USA > North Carolina > History of North Carolina: North Carolina biography, Volume V > Part 9
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While the little City of Hickory owes much in a material way to the enterprise of J. Worth Elliott it looks upon him and Mrs. Elliott jointly as responsible for many of those substantial bene- fits that can not be measured by material standards alone. Mrs. Elliott is one of the highly cultured and enterprising members of Hickory society and a mover and worker in everything that means bet- ter schools, and a better moral and spiritual atmos- phere for the town. Mrs. Elliott before her mar- riage was Miss Lillie Moss Burns. She was born at Asheboro, Randolph County, daughter of B. B. and Fannie (Moss) Burns, and granddaughter of Dr. James Moss. Both the Moss and Burns fam- ilies have long been prominent in Randolph County. Mrs. Elliott was educated at Archedale, Randolph County, and in Guilford College in Guilford County.
A paragraph or two from the editorial columns of a local paper indicates one direction in which
Mr. and Mrs. Elliott's public spirit has gone. "The gift of Mr. and Mrs. J. Worth Elliott of a free site for the Carnegie public library will fur- ther endear this generous couple to the people of Hickory. They have no real estate to sell that would benefit from the location of the library; they were actuated solely by a desire to serve this community to the best of their ability. Mrs. Elliott as president of the Community Club and as president of the Library Association, has ren- dered services to this community that cannot be measured in dollars and cents. Wherever there has been a need, Mrs. Elliott supported by her husband, has been present with her energy and enthusiasm. The lot donated by this generous couple is just west of their beautiful home on Fifteenth street. It will have a frontage of fifty feet and will extend back as far as necessary."'
It was in June, 1917, that Mr. and Mrs. Elliott donated this lot for the use of the Carnegie Li- brary. The Carnegie Library Commission had do- nated something more than $11,000 for the erection of a library building and construction of the building was begun in 1917. The donation from the Carnegie fund came following a special elec- tion in March, 1917, at which a tax was voted by the citizens for the permanent maintenance of the library.
It is only giving credit where credit is due to say that Mrs. Elliott was largely responsible for the idea and plan and for the carrying out of the plan by which Hickory is to receive this mod- ern institution of a Carnegie Library. She did much of the personal work connected with securing the petition for the special election, and worked most industriously to have the issue presented prop- erly to the people and get their support to the cause.
The library is essentially an institution of edu-
cation, and it is with the educational needs of Hickory that Mrs. Elliott has been most en- thusiastically and devotedly identified in all the years. She was organizer and is president of the Community Club, and one of the chief objects of this club is to foster the interests of the public school system. One of the first objects accom- plished by the club was to raise $500 a year to em- ploy a domestic science teacher for the schools.
ALBERT SIDNEY WILLIAMS. Though a native of North Carolina, Albert Sidney Williams first prac- ticed law in New York State, and he was actively connected with the bar of that state for some four or five years. Since 1908 he has applied himself to the general practice of law at Wilmington, and has a reputation of a sound, able counsellor and efficient trial lawyer throughout that judicial dis- trict.
He was born at Manchester, Cumberland County, North Carolina, August 2, 1869, son of George W. and Kate A. (Murchison) Williams. His father was a wholesale merchant, and gave his son the most liberal advantages preparatory to his pro- fessional career.
He attended private schools, the Bingham Mili- tary School, was a student in the academic depart- ment of the University of North Carolina, 1887-88, and in the fall of 1889 entered the University of Virginia but returning to the University of North Carolina in the fall of 1890 and remaining in the law department until 1891. He studied at Colum- bia University in New York, and in 1895 graduated LL. B. from the University of New York. He was licensed to practice in New York State in 1894, and continued his work as a lawyer there until 1899. He then removed to Wilmington, where he has since been busied by various interests and responsibil- ities.
Mr. Williams is a member of the North Caro- lina and the American Bar associations, of the Cape Fear Club, the Cape Fear Country Club, the Carolina Yacht Club, is a Knights Templar Mason and Shriner, and is also affiliated with the Junior Order of United American Mechanics and the Sigma Alpha Epsilon college fraternity.
November 27, 1912, he married Elliott E. Emer- son, of Wilmington, daughter of Thomas M. Emer- son.
NATHANIEL JACOBI. . There are few names to which the people of Wilmington may accord honor justly won or remember with more reverence than that of the late Nathaniel Jacobi, for few men have left behind a richer heritage in the fruits of a noble life. Capably building and fostering great business enterprises was one ex- pression only of his varied nature. He believed in the better and higher things of life and was ever actively concerned in charitable and humane movements, and his achievements in business, con- spicuous as they were, would seem small if placed in the balance with the sum of his philanthropies, his charities, his wide spread benefactions. The enduring influence of the life of a man like Nathaniel Jacobi may not be fitly described in ordinary language, but a community that has been so enriched may well be envied.
Nathaniel Jacobi was born January 21, 1828, in the City of London, England. His parents were Wolf and Priscilla Rebecca Jacobi. They came to the United States on one of the slow sailing vessels of that time and settled at Charles- ton, South Carolina, in 1832, when Nathaniel
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HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA
was four years old. There he spent boyhood, youth and early manhood, acquiring an education and making personal and business friends. When the war between the states was precipitated he entered the Confederate service and became chief clerk in the quartermaster's department under command of Major Styron. Near the close of the war he was sent on a military mission to Wilmington, and the city and its people made so favorable an impression on him that after peace was restored he returned and took up his resi- dence here. In 1869 he purchased the hardware business of James Wilson, which had been estab- lished in 1856, and incorporated the same as the N. Jacobi Company and continued to be identi- fied with it until the close of his life. Mr. Jacobi died November 5, 1907.
Mr. Jacobi was married August 31, 1865, to Miss Rosalia Beuthner, who died at Wilmington, January 3, 1900. To this marriage two sons were born: Marcus W. and Joseph N.
In the financial field Mr. Jacobi was well known and for years he served on the directing board of the Merchison National Bank. He was one of the founders and was vice president of the Temple of Israel. He was one of the organ- izers of the Mechanics' Home Association and its only president. death ending his term of service.
On April 14, 1852, Mr. Jacobi was made an Odd Fellow at Charleston, South Carolina, and throughout his whole subsequent life the inter- ests of that order were cherished and promoted by him. He was known in North Carolina as the father of the Odd Fellows' Orphans' Home at Goldsboro, of which he was one of the organ- izers and builders and for many years served on its board of trustees. In recognition of his great service to the order the Grand Lodge of Odd Fellows of North Carolina erected the Na- thaniel Jacobi Memorial Building, which is a magnificent structure that cost $85,000.
Marcus W. Jacobi, the elder of the two sons of the late Nathaniel Jacobi, was born at Wil- mington, North Carolina, August 15, 1867. After completing his educational course in the Tileston and Bingham schools, in 1883 he became clerk for his father and developed such business capabil- ity that in 1888 he was admitted to partnership, and in 1907 became president of the N. Jacobi Hardware Company.
On January 24, 1901, Mr. Jacobi was married to Miss Blanche B. David, of Wilmington, who is a daughter of A, David, a well known merchant of this city. They have two sons, David and Nathan, and one daughter, Rosalie.
Marcus W. Jacobi is one of the stable and representative men of Wilmington, and it would be a task to even mention all the civic services he has performed, all of which have been bene- ficial. He has been particularly prominent in promoting the objects and undertakings of the Wilmington Chamber of Commerce and served as its president in 1900, 1901 and 1902 and was elected to the same office in 1916. As a mem- ber of the Water and Sewerage Commission his best efforts were directed toward securing the public utilities and the city is largely indebted to him for its excellent water and sewer systems. He is one of the directors of the Murchison National Bank and also of the Delgado Cotton Mills. He belongs to the Hebrew congregation, . of which he is vice president, and in May, 1910, was elected president of the great Hebrew organ- ization, the B'Nai B'Rith. Fraternally he is a
Mason and an Odd Fellow. It is in the latter organization that Mr. Jacobi is so widely known. In February, 1889, he became a member of Cape Fear Lodge No. 2, and progressed until by 1898 he was grand warden, was made deputy grand master in 1899, and grand master in 1900. On numerous occasions he has been a representative to the Sovereign Grand Lodge.
Since 1907 Mr. Jacobi has been chairman of the board of trustees of the Odd Fellows' Orphans' Home at Goldsboro, in which his father was so long and deeply interested, and he likewise is concerned in its wellare. Other benevolent ob- jects also claim his attention and he is always ready to investigate and if possible co-operate with others in humanitarian movements, whether in this city or section or in others much farther away.
When the memorial above mentioned was erected to his father by the Odd Fellows the order sought to honor him by electing him chairman of the building committee.
Joseph N. Jacobi was born July 5, 1870, and died February 1, 1918. He was a man of unusual ability, most attractive personality and highest integrity. Charitable and public spirited. He loved his home state and city and during the period of over thirty years that he was connected with the N. Jacobi Hardware Company as sales- man and partner there was no one more highly regarded among those who knew him. He left a wife, who was Miss Helen Bruswanger of Rich- mond, Virginia, and a daughter, Bertha Jacobi.
JOSEPH MELVILLE BROUGHTON, JR. Honors and positions that are synonymous with great and im- portant service seldom come to so young a man as Joseph Melville Broughton, Jr., of Raleigh. He was born in Raleigh November 17, 1888, and is a son of Joseph Melville and Sallie A. (Harris) Broughton, his father a well known real estate man.
Not yet twenty-eight years of age, Mr. Brough- ton has well deserved the two prominent distinc- tions associated with his name. One of them is as chairman of the Wake County Democratic Execu- tive Committee. The democratic organization of the county could not have selected a more progres- sive and enthusiastic leader, and the work he has done has more than justified his choice. Mr. Broughton was also given the honor of being the youngest Sunday school superintendent of North Carolina. He presides over the Sunday school of the Baptist Tabernacle Church of Raleigh, and that is the largest Sunday school in the state and the second largest in the South.
Mr. Broughton was educated in the public schools, in the Raleigh Male Academy and at Wake Forest College. He graduated A. B. with the class of 1910. Mention should be made among his stu- dent activities of the fact that he was editor of the college paper, the Wake Forest Student, and was a member of the college football team.
For two years following his graduation he was principal of the Bunn High School. During the spring and summer of 1912 he was a member of the staff of the Winston-Salem Journal, and dur- ing that time served as secretary of the Forsyth County Democratic Executive Committee.
In the meantime he had studied and had been licensed to practice law. After a special course in the Harvard Law School in 1913 he returned to North Carolina, but instead of taking up practice he served from June, 1913, to June, 1914, as act-
Q. 9. Waddell
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HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA
ing superintendent of schools during the absence of superintendent of instruction Mr. Judd. For the past four years he has devoted himself to a general civil practice, and has already made a reputation and name for himself as a member of the bar.
He is a member of the Wake County and North Carolina Bar associations and is serving as re- corder of the Recorder's Court of Zebulon in Lit- tle River Township; also of the courts at Fuquay Springs and Apex. He is the North Carolina mem- ber of the Interntional Sunday School Executive Committee and is one of the board of directors of the Y. M. C. A. Mr. Broughton is also president of the Raleigh Chamber of Commerce. Fraternally' he is affiliated with the Masonic Order and with the Junior Order of United American Mechanics. His favorite sports and diversions are fishing and hunting.
NATHANIEL EDMUND GREEN entered the tobacco business in a humble and unimportant role in his native State of Virginia, and has been successively advanced until he is now manager of a large department of the American Tobacco Company. at Durham.
Mr. Green was born at Richmond, Virginia, March 7, 1863, a son of Samuel S. and Lucy A. (Boaz) Green. He attended the public schools of Chesterfield, Virginia, and then learned the stone business with his father, a practical quarry- man. However, his tastes led him into a different occupation and in 1884 at the age of twenty-one he entered the tobacco business at Richmond. He became foreman of a local tobacco factory, and then for a number of years was assistant factory manager of the American Tobacco Company. Upon the dissolution of this company in 1912 he was appointed manager of the Blackwell Durham branch of the company, his present office. Mr. Green has lived at Durham since 1901, and for a number of years was manager of the export cigarette department of the business.
He is well known in business and social circles, a member of the Commonwealth Club, deacon and treasurer of the First Baptist Church, has served as director of the Y. M. C. A. and is a director of the Chamber of Commerce.
On April 15, 1895, he married Miss Emma E. Latham of Stafford County, Virginia. They have a large family of children named Nancy' Amourette, Frances Hawthorne, Nathaniel Ed- mund Jr., Virginia Lee, Southgate Jones, Philip Latham, Mary Lucy, Doris Hawthorne and Wel- ford Early.
OWEN ALEXANDER WADDELL. It is not possible to interpret and justify the careers of men how- ever successful without understanding the guiding principle and motive of all their work and activ- ities. To say that Owen Alexander Waddell twenty years or so ago was an exceedingly poor man in financial circumstances and that by work, self-sacrifice, and constant planning he has become the leading man of affairs at Manchester in Cum- berland County, where his interests are those of a merchant, planter, lumber manufacturer, is to state in brief a praiseworthy achievement, but after all lacking that fundamental quality and element which casts a really romantic and splendid atmos- phere over it all.
Mr. Waddell comes of a prominent old family of North Carolina, but like thousands of others its fortunes were swept away in the storm and stress
of the Civil war, and there was practically nothing left of the ancestral estate. Owen A. Waddell therefore began life absolutely even with the world, having no property, though with an exceedingly creditable name to live up to. Even then it was his determination to achieve something for him- self and this done, to work steadily so far as was possible and desirable to rehabilitate and restore the former prosperity, success and high standing of his family of earlier generations. This was a big undertaking, but he would not have been sat- isfied to achieve it by any other means than through his own efforts. And in that achieving he resolved and has adhered to the policy of main- taining the same high standard of honor and rectitude by which his forefathers lived their worthy and successful lives. Such has been the guiding purpose of his life and few men have con- ceived a worthier ambition and few through greater difficulties and over more obstacles have advanced steadily toward fulfillment.
Mr. Waddell was born at Swann Station in that portion of Moore County that is now Lee County on June 25, 1868. His parents were Alexander and Lucy (Swann) Waddell. The Waddells are of English ancestry. Some of them were among the first planters from England to settle on the Cape Fear River in North Carolina. Their history is closely interwoven with that of many of the noted families of this historic and romantic region. Waddell's Ferry on the Cape Fear in Bladen County was the seat of one branch of the Waddell family during revolutionary and ante-bellum days.
The branch of the family now under considera- tion had its original seat in Chatham County at Pittsboro, which was the home of Maurice Q. Waddell, grandfather of Owen A. Alexander Wad- dell, the latter's father, was a cousin to Col. Alfred M. Waddell, who served two terms in Congress, was one of the leading men of the state in his time, and long had his home at Wilmington, a city which he served as mayor. Alexander Wad- dell before the war was a rice planter in Bruns- wick County, not far from Wilmington. His fam- ily maintained a summer home at Swann Station in Moore County, now Lee County, and his rice plantation having been devastated and destroyed by the Federal armies he retired to Swann Station to live after the war, and made that his home until his death in 1910.
Alexander Waddell married Lucy Swann, whose father, John Swann, was a Cape Fear planter and his summer home in Moore County was named in his honor, Swann Station. The Swanns are also of English origin and many of the name have been extensive planters and slave owners in North Carolina. John Swann married Frances Margaret Waddell.
Owen Alexander Waddell even as a boy faced courageously the stern realities of life and came to realize how difficult sometime is the solution of the simplest problems of daily existence. For- tunately for him, together with the creditable am- bition that stimulated him, his marriage more than doubled his own capacity and brought him not only a wife but a business associate and an ad- viser who has never failed him through all the critical times they have experienced. Mrs. Wad- dell proved not only the ideal housewife, diligent at her business, but was equally proficient and in- valuable to him in the store and other business enterprises which they carried on jointly, and she willingly shared the sacrifices of early years which
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have enabled them to achieve their mutual ambi- tions and gain a name and place in the world for themselves and their children.
In 1898 Mr. Waddell located at Manchester in Cumberland County. He accepted the position of station agent for the railroad at this small village at a salary of $27 a month. Those were hard times, as all who went through the decade of the '90s without a surplus fortune to draw upon will readily remember. The duties of station agent were not exceedingly onerous and Mr. Waddell established a small store. Mrs. Waddell did much of the merchandising for the first year or so. By hard work, patience and contriving, in the face of discouraging circumstances and numerous set- backs, they went steadily ahead with their busi- ness and the fruit of it all after nearly twenty years is a prosperous mercantile establishment, one of the largest and most satisfactory in its profits in Cumberland County. By making sacri- fices of present comforts, Mr. Waddell managed each year to invest some of his returns in land, and now he owns about 3,000 acres at Manchester. This land is increasing in value every year. Be- sides his mercantile business he conducts farming on an extensive scale and is also a lumber manu- facturer. Any business man might well envy the credit he now enjoys in the commercial world. Mr. Waddell has and will invest all his savings in Liberty Bonds and War Stamps, having already invested big sums.
Mr. Waddell married Miss Catherine Mason. She was born near Winsboro, South Carolina, daughter of A. W. and Winifred (Pipkin) Mason. Her father, a native of South Carolina, gained distinction in the field of education. He was a graduate of the University of South Carolina, and in the early '70s moved to Florida, where he founded and for several years was president of Jefferson College at Monticello. His own children were educated under his direction, and his home was a center of culture and refinement and all the social graces. His sister, Catherine Mason, for whom Mrs. Waddell was named, became the mother of Bishop Kilgo, one of the most distinguished divines of the South. Mrs. Waddell's mother was a North Carolinian by birth, member of a prom- inent family in Duplin County. One of her uncles was Col. Calvin Davis, of that county. Mrs. Wad- dell grew up and was educated in the Florida home of her father, but she was married at Man- chester.
Mr. and Mrs. Waddell count their material suc- cess and achievements as naught compared with the satisfaction and pride they find in their house- hold of six lovely daughters, all noted for their charm and intelligence. These daughters are named Elizabeth Nash, Katherine Mason, Wini- fred Davis, Mildred Moore, Rebecca Wyrich and Frances Margaret Swann Waddell. The middle name in each case indicates ancestral names on both sides. The two oldest daughters, Elizabeth and Katherine, are students in St. Mary's College at Raleigh. Mr. and Mrs. Waddell and their fam- ily are members of the Presbyterian Church of the Covenant.
HON. DAVID SCHENCK. One of North Carolina's most interesting monuments was erected not for conspicuous deeds of valor in the field of battle, hut for services rendered through years of in- defatigable and scholarly labor in uncovering and building up with the weight of historical authority
and perpetuating for all time to come deeds and sacrifices made by North Carolinians to the cause of the Revolution and which by neglect were in a fair way to lose their relative importance in American history. The man thus distinctively honored as a historian was the late Judge David Schenck, whose monument stands on the Guilford battle ground, where it was unveiled July 4, 1904.
While his name will always have appropriate rank with the North Carolina historians of the last century, David Schenck's historical labors were pursued largely as an incident to a busy life as a lawyer, and in that field and profession he demonstrated abilities that easily rank him among the noblest and ablest of the North Caro- lina bar.
It is appropriate to presage this article with some account of his ancestors and family relation- ships. He was descended from the Schencks who first settled in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. This branch of the Schencks was found in that sec- tion of Pennsylvania in the early years of the eighteenth century, and were descendants of Swiss Mennonites, who in earlier generations had suf- fered religious persecution and in the simplicity of their worship and creed were closely allied with the English Quakers. It was largely because of this similiarity of faith that they were invited by William Penn to help colonize Pennsylvania.
The American progenitor of the North Caro- lina branch of the family was Michael Schenck, who is first mentioned in the colonial records in 1717 and who was given the right of English citizenship in 1729.
The head of the next generation was also Michael Schenck, who was born February 28, 1737, and died September 22, 1811. His name ap- pears on a revolutionary committee of safety from Lancaster County in 1775, from which fact it was evident that though a Mennonite he was convinced of the necessity of war to safeguard the liberties of the colonists.
Michael Schenck, third, was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, February 15, 1771, and died at Lincolnton, North Carolina, March 6, 1849. This was the grandfather of Hon. David Schenck. A spirit of adventure led him to migrate with other colonists from Lancaster to Lincolnton about 1790. He became a merchant at Lincolnton. His goods were purchased at Lancaster and Philadel- phia and were brought from there in wagons and were paid for in large part by cattle driven from Lincolnton to those places. He married May 11, 1801, Barbara Warlick, daughter of Daniel Warlick, who, according to family tradi- tion, joined a military expedition against the Indians and was killed on the Ohio frontier.
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