USA > North Carolina > History of North Carolina: North Carolina biography, Volume IV > Part 100
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106
DEVERAUX TURLINGTON, whose activities for many years were concentrated upon his plantation in Harnett County, is a resident of Turlington, a little village on the Durham & Southern Railway named for this family. For many years it con- tained a postoffice and Deveraux Turlington was postmaster for twenty-one years. With the changes
brought about by the inauguration of rural free . combe County and continued his agricultural pur- suits.
delivery, the postoffice has been discontinued, and the people there now get their mail over rural route from Duke and Dunn. Turlington is situ- ated about four miles north of the thriving little City of Dunn.
Mr. Turlington was born in Grove Township of Harnett County within a hundred years of his present home, in 1848. This homestead is an historie place. His grandfather, Willis Turling- ton, bought it in 1839 from Dushee Shaw. At that time it comprised nearly three thousand acres. Dushee Shaw was the son of Daniel Shaw, a family which located in this part of North Caro- lina before the Revolutionary war. There is a tradition that the first Scotch Presbyterian serv- ices in Eastern North Carolina were held in the old house which is still standing on the Turling- ton place. -
While Willis Turlington thus acquired a large stake in the lands of Harnett County, he never occupied them as a home. He had removed from Martin County to Johnston County, where he spent many years of his life and where he died.
The parents of Deveraux Turlington were An- drew J. and Bradhilla (Denning) Turlington. Andrew J. Turlington was born in this general vicinity of North Carolina, in Johnston County, and during the early '40s moved to the lands acquired by his father in Harnett County, and in this locality spent the remainder of his life. He and his father were extensive planters. Andrew J. Turlington died June 23, 1897. His wife, Brad- hilla Turlington, died in December, 1914, at the advanced age of ninety.
After growing up and receiving his education Deveraux Turlington took up the business of planting and farming, and for a long period of years has been one of the solid and substantial bulwarks of this section. He has reared a fine family and in order to avoid the uncertainties of settlement of an estate has already bequeathed a fine farm to each of his children, these farms con- stituting portions of the original Turlington hold- ings.
Mr. Turlington's wife died some years ago. There are three children: Stewart Turlington;
Cora, wife of G. M. Stewart, of Turlington; and Mary, wife of O. E. Bain, of Smithfield. Stewart Turlington besides having a fine farm keyed up to a high standard of cultivation and operation, also owns and operates a large cotton gin and a sawmill at Turlington Station.
WILLIAM TIMOTHY ROSE. One of the most pro- gressive aud enterprising business men of Rocky Mount is William Timothy Rose, senior member of the firm of W. T. Rose & Son, manufacturers of buggies and conducting an automobile re- , pair and garage business. The manufacturing department was founded in 1900 by Mr. Rose, a practical machinist, and a large business was done in manufacturing wagons and buggies be- fore the adveut of the automobile. Accepting new conditious, Mr. Rose soon readjusted himself and has been equally successful along modern lines.
William Timothy Rose was born December 31, 1862, in Edgecombe County, North Carolina, aud is a son of Timothy G. and Amanda (Phillips) Rose. He was a small farmer when the war between the states broke out, and served through the war as a private in the ranks and was a brave soldier until the eud. He returned to Edge-
In boyhood William T. Rose attended the public schools. He was of a mechanical turn of mind and preferred to work with other tools than the hoe and plough and therefore soon went from home and learned the blacksmith trade, which in- cluded in his case a knowledge of buggy and wag- onmaking. He established first a general repair business but in 1900 branched out into a regu- lar manufacturing business and in 1911 admitted his son, Howard L. Rose, to a partnership. In the same year the firm opened a garage and an automobile repair shop and the latter is thor- oughly equipped and work is done by experienced machinists. Mr. Rose is fortunate in having in his son a partner whose ideas are his own and whose business talent is marked. The firm carries all kinds of automobile accessories and supplies and keeps on hand all kinds of high grade vehicles beside automobiles, such as bug- gies, carriages and wagons. They have fine dis- play rooms located on Tarboro and Washington streets, a four-story modern brick building, and they are agents for the Buick, the Oakland and the Call machines and the Republic and Vim trucks. This is a dependable business house.
Mr. Rose was married October 10, 1888, to Miss Fannie Farmer, who was born at Wilson, North Carolina, and they have six children, namely: Howard L., Leslie W., Ethel, Bessie, Raymond and William Timothy. Mr. Rose and his family belong to the First Baptist Church of Rocky Mount.
While not very active politically, Mr. Rose has the best interests of community and country at heart and no one is more willing to perform a public duty or assume a necessary responsibility than he. He has been proved a sound, reliable, trustworthy man in every particular and among his fellow citizens is held in esteem. He has been a member of the Odd Fellows for many years and belongs also to the Junior Order of the United American Mechanics.
WILLIAM HAYES FOSTER, whose people have been planters and honored citizens of Wilkes
374
HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA
County for several generations, has found a worthy and valuable place for himself in the life of that community. He has been a teacher, merchant, farmer, and now for several years an active public official of the county and city of Wilkesboro.
His birth occurred on a farm in Lewis Fork Township of Wilkes County April 11, 1879. His grandfather, Edmund Foster, was a planter in Lewis Fork Township, and before the war had slaves to work his fields. Edmund Foster married Jane Eller. Her father, Absalom Eller, also owned and occupied a plantation in Lewis Fork Town- ship. Abslum M. Foster, father of William H., was born in the same township, grew up there and has always made farming the chief part of his vocation. For a number of years he was also a merchant, having a store in the locality known as Dyers Postoffice. He carried a stock of general merchandise and continued actively in business until the store was burned in 1917. He is now giving all his attention to his farm in Lewis Fork Township. He married Martha Ann Hubbard, also a native of Lewis Fork Township. Her father, William Green Hubbard, was a miller, owning and operating a mill at Laytown and later at King's Creek, and finally at Lewis Fork, where he spent his last years. Being a miller, he was an important part of the industrial army and therefore exempt from field service during the war. Mr. Hubbard married Susan Lipford. Both lived to a good old age. Mrs. Abslum M. Foster died at the age of fifty-two. He then married for his second wife Mrs. Lillie Eller. The eight children of the first marriage were: Susan J., who married W. Cicero Triplett; William Hayes; Arthur Garfield; Monroe; Ferchase Olen; Beulah; Kinsey; and Arpha.
William Hayes Foster during his boyhood at- tended district school and also the Moravian Falls Academy. From his student career he engaged in teaching, at first in the Dix Hollow District, then in Old Lewis Fork and finally at Hubbard Mills. Altogether his work as a teacher continued five years. His next occupation was as a merchant in Reddies River Township. There he combined the occupation of general merchant with farmer.
In 1905 Mr. Foster entered public service as a gauger in the United States Revenue Department. He held that post until 1908. In 1910 Mr. Foster was one of the nine candidates for the office of register of deeds of Wilkes County, was elected, and by re-election has been continued in that office until the present time. He is one of the leading republicans in Wilkes County, has served as chair- man of the executive committee in Reddies River Township and also as delegate to numerous county, district and state conventions.
On March 26, 1899, Mr. Foster married Dorothy Luray Walsh. She was born in Lewis Fork Town- ship, a daughter of Lee and Diana (Goforth) Walsh. Mr. and Mrs. Foster have seven children: Charles C., Roy G., Veva Irene, Halsey Brainard, Nola, Shelton Bramlet and Lutrelle. Mr. and Mrs. Foster are members of the Baptist Church. He is affiliated with Mount Pleasant Lodge No. 573, Free and Accepted Masons, and North Wilkes- boro Chapter, Royal Arch Masons. Ever since leaving his work as a teacher he has continued an active interest in educational affairs and is now a member of the Board of Trustees of the Wilkes- boro High School, having been elected in 1914. In 1916 he was elected a member of the Finance Committee of the Town of Wilkesboro.
JOHN CHRISTOPH B. EHRINGHAUS. Few names are more closely identified with the history of . Elizabeth City than that of Ehringhaus, and few have been held, as generation succeeded genera- tion, in higher general esteem. Not long can a visitor in this beautiful little southern city mingle with its residents without hearing mention of this old and honorable name, a prominent bearer of which at present is John Christoph B. Ehringhaus, who has won distinction both at the bar and in public life.
John Christoph B. Ehringhaus was born at Elizabeth City, North Carolina, February 5, 1882, and is a son of Erskine and Carrie (Matthews) Ehringhaus. His father, one of Elizabeth City's substantial citizens, was engaged in business here as a merchant for many years.
In the city's excellent private schools, of which there were several during Mr. Ehringhaus's boy- hood and youth, he was carefully prepared for college and then entered the University of North Carolina, where he remained until he secured his A. B. degree in 1901 and his LL. B. degree in August, 1903. He returned then to Elizabeth City and established himself in a general practice in which he has met with marked success, and as a lawyer has taken a foremost place on the Pas- quotank bar. He has been connected with some famous cases in these courts and has acquitted himself brilliantly. At present he is solicitor for the First Judicial District of North Carolina, in which he has served for two terms, and he is retained as attorney by a number of important corporations.
No one recognizes more fully the necessity of a sound, fundamental system of government than the trained and enlightened young professional man, and hence it is natural for him to take a hearty interest in politics and be willing to as- sume political responsibilities with a higher end in view than personal preferment alone. In 1905 Mr. Ehringhaus was elected to the State Legisla- ture, and during the sessions of that year was the youngest member of the House. Nevertheless, he was not the least active and useful and the statesmanship qualities he displayed his first term brought him a second election in 1907. Among the many useful measures that Mr. Ehringhaus successfully championed while in the Legislature, a very important one was of an educational char- acter. He drew and introduced in 1905, a bill to establish a teachers' training school in Eastern North Carolina and secured its passage by the Lower House. As a result of the movement thus started such a school was provided for by the Legislature of 1907, and he, together with Gov- ernor Jarvis and Superintendent of Public Instruc- tion Jacques composed the sub-committee which drafted the bill finally passed. As a result of this a training school was located in Eastern North Carolina, known as the East Carolina Teachers' A Training School, Greenville, North Carolina. feature in deciding its location was the highest cash inducement by the various towns, and Green- ville secured the school. It is an enterprise that must always reflect the greatest credit and exer- cise of public spirit on Mr. Ehringhaus.
Mr. Ehringhaus was married January 4, 1912, to Miss Matilda Haughton, who was born in Wash- ington County, North Carolina. They have three children : John Christoph B., Matilda and Haugh- ton. Mr. Ehringhaus and family are members of
375
HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA
Christ Episcopal Church at Elizabeth City, in which he is a vestryman.
Mr. Ehringhaus has business interests aside from his profession and is vice president of the Eliza- beth City Shipyard Company. Personally he is friendly and companionable and is a valued mem- ber of the Odd Fellows, the Elks, the Masons, and various college fraternities.
WILLIAM GRIEST UNDERWOOD. One of the men of large affairs at Hertford is William Griest Underwood, vice president, secretary and general manager of the Albemarle Lumber Company, and otherwise identified with leading interests in East- ern North Carolina. Although Mr. Underwood is not a native Carolinian, his interests have been centered here for many years and he has been a very important factor in the growth and de- velopment of Hertford.
William Griest Underwood was born near Belle- fonte, Center County, Pennsylvania. His parents were Joseph and Ann Ada (Griest) Underwood, the former of whom has been deceased for many years. He was a merchant and interested in lum- ber manufacturing. The grandfather of Mr. Un- derwood, Dr. William Underwood, a man endowed with dynamic energy, was one of the pioneer northern business men who brought capital and enterprise to Eastern North Carolina when this section was beginning to recover from the rav- ages of war. He was largely instrumental in se- curing the construction of the Norfolk & South- ern Railroad to Elizabeth City and points further south, and the first locomotive was named Wil- liam Underwood in his honor.
William G. Underwood was liberally educated, first in private schools and later at Swathmore College near Philadelphia, from which institu- tion he was most creditably graduated in 1889, being president of his class. During his college life he was active in its literary, fraternal and social activities and was editor of the Swathmore Phoenix, the college paper. Mr. Underwood has always kept in touch with his alma mater and preserves many happy memories of his old fra- ternity associates in the Phi Kappa Psi and the Book and Key.
After completing his college course Mr. Under- wood returned to Elizabeth City, then the family home, and ever since has been more or less iden- tified with the great lumber industry in which both his father and grandfather were so largely concerned. For a number of years he was con- nected also with the Blades Lumber Company of Elizabeth City.
In 1905 Mr. Underwood came to Hertford and in association with other capitalists purchased the Albemarle Lumber Company, with which he has since continued to be identified as vice presi- dent, secretary and general manager. Saw and planing mills are operated and the plant has a capacity of 80 000 feet of lumber daily, and un- der Mr. Underwood's able management it is one of the most flourishing industries of this section of the state. Mr. Underwood has many addi- tional interests. He is vice president of the North Carolina Forestry Association, is a direc- tor of the North Carolina Pine Association, and is on the directing board of the Hertford Bank- ing Company.
Mr. Underwood married Miss Florence E. Smith, who is a daughter of William and Rose Smith, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They are mem- bers of the Presbyterian Church. Mr. Underwood
is a thirty-second degree Mason and a Shriner, and belongs to that exclusive social organization, the Virginia Club, Norfolk, Virginia.
FRANK BYNUM HENDREN is a lawyer by profes- sion, and for many years has been giving the best of his time and energies to his large private prac- tice at Wilkesboro. While his own name suggests commendable ability in the law, the family name has long been significant in this section of North Carolina, and many of the Hendrens have lived close to the soil and have borne their part in the industrial and military and civic activities of the region.
Mr. Hendren was born on a farm in Brushy Mountain Township of Wilkes County, North Car- olina. His first American ancestor was William Hendren, who was born in the Province of Ulster in Ireland of Scotch ancestry. Coming to America a young man, he joined the pioneers in Wilkes County and soon afterward entered heartily into the struggle for independence. He was a member of Captain Gilreath's company in the great battle of King's Mountain. For his estate he secured a tract of timbered land in what is now Brushy Mountain Township and there hewed a farm from the wilderness. From this sturdy ancestry many distinct branches of the family have sprung. He was twice married. His second wife was a Miss Taylor, and she was the great-grandmother of the Wilkesboro lawyer. By the first marriage there were seven sons, and the second marriage had fruit in four sons and two daughters. Several of the sons went to Kentucky and their descendants have gone further North and West.
Stephen Hendren, grandfather of Frank Bynum, was born in Brushy Mountain Township in 1807. He spent his life as a planter and in the locality of his birth, where he died at the age of seventy. The maiden name of his wife was Mary Cook. Her father owned and occupied a plantation in Iredell County and had numerous slaves. Mary Hendren survived her husband some years, and reared eight children, named Ambrose Enzer, Ephraim Elbert, Jane, Amelia, Ailcy, Stephen Elliott, Oliver and Lavinia. Of these children the father of Frank Bynum was Ephraim Elbert Hen- dren, who was born in Brushy Mountain Township in 1836. He located on lands given him by his father near the old home and there erected a log dwelling and other farm buildings. His success enabled him to acquire adjoining land and he finally bought the old homestead, to which he returned and where he spent the rest of his days. During the war he was a member of the Home Guard. His death occurred at the age of sixty- two. He married Rufina Hendren, who was born in Alexander County, North Carolina, a daughter of John and Mary (Davis) Hendren. She is still living at the old home farm. Her four children are Frank Bynum, John, Lloyd and Lenora, who mar- ried H. C. Walker.
During his early life on the farm Frank Bynum attended the district schools. He was also a student in Cedar Run Academy in Alexander Coun- ty and in Moravian Falls Academy. In 1888 he graduated in the literary course from Wake Forest College and subsequently took up the study of law in the offices of R. F. and C. H. Armfield at Statesville. He was qualified and admitted to the bar in 1895 and was the next two years in prac- tice at Morganton with J. F. Spainhour. Dissolv- ing that partnership he removed to Wilkesboro
376
HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA
and for the last twenty years has enjoyed a con- stantly increasing practice and prestige. For fif- teen years he has been associated with T. B. Finley.
In 1893 Mr. Hendren married Emma Catherine Campbell. She was born at Vashti in Alexander County, North Carolina, a daughter of S. W. and Adeline (Deal) Campbell. Mr. and Mrs. Hen- dren are the parents of eight children: Mabel, Frances, Adeline, Frank, Gwendolyn, Hope, Irene and Katheryn. Mr. and Mrs. Hendren are active members of the Baptist Church, and have reared their children in the same faith. Fraternally Mr. Hendren is affiliated with Liberty Lodge No. 345, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons.
HENRY LEONIDAS STEVENS has been in his full career as a lawyer and business man at Warsaw thirty years, and over a rugged road, against the competition in earlier years of some of the ablest members of the bar of the state he has won dis- tinction and success to a degree that qualifies him as one of North Carolina's foremost men in the law and in public life.
He was born in Piney Grove Township, Samp- son County, North Carolina, August 31, 1859, a son of Henry and Martha Cornelia (Best) Stevens, his father of English and his mother of Scotch- Irish ancestry. Genealogists have established a pretty good case to connect this branch of the Stevens family of North Carolina with the great English house of Fitz-Stephens that originated in Normandy. His Stevens ancestors in North Caro- lina had their home in Johnston County, originally Craven County. It is very probable that his great- grandfather was Henry or Harry Stevens, who owned property in Johnston County in 1750.
William Stevens, grandfather of Henry L., mar- ried Zilpha Ann Cogdale, a direct descendant of the well known Richard Cogdale of Newbern, North Carolina, a member of the general meeting of deputies in 1774 and of the assembly in 1775 from Craven County. William Stevens sold his old home place in 1825 and moved to Tennessee, accompanied by all his children except Henry Stevens. Henry Stevens was born in Johnston County April 3, 1807, and moved to Sampson, where he died April 3, 1870. His first wife was Zilpha Darden, and his second wife was Martha Cornelia Best, there being a son and a daughter by the second wife, Henry Leonidas and Plina A. Stevens.
Henry Stevens was a slave owner, and after the war was left in comparatively poor circumstances, and being unable to adapt himself quickly to the new order of things left his widow and young children almost with no means of support when he died about 1870. Henry Leonidas Stevens was then ten years old and he bravely shouldered the responsibilities of helping his widowed mother and his baby sister. He had to forego a college education and his early opportunities were sup- plied by the Warsaw High School, a private tutor and the study of law in the intervals of other oc- cupations under Prof. J. N. Stallings. He stood the examination before the Supreme Court and was licensed to practice by the Supreme Court on June 7, 1881. In March, 1885, he took up the duties of his profession at Kenansville but one year later removed to Warsaw, where his achieve- ments have made his name an honored one in the profession. He has been a lawyer, a practical agriculturist, has been interested in banks and various industrial enterprises, has served as chair-
man of the Legal Advisory Board of Duplin County, as chairman of the executive committee of the North Carolina Bar Association, and has been a very prominent democrat, but has never sought nor desired any public office as a means and instru- ment through which to exercise his influence upon public affairs. None the less his name is conspicu- ous in North Carolina political history, and to him is given the chief credit for at least one of the greatest movements ever undertaken in state po- litical reform.
From 1892 to 1897 he served as county chair- man of the democratic party and was on the State Democratic Committee in 1896-97. On the night of November 30, 1897, he drew up, offered and passed before the committee the famous resolu- tion committing the democratic party to the white man's fight. This resolution was printed in the state paper December 1, 1897, and it served to bring the white people together and thereby re- deem North Carolina from the control of the fusionists and the radicals. Probably no other event in politics has been referred to more fre- quently since the close of the Reconstruction era, and none has had a really greater significauce.
In 1898 Mr. Stevens was a candidate for the judgeship in the Fifth Congressional District, and lacked only four votes of being elected. He has been credited, and rightly, with having been the father of nearly every enterprise in his home town and of many of those in nearby communities. He organized the Bank of Warsaw, of which he is president, is stockholder and director in nearly all the other banks of the county, is chairman and trustee of the board of trustees of the Warsaw High and Graded schools, offices he has held for many years, and is a ruling elder of the Presby- terian Church. He served as a member of the Duplin Rifle Guard in 1880-81, is a member of the Nahunga Country Club of Warsaw, and is affili- ated with the Masonic order.
From an earlier published sketch it is appro- priate to quote the following paragraph, which everyone of his friends will recognize as an ex- pression of the exact truth: "He has a kindly nature, developed no doubt by his own early strug- gles; for he went through that period of hard trial which so often means tragedy, but which, when met with a proper mental attitude, with strenuous effort and firm will, gives an increased strength and a final undreamed of success. He is known as the friend of the widow and orphan and his generous interest in the young loses no opportunity of expression. He has helped several young men through college and assisted them to start in business. No one knows how much of this kind of help he has given."
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.