USA > North Carolina > History of North Carolina: North Carolina biography, Volume V > Part 29
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Mr. Kendrick's mother was Margaret (Putnam)
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Kendrick. On his father's side he is descended from English ancestry founded in America by three brothers from England. One of them set- tled in Massachusetts, one in Tennessee, and the third either in South Carolina or Georgia. It is from the latter that Noah B. Kendrick is de- scended.
Mr. Keudrick got his start in a business way at Cherryville, Gaston County, his present home, and with which place he has been identified for many years. In partnership with his brother, J. W. Kendrick, he is one of the owners of the Ken- drick Mercantile Company of that place. They also do an extensive business in cotton buying and are the mainsprings of much of the business ac- tivity in this town. Mr. Kendrick was one of the organizers and is still a director of the Gaston Manufacturing Company, a $200,000 corporation operating one of the best cotton mills in Gaston County. He and his brother established the first telephone system at Cherryville, which they after- wards sold to the present Piedmont Telephone Company. In 1915 Mr. Kendrick established the Kendrick Brick and Tile Company, manufacturers of brick, with a large plant at Mount Holly. Since its founding this plant has prospered under the direction and management of Mr. Kendrick. He is president of the Gaston Knitting Mill at Cherryville, of which he was one of the organizers in 1918, and is also vice president of the Osage Manufacturing Company at Bessemer, North Caro- lina. In 1917 Mr. Kendrick bought the first Ballie Ginning System in the state, a system of ginning unopen cotton, which has saved the far- mers in the vicinity over forty thousand dollars that would otherwise have been an entire waste.
During the sessions of 1909 and 1911 Mr. Ken- drick was one of the prominent members of the House of Representatives from Gaston County. One of his chief interests in his prosperous career has been in forwarding and upbuilding educational institutions. His own early experiences, when such a thing as popular education hardly existed in his part of the state, has made him all the more de- termined that the youth of the present generation should have the best possible provision for train- ing and instruction. It was through his personal initiative, enterprise and effort that the election was called and carried favorably whereby taxation was voted and the work begun for the present public and high school at Cherryville. Educational authorities have pronounced it one of the very best educational institutions in North Carolina. Mr. Kendrick is also a director of the famous Boiling Springs High School in Cleveland County, an institution outgrowing fame and influence maintained by the Sandy Run and King Mountain Baptist associations.
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On February 18, 1891, Mr. Kendrick married Miss Margaret Mauney, daughter of Caleb Mauney, of Gaston County. She is a member of the promi- nent family of that name whose history appears elsewhere .in this work. Mr. and Mrs. Kendrick have seven living children: Bessie, Gearrie, Clyde, Lela, Haywood, Novello and Pearl. The oldest of these have and are yet receiving the best of col- lege and university education in North Carolina institutions. The oldest son, Gearrie L., enlisted in the Aviation Department of the United States Army December 13, 1917, and is now in France. The second son, Clyde, who has just became twenty- one, will soon enter the service.
JAMES WILLIAM CREED is one of the leading merchants of Mount Airy in Surry County. He has lived in that locality all his life and his people were among the pioneers of Surry County. His birth occurred in Mount Airy and he is a son of the venerable Anderson Creed, who is still living there and an honored veteran of the war between the states.
The grandfather, Bennett Creed, was also born in Surry County. He was a farmer and millwright. The farm he owned and occupied was about four miles west and somewhat south of Mount Airy. He gave active superintendence to his land but spent at least a portion of each year away from home working at his trade. Bennett Creed married Martha Dunnegan, who was born in Dobson Town- ship of Surry County, where her parents were pio- neers. She died at the age of eighty-nine and her husband lived to be seventy-two. Their four chil- dren were named Sally, Dicey, Anderson and John.
Anderson Creed, who was born on a farm near Mount Airy in the township of that name in 1839, grew up and as a youth learned the trade of car- penter. In 1861, at the age of twenty-two, he en- listed in the Confederate Army in a company com- manded by Capt. L. J. Norman. For four years he was with his command battling the forces of the North, and endured the hardships of number- less campaigns, marches and engagements. With the close of the war he engaged in farming and made two crops, after which he moved to Mount Airv and found employment in a tobacco factory during a portion of each year, while the rest of the time was spent working at his trade as carpen- ter. He bought city property and since the fall of 1866 has had his home at Mount Airy. However, he has spent a portion of his time on his farm. Anderson Creed has been twice married. His first wife was Martha Ann Durham, who was born in Patrick County, Virginia, daughter of Henry Dur- ham. She died in 1874, leaving two children: An- derson Edward and James William. The second wife of Anderson Creed was Susan Creed, a daugh- ter of Enoch Creed. There were also children by the second marriage.
James William Creed as a boy attended the public schools at Mount Airy. Work and the serious responsibilities of life were part of his early experience and at the age of sixteen he was employed in a tobacco factory for a portion of each year. In December, 1896, he began clerking for J. D. Jenkins in his book store. In 1904 he left the book store to take up the lumber business, which he continued 212 years. He then went back to Mr. Jenkins and was his trusted and chief dependence in the work of the store until the death of Mr. Jenkins in 1911. Mr. Creed then succeeded to the ownership of the business, and has carefully built it un to a profitable enterprise. He carries a full line of books, periodicals and sta- tionery and has every supply of that kind needed by the community.
In February, 1902, Mr. Creed married Jessie D. Watkins, a daughter of F. C. and Fannie Watkins. Mr. and Mrs. Creed have eight children: William, James, Clunett, Jesse. Edward, Paul, Frances and Margie. Mrs. Creed is a member of the Friends Church. Mr. Creed affiliates with Mount Airy Lodge No. 107 of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.
EDMUND STRUDWICK. At a meeting of the North Carolina Medical Society in June, 1907,
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Dr. H. A. Royster of Raleigh read a paper entitled Edmund Strudwick, Surgeon, in which he called that pioneer surgeon the most heroic figure so far recorded in the medical annals of North Carolina. It is largely from that paper that we are indebted for the materials of the following sketch.
Edmund Strudwick was born in Orange County, North Carolina, March 25, 1802, and died at the age of seventy-seven at Hillsboro. The scene of his birth was at Long Meadows, only about five iniles north of Hillsboro. He was of an old established family in that community and his father had long been prominent in politics.
From the famous Elder Bingham Dr. Strud- wick received the equivalent of a high school edu- cation, but did not finish, as we are told, because he was "so impatient to begin the study of the science to which nature seemed especially to have called him and which he pursued with un- diminished ardor literally to the last moment of his conscious existence." His medical studies began under Dr. James Webb, who stood to him almost as a father and whose place in the hearts of his people Doctor Strudwick subsequently filled. He graduated as a Doctor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania April 8, 1824. Among his classmates were Dr. John K. Mitchell, father of S. Weir Mitchell. For two years lie served as resident physician in the Philadelphia Almshouse and Charity Hospital, and equipped with this climical experience he returned home in 1826 and began practice at Hillsboro.
Doctor Strudwick never affiliated with any medical organization except the North Carolina State Medical Society. He was a charter member and the first president of that society and in his election the society honored itself. He continued a lively interest in the work of the society into his last years, though he practically never con- tributed anything to its medical literature.
The character of Doctor Strudwick's work was such as came to every country practitioner in his day. He was apothecary, physician, obstetrician, surgeon. And though he performed those duties as other men had performed them before him, there seemed to stand out in him something that was different-above and beyond the country doctor around him. It was the man behind the physician, the strong mental and moral force back of his activity. Though Doctor Strudwick was a well-rounded medical man, his forte was surgery, and, as his biographer states, had he lived in this day and generation his name would be at the top of those who exclusively practice that art. "When we consider the conditions under which he lived and labored, his work and its results were little short of miraculous. His reputation was not merely local, but during the forties and long afterward he was doing operations in Raleigh, Wilmington, Charlotte, Greensboro- all the principal cities of the state. Numerous patients were sent to him also, some of them from long distances. There was no general hospital in the state then, but he cared for his cases some- how and always gave them faithful attention. No modern surgeon in North Carolina has ever attained to such individual eminence. Nor were his results less wonderful. He attempted not only the lesser cases, but also those of magnitude, and this fact gives greater color to the results." His biographer records scores of operations for cata- ract by the now obsolete needle method without losing an eye. He was especially famons for his
work in lithotomy, and in his time undoubtedly ranked as the leading lithotomist of North Caro- lina. He performed many successful operations of breast amputations, strangulated hernia and others that now and always have been classed as major operations.
Of his personality, habits and tastes Doctor Royster recalls many things that will be read with interest by the North Carolina medical fraternity and the public in general. "Doctor Strudwick was built in a big mold. His soul could not conceive, his mind could not think, his body could not do a little thing. A study of his career indicates that his ways were not the ways of the ordinary man either in the medical pro- fession or out of it. He was a master of men. And this was not an acquirement of age, but he was all his life a leader. His moral force in the community may be shown by his set determina- tion never to allow doctors to quarrel. He simply would not let them alone until peace was made. A favorite way was to invite the warring ones to his home on a certain time without giving them an opportunity to know in advance that they were to meet. This done, he usually accomplished his purpose. He was determined even to the point of stubbornness. Just after the Civil war his most influential friends attempted with all their power to persuade him to take advantage of the homestead law, which was designed to permit Southern men to save a little during the Recon- struction pillage-but he would not. Instead of this, he sold everything to pay his creditors and lived in a two-room house without comforts until he died.
"In personal appearance Doctor Strudwick was attractive. He was exceedingly active and actually up to his final hours his energy was comparable to that of a dynamo. There was about him an intensity that was of itself commanding and over- powering. Underneath this exterior of rough force was a suppressed temperament that came from a humane and sympathetic heart, and that, let forth, was as gentle as the outward manner was firm. * *
* He never neglected a case. No matter how insignificant the case, how poor the patient, how far the ride, he pursued it with the same zest. He never stopped for inclement weather or swollen streams. He braved the former and swain the latter. Obstacles only seemed to increase his zeal to press onward. His healthy body was a boon to Doctor Strudwick. Never but once in the working period of his existence was he sick. This fine condition was aided also by his simple habits. He was not a big eater, and was extremely temper- ate. An oft repeated saying was 'I have never swallowed anything that I heard of afterwards.' He also had the gift of taking 'cat-naps' at any time or place. He frequently slept in his chair. He was an early riser his life long, the year around. One of his invariable rules-which illustrates the sort of stuff of which he was made -was to smoke six pipefulls of tobacco every morning after breakfast. He was a most insatiate consumer of tobacco, being practically never free from its influence.
"In politics Doctor Strudwick was an ardent whig, though he never sought nor held public office. In religion he professed the creed of the Presbyterians and was an elder in the church. His interest in life and its affairs was forever keen and live, particularly in any project for the public good. He was everybody's friend and an
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absolute paragon of cheerfulness. Even during his sudden reverse of fortune his optimism never left him."
What Doctor Royster regarded as the crowning incident in his history occurred when he was nearly sixty years of age. "He was called to a neighbor- ing county to perform an operation. Leaving Hillsboro by rail he arrived at his station about midnight and was met by the physician who had summoned him. Together they got immediately into a buggy and set out for the patient's house six miles in the country. It was dark and cold, the road was rough, the horse became frightened at some object, ran away, upset the buggy and threw the occupants out, stunning the country doctor and breaking Doctor Strudwick's leg just above the ankle. The latter after recovering crawled to the side of the road and sat with his back against a tree. In the meantime the other physician had managed to get into the buggy, drove to the patient's home, where for a time he could give no account of himself or his com- panion. Coming out of his stupor he faintly remembered the occurrence and at once dispatched a messenger to the scene of the accident. Doctor Strudwick was still leaning against the tree. He got in, drove to the house without allowing his own leg to be dressed, and sitting on the bed operated upon the patient for strangulated hernia with a successful result.
"What an inspiration is the life of such a man. Viewing it even from afar one cannot help seeing the sublime soul that was back of it all. He would have been no uncommon man in any age, in any place. It is to his surgical skill that extraordinary tribute must be paid. Were he living today, Edmund Strudwick would be the surgical Sampson of our state. Indeed, it is doubtful if any of us equal him in the work with he essayed to do. In these days of wide possi- bilities his fame as a specialist in surgery would rank high. Such estimates are not overdrawn, for Doctor Strudwick's position in his period was such as to admit of them and more."'
In 1828, two years after beginning practice, Doctor Strudwick married Ann Nash, whom he survived two years. They had five children. two daughters and three sons, both daughters dying in infancy. Of the sons, Frederick N. became a well known lawyer, having been solicitor of the Fifth District and stood high in his profession before his death. The other two sons both followed their father's profession. The youngest, Dr. Edmund Strudwick, Jr .. practiced success- fully at Dayton, Alabama, where he died at the age of sixty-nine.
The oldest son, Dr. William Strudwick, gained a substantial position in his father's profession and followed it for many years in the same com- munity, at Hillsboro. He died there at the age of seventy-seven, the same age at which his father had passed away. He was noted as a fluent conversationalist, a gracious host and a rare example of the doctor of the old school.
SHEPPERD STRUDWICK, a resident of Hillsboro for many years, has been prominently identified with banking, industrial, and much of the import- ant business and public spirited activities of that town and of Orange County.
While Mr. Strudwick has been essentially a business man, he represents a very prominent family of professional people. He is a grandson of the eminent pioneer surgeon of North Carolina,
Dr. Edmund Strudwick, whose career in the sub- ject of a separate article on other pages. His father was also a prominent physician. Shepperd Strudwick was born at Hillsboro November 15, 1868, son of Dr. William Samuel and Caroline (Walters) Strudwick. His mother was of a prom- inent family of the Cape Fear district of North Carolina. Shepperd Strudwick was educated at first in a private school, spent two years in Horner's School at Oxford, and then entered the cotton offices of Royster & Strudwick. A year later he became bookkeeper for some cotton factors, and from 1885 to 1895 was engaged in the fertilizer and chemical industry. He spent three years at Richmond, Virginia, handling chemicals and fertilizing materials and another three years was located at Mount Pleasant, Tennessee, where he diu practically a pioneer work in developing phosphate mines, being secretary of the International Phosphate Company. Selling out his interests there he returned to his native city of Hillsboro and in 1905 organized the Bank of Orange, of which he has since been a director. He was also one of the organizers of the Bellvue Manufacturing Company, of which he is president, and is a director of the Orange Trust Company. Mr. Strudwick has served as town commissioner and for several years was chairman of the Good Roads Committee and deserves considerable credit for the results already achieved in the construc- tion of improved highways in that part of the state. He is a member of the Orange County National Council for Defense. Mr. Strudwick is a charter member and director of the Commercial Club and is an elder in the Presbyterian church.
June 20, 1895, he married Miss Susan Read, of Farmville, Virginia. They have three living children : Clement Read, Shepperd, Jr., and Ed- mund.
SIMON JUSTUS EVERETT, of Greenville, is a law- yer by profession, but is in spirit and energy a practical business man, and has gained the repu- tation of being a citizen who touches nothing in a business way that he does not vitalize and benefit. While a man of many varied interests, he handles them all apparently with the ease and efficiency that most men have difficulty in equalling in a single undertaking.
Mr. Everett was born at Hamilton, Martin County, North Carolina, March 4, 1877, a son of Justus and Elizabeth Margaret (Purvis) Everett. His father, who died in March, 1914, was a far- mer, planter, banker and merchant, and a man of wide prominence in his section of the state. He filled various public offices and was a com- missioner and justice of the peace of Martin County.
Member of a family of means, Simon Justus Everett was liberally educated, attending the Ham- ilton High School, the Vine Hill Male Academy at Scotland Neck, and in 1902 graduated A. B. from the University of North Carolina. He also studied law there, and spent one summer as a law student in Columbia University of New York. He was licensed to practice in August, 1904, and has been a practicing attorney since January, 1905. In the meantime he had taught in high schools at Monroe and Salisbury, North Carolina, and for a time edited the Enterprise at Williamston, North Carolina. Mr. Everett was a resident of Wil- liamston until 1910, when he removed to Greenville and in this city has since directed his many inter- ests and affairs. Professionally he is a general
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practitioner, but is also attorney for several banks, cotton mills and the County of Pitt.
He is a director of the Greenville Cotton Mill, the Greenville Banking and Trust Company, the Bank of Oak City at Oak City, North Carolina, the Planters Bank at Stokes, and organized both of the latter institutions and also was instrumental in the reorganization of the Greenville Bank and Trust Company. He was one of the organizers of the Greenville Cotton Mills. Mr. Everett is also president of the Everett Estate, Incorporated, for the handling of his father's property. He also has farming and real estate interests.
In a public way he is chairman of the County Board of Elections for Pitt County, and of the Pitt County Federal Food Administration of Pitt County, but anything that concerns the vital wel- fare of his home community is a matter of direct concern to Mr. Everett. He is chairman of the board of trustees of the Winterville High School, and is chairman of the building committee which is erecting a handsome $30,000 home for the Emanuel Baptist Church at Greenville. Mr. Ever- ett is a member of the American Bar Association and the Commercial Law League of America, is affiliated with the Masonic order, and in politics is a democrat.
On January 1, 1907, at Scotland Neck, he mar- ried Miss Margaret Whitmore Shields, daughter of James G. and Margaret Shields. Her father was a Confederate soldier, afterwards followed farm- ing, and was a man of large means. Mr. and Mrs. Everett have two children: Simon Justus Everett, Jr., born October 12, 1907; and Margaret Shields Everett, born April 2, 1914. In the matter of ancestry Mr. Everett is of English descent. His father's forefathers came from England and landed in Massachusetts prior to the Revolutionary war, and since then the people of the name have become distributed throughout that state, Virginia, and North Carolina.
THOMAS FINCH PETTUS. During the twelve years of its existence the buggy, wagon, harness, bicycle and implement business of the T. F. Pettus Company has grown from a commercial venture of small proportions to the position of being a necessary business adjunct of the City of Wilson, where, in its enlargement and exten- sion, it has kept pace wtih the rapid develop- ment of this thriving City of Wilson County. The founder and owner of this business, Thomas Finch Pettus, is a man who has made his own oppor- tunities in the business world, and who has not been content to devote himself wholly to his own interests, for a large share of his energies have been diverted to the furtherance of the com- munity 's welfare.
Mr. Pettus was born in Mecklenburg County, Virginia, April 13, 1876, and is a son of 'l'homas Finch and Mary (Jeffress) Pettus. His parents were agricultural people, and the youth, while growing up on the farm, secured his early edu- cation in the country schools, this later being sup- plemented by a three-months commercial course in a business college in Richmond, Virginia. With this latter training he was qualified for en- trance into business life, and when a young man he gave up all idea of following an agricultural career, starting, instead, in the leaf tobacco business, as bookkeeper for a concern in the vicinity of his home. On reaching his majority, in 1897, he came to Wilson, where he accepted a position with one of the enterprises which were
entering the tobacco field here, and after spend- ing several years as bookkeeper was advanced to the post of buyer, which he held until 1905. Mr. Pettus, however, was not satisfied to remain as an employe, and in 1905 became the proprietor of a business of his own when he founded the T. F. Pettus Company. His capital was not large at the start, but his energy was great, his de- termination strong and his ambition boundless, and through industry and able management of his affairs he soon found himself in possession of a gratifying prosperous enterprise. `As a re- ward for his hard and persistent work his estab- lishment has grown and developed to important proportions, and is now one of the leading firms of Wilson County dealing in wagons, buggies, harness, bicycles and farm implements. He car- ries a full line of modern goods in his field, and is the representative here of some of the leading manufacturing concerns. He is also interested in the Hackney Wagon Company.
Since entering business affairs on his own ac- count, Mr. Pettus has steadfastly been one of the most helpful factors in the founding and maintenance of organizations which have con- tributed to Wilson's commercial prestige. He was one of the organizers of the Wilson Rotary Club, an association of leading business men, of which he has been president since its inception. He has also been treasurer and a director of the Wilson Merchants' Association since its or- ganization, and has been a director of the Wil- son Chamber of Commerce since 1910. His serv- ices have always been at the command of move- ments which have promised to benefit trade and commerce, and public-spirited movements of a civic nature have found him not lacking in his support. One of the organizers of the Planters Bank, he has held a position in its directory since the commencement of business by this in- stitution. He is a member of the Country Club.
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