Encyclopedian Dictionary

Rev. Edward F. Green

When an air of pessimism seems to envelop in gloom many worthy enterprises in these modern days, it is cheering, encouraging and invigorating to look upon the marvelous work that is being quietly but effectively carried on by Rev. Edward F. Green, president of the Carolina Collegiate & Agricultural Institute at Star, North Carolina. Through his philanthropy, wide and deep, are borne to the ocean of happy knowledge and lives of usefulness those frail human barks that otherwise would ever rest in the shadows and shallows or merely dash futilely upon barren sands. His whole life has been more or less devoted to educational work, but at no previous time has his success quite equaled his present great achievement.

Edward F. Green was born in 1865, in the city of York, England. His parents were George G. and Mary (Milner) Green. For many years his father was a stock farmer and on his estates bred the fine sheep for which England is noted. The youth attended the public schools and remained with his parents until the age of twenty years, when he came to the United States. In 1885 he entered Wooster University, at Wooster, Ohio, where he pursued both academic and collegiate studies and subsequently took post graduate work in pedagogy. Graduating in 1893, in that same year he came to Concord, North Carolina, where he took charge of Sunderland Hall, a philanthropic educational enterprise that had just started on its career of giving a practical education to worthy young women. He remained in charge of this school for three years, during which time he practically originated and organized the church and school work in connection with the Patterson Mills at that place, a form of welfare work in which Mr. Green was one of the pioneers in North Carolina, but has since been quite extensively taken up by the cotton mill owners in other parts of the state.

Following his work here Mr. Green entered the theological seminary at Auburn, New York, from which he was graduated three years later with the degree of B. D. and subsequently received the degree of D. D. His first pastorate was at Oriskany, New York, and one year later he went to the Pacific Coast and during the succeeding ten years held other pastorates, but during the larger part of that decade was college pastor connected with the Oregon Agricultural College at Corvallis, Oregon. While there he was also a student, not only taking the general agricultural courses but devoting study and experiment in bacteriology, biology and chemistry.

In 1910 Doctor Green returned to North Carolina with plans matured for the founding and erecting of what has become the Carolina Collegiate and Agricultural Institute. He located at Star in Montgomery County, in the central part of the state, where he secured twenty-one acres of beautifully situated land, on which there is a fine growth of oak and other forest trees in their natural setting. The grounds forming the campus are being systematically improved after designs submitted by a landscape artist. Writing in the fall of 1917, Doctor Green has the main college building now completed, besides a handsome and commodious residence for himself on the college campus. The college building is a handsome brick structure consisting of two stories and basement, fashioned, especially in its interior arrangement, after the designs furnished by the Government for schools of this character. One is impressed with the idea of spaciousness and wide roominess in the building, while its perfect ventilation and modern lighting makes a wholesome and cheerful atmosphere. The main floor is given over to class rooms and a large hallway. On the second floor are additional class rooms, but the main feature of this floor is the auditorium with a large stage, as in a theater, this being flanked by class rooms that, on occasions of entertainments, may be used as dressing rooms. All these details of construction were carefully worked out.

While this school officially has the backing of the Congregational Church, of which Doctor Green has been a member since 1910, it is in reality his own private enterprise, having been built by Doctor Green without a cent of financial aid from the church. He passes much time in the North and East in the interest of the school, and through his own personal worth and high character has been able to secure substantial aid for the enterprise.

The Carolina Collegiate & Agricultural Institute is intended, primarily, to benefit boys and girls, teaching and training them in vocational work so as to fit the boys for agricultural and other useful industrial pursuits and the girls for useful lines suitable for their sex. The school is located geographically in about the center of a large extent of country that has lain practically undeveloped agriculturally. It contains a large population and the children here have never had good educational advantages. In Doctor Green's school many grown students may be observed and a number who are married and heads of families themselves, and so eager are some of these students that they willingly begin in the first grade work and if possible remain through the twelfth. In 1916 Doctor Green graduated two girls who had daily walked a distance of six miles for six years. It is gratifying to him that they are now attending the Greensboro Normal School with the design of becoming teachers. As he reviews what has already been done his spirit must be refreshed. His reminiscences are exceedingly interesting, especially when he recalls the boys who at different times have drifted in here from almost "nowhere" and after enjoying the advantages provided here, not the least of these being the example, advice and encouragement of Doctor Green, have gone out pretty well equipped for the useful and honorable lives they have led, in professions as well as industries.

Doctor Green was married to Miss Florence M. McDowell, a lady with great musical talent who is a graduate of the Conservatory of Music of Wooster University. Mrs. Green is in full sympathy with her learned husband a philanthropic enterprise and assists through her musical gifts, having charge of both the vocal and instrumental music departments in the institute. Doctor and Mrs. Green have three children: Hubert, who is a graduate of Oberlin College, Ohio, and Isabel and Catherine, who take prominent part in the town's pleasant social life.

In October 1917, at the annual meeting of the state synod of the Congregational Church of North Carolina, a great honor was conferred on Doctor Green when he was elected moderator of this governing body.

Jeremiah Simon Cox

Jeremiah Simon Cox during a long and useful career has been farmer, financier, manufacturer and banker. He is one of the men responsible for the establishment and development of one of Greensboro's most prominent banking institutions, the Greensboro Loan and Trust Company, of which he has been vice president since it was established in 1899. This company, capitalized at $200,000, with surplus of nearly a hundred thousand dollars, has deposits aggregating more than a million and a half dollars.

Mr. Cox was born on a farm in Grant Township of Randolph County, North Carolina, in 1846. His father, Simon Cox, was born on the same farm. The grandfather was a farmer and planter, and probably spent all his life in North Carolina. Simon Cox grew up on a farm, succeeded to its ownership, and was a successful farmer, aside from other important business interests outside of tilling the soil and managing its resources. He married Ruth Allen, who was born in Randolph County and died at the age of sixty-two. Her father, Dr. Joseph Allen, was a practising physician for many years. Her mother was Martha Allen. Simon Cox and wife were active members of the Society of Friends. They had five sons, named Joseph, Milton, Nathaniel, Samuel and Jeremiah S.

Jeremiah S. Cox grew up on his father's farm, and the advantages supplied by the rural schools were supplemented by a course in what was then known as the New Garden Boarding School, now Guilford College. For a time he taught school, and after his marriage was superintendent of the New Garden Boarding School for two years, and since that time he has built an elegant modern dormitory at Guilford College, known as "Cox Hall," which will accommodate about 100 students. Returning to Randolph County, he bought the Kemp Mills, consisting of flour, grist and saw mills, and operated that property for about five years. Selling out, he transferred his energies to a farm in the north part of Randolph County, about twelve miles south of Greensboro.

Mr. Cox has been a resident of Greensboro since 1892. Prior to that time he had become interested in the Greensboro Manufacturing Company, and he gave part of his time to the active management of its affairs for about four years. In 1899 he joined W. E. Allen and J. W. Fry in organizing the Greensboro Loan and Trust Company.

In 1870 Mr. Cox married Margaret D. Branson, who was born in Randolph County, daughter of Eli and Mary Branson. Mrs. Cox was engaged in teaching school before her marriage to Mr. Cox. Mr. and Mrs. Cox are members of the Friends Church. While a resident of Randolph County Mr. Cox served as public administrator eight years, and since coming to Greensboro he served a term on the county board of education. Mr. Cox has been a trustee of the Juvenile Protective Association for many years. The association has done a great deal in reclaiming juvenile delinquents. The record of the lives of those who have come from the humble walks of life and, by dint of their own effort have left their impress on society and the world is an incentive and inspiration to do our best for humanity.

Charles Hoertel

Charles Hoertel has been a factor in the manufacturing affairs of High Point for a number of years and is an expert mirror maker.

Mr. Hoertel was born in Alsace, son of William and Salome Hoertel, also natives of the same province and of pure French ancestry. William Hoertel came to the United States, but after a few years returned to his native land. Mr. Charles Hoertel's only brother served several years in the French army.

Charles Hoertel was twelve years old when he came to this country with his father and grew to young manhood in New York City. He had attended school regularly while in his native country, and also had some instruction in the public schools of New York City. When still a boy in years he entered the service of Ferd Ecker, the mirror manufacturer, and was in his employ in New York City and in 1904 came with Mr. Ecker to High Point, and has been actively identified with the Ecker interests in that city. He is also an interested principle in the High Point Art and Decorative Company.

Mr. Hoertel is affiliated with Numa F. Reid Lodge No. 344, Free and Accepted Masons, of which he is a past master, is past high priest of High Point Chapter No. 70, Royal Arch Masons, is past eminent commander of High Point Commandery No. 24, Knights Templars, and is also affiliated with Carolina Consistory No. 1 of the Scottish Rite and with Oasis Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Charlotte. Besides his Masonic connections he is a member of High Point Lodge No. 1255, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. He is an active member of the Commercial Club and is a member of the Lutheran Church.

Hon. Robert B. Redwine

Hon. Robert B. Redwine. One of the most forceful and energetic citizens of Union County, Hon. Robert B. Redwine has steadfastly used his sterling legal talents in the furtherance of those movements which he has considered to be for the welfare of his community, incorporating the two characters of lawyer and citizen into a worthy and helpful personal combination which has been generally accounted an example well worthy of emulation. Since 1891 he has been engaged in the practice of his profession at Monroe and has steadily risen to a commanding position among the legists of the county seat, where he is at present a member of the law firm of Red wine & Sikes. Both as a legislator and a private citizen he has been unsparing in contributing of his abilities in securing better legislation, and as a financier his personal integrity has lent strength to local banking conditions.

Robert B. Redwine was born in 1860, in Union County, North Carolina, and is a son of the late Dr. T. W. and Mary A. (Clark) Redwine. The Redwine family is of German origin, the founders of the name in this country first settling in Pennsylvania, while the branch to which Senator Redwine belongs located in North Carolina a few years prior to the Revolutionary war. Dr. T. W. Redwine was born in Davidson County, North Carolina, April 18, 1827, and was given good educational advantages, attending the best schools afforded by that county. He read medicine at Mount Pleasant under Doctors Smith and Stedman, and located at Samuel Howie's, in the western part of Union County, where in September, 1846, he engaged upon a career in medicine that extended over a period of fifty-three years. When the Civil war broke out Doctor Redwine enlisted and went to the front as a Confederate soldier, and in September, 1861, was elected captain of Company F, Thirty-fifth Regiment, North Carolina Infantry. After a brave and meritorious service he returned to his practice at the close of the war, and in 1880 was honored by his fellow-practitioners by election to the presidency of the Union County Medical Society, an honor which evidences the high quality of his ability and his standing in medical circles. In 1875 he was a member of the Constitutional Convention, representing Union County with great credit to himself and his constituents. He continued in active practice until 1899, in which year he retired, and lived quietly at his home until his death in January, 1911. While he was one of the leading citizens and physicians of his day and community in Union County, he was quiet and unassuming, not given to show, nor cherishing any ambitions for exalted public position, merely a skilled, learned and kindly physician, a sympathetic friend and a thorough gentleman of the old school. He married Miss Mary A. Clark, whose death occurred in 1889, and they became the parents of several children.

Robert B. Redwine was reared on the farm of his father in Union County and attended the famous Bingham School of North Carolina, after leaving which he began the study of law under the preceptorship of the late Dr. John Manning and Judge Shepherd, obtaining his license to practice in 1889. The two legal teachers referred to were members of the faculty of the University of North Carolina, and after being admitted to the bar Mr. Redwine returned to the university for an optional literary and law course, which he pursued for about one year, receiving the degree of Bachelor of Laws from that institution. In 1891 he began the practice of his profession at Monroe, the county seat of his native county, a practice he has pursued with eminent success ever since, and has won abundant prosperity in life, being one of the citizens of the county who are of large material resources. In 1895 he formed a law partnership with the late Maj. David A. Covington, an association which continued until the latter's death, and at present he is senior partner of the law firm of Redwine & Sikes. He has always enjoyed a large law practice, both civil and criminal, and has the absolute confidence of clients, whose interests he makes his own. Both in and out of the courthouse he is the personification of honor and integrity, standing unflinchingly by principle and truth as he sees them.

Senator Redwine has rendered much public and useful service to his city, county and state. He served for some months as chairman of the board of county commissioners and as a member of the board of education. In the former position he was largely instrumental in inaugurating improvement in the county by working convicts on the county roads. He was secretary of the Democratic Union County Executive Committee in 1894 and carried on a successful campaign, and in 1895 was elected from his county as a member of the Lower House of the Legislature. In 1907 he was elected to represent his district in the North Carolina State Senate, in which body, as in the Lower House, he acquitted himself with honor and distinction. Senator Redwine was particularly active in advocating more efficient laws for the government of penal affairs in the state, believing always that the state's prisoners as far as able should be made to work and to be as self-sustaining and as little expense to the state as possible. He was also an advocate of better laws for the care of the insane and other indigents, and of all laws for the moral betterment of the people at large. In local affairs Senator Redwine was instrumental in establishing a city recorder's office at Monroe, which has saved the county a great deal of money. He is contributing his share to educational advancement as a member of the board of trustees of the University of North Carolina. Senator Redwine is well known in banking circles as president of the Savings, Loan & Trust Company, which was organized in 1903 and has had a successful career as a financial institution. He also organized the Lake Land and Lumber Company, which carried on a highly successful series of land operations in Florida.

Senator Redwine was married in 1895 to Miss Sallie Wall McAlister, of Walltown, Anson County, North Carolina, and they have eight children: Sarah McAlister, a student at Randolph-Macon College, and active in educational work; and Mary Catharine, Robert B., Jr., Thomas Worth, John McAlister, Florence Stockhouse, Margaret Wall and Elizabeth Armentine Redwine.

David Livingstone Ward

David Livingstone Ward, of Newbern, has given all his best years, his best talents, and his interest to the law, and largely due to this concentration of purpose has gained a success that ranks him among the ablest members of the North Carolina bar.

Mr. Ward was born in Greene County, North Carolina, October 24, 1860, and represents a prominent old family of North Carolina — one that was settled here in colonial days. His grandfather, Josiah Ward, acquired an immense tract of land fronting on the Atlantic Ocean and extensively farmed it and was a man of power and influence in the locality. Mr. Ward is a son of Dr. David George Washington and Adelaide (Moye) Ward. His father was not only a physician with a large practice but owned a plantation, and before the war operated with slave labor.

David L. Ward had a liberal education, despite the fact that his early childhood was spent in the period of devastation during and following the war. He attended Stantonsburg Academy in Wilson County, under Dr. Joseph Foy, and from there entered Wake Forest College, where he was graduated A. B. in 1881. He pursued the study of law with Dick & Dillard, noted lawyers and law teachers at Greensboro, and was licensed to practice in February, 1883, by Justices W. H. Smith, Thomas S. Ashe and Thomas Ruffin, of the Supreme Court.

Mr. Ward began practice at Marshall in Western North Carolina, had his law office at Wilson one year, was associated for a time with Colonel Thomas S. Kenan, and then went west to San Francisco, California, where he was enjoying a large and lucrative law practice for eight years. At the death of his parents he returned to North Carolina, and on March 1, 1894, located at New-bern, where he has practiced steadily for the past twenty-three years. Mr. Ward's ability and talents are especially well displayed in the handling of civil cases, and a practice of great variety and importance in this branch has been given him.

He served six years as county attorney of Craven County, resigning from the office in 1905 to enter the State Senate, to which he was elected in 1904. By appointment he served with the rank of colonel on the personal staff of Governor Glenn and also on the staff of Governor Kitchin. Governor Kitchin appointed him judge of the Superior Court of the third district, and while by nature and experience well fitted for judicial duties he soon resigned his post in order to take up what is to him more congenial work, his private practice.

Mr. Ward is a member and chairman of the executive board of the North Carolina Bar Association, is former chairman of the judiciary committee of the association, and belongs to the American Bar Association. He is affiliated with the Kappa Alpha college fraternity, is a Knight Templar Mason and a member of Sudan Temple of the Mystic Shrine. He also belongs to the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. Mr. Ward was married February 7, 1900, to Miss Carrie Louise Schollenberg, of Philadelphia. Pennsylvania. They have three children: Emily Curran, David Livingstone and Carrie Louise.

Joseph F. McKay, M.D.

Joseph F. McKay, M. D. The medical profession of North Carolina, not to mention a large portion of the general public, will regard any amount of space well used which is devoted to some record of the McKay family, representatives of three generations of which have been distinguished in medical history. While the services of this long line of physicians have come to be pretty generally understood and appreciated among medical men throughout the state, the beneficiaries of those services for over eighty years have been chiefly in Harnett County.

The McKays are descended from Highland Scotch who located in pioneer times in the Cape Fear district and constitute one of the best known Scotch names in that section. The founder of the family was Archibald McKay, who was born in Scotland and came to Wilmington, North Carolina, in the latter part of the eighteenth century, establishing his home in Robeson County. The record of the family in connection with the medical profession begins with one of his sons, Dr. John McKay, who was a man of special distinction, a scholar as well as a physician, and whose mental horizon was unbounded by every diverse field of knowledge. He was born in Robeson County, near old Floral College, graduated in medicine from the University of Maryland in 1823, and for several years practiced in Robeson County. He married in 1829 Miss Mary McNeill, and in the following year removed to Buies Creek in Harnett County. From that year to the present time the people of that section have never been without the capable services of some member of the McKay family Dr. John McKay did his work in a comparatively pioneer era, enduring all the hardships and inconveniences connected with traveling far and wide to attend his patients scattered over the rural districts of several surrounding counties. On these rides he carried his medicines and also his surgical instruments, and most of these instruments are still carefully preserved by his grandson, Dr. Joseph F. McKay, of Buies Creek.

The second generation of McKay physicians was the late Dr. John Archibald McKay, who died at the home of his son, Dr. J.F. McKay, in Buies Creek, October 25, 1917. He was born March 13, 1830, at the home which had been established by his father on the old Raleigh and Fayetteville stage road in Neill's Creek Township, Harnett County, and only about two miles from the home where he died. He attained the great age of eighty-seven years, seven months, twelve days. As a boy he attended the schools of his home community, and like his father his range of intellectual interests was remarkable. He was thoroughly grounded in the classics and had the ideals and culture of a man of the old South. He matriculated in the University of North Carolina in 1849 and was graduated in the class of 1853. At the time of his death, so far as known, there was no other living survivor of that class. One of his class mates was his brother, D. McN. McKay. Dr. John A. McKay had been prepared for college at old Summerville Academy, near Lillington, under the direction of the famous Doctor Coiton. From the State University he entered the Medical College of the State of South Carolina at Charleston, where he was graduated in 1857. He almost immediately began practice at Buies Creek, as successor to nis father, and continued to respond to calls upon his services until a few years before his death. He was the oldest member of the medical profession in Harnett County.

Of his character and attainments a local paper has spoken as follows:

“No physician in this county or section of the state stood higher in his profession than Dr. John A. McKay. His superior knowledge was given unreservedly to benefit the people among whom he had been born and reared. He had a high conception of the obligations resting upon a physician, and the ethical standard set by him has had a most wholesome influence upon the profession throughout this whole section. No man ever came in contact with Doctor McKay without being convinced that he was a man of superior intellect and learned not only in his profession but in almost everything that pertains to human knowledge.”

When a young man Dr. John A. McKay married Miss Christiana Foy, of Wilmington, North Carolina, who died in 1880, the mother of five sons and two daughters. The living children are: Mary Isabelie, the widow of Dr. J. H. Crawford; Dr. J. F. McKay, John A. McKay, Rev. E.J. McKay, Mrs. Martin B. Williams, and D. McN. McKay.

Dr. Joseph F. McKay, son of the late Dr. John A. McKay and grandson of Dr. John McKay, was born at the old McKay homestead at Buies Creek in 1861. His academic training was acquired in Lillington Academy, and his medical education in the Medical College of South Carolina at Charleston, where he graduated with the class of 1884, just twenty-seven years from the time his father had gone forth from the same institution with his diploma. He returned home to relieve his father of some of the burdens of practice, and thus his work is a direct continuation of the service so long rendered by both his father and grandfather. Dr. McKay is a former president of the Harnett County Medical Society and also a member of the State and the Southern Medical associations and Tri State Medical Association.

Like his forefathers, Doctor McKay has always espoused the faith of the Presbyterian Church. He married Miss Mattie Rogers, of Lillington, North Carolina. They have four children: John A., now a student in the Johns Hopkins Medical School; Mrs. Alton M. Cameron of Vass, North Carolina, Joseph Lister, and Martha.

John L. Currie

John L. Currie. In the death of John L. Currie, which occurred at his home in Carthage September 4, 1916, Moore County lost one of its most valuable and valued citizens. Mr. Currie exemplified many traits that are everywhere accepted as the fundamentals of good citizenship, and for all his success in material affairs his life meant most for its sturdy and irreproachable character.

He was born November 4, 1861, three miles east of Carthage near Union Church, son of Neill P. and Jeannettee (Leach) Currie, both of whom were of Scotch ancestry. While of good family connections, he grew up in a period when the entire country was practically poverty stricken as a result of the devastations of war. When he began to take the larger outlook on life, due to years of manhood, there were no industries or opportunities within reach, and his early life had been one of constant toil. He and his brothers practically took care of the household, and it was as a result of overcoming obstacles that he was able to satisfy his ambitions for an education. He attended the famous Union Home School, and after finishing there was a teacher for a time. His old associates remember him in young manhood as a youth of splendid appearance, and with fine character showing in every word and deed.

He had capacity for leadership and was early drawn into politics, and the record he made is one that may be read with pride by all his descendants. The first political office he held was that of county surveyor, to which he was elected on the democratic ticket when still a very young man. In 1886, the county being at that time strongly republican, he was accorded the democratic nomination for sheriff against the republican incumbent, William M. Black, a man who for years had been of powerful prestige and influence in Moore County. The election resulted in the defeat of Mr. Currie, but that was the beginning of the overthrow of the republican majority, and two years later, when he was renominated, he was elected, defeating Mr. Black for sheriff by a comfortable majority. The citizens of Moore County always regard with a great deal of satisfaction the splendid record made by John L. Currie as sheriff. He held that office four terms in succession, a period of eight years, and was a most popular as well as efficient officer. In 1898 he was elected to the Lower House of the Legislature from Moore County.

In a business way he was successfully identified from 1900 until his death with lumber manufacturing at Carthage. He was also one of the founders and the principal owner of the Bismarck Hosiery Mill at Carthage. His later prosperity enabled him to accumulate a large amount of mining and other real estate in the county seat and county. Though he was only fifty-five years of age at the time of his death, he had achieved, from the humble beginnings which have been suggested, and with only the assets of good character, a fine sense of honor and industry, a business position such as all might well envy.

Mr. Currie built his home on the top of the hill at Carthage, on an elevation that overlooks the most beautiful expanse of surrounding country for many miles. This is the home of his family and one of the best in Moore County. At the time of his death Mr. Currie was chairman of the Board of Road Commissioners of Carthage township.

In early boyhood he joined the Presbyterian Church, and his entire life was an expression of Christian principle. He was devoted to his church and Sunday school, served for many years as ruling elder of the church at Carthage, and was for about an equally long time superintendent of the Sunday school. To him more than to any other one person was due the building of the handsome new church edifice at Carthage.

Mr. Currie married Miss Mary Belle Mclver, of Sanford, daughter of the late Daniel B. McIver, of Moore County. Mrs. Currie and five children survive her honored husband, the children being Wilbur, William, Mary Lynn, John and Dwight.