USA > North Carolina > History of North Carolina: North Carolina biography, Volume IV > Part 39
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Walter Murphy turned his attention to the study of law, and was graduated from the law depart- ment of the University of North Carolina in 1894. Returning to Salisbury, he immediately began the practice of his profession, and has since been an active and prominent attorney of the city, his legal success having been assured from the first.
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Mr. Murphy married, in 1903, Maude Horney, a daughter of Henry and Elizabeth Horney, and into their home two children have made their advent, Spencer and Elizabeth.
Having cast his first presidential vote for Grover Cleveland, Mr. Murphy has since been an active and consistent supporter of the principles of the democratic party, and has taken a promi- nent part in the management of public affairs. He has rendered able service as city attorney, and seven times has he been elected to represent Rowan County in the State Legislature, and twice as speaker of the House, an honorable record, of which he may well be proud, being proof of his popularity as a public-spirited citizen, and of his ability in the administration of public affairs, Mr. Murphy was a delegate to the Democratic National Conventions of 1912 and 1916.
Intelligently interested in everything pertaining to the advancement of the educational status of the state, Mr. Murphy has been a member of the board of trustees of the University of North Caro- lina since 1901, and also one of its executive com- mittee. He has served as secretary of the Alumni Council of that institution, and as secretary of the Alumni Association. The founder of the Alumni Review, he has always served on the editorial staff. From 1907 until 1914 he was one of the direc- torate of the State Tuberculosis Hospital.
Fraternally Mr. Murphy is a member of An- drew Jackson Lodge, Ancient Free and Accepted Order of Masons; of Salisbury Chapter, No. 20, Royal Arch Masons; of Salisbury Commandery, No. 24, Knights Templar; and of Oasis Temple, at Charlotte. Mrs. Murphy is a birth-right Quak- er, and ever true to the faith in which she was reared. A keen-witted and successful lawyer, an able statesman, and a ready and fluent speaker, Mr. Murphy is often called upon to address large gatherings, whether of a social or political nature, and has the happy knack of pleasing and enter- taining his audiences, as well as giving them some- thing to ponder over.
HENRY E. FAIRCLOTH, though one of the younger men of Winston-Salem, has found himself as it were in the field of commercial endeavor, and is already prosperously located as one of the mer- chants of this city.
Though his own career has been brief as to years, he represents one of the old and well known families in this section of North Carolina. He was himself born on a farm near Advance in Davie County December 25, 1885. The founder of the Faircloth family in North Carolina was his ancestor six generations back, that is, his great-great-great-grandfather. This ancestor lived in Pennsylvania and there joined a colony of thirty families to come to North Carolina. They made the removal down the ridge of the Alleghenys with wagons and teams. Nearly all of North Carolina was then a wilderness and these Penn- sylvania colonists had to combat not only the natural obstacles of a new country but also the dangers incident to wild animals and wild In- dians. They located near what is now Old Town in Forsyth County. This ancestor and the founder of the family in North Carolina was a brave and gallant soldier in the Revolutionary war and for his services was granted 160 acres. The land he selected is in that part of Stokes County now in- cluded in Yadkin County. Thus the Faircloth
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family has lived in this section of North Carolina considerably more than a century and its mem- bers have been industrious and worthy leaders in their respective communities.
The great-grandfather of Henry E. Faircloth was William P. Faircloth who was born in Surry County, North Carolina. He owned and occupied a farm in Yadkin County. The next generation was represented by Thomas Anderson Faircloth, grandfather of Henry E. He was born in Surry County, North Carolina, May 1, 1822, and at this writing, February, 1917, he is still living, at the remarkable age of ninety-five. In his youth he learned the trade of bricklayer, and in the early days of Winston was a contractor and builder. Later he bought a farm in Davie County, where he now resides. For one year he was a soldier in the Confederate army. He married Louisa Roadhorse, and they reared children named Jacob D., John A., James Edward, Julia, Thomas E., Frank M., Sarah A., Mary and Anna. Of these the son Jacob gave three years of active service to the Confederate cause during the war between the states.
James Edward Faircloth, father of Henry E., was born near Salem, North Carolina, grew up on a farm and has made farming his regular pur- suit and means of livelihood. He now owns and occupies a farm two miles from Advance in Davie County. He married Cora D. McCorkle, and they became the parents of four children, Clarence E., Henry E., Annie G. and Grace.
Mr. Henry E. Faircloth grew up on his fa- ther's farm in Davie County, attended district schools and his experiences were limited to the farm and rural districts until he was twenty years of age. Coming to Winston, he put in four years as a street car conductor, but resigned that po- sition to engage in merchandising. He bought an interest in a general store and since 1912 has been steadily building up a large and pros- perous trade at 400 South Main Street in Winston- Salem.
In 1911 Mr. Faircloth married Miss Mary Petree. She was born in Salem, daughter of Wil- liam R. and Harriet Petree. William R. Petree was born in a log house near Mount Taber in Forsyth County. His grandfather, Daniel Petree, was a farmer near Mount Taber and spent his last years with his son, Isaac, in that vicinity. Daniel Petree married a widow, Margaret Fidler, and they reared nine children. Jacob Petree, father of William R., was born near Mount Taber in what is now Forsyth County in 1827, grew up on a farm, and after his marriage bought a place near the old homestead. This land had a set . of log buildings as its chief improvement, but only a few acres had been cleared. He was busily en- gaged with the task of developing the land and making a home when the war between the states broke out. Giving up everything for the cause of the South he entered the Confederate army, went to the front, and was soon captured by the enemy and died while a prisoner of war at Point Look- out, Maryland. After that the responsibilties of his home and family devolved upon his noble widow, whose maiden name was Henrietta Celina Crouse. She was born at Bethabia, now known as Old Town in Forsyth County. Her father, Ben- jamin Crouse, was a native of the same locality and of German ancestry, was a tanner by trade, and for several years operated a tannery at Beth-
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abia, but subsequently moved to Stokes County, where he spent his last years. Benjamin Crouse married Rebecca Butner, who spent her entire life at Bethabia. Mrs. Faircloth's grandmother in the early days cooked by the open fire and was skilled in those housewifely accomplishments of carding and spinning and weaving. Mrs. Ja- cob Petree had eight children to support when her husband went into the Confederate army, and be- ing unable to keep her family together in the country she removed to Salem and lived there until her death when upwards of eighty years of age. Six of her eight children grew up, named Margaret R., Amanda M., Benjamin, Mary Jane, Samuel Newton, and William R. Margaret is still living in Salem. William R. Petree, father of Mrs. Faircloth, attended the Salem Boys School, but at the age of ten years began earning his own living as a worker in a woolen mill. He con- tinued as a factory hand for a number of years, and finally used his experience and modest capital to engage in merchandising. Mrs. Faircloth's par- ents are active members of the Home Moravian Church, in which she is also a member. Mr. Fair- cloth retains membership in the Methodist Epis- copal Church South at Advance. They have one daughter, Venus Louise.
BENJAMIN RICE LACY. Among the men in North Carolina who by pluck, energy, ability and common sense have trampled obstacles under foot and risen to places of usefulness and honor, Benjamin Rice Lacy is easily conspicuous. He had the will to rise and he rose. Fortunately too he inherited ability and character from a long line of thoughtful ancestors, and this combination enabled him to fill and not merely occupy the places which his courage had won.
Mr. Lacy is a son of Rev. Drury Lacy, D. D., and Mary Rice Lacy. His father, after a pastorate of eighteen years in the First Presbyterian Church of Raleigh, was in 1855 elected president of Dav- idson College, and administered the affairs of the institution with force and success until the open- ing of the Civil War. Then Doctor Lacy, with the same patriotism which his grandsons are now showing, went into the Confederate service as a chaplain. The unaccustomed hardships of the life left him at the close of the war virtually wrecked in health.
His son Benjamin was born in Raleigh in 1854. A child of Reconstruction Days in North Caro- lina, when the fortunes of even the wealthiest had been swept away, young Lacy was forced by the hardness of the times and by his father's failing health to enter active life while still very young. Happily, however, he was privileged be- fore taking his place with the sturdy young work- ers of that generation to spend a few years under the instruction of two of the state's ablest teach- ers, Mr. R. H. Graves and Col. William Bingham. No boy could study under two such masters and not consciously or unconsciously have his after life enriched by their virility of mind.
After leaving school Mr. Lacy entered the Sea- board Air Line machine shops at Raleigh, subse- quently rose to be foreman of these shops. In the shops he learned to know men and their habits of thought, and this acquisition has been a source of strength to him throughout his life. No man is quicker than he to penetrate the veneer of a hol- low life.
He left the shops to take up the responsibili-
ties of a locomotive engineer, and was soon known as one of the most dependable and skilful engi- ,neers of the system. Seeing the opportunities for service to his profession which were offered by the newly formed Brotherhood of Locomotive En- gineers he joined that organization and has lived to see his faith justified by the wonderful changes for good brought about by that body in the characters, standing, and general welfare of the sterling body of men who compose its member- ship. With his accustomed energy he was no idler in the Brotherhood and his aptness for organiza- tion led to his becoming one of its safe and trusted leaders. His duties in the growing organi- zation broadepied his sympathies, widened the range of his thought, and made him with his nat- urally warm heart quick to reach out a brotherly hand to any man whose misfortunes or tempta- tions had left him helpless.
In 1893 Governor Elias Carr appointed Mr. Lacy commissioner of labor and printing. He ac- cepted the office at a financial sacrifice with the hope of accomplishing what he did accomplish- the bringing of the department into closer rela- tionship with both laborers and manufacturers. After the close of his term of office Mr. Lacy or- ganized what is now the Mechanics Savings Bank. As cashier of the bank he started it on the suc- cessful career which it has enjoyed.
In 1899 the Legislature, having made a change in the method of selecting a commissioner of labor and printing, unanimously elected Mr. Lacy to that office, and he served his second term of four years.
At the general election in 1900 he was elected treasurer of the state and took charge of North Carolina's finances in 1901. So satisfied have the people been with the administration of this high office that they have reelected him four succes- sive times.
Like most men who have to mingle with their fellows, Mr. Lacy is a member of several orders. He is treasurer of the Grand Lodge of Masons, maintains membership in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Junior Order of United American Mechanics, and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. He is an Elder in the Presbyterian Church.
In June, 1882, Mr. Lacy married a thoughtful and cultured woman, Miss Mary Burwell, daughter of Capt. John B. Burwell, and granddaughter of Rev. Robert Burwell, D. D., who were among North Carolina's pioneers in the education of women.
Mr. Lacy has seven children-five daughters and two sons. At the opening of America's war with Germany both of the sons offered their services to their country. The elder, Rev. B. R. Lacy, Jr., is chaplain of the One hundred and Thirteenth Field Artillery. The younger, Thomas Allen, volunteered as a private in the same company in his nineteenth year.
JUDGE EDWARD JENNER WARREN. In the words of Chief Justice Walter Clark of the North Caro- lina Supreme Court, "Judge Edward J. Warren was one of the most forceful and able men that this state has produced." He was a splendid type of lawyer and also a man of leadership in public affairs at a time when North Carolina stood in greatest need of such men.
Though his active career was identified with North Carolina, he was a native of New England and of rugged New England ancestry. Edward
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Jenner Warren was born at Wardsboro, Vermont, December 23, 1826, a son of John Parker and Lucy Maynard (Wheelock ) Warren. Judge Warren was of Puritan and patriotic ancestry. Through four distinct lines his ancestry goes back to Revolutionary soldiers. His great-grand- father, Nathaniel Warren, and his grandfather, Stephen Warren, father and son, saw long serv- ice in that war. His maternal grandfather, Asa Wheelock, his maternal great-grandfather, Ebe- nezer Read, and also Ebenezer Chapin, another great-grandfather on his mother's side, were in the war for independence. Two of these ancestors, Stephen Warren and Ebenezer Read, were minute- men at the Lexington alarm. One of his Wheelock connections was Frederick Eleaser Wheelock, who was president of Dartmouth College. Prior to the founding of the college Doctor Wheelock had been intensely interested in the education of the In- dians and had established schools for their in- struction. Probably these schools were successful to a degree in civilizing the savages but one notable instance of failure was the case of the infamous Brandt. Brandt was very friendly to Doctor Wheelock personally and apparently ap- preciative of his kindness, but his reversion to savagery and his virulent hostility to the white settlers added greatly to the horrors of the Revo- lution in New York, where he led his Indians in horrible massacre and deeds of terror, familiar to every American schoolboy.
John Parker Warren, father of Judge Warren, was a physician of prominence in Vermont and also a noted botanist. It is said he had the most complete botanical collection in Vermont. He also assisted materially in writing Hemenway's His- tory of Vermont. Judge Warren inherited much of the character and appearance of his mother, who was a woman of unusual beauty, dignity, refinement and cultivation.
Because of the family affiliation above noted Judge Warren was educated at Dartmouth College, where he graduated in 1847. After graduation, owing to financial reverses in his family, he came to North Carolina and engaged in teaching for a year or two, studying law at the same time. He obtained his license to practice in 1849 and settled in the Town of Washington.
He early became prominent in the bar and was employed in many important cases. One case in which he was one of the leading counsel was of much notoriety partly on account of its tragic ending, but mainly because of his masterly conduct of the prosecution and scathing arraignment of the criminal. When the verdict was brought in the murderer committed suicide. He had managed to secrete a pistol and he endeavored to send Mr. Warren into eternity by firing it point blank at the lawyer's heart. The end of this trial has been said to be the most dramatic event which ever occurred in a courthouse in North Carolina. Judge Warren always deprecated the sort of prominence which was accorded the affair. In the practice of his profession Judge Warren received large fees but he also did much work for which he charged nothing and received nothing. His legal knowl- edge was always at the service of his friends without thought of remuneration, and though for years he stood among the leaders of the state bar he never acquired that degree of wealth which might properly have been incidental to such a high standing and success.
. His great intellectual power and leadership
among men are only partially in his public record. Reared in New England, he was naturally a Federalist, and by conviction and party affiliation was an old-line whig. In the rapid evolution of politics before the war he was in favor of pre- serving the Union if possible, because he realized the unpreparduess of the South and knew from his frequent visits to the North the determined bitter spirit with which that section of the country would wage war. When all efforts failed lie voted for the secession of his state. He was elected a member of the convention which voted to secede from the Union. After the war he became a conservative democrat, though it was a difficult matter for an old line whig to call himself a demo- crat. He bent all his energy to help redeem the state from radical rule and the horrors of Recon- struction. He was repeatedly elected a member of the Legislature, both of the House of Commons and of the Senate. He was president of the Senate at the time the. Governor, W. W. Holden, was impeached. He was appointed judge of the Superior Court of North Carolina in 1866.
Early in the war Judge Warren was elected captain of a cavalry company raised by a group of his friends. There was at this time only one vacancy in the two regiments of cavalry organized at first by the state, and another company was given the coveted position. While not a member of any church Judge Warren was a sincere believer in the fundamental truths of Christianity.
At Washington, North Carolina, May 16, 1849, he married Miss Deborah Virginia Bonner, daughter of Col. Richard H. and Elizabeth Lee (Bowen) Bonner. Mrs. Warren was a beautiful woman, of fine intellect and vivacious manners. Her grandfather, Rev. Thomas Bowen, was one of the pioneers of Methodism in North Carolina. Parson Bowen, as he was known, was converted in Baltimore under Whitfield's preaching, and immediately became a Methodist minister. Mrs. Warren's father was in the War of 1812 and her great-grandfather, Rev. James Adams, was a chaplain in the Revolutionary war.
Judge and Mrs. Warren had two children, Lucy Wheelock and the late Charles Frederic Warren, whose distinguished career as a North Carolina lawyer has been appropriately sketched on other pages. The daughter, Lucy Wheeleck, now liv- ing at Washington, is the widow of the late Wil- liam Rodman Myers, a North Carolina lawyer who was at one time associated in practice with Judge Warren.
CHARLES FREDERIC WARREN. The legal profes- sion in North Carolina has been honored by the services of three successive generations of the Warren family. The first was Judge Edward Jenner Warren, the second was Charles Frederic Warren, and at the present time a leading mem- ber of the Washington bar is Lindsay Carter Warren.
In 1914 Judge S. C. Bragaw in behalf of the family presented to the Supreme Court a portrait of the late Charles Frederic Warren. Chief Justice Walter Clark in accepting the portrait said: "Judge Edward J. Warren was one of the most forceful and able men that this state has produced. His son, Charles F. Warren lived scarcely past his meridian, but he inherited .his father's ability and though he did not live long enough to render the full measure of service to his state and people of which he was capable he lived long enough to
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establish his own fame and to entitle him to an acknowledged place among the leaders of North Carolina."
Judge Edward Jenner Warren, his father, was born in Vermont, graduated at Dartmouth Col- lege, and shortly afterwards moved to Beaufort County, North Carolina, where later he practiced law. He belonged to a distinguished family which produced many eminent men who had a great part in the developing and shaping the destiny of New England. In mind and personality Judge Edward Warren seemed to typify the strong, stern and rugged state from whence he sprang. Of high character, deep purpose, uncompromising will and great intellectual strength, he made last- ing impress upon those among whom he lived. He soon took high rank in his profession. In 1862 he was elected to the State Senate and was again a member of the Senate in 1870-71-72 and its president. In 1866 he was appointed judge of the Superior Court of North Carolina.
Judge Edward J. Warren married Deborah V. Bonner. She was the daughter of Col. Richard H. Bonner of Beaufort County a man of ability and distinguished lineage. Another daughter of Colonel Bonner was the mother of Associate Jus- tice George H. Brown of the Supreme Court of North Carolina.
Charles Frederic Warren was born in the Town of Washington, Beaufort County, September 6, 1852, and had just attained the full measure of intellectual strength and power when he died July 11, 1904. When he was ready to enter college the University of his native state offered no opportunity and in 1869 he was sent to Washing- ton College at Lexington, Virginia, then presided over by Gen. Robert E. Lee. He was a student there when General Lee died, and it is said that upon General Lee's death among the papers left by him were examination papers of Charles F. Warren. Mr. Warren graduated with high honors in 1873. Among his college mates and associates were a number of men who afterwards attained distinction. Upon his graduation, returning to Washington, he studied law under his father and was admitted to the North Carolina bar by the Supreme Court in the June term of 1874. He at once began practice in Beaufort County, associ- ated with his father, Judge Warren, and the late Col. David Miller Carter and William Rodman Myers, under the firm name Warren, Carter, Myers & Warren. After the retirement or death of the senior members Charles F. Warren suc- ceeded to the practice of the firm and continued alone until his death.
In 1879 he married Elizabeth Mutter Blount, daughter of Maj. John Gray Blount, of the family referred to by the late Gov. Henry T. Clark, who is quoted in Wheeler's Reminiscences as expressing the opinion that "no family whose name survives in this state can trace its origin back to a period so remote in the history of North Carolina." At the death of Mr. Warren he was survived by his widow, also his mother, his sister, Mrs. William Rodman Myers, and by two sons and two daughters. The oldest son, Frederick B. Warren, has gained high distinction as a journalist at New York City.
In addition to this brief biography it is proper to quote some of the sentences from Judge Bragaw's address at the time of the presentation of Mr. Warren's portrait.
"Charles F. Warren was but a boy when this country writhed in the mighty throes of civil war.
He would have been a magnificent soldier. No man ever lived who knew less of the sensation of fear. He was the bravest man I ever knew. Whether from his association with the greatest war captain of all time, for during the days he sat at the feet of Robert E. Lee he imbibed a love of things military, or whether he inherited the instinct from his ancestors of New England or his Southern forebears, one cannot know, but the militant spirit was strong within him. It is doubtful whether the state had a more thorough student of the history of the period from 1861 to 1865, or one more accurately informed other than those who took part in the great conflict.
"Mr. Warren was profoundly interested in politics and was not without political ambition. But it was an ambition based upon the earnest desire to be of service to his state and not the selfish yielding to the lurc of office from the mere sordid lust for office. The term politician in its modern acceptation had no application to him. He could not dissemble and had supreme contempt for political duplicity and the doctrine of political expediency. He formed and expressed his opinions of men and measures without thought of the effect of such expressions upon himself. He was mayor of Washington for five years, 1881 to 1886. In 1886 he was elected to the State Senate, where he took first rank with the ablest lawyers and states- men in that body. In 1896 he was a delegate to the National Democratic Convention held at Chi- cago at which William J. Bryan was nominated as the party candidate for the presidency. In 1898 the opportunity was given him to accept the nomination for Congress from the First Congres- sional District, the Hon. John Small having de- clined to permit the use of his name until after the nomination had been tendered to Mr. Warren and by him refused.
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