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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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North Care i: .10 State Library Raleigh
©iograpf)ical ^fetorp of Qortti (Jarolina
From Colonial Times to the Present
Editors
Samuel A. Ashe Stephen B. Weeks Charles L. Van Noppen
VOLUME VIII
Charles L. Van Noppen
PUBLISHER
Greensboro, N. C.
MCMXVII
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C. o?
Copyright, 191 7 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
Chapel Hill
Winston-Salem
. Asheville
. Wilmington
Sparta
Greenville
Raleigh
. Greensboro
Wake Forest
Durham
♦Deceased
6i3^2
^m
Contents ^^^^
Advisory Board v
Contents . vii
Portraits ^ci
Contributors xv
Alspaugh, John Wesley . . .... . . . i
Alston, John . 6
Argo, Thomas Monroe ji
Ashe, Samuel 17
Ashe, John Baptista, 2d . . . . . ". ... 26
Ashe, William Shepperd .30
Ashe, Thomas Samuel . ... . . . . . . 37
Baker, Joseph Henry .0
Baker, Julian Meredith c^
BuRGwiN, John ; ^ eg
Burgwyn Harry King, Jr ^ ^-
BuRGWYN, William Hyslop Sumner . . . ... 73
Butler, Marion : ; gj
Carr^ Elias : ^ Qj
Clement, John, Marshall 98
Clement, Louis Henry 102
Clement^ Hayden . . . ^ ^ jqc
Cone, Moses Herman . . . . . . . . ^ ^ jop
viii CONTENTS
Cone, Ceasar 117
COTTEN, SaLLIE SoUTHALL 122
Davidson, John 132
Davis, James 139
Dixon, Hugh Woody 149
Eller, Adolphus Hill 154
Gaither, Eprhaim Lash 162
Gordon, James Byron 167
Grove, William Barry 173
Hale, Edward Jones 179
Hale, Peter Mallett 185
Hale, Edward Joseph, Jr 19.1
Harnett, Cornelius, Sr 200
Helper, Hinton Rowan 204
Hicks, Thurston Titus 215
Hill, John Sprunt 223
Hines, Lovit 232
Hinton, Mary Hilliard ' . . . 237
Hood, Robert Clarence 244
Horner, James Hunter 253
Horner, Jerome Channing 262
Horner, Junius Moore 2.67
Jackson, Herbert Worth 272
Lane, Ralph 276
Latham, James Edwin 280
Long, Jacob 286
Long, William Samuel 292
Long, Daniel Albright 296
Long, Jacob Alson y^
Long, George Washington 304
Long, Benjamin Franklin 306
CONTENTS ix
Lyon, Zachariah Inge 314
Lyon, George Leonidas 317
McCuLLOH, Henry 322
Merrimon, Augustus Summerfield 334
Miller, Robert Morrison, Jr 342
MiLLis, James Henry 346
MoFFiTT, Elvira Worth . . . 349
Moore, Godwin Cotton 354
Moore, John Wheeler 359
Moore, John Wheeler, Jr 365
Moore, Charles Augustus 369
Moore, Frederick 376
Moore, Roger 380
Overman, Lee Slater 390
Owen, John . 399
Parrish, Edward James 403
Payne, Robert Lee 409
Penn, John 414
Perry, Joseph William 425
Ragan, George Washington 429
Rogers, Sion Hart 435
Sanderlin, George Washington 441
Shearer, John Bunyan 445
Shearer, Lizzie Gessner 456
Shuford, Abel 'Alexander 462
Shuford, George Archibald 467
Simmons, Furnifold McLendell 475
Spencer, Jesse Smitherman 490
Stagg, James Edward 495
Winston, Laura Annie 499
WuLBERN, Mary Love Stringfield 504
Cone, Moses Herman . Frontispiece
Alspaugh, John Wesley . . facing i
Argo, Thomas Monroe ........ " ii
Ashe, William Shepperd " 30
Ashe, Thomas Samuel . . . . . - ; . . " 37
Baker, Joseph Henry " 49
Baker, Julian Meredith . . ..*... " 54
BuRGwiN, John . . . ... . , . ; " 58
BuRGWYN, Harry King Jr. . . ... . . " 6y
BuRGWYN, William Hyslop Sumner .... " 73
Butler, Mai^ion " 81
Carr, Elias " 91
Clement, John Marshall " 98
Clement, Louis Henry ........ " 102
Clement, Hayden " 105
Cone, Ceasar . " 117
COTTEN, SaLLIE SoUTHALL ......; " 122
Dixon; Hugh Woody ..." 149
Eller, Adolphus Hill " 154
Gaither, Ephraim Lash " 162
Gordon, James Byron " 167
Hale, Edward Jones . . . " 179
Hale, Peter Mallett " 185
Xll
PORTRAITS
Hale, Edward Joseph Jr
Hicks, Thurston Titus . . . .
Hill, John Sprunt
HiNES, Lovit
HiNTON, Mary Hilliard . . . . Hood, Robert Clarence . . . Horner, James Hunter . . . . Horner, Jerome Channing . Horner, Junius Moore . . . . Jackson, Herbert Worth . . Latham, James Edwin . . . .
Long, Jacob
Long, William Samuel . . . .
Long, Jacob Alson
Long, Benjamin Franklin . Lyon, Zachariah Inge . . . . Lyon, George Leonidas . . . . Merrimon, Augustus Summerfield Miller, Robert Morrison Jr. .
MiLLis, James Henry
MoFFiTT, Elvira Worth . . . . Moore, Godwin Cotton . . . . Moore, John Wheeler . . . . Moore, John Wheeler, Jr. . Moore, Charles Augustus .
Moore, Frederick
Moore, Roger
Overman, Lee Slater
Parrish, Edward James . . . .
Payne, Robert Lee
Perry, Joseph William . . . .
PORTRAITS
Xlll
Ragan, George Washington .
Rogers, Sion Hart
Sanderlin, George Washington Shearer, John Bunyan . Shearer, Lizzie Gessner . Shuford, Abel Alexander . Shuford, George Archibald . Simmons, Furnifold McLendell Spencer, Jesse Smitherman . Stagg, James Edward .... Winston, Laura Annie . Wulbern, Mary Love Stringfield
429
435 441
445 456
463 468 476 491 496 500
505
Samuel A. Ashe, LL.D. Kemp P. Battle, LL.D. G. Samuel Bradshaw Eugene C. Branson, A.M. Eugene C. Brooks, A.B. William Hyslop Sumner
Burgwyn, A.B. Walter Clark, LL.D. Plato Collins Henry G. Connor, LL. D. Robert D. W. Connor Locke Craig, LL.D. Stuart W. Cramer Eula L. Dixon Robert D. Douglas J. J. Farriss William Preston Few, Ph.D.,
LL.D. O. Max Gardner Robert T. Gray Olivia B. Grimes Rev. D. L. Harden
Marshall DeLancey Hay- wood
Thurston Titus Hicks
Thomas Hume, D.D.,LL.D.
James Y. Joyner, LL.D.
Theodore F. Kluttz
James B. Lloyd
A. W. McAlister
Mrs. W. S. Manning
Julius C. Martin
Paul B. Means
Iredell Meares
Arch. D. Monteath
Rev. E. C. Murray
James A. Myrover
Frank Nash
John U. Newman, Ph.D., D.D.
George P. Pell
L. J. Picot, M.D.
James A. Robinson
Jethro Rumple, D.D.
John B. Shearer, D.D.,LL.D.
W. W. Staley, D.D.
Charles W. Tillett
Stephen B. Weeks, Ph.D.,LL.D.
Mrs. Ellen Hale Wilson
Peter M. Wilson
William A. Withers, A.M.
George T. Winston, LL.D.
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JOHN WESLEY ALSPAUGH
,OHN WESLEY ALSPAUGH, formerly one of the leading business men of Winston, N. C, was born in Forsyth County, N. C, on July 22, 1831. He was of German descent. His grand- father, Henry Alspaugh, came to North Caro- lina from Germany about the time of the Revo- lutionary War. He settled among the Moravians at Salem, and was a soldier in the War of 1812.
Henry's son, the Rev. John Alspaugh, born in 1804, was ad- mitted to the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church when about twenty years of age, and continued in the active service of that church until, upon attaining the age of seventy-six, he re- tired from his regular charge. He was a gifted and eloquent preacher and enjoyed the love and reverence of the people. His walk in life, no less than his Christian ministrations, aided much in strengthening the Methodist Church in Forsyth County, which was the field of his labor. When twenty-one years of age he married Elizabeth Lashmit, a daughter of Elias Lashmit, who had served during the Revolution as a soldier in the Continental Army, and was severely wounded at the battle of Guilford Court House. With such a lineage, an intrepid spirit naturally pervaded the household of John Alspaugh, and all were fervid Southerners in the great war. Two of his sons, James and Albert, gave their lives to the Confederate cause, Albert being killed in a charge at
NORTH CAROLINA
the head of his company in the battle of Gettysburg. The family was large, and although Mr. Alspaugh was a man of sound judg- ment and great energy and, in addition to his numerous labors, industriously cultivated the farm on which he lived, having ten children he was unable to give them more than a rudimentary education, there being no public schools at that early date in his vicinity.
The subject of this sketch, whose early life was passed in the country, where he did all the necessary work of a boy on a farm, grew up healthy and strong, and, while industrious, was fond of athletic games and sports, especially hunting and fishing. He had a bright, strong mind, and feeling the disadvantages of his want of education, to remedy his deficiency in that respect, after be- coming of age, entered Trinity College, graduating with distinc- tion at that institution in 1855, receiving the degree of A.B., and later also the degree of A.M. While there he profited greatly by the morning lectures of Dr. Craven, who had such a potent in- fluence on the lives of the young men enjoying the privilege of being taught by him.
After leaving college, Mr. Alspaugh studied law in the office of Judge Dick at Greensboro. Having obtained his license in 1857, he opened an office at Winston. But his need for ready money was pressing; and hardly had he entered on his practice before he was led to seek employment in the office of the Western Sentinel, a Democratic paper that had been established at Wins- ton. This occupation being agreeable to him and well suited to his active mind and intellectual gifts, he soon became the sole editor and proprietor of that periodical. He was admirably qual- ified for this literary work. Bold, yet conservative and just in the conduct of his paper, he soon attained distinction as an editor. The Sentinel under his management became a strong influence in that section of North Carolina. He continued the publication of the Sentinel during the war, ably maintaining the cause of the South and of the Confederacy. Prominent as an editor and much esteemed by the members of his party, he became chief clerk of the senate of North Carolina in 1858, and his personal charac-
JOHN WESLEY ALSPAUGH
teristics, accuracy and courteous demeanor, established him in the confidence and respect of the public men. Notwithstanding po- litical changes made during the war, he was constantly re-elected, and he kept the legislative records of the senate until the State government was overthrown in 1865. Indeed, he was so highly esteemed, during" these important years as an editor and strong, careful writer, that he was before long offered employment as editor of the Charlotte Democrat, a leading paper in the State, bu^ he preferred to remain among the people of his town, and declined these offers. During the Reconstruction era the Sen- tinel was faithful to the interests and welfare of the people, but in 1872 Mr. Alspaugh retired from his post as editor and practised law until 1877, confining his practice exclusively to civil causes. His high character and well-known integrity brought him the very best class of clients, and his attention to business and faithfulness to the interests committed to his charge soon resulted in a lucrative practice. His reading had been largely the biographies of great men, and these had inspired him to con- ceive high ideals and to endeavor faithfully to carry them into execution. Interested in whatever concerned his community and was identified with its prosperity, he became known for his pub- lic spirit and was accorded in public estimation the position of a leading man in his community. As such, many of those who had amassed means in the general prosperity of his section, having confidence in his judgment and integrity, made their investments through him; and conceiving that the necessities of that section needed more financial facilities, he determined to withdraw from the practice of law and to establish a national bank at Winston. So, in 1876, he promoted the organization of the First National Bank and became its cashier, the capital stock being originally $100,000. He continued as cashier for sixteen years, managing the bank's affairs with success. Later he became its president. It was with pleasure that he availed himself of his opportunities to aid in the establishment of many of the manufacturing enter- prises which have enriched and developed the little village of Winston into a prosperous city.
NORTH CAROLINA
He was of great service especially to the young men of his community. He was always a leader in every enterprise that tended to the advancement or improvement of Winston, and was instrumental in securing the construction of all the railroads that now afford adequate transportation facilities for the growing traffic of that city. But he did not confine himself to aiding en- terprises which relate only to the material progress of the town. He was a liberal contributor to the erection of schoolhouses and churches in the community, and was one of the originators of the Winston graded school ; also of the city water-works and of the electric light system. Indeed, he devoted himself largely to in- augurating those progressive measures which have so marked the onward course of the city. A devoted Methodist, an alumnus of Trinity and greatly attached to his alma mater, he was always interested in the fortunes of that institution, and when the col- lege was in financial straits, and almost all others had abandoned it because of the indebtedness which it seemed impossible to re- move, he gave his energy and skill to the management of its dif- ficult affairs, and by liberal contributions helped tide over its em- barrassments. To him more than any other man is to be at- tributed the credit of maintaining the college in existence until it was reorganized and endowed through the liberality of the patriotic coterie of wealthy gentlemen residing at Durham, whither the college was removed. Mr. Alspaugh was a member of the class of 1855, ^^^ at the time of his death was the earliest living graduate. He became a trustee in 1869, and served con- tinuously until his death. He was president of the Board of Trustees from 1880 to 1897. One of the dormitories on the Trinity campus is called the Alspaugh Building, in honor of his name, and as a tribute to the notable service he rendered the in- stitution in its darkest hours.
Notwithstanding Mr. Alspaugh's success in life, and he was unusually successful as an editor, as a lawyer and as a banker, he was never an aspirant for public position, nor did he seek politi- cal preferment. He did, however, serve as mayor of the town, and as commissioner, with the object of promoting its advance-
JOHN WESLEY ALSPAUGH
ment. Always identified with the Democratic party, he took a great interest in political matters, especially as he considered that the welfare of the country depended on the supremacy of his party. He was a Mason, and had most of the degrees of that order, having occupied all the stations in his local lodge. His religious affiliations were with the Methodist Church, and he was a liberal contributor to all the good works of the denomination.
His chief ambition, outside of leading such a life as would meet the approval of his own conscience and attract the esteem and confidence of those with whom he was associated, was to secure the establishment of Trinity College upon a firm basis and to build up and establish the city of Winston as the market for all of the western section of the State, of which it is the natural center. In these regards his career was eminently successful.
Mr. Alspaugh died in Winston, N. C, November 4, 1912. He was twice married : first to Olivia G. Stedman, and again, in 1872, to Celeste Tucker, daughter of Thomas Tucker of Iredell County,, and to them were born three children, two of whom survive: Celeste, now the wife of Mr, T. N. Page, and John Wesley Alspaugh, Jr.
S. A. Ashe.
JOHN ALSTON
lORTH CAROLINA has ever been democratic in the extreme. It is a place where aristocracy and special privilege have never flourished. As a result comparatively few "old families" have attained and held an unusual place through sev- %, eral generations. This has been true from the earliest colonial days and was due no doubt to the policy of the Proprietors of making few large grants of land and so encourag- ing the immigration of commoners who would take up small holdings and improve them by intensive cultivation. The result was that poor men came into the province, secured the controlling power, retained it, and have to a large extent thus prevented the growth of that landed aristocracy which so flourished in Virginia and South Carolina.
Among the few families who have come down from the seven- teenth century none have played perhaps a more significant part in North Carolina than the Alstons. For two hundred years they have been inseparably connected with its history.
The history of this family has been traced with great labor by Dr. Joseph A. Groves of Alabama from the time of their first coming to America to the present and through many and widely scattered branches in his book, "The Alstons and Allstons of North Carolina and South CaroHna" (Atlanta, Ga., 1901). Un- fortunately the book is not in the best genealogical form but is
JOHN ALSTON
withal a work representing immense labor and it brings together a vast mass of scattered and otherwise inaccessible facts.
According to this account the family of Alston is a very ancient one of Saxon origin, as its name indicates, for it means ''most noble" or "most excellent." Their seat was for many years at Saxham Hall, Newton, County Suffolk, and from this as a center they spread into other counties. From about 1564 the genealogy becomes clearer. William Alston, of Newton, County Suffolk, made a will February i, 1564, and was the father of Edward of Saxham Hall, Newton, who was the father of William of Saxham Hall ( 1 537-161 7), father of Thomas of Gedding Hall in Polstead, County Suffolk (i 564-1619), who was father of Thomas (d. 1678), who was knighted, and on June 13, 1642, created a baronet as Sir Thomas Alston of Odell in Bedfordshire. His brother, the fourth son of Thomas of Gedding Hall, was John Alston of the Inner Temple and of Parvenham, County Bedford (1610-87). This John Alston married Dorothy Temple, daugh- ter of Sir John Temple, who traced his line back through the Lady Godiva (of Coventry fame) to Alfred the Great. This John Alston had a son, Wilham Alston of Strixton, who married Thomasine Brooke and was believed by Dr. Groves to have been father of the John Alston, later Allston, who settled in South Carolina. The fourth child of John Alston (1610-87) was also named John (d. 1704). He married Anne Wallis, who is believed to have been the daughter of John Wallis (1616-1703), theolo- gian, scholar, mathematician, Savilian professor of geometry in the University of Oxford and one of the earliest members of the Royal Society. Their oldest son, John, was baptized at Felmer- sham, County Bedford, December 5, 1673, and is beHeved to be the same as the North Carolina immigrant.
Dr. Groves believes that these two cousins, both named John, came to Carolina with Governor Archdale in 1694-95 ; that they disagreed and that the elder John moved on to South Carolina, where he added an extra "1" to his name and became the ancestor of all the Allstons of South Carolina, including Governor R. F. W. Allston, Colonel Joseph Alston, who married Theodosia Burr and
8 NORTH CAROLINA
was governor in 1812-14, Washington Allston and others. Such is Dr. Groves's account, but Mr. A. S. Salley, Jr., has recently proved beyond question that the John Alston who founded the South Carolina family was the son of William Alston of Ham- mersmith, Middlesex (a part of London) ; that he came to South Carolina as early as 1682 as an apprentice; that he spelled his name "Alston," and that his connection with the North Carolina family is unknown.
Dr. Groves's conjecture as to the origin of the South CaroHna family then falls to the ground. His account of the Enghsh an- cestry of the John Alston who founded the North Carolina family as given above is presented here because his work is the standard authority on the subject and has not yet been proved erroneous. But the reader is cautioned that little is known with absolute cer- tainty of the history of this John Alston till he appears in the North Carolina public records. It is believed that during the early period of his residence in North Carolina he was closely connected with the Quakers, although there is no evidence that he was a member of the Society. He seems to have lived at first in Pasquotank and to have married there. The first mention we have of him in the public records is when he was given a grant of 270 acres of land on the northwest side of Bennett's Creek in 171 1. This was then Chowan, now Gates, and it is possible that his land was about where Gatesville now stands. In 171 3 he began to enter lands in the names of his sons. In 1724 we find his son, Joseph John Alston, reporting that a tract of 200 acres entered by his father and lying on Bennett's creek, on the north side of the bridge, had not been "saved as the law directs" and praying a lapse patent for the same, which was granted. In 1725 John Alston received a lapse patent for 450 acres lying in Chowan precinct. In 1732 he reports for payment of quit rents 1,431 acres lying in Bertie and 688 acres in Chowan; in 1 741 he received a grant for 200 acres in Edgecombe.
From Pasquotank he moved to Chowan, and here the greater part of his life was spent ; his earhest appearance in a public capacity seems to have been as a juror at a court held at the
JOHN ALSTON 9
house of Henry King, April 20, 171 5. He was a grand juror of the oyer and terminer courts in 1721, 1722, 1724 and a juror again in 1740. In 1724 he was a justice of the peace for Chowan, and again in 1739. He became assistant or associate justice of the general court of oyer and terminer and goal delivery, the supreme court of the colony, on October 24, 1724, when the Council ordered "that a commission issue directed to Thomas Pollock, chief justice; Cullen Pollock, William Downing, of the South Shore of Chowan ; Isaac Hill, John Allston and Robert Lloyd, Esqs." He went upon the Bench three days later, and this position he continued to fill by reappointment from 1724 to 1729.
In December, 1746, he was sheriff of Chowan County. This was during the period when the older counties were struggling to retain their right to send five members each to the Assembly, and Alston as sheriff" required the people of the county to give security to indemnify him against any damages that might occur to him for returning five members.
He was called captain until 1725; then major till 1729, and later colonel. In 1725 he was appointed revenue collector of the King. On April 3, 1738, he was elected a vestryman of St. Paul's Parish, Chowan, and served till 1747 or later. His will is dated February 20, 1755, and was probated December 2, 1758. The will mentions twenty-five negroes by name, but the amount of his lands is not given ; his yotingest son, James Alston, was made his sole executor.
The w^ife of John Alston was Mary Clark. If not a Quaker herself, she had Quaker associates and connections. They had five sons and five daughters :
I. Joseph John Alston (1702-80), who lived in Halifax, a justice of the peace, a member of the Assembly in 1744-46, and a planter who left an estate of 100,000 acres and 150 negroes. He was twice married and left a large family. One of his sons was that Colonel Philip Alston who lived in Moore and Chatham counties and had lively experience during the war of the Revo- lution with David Fanning, the Tory; a grandson was Willis
lo NORTH CAROLINA
Alston, member of Congress 1803-15, 1825-31 and chairman of the Ways and Means Committee in 1812.
2. Solomon Alston, of Warren, died 1785, married Ann Hinton. A part of this family removed to Mississippi before the close of the Revolution ; others went to South Carolina and Alabama ; a grandson of Solomon, Lemuel J. Alston, was in Congress from South Carolina, 1807-11.
3. William Alston, of Halifax, married Ann Kimbrough.
4. Philip Alston married Winifred Whitmel, of Bertie.
5. James Alston, of Craven, later settled on Ellerbee's Creek in Orange, married Christian Lillington. His youngest daughter married William Cain and became the ancestress of the Cains of Orange and Durham.
Mary Alston married Samuel Williams.
Sarah Alston married Thomas Kearney.
Charity Alston married John Dawson.
The other daughters married, but died without issue.
The family now has many representatives in Halifax, Warren, Wake, Durham, Orange and other counties, and has broadened out , and covered the South, with many representatives in the North and West. It has had marked characteristics. In personal appearance they have been tall, erect, muscular, with florid com- plexion, blue eyes and brown or flaxen hair. They have been wealthy, but not mere sordid money-getters and have not often sought public honors. They have tended rather to reproduce their English life as wealthy country gentlemen. They have been strong in their attachments, unyielding in their antagonisms, and more than one member of the family has ''died with his boots on"; but they have been ever ready to aid a friend, defend the innocent, befriend the weak or fight against injustice, wrong and oppression.
Stephen B. Weeks.
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THOMAS MONROE ARGO
[HOMAS MONROE ARGO, eldest of seven children, and son of William Hammond Argo and Julia Cain, was born at McMinnville, Tenn., on April 30, 1844. His family was originally from North Carolina, and his father was of French Huguenot extraction. The sub- ject of this sketch received his early education in the schools of McMinnville, Tenn., and entered the University of North Caro- lina in i860, and was graduated in the class of 1863 as first honor man. Immediately upon graduation from the University, he entered the Confederate army, enhsting in the First North Caro- lina Heavy Artillery, and was commissioned second lieutenant of Company 10 by Governor Vance. Among others, he took part in the campaign for the defense of Fort Fisher, where he was sHghtly wounded and captured. He was confined a prisoner of war at Governor's Island, N. Y., until the latter part of March, 1865, and though paroled, was not exchanged until the close of hostilities. He returned to Chapel Hill, and began the study of law in 1865 and 1866, under the Hon. WiUiam H. Battle, a for- mer judge of the Supreme Court of North Carolina, and then professor of law in the University. He received the degree of Bachelor of Laws, and was admitted to the Bar in 1867. He began the active practice of his profession at Chapel Hill. In
12 NORTH CAROLINA
1868 he was elected a member of the Legislature from Orange County, and served during the sessions of 1869. This Legis- lature was noteworthy as the first under the new constitution, and the one which passed the constitutional amendment.
In speaking of this Legislature, and the part taken in it by Mr. Argo, Mr. M. DeLancey Haywood, who has consulted the orig- inal records of the various sessions, remarks: *'Mr. Argo bore a very creditable part in its proceedings, always voting with the Conservatives." Mr. Haywood further adds more specifically:
"The General Assembly of North Carolina met on July i, 1868, when the most widespread chaos of the Reconstruction period reigned in the State, and Mr. Argo appeared in that body as a member of the house of repre- sentatives from Orange County. Throughout the whole of this session he was in active affiliation with the Conservative party (as it was then called), which was opposed by the dominant Republicans of that day. The first con- test of this session was for the office of speaker of the house, between Plato Durham, Conservative, and Joseph W. Holden, Republican. Mr. Argo voted for Mr. Durham, but the Republican candidate was victorious. Of the resolution requesting Congress to remove the disabilities of all persons who had sided with the late Confederacy he was an active sup- porter. He opposed the proposition for unlimited suffrage. Upon the occasion of the ejectment of a reporter of Josiah Turner's paper, the Sentinel, from the floor of the house by order of the speaker, Mr. Argo joined in 'a solemn protest against this tyrannical infringement, by the dominant party, on the liberties of the press, thus preventing the people of the country from obtaining true information of what is done in the General Assembl3^' On demand of its signers, this protest was spread on the journal of the house. In the contest for the United States Senate, for the term ending in 1873, between John Pool, Republi- can, and ex-Governor William A. Graham, Conservative, Mr. Argo voted for Graham, though Pool was elected; and, in the senatorial contest for the term ending in 1871, Mr. Argo voted with the minority for ex-Judge Matthias E. Manly, Conservative, against Joseph C. Abbott, Republican, When a resolution was introduced in the house empowering the governor to request General Grant to send two regiments of United States troops to North Carolina 'as a present safeguard to the peace of the State.' Mr. Argo voted to table the resolution. He was one of the leaders of the opposition to the bill authorizing the raising by the governor of a 'Special Militia,' and fought this measure at every stage, Alore than once in the progress of this contest, when his party was outvoted, he changed his vote in order to be able, under parliamentary rules, to move a recon-
THOMAS MONROE ARGO 13
sideration. Despite the opposition of Mr. Argo and other Conservatives, this bill was enacted into a law, and the State troops raised under its provisions became the infamous 'Kirk's Militia' of Reconstruction times."
Mr. Argo was also a prorainent character in the fight to drive the carpetbaggers from the State. In 1872 he removed to Raleigh and engaged in the practice of law in the capital city. This change of residence took place after the death of his first wife, whom he had married in 1864. She was Mattie Henshaw Hub- bard, daughter of the Rev. Fordyce Mitchell Hubbard, D.D., and Margaret Henshaw Bates. Dr. Hubbard was for many years professor of the Latin language and literature in the University of North CaroHna, and it was during his college days that Mr. Argo first met Miss Hubbard.
In 1876, Mr. Argo married again, his second wife being the daughter of the Hon. Henry W. Miller and Frances Devereux Miller, and widow of Captain George D. Baker. Quietly prac- tising his chosen profession during these comparatively unevent- ful years, there is little to record of interest in the life of Mr. Argo. However, in 1884, he was prominent in the formation of the State Bar Association, and served as secretary of the organi- zation for some time.
In 1886, he was elected solicitor of the fourth judicial district, known as the metropolitan district of the State, and filled the office vmtil 1891. Running as an independent candidate against the regular Democratic nominee, he was nevertheless elected by a substantial majority. His fulfillment of the duties of his of- fice was praiseworthy.
During his term he handled many important cases, notably that of Cross and White, the officials of the State National Bank of Raleigh, who, having wrecked the institution, fled to Canada. In connection with this case, he engaged in a controversy with the late Hon. Fabius H. Busbee, as to the legality of an agree- ment which the latter, acting as the representative of the gov- ernor of the State, had entered into with Cross and White, in regard to the offenses for which they were to be tried upon their return to North Carolina. The position taken by Mr. Argo was
14 NORTH CAROLINA
approved by many of the papers of the State, notably the Char- lotte Chronicle and the Goldshoro Daily Argus. The letters written in this controversy signally illustrated Mr. Argo's ability to single out the fundamental legal issue involved in a question, and to set it forth by a calm, judicial exposition of the law.
For many years he was connected with much of the impor- tant litigation in the courts of Wake and the adjacent counties, and frequently as leading counsel. He also practised in many other counties of the State. Notable among his cases were Sam- uel Coley vs. Southern Railway, the Winston registration cases, the Haywood case, and that of Gattis vs. Kilgo.
Mr. Argo served as a member of the board of directors and on the executive committee of the Insane Asylum. He was also a member of the Masonic fraternity. While not engaging act- ively in pohtical life, preferring the more quiet life of a studious lawyer, Mr. Argo had decided political convictions and was for many years a conservative Republican in national politics. In State and local issues he was an independent. His political af- filiation, as may be imagined, circumscribed his career to some extent, at least, in a community so largely Democratic, and char- acterized in former years more conspicuously than in the present by political intolerance.
Having lost his second wife by death in 1886, Mr. Argo was married again in 1893, his third wife being Miss Ernestine Spears, daughter of LeRoy D. Spears and Arrenda Clifton Spears.
In 1897, Mr. Argo was highly recommended to President McKinley for appointment to the Federal judgeship of the East- ern District of North Carolina, made vacant by the death of Judge A. S. Seymour. The list of persons supporting his candi- dacy is noteworthy, because it shows that the movement em- braced Democratic as well as Republican lawyers, among whom Mr. Argo was held in high esteem.
It had been Mr. Argo's ambition for many years to excel sim- ply as a lawyer and an advocate, and to this end he became a profound student of the law, not only in its technical aspects.
I
I
THOMAS MONROE ARGO 15
but in its philosophical bearings, seeking to master fundamental principles rather than specific applications; and also a close and appreciative student of the great masters of forensic eloquence, notably of Cicero, in whom he found a loved model and guide. That he had succeeded measurably in attaining his ambition the estimate of his confreres attest.
In 1900, Mr. Argo departed from his usual custom of non- activity in poHtical matters, and both spoke and wrote in favor of the proposed constitutional amendment, which was intended to emancipate the State from the bondage of an ignorant and vicious electorate. His article, appearing in the Raleigh Morn- ing Post of July 24, and setting forth his views as to the neces- sity, constitutionality, and effect of such an amendment, fur- nished an example of his usual clear thinking and forceful pres- entation of fact and argument.
If one considers more intimate traits and characteristics, cer- tain salient features of Mr. Argo's personality at once impress us. He was a markedly domestic man in his tastes, loving his hom,e above all places, and happier there with his family, his dogs, his books and his pipe, than anywhere else ; not averse to social life, indeed, but caring little for it, and infinitely bored by the frivolity of "society" so called. His intellectual tastes were refined and cultivated. He was, for instance, a great reader of the Bible, noting and emphasizing always the spirit of the law, and indifferent to its mere letter. His knowledge of the sacred book was patent both from his conversation and from his effective use of it in many speeches and addresses. He was also exceedingly fond of Shakespeare, while the very human touch of Robert Burns appealed to him strongly. He was ex- ceptionally kind-hearted, especially toward the poor and the un- fortunate, and toward animals. He was an ardent lover of nature, of the woods and fields, and a student of birds and flowers. While fond of hunting, he was a discriminating sports- man, and the Audubon Association found him an interested mem- ber. A conspicuous feature of his character was his intense dis- like of the false and pretentious, while notably considerate toward
1 6 NORTH CAROLINA
the lowly. He had a large number of genuine friends among colored people. It can be truthfully said that Mr. Argo was a forceful and able man, and the possessor of an estimable, attrac- tive, and in many respects noble personality.
During 1908, it became apparent to Mr. Argo's friends that his health was failing, and he died on January 14, 1909.
The Nezvs and Observer, in an editorial on January 15, said of Mr. Argo :
"Mr. Thomas M. Argo. of the Raleigh Bar, who died yesterday, was easil3^ one of the most effective men before a jury this generation has known. He was built on the Websterian plan. He was brilliant and original to a degree that made him easily the foremost man as an advo- cate at the Raleigh Bar. He had the largest natural gifts, and in a great city would have shone w^ith men like Bourke Cockran and John R. Fellows. He had the bearing, the mien, the voice of a masterful orator. His diction was of the books and classic, with the range to address him- self to convincing the ignorant as well as the learned. He charmed men by an indescribable sort of power in his arguments to a jury, and won many verdicts by his ability at summing up and his mastery of logical statement, as well as the eloquence of his appeal.
"Colonel Argo died in full practice, as the leader of the advocates at the Bar. For years he had been counsel in nearly every criminal case, and had a large civil practice. The story of important litigation in Wake superior court in jury cases is largely a story of Mr. Argo's practice. He loved an oratorical and intellectual contest. Flis home was in the court room in a hard-fought case, and there he Avas like a lion. He gave and received hard blows, and gloried in the conflicts. He loved his profession, in which he was a leader, and he loved his brethren, by whom he was highly esteemed. A bright light has gone out. A man of brilliant mind and many virtues and noble qualities. Colonel Argo will be remembered with the most eloquent men who have for a century given the Raleigh Bar a high place in the State."
^. A. Ashe.
SAMUEL ASHE
AMUEL ASHE, judge and governor, was the younger brother of General John Ashe, who as speaker of the Assembly was the leader in the Stamp Act troubles of 1765-66. He was born in 1725, while his father, John Baptista Ashe, represented Beaufort Precinct in the Assembly, of which he was the speaker, and at the same time was receiver of the powder money at Bath. About that time his father re- moved with his family connections and settled on the Cape Fear. Early bereft of his parents, for his father died in 1734 and his mother still earlier, the subject of this sketch was reared by his uncle and guardian, Sam Swann, who had succeeded to the mantle of his uncle, Edward Moseley, as the head of the Popular party, and for a cjuarter of a century as speaker of the Assembly was the most trusted representative of the people.
Old Governor Dobbs represented to the Crown that Republican principles were more rife in North Carolina than in any other colony, and the headquarters of the leaders holding those prin- ciples were at Rocky Point among the members of this connec- tion. It was in such an atmosphere that Sam Ashe grew to manhood, in the midst of kinsmen who had steadily year by year opposed the prerogatives of the Crown and maintained the liberties of the people. His elder brother, gifted with marvelous oratory and inheriting an ample fortune, had chosen a public
North CaroHna State Library Raleigh
i8 NORTH CAROLINA
career, so the younger brother, after finishing his education at the North, studied law, and before the Revolution became assistant attorney for the Crown in the Wilmington district. He was a man of large frame, strong physically as well as intellec- tually ; he was self-reliant, independent in his views and sturdy in maintaining them and he became eminent in public consideration. When the royal Governor Martin was a fugitive and his powers had been invested by the revolutionists in the Council of Safety of thirteen members, he, in reporting the matter to the King, wrote disparagingly of all the others, but said that Mr. Samuel Ashe and Mr. Samuel Johnston had the reputation of being men of integrity. In a communication to the Legislature in 1779, when he was presiding judge of the Supreme Court, Judge Ashe mentioned incidentally :
"In the earliest period of our dispute with Great Britain I arose among the first in defense of our common rights. No lucrative expectations nor hope of exalted honor under our present government could then have influenced me, nor did any particular resentment at, or disappoint- ment from, the former government actuate me. On the contrary, I had well-grounded expectations of holding under it an office similar to my present, had that government continued and courts been established."
He added that
"the feelings of a free man, for himself and for his country, ready to be enslaved, warmed me into resentment, impelled me into resistance, and determined me to forego my expectations and to risk all things rather than submit to the detested tyranny."
Thus in a spirit of lofty patriotism "he arose among the first" and broke ground in favor of popular resistance.
In the summer of 1774 the revolutionists wished the Legisla- ture to meet, but the governor would not convene that body. In that exigency some of the inhabitants of the Cape Fear met at Wilmington, July 21, and appointed a committee of eight, Sam Ashe being one of them, to prepare an address to the people, calling on each county to elect delegates to meet at Johnston Court House on August 20. This was the origin of the first Revolutionary convention held in North Carolina. In the sue-
SAMUEL ASHE 19
ceeding January the inhabitants of New Hanover organized a Committee of Safety, and Sam Ashe was chosen one of the members. He was now the soul of activity, not only at home but in other counties, explaining to the people the grounds of the movement, allaying apprehensions, strengthening the wavering, persuading the doubtful and urging on the Revolution to a suc- cessful issue. He was indeed a leading force in putting the ball in motion. Becoming a member of the Provincial Congress in 1775, he was a chief factor in its business. He was on all impor- tant committees and largely directed its work. One of the Coun- cil of Safety of thirteen, in 1776 he became its president. While his brother was in command of the military forces of the State, hedging in the British on the lower Cape Fear, he as president of the Council was giving direction to State affairs and, at the meeting of the Council at Wake Court House, in August, 1776, he organized the expedition, under General Rutherford, against the Indians across the mountains. In the congresses he took a leading part, being the most esteemed member of the legal pro- fession in full accord with the democratic element. Thus he was designated as one of "the commissioners to prepare bills con- sistent with the genius of a free people to be laid before the next Legislature."
At the Halifax congress, on November 13, 1776, a committee of twenty-four of the most prominent members was appointed to frame a constitution. He was a member of that committee. For a month the committee sat preparing the instrument, and on the completion of their work reported the constitution to the congress. In the case of Bayard against Singleton, May, 1785, Judge Ashe observed :
"At the time of separation from Great Britain we were thrown into a similar situation, with people shipwrecked and cast on a marooned island, without laws, without magistrates, without government, or any legal authority. That being thus circumstanced the people formed that system or those fundamental principles composed in the constitution dividing the powers of the government into separate and distinct branches, assign- ing to each several and distinct powers, and prescribing the several limits and boundaries."
20 NORTH CAROLINA
And in a letter to the General Assembly in 1786 he said :
"If my opinion of our constitution is an error, I fear it is an incurable one, for I had the honor to assist in the forming it, and confess I so designed it, and I believe every other gentleman concerned did also."
Immediately following the adoption of the Constitution, Gov- ernor Caswell appointed Ashe a judge to hold a term of court, the first court held under the authority of the State.
At the first session of the Legislature under the new Constitu- tion Ashe was elected speaker of the senate, and by that Legis- lature was chosen presiding judge of the Supreme Court of the State and served as such until 1795, when he was elected gov- ernor. The judges, Ashe, Spencer and Williams, were lawyers of experience and strong men intellectually. They made some notable decisions, one in particular being that of Bayard vs. Singleton, in which the court held an act of Assembly void, that being the first decision of the kind ever rendered either in Eng- land or America. Judge Haywood in Moore z's, Bradley (2d Haywood's Reports), referring to this decision, said:
"One of the judges illustrated his opinion in this manner : 'As God said to the waters, so far shall ye go and no further ; so said the people to the Legislature.' Judge Ashe deserves for this the veneration of his country and of posterity."
Another case also was worthy of remark. In 1792 an order had been made by a United States judge to remove a case by certiorari to the Federal court. The state court refused to obey the order and the Legislature thanked the judges for their con- duct in disobeying the writ of the Federal court. (McRee's ''Life of Iredell," ii, 303, 337.)
The judges at least were independent, self-sufficient and reso- lute in administering what they believed to be the law.
While Judge Ashe was on the Bench, questions growing out of the war gave rise to much animosity between some of the Bar and the court. The Legislature had not agreed to those pro- visions of the treaty of peace which required the restoration to the Tories of their property which had been confiscated. The
SAMUEL ASHE 21
lawyers were favorable to the Tories, from whom they expected considerable fees, but the members of the court were not in sym- pathy with the Bar. This and an air of superiority which Mac- laine and some of the other lawyers assumed led to a violent clashing. The lawyers now attempted to write Ashe off the Bench, but says AIcRee, *'the tradition in the profession is that he got the better of his adversaries. Some very competent judges who had seen his controversial efforts have expressed to me great admiration of their vigor and sarcasm." (''Life of Iredell," ii, 96.)
The lawyers then sought to alter the court law, and by that means to change the personnel of the Bench ; but in this they likewise failed. The controversy nevertheless continued with more or less rancor, one of the chief actors being Mr. Hay, and the subject of contention being for the most part the treatment of the Tories, and personalities between the Bar and the court. In August, 1786, Hay was elected to the Assem.bly, and at the November session oft'ered resolutions charging the judges with misconduct, among the cliarges being negligence of their duty, delay of business, ill-behavior to Mr. Llay and their treatment. of the Tories. (McRee, "Life of Iredell," ii, 154; S. R., xviii, 423.) The judges being notified to attend the Assembly, Wil- liams and Spencer did so, but Ashe instead wrote a letter to that body, in the course of which he admitted that ''though the delay in the trial of causes has arisen from the Bar, the Bench are blamable." He examined the various matters with judicial calm- ness until he came to the charge of oppressing the Tories, when he gave vent to temper and blazed out against Hay in the ver- nacular. The Assembly not only sustained the judges but passed a resolution thanking them for their good conduct in office and especially in the matters of which they were charged. The Bar violently opposed this resolution, but the Assembly stood stead- fastly by the judges. Speaking of this effort of Hay's to impeach the judges, Hooper wrote that it "was conceived in spleen and conducted with such headstrong passion that the evidence was wanting to support it." Later the Bar, taking exception to what
22 NORTH CAROLINA
Judge Ashe had said about their being the cause of delay in the trial of cases, published a reply, to which Ashe made answer with vigor and warmth, in which he said to the Bar that he was "in- dependent in principle, in person, and in purse^ and should neither court their love nor fear their enmity." (McRee's "Life of Iredell," ii, 6oi.)
In 1795, at the age of seventy, he was elected governor, which position he filled for three terms, covering a very interesting period of our State's history.
It was while he was governor that the land frauds in Tennessee were brought to light, involving Glasgow, the secretary of state. Governor Ashe, in calling the council of state together, an- nounced "An angel has fallen," and then acted with his usual energy. An attempt was made to burn the state house to destroy incriminating evidence, but it was discovered in time. A great trial followed, memorable in the annals of the State.
In his youth Ashe had been trained to advocate popular rights, and he early became a Republican ; and later he stood for state's rights and for the rejection of the Federal Constitution; and he was an earnest adherent of Jefiferson's policies. But when war with France was imminent his action was determined by his patriotism. He appointed Davie, a strong Federalist, to com- mand the state forces and sought to unite the people in support of the government. Sam Johnston, writing from Raleigh in No- vember, 1798, says: "I was very much surprised to find even Governor Ashe so perfectly anti-Gallican ;" and he says further : "All the members with whom I have conversed are wonderfully Federal — I say wonderful because I never conceived it possible that there could be so universal a conversion in so short a space of time." That the governor led his friends to the support of the government, and contributed to effect this change of senti- ment, is evident. But when the occasion had passed, and the ship of state was again in placid waters, he resumed his attitude of political hostility to the Adams administration. He threw himself into the campaign of 1800 with great vigor and had the satisfac- tion of seeing Democracy triumph over Federalism. In 1804 he
SAMUEL ASHE 23
was a member of the electoral college and was chosen to preside, but declined that honor.
He was president of the board of trustees of the University and he and his friends liberally subscribed for the support of the institution. He was also a trustee of the Innes Academy, and was one of those appointed to construct the church at Wilming- ton in colonial days. While he was still living his fellow-citizens manifested their appreciation of his character and services by naming for him the town of Asheville and also the county that bears his name.
Governor Ashe married early in life his cousin, Mary Porter, by whom he had three sons: John Baptista Ashe, Samuel Ashe and Cincinnatus Ashe. On the death of his wife he married Mrs. EHzabeth Merrick, also a kinswoman, by whom he had a son, Thomas, the ancestor of Judge Thomas S. Ashe.
On retiring from the executive office, Governor Ashe resided in the winter on his Rocky Point plantation and in the summer at Hawfields. He died at Rocky Point in 181 3, at the age of eighty-eight years. As the sons of General Ashe left no children, all who bear the name are descendants of Governor Ashe.
Of his first son, Lieutenant-Colonel John Baptista Ashe, a sketch appears elsewhere.
The second son of Governor Ashe, Samuel Ashe, Jr., when just sixteen entered the Continental service as a private, was promoted as ensign at Charleston, was surrendered with the other North Carolinians by General Lincoln, was subjected to a pain- ful confinement as prisoner of war, was exchanged and delivered on the James, served under General Lafayette and then under General Greene as lieutenant in one of the regiments of North Carolina Continentals until the army was disbanded.
After the war, when parties came to divide, he adhered to Gen- eral Washington and the Federal party, thus differing with his father and with Major Sam Ashe, the son of General John Ashe, who was the local leader of the Republican party in New Hanover County. However, on one or two occasions Lieutenant Sam Ashe represented New Hanover in the Assembly, but only
24 NORTH CAROLINA
once did he make a great political effort. In opposition to Jeft'er- son, of whose cause his father was the chief champion in the Cape Fear section, he organized the Federal forces and made a campaign that was memorable in the annals of that district. It was one of the notable contests of the State.
Notwithstanding his Federalism, when troubles with England became acute he voted for Madison, who in the War of 1812 appointed him to a colonelcy, and he became known as Colonel Ashe. Like his father, he resided at Rocky Point. He married in 1807, at the age of forty-three, Elizabeth, a daughter of Colonel William Shepperd, thus becoming the brother-in-law of William Barry Grove, of David Hay, of Sam Porter Ashe and of Dr. John Rogers the famous educator.
He had among other children John Baptista Ashe, a repre- sentative in Congress from Tennessee in 1843, who later moved to Texas, where his children now live at Houston ; William S. Ashe ; Thomas Henry Ashe ; and Dr. Richard Porter Ashe, who after serving in the Mexican war, located in San Francisco, mar- ried Caroline Loyall, whose sister was the wife of Admiral Far- ragut. Dr. Ashe's children reside in California, except a daugh- ter, Mille, who, having married Flarold M. Sewall, resides at Bath, Me. Colonel Ashe late in life removed to Fayetteville, where he died on November 3, 1835. It was of him that Mr. George Davis spoke in his Chapel Hill oration :
"It was not my good fortune to know but one of these distinguished men. In my early youth I remember an old man, bowed by age and infirmities, but of a noble front and most commanding presence. Old and young gathered around him in love and veneration to listen to his stories of the olden time. And as he spoke of his country's trials and of the deeds and sufferings of her sons, his eye flashed with the ardor of youth and his voice rang like the battle charge of a bugle. He was the soul of truth and honor, with the ripe wisdom of a man and the guileless simplicity of a child. He won strangers to him with a look, and those who knew him loved him with a most filial affection. None ever lived more honored and revered ; none ever died leaving a purer or more cherished memory. This was Colonel Samuel Ashe, The last of all the Romans !' "
\
SAMUEL ASHE 25
The third son of Governor Ashe, Cincinnatus, was appointed an ensign to serve with General Greene in South Carohna but, perhaps because of the return at that moment of many Conti- nental officers from captivity, he was not needed, and he became a captain of marines and sailed on a privateer toward the close of 1 781, along with his cousin, William Ashe, a son of General John Ashe, and was lost at sea, the vessel never having been heard of after saiHng.
5. A. Ashe.
JOHN BAPTISTA ASHE
I HERE have been a few families in North Caro- Hna which, by reason of inherent abihty, have jW produced in each generation some member who has risen above the level of his times and con- tinued unimpaired the best traditions of his an- '^^^^^ cestors. In this respect no family in North Carolina has a more marked record than that of Ashe. John Baptista Ashe (2d), who died while governor-elect, represented the third generation in North Carolina. His grandfather was John Baptista Ashe (ist), of whom a sketch has been printed in volume 4; his father was Governor Samuel Ashe, whose sketch appears in this volume. He was born in 1748, at Rocky Point, in the Cape Fear section, and grew to manhood there.
His first appearance in public life was at the time of the Regu- lation troubles. He was a lieutenant in the New Hanover de- tachment, and when he and John Walker went out after night to leconnoiter they fell into the hands of the Regulators, were stripped, tied to trees and severely whipped with hickory switches. Negotiations were entered into for the surrender of these two men for the seven prisoners made by the government forces, but the Regulators were slow, and the fiery Tryon, fearing that he might lose the glory as well as the joy of battle, cut short the negotiations and undertook to settle matters with the sword.
JOHN BAPTISTA ASHE 27
After the battle Ashe and Walker were found in a garret, where in the hurry of action they had been left to shift for themselves.
Lieutenant Ashe was with General Alexander Lillington at the battle of Moore's Creek, on February 2y, 1776, and was appointed captain in the Sixth Regiment of North Carolina Troops on April 16, 1776. He was promoted January 26, 1777. On January I, 1778, when the North Carolina Continentals were at Valley Forge, he was transferred to the First Regiment in place of Major James Emmet, and in November became lieutenant- colonel. In February, 1781, under the temporary arrangement of the officers of the North Carolina Line, he was assigned to the command of a regiment. In the spring of 1781 he was with Sumner in western North Carohna, and in July was ordered by him to lead a detachment of about 300 men to reinforce Greene, who was then in South Carolina. Upon his arrival there he took over the command of all of the North Carolina Continental Line then with Greene and incorporated them into the First Regiment. At Eutaw Springs he commanded a regiment of about 400 men, some of whom had been condemned to the regular service for running away from the battlefield of Guilford Court House. At Eutaw, as at Augusta, these same men behaved admirably and almost annihilated a British regiment. Ashe resigned soon after the battle of Eutaw, and thus ended his mili- tary career.
We next hear of him as a member of the house of commons in 1784, 1785 and 1786, when he represented Hahfax County. He was chosen speaker of the house November 20, 1786. Since he was proposed for this honor by Davie, we may assume that he was more conservative than his brother-in-law, Willie Jones, and his objection to the confiscation act is another proof of the same. At the second convention to consider the constitution of the United States, held at Fayetteville, in November, 1789, he repre- sented Hahfax County, Willie Jones not being a member; and as chairman of the committee of the whole presided over the deliberations of that body, and favored the adoption of the con- stitution. In 1789 also he was in the senate from Halifax
28 NORTH CAROLINA
County; was made speaker of the senate pro tem ; was chairman of the finance committee and protested against the bill which proposed to pay the state certificates of indebtedness at about one-fifth of their face value, claiming that it was unconstitu- tional, a violation of the public faith and "as impolitic as it is unjust." This Assembly elected him a colonel of artillery.
He was nominated as a delegate to the Continental Congress in December, 1785, but failed of election; on December 15, 1786^ he was chosen, along with James White, Alexander Martin^ Timothy Bloodworth, Benjamin Hawkins and Thomas Polk, to represent the State in that body and was in attendance in New York in April, 1787, and was present as late as August 16, 1787,. perhaps later. On the admission of North Carolina to the Fed- eral Union he was chosen a member of the Federal house of representatives from the Halifax District, and was again chosen for the second Congress, serving 1790-93. Even then the sec- tional spirit was discernible in Congress, and Colonel Ashe was true to his section. In 1795, when his father w^as a candidate for governor, Davie gave way, and he represented the town of Halifax in the house.
On November 20, 1802, he was chosen governor by the Legis- lature, but when the legislative committee attended at his resi- dence in Halifax to notify him, they found him ill, and he died on November 2^ of that year, thus passing away before attain- ing the highest dignity in the State. His death was formally announced in the senate on November 29, and James Turner of Warren moved "that in honor to the memory of the de- ceased, and as a token of the respect and consideration for his patriotism and many exalted virtues, the Legislature will go in mourning for thirty days," etc. This resolution was concurred in by the house, and Turner was chosen to fill his place in the gubernatorial chair.. The town of Asheboro, Randolph County,, was named in his honor.
Colonel Ash^ married early in life. Miss Eliza Montfort, daughter of Cglonel Joseph Montfort of Halifax. It was she who made the celebrated retort to Colonel Tarleton, then an
JOHN BAPTISTA ASHE 29
unwelcome guest in the house of her sister, Mrs. WiUie Jones. Tarleton had been wounded on his hand by Colonel William Washington at the battle of Cowpens. He was now remarking on the illiteracy of Washington, saying he understood that he could hardly write his name. Mrs. Ashe replied, with a glance at Tarleton's hand which bore the scar, **but you will at least agree that Colonel Washington can at any rate make his mark." Colonel Ashe had only one child, a son, Samuel Porter Ashe, who married Mary, daughter of Colonel William Shepperd. He resided in Fayetteville and represented Cumberland County in the Assembly in 1823- 1825. At the session in December, 1824, he introduced a bill to establish public schools in the dif- ferent counties for the education of poor children at the expense of the State, — one of the several efforts of similar scope out of which grew later the public school system. After this date he removed to Tennessee and died in Brownsville, leaving three children, whose descendants still live in that section.
Stephen B. Weeks.
WILLIAM SHEPPERD ASHE
HE third son of Colonel Samuel Ashe was William Shepperd Ashe, born at Rocky Point, September 14, 1814. His mother was EHzabeth Shepperd, a daughter of Colonel William Shep- perd ot Hawfields, who had been a zealous offi- cer during the Revolution, a man of great energy and patriotism, serving in the provincial congresses and Legislature, and discharging many important duties for his com- munity and State. Mr. Ashe was educated at Trinity College, Conn., and studied law under Judge Toomer. A few months after his father's death he married, in January, 1836, Sarah Ann Green, of Brunswick County, a descendant of the Granges, and he received his license two or three days later.
While his father, like nearly all the other gentlemen of the Cape Fear, had opposed the Jackson administration, he, follow- ing the traditions of the previous generation, attached himself to that wing of the Republican party which became known as the Democratic party. Immediately on receiving his license he was elected county solicitor for four counties on the lower Cape Fear and at once took his place as a leader of the Democracy. His planting interests and his social disposition, which was at variance with the exactions of a professional life, led him, how- ever, to abandon the practice of the law, but he read much and
C^^'. £. f'^n 7\/^/o-/7^/T, /^^//j7-s/
WILLIAM SHEPPERD ASHE 31
was a profound student of political questions. He served as presidential elector and in 1846 represented New Hanover in the state senate ; again, in 1848, he was elected to the senate, and at the same election he was chosen a representative in Congress. He was gifted with very unusual intellectual powers, and, al- though a strong party man, he was a progressive statesman and favored all measures that tended to the advancement of the State or people, notwithstanding his party frequently differed from him in public policy.
Particularly was he interested in internal improvements, at that time claiming attention. In the west Governor Morehead and others were pressing for a road from Charlotte to Danville, cutting the State in half. Governor Graham and his council of state recommended that the Raleigh and Gaston Road should be put in repair at a cost of $500,000, and a feeder be built west from Raleigh, with the expectation that in the years to come it would be extended to Charlotte, connecting with the road from Columbia, likewise carrying the produce of the western counties to a Virginia city. Governor Graham in the great internal im- provement convention of 1835 had advocated north and south lines, but had been successfully opposed by Joseph A. Hill of Wilmington, who urged that western North Carolina should be connected with the seaports of the State.
Neither Governor Morehead's measure nor that of Governor Graham was satisfactory to those who advocated a North Caro- lina system. In antagonism to them both, Mr. Ashe drew and introduced in the senate a bill to construct a road from Charlotte to Goldsboro, connecting there with the road to Wilmington. He utterly ignored the Raleigh and Gaston road, not even provid- ing for any connection with it. His bill appropriated $2,000,000 by the State for the work, an amount so large that it staggered the other friends of internal improvements. Eventually, the Graham bill was taken up in the house, and by common consent the Ashe bill was substituted for it. However, the bill failed to pass, but a motion was made to reconsider, and the friends of internal improvements from all over the State hastened to
32 NORTH CAROLINA
Raleigh to urge its passage. The Fayetteville section was drawn to its support by the promise of a plank road to Salem, and with this accession of strength, the bill passed the house. In the senate, the result was still doubtful. At first, the bill failed by a single vote; but on a second attempt the vote was a tie — and then the tie was broken by the casting vote of Speaker Graves, who up to that moment had preserved an impenetrable silence. As the speaker rose and voted for the bill, the great crowd assembled at the capitol that had awaited in breathless suspense, carried away by excitement and enthusiasm, gave unrestrained shouts of applause, the church bells and all the bells of the town rang out peals of joy, and the people on the streets hurrahed. North Carolina had burst her old bonds and had started on a career of progress and improvement.
The building of this road was the most stupendous work ever undertaken in the State. It has not only proved the greatest blessing to the people in its uses, influences and results, but as the dividends have more than paid the interest, it has not cost the people anything, while the stock can be sold for nearly double the amount of bonds issued in its purchase.
Taking his seat in Congress in December, 1849, Mr. Ashe acted with the ultra-southern men in opposition to the compro- mise measures of that sectional crisis. He always felt that the Southern States made a mistake in not seceding at that time, for he was a firm behever in the "Resolution of 1798" and of the rights of the States as sovereign communities. On the elec- tion of President Pierce, in 1852, he visited him and secured the appointment of Mr. Dobbin as secretary of the navy. His inti- macy with Mr. Dobbin was close ; he became a member of the Naval Committee and co-operated in the great and important changes that were made in the naval service at that period. A man of great capacity and genial in his disposition, he speedily became a member of influence ; indeed, few men were so success- ful in managing other men.
Wishing to improve the Cape Fear River, he introduced a bill making an appropriation for that purpose. His party was in the
WILLIAM SHEPPERD ASHE 33
majority in the house, but the Democratic members were opposed on principle to such appropriations. He prevailed on most of them to leave the chamber and let the Whigs pass his bill.
In 1854 he became president of the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad, and under his administration that road was prosperous and paid good dividends. In its interests he went to England and made a very advantageous arrangement in regard to its bonded debt. He addressed himself particularly to relieving travel of its tedium, and built up a large Florida travel while fostering local business by every means in his power. Intimate with Senator Yulee, who was at the head of the Florida railroads, he co-operated with him in developing southern railroad inter- ests, which even at that time became of great importance. He established regular steamboat connections between his road at Wilmington and New York ; and when the North Carolina Rail- road was finished, he arranged with Colonel Fisher, its president, to run through freight trains from Charlotte to Wilmington. Thus in 1858 he gave practical eftect to the great measure he had introduced ten years before to transport the freights of western Carolina to the sea and send them to the marts of the world from a North Carolina port.
In 1858 Governor Morehead proposed to make a great efifort to build a railroad from Greensboro to Danville, thus cutting the State in two ; and Mr. Ashe became a member of the state senate again in order to prevent the accomplishment of that purpose, which he at that time considered detrimental to the best interests of North CaroHna. He succeeded in defeating the proposed char- ter. As interested as he was in that matter, he attached still more consequence to the passage of the homestead law by that Assembly, which he thought the most important legislation ever adopted for the benefit of the people.
In i860, prior to the meeting of the Charleston convention, Governor Ellis and many other influential Democrats of the State met at his home at Rocky Point and arranged for the presentation of his name for the nomination for vice-president, for there were but few if any southern gentlemen who had as strong a personal
34 NORTH CAROLINA
influence with the leading Democrats in the northern States. The course of events at Charleston rendered it inexpedient to present his name in that connection; and in the crisis that fol- lowed he became one of the most urgent secessionists in North Carolina.
He was a member of the convention of 1861 and was a leading member of that body. He warmly favored the amendment to the state constitution admitting Jews to the right of holding office, and otherwise manifested his liberal spirit, while strenuously ad- vocating every measure tending to the success of the Confed- erate cause. In the summer of that year, however, as his repu- tation as a railroad manager was not surpassed at the South, President Davis asked him to take charge of all the government transportation from the Mississippi River to Virginia, and ac- cepting that employment, he resigned from the convention, being succeeded by John L. Holmes. His appointment in the Confed- erate service was at first as major and then as colonel in the quartermaster's department, and for a year he rendered the serv- ice desired of him, exhibiting high administrative talent.
In the spring of 1862, when North Carolina was invaded, al- though there were many regiments organized, there were no arms to equip them for the field, while the people had many serviceable weapons in their homes. At the request of President Davis and General Lee, Colonel Ashe undertook to collect guns from the citizens, paying for them, for the use of the soldiers, and he took steps to that end. The proposition greatly excited some of the editors and politicians who were not in sympathy with the Con- federate government, and who pretended to see in it a purpose to disarm the people and deprive them of their constitutional right to carry arms. Governor Clark was led to issue a hasty proclamation on the subject, but himself soon afterward arranged with the sheriffs of the counties to collect the arms for the State.
Shortly afterward, however, the Confederacy received through the blockade a considerable supply of rifles, and the necessity of relying on shotguns passed away.
Colonel Ashe's relations with the President, with whom he had
WILLIAM SHEPPERD ASHE 35
long been on terms of friendship, were most agreeable; but his great desire was to be in the field, and in the summer of 1862 the President commissioned him as colonel and authorized him to raise a legion of infantry, artillery and cavalry, to be commanded by himself. His purpose, however, was frustrated by his un- timely death by accident. He with some others had started salt works at Wrightsville Sound. Returning from them one even- ing in September, 1862, he received information that one of his sons — with Jackson's corps — had been taken prisoner. The other was also in Lee's army in Maryland. Much concerned, he pro- cured a hand car to hasten home — some fifteen miles distant. On the way, just at dark, a train without a headlight ran into the hand car, so wounding him that he expired after three days of suffering.
In those days the whole State was in mourning for the gallant and honored sons who were falling thick and fast on the battle- fields— too numerous for even a bare mention of their names in the newspapers ; but his death was regarded as a particular calamity.
The Wilmington Journal, in announcing his death, said :
"Perhaps there is no announcement that will strike our readers with more grief and our whole State with more sorrow, for no one was better known and loved. . . .
"In the mighty revolution in which we are now engaged his efforts were early, efficiently, and patriotically devoted. In this, as in all other political movements in our State for the last twenty years, the mighty magic of his mind was realized. . . .
"From the purity of his motives, the patriotism of his course, the acute- ness of his intellect, it may be said with truth that he was the master spirit of eastern North Carolina."
And in another issue the Journal closes an editorial :
"Taking him all in all, we shall seldom look upon his like again; nor can this community and the State at large soon cease to mourn the loss of the noble, generous, big-hearted gentleman, the ardent patriot and the useful citizen."
And certainly no man was ever more sincerely mourned by the
36
NORTH CAROLINA
people of the southeastern counties than he was, for no other was so beloved alike in the homes of the humble and in the man- sions of the rich. He left two sons, one Major John Grange Ashe, who served with distinction in the Confederate army, and after the war moved to Texas, where he died in 1867, leaving descendants. The other is the author of this sketch.
5. A. Ashe.
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THOiMAS SAMUEL ASHE
I ROM the year 1700 the name of Ashe has been a notable one in the annals of both the Caro- linas. The family had long been one of conse- quence in Wiltshire, where they were distin- guished for many fine qualities, among them a resolute dislike of oppression in any form. And it so happened that two members of it, brothers, John and Samuel, were members of the Long Parliament.
From Thomas Ashe, the youngest son of Governor Samuel Ashe, was descended Thomas Samuel Ashe, the peer of any one of the name. Thomas S. Ashe was the son of Pasquale Paoli Ashe and Elizabeth Strudwick, and was born July 19, 1812, at "The Hawfields," the home of his maternal grandfather in Orange County, where they were summering. The home of his parents was at the Neck, the old family seat of his grandfather, Samuel Ashe, on the northeast branch of the Cape Fear River, in what is now Pender County.
When about twelve years of age his father removed to Ala- bama, but the lad returned to North Carolina and attended the preparatory school of William J. Bingham — a classical school fa- mous now and for more than a century. He took a full course at the State University and contended successfully with such spirits as General Thomas L. Clingman, afterward a United States senator, James C. Dobbin, secretary of the navy, whose room-
38 NORTH CAROLINA
mate he was, and others of Hke heavy metal, for the honors in his studies as an undergraduate. He made a reputation in pubHc speaking, and to the honor of his teachers had his mind given a proper bent. At the age of twenty he graduated with the third distinction. In an address before the university students Gen- eral Clingman, in after years, told in a most interesting way how he and his friend Ashe had escorted Judge Gaston to the rostrum when he delivered his celebrated commencement oration in 1832.
Judge Ashe's Hfe was so much influenced by his university education and was of such permanent value to the University itself, that it is worth remembering that a few years after his graduation he was elected to a tutorship on the teaching staff. This he declined because it interfered with the plan of life which he had laid out before him. Exactly twenty years from the date of his graduation he stood where Judge Gaston stood as the chief orator at the annual commencement, and delivered an address which, while it followed the plan of essay much in vogue at that period, abounded in wise suggestions emphasized by his high character. He was a trustee of the University for forty years and attended the last conference before its doors were closed by the State's common enemy and he was one of the first of its trustees after its restoration. In 1879 ^^ received the Univer- sity's highest degree. It was not a quantum meruit, but it was all it could give in return for love, affection, and intelligent serv- ice of an exceptional value. He had participated in its labors of every kind, and it was a mere right to partake of its honors. The University recognized the right.
He chose the law as his profession, and he got his instruction in that science under the great Chief Justice Ruffin, and made a home for its practice in Wadesboro, in 1836.
In June, 1837, he was happily married to Caroline Burgwin of the Hermitage, near Wilmington, who for nearly fifty years was a most devoted wife.
It may be said that he began his public career in 1842, when he was elected a member of the house of commons from Anson County. From this time, with short intermissions, he was con-
THOMAS SAMUEL ASHE 39
tinually chosen by the people to represent them. They recognized his capacity and his virtue and they took pleasure in conferring honors upon him without any solicitation on his part; except in one instance, when he was a candidate before and was elected solicitor of his district by the Legislature and served from 1848 to 1852.
Among the celebrated cases which Solicitor Ashe prosecuted was the Simpson case, tried at Fayetteville. Mrs. Simpson was a woman of position and some fortune and was tried for the crime of poisoning her husband. The case took on a romantic coloring from the fact that one of the contentions of the defense was that her mind had become abnormal through listening to the tales of a fortune-teller who had persuaded her that she was to marry again and play a high role in social life.
In 1854 Mr. Ashe was elected to the State senate and in 1859 was nominated for a seat in Congress, but he declined, although the honor was easily within his grasp, as his district was of Whig complexion in politics and his political affiliations had always been with that party. He was what was commonly called a Henry Clay Whig.
When the days of difficulty and danger came in 1861, Mr. Ashe stood for conservative action on the part of North Carolina. The Legislature issued a call for a convention if a majority of the people should express a will for one, but a majority of the people did not vote for it, and consquently the convention did not meet. Later North Carolina entered the Confederacy, and at the first election by the people he was chosen a representative to the Confederate Congress and gave his best endeavors to the cause of the new republic. He was a consistent supporter of the war policy and had no sympathy with those who sought to obstruct the operations of the Government.
On December 9, 1864, he was elected to the Senate of the Confederate States over the Hon. Edwin G. Reade, but before his term began the Confederacy was no longer a nation.
For two years the State, — under the authority of Governor Holden, who had been made provisional governor by military
40 NORTH CAROLINA
power of President Johnson, and later under Governor Worth, who had been elected by the people — was trying to readjust its relations with the Union. The Congress was continuing the policy of imposing new requirements for representation and for the resumption of its place in national affairs. Judge Ashe worked quietly in a private station to mend his broken fortunes and to assist his neighbors in preserving what little remained to them. In 1867 Congress declared that North Carolina had no statehood or constitution and passed the reconstruction act, re- quiring that a new constitution should be framed, based on negro suffrage. Upon the passage of this act North Carolina was placed in a military district under the orders of a major-general. While a Republican party was being organized in the State to carry out the purposes of the dominant faction in Congress, a constitutional convention was called together by an electorate practically named by the military officer in command, who took charge of and counted the votes and issued certificates of elec- tion to meet the end desired with all suggested seriousness. When the new constitution thus brought forth was submitted to the voters for ratification it was accompanied by an order for an election of officers provided for in the abnormally formed instrument, among them being that of the chief executive of the State, the governor.
In opposition to these policies the Conservative party organ- ized itself in 1868, and its committee of safety was authorized to select a leader. Zebulon B. Vance, who had been governor of the State when it was in the Confederacy, was nominated for governor. He declined the nomination, as did Mr. Merrimon, then a judge, who had courageously defied the military authority and who was in 1872 a candidate for governor, and later a senator in Congress, and chief justice. The outlook was so chaotic that brave men distrusted themselves. At last Colonel Cowan of Wilmington arose in the committee and said, "I will present as the leader of the Conservative party in a struggle which has nothing but danger and defeat as its reward, Thomas S. Ashe, of the Pee Dee country. He will not decline the combat."
THOMAS SAMUEL ASHE 41
At great personal expense Mr. Ashe made the campaign through the State, presenting the views of the conservative peo- ple whose interest in peace, prosperity, and happiness was of so much greater value to civilization than that of the emancipated negroes. In North Carolina the names of eleven thousand whites who had registered were stricken from the rolls, while many thousands had been deterred by threats of personal molestation from offering to register. On the other hand, the negroes were enrolled without regard to age or qualifications. There were some whites who hastened to cast in their fortunes with the dominant party. There were others who, it may be, really be- lieved it unwise to oppose the controlling faction at Washington, which had begun boldly to declare its purpose to hold the State in subjection. These people thought that if they were defeated at this time Congress would impose still heavier and more odious conditions for restoration to the Union. The great mass of the whites, however, declined to accept the degradation. It was indeed a period of intense excitement and anxiety. The people were deeply and desperately stirred. Mr. Ashe believed with General Lee that human courage should rise to the height of hiiman calamity, and he led with a lofty resolution one of the most fearless followings to be found in all politics. And it is to be remarked that he himself was not allowed to vote at the election, — although he was being voted for as governor of the State.
According to the report of the chief of civil affairs, the original registration showed the white electors to be 106,720 in number and the blacks to be 72,932. A subsequent registration, in 1868, was: white, 117,431; colored, 79,445; ^or ratification, 93,118; against it, 74,009. The vote for governor was almost exactly the same. From these figures and in view of the fact that every colored man voted one way it would follow that of the 93,118 votes cast for the ratification of the constitution and for Gov- ernor Holden less than 20,000 were by white voters. In other words, in the midst of arms Judge Ashe led a band of 75,000 white people, three-fourths of the entire white voting population, to a fearless expression in favor of the true interests of the peo-
42 NORTH CAROLINA
pie. No greater honor could have come to any man than to have had such a following, and no greater honor could be wished by any following than to have had such a leader. Judge Ashe^s opponent was William W. Holden, who had signed the ordinance of secession in 1861, had fanned the flames of discontent in 1862, and had been in 1864 a candidate for governor upon a platform of peace at any price.
Governor Holden and his newspaper, the Standard, were in- tensely bitter toward his opponents who, it must be said, were equally unsparing in their denunciation of him ; but it is to his credit that such was the respect and esteem in which he held Judge Ashe that there was never a line written against him personally.
Governor Holden told the writer of these lines that when he was a little barefoot boy delivering papers in Hillsboro he went one frosty morning to the home of Mr. Strudwick. A tall, handsome young man opened the door, spoke to him cordially, and told him that he looked cold and asked him if he would not come in and sit by the fire and have some hot breakfast with him. He accepted the invitation and ate his breakfast as best he could while admiring the young man who seemed so at home among all these elegancies of life. This was his introduction to this genial and sympathetic man, Thomas S. Ashe, and he resolved instantly to be like him. In the days of their rivalry he did not forget this meeting. In his "Memoirs," those who are curious may read another version of this story, where Mr. Holden, in forcing a certain consistency in his opinions, thought it best to put his feelings in antagonism to sincere and gracious attentions, but the writer's recollection is absolutely clear that he expressed to him his appreciation of and his admiration for the kindly inborn trait on the part of Mr. Ashe. It was understood and appreciated by the little embryo governor in the spirit in which it was offered.
The constitution which had been framed provided for negro suffrage and for the election of State officers. Its provisions were such that Mr. Ashe urged the people to vote against it, and
r
THOMAS SAMUEL ASHE 43
thus render his own election impossible even if he should receive a majority of the popular vote. It is certain that he had no ex- pectation of becoming the governor of the State. Indeed, the entire efforts of himself and his supporters were directed to the defeat of the proposed constitution. He did not work for honors ahead of him ; he viewed defeat as a duty.
Mr. Ashe went back to the always cordial community in his own home and took up the ways of fair, delightful peace and the practice of his profession, where he was happiest, but in 1872 he was asked to accept the nomination for Congress, and was elected to the Forty-third Congress by a substantial majority. At this election, however, the State voted for Grant for presi- dent, and Mr. Merrimon, the Democratic nominee, was defeated for governor. In this Congress, over which Mr. Blaine presided as speaker, Mr. Ashe was appointed to the committee on coinage, weights, and measures. The only speech of importance which he made was one in favor of the continuance of the mint at Charlotte, N. C, but though he spoke but seldom he was punc- tual in his attendance and solicitous to perform all of the many duties to his constituents which the position carried along with it. He was elected to the Forty-fourth Congress by an increased majority. This Congress was Democratic for the first time in more than a decade. Michael C. Kerr of Indiana was speaker. Mr. Ashe had made such a good impression in his two years' service that he was placed third on the Committee on the Judici- ary, over which Proctor Knott presided. This assignment ea- abled him to do work of great importance to his party and to the country. His most notable speech in this Congress was on curing defects in the naturalization law, a bill which he successfully carried through.
The work of few congresses was of more vital importance to the nation than that of the Forty-fourth. Mr. Ashe was a mem- ber of the subcommittee of the Judiciary and had a full part in drawing the Belknap articles of impeachment, as well as in fram- ing the celebrated resolution, the substitute of Proctor Knott for the resolution of Mr. McCrary, providing for the electoral com-
44 NORTH CAROLINA
mission. He could not have lent his hand to higher work, and it gave him such commanding position on the committee and in the Congress that further honors, which he did not covet, but which would have reflected great credit upon the State, only waited upon his continuance in service. The pernicious doctrine of rotation in office which had been accepted as a rule in his district, allowing only two terms in Congress, without opposition was enforced against him, and in March, 1877, ^^ the incoming of the Hayes administration, he retired from Congress.
The people of the State, particularly of his district, had not forgot what he did for them back in the days of their sorest need, and they waited with patience to give him a crowning assurance of their confidence. This they were enabled to do in 1878, when the terms of the judges of the Supreme Court of the State, extended under their own ruling, ended, and the people were to choose a court after his own heart. It was a year of most interesting excitement in the State. The candidacy of Judge Schenck had evoked a series of letters in the press of much cleverness and exciting bitterness. The Ku Klux Klan prose- cutions were again made an issue. William N. H. Smith had been appointed by Governor Vance chief justice (Chief Justice Pearson having died), and in spite of his entire fitness for the office there was a dangerous factional opposition to his nomina- tion. Governor Vance was a candidate for the senatorship against Mr. Merrimon, who then held the office, and the whole State had divided itself into hostile camps under these two great leaders. The question of political principle involved was largely the right of instruction on the part of counties to members of the Legislature which was to choose a senator. The Bar of the State, representing so much of its militant intelligence, was deeply interested in the selection of the court. Brought together by these conditions, the convention which assembled at the State capitol was composed of unusual numbers and talents. There may be many who can recall the dramatic session of that assem- blage when the nomination for associate justices was called. The time, place, and circumstances were auspicious for what followed.
THOMAS SAMUEL ASHE 45
Colonel Risden Tyler Bennett, an orator in his own right after his own fashion and in the true sense of that word, put Mr. Ashe's name before the convention. He began speaking in the rear of the hall, walking down to the stage. He made a rapid statement of the claims of Mr. Ashe upon the suffrages of his people. The statement was a masterpiece of argument. Then he discarded the well-known periods of convention oratory. He rushed to the platform, and with the magnetism of a leader he demanded of the State a crown of approval for its unselfish hero. He held his hearers mute with the martial music of his eloquence and he aroused their sensibiHties to the justice of the cause for which he was sponsor. The response was an outburst of enthusiastic and eager acclaim, and Mr. Ashe was then and there a justice of the State's highest court for the rest of his natural hfe.
The enuraeration of the principal events of Mr. Ashe's life is a pleasant record, and is valuable because it shows industry and the merited promotion which came from it, but they are mere lineaments. The real man can be presented only in an incom- plete way by fiUing in the accomplishments with the very human characteristics of the man in his daily walk. It would be render- ing a service to the present generation if there could be given it a satisfactory idea of his personal appearance, because he was an examplar of manly beauty. To a tall, perfectly proportioned robust figure he added a pose full of graceful dignity and a swinging, purposeful carriage. He walked much alone and he had the habit of talking to himself when he walked. One feels that much that is valuable has been lost by not being able to share in these communings. At any rate, they gave him much satisfaction. His forehead was noble and his well-shaped head Avore a full covering of trimmed iron-grey hair. His mouth was firm and filled with regular white teeth, and when he smiled a most quizzical gleam came into the grey eyes ; otherwise his look was direct and challenging and could not have quailed before any man. His ruddy, healthful face was clean shaven and his dress was sober and enough in the mode to be becoming.
46 NORTH CAROLINA
This much of personal description it is hoped will convey to the mind of the reader the image which will always remain in the mind of the writer. He suggested by his presence the lofty classical figures which the great sculptors have hewn out of what was solid and clothed with what was noblest and best.
He could not have had the respect, reverence, and love of his people if he had not deserved it. It must be remembered that he lived in an epic of the great struggle of the rights of com- munities against the solidarity of a Nation. He was the associate of heroes and martyrs ; and it takes a hero to understand a hero. Of course, therefore, he not only had but practised the qualities of justice and patience and liberality of opinion. He was much too fine a man to consider charity a virtue. To him it was sim- ply sharing what he had with one who had in some way neglected to have. If in the ordinary transactions among neighbors he were treated unfairly he left no doubt on the one who attempted it that he understood it, but much oftener he suggested that a service rendered him was worth something more than what was charged for it. His friendships were few but they were unre- served.
Many men still living can remember the close comradeship between him and Judge Dillard and the younger Ruffin, not the lesser judges of a great court. They occupied adjoining apartments at the hotel where they resided during the sessions of the court, and their association was more like that of affection- ate boys at college than experienced men in one of the greatest businesses of life.
He attracted the love of children, and it was a most engaging sight to see him walking hand in hand through the capitol grounds with a very beautiful boy, a mere child of six years, and a boon companion and to watch the earnestness and serious- ness of their conversations.
He was blessed with a saving sense of humor. In social life it was one of his most charming elements of character. He admired wit, as he was afraid of its keen edge, for it too often carries pain, but he was a friend and companion of humor. It
THOMAS SAMUEL ASHE 47
is a most agreeable reflection to recall after some thirty years the gusto with which he told of his own discomfiture in the case of an old Mexican veteran who was a citizen of his town, and who, when he had dropped into civilian life, had neglected to shed the vices of the camp, but had allowed himself to go down hill until he became a general nuisance and vagabond, for which offense he was indicted. The case was called for trial and pro- ceeded to the stage where Solicitor Ashe read the indictment. When he had concluded the reading the veteran defendant ap- proached him and with a surprised and rather indignant voice said, "Tom Ashe, let me see that thar paper." After reading it with leisurely particularity, he gravely handed it back, remarking as he did, "I never seed it afore; I never resigned it; and I don't know nothink about it." Whereupon he walked out of the dock and out of the door of the court room. Judge Caldwell, long remembered for the austerity of his manner of presiding, as well as his great learning, relaxed his habitual sternness of manner and said to the solicitor with evident enjoyment, *'Mr. Solicitor, if the State will suggest a nol pros in this most extraor- dinary case the Court will incline an indulgent ear."
Mr. Ashe was a member of Calvary Episcopal Church at Wadesboro and a vestryman for thirty-one years. His religious life was his everyday life — elevated by reverence, but humble as a little child's.
He sat upon the Supreme Court bench nearly ten years. It is a court which even in the unhappy days of the State's history has always by its learning and character been worthy of admira- tion and at other times, as now, has commanded the admiration, respect, and reverence of its people. He delivered opinions which were marked by clear reasoning and expressed in terse, lucid style. They were and now are regarded as models of judicial excellence.
On February 4, 1887, in the full enjoyment and exercise of all his energies, he went to the haven of us all. His death was profoundly regretted by the Bar and the people throughout the State. They felt they had lost not only an able and faithful
48
NORTH CAROLINA
public official but one of the rapidly diminishing number of the really great sons of the State's heroic generation. The State has set its seal upon him.
Judge Ashe was survived by his wife and several married daughters, Mrs. James C. Marshall, Mrs. A. J. Hines, Mrs. J. A. Lockhart, and by Josephine, who remained unmarried; also by his son, Samuel T. Ashe, well known as a lawyer and editor. A daughter, Anna, was the beautiful wife of the Hon. Richard H. Battle ; another, Margaret, married James McNair, but died soon thereafter.
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JOSEPH HENRY BAKER
^>i;jP^^^^jK^HE county of Edgecombe, from the end of the A^^^=^^-*=^^ Revolutionary War to the beginning of the 5^ T* ^c ^^^^^ War, had a character largely its own. Its ^K ^f\ people during all this period constituted one of
^^^/L^Vi^vV^^^^y ^^^ most aggressive of democracies. The po- J/ll^^^^^^ litical tenets of Jefferson found there a soil so congenial that their flourishing growth left no space for the seeds of Federalism, or its more popular successor, Whiggism, to germ- inate. If ten per cent, of the suffrages of the county were cast for the candidates of the Whig party when it was dominant in the State, it was considered a large Whig gain. This condition had its disadvantages, it is true, for the leading men of the county made no figure in general state politics until the ascend- ency of the Democratic party was assured, but on the whole it made the people more homogeneous socially as well as politically. Speaking generally, there was not much culture- among them, but the average of ancient, rustic, manly, home-bred sense (to adapt a phrase of Burke) was exceedingly high. They were practically entirely agriculturists. Even town residents and pro- fessional men owned farms and slaves and vied with their neigh- bors in raising corn and bacon and cotton.
The Bakers were among the more prominent families of the county. Moses Baker,* farmer, represented the county in the
♦Jonathan Baker migrated from Isle of Wight County, Va., to Georgia about 1760. His son Moses came from Georgia to Edgecombe County, N. C, about 1800.
50 NORTH CAROLINA
house of commons in 1819, 1820, 1822, 1823 and 1829. William S. Baker, physician and farmer, son of Moses, represented the county in 1838 and in 1840. Joseph H. Baker, physician, farmer and man of affairs, son of William S., represented the county in 1866-67 ^^^ ^^ the convention of 1868.
Joseph H. Baker, son of Dr. William S. Baker, and Julia Shirley, his wife, was born in Edgecombe County, December 25, 1 83 1. He was prepared for college at schools in Tarboro, and entered the University in 1850. He did not graduate at that institution, but after two years spent there he began the study of medicine in the medical department of the University of Penn- sylvania. He took his degree of M.D. in the spring of 1854, and returning to Tarboro, formed a copartnership with Dr. Josiah Lawrence of that place. Until his last illness, a period of more than forty-eight years, he was engaged in the active practice of his profession.
Dr. Peter E. Hines, of Raleigh, who knew him well, has recorded this estimate of him as a physician and surgeon :
"He had a large and extensive practice, including many cases of surgery and obstetrics. He was the first surgeon in this country to diagnose and advocate an operation upon, if not the removal of, the kidney. He took his patient to some distinguished surgeons in New York and Philadelphia, and each refused to operate. The patient afterward died in very great suffering. . . . He was a very able and successful physician and business man, doing good and being useful to his fellow-men, all the days of his life."
Again, speaking of him as a man, Dr. Hines said :
"He had a kind, affectionate, loving and charitable heart; a genial, at- tractive and kindly disposition, which drew people to him and made them like and respect him."
He was, indeed, of that band of silent heroes, God's heroes, of whom the world takes httle account, who go upon many mid- night missions of mercy to the sick, the suffering and the dying, without reward or the hope of reward. But it was not only as a physician that Dr. Baker endeared himself to the community in which he lived. He was singularly kind and sympathetic to the
JOSEPH HENRY BAKER 51
poor, the impecunious and the unsuccessful, thus carrying into practical effect the noble tenets of the order to which he belonged so many years. Soon after attaining his majority he connected himself with the Odd Fellows. After holding many important positions in that order he was, in 1870, elected Grand Master of the State Grand Lodge, and still later representative to the Grand Lodge of the United States.
Though Dr. Baker was a busy, energetic, faithful surgeon and physician, his activity in other spheres of life was notable, and his superior ability won him success in all of them. He was a man of real culture, read much, digested what he read and con- versed well and interestingly. He wrote remarkably well, his style being clear, easy and graceful. As a public speaker he had few of the graces of oratory, but his addresses were always well constructed, interesting and instructive. Common sense was the dominant note in all that he did and said.
He was very pubhc-spirited, and as a democrat of democrats had an active and very intelligent interest in all political move- ments. At one time or another he held the offices of vice-presi- dent or director of banking and insurance, building and loan, and agricultural and mechanical associations. He was a surgeon in the Confederate army, member of the Medical Society of North Carolina and twice its vice-president, and was for some years president of the county board of health. He was many times commissioner or alderman of the town, and was twice its mayor.
The fact that he, a Democrat, represented a county so over- whelmingly negro as Edgecombe in the convention of 1868 re- quires some explanation. Perhaps in no other section of the South after the war was the negro question met so consider- ately, so forbearingly, so conservatively, as in Edgecombe. There was no Ku Klux there, no bulldozing, no bloody riots, no cheat- ing and defrauding at the ballot box. The dominant note in the white man's treatment of the negro at that time was inspired by such strong and wise men as Judge George Howard, Dr. Baker, the Norfleets and others. They realized that unrestricted negro suffrage was imminent unless some compromise could be made.
52 NORTH CAROLINA
They were in favor of granting them a qualified suffrage based upon property or intelligence. When unrestricted suffrage came, then, they had not wholly lost their influence over the negroes. Nor had the carpetbagger fully come into his kingdom at that time. So an arrangement was made, with practically general con- sent, by which the county should be represented in the convention of 1868 by Dr. Baker and a negro named Henry C. Cherry.
Dr. Baker, though a believer in and an advocate of mild and conciliatory measures in the dealings of the whites with the negroes, never failed to display the proper courage and firmness when occasion demanded them. The writer recalls one incident which shows this in a very clear light.
The campaign of 1876 was marked by the intense earnestness of the rank and file of the Democratic party, north and south. In Edgecombe the democracy, while still holding fast to the doc- trine of a free ballot and a fair count, was determined that every white vote should be cast, and that no fraudulent negro vote should be cast or counted. Twice during that campaign a bloody race war was narrowly averted by the coolness of the whites and by the determination of some of the better class of negroes to maintain law and order. At that time there was only one polling place in Tarboro township, and that at the court house in the town. The proportion of negroes to whites was about three to one, and the voters were so numerous in the district and, it being a general election, the ballots so complicated, that it was utterly irnpossible to cast them all in the time limited by law for voting, however excellent the management should be. Even the calmest and least imaginative citizens of the place could not, under such circumstances, but apprehend trouble on election day. Dr. Baker, on account of his known firmness and self-control, was requested to act as one of the judges of election. He, though it was very far from being a safe or pleasant employment, consented. His colleagues were a negro leader and a white carpetbagger, at that time one of the best hated of the genus in that section. The whites about the polls at the election were under an enormous strain the whole day, none more so than Dr. Baker, yet they
JOSEPH HENRY BAKER 53
managed to preserve order and secure an absolutely fair election. The polling place was immediately in front of the bar in the court room. Unfortunately, the day was overcast and there was no way to ascertain when the sun set except by calendars and watches. There were fifty or sixty negroes who had not voted when Dr. Baker announced that the sun had set and the polls had closed. The scene that this announcement created could not be duplicated anywhere outside of the South. The carpetbagger and his negro ally sprang to their feet, declaring that the sun was not down and the remaining votes should be cast. In front and occupying the whole auditorium of the court house was a howling mob of enraged blacks, the savagery of unnumbered generations depicted in each countenance, while behind and in the bar was a little band of twenty or thirty whites, each man armed and each man ready to shoot, but awaiting with outward calmness the moment when shooting might become necessary. Meantime Dr. Baker was standing facing the mob, with a hand upon either of the two most important ballot boxes, as he again announced that the polls were closed and not another ballot should be cast. Then turning to the carpetbagger by his side, he told him that if he (Dr. Baker) should be attacked by the negroes in front, he would scatter the ballots in those two boxes. This brought the Repub- lican leader to his senses, and in a few moments the uproar was ended.
Dr. Baker was twice married, first to Miss Susan A. Foxhall, of Edgecombe County, by whom he had four sons ; second to Miss Ida Manly, of Raleigh, by whom he had two children, a son and a daughter. He was a devoted husband and father, and lived long enough to see his fond anticipations for the success and welfare of his children fully gratified.
He was a member of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and dying February 12, 1902, his remains were deposited in the beautiful cemetery of that church at Tarboro.
Frank Nash.
JULIAN MEREDITH BAKER
'HE subject of this sketch was born in Tarboro, N. C, October 26, 1857. Something must be allowed to heredity in his subsequent predilec- tion for the medical profession, for both his father and grandfather were physicians and surgeons. A sketch of his father, Dr. Joseph H. Baker, distinguished physician, able man of affairs and cultured gentleman, appears elsewhere in this history.
Dr. Julian Baker's mother was Miss Susan A. Foxhall, daugh- ter of a prominent Edgecombe planter, William Foxhall, and through her he is connected with some of the most distinguished families of that county. He was educated at the Tarboro Male Academy (whose principal was the remarkably efficient teacher, Mr. F. S. Wilkinson), at Horner & Graves' School at Hillsboro, the University of Illinois and the University of North Carolina. He graduated at the latter institution, taking the degree of B.S. in 1877.
Though short in stature, the boy at school and college was noted for his vigorous, active frame, and he excelled in athletics, gymnasium work particularly. From his earliest days his natural bent had been toward the study of the physical sciences, and his university life was devoted principally to making himself as pro- ficient as possible in these. He could not be the patient investi-
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JULIAN MEREDITH BAKER 55
gator simply, who, absorbed in the discovery of nature's secrets, is content with presenting them to the world that other men may put them to practical use. His great activity and energy pre- vented this. He must be an actor as well as a discoverer. He did thus acquire, however, the scientist's logical method and his love of investigation, and he devoted these to fitting himself for the practice of medicine (which, after all, is but the application of the secrets of nature to the science of healing) and to the attainment of usefulness and success in his chosen profession.
He attended the Bellevue Hospital Medical College of New York in 1878, the University of Maryland Medical College of Baltimore in 1879, ^^^ took the degree of M.D. from the latter institution in the same year. Upon his graduation he returned to Tarboro and began the practice of his profession there. Such was his thorough preparation for, and his intelligent enthusiasm in, his work ; such his natural aptitude for it and his unquestion- able ability, that in a short time he was recognized as one of the ablest of the young physicians of his section, and was doing a very large practice for so young a man. Not content with his acquirements, he took post-graduate courses in surgery and gynecology at the New York Polyclinic in 1883, 1890 and 1897, and a further course in Chicago in 1910. And this is not all. To the present day Dr. Baker's professional life has been a con- stant and steady growth in knowledge, in capacity as a physician and surgeon, and in usefulness to the community in which he lives and to the profession which he adorns.
He has richly earned the reputation he now has as one of the ablest of the physicians and surgeons living in the State. Says one who knows him well :
"I think he is at his best when his cases become more desperate. He becomes absorbed in his determination to wrest recovery from apparent, or threatened, fatal conditions. He is very ambitious, and is willing to spend what he makes in study, in investigation and in improved appliances. He is always abreast of the best thought of his profession, and has more than sustained the promise of his early life."
As a matter of fact he has performed more surgical work in
56 NORTH CAROLINA
the past ten years than was ever done before in the whole history of the county.
It is said of him in the second volume of the "History of the University of Maryland," in a sketch prepared by a physician:
"Since 1879 Dr. Baker has taken a prominent part in the professional life of North Carolina, and his name and reputation are known throughout the entire South. For more than twenty-five years he has engaged in gen- eral practice, though latterly he has given particular attention to the special branches of surgery and gynecology. His career has been one of constant activity, and by achieved results he has honored the profession of medi- cine and the institution which conferred on him its degree. And in turn he has been respected and honored by his associates in medicine, who have chosen him to fill many places of responsibility and dignity."
Notwithstanding the engrossing activities of a village physi- cian's life, Dr. Baker has written numerous articles on technical subjects for the medical journals of the country, and the writer is informed that an article by him always commands the atten- tion of his brother practitioners. As early as 1885 he was awarded the Pittman prize for the best essay on a subject selected by the Medical Society of North Carolina. Besides these hon- ors, the prominent positions he has held in the various medical societies to which he belongs indicate the high estimate other physicians place upon his ability. He has been president of the Medical Society of North Carolina, vice-president of the Sea- board Medical Association, president of the Edgecombe Medical Society, member of the North Carolina Board of Health and president of the Board of Medical Examiners of North Carolina. He is also a member of the Tri-State Society and of the Ameri- can Medical Association. He was assistant surgeon-general with the rank of major on the staffs of Governors Scales and Fowle. He was largely interested in the establishment of the Pittman Hospital at Tarboro, is one of its surgeons, has been superin- tendent of health of the county and is surgeon of all the rail- roads passing through Tarboro and of the leading life insurance companies doing business there. His later effort has been in reorganizing and building the Edgecombe General Hospital, a
JULIAN MEREDITH BAKER 57
modern well-equipped institution, built and operated on the com- munity plan. He is president of the board of directors and its chief surgeon.
He, though a thoroughly consistent and conscientious Demo- crat, has contented himself with serving two terms as town com- missioner, and has no desire for greater political honors.
He is a Mason, and has been Master of Concord Lodge, No. 58, at Tarboro, and is a member of the Presbyterian Church at that place. His married life has been singularly blessed. On June 17, 1884, he married Miss Elizabeth Howard, eldest daugh- ter of Judge George Howard of Tarboro, a brilliant and charm- ing woman with great intellectual attainments. Three children have been born to them, all of whom are living. Anna Howard, the eldest, married to W. E. Fenner, of Rocky Mount, N. C, who has one son Julian Baker. Sue Foxhall, the second daughter, married to Dr. W. W. Green of Tarboro, who has one daughter, Elizabeth Howard. The youngest daughter Elizabeth is un- married.
Every Edgecombe man, if he does not own one already, buys a farm as soon as he can, whatever may be his calling or profes- sion. His surplus funds, as they do elsewhere, do not run to villas or automobiles or to bonds and mortgages, but to well- stocked farms. Dr. Baker, far from being an exception to this general rule, is one of the largest owners of land in the county, and finds profit in raising cotton, peanuts and corn, and recrea- tion in raising fine stock and chickens.
Dr. Baker started life with high ideals and a definite purpose, that purpose to heal the sick and bring relief to the suffering, and he has dedicated all his abihty, all his energy, all his powers to the accomplishment of that purpose. And in this is the secret of his success and the lesson of his life.
Frank Nash.
JOHN BURGWIN
^HE family of Burgwin — written by some of its branches Burgwyn — has been seated in North CaroHna since the colonial period and has al- ways been noted for the intelligence, culture and talents of its members. The first of the name to settle in North Carolina was John Burgwin, an Englishman by birth and an Englishman at heart throughout his life, notwithstanding his devotion to the land of his adoption and its people. He was born at Hereford, in the county of Hereford, England, on February 25, 1731, and came to North Carolina probably about 1750.
He settled first in Charleston, probably some time prior to 1750, and engaged in business there, as it appears from the records of the register's office in Wilmington that on February 23, 1750, he gave to Benjamin Wheatley and Captain Richard Quince power of attorney to collect some debts due him by par- ties residing in Wilmington. He settled at Wilmington about 1752, and there was married, on February 22, 1753, to Margaret Haynes, of Castle Haynes, in New Hanover County. This lady was one of the two daughters of Captain Roger Haynes, whose other daughter (Mary) married General Hugh W^addell. The wife of Captain Haynes and mother of Mrs. Burgwin was the only child of the Rev. Richard Marsden, a clergyman of the Church of England and rector of the parish of St. James in
JOHN BURGWIN 59
Wilmington. Parson Marsden obtained grants of land on the northeast branch of the Cape Fear, and on a portion of this was later erected the Hermitage, Mr. Burgwin's seat, to which we shall refer in another part of this sketch. The first wife of Mr. Burgwin died without issue, and of his second marriage we shall speak later on.
The first appearance of John Burgwin's name in the records of North Carolina is in the year 1755, when he was quarter- master in Captain William MacKenzie's company of North Caro- lina provincial militia for the county of New Hanover. Shortly after this, during the same year, he was promoted to the rank of cornet. As the latter rank no longer exists in the military establishments of America, we may here mention that a cornet was a commissioned cavalry ofiicer who commanded the color- guard of a regiment.
Beginning with the session of 1760 and ending with his resig- nation in 1772 — a period of twelve years — Mr. Burgwin was clerk of the governor's council or upper house of the General Assembly. On April 30, 1762, he became a magistrate for the county of Bladen, and later served in a similar capacity for New Hanover. In 1766 the council or upper house desired to elect him treasurer of the southern counties of the province, but the lower house did not concur in the appointment. He was treas- urer of the southern districts of the province of North Carolina in 1770 and 1771. He was appointed clerk of the superior court for the district of Wilmington in 1768 and register of the high court of chancery in 1769. He also served as a representative of Bladen County in the colonial Assembly at the session beginning in December, 1773.
The above is a brief synopsis of the public services of Mr. Burgwin. When he retired from the of¥ice he held as clerk of the council it involved him in a quarrel with Governor Josiah Martin. While Mr. Burgwin claimed that the resignation he had tendered was upon condition that his friend, William Hooper (afterward signer of the Declaration of Independence), should succeed him, Martin insisted that there was no such understand-
6o NORTH CAROLINA
ing, and appointed John Hawks to the vacancy. Whatever may have been the merits of this matter, there is Httle doubt that the services of Mr. Burgwin met with the entire approbation of the council, for, on the journal of that body for February 2'j, ijy^y we find this entry:
"His Excellency the governor having appointed John Hawks, Esquire^ clerk to this house in the room of John Burgwin, Esquire, in full con- fidence that the said John Burgwin had desired to resign said office, and not from any disapprobation of his conduct.
'This house, taking the same into consideration, do resolve that, during the ten years of his service as clerk of this house, the said John Burgwin hath ever acted with the strictest integrity and honor, and hath discharged all the duties of that office with skill and ability.
"And it is ordered that this resolve be entered on the journals of this house as a testimony of their unreserved approbation of his conduct."
In a record of the inferior court of New Hanover County for February 8, 1768, when Cornelius Harnett was presiding justice and Mr. Burgwin one of the four associate justices of that tribunal, we find a striking example of the prompt admin- istration of justice — if such severity and haste may be called justice in view of the crime charged — at the trial of one Ouanimo,. a negro slave convicted of robbery. The docket says :
"The court, upon examination of the evidences relating to several rob- beries committed by Quanimo, have found him guilty of the several crimes charged against him and sentenced him to be hanged by the neck until he is dead to-morrow morning between the hours of ten and twelve o'clock, and his head affixed up upon the point near Wilmington.
"The court valued the said negro Quanimo at eighty pounds proclama- tion money, proof having been made that he had his full allowance of corn paid, agreeable to act of Assembly."
Hanged, beheaded and paid for all in one day ! — and this, too, for a crime now generally punished by a term in the chain gang. Exactly what bearing the corn had upon the case we are unable to say, unless Quanimo was fed at public expense upon this com- modity while awaiting trial instead of being fed at the expense of his owner, in which latter event the cost of the food would probably be added to the value of the negro.
When Mr. Burgwin resigned his office as secretary of the gov-
JOHN BURGWIN 6i
ernor's council early in 1772, he went to Boston for his health, and remained away from North Carolina until about the end of the year.
At the breaking out of the War of the Revolution Mr. Burgwin was residing at the Hermitage, his country seat near Wilmington; He was then engaged in a mercantile business, and on January 5, 1775 (several months before active hostilities commenced), he had a brief misunderstanding with a local Committee of Safety about the sale of some gunpowder which the committee wished to procure from him for public defense. At first a resolution of censure against him was passed by the committee; but when it was learned that the only powder he had refused to sell was some which did not belong to him, the committee expressed itself as satisfied with his action.
On January 8, 1775, three days after the above-mentioned transaction with the Committee of Safety, an entertainment was given at the house of Mr. Burgwin and many young people were present, some of whom engaged in the game of blind man's buff. In a rollicking humor Mr. Burgwin offered to join in the play; and while blindfolded suffered a severe fall, which badly frac- tured one of his legs. The surgeon who set the broken limb did not do the work in a skillful manner, and Mr. Burgwin was con- fined for many months as a consequence. As his health grew no better and fears began to be entertained that he would finally succumb to the effects of his injury, his surgeon advised that a change of climate for that of England and use of the bath waters there would be beneficial. It was on this advice that Mr. Burgwin temporarily took up his abode in Great Britain. In 1777, during his absence from the State, the Assembly passed an act confiscat- ing the property of citizens of North Carolina who were then absent and should not return within a certain time. The lands of Mr. Burgwin fell within the application of this law, and upon hearing of this he at once started back to America to see if "his belongings could be recovered. He landed in New York in the summer of 1778, and afterward received a passport to Wilming- ton, coming to the latter place in October of the same year.
62 NORTH CAROLINA
As soon as Governor Caswell heard of Mr. Burgwin's arrival he directed that he should go under parole to the Hermitage. Shortly after Mr. Burgwin's arrival a newspaper at Newbern printed a paragraph reflecting on his conduct, and this caused him to write Governor Caswell on November 29, 1778, saying:
"I trust, sir, from your love of justice and real goodness of heart, manifested by all your actions both public and private, that your Excellency will not credit such reports, but do me the justice to believe that there is no man in America who has a more sincere attachment to North Carolina than myself. Soon after the arrival of your Excellency's parole, I applied to the magistrates of Wilmington to take the oath and be admitted a citizen, but it seems that the law has reserved that power in the General Assembly. The magistrates, however, granted me a cer- tificate of my application."
Upon Mr. Burgwin's case being referred to the General As- sembly that body appointed a committee to investigate the merits of the matter. On January 2^), 1779, the committee made its report, setting forth how Mr. Burgwin's ill-health had made it necessary for him to go to England for treatment, and said in conclusion :
"The many public services that gentleman formerly rendered this coun- try, and his ready compliance at present with its laws, gives us no room to doubt his attachment to its interests. We, therefore, unanimously recommend him to be received as a citizen of this State, and that his property be restored to him."
When the British army under Lord Cornwallis invaded North CaroHna in 1781 Mr. Burgwin left the State in the early spring of that year and afterward traveled in various parts of Europe, from Denmark to Belgium, probably on commercial ventures. Concerning this action Archibald Machine wrote on March 30, 1782, saying:
"I am perfectly satisfied that he is not an enemy to the State from numerous circumstances ; and his leaving it so early as the latter end of February or beginning of March last year convinced me that fear arising from the consequences of war was his only inducement to leave the country. He was so apprehensive of the depredations of armies and the violence of parties that he was actually in treaty, before the arrival of the British in this town, for the sale of his property."
During Mr. Burgwin's second absence his property was again
JOHN BURGWIN 63
threatened with confiscation, but it is probable that no action was taken, as the Hermitage remained in his family for more than a hundred years after the Revolution and this estate, though the house has been burned, is now owned by a great-grandson, George C. Burgwin, of Pittsburgh, Pa. It was during his absence in England, on April ^y, 1782, that Mr. Burgwin married his second wife. This lady was EHza Bush, young- est daughter of George Bush, of Bristol, England. She came to America with her husband, landing at Charleston about the beginning of the year 1784, and later making her home with him at the Hermitage. Soon after her arrival in North Carolina, how- ever, her husband found it necessary to carry her to a resort in Rhode Island, owing to ill-health. They sailed for Rhode Island from Wilmington on June 29, 1784. Mrs. Burgwin died on October 29, 1787. All of Mr. Burgwin's descendants are through his marriage with her, for his first wife died childless, as already mentioned. The children left by Mr. Burgwin were three in num- ber, as follows : John Fanning Burgwin, born at Thornbury, Gloucestershire, England, March 14, 1783, and died at Raleigh, N. C, June 18, 1864; Caroline Elizabeth Burgwin, born April 9, 1784, and died October 9, 1863; George William Bush Burgwin, born September 2, 1787, and died at the Hermitage February O- 1854, in the room in which he was born. All three of these chil- dren married and left descendants, as will be noted later on.
The eldest, John Fanning Burgwin, changed the orthography of his name to Burgwyn, and this has been followed by his descendants. He married (August 3, 1806) Sarah Pierrepont Hunt, only daughter of Robert Hunt of New Jersey and Eunice Edwards his wife, daughter of the great New England theo- logian, Jonathan Edwards, the younger. Among the descendants of^ John Fanning Burgwyn by his wife Sarah Pierrepont Hunt is that branch of the family which later lived for the most part in Northampton County, N. C, among these being Colonel Henry King Burgwyn, Jr., of the Twenty-sixth North Carolina Regi- ment, killed at Gettysburg, and Captain William H. S. Burgwyn, also of the Confederate army (Company H, Thirty-fifth North
64 NORTH CAROLINA
Carolina regiment), who later was colonel of the Second North Carolina regiment of United States Volunteers in the war with Spain.
George William Bush Burgwin, younger son of John Burgwin, married Maria, daughter of Governor Abner Nash and a sister of Chief Justice Frederick Nash of the North Carolina Supreme Court. Among his children were Captain John Henry King Burgwin, killed (unmarried) in the war with Mexico; Hasell Witherspoon Burgwin, who married Nannie Robinson of Vir- ginia and left an only son, John H. K. Burgwin, now of Virginia, and one daughter, Mary ; Hill Burgwin, who was twice married, first to Mary Phillips of Pittsburg and afterward to Susan Nash Worcester, nee Nash, of North Carolina ; Frances E. B. Burgwin, wife of Colonel William E. Anderson, Sr., and mother (among other children) of General George Burgwin Anderson and Cap- tain Robert Walker Anderson, both killed in the Confederate army; Margaret A. Burgwin, wife of the Rev. Samuel Iredell Johnston; Caroline A. Burgwin, who married Judge Thomas S. Ashe, of the North Carolina Supreme Court; Maria Burgwin, who married Parker Quince of Wilmington, N. C. ; and Sally Priscilla, who died unmarried at Wilmington in January, 1903.
As already mentioned, the only daughter of John Burgwin was Caroline Elizabeth. She married Dr. George C. Clitherall, a surgeon in the United States army. Judge Alexander B. Clitherall and Major George B. Clitherall of Alabama were her sons.
It is to be regretted that the nature of the present work will not admit of a more detailed account of the descendants of John Burgwin, who have lived in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and else- where, as well as in North Carolina. Hill Burgwin, above men- tioned, was an eminent member of the Bar in Pittsburgh, Pa., and for many years a lay deputy to the general conventions of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Besides two daughters he left five sons: George Collinson (lawyer and bank president), Henry Phillips, John Henry King, and Augustus Phillips, an attorney of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company; and Kenneth Ogden, a son by his second wife.
JOHN BURGWIN 65
John Burgwin's seat, the Hermitage, stood until 1881, and was then accidentally destroyed by fire. This historic mansion was the seat of elegant hospitality throughout a long period of years ; and for an account of it (with illustration) we refer our readers to the Magazine of American History, November, 1886. From that account (written by Colonel James G. Burr) we make a brief quotation, as follows :
"The mansion house was beautifully located, and presented a very im- posing appearance. It was about one hundred and twenty feet long; the north front faced a sloping lawn, extending about one hundred and fifty yards to Prince George's creek, and the south front faced a large flower- garden, from which extended a broad avenue about half a mile long, with a double row of walnut trees on each side, continued by a carriage-way of more than a mile in length through the pines until it entered the country road leading to Wilmington. The avenue was almost entirely destroyed by a tornado about sixty years ago. The house contained seventeen rooms, with a light, well-ventilated stone cellarage extending under the whole. The building was of the most substantial character. . . . The furniture was of massive mahogany, the greater part of it imported from England, with none of the deceptive veneering now in general use, but solid and substantial, intended not simply for ornament, but serving for the use of future generations. During the late war, the mansion was occupied by a regiment of Federal troops and greatly desecrated. All of the books, papers and family records were destroyed, and the venerable furniture broken up or given to negroes. The large and very valuable oil painting, set in a panel over the mantelpiece in the drawing-room, and which was so much admired by visitors, was picked to pieces with their bayonets by the soldiers, in search of concealed treasure, some of the fragments being afterward found in the garden. The history of that picture presents the character of Mr. Burgwin in such an admirable light that it well deserves to be reco'rded. On his return to America, after the close of the Revolutionary War, he found himself greatly embarrassed by the debts which he owed in England, incurred before the war, while a great part of those which were due him in America could not be collected, owing to insolvencies and the statute of limitations, and other obstacles inter- posed by his debtors. His English debts were barred by law. and wholly uncollectible, as his creditors well knew. Yet, notwithstanding his great losses on this side, which nearly sacrificed his whole estate, such was hia high sense of honor and indomitable energy that he did not rest until he had paid off every dollar he owed, although the struggle continued through one-half of his remaining years. It was to mark their appreciation of his
66 NORTH CAROLINA
honorable conduct that the merchants of the celebrated 'Lloyds Coffee House' had the picture painted and sent to him.
"It represented a forest scene, a dark thunder storm arising in the distance, and in the foreground two horses drawing a heavy load — strain- ing every muscle in their efforts to get it in before the storm should be upon them. It was greatly admired by connoisseurs, and its loss has naturally been greatly deplored by the surviving members of the family, for they felt a just pride in possessing such a souvenir of their ancestor, reflecting so much honor upon him.
"The subject of the picture was happily chosen, symbolizing, as it did, the herculean efforts of Mr. Burgwin to relieve himself of financial embarrassments when surrounded by the dark clouds of adversity."
In 1786 a three-quarter oil portrait of Mr. Burgwin was painted by his friend, the eminent English portrait painter, John S. Copley. It represents Mr. Burgwin in the costume of his day with powdered hair, sitting at his desk with pen in hand, his left elbow resting on a volume with the inscription, "State of North Carolina — Public Accounts." This painting was in the possession of his great-grandson, Colonel William H. S. Burgwyn of Wel- don, by whose widow it has been deposited in the North Caro- lina Hall of History at Raleigh.
The death of John Burgwin occurred on May 21, 1803, at the Hermitage. He was a man of the strictest integrity and possessed the good-will of his neighbors throughout a long and eventful life. Being a sincere lover both of his native country and of his adopted country, he endeavored to hold aloof when those two nations engaged in a deadly war. This caused ill-feeling for a time to exist while hostilities were in progress; but when peace came and it was remembered that he had never been guilty of a single act injurious to the American cause, the friendships of his earlier years were renewed. He died respected by all, and left a posterity which has been an honor to North Carolina.
Marshall De Lancey Haywood.
■■/:/f,^rr,s dBn'll^
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HARRY KING BURGWYN, JR.
5ENRY KING BURGWYN, Jr., commonly called Harry Burgwyn, was born at Jamaica Plains, Mass., October 3, 1841, in the same room in which his mother and her father were born. The house is still standing (1917), a large, double, two-story, frame building in spa- cious grounds, occupied by descendants of the Greenough family. He was a descendant of John Burgwin and a brother of Colonel W. H. S. Burgwyn, sketches of whom are to be found in the present volume.
Till he was twelve years old he was instructed by private tutors, who resided in the family. They were men of scholarly tastes and attainments and incited in their pupil a love for study. He was instructed not only in the English branches, but was taught Latin, Greek and French. By committing to memory four books of the "^neid" of Virgil at so much per line he made money enough to buy a gold watch that cost more than $100. He was wearing this watch when he fell at Gettysburg. When old enough to be sent off to school he was placed, first at the school of the Rev. Frederick Gibson at Chestnut Hill, near Balti- more, Md., and afterward at the Episcopal College at Burlington, N. J. At both places he was a diligent and conscientious student. Soon after he was fifteen years of age he received the appoint-
68 NORTH CAROLINA
ment as cadet at West Point, where his father had been a student for three years, but on his way there his father stopped over in Washington to see the secretary of war, Mr. Jefferson Davis, his personal friend. Mr. Davis inquired the age of the young man, and being told he was not sixteen, the prescribed age for admis- sion, declared the objection insurmountable and that he must wait a year longer.
He was then placed under the tuition of Captain J. G. Foster, U. S. A., then a professor at the Academy, later Major-General J. G. Foster in command of the Federal forces in eastern North Carolina in the Civil War. He remained under Captain Foster's charge, pursuing the same studies as those taught at the Academy, until Captain Foster was ordered away ; he then entered as a par- tial course student the University of the State located at Chapel Hill. There he remained for two years, graduating in 1859 upon those studies which he had selected, sharing with the best scholars the highest honors of his classes and having obtained the regard and esteem of professors and fellow-students. He was a member of the Philanthropic Society and of the Zeta Psi Fraternity. At this period, aged eighteen years, he might, as the phrase goes, have been considered "educated." Not so, however, thought his father. Foreseeing that the dissensions which then agitated the North and South would find their arbitrament in war, his father was desirous that his son should have the advantages of a military education, so as to be prepared for usefulness in any emergency, and young Burgwyn was placed in the Virginia Military Institute at Lexington, where he matriculated August 10, 1859. There he soon placed himself with the foremost of his class and was among those selected by the superintendent of the Academy to act as guard at the execution of John Brown at Harper's Ferry, Va., December 2, 1859. Early in the spring of 1861, the corps of cadets were ordered to Richmond, Va., and Cadet Burgwyn ful- filled important duties there until he deemed it his duty to offer his services to the executive of North Carolina.
At first commissioned as captain to recruit a company, he was soon promoted major and placed in command of the camp of
HARRY KING BURGWYN, JR. 69
instruction for newly arrived volunteers located at Crabtree, out- side of Raleigh, where he conducted a system of severe drill and strict military duties, which obtained the commendation of all who witnessed its good effects. His military capacity, amenity of manner and close attention to the comforts of his men soon won their confidence and affection, and on the formation of the Twenty-sixth regiment, composed of companies then stationed ^t the camp of instruction, on August 2y, 1861, he was elected its lieutenant-colonel under Zebulon B. Vance as colonel. In his diary marked "strictly private" is this entry :
"Camp Carolina, near Raleigh, N. C, August 27, 1861. I was to-day- elected lieutenant-colonel of the Twenty-sixth regiment North Carolina troops. I am nineteen years, nine months and twenty-seven days old, and probably the youngest lieutenant-colonel in the Confederate or United States armies. The command of the camp of instruction was given me on July 5th and after being disappointed in the organization of the Twelfth regiment, I have been elected to a position in which may Almighty God lend me His aid in discharging my duty to Him and to my country."
Promptly after its organization the regiment was ordered to the seacoast of the State to protect Fort Macon, commanding Beau- fort harbor, and was stationed on Bogue Banks, six miles from Fort Macon.
In the Raleigh Register of Wednesday, July 22, 1863, appeared the following (in part) obituary notice, in which Colonel Burg- wyn's subsequent military career is briefly summarized:
"From this State we follow the subject of our narrative to the bloody fields around Richmond, winding up with the terrific fight of Malvern Hill, in which his regiment, the Twenty-sixth, was unsur- passed for heroism by any troops on the field. On the resignation of Colonel Vance, when he became governor-elect of this State, young Burgwyn was elected colonel, and soon thereafter we find him again in service in his native State. In the critical campaign in Martin County, when the enemy were threatening disastrous consequences to the region of the Roanoke River, we find Colonel Burgwyn perform- ing signal services, especially in the engagement of Rawle's Mills, where he displayed a cool judgment and indomitable courage, of which a veteran of many years' standing might have been proud. In all the course of his career, so well calculated *to turn the head' of one so
70 NORTH CAROLINA
young, Colonel Burgwyn displayed a modesty so commendable that he silenced the tongue of envy and won the confidence of his brothers in arms. When, on Governor Vance's resignation, it was suggested that he was too young for the colonelcy, General D. H. Hill thus wrote of him: 'Lieutenant-colonel Burgwyn has showed the highest qual- ities of a soldier and officer, in the camp and on the battlefield, and ought, by all means, to be promoted.' As we have seen. Colonel Burgwyn did receive the promotion, and subsequently was strongly recommended for the office of brigadier-general. . . .
"We conclude this imperfect tribute to Colonel Burgwyn with the following letters, received by his father from officers in his regiment:
'F ^ ^ ^ ^
"Extract of a letter from Captain J. J. Young, of Wake County, Quartermaster Twenty-sixth regiment North Carolina troops.
" 'Near Gettysburg, Pa., July 3, 1863.
"I feel it my duty to communicate the painful and melancholy intelli- gence to you of the death of Colonel H. K. Burgwyn, who was killed nobly fighting for his country, July i, 1863. He was shot through both lungs and died an easy death. I have buried him as well as possible under a walnut tree leading from Gettysburg to Chambersburg, about two miles from the former place. His loss is great — more than any of us can imagine — to his country. To me it is almost stunning, and to the whole regiment. We gained a great victory on the first of the month, the enemy losing 12,000, it is said, but though ours was not a fourth so large, his made it great.
" 'Poor Kincian [his servant] takes it bitterly. The colonel, Lieutenant- Colonel Lane, Captain McCreery and eight others were shot down [in succession] with our colors in hand. Captain McCreery was killed instantly, Lieutenant-Colonel Lane seriously, if not mortally [wounded]. The regiment went in 800 strong and came out the first day 250.
" 'The fighting yesterday and to-day has been terrible, and will con- tinue to-morrow, I suppose. General Pettigrew is in command of our division. Major Jones of the Twenty-sixth of our brigade. This will give you an idea of the frightful loss of the officers.*
"In this connection we subjoin a letter from General Pettigrew to Governor Vance, testifying to the unparalleled gallantry of Colonel Burgwyn's regiment:
" 'Headquarters Pettigrew's Brigade, July 9, 1863.
" 'Dear Sir : Knowing that you would be anxious to hear from your
old regiment, the Twenty-sixth, I embrace an opportunity to write you
a hasty note. It covered itself with glory. This is no passing eulogium
I pay them. My brigade and that of Colonel Brockenborough were held
HARRY KING BURGWYN, JR. 71
in reserve on the evening of the ist of July. It fell to the lot of the Twenty-sixth to charge one of the strongest positions possible. They drove certainly three, and we have every reason to believe five, regiments out of the woods with a gallantry unsurpassed. Their loss has been, heavy, very heavy, but the missing are on the battlefield and in the hospital. Both on the ist and 3d your old command did honor to your association with them and to the State they represented.
" T have not mentioned the rest of the brigade, because this is not an official report, but you may tell all friends to be proud of them, for they deserve it.
" 'Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
" 7. J« Pettigrew, Brigadier-general.
"'Governor Z. B. Vance.'"
On October 20, 1897, a painting of the three colonels of the Twenty-sixth North Carolina troops was presented to the State. The presentation speech was made in Raleigh by Mr. John Burg- win MacRae, of Jackson. Of Colonel Burgwyn he says :
"In June, 1861, he was placed by Hon. John W. Ellis, then governor of North Carolina, in command of the camp of instruction at Crabtree Creek, four miles distant from this city. Methinks I can see him now, as he stood there, firm, erect, his eye beam.ing with command, detect- ing every wrong movement of man or musket in that long line of 1700 troops. Every inch of him a soldier, he enthused into those around him the influence of that martial spirit with which he was so thoroughly imbued. Arduous, unremitting in his duties, he was never idle. Eight hours a day the men were drilled in the schools of the soldier, the company, the battalion. As soon as any efficiency was effected, they were formed into regiments and sent on to the seat of war. On the 27th of August, 1861, he was elected the lieutenant-colonel of the Twenty-sixth North Carolina regiment, and from thenceforth it was his main care to put his command into that state of efficiency so essential to the success of arms. . . .
"Born in affluence, nor obliged to toil, early in life he realized that without labor nothing was worth having. And what he did he did thoroughly. He loved to work and believed by so doing he was best serving his Maker. Truthful and courageous, high-toned and hon- orable, honest in all his dealings, courteous and gentle, he was uni- versally beloved by his associates at school and college. In appear- ance he was the very embodiment of manly beauty. Well made, sym- metrical in figure, without superfluous flesh, tall, erect, with his fine head well poised on his shoulders, he was in every respect the ideal soldier.
"In his daily life he was gentle yet sprightly, fond of social amenities,
'jn NORTH CAROLINA
kind-hearted and ever courteous in manner and bearing; he was inflexibly stern and impartial in the discharge of duty. In his intercourse with women he was eminently chivalric in an age of chivalric men. None could be gentler, more attentive, more courteous than he. No Paladin in mediaeval days bore himself with more knightly grace. He constantly sought the company of the gentler sex, believing that the atmosphere of a refined society was a strong safeguard against those evils which young men are so strongly tempted to embrace. He had none of those vices so common to young men of that or this day.
"He was as pure in mind as a young virgin. His filial affections were beautiful to contemplate. His high respect and reverence for his father and deep love and veneration for his mother were conspicuous traits in his noble character. Their slightest wish was a law unto himself, which he obeyed with alacrity and pleasure. No one who partook of the hospitality of that delightful home on the lower Roanoke can ever forget how attractive and charming he was in the social circle.
"In religious matters he was a member of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and showed forth his religion in his daily life. His was in all respects a beautifully rounded character, a perfect exemplification of the old Horatian line, *Et in se ipso totus teres atque rotundus.' "
Mr. MacRae also eulogizes the enlisted men of the regiment as follows :
"The annals of modern warfare fail to show, in any one command of equal size, so large a loss as that sustained by the Twenty-sixth regiment in that fearful battle. The official figures tell us that out of 800 men, rank and file, taken into action, 80 were left to report for duty after the three days' fight. Company E carried in 82 officers and men and brought out only 3 untouched. Company F, consisting of 88 muskets and 3 com- missioned officers, lost every man killed or wounded. Every man was hit, and the orderly-sergeant who made out the list did it with a bullet in each leg. Take the most dreadful encounters of modern times — the British infantry at Salamanca; the French at the battle of the Moskra; the Old Guard at Waterloo; the Light Brigade at Balaklava — I use no exaggeration when I say they pale into insignificance compared with the loss sustained by the Twenty-sixth North Carolina at Gettysburg."
The remains of Colonel Burgwyn were removed from the bat- tlefield in 1867 and reinterred in Oakwood Cemetery, Raleigh. A beautiful monument marks his final resting place.
William H. S. Burgwyn.
'^^^^_^.
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"^^AhS
WILLIAM HYSLOP SUMNER BURGWYN
CONSPICUOUS for his distinguished career and high character was the late Colonel William Hyslop Sumner Burgwyn, of Weldon, Halifax County, N. C, a brave soldier, an able lawyer, a liberally educated and refined gentleman, and a man closely identified with the commercial and industrial progress of his community and State since the period of the Civil War. Descended from staunch and erudite English and Welsh stock, Colonel Burgwyn inherited the gen- tility, courage and strong characteristics of a martial and schol- arly ancestry, and was himself a gentleman of soldierly bearing and literary attainments. His maternal ancestors were among the first settlers of Massachusetts ; on the paternal side he sprung from an old North Carolina family. His paternal great-grand- father, John Burgwin, of the Hermitage, near Wilmington, N. C, came to America from Bristol, England, about 1750. He estab- lished himself as a merchant in Wilmington, and a sketch of his career is printed in this volume. On April 27, 1782, John Burg- win married as his second wife, in Bristol, England, Miss Eliza Bush, daughter of Mr. George Bush, a merchant of that city. Of this marriage the oldest child was John Fanning Burgwin, who, after completing his education in England, removed to this country and married, on August 3, 1806, Miss Sarah Pierrepont
74 NORTH CAROLINA
Hunt, daughter of Eunice, the youngest daughter of Jonathan Edwards, Jr., of New England, and by her he had two daugh- ters and six sons. The second son, Henry King Burgwyn, was born January 7, 181 3, and died February 2, 1877. He married Anna Greenough, of Boston, Mass., and that union was blessed with eight children. The oldest son, named after his father, Henry King Burgwyn, was a gallant Confederate officer, the distinguished colonel of the famous Twenty-sixth North Carolina regiment, who was killed at the head of his troops with the regi- mental colors in his hands, in the memorable charge through McPherson's woods, at Gettysburg, on July i, 1863, his regiment suffering in that battle the heaviest loss suffered by any regiment during the entire war.
William H. S. Burgwyn was the fourth child and second son of Henry King Burgwyn, of Thornbury Plantation, Northampton County, N. C, and Anna Greenough, of Boston, Mass. He was born on July 23, 1845, at the residence of his maternal grand- mother, Mrs. David Stoddard Greenough, at Jamaica Plains, which now forms a part of the city of Boston, and in the room in which his mother and her father and grandfather were born, and the house is now occupied by his aunt, the widow of David Stoddard Greenough, the seventh of that name. He was named after his step-grandfather, General William Hyslop Sumner, of Boston, the son of Governor Increase Sumner, of Massachusetts, and it is noteworthy that while Colonel Burgwyn was on his father's side a descendant of Jonathan Edwards, he was also re- lated to that distinguished gentleman on the side of his mother, who, like Mr. Edwards, was a descendant of the Stoddards.
William H. S. Burgwyn's childhood was passed in the country, at Thornbury Plantation, on the Roanoke River, in Northampton County, North Carolina. His father, a wealthy planter, was de- votedly attached to his family and friends, and, absorbed in his agricultural operations, preferred the enjoyments of his home life to the excitement of political contests. Enjoying excellent health and fond of out-of-door sports, young Burgwyn passed a large portion of his hours of recreation in hunting and fishing, and fre-
WILLIAM HYSLOP SUMNER BURGWYN 75
quent practice made him an adept with carpenters' tools. He was fond of books, and spent much of his time in reading the best works of selected authors, and especially the classics. His parents' circumstances were such that every facility for acquiring an education was afforded him. Until nine years of age he was taught by private tutors residing in his father's family ; for the next three years he was a pupil at Burlington College, New Jer- sey, and at Rev. Frederick Gibson's school, at Chestnut Hill, near Baltimore, Md. During 1857 and 1858 he was a student at Horn- er's School at Oxford, N. C. The next year he entered George- town College, D. C, and after due preparation at that venerable institution, in the summer of i860 joined the freshman class at the University of North Carolina.
In the spring of 1861, when the freedom of the South was threatened and North Carolina called on her sons to embrace the cause of southern rights and independence, and a great stirring wave of patriotism passed over Chapel Hill, Burgwyn, a gifted scholar, was one of the first of the loyal students to lay aside his books and take up arms in the South's defense. Immediately upon his enlisting in the Confederate army he was appointed drill master at the camp of instruction at Crabtree, near Raleigh, and in the following summer he accompanied the Twenty-second regiment. Colonel J. Johnston Pettigrew commanding, to Brooks* Station, and later to Evansport, on the Potomac River. But in the fall of 1861 he was appointed adjutant of the cam.p of instruc- tion at Camp Mangum, near Raleigh, where he rendered impor- tant service in drilling and instructing the new companies arriving to be organized into regiments until August, 1862, when he re- turned to Virginia, having been elected first lieutenant of Com- pany H, Thirty-fifth North CaroHna regiment, of which his friend, the distinguished Matthew W. Ransom, was the colonel, and who presided at the election. Lieutenant Burgwyn was with his regiment in the Maryland campaign of 1862, at the capture of Harper's Ferry and at Sharpsburg, and in reserve at Marye's Heights at Fredericksburg. On the resignation, on account of ill-health, of his captain, D. G. Maxwell, of Charlotte, N. C, in
^e NORTH CAROLINA
the spring of 1863, he received merited promotion to the captaincy of his company, and in January, 1864, was assigned to duty as assistant adjutant-general of Clingman's bridage. Always con- spicuous for his gallantry, at the battle of Drury's Bluff, on May 16, 1864, when Butler was bottled up at Bermuda Hun- dreds, Colonel Burgwyn led the charge.
As an illustration of Captain Burgwyn's gallantry on the field we condense an account given by Judge Clark in a note to the history of Clingman's brigade, published in the "Regimental His- tories" :
"As soon as the order to charge was given Captain Burgwyn sprang upon the parapet, waved his hat, and raising the rebel yell, crossed the ditch in front of the brigade, calling on the men to follow, and nobly did they come on, though the enemy's sharpshooters fired as fast as they could pull the triggers of their repeating Spencer rifles. Though the line was disorganized by obstacles, not a man faltered. After pressing for- ward about three hundred yards, because of the heavy fire, fearing pome hesitation, he seized the colors of the Fifty-first regiment, and waving his hat and calling on the men to follow, ran in advance about two hun- dred yards, where they encountered the enemy's first line, posted in their rifle pits; but as they reached that point Captain Burgwyn fell from sheer exhaustion. Rising, however, he rushed on with the men, the enemy surrendering in crowds. He had just had time to hand the colors to the color guard when he fell fainting; but having revived, and seeing a battery of artillery some two hundred and fifty yards distant which v/as firing on his men, he again seized the colors and led the men to the charge. Onward they pressed over the battery, and struck the enemy's line some four hundred and fifty yards further on, he leading and being the first to gain the works; but once more he fell exhausted, and then recovering himself, and finding the enemy in full flight, he again rushed forward, leading his men in hot pursuit."
It was at the battle of Cold Harbor, June i, 1864, that he was severely wounded while leading his brigade in a counter charge. As soon as his wounds had healed he returned to duty, reaching his brigade in front of Richmond about the middle of September, and in the fierce assault on Fort Harrison, on September 30th, he was again wounded and unfortunately fell into the hands of the enemy. He was confined at first in Washington City and then
WILLIAM HYSLOP SUMNER BURGWYN ^y
at Fort Delaware, where he was kept a prisoner until March, 1865, when, through the intercession of Colonel William Norris, of Baltimore, then Confederate States assistant commissioner of exchange, he was paroled, but not exchanged. He was surren- dered when the army of General Joseph E. Johnston, to which his brigade was attached, laid down their arms.
In May, 1865, he returned to the University of North Carolina to complete his education, and during vacation made up his studies to such an extent as to enable him to enter the sophomore class at the fall session. With a student's career which attracted admiration, he was graduated in June, 1868, from the University with first honors, receiving the degrees of A.B. and later A.M., and delivering the Latin salutatory address. He attended the law department of Harvard University to complete his law stud- ies, and graduated at that institution in 1869 with the degree of LL.B. In the same year he located in Baltimore, where, after being admitted to the Maryland Bar, he practised his profession successfully and won the reputation of being a discreet, able and conscientious lawyer. To broaden his intellectual and profes- sional scope. Colonel Burgwyn in 1874 began the study of medi- cine, and in the spring of 1876 received his diploma as doctor of medicine from the Washington Medical University of Baltimore.
On the breaking out of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad riot of July, 1877, Colonel Burgwyn offered his services to Governor Carroll, of Maryland, and was appointed lieutenant-colonel of the Eighth regiment. The service he then rendered caused him to be elected colonel of the Fifth Maryland regiment, a celebrated mili- tary organization, and during the time he held this command he again demonstrated his capacity as a leader and enjoyed the esteem and respect of that body of citizen soldiery. While in Baltimore he published a ''Digest" of the Maryland Reports ; by a resolution the Legislature of that State subscribed for 250 copies at $10 a copy, and he sold the copyright for $2,600 in ad- dition, realizing $5,100 from his work.
In 1882, leaving honors and a lucrative law clientage behind. Colonel Burgwyn returned to North Carolina and established the
78 NORTH CAROLINA
Bank of Henderson in the town of that name, which became one of the soundest and safest banking institutions in the State, and which has been instrumental in making that town a young city and its people prosperous. Colonel Burgwyn not only established the Bank of Henderson and a large tobacco factory there, but an electric-light system and water-works were fathered by him, and he was generally connected with every considerable enterprise in that county. While living in Henderson he was one of the origi- nal callers of a convention of the farmers of North CaroHna to memorialize the State Legislature to create an agricultural and mechanical college. He was appointed by Governor Scales to rep- resent North Carolina in the southern interstate convention in Atlanta in 1887; and again the following year at Montgomery, Ala. In 1889, when the same convention convened in Asheville, N. C, he was chairman of the North Carolina delegation.
In 1893 Colonel Burgwyn disposed of his interest in the bank- ing business and was appointed by Secretary of the Treasury Carlisle national bank examiner for the southern States, and met the requirements of that position with great skill and effi- ciency. He resigned this position in April, 1901, to accept the presidency of the First National Bank of Weldon.
When the war with Spain was declared and President McKin- ley called for volunteers Colonel Burgwyn offered his services to Governor Russell of North Carolina and was, in May, 1898, appointed colonel of the Second regiment, North Carolina volun- teer troops; this appointment gave satisfaction to the entire State as well as to the soldiers under his command. He was peculiarly qualified for the honor, possessing every soldierly attribute and element of fitness for the position. Santiago and Havana having fallen, and the war being over soon after the organization of this regiment, he did not have an opportunity of distinguishing him- self on the field of battle in the uniform of blue as he had done in the Civil War, when he wore the gray, and was mustered out of service November 25, 1898.
In 1901 Colonel Burgwyn established the First National Bank of Weldon, N. C, became its president, and in 1903 the Bank
WILLIAM HYSLOP SUMNER BURGWYN 79
of Rich Square and the Bank of Ayden, and in 1904 he estab- lished the First National Bank of Rocky Mount and the Bank of Northampton, at Jackson, N. C, becoming the president of each.
Aside from his business achievements and rnilitary distinctions, Colonel Burgwyn was a master of voice and pen, and delivered worthy orations on important subjects on many notable occasions. His address before the two literary societies of the University of North Carolina in aid of the establishment of a chair of history at that institution, made in 1890, was received with the highest applause by its alumni and friends, and his address on the life and times of General Thomas L. Clingman (with whom he was so closely associated during the war), delivered in Raleigh in May, 1898, was not only noted for its eloquence, but is a valuable contribution to the war literature of the State. His memorial address on the military and civil services of General Matthew W. Ransom, delivered in the chamber of the house of representa- tives at Raleigh, N. C, May 10, 1906, is regarded by many as his best literary production. He is also the author of a sketch of Gov- ernor Z. B. Vance, printed in the ''Library of Southern Litera- ture," and written at the request of its editors. In 1899 he made an exhaustive address before the State Bankers' Association on the resources of North Carolina. He was also the author of sev- eral valuable articles which have been published by the industrial and political press. He was a sterling Jackson Democrat and never voted any other party ticket. His religious affiliations were with the Protestant Episcopal Church, and he attended as lay deputy its general conventions of 1886 and 1889. He was a member of the Philanthropic Society of the University of North Carolina and of the Zeta Psi Fraternity.
Among the influences which developed and shaped his career were those of his home life in the country and on the plantation, which gave him a healthy physique; of the University, altogether good and inspiring; but more than all others, the influence of his mother and his wife on his whole life, intellectual and moral, and he attributed all the good he did and achievements accomplished to their counsel and guidance.
8o
NORTH CAROLINA
November 21, 1876, Colonel Burgwyn was fortunately married to Miss Margaret Carlisle Dunlop, of Richmond, Va., one of the most cultured and esteemed ladies who have ever adorned social and religious circles in North Carolina. She still survives her husband and resides in the city of Raleigh.
The death of Colonel Burgwyn occurred on January 3, 191 3, and he was interred in the Confederate Cemetery in Raleigh by the side of his brother, who was killed at Gettysburg. Colonel Burgwyn left no children.
6'. A. Ashe.
«..
r
MARION BUTLER
ION. MARION BUTLER, formerly United States senator, is a native of Sampson County, N. C. His great-grandfather, James Butler, settled in 1760, in the section which is now Sampson County, and there his family has ever since resided. When the troubles with the mother country came on James Butler espoused the cause of the people and served as patriot soldier during the Revo- lutionary War. A century later his descendant, Wiley Butler, living in the same community and animated by the same patriotic spirit, likewise responded to his country's call and be- came a soldier of the Confederacy. He married Romelia Ferrell, and on May 20, 1863, their first son was born to them, Marion Butler, the subject of this sketch. Their home was some ten miles distant from Clinton, the county seat, and there in the country Marion Butler passed his boyhood, being well trained by his mother and superintending for his father the work on the farm. He directed and helped to clear land, to make the crops, to cut timber, work turpentine boxes and burn tar kilns, and become familiar with all the operations of country life in the piney woods of North Carolina. But interspersed among the days of hard work were periods when hunting and fishing gave recreation and books and studies occupied his time.
Scattered through that part of North Carolina prior to the
82 NORTH CAROLINA
Civil War were some fine academies for females, which gave to it a distinctive character, there being a more general diffusion of higher education among young women than among the men of that section, and the mother of Marion Butler was not only a woman of superior mind and character, but of scholastic training; in her he found an excellent teacher, and although he attended the Salem High School in the neighborhood, virtually he was prepared for college by his mother, and particularly was he well instructed by her in mathematics, including geometry.
His father was reasonably prosperous in his business, and as it was his desire that his children should have a superior education, Marion, in 1881, being then eighteen years of age, became a student at the University, where he graduated four years later. It was his intention to seek a professional career, and while pur- suing the regular course at the University, he also attended the law lectures, and would have stood his examinations for his license that year; but all his plans were altered by the sudden death of his father in the spring before his graduation. This misfortune threw upon him the care of his mother's family, em- bracing a number of young children, and, abandoning for a time his purpose to enter the legal profession, he took his father's place on the farm and in the naval stores business ; and in order to aid in the education of his brothers and sisters he became principal of the Salem Academy, and by his devotion to his mother repaid her in some measure for the constant care she had bestowed upoiT him in his childhood.
Up to 1886 agriculture in North Carolina had been prosperous,, but about that time a period of depression set in, cotton began to fall in price, and the great grain crops of the new country of the West rendered farming in the East an unprofitable em- ployment, while in the western agricultural States the financial' conditions also produced widespread unrest and dissatisfaction. It was apparent that agriculture was on the decline, and to devise and secure remedial measures the Farmers' Alliance was organ- ized. In the spring of 1888 an organizer appeared in Mr. Butler's neighborhood and asked for permission to use the academy build-
MARION BUTLER 83
ing for the purpose of establishing a lodge. The general subject had long interested Mr. Butler, and being now brought so point- edly to his attention it enlisted his sympathy and co-operation. A week later a county lodge was organized and he was elected its president. He immediately purchased the Clinton Caucasian, a weekly newspaper published at the county seat, and becoming its editor, threw all his power into the promotion of the cause. The Caucasian was edited with ability, and underlying its strong and forcible editorials was a bed-rock of practical sympathy with the farming interests that attracted wide support and won for it the confidence and devoted attachment of the farmers of Samp- son and adjoining counties. Colonel L. L. Polk, the editor of the Progressive Farmer at Raleigh, was at the head of the state or- ganization, and Dr. Cyrus Thompson, Hon. S. B. Alexander, Major W. A. Graham, Governor Elias Carr, and many other strong men throughout the State became associated in the move- ment, which quickly spread throughout the entire farming ele- ment and dominated public affairs.
Among the practical evils complained of were the power of railway companies to combine and charge what the traffic would bear and to discriminate by favoritism and rebates, thus stifling competition, causing the formation of trusts and the low prices of agricultural products, which were largely attributed to under- consumption induced by the low price of labor and a scarcity of money. As a remedy it was proposed to have state control of freight rates, to be followed by public ownership of the railways and of the telegraph lines and to establish what was termed "the sub-treasury," which provided for the storage of agricultural products in government warehouses and the lending of money upon that security by the United States Treasury, and to have a larger per capita circulation of legal tender money, to be each year increased in proportion to the increase of population and business, and to control the trusts and corporations by legislative enactment and generally to promote the agricultural interests of the country. The better to control their operation, the organiza- tion excluded from membership all lawyers, merchants and bank-
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ers, admitting only those who were interested in farming. Still it was not a separate political organization, but declared its pur- pose to accomplish the desired reforms through the existing parties.
In 1890 Mr. Butler, then only twenty-seven years of age, took up vigorously the fight for the establishment of a railroad com- mission to control railroad freights and fares, and became a candi- date for the state senate, making that the leading issue in his campaign. After a hard contest he was elected and became the champion of that measure in the General Assembly and was chairman of the joint committee to whom his bill was referred. He embodied in his measure a further provision looking to the regulation of telegraph lines and all other natural monopolies, and also for the taxation of their properties, making these corpora- tions pay a larger proportion of the public taxes than they had heretofore done, and he had the gratification of seeing his impor- tant and highly beneficial ideas enacted into law. This act is still in force.
For years Dr. Alderman and Dr. Mclver had appealed to each General Assembly to establish a college for women, but without success. When they appealed to Mr. Butler he took up the fight and put through the law establishing the Normal and Industrial School for Women.
In the Legislature of 1895, which elected him to the United States Senate, he championed the proposed six per cent, interest law, which had been defeated by many preceding legislatures, and succeeded in placing that beneficent measure upon the statute books.
These three measures successfully championed by Mr. Butler have been referred to as the three greatest constructive laws en- acted by the State in a quarter of a century.
For some years there had been a constant and unremitting warfare waged against state aid to the University, in the interest of the denominational colleges, and there was danger that the appropriations necessary for the proper maintenance and expan- sion of that institution would be withheld. At the moment of the
MARION BUTLER 85
greatest peril the course of Mr. Butler and his active influence checked that movement and saved his alma mater, and since that time the regular appropriations have been made without serious objection. At this time a large majority of the Legislature was pronounced in its hostility to the University, and those who championed its cause took their political lives in their hands ; but it has ever been a marked characteristic of Marion Butler that when duty calls he never stops to measure the odds or count the cost.
In 1891 he was elected president of the State Farmers* Al- liance, which position he held for two years; at the Memphis meeting of the National Alliance, in 1893, he was chosen first vice-president of that organization.
As long as the Farmers' Alliance refrained from the forma- tion of a new political organization it easily dominated the state Legislature, and, largely controlling the Democratic party, it vir- tually governed the State. The situation was extremely irksome to those Democrats who were tabooed by the Alliance and saw themselves falling into a helpless and hopeless minority within their own party. The factional lines were being drawn with great rigidity and factional feeling became very bitter. The divergence was on national matters rather than because of local affairs, and the result was that the supporters of President Cleve- land's administration were ostracized, for the power of the Alli- ance had become almost supreme in the State. As the Alliance was not at all in line with the National Democratic organization, and it being apparent that President Cleveland would be renom- inated at the aproaching National Convention, at the State Demo- cratic Convention of 1892, in June, the AUiance delegates re- frained from participating in the election of delegates to attend the National Convention. This was a sign of coming events, and the People's party was formed, and in the fall it presented a ticket for governor and state officers as well as for the presidency. The breach was now complete. The adherents of the Farmers' Alli- ance separated themselves entirely from the Democratic party. In February, 1893, Colonel Polk, the leader, having died, Mr. Butler
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was elected president of the National Farmers' Alliance, and he continued to hold that position until 1897.
On the formation of the People's party the Alliance threw away its domination within the Democratic party in this State, but it still retained great power in the Legislature. At the election of 1894, when a Legislature was to be chosen which would elect two United States senators, Mr. Butler, who was chairman of the People's party state committee, planned and organized fusion with the Republican party and secured an Assembly that elected himself and Jeter C. Pritchard to the United States Senate.
Senator Butler's political success was so phenomenal that it calls attention to the characteristics which enabled him to achieve position and distinction so early in life.
The essentials for successful leadership are ability to organize men and arouse them to enthusiasm and zeal for work; ability to present a cause with such force, earnestness and impressiveness as will inspire faith and confidence in its justness as a popular measure, and lastly, an indomitable will power, coupled with inde- fatigable industry and zeal. In an eminent degree Senator Butler possessed all these qualifications.
Senator Butler signalized his entrance into the Senate by intro- ducing and securing the passage in 1896 of a resolution known as the Butler Anti-Bond Resolution, prohibiting the issue of any more government bonds without specific authority from Con- gress. It will be remembered that the Cleveland bond issues were made without such authority. This measure was debated ex- haustively for some weeks, with such distinguished senators opposing it as David B. Hill, William Lindsay and George Gray, Democrats ; and John Sherman, Henry Cabot Lodge, William B. Allison and Nelson W. Aldrich, Republicans. In spite of the strong ©position this measure encountered, yet, through the inde- fatigable efforts of Senator Butler and his ability to organize strong forces in favor of the measure, he succeeded in securing its passage.
As a debater he was always calm and self-contained, and evinced a thorough knowledge of the proposed legislation, always
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sustaining himself very creditably when opposed by any senator. In fact, he ranked as one of the ablest debaters. He was never known to show any excitement, even when the discussions became acrimonious, and this fact, coupled with his incisive reasoning powers, was one of the secrets of his brilliant success as a debater. In the presentation of his views on political and cognate subjects he was always clear, forcible, earnest and impressive. There were few men in pubhc life who studied more diligently than he. While in the Senate he rarely ever retired before midnight, but remained in his private office in his house, either studying, collecting data or preparing for debates. He seldom attended any social func- tions, his preference being for work and study.
As a member of the Post-office Committee of the Senate, Sena- tor Butler rendered service of inestimable value to his State and country. It was through his sole efforts that Congress appropri- ated $50,000 to make a test of the rural free delivery mail system. When he introduced this measure in the Senate it was antago- nized by the postmaster-general, who gave it as his opinion that it would be unwise and impracticable in operation and a useless and wasteful expenditure of public money even to try a few routes as an experiment. Senator Butler, having absolute faith in the merit of his proposition, which was a novel and radical measure to present to such a conservative body as the United States Senate, made a persistent and determined effort, finally overcom- ing all opposition and securing its enactment into law. There is now no measure more popular throughout the United States than the rural free delivery system, the appropriation for its mainte- nance and extension now aggregating $53,000,000. The free rural delivery system, which is now here to stay, will soon extend its blessings to the home of every rural citizen in this great Re- public and will ever stand as a monument to the North Carolina senator. He also urged the establishment of a system of postal savings banks, parcel post, and postal telegraph and telephones. He succeeded in getting his bill providing for a system of postal savings banks favorably reported from the committee.
Senator Chandler of New Hampshire, who served in the Senate
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at the same time, in a recent article giving the history of the estabHshment of the rural free delivery system, written at the request of the editor of the Clinton News-Despatch, refers to Senator Butler as *'the father of rural free delivery." Senator Chandler closed that published statement with the following para- graph :
"On March 4, 1901, Mr. Butler's term and mine expired, as also did that of Senator Wolcott, the chairman of the Committee on Post Office and Post Roads. He had opposed various propositions supported in the committee by Senator Butler. But when in the closing days the members arranged to present to their retiring chairman a silver service, it was agreed that Senator Butler should make the presentation. Chairman Wolcott, in his acceptance, stated that no senator had ever accomplished more during six years than had Senator Butler, and he pointed to his success in establishing free rural delivery and also his triumph in winning a majority of the committee to him in favor of a postal savings bank system, and generously suggested the probability that if he was to continue in the Senate he would within the next six years see established postal' telegraph and telephones, penny postage, parcels post, and other reforms that he had advocated.
"You inquired only about rural free delivery, but T mention Senator Wolcott's generous praises of Senator Butler, having no doubt from your letter that they will be interesting to you and your readers."
As a member of the Senate Naval Committee Mr. Butler cham- pioned and secured, almost single handed, an appropriation to begin the building of submarines, and as a result of his efforts, the United States was the first country in the world to build a modern submarine.
It is safe to say that no man has ever made a more brilliant irecord during one term in the State senate and one term in the United States Senate.
It, was after Senator Butler had been elected to the Senate that he began seriously to study the tariff question. Though raised a free trader, he soon became convinced that, while free-trade doctrines were attractive theoretically, a country situated as the United States needs a well-balanced protective tariff to protect its industries and labor, and also to promote general development
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and prosperity. He was impressed in studying the life of Daniel Webster with the reason that caused that great statesman to change from free trade to protection; he often expressed the opinion that if Calhoun, who was originally a protectionist, but who afterward became a free trader, on account of the condi- tions of slave labor in the South, were to-day alive that he would stand for protection. Indeed, he became firmly convinced that the South, with her great natural resources to be developed, is to-day in a position to profit more from the beneficent influences of protection than even is New England.
In 1896 Senator Butler was elected chairman of the national committee of the People's party, and with his party supported William J. Bryan for President in 1896 and in 1900; in 1904 he supported President Roosevelt, and has since affiliated with the Republican party.
While in the Senate, in 1899, he completed his interrupted law course at the University, and since the expiration of his term has built up a lucrative practice. He has also become identified with some large mining interests, having properties in Alaska and Arizona, and by his intelligence and zealous attention to business he has established intimate relations with men of large means, who are associated with him in these enterprises.
Such has been the interesting career of a young Carolinian who, by boldness of conception, self-reliance and skillful manage- ment of men, combined with talents of a high order, has emerged from the quiet life of Sampson County and played so prominent a part in matters of national importance.
Senator Butler's religious affiliations are with the Protestant Episcopal Church, and he is also a member of the University Club of Washington.
His first aspiration to seek a vocation that might lead to dis- tinction was when as a small boy he used to attend the county courts of Sampson with his father and when, on October 12, 1876, he rode with his father in the political procession from his neighborhood to Clinton to attend the debate between Governor Vance and Judge Settle, who were the contending candidates for
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governor. That was the most memorable campaign ever known in the history of North CaroHna. His ambition, inflamed by the great speeches and the excitement and interest of that occasion, was strengthened by the influence of his mother and her pride in her oldest son; and since August, 1893, when he won as his bride the lovely and accomplished Miss Florence Faison, a mem- ber of the oldest and most influential family of Sampson County, her companionship and encouragement have augmented his zeal to attain a distinguished place among the influential men of the nation.
In his household Senator Butler has been fortunate and happy. Five children have blessed his wedded life, and he is fond of home and the pleasures of the domestic circle. He still retains his love for country life, and spends a part of each year on the plantation in Sampson County, and his chief recreation is in im- proving and beautifying the old country home.
Notwithstanding his own success at an early age, he advises young men not to enter public life when too young, nor until they have mastered the means of livelihood; and in every event to stand by their convictions and maintain their self-respect, and to put both heart and brains into their work. Then, he says, success will come as the result of effort. He does not believe in "luck," but he does believe in pluck and work, or, as he said in a recent address, that all of the elements of true suc- cess were embraced in the one word, "courage."
James B. Lloyd,
^-^
ELIAS CARR
fLIAS CARR, governor of North Carolina (1893-97), and one of the State's most success- ful agriculturists, was a resident and native of the county of Edgecombe, born at Bracebridge, the Carr estate, near the village of Old Sparta, February 25, 1839. His father, Jonas Johnston Carr, who married Elizabeth Jane Hilliard, a daughter of James Hilliard, of Nash County, was a grandson and namesake of Colonel Jonas Johnston, who was mortally wounded while fight- ing for American independence at the battle of Stono, June 20, 1779, ^^^ ^^^^ o^ the 29th of the following month while endeav- oring to reach his home in Edgecombe County.
Elias Carr, grandfather of the governor, was Pitt County's representative in the North Carolina house of commons at the session of 1810. His wife was Celia Johnston Hines, the widow of Richard Hines and a daughter of the aforesaid Revolutionary patriot, Colonel Jonas Johnston.
The families of both Carr and Johnston came to North Caro- lina from southeastern Virginia — the Carrs from Nansemond County and the Johnstons from Southampton. After their arrival in North Carolina the Carrs were residents of that part of Greene County which was formerly Glasgow, and the Johnstons settled in Edgecombe.
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Elias Carr was a student at the Oaks, a famous school in Orange County, under the management of William J. Bingham, and later he spent two years at the University of North Caro- lina, 1855-57. Subsequently he took a course at the University of Virginia, thus having every educational advantage before reaching manhood.
Having determined to devote his life to the pursuit of agri- culture, Mr. Carr returned to Edgecombe County and purchased his brother's interest in Bracebridge, the plantation which had been jointly inherited by them upon the death of their father. From this time he manifested deep interest and great ability in the calling which he had chosen.
In 1859 Mr. Carr was married to Miss Eleanor Kearny, a daughter of William K. Kearny, of Warren County, and to them were born six children, as follows: Willam Kearny Carr, John Buxton Carr, M.D., Mary Elizabeth Carr, Elias Carr, Eleanor Kearny Carr and Annie Bruce Carr.
For some years after the War between the States Mr. Carr's life was a quiet one, happy in the possession of an ample domain and enhancing his reputation as an able and successful agricul- turist. For about fifteen years he was one of the commissioners of Edgecombe County. He was a member of the board of trustees of the North Carolina College of Agriculture and Me- chanical Arts at Raleigh and also one of the commissioners hav- ing in charge the Geological Survey. In all three of these posts his practical experience as a planter rendered him peculiarly qualified for the giving of valuable service. He was frequently honored by commissions to represent his State in conventions, as the Farmers' Convention in St. Paul in 1886. In 1890 he became prominently identified with the Farmers' Alliance before that order became so largely political, and throughout his con- nection with the organization he endeavored to keep it, as far as possible, out of partisan politics. In 1891 he was elected president of the Alliance, and under his wise leadership the mem- bership grew to about ninety thousand. He represented the Alliance at Ocala, Fla., and was a member of the committee on
ELIAS CARR 93
platforms, where he took a prominent part, advocating conserva- tive action. In 1891 Mr. Carr was commissioner of the World's Fair.
Early in 1892 much disaffection existed in the Democratic party, particularly among the agricultural classes. Thomas M. Holt, a man of high character and conceded ability, was then governor (filling the unexpired term of Governor Fowle, who died in office) and was a candidate for the nomination. The Democratic State Convention met in Raleigh on May 18, 1892. In that body a number of candidates were balloted for without a nomination being reached. Mr. Carr had been urged by his friends to enter the race, but had declined to do so. After a somewhat stormy session, however, the contending factions cen- tered on him, and he was nominated. He accepted the honor thus literally thrust upon him, and his nomination gave great satisfaction to the rank and file of his party. But the politicians of the Alliance did not show good faith in the ensuing campaign. They had participated in the primaries and in the state conven- tion, had been largely instrumental in defeating Governor Holt, and yet when an Alliance man of acknowledged ability and high character was put forth as the Democratic nominee in the person of Mr. Carr they bolted the ticket, formed a new party — the Populists — and set up Dr. Wyatt P. Exum, of Wayne County, as their candidate. The Republican nominee for the office of gov- ernor was Judge David M. Furches, afterward chief justice of the Supreme Court.
Despite the disaffection in his party, Mr. Carr held the confi- dence of the masses to such an extent that he was chosen by a plurality of over 35,000 on November 8, 1892. He was duly inaugurated January 18, 1893, being sworn in by Chief Justice Shepherd.
In his inaugural address Governor Carr discussed (among other things) the benefit to be derived from the Railroad Com- mission— which tribunal is now known as the Corporation Com- mission— and endorsed appeals for help from the University of North Carolina, besides strongly recommending better educa-
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tional facilities in general. Concerning the rural schools of the State he said:
"These schools I regard as a necessity to the children of the men and women engaged in farm life. The, children of our people in cities and towns are well provided for, as a general rule, by the graded schools, and they enjoy privileges in educational matters which children living in the country do not have. An efficient common school system is the only hope of our people for an intelligent, thrifty laboring population upon our farms ; and I urge, with all the earnestness I can command, that our law- makers shall not neglect this imperative duty resting upon them."
In the above inaugural address Governor Carr said he had not until recently fully realized the condition of the public roads throughout the State, adding: "The present system is a failure and the roads a disgrace to civilization." He also recommended a more just tax system, better provision for the charitable insti'- tutions of the State, proper encouragement for the State Guard, besides discussing some matters of temporary interest. In con- clusion he said:
"Having never sought office, or before held office, I am unacquainted with the routine or detail thereof, and it is with grave misgivings, as to my ability to handle skilfully such matters, that I enter upon the duties of this most high and honorable position to which you have seen fit to call me. Nor is the knowledge of the fact that the administration of my pred- ecessor is considered one of the most substantial in the history of the State calculated to increase my confidence in my own abilities; but that it will act as a stimulant to greater effort and diligence on my part, I cannot doubt."
Governor Carr took an honest pride in the past achievements as well as modern progress of North Carolina. Being sprung from patriotic Revolutionary ancestry, it was but natural that he should be deeply interested in the history of his Staters part in the war for independence. On July 4, 1893, when the monument presented by ex-Governor Holt to the Guilford Battle Ground Company, near Greensboro, was dedicated. Governor Carr was one of those who delivered addresses. In the course of his re- marks he said:
"No one who looks over the history of the great Revolutionary struggle can but conclude that, where patriotism is the dominant spirit of a race.
ELIAS CARR 95
war, pestilence, and tyrants do but inspire that people to great and heroic deeds. And that the memory of these is destined in after years to bear wholesome fruit is here manifested in the restoration of this battlefield of Guilford Court House and the unveiling to-day of an appropriate work of art, the gift of a patriotic son, ex-Governor Thomas M. Holt.
"The battle of Guilford Court House was second in importance to none fought during the bloody war for independence ; and had the result been less disastrous to British arms, Cornwallis might have never known his Yorktown. Yet, despite this truth, and in the face of the fact that the noble deeds of her sons have been ascribed to others, and that other States have claimed her heroes, North Carolina, until a few years ago, had made but a feeble effort to restore her good name and to immortalize the mem- ory of those of her children whose deeds shed as much luster as those of a Marathon or Sebastopol."
When the North Carolina Society of the Sons of the Revolu- tion was organized at Raleigh, in the fall of 1893, Governor Carr was one of the charter members of that order, and became its first president, serving until November 15, 1897.
At the close of the first year of Governor Carr's administration a Raleigh religious paper, the Christian Advocate, on January 24, 1894, commented on his past official record as follows :
"He is quiet and modest ; makes no show or parade of himself or what he does, but shows clearly in all his public acts and utterances that the only ambition he has is to serve his State the best he can. It is refreshing to have a governor who cares nothing for promotion, but who seems to want to do only what is best for his commnwealth."
On April 14, 1894, North Carolina's great senator, Zebulon B, Vance, died. In filling the vacancy thus created Governor Carr displayed marked wisdom by appointing as his successor ex- Governor Thomas J. Jarvis, one of the State's ablest and most patriotic citizens, who had succeeded Vance as governor many years before. In the Senate Mr. Jarvis well measured up to the responsibilties of that high office and fully justified the course of Governor Carr in naming him as Vance's successor.
To the Legislature of 1895 — when the Democrats were in a minority for the first time in many years — Governor Carr an- nounced that since his induction into office he had made it a point to pay personal visits of inspection to the various institutions of
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the State in order to acquaint himself with their needs. He had been present at the commencement exercises of the State Univer- sity, the Agricultural and Mechanical College and the Normal and Industrial School — the last named being the new institution at Greensboro for the instruction of young women. He had also visited the State Guard encampments and had attended the state fairs. The State Prison he had visited frequently, and had annu- ally inspected the convict camps on the state farms along the Roanoke River. The needs of these and many other institutions of the State he set before the Assembly, and discussed questions of a more general nature, devoting much space to public educa- tion and to proposed reforms in the procedure of the courts of law. The Geological Survey, Shell-fish Commission and other industries he recommended as worthy of encouragement. The above Legislature was controlled by Fusionists, a coalition of Republicans and Populists ; and in closing his message Governor Carr said:
"The past history of a clean, successful state government, free from reckless expenditures, honest and economical in administration, is behind you — a part of the record of the party who now turns over to you the future administration of the State, so far as pertains to legislation. Be- lieving that you have the best interests of your State at heart, I trust that you will be wise, judicious, and careful in your enactments, and economi- cal in expenditures. I do not counsel that economy which amounts to rendering useless any institution now in existence, and hope they will receive your careful investigation and liberal appropriations."
When the Legislature of 1897 met, the Fusionists were in the ascendant in all branches of the state government, and Gov- ernor Carr's term expired at the beginning of that year, on January 12th, when Governor Russell, a Republican, was sworn into office.
One of the wisest acts of Governor Carr's administration, yet one which received some severe adverse criticism, was his sanc- tion of the lease of the North Carolina Railroad to the Southern Railway for a period of ninety-nine years, which measure was effected on August 16, 1895. This action by the directors was later unanimously ratified by the private stockholders as well as
ELIAS CARR 97
by the proxy voting for the State's interest. The wisdom of the action was at once demonstrated by the fact that the stock of the leased road rose in price from 105 to 125. Since that time it has been sold as high as 180. Both Governor Russell, in his official capacity, and the Farmers' Alliance employed coun- sel? and brought suit in the courts to have the lease annulled, but their efforts were not successful. It was believed by Gov- ernor Carr and by the private stockholders that a ninety-nine year lease at seven per cent, interest was not a bad investment.
After the expiration of his term of office Governor Carr returned to his home in Edgecombe County, and there spent the remainder of his life in the quiet enjoyment of the blessings by which he was surrounded. He died July 22, 1900, in the same house in which he was born, aged sixty-one years. An estimate of his career, written by his lifelong friend. Captain W. W. Carraway, of Lenoir County, appeared in the Morning Post, a Raleigh paper, on August 30, 1900. In the course of this article Captain Carraway said :
"As boy, man, husband, father, county commissioner, president of the State Alliance, member of the State Geological Survey, trustee of the Agricultural and Mechanical College, commissioner to the World's Fair, and governor of the State of North Carolina, he has never failed to bring to bear upon every position he occupied abilities of a rare order, and to instill into others that to have a clear conscience and the approbation of our God was to always tell the truth. He never flinched to do the right in all matters and at all times. Influence, preferment, pecuniary advan- tages, would have been despicable to him if offered as the price of honor."
In all the affairs of Hfe Governor Carr was prompt, thorough and conscientious. In the small details of minor matters he was as zealous and untiring as when discharging the most important duties connected with the government of the State. He never accepted any position except with the firm purpose of bringing to bear upon it his best efforts. In his home life he was gentle and hospitable, never frivolous, yet possessed of a keen sense of humor. In all things he was loyal, sincere and trustworthy, well measuring up to the stature of a true gentleman.
Marshall De Lancey Haywood.
JOHN MARSHALL CLEMENT
OHN MARSHALL CLEMENT, son of Johti Clement and his wife, Nancy Bailey, was bom in what was then Rowan County, now Davie, on November i, 1825. His first teachers in Mocksville were Mr. Buford, Mr. Peter S. Ney, and Rev. Baxter Clegg, the second named being the reputed French marshal. Mr. Clement was small when he attended Mr. Ney's school, but retained the same vivid im- pressions of him which seemed ever to follow Ney. Even the scar across the forehead, which to many is convincing proof of his identity with Napoleon^s greatest general, he would describe graphically, as well as the fencing lessons given to the larger boys with canes cut from the forest in which the little school- house stood. While considering him by far the most impressive and unique acquaintance of his youth, Mr. Clement was not entirely persuaded he was Marshal Ney, from the fact of his profound erudition and culture, while history teaches us the real Ney was comparatively unlearned.
Mr. Clement went to Bethany, in Iredell County, when he was about sixteen years of age, and entered the school of Hugh R. Hall. Afterward he attended Mr. Clegg's school, the Mocks- ville Academy, until 1844, when he went to the North and en- tered Pennsylvania College at Gettysburg, Pa. The journey was made by private conveyance and stage, and was long and tedious.
JOHN MARSHALL CLEMENT 99
Very interesting was his account of the city of Washington at that period, his visit to the White House, Capitol, and other pub- lic places. The Capitol was at some distance from the city, and was reached by a path across open country, where the grand Pennsylvania Avenue now is. He remained in Gettysburg during his entire collegiate course of two years, as the distance was con- sidered so great and travel so slow. A great grief was his, in the second year he was at college, in the death of his father, August 31, 1845. Between the father and son was an unusual depth of love and feeling, distinguished by pride on the part of the father and impHcit faith and obedience on part of the son. He was a close student, and this, combined with a naturally bright mind, won many honors for him in society and class, and he was chosen valedictorian in June, 1846. After graduation he returned home and assumed, at the youthful age of twenty- one., control of his father's estate, the guardianship of his younger brothers and sisters, and relief of the brave little mother. How well he fulfilled that trust with his own busy professional life is shown in a remark made after his death by his youngest brother. Captain W. A. Clement: "I never questioned my obedi- ence to him, never looked upon him as a brother, but as a father, and never had an unkind word or look from him."
He read law at Richmond Hill with Chief Justice Richmond M. Pearson, for whom he always cherished the fondest love of a friend and the highest admiration as a teacher. He was licensed to practice law at June term, 1848.
He was married on January 18, 1853, to Miss Mary Jane Haden, only daughter of William Haden and his wife, Mary Welch. By this marriage he had ten children. Three sons died in childhood, John Haden, Marshall and Eugene, and one daugh- ter, Mary Elizabeth, in graceful, Christian womanhood. Those surviving are : Louis Henry Clement, attorney, Salisbury, N. C. ; Mrs. H. H. Trundle, Leesburg, Va. ; Mrs. E. L. Gaither, Mrs. JuHa C. Heitman, Herbert and Walter R. Clement of Mocks- ville. N. C.
Much of the success of his business and professional life he
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attributed to his noble Christian wife, his love for her being the crown of his life. Combining in an unusual degree mental en- dowments with a liberal education and great executive ability, during frequent long absences, attendant on his far-reaching practice, she never allowed any part of his home affairs, includ- ing a large number of slaves and several plantations, to feel the lack of the "master's hand." He considered her price "far above rubies," and always referred to her as his "court of highest ap- peal." Their home was open to the kindest hospitality, and many good and distinguished men and women met around their board. In his early life he served one term in the Legislature of North Carolina. The rest of his life he devoted to his profes- sion, in which he was wonderfully successful. His practice was wide and varied, embracing a large number of capital cases, but in the latter part of his life he refused to appear for the prosecu- tion where life was at stake. His devotion to his clients was proverbial, and it was said of him the more desperate the case the harder he labored. By his close application he had so mas- tered the law that its most intricate problems he could reason out as if by intuition. He was a brilliant speaker, a close reas- oner, an accurate pleader, and a profound lawyer. Before the courts where he practiced, both State and Federal, none stood higher than John Marshall Clement. Illustrating his legal acumen and profound knowledge of the principles of equity, at June term, 1861, of the Supreme Court of North Carolina, he argued for the plaintiff the case of Sains vs. Dulin (59 N. C. Rept. 195). His views of the doctrine of equity involved were not adopted by the Supreme Court at that time; but in 1900, after his death, the case of Luton vs. Badham (127 N. C. Rept., 96) was decided, which overruled Sain vs. Dulin, supra, and sustained Mr. Clem- ent's view of the case. Judge D. M. Furches, a native of Davie County, and who practiced law for many years in the same town with Mr. Clement, and who admired him greatly, on the day the court filed this opinion, he delivering the opinion, wrote a letter to a member of Mr. Clement's family, saying it gave him pleasure to let them know that the doctrine contended for by him
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nearly forty years before had been adopted. In the same letter he also communicated the pleasing information, which was given him by Charles Price, of Salisbury, N. C, that Mr. Clement dur- ing the war had kindly furnished books to a Federal prisoner in Salisbury, who afterward became a distinguished judge of the Federal Court of Appeals.
In 1878 Mr. dementis name was presented by his friends to the Democratic judicial convention for judge, but despite the strenuous efforts of these friends he failed to receive the nomi- nation, though all conceded his splendid ability and fitness. It is no secret that he would later have been elevated to the Supreme Court Bench but for the condition of his health, which was deli- cate for many years before his death. He was considered by all eminently qualified, both in learning and character, to adorn the highest judicial tribunal of our State.
In his home life he was at his best. So gentle, loving and kind, yet firm, wise and just, always unyielding in any point he, considered best for his children's highest good, he was an ideal parent, for while he loved his own, he was quick to see their faults and to