USA > North Carolina > History of North Carolina: North Carolina biography, Volume V > Part 11
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Colonel Meekins has had many important busi- ness connections at Elizabeth City and elsewhere, was for some years identified with journalism as a publisher and editor, and is now secretary and treasurer of E. J. Johnson Company, Inc., of Norfolk, Virginia. He is the owner of a large plantation on the edge of the Dismal Swamp, where he grows 100 bushels of corn and two bales of cotton to the acre, and has numerous other prop- erty holdings and much city realty. As a fra- ternalist he belongs to the Knights of Pythias and is a thirty-second degree Mason and a Shriner, while in club life he is also prominent and popular.
Colonel Meekins was married June 6, 1896, to Miss Lena Allen, of Wake Forest, North Carolina, daughter of William Oscar and Isabella James (Purefoy) Allen, her father being a well-to-do merchant and farmer. Five children have been born to this union: William Charles, Mahala Mel- son, Isabella James, Jeremiah Charles and Mary Purefoy. With their children, Colonel and Mrs. Meekins belong to the First Baptist Church of Elizabeth City.
ROBERT MCARTHUR WILSON. There are few communities to be found in any part of the United States in which the value of public education is not recognized even by those whose own early opportunities were entirely negligible. One of the brightening signs in an era when the whole world seemingly is engaged in strife is the nota- ble interest that today is attached to school prog- ress, and the evident willingness of the people to assume further responsibilities in order to se- cure and maintain their educational institutions and be able to offer inducements to the best class of instructors for their children. Rocky Mount, North Carolina, has been wide awake to her privi- leges and has made no mistake in calling Robert McArthur Wilson to become superintendent of her city schools.
Robert McArthur Wilson is a native of North Carolina, born in Wayne County, August 18, 1888. His parents are Mosco and Rosa (Pope) Wilson, his father for a number of years being
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HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA
engaged in the hardware line at Goldsboro, North Carolina. The youth was reared in that city through his high school period and in 1905, after graduating, entered the University of North Car- olina, from which institution he was graduated in 1909. In the interval between then and his student days in the summer school of Columbia University, which he entered in 1911, he taught in the Hillsboro High School, and finding educa- tional work congenial, in 1911 he accepted the po- sition of principal of the Rocky Mount High School, and in 1914 became superintendent of the city schools. For this field of useful endeavor Mr. Wilson seems particularly well fitted. A scholar himself, he appreciates the advantages of scholarship and is zealous in his efforts to inspire others with his enthusiasm, making him most ef- fective in imparting knowledge and in arousing pride and emulation among those who come within his sphere. He has done much for the schools of Rocky Mount and has the satisfaction of knowing that his work is appreciated and that the high recognized standing of the city schools has been brought about through his influence and high ideals. He is a valued member of the North Car- olina Teachers' Assembly, and shows a hearty in- terest in all similar bodies here and elsewhere.
Mr. Wilson was married December 22, 1915, to Miss Mary Ballard Ramsey, of Rocky Mount, a member of one of the old settled families of this section. Politically Mr. Wilson has never been active, although in the quiet performance of his duties as a good citizen he has been true and efficient. He was reared in the Presbyterian Church and has never seen any reason to change his religious faith and at present is a member of the board of deacons of the Presbyterian Church at Rocky Mount. Personally Mr. Wilson is a man of winning and agreeable manner and his evident sincerity in his field of work, which requires a large measure of executive ability, has added to his wide circle of admiring friends and staunch advocates.
JESSE GRIFFIN BALL. Thirty years ago Jesse Griffin Ball was enjoying the somewhat limited wages and the large opportunities for experience as clerk in the grocery and supply business of M. T. Leach & Brother at Raleigh. He learned the business not only by experience but also by close study of every detail, and in 1891, with more expe- rience than capital, engaged in the business on his own account. At that time he had a retail gro- cery store.
In 1898 Mr. Ball organized the J. G. Ball Com- pany, wholesale grocers. Since then this has been a big factor in the wholesale activities of the city of Raleigh. The business is of special note be- cause it was the first jobbing concern exclusively handling groceries in Raleigh, and was one of the pioneer wholesale grocery houses of the state. In less than twenty years Mr. Ball has built up this business to rank among the largest wholesale firms of North Carolina, and its business is now state wide in extent.
Business has not been allowed to absorb all his time and interests. Mr. Ball served for a number of years as commissioner of the sinking fund in Raleigh, and has been a prominent figure in the civic life of the community, doing what he could to develop the city 's commerce, its industries, and a sound administration of its municipal affairs.
Nearly all his life has been spent in Raleigh. He was born at Graham, Alamance County, North
Carolina, June 25, 1862, but when a child was brought to Raleigh by his parents, John T. and Laura (Griffin) Ball. His father was of English ancestry and his mother of Scotch. His ancestors settled in Virginia in Colonial days, and from there removed to North Carolina, settling near New Bern. Mr. Ball had his early education in the Raleigh public schools and afterwards com- pleted a course in the Eastman Business College of Poughkeepsie, New York. With this training he started out to carve his destiny as a grocer 's clerk, with what results has already been noted.
Mr. Ball is also president of the Mutual Building and Loan Association and was one of the organ- izers and a charter member of the Merchants Na- . tional Bank. He belongs to the Capital Club, the Country Club and the Neuseoco Fishing Club. It is said that there is not a more ardent or skillful devotee of the sport of Izaak Walton in North Carolina, and he also finds recreation in motoring. He is a member of the Church of the Good Shep- herd of the Protestant Episcopal Church and for more than twenty-five years was one of its ves- trymen.
In 1886 Mr. Ball married Miss Lavinia Kreth. Her father, Joseph Kreth, was a prominent mer- chant of Raleigh fifty years ago.
SAMUEL M. KING, of Wilmington where he is well known as vice president and manager of the Planters' Steamboat Company, has been a resi- dent of North Carolina over thirty years and in that time has tonched the life and affairs of the state at several points and in a way valuable not alone to himself but to the enrichment and de- velopment of the agricultural and industrial re- sources.
Mr. King was born at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1861, son of Samuel M. and Annie (Weimer) King, both of whom are now deceased. His an- cestors, Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, came from the north of Ireland about 1740 or 1750 and settled in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Some of them were among the founders of Princeton University. Mr. King's grandfather was a soldier in the War of 1812 and others of the family were patriots in the Revolution. Samuel M. King, Sr., during practically his entire life was a lumber man and shingle manufacturer. He was one of the pioneer makers of shingles by modern machinery and methods. It was the opportunities of this industry that attracted him to the South, with his abundance of timber resources. In 1882 he established a shingle mill in Georgia. Then in 1884 he moved to Kelly's Cove on the Cape Fear River in Bladen County. Here a shingle mill was established, and his business took on large scope in handling timber and lumber manufacturing generally. He remained in that section for some years, giving active super- vision to the business, but finally returned to Lan- caster, Pennsylvania, before he died.
It was in Lancaster that Samuel M. King, Jr., was reared and educated. He attended the gram- mar and high schools and also Franklin and Mar- shall College. Before coming to North Carolina with his father in 1884 he had an interesting ex- perience in journalism as a reporter and staff writer on the Lancaster Examiner. For nearly two years he was secretary to Mr. John A. Hie- stand, proprietor of the Examiner and a man of much power and influence in politics and in public life in Pennsylvania, and also a familiar figure in national affairs at Washington. Mr. King was in the vigor of young manhood when he went to
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HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA
Bladen County, North Carolina, in 1884, and be- came associated with his father in shingle manu- facturing and the lumber business at Kelly's Cove. He married in that community and lived there for about twenty years, moving to Wilmington in 1904. During the early years of his residence in Bladen County the timber industry was practically the only business of profit in that community. Lit- . tle attention was paid to agriculture, in fact it . had long been a tradition that the land in that section would not grow cotton, and land which was not valuable for the timber on it could be pur- chased for $1 an acre or less, though even at such price there was no demand. It required consider- able faith and some capital to demonstrate that the rich, deep, alluvial soil around Kelly's Cove was a mine of wealth in agricultural possibilities. Within recent years a great deal of this land has been developed into fine farms. Some real estate transactions of recent date involve figures and prices that would have, staggered the old time resi- dents only a few years ago. From a bale and a half to two bales of cotton are raised on land in that vicinity, and in many cases it has been proved that corn will grow simply from dropping it into holes in the ground without any plowing or culti- vation. Some men have gone into that region, bought land, and have paid for it from the pro- ceeds of the first year's crop.
Next to the fertility of the soil itself the biggest single factor in making its riches available has been drainage. It was in the solution of the drain- age problem that Mr. King showed a wise and efficient leadership and contributed his part to the agricultural development of the county. He was one of the incorporators of the White Oak Drain- age Company, which carried out a system by which thousands of acres have been drained and converted into mines of inexhaustible agricultural wealth.
Though Mr. King has had his home at Wilming- ton for fourteen or fifteen years, he still retains his interests at Kelly's Cove and has a very fine farm there. While a resident of Bladen County in 1892 he was honored by election to represent the county in the Legislature, and made a capable record in the session of 1893.
Mr. King deserves a place among those fore- sighted and far-sighted men who in recent years have endeavored to restore the old time water transportation on the navigable rivers and other water courses of Eastern North Carolina. As a result of the work accomplished by him and his associates the revival and expansion of river traffic on the Cape Fear has gone forward so that the volume of business on the river, particularly local freight shipments, is growing at a most gratifying rate. Mr. King is vice president and manager of the Planters' Steamboat Company of Wilmington, of which Mr. S. P. McNair of Bladen County is president. This company now operates two boats, the A. P. Hurt and the Thelma in regular service between Wilmington and Fayetteville, doing both a freight and passenger business and making two trips a week each way.
Mr. King has been twice married. By his first wife he has a daughter, Mrs. Emily King Smith, who lives in New York City. He married for his second wife Miss Mary Elizabeth Keith of the Kelly's Cove community in Bladen County. She is a daughter of the late George Keith and a sister of Mr. W. J. Keith, one of the prominent and substantial planters of that section. There are six children by this marriage: Miss Nettie King, Edward King, Mabel, Clayton, Donald Cameron
and Keith King. Edward King is a graduate of the Bingham Military School at Mebane. Clay- * ton King is a member of the class of 1918 of the Tri-State College of Engineering in Indiana. Donald Cameron King is now in the National army stationed at Camp Sevier.
AMOS GRAVES Cox has shown his special ability and genius in the industrial, inventive and manu- facturing fields, and is the man credited with most of the activities and influences that have built up the Town of Winterville, where most of his inter- ests are located.
Mr. Cox was born in Pitt County, North Caro- lina, July 12, 1855, a son of John Cannon and Martha Elizabeth (Gardner) Cox. His father was a mechanic and an inventive genius and perfected what is known as the Cox cotton planter. His son, Amos, paid a royalty upon this invention and began the manufacture of the machine when only twenty-one years of age. The Cox cotton planter has been one of the chief articles of output by the A. G. Cox Manufacturing Company for many years.
Amos G. Cox acquired a private school educa- tion and as a boy learned the carpenter's trade. He has come to prosperity and prominence through the avenue of self help and self effort. While a carpenter he frequently walked to work a distance of eight miles. He began manufacturing on a small scale, but made first class machinery and gradually expanded the A. G. Cox Manufacturing Company into one of the largest industries of its kind. He served as president of the company until 1913. This company besides the cotton planter has manufactured back bands for plow horses, carts and the noted Tar Heel wagons, patented tobacco trucks, the Cox Guano sewer, a patented device, also the patented Pitt County school desks. The industry of the Cox family has been the chief enterprise of the Town of Winter- ville.
Mr. Cox is president of the Winterville Cotton Oil Company, a stockholder and director of the Bank of Winterville, and for a number of years has employed his means and energies to develop farming on a large scale. He has cleared a great acreage of land, using stump pullers and other mechanical devices, and today has a farm of 450 acres which is contributing more than a propor- tionate share to the crops for which North Carolina is famous. Mr. Cox has served as a member of the United States Registration and Exemption boards for Pitt County. He has been chairman of the board of education eighteen years, and in 1917 was appointed for another term of six years. He is a former mayor and for ten years was an alder- man of Winterville. He has also served as a mem- ber of the executive committee for the Winter- ville High School. In the Missionary Baptist Church he has been a deacon for thirty years, superintendent of the Sunday school fifteen years, treasurer of the Baptist Association, and is a trustee of Meredith College at Raleigh. Mr. Cox is a member of the Masonic Order.
October 30, 1879, he married Miss Susan Alice Jackson, of Pitt County, North Carolina. They have five children: Rosa, wife of Richard H. Hun- sucker, a member of the Cox Manufacturing Com- pany; Jemima H., Mrs. Herbert Jenkins, of Or- lands, North Carolina; Dora E., unmarried and living at home; Fountain F., who is his father's active associate as a farmer, married Sallie Smith, of Robinsonville, North Carolina; and Roy T.,
Amon Graves Let
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HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA
connected with the Cox Manufacturing Company, married Janie Kittrell, of Ayden, North Caro- lina.
DAVID STEVENS BOYKIN. The real estate and insurance business established by David Stevens Boykin in 1907, the Boykin Realty Company, and of which his son, Robert Stanley Boykin, is now a partner, has gone hand in hand with the de- velopment of Wilson for more than a decade, and undoubtedly has contributed as largely toward the advantageous disposal of property and the honorable and satisfactory placing of insurance as any concern of the kind in Wilson County. Mr. Boykin is one of Wilson's foremost and substan- tial citizens, and his success is self-made, while in its scope and usefulness it directs attention to qualities of perseverance, business integrity and ability and high regard for welfare of the community.
David S. Boykin was born at Clinton, the county seat of Sampson County, North Carolina, No- vember 29, 1863, and is a son of Robinson Fen- nell and Cynthia Ann (Hobbs) Boykin. His par- ents were. well known and highly respected agri- cultural people of that county, where his father was a successful farmer and the owner of valu- able property, and the youth was granted good educational advantages, first attending private schools and later being sent to the University of North Carolina, where he remained as a student until he was seventeen years old. At that time he returned home, and during the next seven years was engaged in farming, a vocation for which he had been thoroughly trained by his father. The life of the agriculturist, however, did not appeal to the young man, whose inclinations led toward a mercantile career, and when he was twenty- four years of age he laid aside the implements of the farmer and began his experience in commer- cial affairs. Coming to Wilson, January 1, 1887, he embarked in a mercantile venture, and during the next eight years dealt in general merchandise, with a gratifying measure of success. This en- terprise was followed by an experience as a wholesale grocer, and during the twelve years that he was so engaged he built up a large and pros- perous business at Wilson and in the surround- ing country. In the meantime, feeling that the prosperity of the community was assured, he had commenced investing in property, both at Wilson and elsewhere in the locality, and this gradually led him into larger and larger enterprises until finally, in 1907, he decided to give his entire at- tention to this business and accordingly estab- lished the Boykin Realty Company, of which he has since been president. He has been the me- dium through which some large realty deals have been consummated, and few men of the commu- nity are better informed as to land values. In connection with his real estate business he deals in life and fire insurance, representing some of the most reliable companies of the country. The concern of which he is the head is recognized as sound and progressive, and has come to be looked upon as a helpful community asset. Mr. Boykin has other business interests, and is a director of the Branch Banking Company of Wilson. He is a valued member of the Country Club.
Mr. Boykin was married January 22, 1890, at Wilson, to Miss Marguerite Jordan, daughter of Thomas and Sallie (Jordan) Jordan, agricultur- ists of Wilson County. To this union there have been born two children: Robert Stanley and Hat-
tie Margaret. Robert Stanley Boykin was edu- cated in the Virginia Military Institute and the University of North Carolina. On completing his education he found an opportunity waiting for him in his father's real estate and insurance business, and that he now is secretary and treas- urer of the concern augurs the possession of worth- while and reliable business abilities. He is one of the popular members of the Country Club and the Commonwealth Club.
JOB HIATT. A man of versatile talents, ener- getic, enterprising and far-seeing, Job Hiatt, of Pilot Mountain, is intimately associated with many of the leading interests of Surry County, having been an important factor in developing and ad- vancing the agricultural, manufacturing and mer- cantile activities of this part of the state, at times carrying on an extensive business in each of these industries, and in addition to all of this has filled many large building contracts. A son of the late Anderson Hiatt, he was born in Long Hill Town- ship, Stokes County, North Carolina, November 25, 1853, of English ancestry.
Moses Hiatt, grandfather of Mr. Hiatt, was born in England, but left his native land when young, immigrating to the United States. After spending a short time in Virginia he came to North Carolina, settling in Stokes County. Establishing an iron forge on Big Creek in Quaker Gap Town- ship, he operated it until his death. He married a Miss Danley, a life-long resident of Stokes County, and they reared three sons and three daugh- ters, as follows: Anderson; Martin; Gabriel; a daughter who married Ned Clemens and settled in Missouri; Annie, who married a Mr. Taylor and migrated to Utah; and Nancy, who also became the wife of a Mr. Taylor, and with him settled permanently in Utah.
Born in 1816 in Stokes County, Anderson Hiatt learned the trade of an iron worker at his father's forge, and with his brother Martin sub- sequently established a forge on Bull Run Creek, Surry County. After a time he sold his interest in that forge to his brother Martin, and with his other brother, Gabriel, established a forge on the present site of Ararat station, Surry County, buy- ing there a tract of land containing 2,000 acres. Later the brothers divided their holdings, Gabriel taking the forge and Anderson the land. Subsequently Anderson Hiatt became superinten- dent of the forge owned by Job Worth & Sons, it being located on Toms Creek, and during the first year of the Civil war was detailed by the Confed- erate government to make iron at that forge. During the last year of that war he served as a member of the Home Guards. After the war was over he leased the furnaces for a while, and su- perintended his farm, residing upon it a number of years. In 1869 he moved to the Worth Forge, where, two years later, his death occurred.
The maiden name of the wife of Anderson Hiatt was Ailsa Hampton. She was born in Stokes County. In her parents' family were three sons, as follows: John Hampton, who settled in Missouri; Wesley Hampton, who migrated to Kan- sas; and Elisha Hampton, who settled in either Virginia or Kentucky. Surviving her husband many years, Mrs. Anderson Hiatt died in 1903, at the advanced age of eighty-two years. She reared five children, namely: John M., William A., Job, Sally and Nannie Jane.
Making good use of his educational advantages, Job Hiatt acquired when young the knowledge
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HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA
qualifying him for a professional career, and for one term taught in the Hill School in Pilot Moun- tain Township. Then, abandoning the profession, he returned to the home farm and was employed in agricultural pursuits until 1878. Removing in that year to Pilot Mountain, Mr. Hiatt embarked in the mercantile business, which he carried on successfully during the next twenty-nine years, in the meantime being engaged in other branches of business, one of which was the manufacturing of tobacco, with which he was identified for three years.
Purchasing a saw mill in 1890, Mr. Hiatt has since been actively engaged in the manufacture of lumber, and now has two mills in operation, the demands of his large and constantly increasing business requiring the productions of both plants. He is also one of the best known builders and con- tractors of the county, and in this capacity has erected upwards of 1,000 houses in Surry and Stokes counties and a few in Rockingham County. Mr. Hiatt also supplies his home city with electric lights, and here, it is well to say, he gives his per- sonal attention to the multiplicity of enterprises with which he is associated, each and every one being most carefully and efficiently managed.
Mr. Hiatt married, October 11, 1881, Miss Sarah Wilkerson Hill, who was born on a farm on Toms . Creek, Pilot Mountain Township, a daughter of Charles W. and Mary Elizabeth (Briggs) Hill. Mrs. Hiatt died in 1901, leaving eight children, namely: Daisy; Leathy Ann; Robert, deceased; Charles Edward; Mary Elizabeth; Cora Ailsa; George W .; and Job Monroe. Daisy married John Nelson, and has seven children, Clarice, Norene, Elizabeth, Katie, Samuel, Thomas and Hiatt. Leathy Ann, wife of W. R. Badgett, has four chil- dren, Bryan, Keith, William and Edward. Mary E. married J. A. Pell, and they have two children, Evelyn and Joseph. Religiously Mr. Hiatt is a member of the Friends Church.
HENRY WARREN HOOD, who died June 4, 1915, at the James Walker Memorial Hospital in Wil- mington, was a business man, merchant, citizen and Christian gentleman, whose entire life represented a splendid harmony of activities and character. His name is especially well known and his achieve- ments appreciated in the City of Southport, where beginning on a small scale he built up a great mercantile house, and that business is still con- tinued by his son.
His life is an illustration of what the individual can accomplish who begins his career with limited means and opportunities but with unlimited deter- mination. He was born in Bentonsville, Johnston County, North Carolina, October 11, 1861, and was not yet fifty-four years of age when he died. Though death came to him prematurely, it did not come too soon to destroy or in any way diminish his splendid record of accomplished work. He was a son of David W. and Martha (Jones) Hood. His father served as a lieutenant in the Confed- erate army during the Civil war. Other surviving members of the family are three brothers, Robert C. Hood of Greensboro, North Carolina, and J. Edward and William B. Hood of Southport, and one sister. Mrs. G. B. McIntosh of Philadelphia.
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