USA > North Carolina > Biographical history of North Carolina from colonial times to the present; > Part 27
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In the pursuit of science there has been on his part from the beginning a questful openness of soul to Nature that has made her fain to yield him the meed of many a clue to her manifold mazes. At the same time he has been toward himself in study and field and laboratory a most exacting task-master. He has com- muned in spirit also with the great masters and has come to know their voice.
With such an attitude to his calling, opportunities that might have been worthless to the less alert have been golden ones to him. Thus it would be difficult to valute too highly the beneficial results of a brief course that he attended in the University of Ber- lin, and of a course in the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Holl, Massachusetts, not to speak of repeated opportunities that have come to him of intercourse and work with men of science.
His well-earned reputation as a teacher of science is due in no small degree to the fact that he understands how to make its very rudiments interesting, bringing his students face to face with Nature in such a way as to stimulate them to a sympathetic study of the common facts of nature, and leading them to an insight into the dominant methods of science. He has the faculty of making them realize the appositeness to this realm of the Biblical formula : "Ask, and it shall be given you ; seek, and ye shall find ; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." By tactful questioning and by the turn given to laboratory work and field excursions he makes them feel that they are conducting for themselves investigations for the discovery of truth. The success with which he has directed his
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department is attested by the quality of work done by men whom he has trained, some of whom are taking high rank in the walks of science.
While his special work has been that of a teacher he has won enviable distinction also as an essayist and public lecturer. Much of his effort in these fields has been devoted to subjects pertain- ing exclusively to his department. Those of his lectures, however, that have attracted most attention have been upon topics relating to science and religion, Though the subjects discussed have been at times of an abstruse nature, his manner, his facility of illustra- tion, and his felicitous diction have succeeded in attracting and in- teresting all classes of hearers. Invitations to appear before in- tellectual and critical audiences have not interfered with the ac- ceptance of invitations to speak to assemblies of illiterate colored people ; nor have these been infrequently extended.
The following in The Examiner of New York, April 5, 1900, is from the pen of Doctor A. T. Robertson, Professor of New Testament Exegesis in the Southern Baptist Theological Sem- inary, Louisville, Kentucky :
"Professor W. L. Poteat, of Wake Forest College, delivered the Gay lectures on March 20th-23d, before large and enthusiastic audiences. His theme was 'Laboratory and Pulpit.' The first lecture discussed 'The Biological Revolution,' the second treated 'The New Appeal,' while the third considered 'The Unknown Tongue.' There was a vigor, a grasp, a sweep, a point, a devoutness and a charm of diction in the lectures that made them notable indeed. Professor Poteat is a scientist of large attain- ments and an earnest Christian. It was inspiring to hear him proclaim the death of materialism among men of science. and the tremendous wit- ness science bears to God and the spiritual world. Evolution may or may not be true, but it is certainly possible for an evolutionist to be a sincere Christian. Professor Poteat claims that Christian evolution will serve to win back men of science to Christianity. His lectures were an intellectual and a spiritual stimulus, and will always be remembered here. Mr. Theo- dore Harris, a prominent Baptist layman of the city, was so impressed by the lectures of Professor Poteat that he gave $tooo for the purchase of scientific books for the Seminary library. Five hundred dollars will be used at once, and the interest on the remainder will be used annually to purchase new scientific works."
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WILLIAM LOUIS POTEAT
From April 26, 1897, to May 1, 1899, Professor Poteat was a member of the North Carolina State Board of Examiners.
In March, 1900, he was lecturer on the Gay Foundation before the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky ; and in May, 1905, he was lecturer on the Brooks Foundation be- fore Hamilton Theological Seminary, Colgate University, Hamil- ton, New York. Both of these courses of lectures were on Science and Religion.
He was president of the North Carolina Teachers' Assembly in 1897; first president of the North Carolina Academy of Science in 1902, and president of the North Carolina Literary and Histori- cal Association in 1903.
In 1901 he published "Laboratory and Pulpit : The Relations of Biology to the Preacher and his Message" ( Philadelphia: The Griffith and Rowland Press).
He has also published in scientific journals investigations in the groups of spiders, microscopic plants, and microscopic ani- mals.
Being professionally occupied with the biological sciences, which are largely responsible for the intellectual revolution of our period, Professor Poteat's reading has drifted strongly into the region where science and religion meet. For refreshment and enrichment his reliance is upon the great poets and the great masters of prose. Current literature does not attract him. A habit that has yielded him a rich harvest is that which he has long maintained of setting down in note-books thoughts and abstracts on any subject of special study, so that when the time to write came all the collected material was available, the utility of the plan being greatly en- hanced by his devoting to each subject one or more note-books.
For relaxation and amusement he has relied largely on contact with nature in field and wood, with observation (not too strenu- ous) of what goes on there. Some slight sketches of such experi- ences have been published in the Wake Forest Student ( February, 1898, and May, 1899).
In politics he has always voted with the Democratic Party ex- cept when its nominees have appeared to him in character or
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opinions to be unworthy of his support. While he has never changed his party allegiance, he would not consider it discredit- able to do so upon sufficient grounds.
His religious life has not been without jar. While from his childhood he has been under the influence of Christian convictions, the serious part of the voyage of life was entered upon in a period of brewing storm, a time of threatened conflict between science and religion, and it was then that convictions touching the testimony of the new science began to lay hold on him. This to many was the sad augury of spiritual shipwreck. But the tranquil sea and anchorage were reached by him not only with faith intact; but with a contagious optimism concerning the Kingdom of God.
Professor Poteat is one of the most active and useful members of the Wake Forest Baptist Church. For a number of years he has been the leader of its music, one of his endowments being his musical talent.
He was married June 24, 1881, to Miss Emma J. Purefoy of Wake Forest, the gifted and accomplished daughter of Rev. A. F. and Mrs. A. V. Purefoy, and granddaughter of Rev. J. S. Purefoy, whose labors and sacrifices in behalf of Wake Forest College are a part of its history. Three children have been born to them, all now living.
Professor Poteat is one of a noteworthy family trio, the other two being a brother, Doctor E. M. Poteat, President of Furman University, Greenville, South Carolina, and a sister, Miss Ida Poteat, head of the Department of Art in the Baptist University for Women, Raleigh, North Carolina.
On June 10, 1905, Professor Poteat was elected President of Wake Forest College and was inducted into this responsible posi- tion with appropriate ceremonies on December 7, 1905.
W. B. Royall.
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Joseph Byde Pratt
JOSEPH HYDE PRATT
J OSEPH HYDE PRATT was born on February 3, 1870, in Hartford, Connecticut. His father, James Church Pratt, went from New England while still a boy to join his uncle in Louisiana, and there grew to manhood as a Southern planter. In the Civil War his uncle served as brigadier-general, and he himself as captain of a Louisiana regiment of the Confederate army. Later he returned to New England, the home of his fathers, to succeed to the Pratt inheritance and to settle down as a merchant. So, the father, like the son, by living in two such distinct sections of the country, benefited as well by the strict, stern business life of New Eng- land as by the easy, gentle, polished life of the Southern planter. James Pratt married Jennie A. Peck, a descendant of the Pecks and of the Hydes of Norwich, Connecticut. Both the Pratts and the Pecks were descendants of the original Puritan settlers of New England. This combination of Puritan and Cavalier in- fluences made itself evident in the character of the son and, to- gether with the spiritual influence of his mother, gave him qualities which insured for his future career indefatigable industry and keen business insight no less than the polish and refinement that go hand in hand with the most scrupulous sense of honor.
His boyhood, spent partly in the city, partly in the open country, followed the lines of conservative New England training. The
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spiritual side of his life was never neglected for the sake of the physical or the mental, but the three were evenly trained. The chief principle instilled was that to every task, however trivial, must be given the best that was in him, and that it was far more manly to take pride in one's work than to be ashamed of it. Even in his early boyhood, the direction that his energy and industry were to take in the man showed themselves in the dominant pas- sion for collecting minerals and specimens of natural history.
His education so begun in the home was continued in the public high school of Hartford, whence he entered in 1890 the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University. His work here was in the chemistry course, leading to the degree of Ph.B. He attracted early the attention of his instructors by the high qualities of mind and character, and in 1893 took the degree with highest honors. His natural tastes and his acquirements led him to de-" vote his attention, even during the vacation of his undergraduate · days, to active work in the subjects of his special study, and it was at such a time that he first came to North Carolina. In the Summer of 1892 he was in the employ of the North Carolina Geo- logical Survey with Professor S. L. Penfield of Yale, engaged in collecting minerals for the State exhibit at the Chicago World's Fair. In the Fall of 1893 he continued his studies at Yale, special- izing in graduate courses of mineralogy, geology and chemistry. During part of the time that he was engaged in these duties he served also in the capacity of assistant in chemistry and mineral- ogy, and in the Summer of 1894 he taught mineralogy at the Har- vard Summer school. Through this period, also, he spent his Summers in North Carolina, working on corundum, mica and other non-metallic minerals, in the employ of the North Carolina Geological Survey.
The high level of his work during this period is still testified to by his professors. Says Professor H. L. Wells: "His chemical work was of high quality. His thesis work for the degree of Ph.D. was chiefly in chemistry, and his principal investigation was 'On the Double Halides of Caesium, Rubidium, Sodium and Lith- ium with Thallium' (published in the American Journal of Science
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in 1895). This was an elaborate and important piece of work, in which some fourteen new salts were made and described." In 1896 he was awarded the degree of Ph.D. From 1895 to 1897 he was instructor in mineralogy at Yale, and found time for numerous independent investigations, the results of which ap- peared from time to time in the scientific journals.
Endowed as he was with an unusual amount of energy, he did not restrict himself to scientific activity to the exclusion of all other interests. A member of the Congregational Church and a devoted Christian, he made himself so endeared to the people by his un- tiring work in Sunday-school, in city missions, as president of the Christian Endeavor Society, that on his departure from New Haven a public gift, to which all had been eager to contribute, witnessed the esteem in which he was held. He has continued this work since coming to North Carolina, and has been instrumental in the establishment of a number of Sunday-schools in the moun- tains of the State.
In 1897 Doctor Pratt left Yale to accept a position as assistant to the general manager of the Toxaway Company of the Sapphire country in North Carolina, and also to serve as mineralogist to the North Carolina Geological Survey. He took advantage of this opportunity to carry on independent investigations of the corun- dum properties of the company, a field of mineralogy in which he is now recognized as an authority. While here he met Mary Dicus Bayley of Springfield, Ohio, whom he afterward married, April 5, 1899. He resigned his position with the Toxaway Com- pany after a very short time to devote all his time to his work as State mineralogist in connection with the State Geological Sur- vey at Chapel Hill, and as consulting mining engineer. Here he was made lecturer on Economic Geology, and in 1904 was elected professor of that subject. With an interruption of two years- 1901-03-he has continued to the present time to serve the State University in this capacity. In 1905, in the absence of Professor Holmes, he was appointed acting State geologist, and in the fol- lowing year was made State geologist. Doctor Pratt's researches in mineralogy have resulted in the discovery of several new minerals,
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among which are the following : pirssonite, wellsite (with H. W. Foote), mitchellite (named after Professor Elisha Mitchell of the University of North Carolina), northupite, rhodolite (with W. E. Hidden), a new gem mineral that has only been found thus far in North Carolina. (Published in the American Journal of Science.)
His private collections of North Carolina gems, gem minerals and corundum minerals have been awarded gold medals at the Buffalo, the Charleston and the St. Louis expositions.
In the department of economic geology he has recently accom- plished an important piece of work in superintending the briquet- ting tests of the coal-testing plant of the United States Geological Survey, by which it was clearly proven that uncommercial coals could be made marketable by the process of briquetting. (Pub- lished in the United States Geological Survey Professional Paper No. 48, p. 1389, 1906.)
He has advocated vigorously the construction of good roads throughout North Carolina, and of State aid for this purpose ; and believes that the time will shortly come when, through the assist- ance of the State, the various counties will be traversed with graded macadam roads. Quietly but persistently he has worked for the establishment of the Appalachian Forest Reserve.
His activity in these various branches led to his appointment on the Commission of the Appalachian Forestry Reserve which waited on Congress in 1906. At the St. Louis Exhibition in 1904 he was put in full charge of the North Carolina mines and minerals, and was a member of the International Jury of Awards. He was also a member of the Jury of Awards at the Portland Exposition.
His abilities as a mineralogist and geologist, made widely known through his publications, received recognition alike from various mining companies and from the United States Government. From 1899 to 1906 he was field geologist for the United States Geologi- cal Survey, and in 1902 a special agent of the United States census. In 1902-03 he was secretary of the Engineering Com- pany of America, and since 1900 has held a directorship in the Rogers Iron Company and the Gray Iron Casting Company, both
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of Springfield, Ohio. He has been retained by numerous mining companies as consulting engineer, and in this capacity his un- failing skill and knowledge, together with his incorruptible in- tegrity, have so increased the demand for his services that he is unable to satisfy it. In 1903 he received general recognition of these qualities by the offer of the presidency of the Colorado School of Mines. He is a member of the Alpha Tau Omega Fra- ternity, the Sigma Xi Scientific Society, the Yale Club of New York City, the North Carolina Historical Society, the North Caro- lina Audubon Society, the North Carolina Academy of Science, the North Carolina Good Roads Association, the American Forestry Association, the American Institute of Mining Engineers, the American Geographical Society, the American Chemical Society, the New York Academy of Science, and a Fellow in the Geo- logical Society of America, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In unbroken political allegiance he has identified himself with the Democratic Party.
The value of such a man to the State of his adoption cannot be estimated solely by the measure of his scientific activities in bringing to light the natural advantages of the State, however far-reaching these may be. His character lends inestimable weight to his achievements. A man of unlimited energy and in- dustry, wholly accurate in his knowledge, he has unusual executive abilities in organization and in the leadership of men. He is brought by his work into contact with many and various men, and his absolute integrity and trustworthiness, aided by his infinite tact, places him at once at their head. He is a man of most polished manners and of a commanding presence. His private life in the home is ideal, and his friends are numbered by the number of his acquaintances. When it might be so easy to bury himself in his scientific researches, on the contrary his public interest makes itself felt in entering heartily into the business life of the com- munity in which he lives, and in supporting every movement which tends to improve financially, educationally, religiously and æsthetically the people of his neighborhood.
Beginning with 1894 Doctor Pratt has published over one hun-
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dred important papers and books. The list is too long, however, to be embodied in this sketch. Many of the papers were contributed to the American Journal of Science; others are embraced in the Mineral Resources and Bulletins of the United States Geological Survey; others appeared as bulletins and other publications of the North Carolina Geological Survey ; while still others appeared in the Engineering and Mining Journal, Mining and Metallurgy, and in the Journal of the Elisha Mitchell Society. Among the more important publications not elsewhere mentioned are "Co- rundum and the Basic Magnesian Rocks of Western North Caro- lina," published in conjunction with Professor J. V. Lewis of Rutgers College, a volume of over 300 pages, which will un- doubtedly be the standard reference book on these rocks for some · time to come (Vol. I of the North Carolina Geological Survey) ; "On the Occurrence and Distribution of Corundum in the United States," two bulletins prepared for the United States Geological : Survey, Nos. 180 ( 1900) and 269 ( 1905), 268 pp .; "The Steel and Iron Hardening Metals of the United States, including Nickel and Cobalt, Chromium, Tungsten, Molybdenum, Vanadium, Tita- nium and Uranium," representing several papers published in the Mineral Resources of the United States Geological Survey ; numer- ous papers on asbestos, embodying the results of investigations relating to this mineral, regarding which he is now a recognized authority. His papers on the general subject of abrasive materials show the grasp that he has of this subject, being called upon to do special work in this line; on the tin deposits of the Carolinas (with D. B. Sterrett ) and on the talc deposits of North Carolina, two papers which take up in detail the occurrence, origin and uses of these minerals. The former was published as Bulletin 19 and the latter as Economic Paper No. 3 of the North Carolina Geological Survey.
The reports of Dr. Pratt on the mining industry and general mineral resources of the State are as important to the commercial development of the State as any of his publications. These ap- peared as Economic Papers Nos. 6, 7, 8 and 9 of the North Caro- lina Geological Survey. George Howe.
ROBERT SMITH REINHARDT
T HE strength of Southern men and their power to achieve success are well exemplified in the career of R. S. Reinhardt, the president of the American Cotton Manufacturers' Association. The fortitude, intellectual vigor, energy and persistent endurance of toil and hardship that were the characteristics of Southern soldiers are traits that would naturally develop the highest business capacity when- ever opportunity should arise for Southern men to engage under favorable conditions in the vocations of peace. And so it has happened that after the long conflict, with the unfavorable circumstances that upon the restoration of the Union pressed the South down, had ended in the establishment of prosperous times among the people, we have witnessed an industrial development that would seem marvelous if we were not aware of the power, the energy, and the capacity of those Southern men who have wrought this great work in their respective localities.
Among those who have displayed fine powers in comprehending the questions and problems incident to the manufacture of cotton at the South, Mr. Reinhardt has been accorded by his fellow- workers a most enviable position.
Without the advantages of higher education or scholastic train- ing, and without the aid either of influential connections or of considerable means, at the early age of fifteen he began a mer-
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cantile business and did not become interested in milling enter- prises until he had attained his thirty-first year. But after fifteen years of experience in manufacturing, he finds himself president of the American Cotton Manufacturers' Association, with a mem- bership embracing every section of the Union and extending from New England to the Gulf of Mexico. Still his career, like that of Mr. Duke. the head of the American Tobacco Company, is only an illustration of the capacity of Southern men to achieve success in every field of human endeavor, and is an exemplification of the fact that Peace hath her victories no less renowned than War.
Mr. Reinhardt is a native of Lincoln County, North Carolina, and has always lived in Lincoln County, and traces his descent from the sturdy German Pathfinders who braved the hardships and dangers of pioneer life, and wrested the region watered by the Catawba from the savages of the forest. They began to come from Pennsylvania to new homes in North Carolina in small com- panies as early as 1745, but it was five years later before they moved in large bodies to the fertile Piedmont country. Locally they were known as the "Pennsylvania Dutch," because they came from Pennsylvania, and because of the peculiar language used only by those particular people, which was made up of the dialects found in the ancient Palatinate, in Wurttemberg and other coun- tries bordering on the Rhine, intermingled with English words, which continued to be used in their settlements for several gen- erations.
Christian Reinhardt, the great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch, coming from Pennsylvania, where the name is still found, settled on land that now adjoins the town of Lincolnton, and around his house was fought in the War of the Revolution. the famous battle of Ramseur's Mills, and the same ground was afterward for two days occupied by Lord Cornwallis and the British army. He married Barbara, a daughter of Samuel War- lick, another pioneer, whose mill was twice burned by the hostile Cherokees.
Christian Reinhardt, Jr., son of the pioneer, married his lovely
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neighbor, Mary Forney. Her father, General Peter Forney, was a brave, active and zealous partizan officer in the Revolution, being almost continuous in his operations, beginning with Rutherford's campaign against the Cherokees and ending with Rutherford's movement against Craig, which drove that scourge of the Cape Fear from his post at Wilmington. He represented his county in the Legislature several times, and during the War of 1812 was a Representative in Congress : and he was an elector on the Jef- ferson, Madison, Monroe and Jackson tickets. He was a man of energy and enterprise, and after the Revolutionary War he pur- chased an undeveloped deposit of iron ore in Lincoln County and became the most noted pioneer ironmaster of that section. He was a son of Jacob Forney, Sr., who, as a pioneer, had many en- counters with the Cherokees, whose frequent incursions into the Catawba region, seeking to drive the planters from their new homes, gave a hazardous and perilous cast to their frontier life. Like his son, he was a firm and unwavering Whig during the Rev- olution, and contributed much by his zeal and activity toward the success of the cause of Independence. When the British forces were in pursuit of Morgan their progress was impeded by the high waters of the Catawba, and Cornwallis made his headquarters in Mr. Forney's comfortable house for three days, consuming his entire stock of cattle, hogs and poultry, as well as all the corn and forage on the plantation. Franklin M. Reinhardt, the father of the subject of this sketch, was proprietor of Rehobeth Furnace and a successful ironmaster. He was a man of great enterprise, and noted for his good sense, geniality and kindness of heart. He married Sarah, a daughter of David Smith, Esq., by his wife, Miss Arndt, who was a daughter of Rev. John Godfried Arndt, a pioneer Lutheran minister of great learning and piety. When, in 1773, because of the absence of ministers and teachers, the Lutherans in North Carolina were obliged to send to Hanover to get men to supply their needs, Mr. Arndt came over as a teacher, and then became a minister, and after a notable service in Rowan County, eventually settled in Lincoln County, where he laid sure and deep the foundations of the Lutheran Church in that commu-
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