USA > North Carolina > Biographical history of North Carolina from colonial times to the present; > Part 7
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After peace was won he continued to enjoy the respect and es- teem of his people, and by his wise counsels in the halls of the Legislature promoted their interests and welfare, and was re- garded as one of the most patriotic statesmen of that part of the State.
When Sampson County was established he owned the land that is now the site of the town of Clinton, and when it was laid off he donated five acres for a public square and Court House and also a lot for a public school.
Colonel Clinton died in 1796, leaving two sons and four daugh- ters. William, the eldest son, married Miss Seawell, a daughter of Judge Seawell, and had two sons, William and James. Rich- ard Clinton married Ferebee Hicks and moved to Georgia. None of Colonel Clinton's descendants bearing his name now live in North Carolina. His daughter Mary married Mr. Roland, of Robeson County; his daughter Rachel married Mr. Rhodes and left one son, Doctor Richard Rhodes. Elizabeth married David Bunting, of Quaker descent, originally of Pennsylvania but set- tling in Sampson County, and left eight children, one of whom, Penelope Bunting, became the wife of Colonel Thomas K. Morisey, who was her cousin, being the son of George Morisey,
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of Cork, Ireland, and of Jane Kenan, a sister of Mrs. Penelope Clinton. The youngest child of Colonel Clinton, Nancy, married Owen Holmes, a brother of Governor Holmes, and left five sons and three daughters. One of her sons, Owen, was a distinguished lawyer, located at Wilmington, was a member of the Constitu- tional Convention, married Betsy Ashe, a daughter of Colonel Samuel Ashe, of Rocky Point, and left three children : Owen, who died unmarried; Bettie, who married Doctor John Meares, of Wilmington; and Sam Ashe Holmes, who married Mary Strudwick, of Alabama. These removed to California.
S. A. Ashe.
O. R. box
ORLANDO R. COX
F AR from the madding crowd's ignoble strife," there be men who in the even tenor of their way and in the quiet pursuit of their ideals are doing the real work that counts most largely in the inventory of the substantial assets of a State. The student who turns the pages of North Carolina's history for the last quarter of a century will look in vain for the names of many men who have wrought and built for their communities, their churches and themselves. The chief- est value of this volume and its highest mission are that it brings to light and places on historic record the names of a large number of the unknown who have contributed most largely to the rebuild- ing and upbuilding of this commonwealth and who are not known outside of their respective communities and the limited commer- cial circles in which they operate in the conduct of their daily business. Men of genius, merit, and real worth, who are absorbed in the steady and serious prosecution of their life's work, shrink from the empty honors and notoriety which come to smaller men. The man who has no definite work before him and is without a definite object in life is to be pitied. He loses the real joy of ex- istence. He never feels the uplifting enthusiasm which comes to a man whose every faculty is at work in the accomplishment of a task or the serious and earnest pursuit of the object of his ambition.
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There is nothing more interesting than the study of the build- ing of the character of a man whose plans are jointed or dove- tailed, and made to fit as one by one they mature and take their places in the splendid structure of a superbly built and success- ful life. It has been the good or ill fortune of the writer to touch life at many points in his checkered career and to know something of the lives of many men of many minds and many vocations. Within the range of his observation there has rarely come a life so rounded, so smooth, so straight, so unaffected, so serious, so earnest and so successful as that of Orlando R. Cox. From the humblest beginning it has grown and expanded each and every day until at its meridian we find its impress upon nearly every enterprise and institution of his church and his native county. Nor has the sphere of his influence and usefulness been limited by the confines of his county. His name is linked with a chain of financial and commercial institutions throughout the State, and in their management his fine business judgment is invoked in the capacity of a director.
He comes from one of the oldest, largest and most substantial families of the county of Randolph. Born at Cox's Mill on the 26th of August, 1844, he remained on the farm until the year 1868, when he began work as clerk or salesman in the general store of Hugh T. Moffitt at Moffitt's Mills, North Carolina. Here he was engaged for about one year, after which he accepted a position as clerk in the company's store at Cedar Falls, North Carolina. His earliest ancestor of whom there is public record was Abel Cox, a citizen of sterling virtues. The name of his own father was Micajah Cox, who was a farmer and millwright by occupation. He was well known and is still well remembered by the older citizens of the county. He was fond of hunting and fishing, and many amusing incidents of his hunting exploits still live in the traditions of his people. It is told that many a wild buck fell a victim of his deadly aim and many a timid doc lay lifeless at his feet. He was a leader in his community, an en- thusiastic Mason, a devout member of the Methodist Protestant Church, and was Justice of the Peace of his county for thirty-one
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years. The name of the mother of our subject was Matilda John- son Cox. It was from these plain, honest, industrious and God- fearing parents of simple life that Orlando R. Cox inherited the fine traits, the rugged virtues and the sterling qualities which have marked his steadily successful career. It was in the year 1869 that Orlando R. Cox, the plain farmer boy, with limited education acquired from the "old field schools" and two terms with Professor Holt, came as a clerk, as before told, in the com- pany store at Cedar Falls at a very small salary. Here began the real work of his life, and it was not long before he, by diligence and fidelity, had made himself an essential, individual factor in the management of the business of the company as well as a val- uable and popular citizen of the county. Seven years thereafter, in 1876, without solicitation on his part, he was elected sheriff of the county. Before the expiration of his term he violated the political epigram: "Few die, none resign." He grew tired of political office, tendered his resignation as sheriff, and accepted the position of secretary and treasurer and general manager of the Cedar Falls Manufacturing Company-a position whose duties were more congenial and more in keeping with the ambition of his life. This company had been organized and created the year before and had become the purchaser and owner of what was known as the Cedar Falls property, including the cotton mill, store, sites, tenement houses and everything. Cedar Falls Cotton Mill is the oldest in the county.
Cedar Falls takes its name from a cluster of majestic cedars which grew around a rugged shoal in Deep River, on the banks of which the village is built about midway between Randleman and Ramseur on a branch of the Southern Railway. It was away back in 1848 that this first cotton mill in the county was built, and for more than half a century the winds that blow through the venerable cedars that grow there have been vibrating with the music of its busy machinery. It has been a training school for some of the cotton mill men who are to-day among the South's leaders. It was here that the Elliotts, the Makepeaces, the Odells and others learned the practical part of the cotton mill business.
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It was here that Benjamin Elliott, the first man who inspired the building of a cotton mill in Randolph County, lived and pros- pered, and beneath those cedars sleep the remains of this pioneer and benefactor. It was near here that the late George Makepeace lived. Of him the late Reverend Doctor Braxton Craven said in his sermon, dedicating the Naomi Cotton Mills :
"George Makepeace was the very genius of organization, and few men could govern men, women, and children with less annoyance or greater effect. In spirit and life he was a model man; quiet, considerate, cool- headed and warm-hearted, he said and did the right things at the right time and always with the happiest results."
Mr. George Makepeace was the grandfather of C. R. Make- peace, cotton mill architect and builder, now of Providence, R. I.
Cedar Falls and its surroundings are rich in interesting biog- raphy and industrial reminiscences. These mills were here before Greensboro, Charlotte, Wilmington, Rockingham, Fayetteville or Raleigh had a railroad. Its founders were Henry B. Elliott and Philip Horney. Of these two men Doctor Craven further said in the sermon referred to :
"There was Philip Horney, a man whose heart was young when his body was old. He made money and spent it, or a part of it, as a true man should; he was an ardent friend and supporter of the church; his table was always spread for the hungry; his sympathy reached towards all who needed it, and everybody called him friend. There was Henry B. Elliott, one of the noblest of Randolph's noble citizens. He had something of the bearing of an English nobleman, but withal the courtesy and self-sacrific- ing generosity of a warm-hearted and true man. He was gifted in in- tellect and finely cultivated in extensive learning and enthusiastic in every- thing that seemed to promote good for the country."
There was inspiration in such associations for a young man of Mr. Cox's determination and ambition. He reckons these names and associations among the strongest influences which stimulated him in the great task he had set for himself.
Following and succeeding these men was Doctor John Milton Worth, whose wise counsel and far-sightedness as president of this company constituted the strongest support Mr. Cox had for many years. Under the vigorous and successful management of
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Mr. Cox, aided by President Worth, the Cedar Falls Mills have more than trebled in the number of spindles and capacity, and he has been enabled to build a new mill with two hundred looms at the same places. He is a practical mill man, with all the word implies. His knowledge was acquired around the spindles and in personal work and attention to every detail of the complex opera- tion of a cotton mill. Some conception of the magnitude of the task may be formed when it is remembered that at the time he as- sumed control of this magnificent property, in the early days of 1878, the value of its assets did not exceed the amount of its in- debtedness. Without name or credit or backing, save that which grim grit and tireless pluck gave, he assumed a burden from which others had shrunk, and steadily for years toiled at his desk and in the mill through the long hours of day and the heavy hours of night until he had lifted every dollar of encumbrance and made the stock of this company the most desirable and valuable in the markets of the State. It is doubtful if there can be found in the State a man who has given his time more constantly, un- selfishly, and unreservedly to the promotion of the interests of his company. In the meantime, by close economy and the most frugal habits he was enabled to purchase from time to time stock until he became the largest stockholder of the company, and is to-day the practical owner of the two mills.
In more recent years he has been induced to invest some of the fruits of his toil in other plants and institutions. He succeeded Doctor J. M. Worth as president of the Bank of Randolph, the largest and strongest bank of the county, in which he has been a stockholder and director from its incorporation. He also suc- ceeded Doctor Worth as president of the Asheboro Furniture Company, in which he had been a stockholder and director since its incorporation. He is a stockholder in the Asheboro Chair Factory, the Concord Wholesale Grocery Company of Concord, North Carolina, J. W. Scott and Company of Greensboro, North Caro- lina, the Wachovia Loan and Trust Company of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and the Greensboro National Bank. He is also a charter shareholder and director of the Greensboro Loan and
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Trust Company, the strongest financial institution in the Gate City, as well as in the North State Fire Insurance Company and Greensboro Life Insurance Company of the same city. There are other corporations in which he is interested and holds stock. This list, however, will suffice to show the value of his career to his community, his county and his State. It tells its own story. It is his own work. He is the architect of his own fortune.
Twice married, he was blessed by his first marriage with six children, three of whom are dead and three living. The issue of his last marriage are five children, all of whom are living. Nor is this all. There is another field in which we may note the harvest from the good seed he has sown. He is and has been from earliest young manhood a member of the Methodist Prot- estant Church, and for years has been one of the leading and most influential laymen of that church in North Carolina. Time and again he has been selected as delegate to the annual and quad- rennial convocations and for the highest positions of trust and honor in that church. At his home he is a faithful communicant and liberal supporter of his church and all of its enterprises. In the Sunday-School and elsewhere he is as prompt, as active, as enthusiastic and as earnest as he is in the prosecution of his busi- ness affairs. It is to be recorded, too, that while, as a rule, he has resisted the flattering inducements to enter politics he has, from a sense of public duty, served his county four years as a County Commissioner and ten or twelve years as a Justice of the Peace.
He is the upright man and the model citizen. He meets and measures up to every exaction of Church and State. He has wrought well in his day and generation. His record is a proud heritage for his children. His is a life whose lesson is worth pre- serving. It may not be written in bronze or brass or stone, but it- will live in the ever-widening circles of the lives it has touched. When the old county of Randolph comes to make up the roll of her native sons who, in the last three decades, have done the most for her material growth, her credit and her good name, there will be on that roll no name ahead of that of Orlando R. Cox.
G. S. Bradshaw.
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WILLIAM DICKSON
M R. JAMES O. CARR, a distinguished member of the Wilmington bar, has rendered the State notable service by the publication of "the Dick- son Letters," which form an interesting and valuable addition to our literature, covering the dark period of 1781 in the Cape Fear section and the period when the Federal Constitution was adopted. In this sketch the writer will follow the Introduction made by Mr. Carr to the Dickson Letters, whose preparation shows painstaking research.
The Dickson family in Duplin County trace their descent to Simon Dickson, who was a stern English Puritan and an ardent adherent of Oliver Cromwell, and received as his reward for his services a grant of 400 acres of land in County Down, Ireland. There he settled and had a numerous offspring. John Dickson, fifth in descent from Simon, was born in Ireland in 1704, and died in Duplin County, North Carolina, on the 25th of December, 1774. When thirty-four years of age he emigrated from Ireland and located in Chester County, Pennsylvania, where he resided a few years and where three of his sons were born. He then moved to Maryland, but after a short while located in Duplin County some time previous to 1745. He had eight sons and one daughter. The eldest son, Michael, moved to Georgia ; William, the subject of this sketch, was the third; Robert, another son, towards the
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close of the Revolution moved to Virginia, but returned to Duplin in 1784. He served in the House of Commons in 1777 and con- tinuously from 1784 to 1788. Joseph also left the county about the close of the Revolution, but returning served as Register of Deeds and County Surveyor and was in the House of Commons in 1780 and 1797. Alexander likewise emigrated to Virginia in 1781, but returned in 1784. He was a public-spirited and patriotic man and highly esteemed in his county. He left no children, and in his will devised the bulk of his property "to the use of a free school or schools for the benefit of the poor of Duplin County." In 1817, when his estate was settled, this fund amounted to $12,621. It has always been known as the "Dickson Charity Fund," and until after the Civil War the income was applied to educational pur- poses, and since the war to the Public School Fund. Edward Dickson, another son, was one of the most respected and pros- perous citizens of Duplin County. His granddaughter, Ann Wil- liams, married Doctor Stephen Graham, and their daughter, Sarah Rebecca Graham, married Honorable Owen R. Kenan, and be- came the mother of Colonel Thomas S. Kenan, of Raleigh, North Carolina ; James G. Kenan, of Kenansville, and the late William R. Kenan, of Wilmington.
William Dickson, the subject of this sketch, was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, on the roth of January, 1739, and was brought by his father to Duplin County during infancy. His ed- ucational advantages were limited, as he was reared among the early settlers in the wilderness before the establishment of schools. Still he appears to have been well taught at home ; wrote with un- common ease, and was a man of comprehensive ideas, good judg- ment, and great wisdom. He discussed political questions with in- telligence, and forecast the future with intuition and remarkable foresight.
He had just reached manhood when the exciting period of the Stamp Act troubles fostered unrest and mental activity among the colonists ; and this was followed by the trying times of the Revolution, during which he was recognized as one of the trusted leaders of his community.
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He was a delegate from Duplin Country to the first Provincial Congress held at New-Bern on the 25th of August, 1774; and he was a member of each successive Congress, and participated in the deliberations of the body that framed the Constitution of the State. On the establishment of county courts in 1777 he was elected clerk of that court for Duplin County, and it is said that he held that position for forty-four years. While he did not serve in the Continental Army, he was active in the militia, especially in the year 1781 after Major Craig took possession of Wilming- ton and the Tories rose in the Cape Fear country. He was with Lillington and Kenan when they held the Great Bridge from February until April, retiring in front of Cornwallis. In his letter of 1784 Mr. Dickson gives a graphic account of the devastation of Duplin County during that April and June. "At length," he said, "we got collected about four hundred men under Colonel Kenan in Duplin and made a stand." About the 20th of July Colonel Kenan was joined by a part of Brigadier-General Caswell's Brigade, making his total force the number above stated. Breast- works were thrown up about one mile east of the present village of Wallace, where the county road crosses Rockfish Creek, and on August 2d Colonel Craig's force of Regulars, about five hun- dred strong, moved up and attacked them. Colonel Kenan had but a few rounds of ammunition, and when this was exhausted his militia gave way, and in the stampede some thirty or forty men were captured, besides the loss in killed and wounded. After this encounter the Whig forces were dispersed and the enemy stayed several days in Duplin, the Tories gathering very fast and taking possession of the county. Major Craig, having marched to New-Bern, returned towards Kinston, proposing to move north- ward, but heard that General Anthony Wayne was approaching Halifax, which deterred him from further operations, and he sought safety in his fortifications at Wilmington. This retreat gave renewed courage to the Whigs, who now embodied, William Dickson being among them. They organized about eighty light- horsemen, marched into the neighborhood where the Tories were, surprised them, cut many to pieces, took several and put them to
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death. During all those troublous times, though Mr. Dickson had many narrow escapes, he received but one wound, which was a shot through his right leg. About the middle of October General Rutherford and General Butler, with 1500 militia from the back country, came down the Cape Fear and suppressed the Tories. As Rutherford drew near to Wilmington intelligence was re- ceived of the surrender of Cornwallis, and Major Craig hastily sailed away for Charleston, and the troubles of the Revolution were over.
William Dickson was a patriotic and progressive citizen. His interest in the establishment of the Grove Academy at Kenans- ville indicates the importance he attached to education. He men- tions that about Christmas, 1785, "we made up a small school of fourteen or fifteen boys, which is the first attempt that has ever been made to teach the languages in this part of the country." In 1787 he states that "at our Grove Academy there are yet but twenty-five students under a master, who teaches only the Latin and English Grammar and the Latin and Greek languages."
In that same letter he refers to the Constitution of the United States, then submitted to the Legislature of each State for con- currence, and says :
"Our General Assembly for this State are now convened and have it under consideration. We hear that debate runs high concerning it, also the populace and the country are divided in their opinion concerning it. For my own part I am but a shallow politician, but there are some parts of it I do not like. However, I expect our Legislature will adopt it in full."
In a subsequent letter he says of the Federal Constitution :
"I think that it is formed so as to lay the foundation of one of the great- est empires now in the world, and from the high opinion I have of the illustrious characters who now hold the reins of government, I have no fear of any revolution taking place in my day. Since I wrote to you on the subject I have become reconciled to it."
He adds :
"It was a matter of necessity rather than choice when the Convention of North Carolina received it about twelve months ago, we being the last
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State except one (Rhode Island) which came into the measure. Virginia, though with much reluctance, and the other States around us, having pre- viously adopted the Federal plan, the State of North Carolina could not remain independent of the Union and support the dignity of the State itself. Had Virginia only stood out with us, I think North Carolina would not have been in the Union yet. It appears to me that the Southern States will not receive equal benefit in the Government with the Northern States. . The Southern States will have their vote, but will not be able to carry any point against so powerful a party in cases where either general or local interest are the object. Some attempts which were made in the course of the last session of Congress have much alarmed the South- ern people. The most strenuous exertions were made by some of the Northern representatives to liberate and emancipate the slaves in the United States, and though they did not carry their point, they seemed de- termined never to drop the matter until they do. This, if effected, will be arbitrary, cruel and unjust."
These extracts of letters made contemporaneously with the events they refer to are not only interesting of themselves, but in- dicate that William Dickson was a man of profound thought and a good writer. That he exercised a great influence in his com- munity cannot be doubted.
He died January 20, 1820, at the age of eighty-one years. He married in 1767 Mary Williams, a daughter of Joseph Williams of Onslow County, and a granddaughter of Benjamin Williams, who is said to have been descended from Frances, a daughter of Oliver Cromwell, and settled near Halifax, North Carolina, prior to 1750.
William and Mary Dickson had nine children. One of their descendants became the wife of Leroy Polk Walker, Secretary of War in President Davis's Cabinet, and later a brigadier-general in the Confederate Army; another descendant was Albert Pickett, author of a "History of Alabama." A son of William Dickson, Doctor William Dickson, of Tennessee, was a member of Cong- ress for three terms, and the county of Dickson in Tennessee was named for him.
S. A. Ashe.
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DAVID FANNING
D AVID FANNING, one of the most extraordi- nary men evolved by the Revolutionary War, was born about the year 1756. His parentage and his birthplace are obscure. In his "Sched- ule of Property lost to him on account of his attachment to the British Government, filed and sworn to at St. Augustine in November, 1783," he mentions "550 acres of land in Amelia County in the Province of Virginia, with dwelling-house, etc., orchards and large enclosed improvements valued at 687 pounds ; and 550 acres of land near said plantation, heir to the estate of my father, and some improvements with a dwelling-house, 412 pounds; three saddle-horses, twelve planta- tion horses," etc. From this it would appear that Colonel Fanning was a native of Amelia County, Virginia. Governor Swain, however, in tracing his career stated that he was born in that part of Johnston County which has since been embraced in Wake, and that he was apprenticed to a Mr. Bryan, from whom he ran away when about sixteen years of age, finding a temporary home at the house of John O'Deniell, of Hawfields in Orange County. He was untaught and unlettered, and he had the scald head, that became so offensive that he did not eat at the table with the family; and in subsequent life he wore a silk cap so that his most intimate friends never saw his head naked. In the course of two or three years he left North Carolina and settled on Rae-
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