USA > North Carolina > History of North Carolina: North Carolina biography, Volume V > Part 79
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Mr. Olive made a special study of tobacco grow- ing, and has achieved success in a profitable and highly specialized branch of agriculture, not only for himself, but in providing opportunities for many others. Good farmers, without capital, have been given the means of getting a new start at Olivia, and some of them are already on the high- road to prosperity. From the modest operations set in motion by Mr. Olive five years ago a new and already extensive tobacco district has been developed bearing the reputation of producing the finest smoking tobacco in the world. Perhaps no one would have to be told that discouragements and setbacks interrupted the course of success, and in spite of all this to bring the enterprise to its pres- ent status is a monument to the energy and per- severance of Mr. Olive.
Olivia village and immediate vicinity now con- tain over two hundred people, all active workers, and more are constantly coming. Mr. Olive, after seeing these colonists located, works . with and alongside them, and furnishes them every encour- agement and assistance possible, his own expe- rience enabling him to render a service correspond- ing to that of the most expert agricultural agent and specialist. But even more, he has practically financed the early operations of many of his neigh- bors, furnishing horses, houses, implements, seed, etc. While tobacco growing requires more labor and expense than a crop of corn, the revenues are correspondingly higher. In 1917 one tract of two and a half acres at Olivia produced net returns of $508.
Furnishing productive business is only one side of building up a real community. At least two other vital and indispensable considerations are good roads and good schools. Mr. Olive went to work as a leader in the matter of schools, and the Legislature incorporated Olivia as a special tax district. The rough two-room frame school has recently been replaced by a modern four-room brick house, and with educational service as advanced over conditions of a few years ago as the material equipment itself. The modesty of Mr. Olive would not permit him to say so, but from others it was learned that the special tax required for this elab- orate school program was assumed willingly and entirely by Mr. Olive. He and Mr. Harps together were the means of constructing a stretch of good road, sand-clay, twelve miles north and south of Olivia, and the road-way, thirty feet wide from ditch to ditch, was finished without the expenditure of a cent of public money.
The founder of Olivia represents one of the old and rock-bottom families of North Carolina. He was born in Chatham County in 1867, a son of Monroe C. and Orilla (Siler) Olive. Both parents are now deceased. His mother was of the Chatham County family for whom Siler City is named. His father, who was a farmer and saw several years of service in the ranks of the Confederate Army dur- ing the war, was a native of Wake County, and son of Cador Olive, one of the most conspicuous figures in the early annals of that locality. He was of Scotch parentage, and represented the sturdiest type of Scot. When the eastern part of Chatham County had only a sprinkling of pioneers he cleared up a space which up to that time had never been touched by the civilizing hand of man. He lived a long life of the strictest honor and rectitude, dying at the advanced age of ninety- three. An exemplar of religious faith, he was founder of Olive's chapel of the Missionary Bap- tist denomination at his home place in Chatham County. A better monument no man could desire than this church. It has continued a flourishing institution from the date of its foundation. Though situated in the country five miles from the nearest town, it today enjoys the distinction of having a Sunday school with an average attendance of 303 the year around. Probably no other country church in the south can quite match this record. A large and commodious building furnishes all facilities, including a modern Sunday school equipment for the membership of 500 or more. This church is the pride of the Baptist denomination in North Carolina.
Mr. William J. Olive and family have always been supporting members of the Missionary Bap- tist Church in their respective communities. Mr. Olive married in Rockingham County Miss Daisy Webster, daughter of Benjamin R. Webster, of that county. Their seven children are: Blanche, wife of J. C. Weber; Grace, wife of Dewitt Mc- Neill; William J., Obed, Rucker, Queen and De- Anna.
William J. Olive, Jr., is one of the young Amer- icans of these days who are increasing objects of attention and patriotic admiration. He was nine- teen years old in 1918. At seventeen he volun- teered in the United States Navy, having his father's sanction to that step. He has shown tal- ent for effective performance, and young as he is has been made gunner in charge of a deck on the battleship Arizona.
ARCH JEFFERSON WOOD, whose name is known all over Wake County as the present incumbent of the office of register of deeds, has found his time and talents variously engaged since he reached man- hood, but has spent much of the time in capable performance of public duty.
He was born in Wake County June 8, 1872, in the town of Apex. His parents were James Jef- ferson and Nancy Green (Jones) Wood. His father, who was born in Anson county, North Carolina, was a shoemaker and farmer. The mother, a native of Wake county, was a grand- daughter of Green H. Alford and Austin Jones, both of whom were very prominent in the early days of Wake County.
Arch J. Wood grew up on his father's farm at Apex and had the advantages of private schools. Starting out independently, he was in the general merchandise business at Apex for seven years, for two of those years being senior member of the firm of Wood & Sears. He has
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also been a newspaper man, having established the first weekly paper in Wake County outside of Raleigh. This was the Apex News, and he con- ducted it successfully for six years. For eight years he was mail carrier at Apex, working under the Civil Service rules.
In 1910 Mr. Wood was called to Raleigh as deputy register of deeds, and after serving in that capacity four years his complete familiarity with the details of the office and his general popu- larity over the county resulted in his election as county register of deeds in 1914. He was re-elect- ed in 1915, and there is no office in the courthouse at Raleigh conducted on a basis of better busi- ness efficiency and with more adequate service to the public than his.
He has also aligned himself with the progressive citizens of Raleigh and is a member of the Cham- ber of Commerce. He has always been an active democrat. Fraternally he is a member of Holly Springs Lodge No. 115, Ancient Free and Ac- cepted Masons; is past noble grand of Seaton Gale Lodge of Independent Order of Odd Fel- lows, and a past councilor of Lodge No. 238, Junior Order of United American Mechanics at Apex. He has served as secretary of the Junior Order and also of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He is now a member of the First Bap- tist Church of Raleigh, but for thirteen years was clerk of the First Baptist Church at Apex.
On September 16, 1897, at Apex, he married Miss Bessie A. Holleman, daughter of Nathan Holleman, a former postmaster at Apex. They are the parents of five children: Archibald Dewey, born in September, 1898; Wendell, Juanita, Caesar Grady and Irma Eloise.
JOHN E. MCALLISTER. Through his own busy and successful career as a contractor, especially in the building of cotton mills, John E. McAl- lister has justified his possession of a notable family ancestry and the prestige associated with an honored family name.
He is a member of the McAllister family so numerously represented in Cumberland, Gaston and other counties of the state. All of them are de- scendants of the famous Col. Alexander McAllis- ter, a military and civic leader during the Revo- lutionary period. The McAllisters have been dis- tinguished alike in the efficient work of peace and industry and in war. Col. Alexander McAllister was born in Scotland and settled in the Cape Fear region of North Carolina in 1736. During the Revolutionary war he was colonel of a North Carolina regiment. He was also a member of the Provincial Congress held at Hillsboro August 21, 1775, and did much to influence the recent colo- nists from the Highlands of Scotland to join the Americans in their struggle for independence. He was a member of the Revolutionary Committee for the Wilmington District, and after the war served in the North Carolina State Senate, and continued a leading spirit until his death in 1800.
Mr. John E. McAllister was born in Gaston County in August, 1865, a son of Lee A. and Cath- erine (Rudisill) McAllister. He is a grandson of George W. McAllister, who was born in Cumber- land County, North Carolina, and, moving west- ward, located in Gaston County in the early part of the nineteenth century. George W. McAllis- ter's mother was a Plonk, member of a family of German origin quite numerous and prominent in Gaston, Lincoln and Catawba counties.
Lee A. McAllister, now deceased, was born in
Gaston County and had his farm in Dallas Town- ship about seven miles northwest of the City of Gastonia. His wife was the daughter of Jacob Rudisill, who was one of that family referred to. by the historian, Laban Miles Hoffman, as "the great Rudisill family of North Carolina." The progenitors of this family, emigrating from Ger- many, first lived at or near York, Pennsylvania, later went southward to Virginia and North Car- olina, locating in the latter state about 1750. Philip Rudisill, one of the pioneers in North Car- olina, established a home on what is now known as the Black Place between Friday Shoals and High Shoals, in what was then Anson now Gas- ton County. The descendants of Philip Rudisill and his brothers have lived in this immediate sec- tion of the state ever since and comprise a large and influential family.
John E. McAllister was born on a farm, but when about nine years of age the family moved to King's Mountain, where his father engaged in business. The son attended school there and came under the instruction of the noted Captain Bell. Quite early in life he began working for himself,. learning the bricklayer's trade, from which as a foundation he built up his business as a con- tractor. He was quite young when he took his first building contracts and some years later he located his business headquarters at Gastonia. At that time Gastonia was a rather small and incon- spicuous village, though its future was already one of much promise as a cotton mill center. In the rapid development of Gastonia as one of the leading cotton mill centers of the South Mr. Mc- Allister has found ample opportunity for his work as a contractor and particularly in carrying out extensive contracts for the construction of cotton mills. Mills have been built by him in various towns. He erected the first cotton mill at Lum- berton. His larger and more important contracts, however, have been in Gastonia and that vicin- ity. He built the Flint Mill in Gastonia and a. number of older mills, and among the more re- cent are the Clara, Dunn, Armstrong and Seminole mills. All these are large modern mills of the. most approved style of construction and equip- ment. Mr. McAllister has also taken many con- tracts for other heavy building construction.
He married Miss Annie McClelland, of Monroe, Union County.
RIVERS DUNN JOHNSON. This well known and successful lawyer and leader in the democratic party resides at Warsaw in Duplin County, and has been in active practice there since he graduated from Wake Forest College. Mr. Johnson took to his profession a thorough training and excep- tional talents, and has made his influence felt both in the profession and in the field of public affairs.
He was born in Wilson County, North Carolina, December 29, 1885, a son of Seymour Anderson and Elizabeth (Clark) Johnson. His father for a number of years has been an official of the Atlantic Coast Line Railway Company. Mr. John- son was liberally educated. He attended the James Sprunt Institute at Kenansville, the Warsaw High School, and then entered Wake Forest College, where he was graduated from the law department in February, 1909. After being admitted to the bar he located at Warsaw in Duplin County, and has steadily practiced with offices in that city.
From May, 1909 to 1910, Mr. Johnson served as mayor of Warsaw. That local position was soon
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followed by his election to the State Senate from the Ninth District, and he was one of the able members of the Upper House of the State Legis- lature during the sessions from 1911 until 1915. He is now chairman of the Democratic Executive Committee of the Third Congressional District, is secretary of the executive committee of the Sixth Judicial District, and in June, 1916, was a dele- gate from North Carolina to the National Demo- cratic Convention in St. Louis.
Mr. Johnson is city attorney of Warsaw and is vice president and one of the organizers of the Atlantic and Carolina Railway Company. He is a past master of his Masonic Lodge, belongs to the Junior Order of United American Mechanics and to the Kappa Alpha college fraternity.
JOSEPH W. HALFORD, M. D. While every citizen of a community ha's possibilities of useful service and influence in a degree beyond estimation and seldom realized, these possibilities doubtless attain their maximum among the members of the medical profession. An able, high minded and conscientious physician is a power for community good not limited alone to his professional work.
The wide range of this usefulness has seldom been better exemplified than in the career of Dr. Joseph W. Halford of Lillington, Harnett County. Doctor Halford began practice in that county at Chalybeate in 1905. In 1912 he moved to the county seat at Lillington, which has since been his home. His abilities as a physician and surgeon have met growing appreciation and have brought him a practice that all but absorbs his entire time and energies. His work has received the approbation not only of his patients but of his fellow physicians, evidence of which is found in the fact that he is now first vice-president of the Medical Society of the State of North Carolina; president of the Harnett County Medical Society, and president of the Fifth District Medical Society, covering several counties in this part of the state. He is a member in good standing of the Tri-State, Southern and American Medical associations.
In all public matters during the past ten years he has undoubtedly exercised an influence second to none among the citizens of the county. As chairman and examining physician for the Harnett County Exemption Board he has fulfilled a pa- triotic and highly responsible duty, and has given ungrudgingly of his time to that office for several months. He is also health officer and quarantine officer for Harnett County and his work as a sani- tarian has enabled him to effect many measures for improving public health and preventing disease. While a man of much tact, he has not feared to incur personal opposition nor even personal hos- tility in the performance of his duties in safe- guarding the majority of the people from the carelessness of the few.
While seeking to give some brief outline of his varied interests and activities, it is well to empha- size his earnest work and effort in behalf of local education, and in realizing some of the ideals of the good roads movement in his home county. When he came to this county a dozen years ago Doctor Halford was impressed more than anything else by the lack of good roads and of adequate country schools. To secure improved highways was not merely a means of arousing local interest and co-operation. The Legislature had to do its part and Doctor Halford and several interested associates went before that body and had a bill drawn and passed permitting the county to issue
bonds for building roads. This measure proved inadequate because in some sections it was unpopu- lar and its provisions affected too large an area to make it practicable. Subsequent legislation im- proved the bill by localizing the bond issues for road improvement among the individual townships instead of the county as a whole. With the town- ship as a unit and responsible for the building of its own roads, the good roads advocates were in a much better position to carry out their ideas. As a result nine of the thirteen townships in Harnett County have voted road bonds aggregating about $115,000, not including Duke and Averasboro townships, which had already taken care of their roads before this legislation was enacted. At the present time Harnett County has good roads in every direction, the various township roads having been connected throughout. Many other changes have come about either concomitantly with or as a result of better roads. The day of the steer and one horse plow has almost passed, and improved farm machinery can be found on nearly every homestead. The county is not without its examples of traction engines doing what the horse and mule formerly did in the fields. Large areas have been cleared up and developed and fine farms and beautiful homes built, and Harnett County is now in the full tide of progress as an agricultural com- munity.
The development of the agricultural side of Harnett County is not without direct personal in- terest to Doctor Halford, who himself owns a fine farm four miles west of Lillington.
Doctor Halford was born in Walterboro in Colle- ton County, South Carolina, in 1870, a son of James J. and Jane (Redmond) Halford, both na- tives of South Carolina. Doctor Halford was edu- cated in the public schools of his home town, also under private tutors at Savannah, Georgia, and studied medicine at Washington, D. C., at first in Georgetown University and later finished his under- graduate and did post-graduate work in Columbian University, where he graduated in 1904. Doctor Halford is a director of the Bank of Lillington, a democrat in politics and a member of the Baptist Church. At Washington, D. C., he married Miss Ray Ellinger. Mrs. Halford was born in California.
ALLEN JOHNSON BARWICK. While he has come rapidly into favor as a member of the Ral- eigh bar during the past three years, Allen J. Barwick is perhaps most widely known over the state as a successful educator. For a number of years he was a teacher, principal, or otherwise closely connected with the school activities of the state, finally giving up educational work to enter the profession of law.
He was born in Lenoir County, North Caro- lina, October 21, 1877, a son of Craven T. and Nancy (Brooke) Barwick. His father was a farmer and it was on a farm that he spent his early life. He was liberally educated, attending the country schools, the Carolina Collegiate Insti- tute at Mineola, the Grifton Academy at Grifton, North Carolina, and also the University of North Carolina, from which institution he graduated in 1900. His record as a teacher identified him with several of the larger communities of this state and elsewhere. He was principal of the Kinston schools, spent three years in the same capacity at Goldsboro, North Carolina, and was also super- intendent of the schools at Thomasville and Al- bany, Georgia. For four and a half years Mr. Barwick was secretary to the State Board of
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School Examiners and chief clerk of the Depart- ment of Instruction.
In the meantime, having studied law, he was admitted to the bar in February, 1911. For two years he practiced at Newton, but in 1913 removed to Raleigh, and a large amount of legal business is now entrusted to his skill and counsel.
Mr. Barwick is a member of the North Carolina Bar Association and of the Commercial Law League of America. He is a director of the Ral- eigh Young Men's Christian Association, a mem- ber of the Methodist Episcopal Church, is a Knight of Pythias, and in 1912 he served as mayor of the city of Newton.
At Newton, North Carolina, October 1, 1907, he married Miss Anna Killian. They are the par- ents of three children: Killian, Eloise and Wil- liam Allen.
WILLIAM HAYWOOD RUFFIN, representing a name honored in North Carolina annals through 200 years, is a lawyer of distinction and of rec- ognized prominence, with his home at Louisburg.
The accident of birth makes Mr. Ruffin a na- tive of Missouri, though that was due to the fact that he was born at Lexington, Missouri, while his parents, Dr. William Haywood and Agnes (Chadwick) Ruffin, were temporarily residents there. His father crossed the plains twice to Cal- ifornia, but except for these western journeys and experiences spent his life in North Carolina.
William H. Ruffin was born July 19, 1864, and spent most of his boyhood days at Louisburg, where he was educated in the Male Academy. He read law at Wilson, North Carolina, with Hon. John E. Woodard, and was admitted to the bar in September, 1887. The next ten years he spent in practice at Sheffield, Alabama, but in 1896 re- turned to Louisburg and from that town his fame has gone abroad as one of the ablest lawyers of the state. He has been in general practice, but has has also been called upon to handle the af- fairs of many corporations, and his services were valuable in organizing these local businesses. Since 1909 he has been county attorney of Franklin County. For ten years he has been a director of the First National Bank of Louisburg and its president since 1911. In 1896, when he returned to Louisburg, he was made a trustee of the pub- lic schools, and those in touch with the situation say that no one has done more to raise the stand- ards of local education and to bring about desired improvement in the curriculum and in facilities for favorable school work than Mr. Ruffin. For years he was secretary and treasurer of the graded schools. He also served for a number of years as trustee of the old Male Academy at Louisburg.
Mr. Ruffin was a member of the special session of the State Senate in 1913. He was a member of Committee No. 2, one of the advisory commit- tees of lawyers to whom all measures and bills were referred for examination. For eighteen years Mr. Ruffin has been a junior warden of the Epis- copal Church and also secretary of the vestry. He is chairman of the executive committee of the Red Cross for Franklin County.
June 26, 1893, at Louisburg Mr. Ruffin mar- ried Miss Sallie White, daughter of Thomas and Mary E. (Shaw) White. Her father was a mer- chant. Mr. and Mrs. Ruffin have three sons, Thomas White, William Haywood, Jr., and Henry Gray. The second son is a student in the University of North Carolina and Henry G. is still in the Louis-
burg High School. Thomas, the oldest son, born September 6, 1895, graduated in June, 1917, from the University of North Carolina, with the degree A. B. and LL. B. He was also one of the uni- versity debaters in the collegiate debate between the universities of North Carolina and of Vir- ginia. He is now engaged in the practice of law as a partner and associate of his father.
THOMAS HAYES ROYSTER, M. D., was graduated from the University College of Medicine at Rich- mond, Virginia, in 1908, and since then has rapidly acquired position and success in his chosen calling. He practiced in Gaston County, North Carolina, until 1913, and has since been a resident of Tarboro, where he is associated with Dr. S. N. Harrell, under the firm name of Harrell & Royster, physicians and surgeons.
Dr. Royster is a member in good standing of the Edgecombe County, the Fourth District and the North Carolina Medical societies, and is identified socially with the Tar Heel Club.
He was born in Granville County, North Caro- lina, October 3, 1884, a son of Graham B. and Opie Sue (Hayes) Royster. His father was a substantial farmer of Granville County. Doctor Royster attended the public schools, also the Hor- ner Military School at Oxford, and took his pre- liminary course in medicine at the University of North Carolina.
In August, 1917, Doctor Royster enlisted in the Medical Officers Reserve Corps of the United States National Army and is now in France.
CHARLES Ross, the well known lawyer and democrat of Lillington, has cause to take pride in the quality of his immediate ancestry and his con- nections by marriage. Blood does tell; there is no earthly doubt about it.
Mr. Ross' parents are Romulus and Ellen ( Me- Culloch) Ross, and they are living at Asheboro, Randolph County, this state. His father was born in Guilford County, North Carolina, in 1851, and in early life moved to Randolph County. The family ancestors came from Maryland and before the Revolutionary war settled at Guilford Court House, Guilford County. They were of substan- tial Scotch stock, and their descendants have in- herited the racial traits in a marked degree. Romu- lus Ross has been one of the representative men of. Randolph County for many years, having served his county and district in the State Senate and as sheriff of the county.
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