this com- mand, but also on a full conviction that the troops will more readily turn out; indeed, I have engaged to some of the officers who have turned out here that either you or myself would com- mand them. ... If you go, I will give every assistance to your treasury office that I possibly can."
It was arranged that Ashe should accept the commission of major-general and undertake this command, the commission being sent him on the i8th of November, i778,§ and Governor Caswell- agreeing to perform his duties as treasurer in his absence. Orders
*Vol. 13, p. 30. tVol. 13, p. 55-
tVol. 13, p. 256. §Vol. 13, p. 289.
48 NORTH CAROLINA
were issued at once for detachments of militia to be drafted and as- sembled at Elizabethtown. The method of raising militia troops all during the war was to apportion about fifty to each county, and each county app>ortioned that number among the various com- panies. The result was that while a regiment was raised from each district, neither the privates nor the officers of the regiment had any previous acquaintance, but the organization was a medley and mixture, without any element of confidence or cohesive strength. General Rutherford's brigade being ordered out, quickly responded ; but the detachments from the other sections of the State were slow in assembling. At length, however, regi- ments were collected from the New-Bern District, from those of Edenton, Halifax and Wilmington. Another was commanded by Colonel Perkins. Governor Caswell remained at Kinston, urging the troops forward. On December 8th he wrote to General Lin- coln, from Kinston : "At length the troops from the Northern and Eastern Districts of this State have crossed the river at this place. The whole, I expect, will join General Ashe at Elizabeth- town six days hence ; from whence they will be able to reach Charleston in about a fortnight. I am much concerned to know the greater number of the militia who have firearms have such as are by no means fit for service, and many of them have no arms at all. I flatter myself, notwithstanding Governor Lowndes's information to me, that arms will be furnished them."
It was expected that arms would be furnished at Charleston to this North Carolina detachment ; but General Rutherford's brig- ade, which was in advance, got all the arms that could be supplied.
On December 29th, Caswell wrote to Ashe, who was still de- tained at Elizabethtown, that militia was hourly expected at Kins- ton ; that he was concerned to learn that the troops were so far short of the number ordered out, and he added : "The deficiency in arms and accoutrements I am sensible of, and equally concerned at, but it seems that these deficiencies cannot be removed here. I was led to believe that he (General Lincoln) thought our people would obtain arms at Charleston, and I sincerely hope they will."
When the Legislature met in January, the Governor reported
JOHN ASHE 49
to that body that of the 5,000 troops called out, he was fearful not more than half had marched, and those badly armed.
Lincoln's forces were posted along the Savannah River, and when Ashe reached that vicinity he was ordered to proceed im- mediately to Augusta and to cross the river and to take post at Briar Creek, and then himself to return to Lincoln's camp for a council of war.* He reached Briar Creek on the 27th of Febru- ary, and in obedience to instructions left his command in charge of General Bryan and attended the council, at which it was agreed that he should cross Briar Creek and strike the enemy at their first post down the river, and clear the way for Rutherford to cross. He reached his camp at noon on March 2d. It was in the depths of a narrow swamp, nearly forty miles long, lying between the creek and the river, and a mile or so from their juncture. Ashe had represented to General Lincoln its unfavorable location, admitting of no escape from an attack in the rear by a superior force. There were but few horsemen with the command; but General Bryan had established a line of heavy pickets to the rear and had sent the Light Horse to obtain information. At 3 o'clock, on the afternoon of the 3d, information was received that the enemy were approaching, about eight miles above. "We immediately beat to arms, formed the troops into two lines, and served them with cartridges, which they could not prudently have been served with sooner, as they had several times received cartridges which had been destroyed and lost for want of cartouch boxes. We marched out to meet the enemy — some carrying their cartridges under their arms, others in the bosoms of their shirts, and some tied up in the corners of their hunting shirts." A few Georgia Continentals and Colonel Perkins's Regiment, on the right of the first line, engaged the enemy. The Halifax Regiment, on the left of the second line, broke and took to flight. The Wilmington and New-Bern Regiments, after firing two or three rounds, followed their example. The Edenton Regiment continued for two or three discharges longer, when they gave way, just as Colonel Lytle with his light infantry and a brass piece came up. He saw *VoI. 13, pp. 51, 39-
50 NORTH CAROLINA
the impossibility of rallying the troops, and he followed in rear of the fugitives, reserving his fire."
Ashe, who had been in the rear of Colonel Perkins's Regiment and the Georgians on the first line, hurried to check the fugitives, but although assisted by Majors Blount, Doherty, Colonel Perkins and other commanding officers, he was unable to rally them. They made their way to the river, where most of them crossed, while others turned up the swamp and reached Augusta. The loss was ten or twelve killed, about the same number drowned, some missing; but a large majority threw away their arms in their flight. There were about 600 in the camp at Briar Creek, and they were assailed by 800 British Regulars, and their defeat was inev- itable. Apparently General Lincoln erred in placing this force at the bottom of a bag from which there was no avenue of escape, except by dispersing through the swamps. A year later he re- peated this mistake at Charleston, and himself was forced to sur- render his entire command. General Ashe immediately asked for a Court of Inquiry, which, after the examination of many wit- nesses, decided :* "That General Ashe did not take all the neces- sary precautions which he ought to have done to secure his camp, and to obtain timely intelligence of the movements and approach of the enemy ; but they entirely acquitted him of every imputation of a want of personal courage, and thought that he remained in the field as long as prudence and duty required." Ashe himself thought that he did everything in his power to obtain timely in- telligence of the movements of the enemy ; still this inglorious termination of his expedition weighed heavily upon him. Excuses that even form a reasonable justification do not relieve the sting of defeat. The period for which his men were enlisted was to ex- pire on April loth. They would remain no longer ; and somewhat later General Ashe himself returned to his home, keenly feeling the misfortune that had befallen his command. He resumed his duties as Treasurer, but General Lillington having been appointed Brigadier-General of his district on February 4, 1779, he had no subsequent military command.
*MouItrie's Memoirs, University Magazine, Oct., 1854.
JOHN ASHE SI
In the last days of January, 1781, Major Craig took possession of Wilmington, and from that time onward his Tory bands rav- aged the country, making captures of such Whigs as they could find. "Two of the General's sons, having been taken, were con- fined on a prison-ship and sentenced to be shot. One was Samuel Ashe a Captain in the Continental Line, the other his youngest son, William. A day was fixed for the execution, and it would have taken place if Major Craig had not received authentic in- formation from the Whig camp that a dreadful retaliation was in their power." The General himself took refuge in the recesses of Burgaw swamp. He was betrayed, and a party of dra- goons was dispatched to capture him. Attempting to escape, he was shot in the leg and carried a prisoner to Wilmington. While in confinement he contracted the smallpox; but when convalescent was parolled and returned to his home, where he at once made preparations to remove his family to the back country.*
In October he began this journey, and with his family reached the residence of Colonel John Sampson, in Sampson County. There suddenly the end came. Taken with a paroxysm of pain at 12 o'clock at night, he expired before the dawn of day.
Bright and glorious had been his years of manhood, but dis- appointment, suffering and calamity marked his exit from the world. The first in North Carolina to begin the Revolution, with arms in his hands, he passed away before Cornwallis's surrender, and without a view of the promised land of independence, and ignorant of the glorious victory which was then to reward and rejoice the patriots who survived him.
Early in life General Ashe had married his cousin, Rebecca Moore, the sister of Judge Maurice Moore and of General James Moore. His eldest son, John, early took arms in the Revolution ; his son. Captain Samuel Ashe, commanded a troop of Light Horse, serving in New York and Pennsylvania ; William was lost at sea on board of a privateer, and A'Court died in his youth. His daughter Mary, in 1777, married Colonel William *University Magazine, Oct., 1854.
52 NORTH CAROLINA
Alston, and was the mother of Governor Joseph Alston, of South Carolina, who married the ill-fated Theodosia Burr. Eliza Maria married William H. Hill, and was the mother of Joseph Alston Hill. Harriet married Dr. Laspeyre. None of his sons left issue, and none of his descendants bear his name.
Speaking of his powers of oratory, Mr. George Hooper is quoted as saying: "He struck the chords of passion with a master hand. His words roused the soul like the roll of the drum or the roar of artillery at the commencement of an action. Every breast heaved, as if with the sentiment of the Athenian orator : 'Let us away ! Let us arm ! Let us march against Philip ! ' " Mr. Sam Strudwick, who had "mingled in the fashionable and political circles of the great metropolis of England, speaking of General Ashe, declared emphatically that there were not in the city of London four men superior in intellect to John Ashe."
But his chief title to fame rests neither on his powers of oratory nor his intellectual capacity, but rather on his resolute patriotism and bold leadership in starting the ball of revolution that brought independence to his country.
5. A. Ashe.
JOHN L. BAILEY
[HE subject of this sketch was a jurist of un- blemished reputation and held in the highest personal esteem throughout the State during the period of his activity. He was the son of Gabriel Bailey, who resided in Pasquotank Coun- ty, where the family had long been settled, and he was born on August 13, 1795. After his preliminary educa- tion he entered the University at Chapel Hill, where his scholastic education was completed, and then studied law under Hon. James Iredell, at Edenton. Governor Iredell was one of the most ac- complished lawyers, as he was one of the strongest and most su- perior in intellectual endowments of the public men of the State, and this association with that distinguished and thorough lawyer and gentleman had a most excellent effect on the young law student.
Having received his license, he returned to Pasquotank and established himself as a lawyer in Elizabeth City ; but his residence in Chowan had not been without a deeper effect on his life, and on the 26th of June, 1821, he was happily united in marriage to Miss Priscilla Brownrigg of that county, a daughter of Thomas Brown- rigg, who was a grandson on his mother's side of Colonel Benja- min Hill, and whose father, Richard Brownrigg, appears to have come from Ireland many years before the Revolution and to have had considerable possessions in Ireland and in Jamaica, as well
54 NORTH CAROLINA
as in Chowan County. Easily taking his place among cultured gentlemen of that day in Elizabeth City, in 1824 Mr. Bailey was elected to represent Pasquotank County in the House of Commons and was elected to the Senate in 1827 and 1828. Again in 1832 he was a member of the Senate, and now his reputation as a man of fine judgment and as a Constitutional lawyer was so well es- tablished that when delegates were chosen to represent Pasquo- tank in the Convention of 1835, he was selected to be a member of that body. In the Convention he voted to amend the religious tests for office, admitting Roman Catholics, who had formerly been excluded. He voted against the alteration in the Constitu- tion providing for biennial elections of the General Assembly, but he voted to submit all of the amendments which had been agreed to by the Convention to the people, while Mr. Macon, Judge Ruffin, Mr. Edwards, and others who like himself were Conservatives, voted against that proposition. By the first General Assembly held under the amended Constitution he was elected a Judge of the Superior Court, a position for which he was admirably quali- fied by his character, his personal traits and his judicial attain- ments. For more than a quarter of a century he rode the circuits of the State, holding court many times in every county in North Carolina. He wore well on the bench. Every year added to his reputation and to the esteem in which he was held. The people in every part of the State became familiar with his personality, and because of his fine carriage and excellence he attained a high place in the popular regard. He continued on the bench until 1863, when circumstances led him to resign his office, and after- wards he made his home in Asheville, where he resumed the prac- tice of the law and became as highly esteemed in that community as he had been in his old home.
In the salubrious climate of that mountain region he regained his health and attained a ripe old age. He was survived by his sons, Thomas B. Bailey and Hon. William H. Bailey, formerly of Charlotte, but later in life a resident of Texas, but his amiable wife preceded him to the grave by a few years. He died at Ashe- ville on June 30, 1877, in the 82nd year of his age. S. A. Ashe.
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JAMES CRAIG BRASWELL
jAMES CRAIG BRASWELL, distingnished as a banker and business man, was born near Battleboro, on the 17th day of August, 1868. He is the youngest son Hving of Thomas P. Braswell and Emily StalHngs Braswell, who are still living at the home in which James Craig Braswell was born.
Thomas P. Braswell, the father of James Craig, is of Scotch- Irish descent, and the sterling honesty of the one and the wit of the other of these two great people are concentered in him. He is one of the most progressive men in Nash County and one of her most honored citizens. He was born in Edgecombe County in the year 1833, and during his youth and early manhood lived in Edgecombe County, where he married Emily Stallings.and in 1866 moved to his present home in Nash County.
Mr. T. P. Braswell's early educational advantages were limited, but by application, constant reading, and extensive travelling there are few better informed men of to-day ; being denied many advan- tages, yet his innate manhood soon asserted itself, and he forged his way to the front, and by his honesty of purpose, indomitable will-power, and sound judgment he has won a high place in the esteem of his fellow-men. He has filled every public position which he has ever sought, and indeed some have been thrust upon him without his desire, and he has declined many, preferring the
S6 NORTH CAROLINA
quiet of his splendid home to the cares of public life. He has been constable, deputy-sheriff, Commissioner of his county, Chairman of the Democratic Executive Committee, and member of the Leg- islature, which last position he declined to accept again, and finally retired from public life.
He is to-day the largest planter and land-owner of Nash County, and is extensively engaged in stock-raising, owning one of the finest herds of Jersey cattle in the State. In addition to his farm- ing interests, he is largely engaged in other business. He is the senior member of the large mercantile firm at Battleboro, N. C, of T. P. Braswell & Son, which business is conducted by his oldest son, M. C. Braswell, of whom more will be said later. He is a large owner of real estate in Rocky Mount, Battleboro, Nash and Edgecombe Counties. He is a stockholder in all the large corpo- rations organized in and around Rocky Mount and Battleboro for the past few years, and indeed the organization of many of them can be attributed to him ; for instance. Planters' Bank, which bank has gained a State reputation, although only six years old.
Mr. T. P. Braswell realized, as no man can except one similarly circumstanced, the advantage of thorough education, and he has spared no effort to give his children every advantage which edu- cation can bestow, and well have they repaid his efforts.
M. C. Braswell, his oldest son, after leaving the University was graduated from a business college, and has taken the very fore- front of business enterprises, and is himself an extensive planter. Indeed he is one of the safest and foremost business men of his entire section.
His second son, Dr. R. M. Braswell, was a student of the Uni- versity and graduated from the Maryland University, and is to- day one of the leading physicians of Eastern North Carolina. He, too, is a large planter and extensively engaged in other business enterprises, having been instrumental in organizing and carrying on much of the business in and about Rocky Mount, and is espe- cially noted for being one of the most open and candid men who ever lived in our midst. No one ever heard it said of him that his position on any question was doubtful or deceptive. He is a use-
JAMES CRAIG BRASWELL 57
ful man to society, for being so open and candid himself, no Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde can live near him without the Mr. Hyde being exposed.
Reafed by a loving Christian mother, whose influence is so deeply impressed on him, and benefited by the example of the trio above referred to, the subject of this sketch came upon the stage of life.
He was prepared for college at Horner's Military School at Ox- ford, N. C, and was graduated from the University of North Carolina in the summer of 1890.
During his boyhood days he was taught by his parents that it was honorable to db manual labor, and when at home for his vacation he was deprived of no pleasure, but his duties must come first. He took part in his father's business in every way, and was educated in the arts of all farm work.
As soon as he left college he sought the commercial field, and for a short time was connected with Dun's Mercantile Agency at Winston, N. C. Remaining there for a short time, he moved to Rocky Mount in 1891, and as the town was just organizing large and extensive tobacco factories and warehouses, he em- barked in the tobacco business and commenced the tobacco trade in co-partnership with his father under the firm name of J. C. Braswell & Co., which has since been incorporated. From the year 1891 to 1900 Mr. Braswell was a quiet worker in this busi- ness, laying the foundation of the active business which was soon to follow.
On the I2th of June, 1901, he was happily married to Miss Lillian Grizelle Burton of Durham, N. C, and his charming wife has made his home life all that the most exacting could ask. She is the granddaughter of the late Rev. Alex. Walker and the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Robert C. Burton, and inherited both on the paternal and maternal lines those admirable traits that adorn her character and have made her justly esteemed as one of the loveliest of her sex. Mr. Braswell has since then built and moved into one of the handsomest homes in Eastern North Carolina.
58 NORTH CAROLINA
During the past few years especially Mr. Braswell's fine char- acter has become more manifest and more thoroughly recognized, and his worth is appreciated by all with whom he has come in contact.
By his unquestioned honesty, by his never-failing energy, by his absolute fairness, by his determination to get what belongs to him, and to be just as sure that he gets nothing that is not his, by a strict adherence to his motto, "Live within your income, be thorough and exact in business, avoid evil things and men, and have your eyes open to every opportunity," he has won the confi- dence and esteem of all men with whom he has come in contact; and though yet a young man, he is to-day president of the follow- ing corporations : Planters' Bank of Rocky Mount, Rocky Mount Sash and Blind Company, Rocky Mount Hosiery Company, J. C. Braswell Tobacco Company, the Chamber of Commerce, the Mari- gold Heights Land Company, Secretary of the Planters' Cotton Seed Oil Company, Director of the Rocky Mount Storage Ware- house Company, Wilkinson Bullock & Company Insurance and Loan Office, the Rocky Mount Brick Company, and he is Vice- President of the Rocky Mount Savings & Trust Company. He is also one of the Commissioners of the town of Rocky Mount, and a member of the Board of Graded School Trustees, and Vice- President of the North Carolina Bankers' Association.
These positions of trust to which he has been called by his as- sociates fully attest the confidence and esteem in which he is held.
Adding him to the trio above described, it may be said that they form one of the most honorable families within the limits of that part of the State. They are at all times in the closest touch with each other. They are all men of great public enterprise, fully abreast with the times, not afraid to venture, with plenty of means to back any enterprises on which they may embark, and last but not least, are always together. So it is not difficult to understand that when they venture others are ready to follow.
B. H. Bunn.
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JESSE MOORE BUNDY
' ESSE MOORE BUNDY, a well known and greatly esteemed citizen of Atlantic City, N. J., was born in Deep River neighborhood, Guilford County, North Carolina, on the 27th of March, 1837. His parents, John and Mary Moore Bundy, were members of the Society of Friends and were people of sterling worth and strict integrity. John Bundy was quiet and unassuming in his manner, but of act- ive mind and sound business ability. He was of Irish descent, his father being a native of Ireland. He was born in 1803 and died in 1885. His occupation was that of farming. His mother, too, was a strong, lovable character, and to her and her teaching of the truths of the Bible her son ascribes much of his success in life. Thus Jesse M. Bundy received his early impressions of life and his preparation for its duties in that best of all training schools — a well ordered home upon a well managed farm. He grew up strong and healthy in mind and body, assisting in the various kinds of work which at that time more than in our own included many pursuits, as that of blacksmith, carpenter, mason, etc. This developed in the boy a fondness for any kind of mechanical work and made him acquainted with the requirements of various oc- cupations. In after life these qualifications have rendered him capable of doing the work of four or five men in several positions ■which he has been called to assume, notably as Superintendent of
6o NORTH CAROLINA
Guilford College during its inception when new buildings were being erected, brick made, lumber secured, and many men under his sole management.
As a boy he attended the public schools of the day, and later entered New Garden Boarding School — now Guilford College. While there his favorite studies were natural philosophy, physics, and kindred subjects.
During his boyhood his father removed to Indiana and settled at Monrovia. There for a time Jesse pursued farming as his oc- cupation. After attaining his majority he established and oper- ated a successful carriage manufactory, thus exercising the gift which had shown itself from his tenth year — of handling tools and serving mankind through his knowledge of mechanics.
On the 27th of October, 1859, he married Mary Jane Copeland, of Rich Square, North Carolina, with whom he became acquainted while they were both students at Friends' Boarding School. After his marriage he remained at Rich Square for six months and en- gaged in teaching. In the Spring of i860, with his wife, he re- turned to Indiana and settled at Monrovia, which became their home for eighteen years, engaging in manufacturing as before. During those years three children were born, two of whom died in infancy. The surviving child, a daughter, Anna Moore, was married in 1892 to Rev. John B. Jacobs, who only a few months after their marriage was drowned while bathing in a river. Anna and her little daughter Pearl make their home with Mr. and Mrs. Bundy at Atlantic City, gladdening the hearts of their parents as the shadows lengthen in their lives.
In 1874 Jesse Bundy removed to Rich Square, North Carolina ; and in 1878 he and Mrs. Bundy became Superintendent and Ma- tron of New Garden Boarding School. They remained in this position for seven years. These were the years of transition from a boarding school to a college, and it would have been almost im- possible to find a man who so thoroughly combined the character- istics needed by the occupant of this position as did Mr. Bundy; while his wife was most admirably fitted to manage the large and diverse household. Jesse Bundy seemed equally at home in the
JESSE MOORE BUNDY 6i
Faculty meeting, or with the student body, with the carpenters, the masons, the brick-makers ; and by his quiet dignity and genu- ine sympathy endeared himself to all who worked with him, from college president to the boy who carried water for the workmen.
Since his residence at Guilford he has been engaged in vari- ous pursuits in Indiana, Chattanooga, Tenn., Philadelphia, New York. In the latter State he had charge of a large hotel at Colum- bia White Sulphur Springs. For several years past Mr. and Mrs. Bundy have made their home in Atlantic City. At first in rented property they conducted a charming home-like hotel, and now in their own new commodious and thoroughly up-to-date hotel. The Archdale, they entertain in such a manner that guests find every convenience of hotel life added to the most cordial, friendly and sympathetic association from those in charge. It is indeed an ideal resort.
Jesse M. Bundy has always remained a Friend and has for many years been an elder in the church. His life is full of en- couragement and has been spent in whatever locality his lot has been cast in the cause of truth and righteousness. His is the kind of life which makes, and will continue to make, our nation great. God-fearing, honest, upright in every particular. In politics he has always been Republican, but never a partisan. He is well known in those sections in which he has resided, and in every place he is held not only in esteem, but in affection.
L. L. Hobbs.
BENJAMIN HICKMAN BUNN
fENJAMIN HICKMAN BUNN, distinguished as a lawyer and public man, was born in Nash County on the 19th of October, 1844, and has continued to reside in his native county all through life. His ancestor, Benjamin Bunn, and his brother, coming from London in Colo- nial days, first settled in Virginia and then removed to Edge- combe County, North Carolina, locating in the section which was later formed into Nash County. The earliest public service re- corded of the family was in the Spring of 1776, when Sir Peter Parker's fleet lay in the Cape Fear River and ten thousand North Carolinians stood ready under General Ashe to repel the threat- ened invasion, among them being Benjamin Bunn, a lieutenant in Captain James Gray's Company from Edgecombe, and the Council of Safety in North Carolina at Wilmington on June 11, 1776, resolved that he should be fully commissioned accordingly. One of his sons, Redmun Bunn, was Senator from Nash County in 1788, and frequently represented his country there- after in the House, but generally the members of the family appear to have devoted themselves to their private business and not to have sought official station. Enjoying the pleasures of their home life, they were contended to till their fields and cultivate their estates, living in happiness and abundance.
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BENJAMIN HICKMAN BUNN 63
A great-grandson of Benjamin Bunn, Redmun Bunn, success- fully united the business of merchandizing to his farm work and exercised a strong influence in his community. He was esteemed particularly for his high sense of honor, his gentleness and chival- ric bearing. He had an acute intellect and was known for his keen wit, and was highly regarded in his community for his social virtues. In person he was striking and his manners engaging. Once, being in Macon, Ga., with his eldest son, William H. Bunn, a gentleman, seeing their names recorded at the hotel, approached them, and introducing himself as a citizen of London, said to Mr. Bunn : "I was struck by the name of William H. Bunn; that is the name of one of the Queen's assistant counsellors, and you are the very image of him. I never saw such a likeness.
Mr. Bunn married Miss Mary Hickman Bryan, and they were the parents of the subject of this sketch.
Blessed with perfect health and living in boyhood in the country, where he did light farm work, attending to the stock and engaging in country pastimes, Captain Bunn developed into a strong, healthy young man. He attended the preparatory schools in the neighborhood until he was sixteen years of age, when the war breaking out, on the 20th of July, 1861, he enlisted as a private in Company I of the 30th North Carolina regiment, commanded by Colonel Parker, and served as a private until September, 1862, when he was elected second lieutenant of Company A., 47th North Carolina regiment, with which he remained connected during the rest of the war, although in 1864 he was assigned to the command of the corps of sharpshooters of the brigade. At the battle of Gettysburg the regiment was subjected to a terrible experience on the first day and suffered severely, and on that occasion Captain Bunn was wounded in front of Seminary Heights. He was car- ried back to the hospital and removed to Winchester, but recov- ered rapidly and soon rejoined his company, and from that time onward participated in every battle fought by General Lee until he was again wounded, on the 25th of March, 1865. Indeed, he was one of two officers of his command who were on duty every
64 NORTH CAROLINA
day of the campaign of 1864 and who participated in every fight in which the division took part.
Shortly before the campaign opened in 1864 he was assigned to the command of a corps of sharpshooters, and he continued on that exposed and arduous service until the end of the war. In tlie Wilderness campaign, he with his sharpshooters was on duty fourteen out of nineteen successive nights, guarding the front line of the Confederate army. Participating in all the great battles of the war, he rendered efficient service on every field ; and being thrown in close contact with his commanders, he acquired the per- sonal acquaintance and friendship of the generals who directed his movements, especially of General MacRae, commanding his brigade, General Heth, commanding the division, and General D. H. Hill, the corps commander, as well as of General Lee him- self. On one occasion General MacRae declared his corps of sharpshooters, to which Captain Bunn's company belonged, the best body of men that he had ever seen, the most thoroughly drilled and disciplined. As an illustration of their discipline an incident is narrated as occurring on October 27, 1864, at Burgess's Mills. The brigade being sent forward. Captain Bunn's sharp- shooters were advanced to discover the position of the enemy, he being instructed to locate the Federal lines without firing and to apprise the commanding general of their location. He conducted his men through a dense underwood and suddenly emerged into a beautiful open pine forest about 200 yards deep, behind which was an outlying field grown up with tall broom straw. As soon as Captain Bunn reached the pine forest he discovered the Fed- eral skirmish line in full view, and halting they commenced to talk to each other, the Federals calling out : "Come over, Johnny, and join us. Don't you think you have been fighting long enough? Come over and let's make friends," etc. Sending word back to General Mahone, the commanding officer, orders were received to hold his position. Presently, when the brigade had come up, the engagement began, Captain Bunn's sharpshooters advancing rap- idly ; but as soon as they had passed beyond the forest a Federal line of battle, previously unseen, ran from the broom straw and
BENJAMIN HICKMAN BUNN 65
fired a volley at them, who, however, were so well trained that by a direction given by a mere motion of Captain Bunn's sword, each one lay as close to the ground as possible and the volley passed over them and not a man in the company was harmed. At that very moment the Confederate line of battle emerged from the woods in their rear and a fearful contest ensued. The sharp- shooters, being between the firing lines, lay as quiet as if dead with the balls from both armies whistling over their heads. This sit- uation was relieved only when the Federal line was repulsed and the Confederates marched over the prostrate sharpshooters, who were rejoiced to be once more free from their perilous position.
Captain Bunn passed through all the dangers of that campaign without harm, but on the 25th of March, 1865, before Petersburg, he received a wound in his right hand cutting the sinews of all his fingers and breaking several of the bones. He was taken to the Winder hospital and there remained until the Sunday morn- ing when Richmond was evacuated. Having dressed for the first time since he had been wounded, he walked from Richmond to Danville and then proceeded by rail to Rocky Mount, arriving there the day Lee surrendered.
His brother, Elias Bunn, who was adjutant of the 12th North Carolina regiment, was wounded at Hanover Court House on May 27th, at the very beginning of the seven days' fight around Richmond, and after lingering about a month, died on July 2nd. His other brother, William H. Bunn, was captain of a cavalry company and was killed on the battlefield at Burgess's Mills.
On the return of peace. Captain Bunn at once began the study of the law with his uncle, Hon. W. T. Dortch, of Goldsboro. His grandfather had died at the early age of 26, and his grandmother married a second time, Mr. William Dortch, and their son, Hon. W. T. Dortch, a half-brother of Captain Bunn's father, subse- quently married Captain Bunn's first cousin on his mother's side, and there were intimate relations existing between the uncle and nephew, and Mr. Dortch admirably prepared him for the bar. Receiving his license in 1866, he began to practise at Rocky Mount
66 NORTH CAROLINA
the next year, and soon made his impress on his community as a fine and competent lawyer.
When his business was thoroughly established he had the good fortune to be happily married to Miss Harriet A. Philips, a lady of very superior charms and accomplishments, and a daughter of Dr. James A. Philips, a prominent physician of that section.
The loss of his two older brothers threw much responsibility upon him and led to unusual exertions to perform his duties and to win a high pyosition in life. A strong and practised speaker, he was appointed as a sub-elector in the Seymour and Blair cam- paign of 1868, and he has engaged in every political campaign since then. In 1875 he was elected a member of the Constitu- tional Convention, and rendered conspicuous service as Secretary of the Committee on Privileges and Elections of that body, whose work was most important in preventing the control of the con- ^'ention from passing into the hands of those who were not favor- able to any constitutional reform. Captain Bunn was also instru- mental in having important legislation adopted, being one of those who regulated the calendar of work and arranged the same before the convention each day, the convention being almost a tie and all matters being passed by the vote of the presiding officer.
In 1880 he was a delegate to the National Convention that nomi- nated General Hancock, and he made a strong campaign in be- half of that distinguished Federal general, whose troops he had fought on many a battlefield. He represented Nash County in the General Assembly in 1883, and upon the appointment of a joint committee on The Code, the usual rule was varied and the compli- ment of being chairman was conferred on him, although only a member of the House, while several very distinguished lawyers represented the Senate on that committee, which was composed of twenty-two members.
The next year he served as Presidential elector, and for six years, beginning in 1888, he represented his district in the Con- gress of the United States and was very close to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, who conferred upon him the chair- manship of one of the important committees, the Committee on
BENJAMIN HICKMAN BUNN 67
Claims. On this committee he performed arduous legislative ser- vice, examining into many claims and drawing up reports for the action of Congress. As an illustration of his exhaustive work, in his report on the bill for the relief of J. M. Lanston, he set forth the whole sum expended for expenses in every contested election since the organization of Congress. His report in the 52nd Congress on the French Spoliation Claims was also exhaustive. While he made many fine addresses in the House, his speech on the Federal Election Bill was probably his highest and crowning effort, and brought him merited distinction. In it he gave full expression to Southern thought on the relations of the sections under the Constitution, and ably discussed the causes of dissen- sion between the North and the South. This speech was exten- sively circulated, and portions of it were incorporated into the Democratic handbook for the next campaign. Indeed as a Rep- resentative in Congress he performed his duties with great effi- ciency and to the entire satisfaction of his constituents and main- tained a high position among his associates. He retired from public life at the end of the 53rd Congress, having thus far filled every position to which he has aspired.
As a lawyer Captain Bunn has been very successful, excelling as an advocate and as a manager of jury cases, while equalled by but few in legal learning. He has appeared in nearly every capi- tal case which has been tried in Nash County in thirty years, and in every important civil suit since he has been at the bar; and he has been the attorney for the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Com- pany and for Nash County almost continuously for thirty years.
His motto in life has been, "To live so that the world will say of me after I am dead that 'Here lies an honest man.' " He sug- gests that any man who is honest and energetic will succeed, and he has never been able to conceal his contempt for deceit in any form.
.S". A. Ashe.
HUTCHINS GORDON BURTON
N his day and generation Hutchins Gordon Bur- ton was a leader of the bar in North Carolina, was governor of the State, was a representa- tive in Congress, and filled other offices of honor and trust, as this sketch will show later on. He was a native of Virginia. When three years old his father, John Burton, died. The maiden name of John Burton's wife was Mary Gordon. On the death of his father young Hutchins was left to the care of Colonel Robert Burton, a North Carolina statesman, who was his uncle and then resided in Granville County.
On coming of age Hutchins G. Burton settled in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Probably his first appearance in public office was in 1809, when he was elected to represent his adopted county of Mecklenburg in the North Carolina House of Commons. He served in a similar capacity at the session of 1810, and during the sitting of this assembly he was elected (November 28th) to the office of attorney general of North Carolina. This office he held until 1816, when he resigned — his resignation being accepted by the Legislature on the 21st of November in the year last men- tioned. Taking up his abode in the town of Halifax, Mr. Burton represented that borough in the North Carolina House of Commons at the session of 1817. Having later been elected to represent his district in the Congress of the United States, he ap-
HUTCHINS GORDON BURTON 69
peared in the House of Representatives at Washington on Decem- ber 6, 1819, and was duly sworn in as a member. He served un- til the 23rd of March, 1824, when he resigned. When the next General Assembly met it elected Mr. Burton to the office of gov- ernor of North Carolina on December 3, 1824, and four days later, on December 7th, he was duly inaugurated. His term of office ended on December 8, 1827, when his successor, Governor James Iredell, was sworn in. During the time that Governor Bur- ton was in office he was a great social favorite as well as a Chief Magistrate of wisdom and discretion. Possessing oratorical gifts of a high order, he was frequently in demand at the Fourth of July celebrations which were then conducted in Raleigh, as well as elsewhere, on such a grand scale and with so much ceremony and enthusiasm. It was Governor Burton's fortune also to extend an official welcome to the illustrious "guest of the nation," Gen- eral Lafayette, when that great soldier passed on his triumphal journey through North Carolina in 1825. Chief Justice Taylor and other distinguished citizens were sent as a committee to meet America's great friend when he entered the State from the north- ward at the end of February, and, after various entertainments at Halifax and elsewhere, the party reached the State Capital on March 2d. On that day a formal speech of welcome was made by Governor Burton and replied to by Lafayette. Both speeches are printed in the Raleigh Register of March 8, 1825. In opening his remarks Lafayette said :
"On the first moment of my return to the blessed shores of America I anticipated the pleasure to revisit this State, and here to witness the pros- perous result of that independence and self-government the cry for which had been heard from North Carolina long before it was reechoed in a Continental Congress."
In the same newspaper we find a toast, offered by Lafayette at the entertainment in his honor, which was as follows :
"The State of North Carolina, its metropolis, and the 20th of May, 177s. when a generous people called for independence and freedom, of which may they more and more forever cherish the principles and enjoy the blessings."
70 NORTH CAROLINA
In toasting General Lafayette, Governor Burton offered the following sentiment :
"The man who estimated as but dust in the balance all the blessings of this life when in the opposite scale were placed liberty and independence."
Among the numerous other toasts offered at this entertainment were the following :
By Colonel William Polk, who presided :
"Lafayette, the last of the Revolutionary general officers — may the even- ing of his life be as happy and serene as the meridian of his days has been great and glorious."
By Chief Justice John Louis Taylor:
"George Washington Lafayette, worthy of the great name he bears — alike for his military knowledge, public services and private worth."
By George Washington Lafayette :
"The new ship of the line, North Carolina, a source of pride to her friends — may she ever prove a scourge to her enemies."
By State Treasurer John Haywood :
"The battle of Brandywine — that epoch in the history of the war of the Revolution when French and American blood first flowed together in the same brotherly current and was offered a rich oblation on the altar of Liberty."
By Judge Henry Potter :
"Our venerated guest — may the immense temple of freedom which he, as a master workman, contributed to erect, ever stand as a lesson to oppres- sors, an example to the oppressed, a sanctuary for the rights of mankind."
Part of this toast, said Judge Potter, he had adopted from the language of Lafayette's farewell address to Congress.
HUTCHINS GORDON BURTON 71
By Editor Joseph Gales, of the Raleigh Register:
"The people, the source of all political power — may the time soon arrive when their influence shall have its wholesome effects on the governments of the Old World."
When Lafayette proceeded southward on his tour, an escort of honor, both civil and military, again accompanied him, and at Fayetteville — a place named after him — he was again the recipi- ent of a patriotic demonstration before being turned over to the hospitalities of South Carolina.
On the 6th of December, 1825, Governor Burton was elected Grand Master of the Masonic Grand Lodge of North Carolina, and served in that capacity till the 6th of December, 1827. A handsome oil portrait of him is now owned by the Grand Lodge.
Under the old State Constitution the Governor's term of office was one year, with the provision that he could not serve more than three terms in six years. Governor Burton served three terms ; and about the end of his last, when he was not eligible for reelection, President John Quincy Adams nominated him Gov- ernor of the Territory of Arkansas ; but, for political reasons, this nomination was not confirmed by the United States Senate.
Governor Burton died on the 21st of April, 1836, probably while on a visit to relatives in Lincoln County, as his death oc- curred in that vicinity. He was interred in the burial ground of Unity Church at Beatty's Ford, in Lincoln. His wife was Sarah Wales Jones, a daughter of the Honorable Willie Jones of Hali- fax, so celebrated as a Revolutionary statesman. Many descend- ants of Governor Burton are now living. His widow married Colonel Andrew Joyner, to whom reference will be found in a separate sketch.
Marshall De Lancey Haywood.
ROBERT FISHBURNE CAMPBELL
^^=J^OBERT FISHBURNE CAMPBELL was born at Lexington, Virginia, December 12, 1858. His parents were of Scotch-Irish extraction. His father, John Lyle Campbell, A. M., LL.D., occupied with distinction for thirty-five years the Chair of Chemistry and Geology in Wash- ington College, afterwards Washington and Lee University. Professor Campbell's grandfather, Alexander Campbell, who came from the North of Ireland to the Valley of Virginia, was one of the original trustees of Liberty Hall Academy, the germ of Washington and Lee University.
Professor Campbell married Harriet Hatch Bailey, who was bom in Pittsfield, Mass., where her father, the Rev. Rufus W. Bailey, D. D., was pastor of prominent Presbyterian churches, founded what is now known as the Mary Baldwin Seminary, in Staunton, Virginia, and was at the time of his death, in 1863, President of Austin College, Texas.
Robert Campbell, the subject of this sketch, became a student of Washingfton and Lee University in 1873, and was grad- uated in 1879 with the degree of Master of Arts. He was the winner of two prize medals, one for the highest standing in the schools of Moral Philosophy, English Literature and Modern Languages ; the other for the best essay in the Uni- versity Magazine.
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ROBERT FISHBURNE CAMPBELL 73
After his graduation he taught for three years at Charlestown, West Virginia, Tinkling Spring, Virginia, and Richmond, Vir- ginia, after which he entered the Union Theological Seminary at Hampden-Sidney, Virginia.
He was pastor of the Millboro and Windy Cove churches, Bath County, Virginia, 1885-1889; of Davidson College Church, North Carolina, 1889-1890; of the church at Buena Vista, Va., 1890-1892. In the Fall of 1892 he accepted a call to the pastorate of the First Presbyterian Church, Asheville, N. C, where he has labored for thirteen years with marked success and growing dis- tinction. In 1893 he received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Davidson College.
Dr. Campbell is a man of broad culture, his range of reading and study having been unusually wide in the fields of science, theology and the humanities. He is an accomplished amateur botanist, having begun the study of plants at the age of eleven in rambles with his father, who was a devoted student of natural science, and having found his chief recreation from the indoor studies of his manhood in excursions to the broad fields and path- less woods in search of some rare plant, or in cultivating closer acquaintance with old friends in the vegetable world. His study of nature is not a mere matter of scientific dissection and analysis. He is one of those "who, in the love of Nature, hold communion with her visible forms," to whom ''she speaks a various lan- guage." He is a sympathetic student of the poets, especially of such as stoop tenderly over the
"Wee, modest, crimson-tippit flower,'' to whom
"The meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."
A few years ago Dr. Campbell presented to the Asheville High School a collection of 160 dried plants, beautifully mounted, with the view of promoting the study of nature, and in the hope that this limited herbarium would constitute the nucleus for a larger collection in the future.
74 NORTH CAROLINA
Dr. Campbell is a man of fine executive ability, as is shown by the thorough and effective organization of the large church of which he is pastor, and by the aggressive work of the Home Mis- sions Committee of Asheville Presbytery, of which he has been chairman since the creation of the committee in 1896. But his greatest success has been in the pulpit. He excels in expository preaching, especially in making clear and simple the difficult doctrinal teachings of God's Word. His sermons are closely logi- cal, his style simple and chaste, and his illustrations always il- lustrate. He never touches a subject without illuminating it. He is mighty in the Scriptures, his quotations and proofs from the Word of God being the aptest, the most appropriate and the most convincing the writer ever heard from any man. He is strictly orthodox according to the standards of the Westminster Confes- sion, the Shorter Catechism and the Epistles of St. Paul ; but he does not condemn as heterodox those who do not agree with him in his theological, political and scientific views. He is strict with himself and liberal with other people, because in theory and prac- tice he allows others the same liberty which he demands for himself. The Old Testament prophet says : "What doth the Lord require of thee, O man, but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God?" St. James, the apostle of common sense, says : "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." Dr. Campbell lives very closely up to this combined standard.
In the Greek Church the officiating priest speaks from behind a screen so as not to be seen by the people lest God's message to them be obscured by the presence and personality of the messen- ger. This is a fine and impressive ideal, and Dr. Campbell fills this ideal. He is God's messenger delivering God's message to the people; himself invisible, and this unconsciousness of himself, this absorption of his personality in his message, is one of the chief factors in his unusual power as a preacher.
As a presbyter he is one of the most distinguished in the South-
ROBERT FISHBURNE CAMPBELL 75
ern Presbyterian Church. He is the chiefest force and power in the Presbytery of Asheville and the founder and mainspring of its home missionary work among the mountaineers, which is the most successful and the most germinant domestic work in the Southern Presbyterian Church.
His paper on the classification of the Mountain Whites, pub- lished in the Southern Workman and reproduced in pamphlet form, is the ablest, most just and sympathetic statement which has yet appeared of these strong, patriotic and pure-blooded Anglo-Saxon people and of their claims on the country at large for their victories at Cowpens and King's Mountain, for their crippling of Cornwallis at Guilford Court House, for their forming a very large proportion of our army in Mexico, for their splendid bravery in Lee's army, and for the fact that of the 2800 men called for from North Carolina for the Spanish War, 2500 of them came from within fifty miles of Asheville.
Dr. Campbell's activities, though occupied chiefly with his duties as pastor of the First Church of Asheville, are not confined to it alone. His interest in and work for the so-called Mountain Whites has already been referred to. He has taken a deep and intelligent interest also in the Southern blacks. When a boy of only thirteen, in 1871, the college servants of Washington and Lee University, in which his father was professor of science, asked him to teach them to read and write, and he opened a night school, which was attended for several years by many of the most intelligent negroes in and around Lexington. This was with the entire approval of the professors and students of the university; and it was an earnest of the only solution of the negro problem, which is that, if the negroes are to be uplifted, it must be done by their being taught by white teachers of the ex-slave-holding class. "If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch." The negro is blind about himself because he cannot see, the Northern white man and white woman are blind about him because they will not see, and neither the one nor the other has followed the Scripture injunction, "Anoint thine eyes with eye-salve that thou mayest see." And so the result of the nation's dealing with the
76 NORTH CAROLINA
negro since 1865 (in spite of our having divided our educational bread between his children and ours to the extent of one hundred and thirty million dollars of tax money, in our poverty, since the surrender), is convincing the Northern people that in dealing with the negro the nation has made a mistake in some way and this mistake must be corrected somehow. Dr. Campbell's effort to correct this mistake in his paper on "Some Aspects of the Race Problem in the South" has given him a national reputation. The genesis of this paper was a sermon urging the Asheville Presby- terian Church in particular, and the Southern Presbyterian Church in general, to engage earnestly in giving the Gospel to the Africans among us as well as the Africans in the Dark Continent, as the only "eye salve" through which a man or a race can be en- abled to say, "Whereas I was blind, now I see." The publication of this sermon was demanded by all classes in Asheville, Northern and Southern, white and black. Revised and expanded, it was printed in pamphlet form and an edition of 3,000 was soon ex- hausted. A second edition of 10,000 must soon be followed by another issue. This very able paper has gone to almost every State in the Union and has been most favorably commented on by such papers as the Springfield Republican, the New York Evening Post, the New York Nation, the Philadelphia Press, the Pittsburg Dispatch, and other leading papers of both North and South. Hundreds of letters were received, many of them from distinguished Northern men, thanking the author for having treated the subject with so much intelligence and breadth of view and in a spirit so fair and kindly. Dr. Campbell is also the author of a sermon on the church fair, published by the Presbyterian Committee of Publication, Richmond, Virginia, which has had a wide circulation and a wholesome influence in correcting erro- neous views and harmful practices in the line of Christian benevo- lence.
Dr. Campbell's paper read before the chief literary club of Asheville on "The Dog in Literature and Life" was most highly commended for its style, its humor, its learning, its culture and its broad sympathy. Some said that Charles Lamb did no better
ROBERT FISHBURNE CAMPBELL ^^
in the Essays of Elia, and some that Addison did no better in the Spectator.
Dr. Campbell has been in Asheville for thirteen years, and though he has had calls to wider fields with much larger salaries, he has declined to leave the Asheville church, the Asheville cli- mate and the home missionary work of the Asheville Presbytery. If we had more preachers with Dr. Campbell's brains, piety, zeal, culture, liberality, patriotic citizenship and sanctified common sense the Church would soon have the "world for her parish.''
Dr. Campbell was married October 8, 1885, to Sally Montgom- ery Ruffner, youngest daughter of William Henry Ruflfner, LL. D., the most distinguished educational leader Virginia has pro- duced since Thomas Jefferson's day. In every church served by her husband she has been universally honored and beloved as the model pastor's wife, prudent, tactful, sympathetic and abounding in good works.
Dr. and Mrs. Campbell have one son, William Henry Ruffner Campbell, born December 17, 1889.
Robert Bingham.
HENRY WELLINGTON COBB
»ENRY WELLINGTON COBB was bom in Caswell Count}', North Carolina, on the 21st day of January, 1866, and is therefore just forty years of age. He was the youngest child of Henry Wellington Cobb and Mary Blackwell Howard, and is descended from old English stock. In 161 3 Joseph Cobb emigrated from England to Vir- ginia. Just before the Revolution three of the Cobb brothers set- tled in North Carolina, and one in Georgia : while the oldest brother moved North. One of his maternal ancestors, Henry Howard, was a Revolutionary soldier and took part in the battle of Guilford Court House.
Until the subject of this sketch had reached the age of four- teen years he remained at home upon the farm in Caswell County, doing light farm work during the summer months, and thus early formed those habits of industry which have had such a marked influence upon his career. During the winter months he attended such public schools as the country afforded, and from time to time, subscription schools supported by the more substantial farmers in his neighborhood. Before he had reached his eleventh year his father died, and at the tender age of fourteen years this country lad left the parental roof in order that he might lighten the burden of a widowed mother and began his battle with the realities of life. He secured a position in a retail dry-goods store in Danville, Virginia, and while there, even at this early age, when it would
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HENRY WELLINGTON COBB 79
seem that questions of a serious nature could find no lodg- ment in the mind of one so young, realized his need of a more liberal education, and notwithstanding the fact that his em- ployment kept him engaged from early dawn until dark, by attending night schools, enlisting the aid of private tutors, and burning the midnight oil he acquired a sound English educa- tion, studied the higher branches of mathematics, read in the original tongue some of the masterpieces of the great Latin poets, and thus laid broad and deep the foundation of his future success.
The life of a business man always appealed to him, and in the year 1883, being then just seventeen years old, he entered Eastman College, Poughkeepsie, New York, from which he afterwards graduated in its business course. Returning from Eastman Col- lege to Danville, he started in business for himself as a tobacco buyer, and in the year 1885 moved to Greensboro, North Caro- lina, and continued in the same business. It was while he was engaged in this occupation in Greensboro that his capacity as a business man and his pre-eminence as a judge of leaf tobacco at- tracted the attention of the officers of the American Tobacco Com- pany and he was offered the position of manager and buyer for this company in Greensboro, North Carolina.
During his residence in that city Mr. Cobb took a lively interest in public affairs, was chairman of the most important committee of the Board of Aldermen, and organized and became the first president of the Industrial and Immigration Association; and to him in a large degree is attributed the remarkable growth and prosperity this city has had during the past few years, and the citizens of Greensboro have watched his career with exceeding gratification, while he, in turn, has never failed to take a keen interest in all that pertains to its welfare and upbuilding, and he still remains one of the contributing members of its Chamber of Commerce.
After a residence in Greensboro of a few years Mr. Cobb was made manager and buyer of the American Tobacco Company and the Continental Tobacco Company with headquarters in Danville,
8o NORTH CAROLINA
Virginia. From that point he was transferred to the city of Rich- mond, Virginia, and again promoted, and after a residence of a few months at this last named city, was once more promoted and made manager of the leaf department of the American Cigar Company with headquarters in New York City. Since that time he has been advanced from manager of the leaf department to sec- ond vice-president, then to first vice-president, and to-day occupies the position of first vice-president and manager of the selling de- partment of the American Cigar Company, also vice-president and director of the American Stogie Company, first vice-president and director of the International Cigar Machinery Company, director of the Havana Tobacco Company, Havana Commercial Company, Cuban Leaf Company, Havana American Company, and Porto Rican Leaf Tobacco Company.
On the 25th day of January, 1887, Mr. Cobb led to the altar Miss Jennie Bethell Scales, a daughter of Colonel and Mrs. J. I. Scales, of Greensboro, North Carolina, and two children were born of this union, both of whom, since the death of their mother, live with their father, who has never remarried.
Thoroughness in whatever is undertaken is perhaps the most prominent trait of character of the subject of this sketch. No question which engages his attention is ever laid aside by him until he has mastered its minutest detail. At the time he was first ap- pointed manager of the leaf department of the American Cigar Company, although he was recognized as one of the foremost authorities in this country upon American leaf for plug and smok- ing purposes, he was nevertheless to a large extent unacquainted with the merits of cigar tobacco and Havana leaf. To the end that he might be thoroughly cognizant of all the details of the onerous duties imposed upon him by his advancement he studied Havana leaf, not only upon the floors of the dififerent warehouses of the country, but also went direct to the Cuban fields and there remained until he was so familiar with the growth, cultivation and treatment of Havana tobacco that he is to-day the successful manager and director of the largest cigar manufacturing corpo- ration in the world.
HENRY WELLINGTON COBB
8i
Among those things to which he attributes the success he has attained he places, above all, the influence of his mother, and after that, industry and uncompromising honesty, study and extensive reading, and the habit of thinking deeply upon any question which engages him. Asked the question what suggestion from his ex- perience and observation would he offer to young Americans as to principles, methods and habits which he thought would contribute most to attain true success in life, his businesslike reply was : "Be industrious, honest, and absolutely thorough in whatever is under- taken." These principles he has made a part of his life.
Zehulon V. Taylor.
MICHAEL J. CORBETT
HE life of M. J. Corbett is another striking il- lustration of the oft repeated statement that, in this country, the door of opportunity stands ajar and that any man who will may enter therein and achieve abundant success, if only he be a man; one possessing high integrity, en- ergy, industry, prudence and sound sense; that family influence, fortune and friends are not essential to an honorable career, the only essential being character — manhood.
Mr. Corbett was born in Lismore, County Waterford, Ireland, on the 4th day of August, 1856. His parents were of good social position but of limited means, his father, John Corbett, being a small farmer and contractor. He was sent to the National Schools, then, as now, under the charge of the Christian Brothers, until his eighteenth year, when he stopped school for the purpose of assisting his father in the work of the farm; but this soon proved insupportable to the bright lad whose ambition had been stirred by the tales of the success of his countrymen in the great Republic beyond the sea, and receiving encouragement from an uncle, the late Mr. James Corbett, then a resident of Wilmington, he determined to try his fortune in the same fair land.
With the blessings and prayers of his parents, who had reluc- tantly consented, Mr. Corbett left his home and arrived in the city of Wilmington, N. C. on the 28th day of March, 1878, and im- mediately set to work to obtain employment.
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MICHAEL J. CORBETT 83
The fates seemed propitious, and he at once secured a tempor- ary position with the firm of Preston Gumming & Company, sup- plying the place of a clerk on vacation. On the return of the latter he passed into the employ of B. F. Mitchell & Company, at a nominal salary, but so alert and attentive to duty was he that the firm, apprehensive of losing his services, gave him a substan- tial increase of salary. At the end of the year he secured more re- munerative employment with Mr. J. B. Worth, who was just start- ing in the peanut business ; but the venture was not satisfactory, and Mr. Worth decided to move to Petersburg, Virginia, and re- quested young Corbett to go with him ; but the offer was declined, and he went into the service of a well known firm, which, to the astonishment of the community, soon failed, leaving Mr. Corbett again without employment.
This was a great disappointment, but it did not daunt his ardent spirit. He decided to go to New York, and went on the first steamer.
During his connection with B. F. Mitchell & Company and Mr. Worth he had, by diligence, obtained a more competent knowledge of the peanut business, the methods of cultivation, the sources of supply and the best markets, and also some acquaintance with the largest dealers in New York and throughout the country.
Before he left for New York, Mr. W. I. Gore, knowing his thorough reliability, informed him that he had a large supply of peanuts and requested him to take samples and try to sell some of them on commission. His efforts were successful beyond his fondest expectations.
In the meantime he had received several inquiries from Wil- mington as to his return. Having felt the fascination of the life of that goodly city, being drawn by the most potent of earthly at- tractions, and encouraged by his previous success and by numer- ous letters, Mr. Corbett again set sail for Wilmington. He was met at the dock by Albert Gore, son of Mr. W. I. Gore, with a message from his father to make no business engagements until he could have an interview with him.
At that interview, held the next morning, Mr. Gore offered to
84 NORTH CAROLINA
furnish the capital to enable Mr. Corbett to start- in business for himself ; but fearful of debt and apprehensive of the result, Mr. Corbett asked for time to consider the proposition.
Pending its consideration several persons had offered him em- ployment, and he returned to Mr. Gore almost persuaded to de- cline his generous offer. But Mr. Gore, kindly, large hearted, sagacious man that he wtas, saw that the root of success was in this young man and strongly urged the venture. To this kindly in- sistence on the part of Mr. Gore the city of Wilmington is proba- bly indebted for one of its most progressive and useful citizens.
The result of this business venture was thus simply and mod- estly told by Mr. Corbett many years afterwards :
"I started out, rented a store and decided to handle some goods on commission, as the risk of losing money would be less in that than in any other kind of business. As my good friend predicted, the first year's busi- ness showed a profit, and the second year made a still better showing. In the meantime Mr. Gore had taken his son Albert into his business as partner, and at the end of the second year they proposed to combine my business with theirs and form a general partnership, to which I agreed. This partnership continued and prospered until 1888, when Albert Gore withdrew.
"In 1892 Mr. W. I. Gore decided to give up active business and with- drew, Albert taking his place. As I was then the senior partner, the style of the firm was changed from W. I. Gore & Co. to Corbett & Gore. In 1894, on account of failing health Albert Gore was forced to give up active business and withdraw, leaving me sole proprietor of the business. In 1901 I had the business incorporated under the style of 'The Corbett Company.' "
This meagre statement fails to give the impression that, by this time, Mr. Corbett had amassed a considerable fortune and was one of the most potent factors in the industrial life of the community.
In addition to the successful conduct of his regular business Mr. Corbett has been largely instrumental in the promotion, or- ganization and management of many important and flourishing enterprises in the city of Wilmington.
He is vice-president and one of the original directors of the People's Saving Bank, one of the original directors of the Murchi-
MICHAEL J. CORBETT 85
son National Bank, president of the Wilmington, Southport and Little River Company, member of the firm of Stone & Company, and one of the board of managers of the James Walker Memo- rial Hospital.
While not a politician in the ordinary acceptance of the term, Mr. Corbett has always taken a lively interest in public affairs and has always been quick to respond on occasions, such as the splen- did movement for decent government in 1898, to calls upon his purse or person; and his aid and counsel have generally been sought in emergencies and never refused.
He is also prominently identified with the social life of the city, being a member of all the oldest and most exclusive social organi- zations, having been on the board of managers of the Cape Fear Club for many years, a member of the Carolina Yacht Club and of the Cape Fear Golf Club.
In 1884 Mr. Corbett was married to Miss Mary Josephine Deans, and to her inspiration and counsel he has always attributed in large measure the credit for his success in life. Their union has been signally blessed; ten children have been born to them, nine of whom are still living, and although Mr. Corbett, possess- ing much of the social charm for which the sons of Erin are justly noted, is much sought after, he is distinctly a family man, and it is in his home circle surrounded by family and troops of friends that he is seen at his best.
He has paid three visits to his parents and to the scenes of his childhood; one in 1887, again in 1892, and finally in 1903 he took over his oldest two daughters.
Mr. Corbett is a member of the Roman Catholic Church and firm in his adherence to its principles. He takes an active interest in church affairs and without ostentation is very liberal in the support of the church and her charities.
George Rountree.
JOSEPH JOHN COX
fOSEPH JOHN COX was the second child of Jonathan E. and EHzabeth Hare Cox, and was born in Northampton County in I845. His parents were prominent members of the Society of Friends, and in 1859 were employed to take charge of the school at New Garden as super- intendents, which position they filled for many years with great satisfaction to the board of trustees.
In consequence of this event, the education of Mr. Cox was obtained at New Garden Boarding School under the thoughtful religious care of his parents. As a student he was distinguished for diligence in study, sterling integrity of character, great kind- ness, and purity of life. These traits that marked his youth by Christian grace were developed and strengthened from year to year until in business, in church pfifairs, and in family life he was known as a man of wide sympathies, of remarkable strength and symmetry of character, tender-heartedness, and modesty of pretension.
Dr. Cox made good use of the excellent instruction at New Garden School, and became well prepared for the study of medi- cine, which he pursued first in Cincinnati, and later at the Jeffer- son Medical College, in Philadelphia, where he graduated in 1871. As a physician he was successful and greatly beloved, admin- istering to physical suffering in the spirit of thi» Great Healer.
JOSEPH JOHN COX 87
On account of the strain on his bodily strength he gave up, in later years, the practice of medicine, and engaged with energy and great ability in manufacturing enterprises in the city of High Point. In this, as in every other undertaking of his life, he achieved success, and was esteemed as the leading citizen of his city. He served many years as mayor, and was such at the time of his death.
Dr. Cox manifested an enthusiastic interest in public charities and enterprises of all sorts, and cooperated by personal efifort and by donations with Christian philanthropists, and was a lead- ing member of the church to which he belonged, the Society of Friends, in all matters pertaining to its welfare. His ability and interest were recognized by North Carolina Yearly Meeting; and his service for twenty years as a member of the board of trustees of Guilford College was greatly appreciated, he having served for several years as chairman of this body, occupying this position at the time of his death. He had at heart the deepest interest in the growth and usefulness of the college, subscribed to its en-" , dowment, and in every way possible sought to promote its influence for good in North Carolina. Every phase of Christian activity appealed to him, and his sympathy was not circumscribed by any narrow bounds of sect or of country. His interest was world- wide.
At the time of his death, which occurred in his fifty-eighth year. Dr. Cox was superintendent of a Bible school, an elder in the Friends' Church, in which capacity he had served for several years, treasurer of the Foreign Missionary Board of North Caro- lina Yearly Meeting, treasurer of the largest factory in High Point, director of one of the banks, mayor of his city, and chair- man of the board of trustees of Guilford College, in all of which places of trust he was conspicuous for ability and fidelity.
While possessing superior ability, Dr.Cox was a modest man. He did not advertise himself; he did not seek the upper seat in public assemblies. There was no self-display in his nature. He sought the golden mean between extremes, and there found the path of duty and followed it to the end. No man had the con-
88
NORTH CAROLINA
fidence of the people in a higher degree than he. His counsel was sought in business, in the affairs of the church and in the private life of those who needed the advice of a sympathizing friend. From whatever point of view he was beheld, Dr. Cox stood forth as the upright man, conservative, yet progressive, and, although self-depreciative rather than over-confident, possessing that quiet dignity and strength of character which, coupled with his untiring energy, brought to pass great results.
Although rich in men of noble character and great achievements, our State may well take a just pride in the pure and lofty soul that animated Dr. Cox throughout his life ; for an example of self- control, serenity of spirit, and spotless character, such as he ex- hibited, is a rich and noble heritage which deserves to be handed down to posterity, that in it all the sons and daughters of our be- loved State may be permitted to share.
L. L. Hobbs.
o^
JONATHAN ELWOOD COX
' O history of the industrial achievements in North Carohna during the last two decades would be complete without the name of J. Elwood Cox. It is to be noted that, in addition to the many successful enterprises and various movements projected in the industrial circles of this State with which he has been prominently and actively connected, his church and the great cause of education have found in him an ardent and generous supporter. A life which has so impressed itself as to win title to preeminence among those who have wrought so successfully for themselves and their communities in the strenuous life of the past twenty-five years must, of necessity, furnish some lessons worthy of study.
He is of sturdy English lineage. Joseph Cox, who came from England and built a home in the county of Perquimans, was his earliest known ancestor in this State. This godly man was both a teacher and a preacher. He held the faith of the humble Quakers of that day, and was one of the pioneers in the promulgation of its simple tenets in that and the neighboring counties of the tide- water section of North Carolina. He was the great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch.
Another great-grandfather was William Rogerson, who early enlisted in the Revolutionary War, and was a gallant soldier. He was with Arnold in his celebrated and desperate move-
90 NORTH CAROLINA
ment on Canada in 177S, and was wounded in the assault on Quebec.
In the neighboring county of Northampton J. Elwood Cox was bom on the ist day of November, 1856. His father, Jonathan E. Cox, was likewise a teacher and an adherent of the Quaker faith. In 1858 he quit his Northampton farm to accept the position of superintendent of the Quaker school at New Garden, in Guilford County, which he successfully conducted for many years prior to its development and change into Guilford College. He was at the helm and was the main stay of this school in its darkest hours. From 1858 until his death he was a pillar of strength in his church and contributed generously of his time, labor and means to the cause of education throughout the entire State. His was the simple life of the farm, on which he reared and trained his boys under the rigid regulations of farm government. But the school and the church were the field in which were displayed the purity and the strength of his real character and the lofty ideals of his life. In private and in public place he stood for the things that are pure, true, just, honest, lovely and of good report. His char- acter was the embodiment of the virtues of the model citizen. He wore, in the language of Tennyson, "the white flower of a blame- less life." The alumni, students and friends of Guilford College should yet cut and hew from the enduring granite of his native State a monument and place it on the beautiful campus of the college in honor of his good name and sainted memory.
The son, Elwood, was less than two years of age when he was transplanted from Northampton to the Guilford County farm, on which he was reared and trained in the habits of a simple and in- dustrious life. The habits of steady, systematic work and the ro- bust health there acquired were the groundwork of his successful career. The farm was the athletic field on which were developed his physical powers.
During these years he completed the course of study at Guil- ford College (then New Garden), after which he pursued for a year a business course in a business college of Baltimore. While attending the Baltimore college, he felt for the first time the touch
JONATHAN ELWOOD COX 91
and pulse of the outside world and realized the necessity of a better and higher education. After this he spent one year in teaching and study. During the years of 1874-75 he attended Earlham College, at Richmond, Ind., where he completed his collegiate course. In 1876 he entered into the serious battle of life, starting as a travelling salesman for one of the Guilford County nurseries, and by frugal habits and strenuous work soon succeeded in the accumulation of several thousand dollars. On the 23d day of October, 1878, he was married to Miss Bertha E. Snow, the only daughter of Captain William H. Snow, the founder and father of the real High Point, to which place he moved in the year of 1880. The issue of this marriage is one daughter. This union proved to be a most important and fortunate turn- ing-point in his life. It led him into contact with that sterling, aggressive and progressive citizen. Captain Snow, who was the original pioneer in the hardwood industry of North Carolina. His quick eye was not slow in foreseeing the future in this line of manufacturing. Shortly after his removal to High Point Mr. Cox erected a small factory for the manufacture of shuttle blocks and bobbin heads. It was at that time a new industry. Prior to this the farmer of the Piedmont belt had attached no value what- ever to the persimmon, dogwood, the hickory, the oak and other growing timber, and had annually destroyed them by fire in order to put them out of his way. It is no wonder now that his business from the beginning was a success beyond his most sanguine anticipations, and has largely assisted in bringing to High Point the second largest pay-roll in the State. He extended his opera- tions as his business developed and increased, and step by step laid the foundations of the great business which has grown and expanded until it covers, through its branch plants, nearly every State of the South, and until its finished product reaches nearly every country of Europe. This great 4vork of Mr. Cox was so quietly done that it had brought him a fortune before the public had recognized or appreciated the size or significance of this great industry. So firmly has he established his business and so wisely has he extended its operations that he now supplies the demand
92 NORTH CAROLINA
of nearly the entire world for shuttle blocks. This demand long ago exceeded the capacity of his plant at High Point and made necessary the establishment of a number of plants throughout the Southern States. The successful operation of these plants and the handling of their products has not only given Mr. Cox a reputation at home and abroad, but it has brought a large amount of money to his immediate section of the State.
The remarkable success of Mr. Cox in this one great industry has enabled him to be of great service to his community and his State in other fields of activity. Scarcely less important has been his work along other lines. It was in the latter part of the year '88 and in the early part of the year '89 that he, in conjunction with less than half a dozen citizens of his own town, and with a few leading citizens of Randolph, resolved to secure the location and construction of a railroad from High Point to Asheboro. There was no more active spirit in that enterprise than Mr. Cox. The result of that movement was a charter and the creation and or- ganization of the High Point, Randleman, Asheboro & Southern Railway Company, and the construction of that railroad, which was put into operation in July, 1889. Mr. Cox was one of the first directors of that railroad company, and has been a director of the same continuously since its organization. For years he has served as one of the executive committee of this company.
In 1 89 1, when the new life and the constantly expanding busi- ness of High Point demanded greater banking facilities, Mr. Cox was the leading spirit in the organization and establishment of the Commercial National Bank of that place, and in recognition of his public spirit and fine business qualifications the stockholders thereof, at their first meeting, elected him president of the same, which position he has held continuously for fourteen years. Un- der his directing genius the Commercial has grown into one of the safest, strongest and most successful financial institutions of the country.
Mr. Cox was also one of those who originated and kunched the Home Furniture Company — one of the first and most successful furniture plants of his town. He was also a charter shareholder
JONATHAN ELWOOD COX 93
in the creation and organization of the Globe Furniture Company — another large plant established for the manufacture of the higher grades of furniture. The conception of the idea of a consolida- tion of the Home and the Globe into one company — the Globe- Home Furniture Company — making it the largest furniture plant in the South, with a paid-up cash capital of $175,000.00, originated in his fertile brain. He is and has been, since the said consolida- tion, president of this company, and has contributed much to its great success.
Mr. Cox is also a director of the Greensboro Loan and Trust Company, one of the strongest financial institutions of Greensboro, whose deposits now approach the two million mark, and likewise president of the Southern Car Works of High Point, and several other industrial and manufacturing companies in his own and other towns.
This crude sketch conveys but a vague idea of his busy life, and is the merest outline of that part of his life-work with which the public is more or less familiar. Separately and alone he has invested much of his accumulations along lines which are telling in the uplifting and upbuilding of his town. The Elwood Hotel of High Point — one of the handsomest structures, and one of the most attractive and creditable hotels of this State — is a strik- ing proof of his public spirit. A beautiful home and numerous other handsome edifices bear witness to the fact that his money is not idle, and in numberless ways has contributed , to the sub- stantial growth and extension of his home town.
Aside from these monuments which line the way of his strenu- ous business life, his left hand has not known what his right hand has done along more modest lines for the real weal and better- ment of his fellow-men. He is the executive head of the local school board, and has led in all movements having for their object the increase of school facilities and the extension of educational advantages to every child of his town. Outside of his own com- munity his efforts have been equally noteworthy in generous contributions to the great educational awakening in North Caro- lina. As chairman of the board of trustees of Guilford College,
94 NORTH CAROLINA
and as treasurer of the Guilford College Endowment Fund, he has rendered invaluable aid in the financial support of that in- stitution. No man in or out of his church has labored more diligentl}- or more effectively for an ample endowment of his Alma Mater. In the affairs of that institution his wise counsel and generous hand respond to every emergency. In all plans for its enlargement and improvement he invests the same energy of thought and diligent tenacity of purpose that he does in looking for dividends from his own private affairs. It is no secret, or, if it is, it need not longer be, that through his diplomacy and tactful efforts large accessions to the endowment fund have been secured. His colleagues on the board are authority for the statement that he is never too busy to meet any draft which this institution, en- deared by the memories of his boyhood and hallowed by the sacrifices of his sainted father, draws upon his time or his purse.
But the money value of the life of J. Elwood Cox is not its only value. There is another side to this busy life, so prolific in results. It has assets other than the dollars coined through strenu- ous toil. It is paying dividends other than those covered by the semi-annual check. It is floating bonds other than those whose coupons are clipped and counted on the cold deposit slip. Its earliest investment was under the guidance of parental love. Its sheet anchor is that of the church of the father and the mother who were of the salt of the earth. The wayward steps of youth we're shadowed by its tender benedictions. In the devious and unballasted ways of manhood, when lured by the siren haunts of lust and mammon, its pole-star is still the church. The real secret then of the success of Mr. Cox may be found in the simple, frugal habits of his life, moulded and patterned in conformity to the simple tenets of his church, and after the manner of the pure home life of his Christian parents.
It has fallen to the lot of this writer in the rapidly shifting vi- cissitudes of this life to know something of many men of this generation, and among the uncounted number he has never known a cleaner life than that of J. Elwood Cox. During a personal ac- quaintance covering more than a quarter of a century, and ap-
JONATHAN ELWOOD COX 95
proaching intimacy in many things wherein there was no need for veil, there never fell from his lips anywhere or at any time a syllable which could not have been uttered in the presence of his devoted wife. His deeds, too, are as chaste as his language. In thought, in word and in daily walk his life is as pure as that of a woman. It is neither marked nor marred by the taint of to- bacco or the use of any stimulant. This is so rare in the average life of the commercial world, where men grow wild and reckless in the mad pursuit of filthy lucre, that it needs to be told and preserved on record. It is not to be claimed that the life of J. Elwood Cox is perfect, but among the many portraits which adorn the pages of these interesting volumes there is not one which will hold its own longer under the white light of inspection than this imperfect portraiture.
G. S. Bradshaw.
DAVID IRVIN CRAIG
fHE Reverend David Irvin Craig was born in Orange County, North Carolina, February ii, 1849. His ancestors on both sides were of the sturdy Scotch-Irish stock. They emigrated to this country in 1747, after the disastrous battle of Culloden. Landing at Philadelphia, they located and lived for a short time in Pennsylvania, and were under the ministry of the Reverend James Campbell. They left Pennsylvania about the year 1749 and came direct to North Carolina, refusing to stop in Virginia, because, as they said, "We have had enough of Popery and Churches established by law." They first located in the old "Haw Fields," in Orange County, but -finding that the titles to the lands were in dispute, they re- moved to the waters of "New Hope," in Orange County, and permanently located between Hillsboro and Chapel-Hill, about the year 1752; and to this day portions of the lands purchased from the Earl of Granville, under the reign of King George, to- gether with the deeds, are still in the possession of the family. One of their first acts was the erection, about 1760, of a Presby- terian church, which they called "New Hope." This church still lives in a fairly prosperous condition, and the building now oc- cupied is the fourth since 1760.
The first known ancestor of the subject of this sketch was William Craig, who was born in Scotland, but emigrated to
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DAVID IRVIN CRAIG 97
America from Ireland. His wife was the "widow Long," whose maiden name was Margaret Logan. They had four sons and one daughter, all of whom were born in the "Old Country." The names of the sons were John, David, Samuel and James. David was an officer in the Revolutionary War and died in 1785. He has many descendants in Tennessee and in the Western States. His wife and children settled on lands in Maury County, Tennes- see, received as pay for his Revolutionary services. His brother, James Craig, was a private soldier in the Revolutionary War, and was the great-grandfather of Reverend D. I. Craig. This man, James Craig, married Rebecca Beall. They had four sons and four daughters. The name of one of these four sons was David Wilson Craig, who married Isabel Nelson, of the "Haw Fields ;" and these were the parents of James Newton Craig, the father of Reverend D. I. Craig.
Mr. James Newton Craig was a farmer, mechanic and magis- trate, a man of influence in his community, of strong mind and high spirit, methodical in his habits, and of a lofty sense of honor. His wife was Mary Emiline Strayhorn, a daughter of Major Samuel Strayhorn and Mary Moore, and a granddaughter of William Strayhorn, son of Gilbert, who was severely wounded in the battle of the Cowpens. This lady, the mother of Reverend D. I. Craig, is still living at the ripe old age of eighty-two, and her influence upon the intellectual, and especially upon the moral and spiritual, life of her children has been very marked.
In his country home young Craig learned industry and self- dependence by hard manual labor, working on the farm with the slaves during the Civil War. Books were the delight of his leisure moments, the love of learning developing early and inspiring him to overcome the difficulties arising from the disastrous results of the Civil War in the way of securing an education. , In 1867 he entered Hughes' Academy, at Cedar Grove, N. C, and after sev- eral enforced interruptions completed in 1874 a four years' course of study under the careful instruction of the then well-known educator in Middle North Carolina, Samuel W. Hughes.
In 1874-5 he was a student at Davidson College, and in 1878
98 NORTH CAROLINA
graduated from the Theological Seminary of Columbia, S. C. On May 31st of the same year he was licensed to preach the Gospel by Orange Presbytery in Greensboro, N. C.
On July, 6, 1878, he began his ministry at Reidsville, N. C, soon after the death of his lamented predecessor, the Reverend Jacob Doll. The Reidsville Presbyterian Church at that time numbered only thirty-five members, and Bethsaida and Oak Forest Churches were grouped with it in one pastorate. On June i, 1879, Mr. Craig was formally ordained pastor at Reidsville, and for nearly twenty-seven years he has served this church. During this time he has received and declined a number of calls and overtures to other fields of labor. Though greatly bereaved by death and afflicted financially, the church has enjoyed a steady and healthy growth under his long pastorate, there having been added to its roll nearly 400 names, an average of more than fourteen per year.
On September 7, 1881, Mr. Craig was most happily married to Miss Isabel Gertrude Newman, of Columbia, S. C. She was born in the city of Baltimore, Md., and is a daughter of Joseph Newman and Joanna Burke, who being ardent Southerners, re- moved from Baltimore to Columbia at the beginning of the Civil War. Beautiful in person and character, of a sunny spirit and in fullest sympathy with his ministerial work, she has been to him an ideal helpmate. Their home, blessed with four children, is a most happy and hospitable one.
As a preacher and theologian Mr. Craig is well equipped, con- servative, and thoroughly orthodox. He believes with all his heart that the whole Bible is the Word of God, and preaches it with an authority and assurance born of absolute conviction. His sermons are richly instructive and evangelical, well arranged, and clearly expressed. His delivery is earnest and animated, his prayers humble and fervent. His whole bearing in the pulpit is characterized by that persuasive blending of solemnity and ten- derness which marks the true ambassador of Jesus Christ, which we can explain and describe only by that sacred but much abused word, unction. With a cautious and conservative temper, a horror of the sensational, and a deep aversion to controversy, Mr. Craig
DAVID IRVIN CRAIG 99
combines high spirit, warm feeHngs, and strong convictions, which on proper occasions he never hesitates to declare and defend.
His popularity and usefulness have not been confined to one town or congregation. For many years he was the efficient agent of Home Missions in Orange Presbytery, and a member also of the Home Mission Committee of the North Carolina Synod. By the Synod he was elected sixteen years ago one of the original ten Regents of the Synod's Orphans' Home, which office he still holds. In the eminent success of this noble institution Mr. Craig's administrative fidelity and wisdom have been a continuous factor. For ten years he has been the Stated Clerk of Orange Presbytery, and for five years the Stated Clerk of the Synod of North Caro- lina. His industry and courtesy, his mastery of ecclesiastical forms and precedents, his habits of neatness, accuracy and method, combine to make him in both these responsible positions the ideal clerk.
In 1891 he published in pamphlet form a "History of New Hope Church," containing the fruit of much careful research into the early family history of Orange County, and constituting a work which the future historian of the county and the State will prize. A few years later, by request of Orange Presbytery, he prepared, as Chairman of a Revision Committee, an elaborate Manual of Orange Presbytery, embodying a vast amount of information and eliciting the warm commendation of his fellow-Presbyters. On July I, 1902, he delivered as an address before the Biblical and Evangelistic Institute at Davidson College a "Summary of Pres- byterianism in North Carolina." This was published in the Presbyterian Standard of July 9 and 16, 1902, and is a most valu- able historical treatise, clear in arrangement, accurate in detail, and showing, especially in the earlier portions, Mr. Craig's marked taste and aptitude for historical research.
But it is probably as a man and a pastor that Mr. Craig has done his greatest work in the world, a work that in the nature of the case cannot be tabulated. He is such a golden-hearted Chris- tian gentleman, so modest, so true, so brave and brotherly and
loo NORTH CAROLINA
unselfish, so devoted to whatsoever things are honest and lovely and of good report, so consecrated to his Master, that his influence on all around him, though like the sunlight, silent, has yet been like it, powerful, fructifying, blessed. Though a wise and experienced counsellor in the courts of his church, 3'et his highest usefulness even there has been perhaps the unconscious influence upon his brethren of his courtesy and fairness in debate, his nobility and gentleness of spirit, his charity in judging others, his freedom from self-seeking, his loyalty to his convictions of truth and duty.
In the homes of his congregation, and of numberless families of other or no ecclesiastical connections, he has been the faithful pastor, the welcome friend, the loving comforter and guide.
On July 5, 1903, the twenty-fifth anniversary of his pastorate was celebrated in Reidsville. His devoted friend and fellow- Presbyter, the Reverend Egbert W. Smith, D.D., pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Greensboro, N. C, presided and delivered the address. Notwithstanding the chairs that lined the aisles, and were placed in every available spot to add to the seat- ing capacity of the church, numbers had to remain outside unable to enter. Services in other churches were suspended, and nearly all Reidsville turned out, regardless of age, sex, or denomination, to testify its love and admiration. After Dr. Smith had spoken with warmest appreciation of Mr. Craig's character and work, an experience meeting was held, and from ministers and members of his own and other denominations came spontaneous and most loving tributes to his worth. In telling of the good he had done to them strong men faltered and broke down, overcome with emotion. It was a memorable and touching scene, honorable alike to the good people of Reidsville and to their eminent fellow- citizen. For twenty-five years he had borne among them the white flower of a blameless life, and how many homes and hearts its fragrance had sweetened and blessed eternity alone can reveal. If the spirits of the saints in glory are permitted to revisit the scenes and friends of their earthly life, then surely the house that day was bright with the presence of those who had gone up thence, and who from beholding the King in His beauty had re-
DAVID IRVIN CRAIG
lOI
turned to look again upon the face of that beloved pastor, whose ministrations had been their guide in life, their comfort in death, and are to-day their grateful memory in heaven.
Mr. Craig is yet in the mellow prime of life, with possibly his best work yet before him. Long may it be before the Master calls him to that upper realm where instant vision shall be perfect joy and immortal labor shall be immortal rest.
Egbert W. Smith.
BRAXTON CRAVEN
HE life of Braxton Craven is an emphatic denial of the oft-repeated sentiment that North Caro- Hna is not favorable to the growth of self-made men. That this distinguished educator and preacher was a man in the highest sense of the word is a fact recognized by thousands. That he was "self-made" cannot be doubted by any who are acquainted with his life-struggle, which lifted him from the plane of an ob- scure farmer boy, without ancestral prestige and social advantages, to that of a masterful educational and religious leader.
Every man who rises into an enviable prominence must be an apt student in one of two schools. He must study nature in its physical aspects, or study what is called human nature. Hence the farm and the schoolroom are the principal arenas in which the elements of greatness are born and nurtured.
Braxton Craven enjoyed rare and ample opportunities in both schools. As a boy on the farm he came in inspiring contact with nature, and during a life of over threescore years he never lost the thrill of that inspiration with which every inhabitant of God's "out-of-doors" is well acquainted. As a teacher from his seven- teenth year he studied all the suggestive intricacies and problems of human nature, heeding all its warnings and obeying all its sug- gestions.
He was born August 22, 1822, among the bold and picturesque
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hills of Randolph County. It is fortunate that he found himself in his earliest years an inmate of the home of that honest, God- fearing farmer, Nathan Cox, whose type impressed itself strongly on that whole section.
In this home young Braxton played the part of an obedient son, never shirking work, but ever striving to make himself useful. There was one yearly occasion which carried the eager, inquisi- tive boy out of his little circumscribed world, and that was when he went with the wagons to Fayetteville, then one of the most prosperous towns in the State. On one of these trips he came into possession of his first book, an ordinary spelling-book. He found it full of voices calling him onward. An intense mental thirst seized him. To change the figure, it was as if a spark had dropped into the boy's magazine. It is not strange that, shortly after- ward, he became an avid pupil in the neighborhood school. He drank in facts as the flower drinks in the dew. No amount of physical labor during the day could destroy the charm of mental exercise at night in the glow of the lightwood knot. The ele- mentary branches of an English education were to him a Sybarite's feast.
It was not long before the masterful element in the mind- hungry boy asserted itself in the determination to become a teacher. At the age of' sixteen he began to teach a small sub- scription school in the neighborhood. He so thoroughly mas- tered Pike's Arithmetic that he made a manuscript which con- tained the solution of every problem in the book. And he was only a boy of sixteen ! While he taught his pupils the elementary branches he himself was climbing high on the hills of knowledge^ drinking of every fountain. About this time he was converted and became an active and zealous member of the Methodist Epis- copal Church. In 1840 he was licensed to preach. The "boy preacher" became the wonder of the community.
It was not long before he became a pupil in the Quaker school at New Garden. He attended two sessions of nine months each. Here he studied Latin and Greek and Philosophy. He actually memorized the whole of Abercrombie's Philosophy, and wrote
I04 NORTH CAROLINA
out Latin translations and the solutions of problems in higher mathematics. Having completed the course at New Garden, he accepted a position as assistant teacher in Union Institute. This school was taught in a small house near the site of the present college buildings at "Old Trinity." After working as assistant for two years he succeeded Dr. Brantley York as principal.
On September 26, 1844, he was united in marriage to Miss Irene Leach, of Randolph County, and their union proved most happy. There were four children: Emma, James L., William and Kate. All except the last named are dead.
In January, 1851, the institution was rechartered by the Legis- lature and became the Normal College. Its work was the prepara- tion of high-grade teachers. The year before the young principal had stood a thorough examination, and had received his diploma from Randolph Macon College. To show that he deserved this diploma, it is sufficient to state that he got into a dispute with the professor of mathematics over the correct solution of a problem in calculus, and won the victory over the professor. In 1852 he received the degree of A. M. from the University of North Carolina. Later he received the degree of D. D. from Andrew College, Tennessee, and LL. D. from the University of Missouri, the chancellorship of which was offered to him in later years.
When Union Institute became the Normal College, Braxton Craven climbed another round on the ladder of his life's purpose. The ascension gave him sincere pleasure, yet it was then that the iron began to enter his soul. Against the most fearful odds, but with a sublime faith, he had begun to make an institution which should measure up to the requirements of a great State and to the stern, vigorous demands of his own high ideal. Having com- menced such a task, he must pay the price. He must meet in- difference, face prejudice, combat opposition, struggle with pov- erty, and, at the same time, wear that smile which is worn only by the great soul working to the consummation of a grand purpose.
The history of Trinity College is the history of Braxton Craven. His life-blood flows through every vein and artery of the institu-
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tion. It began to flow away back in the days of Union Institute. Trinity is a great college now, the wealthiest and most influential south of the Potomac. Who will say that those currents are not flowing still ? Since that dark November day when Craven ceased from his earthly labors great minds and hearts have emptied their richest resources into the life of the college. Yet, after all, the institution represents the life of its great founder. Through classroom and campus his presence is felt ; over towers and dome his spirit seems to brood ; and in all the endeavors and achieve- ments of the institution bis influence still abides.
The first connection between the college and the North Carolina Conference was efifected in the latter part of 1851, when the Con- ference endorsed the college with the understanding that min- isterial students should be educated free of charge. The institu- tion was still connected with the State. The amended charter of 1853 directed the Literary Board of the State to lend the Trustees $10,000 upon the execution of a suitable bond. In pro- curing securities Craven experienced considerable difficulty, but his determination triumphed, and he had the satisfaction of seeing a handsome brick building erected.
In 1859, by