USA > North Carolina > History of North Carolina: North Carolina biography, Volume IV > Part 70
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HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA
of the leading newspapers of the state, in comment- ing on the occasion, gave Mr. MeCrary credit for having been the leading spirit in arousing the in- terest of the people, and starting the movement. He is an ardent lover of nature, a thorough be- liever in progress, and generously and willingly lends his aid toward all improvements.
Mr. McCrary married, in 1906, Mary Tatum, who was born in Patrick County, Virginia, a daughter of John P. and Martha (Foster) Tatum. Three children have been born of their union, Christine, Virginia Ray, and John Raymond, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. McCrary are active members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in which he is a steward, and for ten years has been the teacher of the Baraca class. Mr. Mccrary has often been called upon to speak on religious and other sub- jects in different parts of the state, and, espe- cially during the life of Joseph Caldwell, editor of the Charlotte Observer, he contributed articles of interest to church and secular papers.
ROBERT HENRY POWELL has spent his active career in Columbus County, adopted merchandising as his career soon after leaving school, and from a clerkship has risen to one of the largest firms in Whiteville, and has acquired many interests that make him one of the most influential citizens of that section.
He was born in Columbus County on a farm September 4, 1856, a son of James Calvin and Lucy Elizabeth (Baldwin) Powell. His father was a native of this state and a successful farmer. As a boy Mr. Powell attended private schools and the Whiteville Academy, and on finishing his education became clerk in a general store. Experience, natu- ral adaptability, and the thrift which begets cap- ital, enabled him in 1894 to establish a business of his own. He conducted it alone for some years, and finally took in his son Alexander Elmo, making the firm Powell & Powell, as it stands today. Mr. Powell is also vice president of the Bank of Colum- bus, is a director of the Whiteville Ginning Com- pany, and is a worker for all that benefits his com- munity.
For ten years he served as assistant county treasurer, was then elected county treasurer, and remained in the office for eight years, finally declin- ing a renomination. He also served for a number of years as alderman of Whiteville. He is one of the trustees of the local schools, and is a deacon in the Baptist Church. His only fraternity is the Odd Fellows.
On December 15, 1881, he married Nott McKin- non, of Robinson County, North Carolina. They are the parents of seven children: Alexander Elmo; Walter Hogue; Robert Jackson; Edward F .; Mary Lou, who is a teacher in the public schools; Junius Kenneth, bookkeeper in the Bank of Stanford, North Carolina; and William Calvin, who is still pursuing his studies.
Alexander Elmo Powell, who was born in White- ville January 14, 1884, was educated in the public schools and the Horner Military Academy, and then became associated with his father in the general merchandise business and soon afterward was taken into partnership. In January, 1913, he was ap- pointed postmaster of Whiteville, an office he still fills. He has served as alderman and is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias, and is active in the Baptist Church. On June 20, 1907, he married Miss Etta Rockwell Powell, of Whiteville. Their three children are Alexander Elmo, Jr., Etta Hamilton and Lucie Mckinnon.
Walter Hogue Powell, the second son of R. H. Powell, was born in Whiteville September 9, 1887, had the advantages of the public schools and the Horner Military School, and in 1911 graduated from the law department of the University of North Carolina. He has since been in active prac- tice at Whiteville and is one of the ablest mem- bers of the bar. He belongs to the Kappa Alpha college fraternity, the Masonic Order and the In- dependent Order of Odd Fellows and is a member of the Baptist Church. October 20, 1915, he mar- ried Miss Toccoa Cain, of Laurens, South Car- olina.
Robert Jackson Powell, who was born at White- ville April 26, 1890, from the public schools entered the Agricultural and Mechanical College at Raleigh, where he attended in 1911, then gained some ex- perience in business with his father, but since Jan- uary, 1916, has been in the general insurance busi- ness, handling fire, life and other forms of in- surance. He is a member of the Knights of Pythias and the Kappa Alpha fraternity and is a deacon in the Presbyterian Church of Whiteville. On October 1, 1911, he married Elizabeth Toon, of Whiteville, and they have one child, Elizabeth McKinnon.
Edward Farrior Powell was born October 11, 1893, received his education in the public schools and the University of North Carolina, and his experience has been in the banking business. For eighteen months he was clerk in the Bank of Colum- bus, then became cashier of the Bank of Cerro- gordo, North Carolina, and on February 1, 1915, returned to the Bank of Columbus as cashier. He is also vice president of the First National Bank of Hamlet, North Carolina. His fraternal con- nections are with the Masonic Order and the In- dependent Order of Odd Fellows.
JAMES FOY JUSTICE. Among the representative men of Henderson County one whose work as a lawyer has commended him to the confidence of the public is James Foy Justice, who in addition to other responsibilities served with credit in the 1917 session of the State Senate.
Senator Justice was born in Buncombe County, North Carolina, September 8, 1886, a son of Rev. Amos I. and Minerva (Fisher) Justice. The father is a widely known Baptist minister in North Carolina. The son was educated in the Fruitland Institute and completed his literary education in Wake Forest College, where he was graduated A. B. in 1908. After leaving college he went two years as a teacher, being principal of the literary department of the Southern Indiana Institute. In 1910 he completed his law course in Wake Forest College, and was admitted to the bar in February, 1911. Since then he has been in ac- tive general practi- at Hendersonville has han- dled a large share of the routine litigation in the local courts, and has from the first been an inter- ested participant in public affairs. He is secre- tary of the Stony Mountain Company, a corpo- ration which has extensive land and timber inter- ests in Henderson County, and is attorney and trustee of the Fruitland Institute, where he gained part of his early education, as well at attorney for the County Board of Education.
Mr. Justice was a member of the County Board of Education until he resigned to enter the Senate, an office to which he was elected in 1916. Mr. Justice is a "night of Pythias, and is a former superintendent of the First Baptist School of Hendersonville.
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HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA
August 23, 1917, he married Pearl Griffin. Mrs. Justice was born in Clarendon County, South Caro- lina, daughter of Samuel Wilson and Isabella Griffin, her father being a cotton planter.
FRANKLIN P. HOBGOOD as president of Oxford College for Young Women since 1880 and as a teacher and educator in North Carolina for nearly half a century, occupies a position and has di- rected an influence and rendered a service which have made him one of the big and sustaining figures in the life and affairs of the state.
Concerning his work and his personal career fortunately material is at hand in the form of an editorial which appeared in the Biblical Re- corder in 1916. From that it is learned that Franklin P. Hobgood was born in Granville County near Oxford in 1847. His preparation for college was made at Horner School, to which he came daily on horseback from his home in the country. He is proud of the fact that he rode 7,000 miles while thus preparing for college, and that even this time was not wasted, for on horseback he com- mitted to memory most of Andrews and Stoddard's Latin Grammar. At night he studied by the flame of a beeswax wick, the day of oil and electric lights being yet many years away. As with many other young men of that day Mr. Hob- good's studies were interrupted by the Civil war. For six months, during the latter part of the conflict, he served in the Junior Reserve Brigade in the Confederate Army.
Resuming his studies in 1866 he graduated in 1868 with the A. B. degree from Wake Forest College, valedictorian of his class. Athletes of today will be interested in knowing that Mr. Hob- good was captain of the first baseball nine ever organized at Wake Forest.
His career as a teacher began in 1869 when he became principal of a boys school at Reidsville, North Carolina. Two years later, in 1871, he moved to Raleigh and became president of the Raleigh Female Seminary. That was the begin- ning of his long and successful work as a teacher of young women. He was at Raleigh for ten years, having as his patrons many of the state's leading citizens and as his pupils hundreds of young women who in after years filled positions of usefulness in the home, the church, the school- room and the state. And the same can be said of his more extended service as president of Oxford College, where he began his work in 1880 and where he has continued to the present time. He is still in the harness, and doing some of the best work of his life. He has a good college plant at Ox- ford, valued at about $40,000, a faculty of eleven instructors, and about 140 young women are en- rolled every year.
Mr. Hobgood's educational ideals have been high, demanding superior intellectual culture, develop- ing the finer social sensibilities, converging upon a life at once practical and refined, and above all centering in Christ the Great Teacher, Savior and Sovereign of the race. Several positions of honor and trust have been enjoyed by him. For six years he was chairman of the Board of Educa- tion in his home county of Granville. For one term he was president of the North Carolina Teachers Assembly. For eight years he has been a trustee of the State University at Chapel Hill.
His religious work has also been important. He has been deacon, Sunday School worker and active in other capacities in the church of which he is a member, Moderator of the Flat River Baptist
Association for ten years; at different times vice president of the Baptist State Convention, and for several years chairman of the Laymen's Com- mittee of the convention; trustee of Wake Forest College forty-five years and president of its board eight years; identified with the Thomasville Orphanage from its inception-first as a member of the visiting committee of the Orphanage Asso- ciation, for about thirty years as a trustee, and since the death of Dr. W. R. Gwaltney, president of the board. His fidelity to duty is shown in the remarkable fact that in all the years of his service as trustee of Wake Forest College and of the Orphanage he has missed but one annual meeting of each of these bodies, both coming at a time when he was in a hospital.
Mr. Hobgood married Miss Mary A. Royall, and theirs has been a most happy home life. Her father Dr. William Royall was a distinguished professor in Wake Forest College and died about twenty years ago. Mrs. Hobgood has been the sharer and inspirer of his labors and achievements through all the years of their marriage. They have three sons and three daughters. The oldest son is Colonel Frank P. Hobgood of Greensboro, former state senator and recently assistant counsel to the United States Attorney General in the prosecution of oil land cases in Wyoming; the second son Royall died at the age of twenty-one. The third Dr. J. Edward Hobgood of Thomasville is physician to the Thomasville Orphanage. The three daughters all reside at Oxford: Mrs. Frank W. Hancock, Mrs. Beverly S. Royster and Miss Carrie Hobgood. Mr. and Mrs. Hobgood also have ten grand-children and one great-grand-child.
HON. FRANK P. HOBGOOD, JR., has gained as- sured prominence as a lawyer, resulting from twenty years of practice among private clients and service to the state and nation. His work has served to make a well known family name still better known and honored in North Carolina.
He was born on a plantation five miles west of Oxford in Granville County, North Carolina, and is a son of the distinguished educator, Frank P. Hobgood, Sr., president of Oxford College and whose career is elsewhere sketched in this publica- tion. The Hobgoods have been in North Caro- lina for several. generations and Mr. Hobgood's great-grandfather as well as his grandfather, James B. Hobgood, were planters in Granville County. Col. Frank P. Hobgood's mother was Mary Ann Royall, a native of Wake Forest and daughter of Rev. William Royall, D. D., LL. D., for many years professor of English in Wake For- est College. Doctor Royall married Elizabeth Bai- ley.
Frank P. Hobgood, Jr., prepared for college at Horner's Military Institute at Oxford, and in 1891 entered Wake Forest College, graduating at the head of his class in 1893 with the degree A. B. His rapid progress in his studies was due to inherited talent and also to the splendid direc- tion and inspiration he had had from earliest youth in the home of his cultured father and mother. After leaving Wake Forest he entered the Columbian now George Washington Univer- sity at Washington, D. C., where he took his law course and received his LL. B. degree. Mr. Hob- good was licensed to practice law in 1898. He practiced at Oxford until 1903, when he removed to Greensboro.
Along with his work as a general practitioner he has always taken an interest in public affairs.
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HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA
He was elected and served in the State Senate of North Carolina in 1911, 1913 and 1915. During that time he was chairman of the judiciary com- mittee and was author of the state-wide primary law which is now in operation in the state. The service which has made him most widely known was his work as special assistant to the attorney general of the United States from July, 1915, to October, 1917. Mr. Hobgood was employed in the prosecution of cases in California and Wyoming involving violations of the law and order affecting the public oil lands of those states, and particu- larly the alleged fraudulent procurement of pat- ents to oil lands by the Southern Pacific Railroad Company. In October, 1917, his work on these cases having been finished, he returned to Greens- boro and has once more resumed his status as a member of the local bar. Mr. Hobgood joined the North . Carolina National Guard at the age of fifteen as a private, and was with the service for a number of years and in all branches and grades until he rose to the rank of colonel.
In 1907 he married Miss Lucy McGee Glenn. She was born in Greensboro, daughter of Robert G. and Helen (Jones) Glenn, elsewhere men- tioned in this publication. Mr. Hobgood is affil- iated with the Masonic fraternity and was grand master of the Grand Lodge in North Carolina in 1915. He is a deacon in the Baptist Church.
EDWIN . ALEXANDER ANDERSON. North Carolina man who won well deserved distinction in the United States Navy both before and during the present great war, a brief record of Edwin Alexander Anderson is particularly appropriate for these biographical pages.
He was born at Wilmington July 16, 1860. and graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1882. His record since then stated briefly is as follows: Ensign, July 1, 1884; lieutenant junior grade, September 30, 1894; lieutenant, March 28, 1898; lieutenant commander. September 11, 1903; commander, December 6. 1907; captain, June 14, 1911: temporarily appointed rear admiral, August 31, 1917. He served on the Marblehead and as commander of the Sandoval in the Spanish-Ameri- can war. and was advanced five numbers in rank "for extraordinary heroism" during that war. He was in command of Callao 1902-03. Don Juan de Austria, 1903. Isle de Cuba, 1903. Naval Gun Factorv at Washington. 1904-05, Pennsylvania, 1905-06, Second Torpedo Flotilla, 1906-07, re- cruiting station, Cincinnati, 1907-08, navy yards, Mare Island. California, 1908-10. Yorktown, 1910- 11. navy yards. Philadelphia, 1911-13, at Naval War College. 1916, superintendent of naval aux- iliaries, 1916-17. commanded Squadron 3 Patrol Force, 1917, and later Squadron 1, Patrol Force.
GEORGE B. COCKER. In each community and in every branch of industrial activity there are cer- tain men who stand out from their associates because of their purposeful personality and de- termined methods of action. Such men are bound to dominate any situation and control whatever opportunities lie in the path of their onward prog- ress. Through them and their efforts spring the vast enterprises that have so direct an influence unon the prosperity of the country. In this class stands George B. Cocker. who a little more than a quarter of a century ago started upon his career as an apprentice to the machinist's trade, and who todav is general manager of the Cocker Machine & Foundry Company at Gastonia. one of the largest enterprises of its kind in the country.
Mr. Cocker is a native of Philadelphia, Pennsyl- vania, in which city he was reared, educated and received his training as a machinist and mechan- ical engineer. After leaving school he entered the works of the Globe Manufacturing Company at Philadelphia, manufacturers of great note, as an apprentice, and remained with that concern for twenty-five years. His promotion was rapid, being based upon his fidelity, industry and natural abil- ity, qualities which have characterized him throughout his career, and he became in turn an expert draughtsman, machinist, mechanical engi- neer, and inventor and .designer of special ma- chinery. He is today known as one of the best equipped men in his profession in the entire South. Before leaving the Globe concern he had been ad- vanced to the dual capacity of chief erector and manager of the plant, in addition to which he traveled in the South for the company for several years, selling, and installing cotton mill machinery.
While engaged in the latter pursuit Mr. Cocker became convinced of the wonderful opportunities offered by Gastonia for the establishment of a busi- ness of this nature here, and, after extensive prep- arations, in 1914 he organized the Cocker Machine and Foundry Company, with the following officers : George R. Spencer, president; Thomas L. Craig, vice president; J. Robert Craig, secretary and treasurer; and George R. Cocker, general manager. He designed and built the shops at Gastonia, and installed their equipment of machinery, all of which is of the most modern type and manufacture. The company specializes in the manufacture and in- stallation of textile machinery, among its products being warping machinery, including linker heads, linking warpers, balling warpers, section beam warpers, balling attachments, webb warpers and spe- cial warpers for heavy duck, these being equipped with electrical or mechanical stop motion, as de- sired; beaming machinery, including short chain (drum drive), short chain (spindle drive), long chain and special beamers, the last named for heavy duck; warp splitters for short chain warps; and dye house machinery, including warp sizing, warp dyeing machines for indigo, and warp dyeing machines for long and short chain warps, built with iron, wood or combination tubs, with any numbers of compartments required, ballers to work in connection with boiling and dyeing machines, warp doubling machines, and warp splitters for doubling system. The concern also docs high grade machine and foundry work, and all of its work in every department is of such a high class that the shops have been running twenty-four hours per day since the latter part of 1915. Although not the largest, it is noted as .being one of the finest machinery plants in the country. The work turned out is exceptional, and meets the requirements and specifications of the most exacting machinery pur- chasers. Mr. Cocker not only possesses superior qualifications and talents as a designer and engi- . neer, but is equally expert in shop practice, man- agement and efficiency.
At this writing a part of the work of the plant is devoted to the manufacture of shrapnel shells for the Russian government. As is well known, the inspection on this class of work is very rigid, it being required that shells be turned true to the thousandths of an inch, otherwise rejected. Mr. Cocker designed special machinery for the manu- facture of shrapnel that is quite marvelous, the machine being so perfect and so nearly automatic that it can be easily operated by unskilled labor.
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HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA
WILBUR ASHLEY McPHAUL, M. D. While for fourteen years Doctor McPhaul has been one of the competent general physicians and surgeons of North Carolina, the important fact that makes his service and career of more than ordinary interest to the people of the state has been his active leadership in the public health movement, than which nothing undertaken and carried on under the suspices of government authority can be or is more vitally connected with the public welfare. North Carolina as a state has an enviable record among other states for the efficiency and thor- oughness of its public health authorities, and among these Doctor McPhaul has done much of the pio- neer work and is helping to raise the standards of the entire state. The locality which is espe- cially fortunate in the presence of his services and influence is Robeson County, of which he is present health officer.
Doctor McPhaul was born at Fair Bluff in Co- lumbus County, North Carolina, in 1879, a son of Dr. T. D. and Annie E. (Ashley) McPhaul. His grandfather, Alexander McPhaul, was a native of Scotland, and located at Red Springs in Robeson County on ^^ming to America. Doctor MePhaul has an especially interesting ancestry in the ma- ternal line. The English Ashleys included Lord Anthony Ashley, one of the Lords Proprietors of North Carolina, coming from England in the sev- enteenth century. For many years prior to the Rev- olutionary war the Ashleys lived on the Lumber River in the lower part of Robeson County, not far from the present village of Barnesville. Some of the Ashleys moved to Alabama and founded the City of Montgomery, going there when Alabama was a territory in 1792. Richard G. Ashley, mater- ual grandfather of Doctor McPhaul, was the first white child born at Montgomery. In the late '20s or early '30s with his widowed mother he returned to Robeson County, North Carolina, and here his daughter Aunie E. Ashley married Dr. T. D. McPhaul.
Wilbur A. McPhaul grew up in a good home in Robeson County and had the example of his father as his first and chief inspiration to a medical career. He attended the Ash Pole In- stitute at Fairmont, had two years in the Uni- versity of the South at Sewanee, Tennessee, and received his medical education in the Medical Col- lege of the University of Tennessee at Nash- ville, where he was graduated M. D. with the class of 1904. Since leaving university his home and territory of practice have been in Robeson County, and for several years he has been recog- mized as one of the leading physicians of Lum- berton.
All this time one duty has been in the public health movement, though in earlier years his part was largely that of advocating for a real public health service and exerting his influence wherever and whenever possible in an educational way. Iu 1910 he was elected to represent his county in the Legislature. He sought that political honor not as an honor but as an opportunity to render a special service to his state. During the ses- sion of 1911 he probably had as much influence as any other individual legislator in promoting public health legislation. Prior to his legislative experience he had been county superintendent of health in addition to looking after his private practice for about five years. It is interesting to noto that up to 1911 the total appropriation to the Legislature for public health work over the state at large was $6,000 a year. In the session of
that year Doctor McPhaul enlisted the support and co-operation of other influential members with such results that they succeeded in secur- ing an appropriation amounting to $25,000 for an active prosecution of public health work. At the same time they started a movement for the education of the people to the expediency and necessity of a continuing increased expenditure for similar purposes. The campaign thus started has been carried out persistently with the result that no succeeding session of the General Assem- bly has failed to make appropriations sufficient to keep up the competent administration of pub- lic health work. Robeson County alone now spends more for public health service than was appro- priated for the entire state in 1911.
Doctor MePhaul was instrumental in getting through the Legislature the bill giving each county that would comply with the necessary require- ments the privilege -of employing a whole-time health officer. That is, a physician who would devote his entire time and efforts to the health work of the country. Robeson Connty was one of the first to take advantage of this measure. In 1912 the county commissioners hired a health officer for full time. However, through lack of co-operation and of whole-hearted support from all concerned, the work did not receive a thorough test and was not inaugurated on a basis of thor- ough going efficiency until the fall of 1917, when Doctor McPhaul was chosen by the county com- missioners, acting in conjunction with the state medical authorities, to take up county health work and gives his entire time to his duties.
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