USA > North Carolina > History of North Carolina: North Carolina biography, Volume V > Part 93
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On June 29, 1887, he married Love C. Haughton, a daughter of Haywood and Adelaide (Hinton) Haughton. They are the parents of one son and one daughter.
Six months after beginning practice Doctor Goodwin was given the Chair of Anatomy and demonstrated anatomy in the Leonard Medical College at Raleigh, and was visiting and con- sulting physician to the Leonard Medical School Hospital for twenty-two years. In 1900 he was elected visiting and consulting physician to St. Agnes Hospital. He was also lecturer on anatomy and surgical anatomy to the Training School for Nurses, and for a number of years was physician in chief to St. Agnes Hospital. He also served as consulting and visiting physician to Rex Hospital at Raleigh. For fifteen years Doctor Goodwin did special X-Ray work. In 1902 he was made professor of Dermatology and Genito- Urinary Diseases and Physical Diagnosis to the Raleigh Medical University, a branch of the Uni- versity of North Carolina. He has served as presi- dent, secretary and treasurer of the Raleigh Acad- emy of Medicine and is a member of the Wake County and North Carolina Medical societies and the American Medical Association.
Doctor Goodwin enjoys the Country Club as one of its charter members. Religiously he has been a member of the Baptist Church, in which he was reared, for years has been a constant and active member of Sunday school, and now belongs to the First Baptist Church of Raleigh. He was instrumental and active in originating the Carolina Trust Bank, which was sold to the Mer- chants National Bank, and was on its board of directors some time. He is a charter member and director of the Morris Plan Company of Raleigh. Doctor Goodwin was greatly interested in Young Men's Christian Association work at Raleigh, is a member of the Order of Modern Pur- itans, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and is active in the Raleigh Chamber of Commerce.
JUDGE JAMES IREDELL, who was a member of the United States Supreme Court from 1790 until his death ten years later, was born in Sussex County, England, October 5, 1751, oldest child of Francis and Margaret (McCulloh) Iredell. His father was a Bristol merchant, while his mother was a member of the McCulloli family that owned vast estates in North Carolina colony. The father becoming impoverished, James Iredell at the age of sixteen was through the influence of his mother's relatives appointed in 1768 to the office of comptroller of the customs at Edenton, North Carolina. His age was carefully concealed from the British authorities, though he rendered a most creditable account of himself while in office. Thus the boy of tender years crossed the ocean to a new and wild country and soon became a part of the little village of Edenton. He was accepted into the society of the best families of the town, including that of Samuel Johnston, under whom he subsequently studied law. On July 18, 1773, he married Hannah Johnston, sister of his legal preceptor. Her example and influence more than all else shaped his future career. She was a loving wife, a prudent and faithful adminis- trator of the household, and a wise. and able friend and counselor to whom he ever brought the full story of his joys and triumphs, his sorrows and reverses.
December 14, 1770, James Iredell received a li-
cense to practice law in the Inferior Courts and on November 26, 1771, was licensed to practice in the Superior Court. During the years that immediately followed he found himself in active sympathy with the tide of revolutionary ferment that was growing stronger and stronger in all the colonies and became an active but silent par- ticipator and adviser in the councils of the revolu- tionary leaders in North Carolina. Though not a member, he was present and an adviser at the Second Provincial Congress of April, 1775, and in November, 1776, was appointed by the Con- gress one of the commissioners to revise the laws of the state. In November, 1777, law courts were re-established in North Carolina and in December of the same year he was elected one of the first judges of the free and independent state of North Carolina. He was then barely twenty-six years of age. July 8, 1779, the governor appointed him attorney-general of North Carolina to fill the vacancy. As attorney-general he followed the judges through their laborious rounds through the wilderness over swollen rivers, through every kind of weather, and performed adequately all the duties of his office and at a meager compensation until 1782, when the war being over he resigned to become "a private lawyer." He soon had a large practice, and at the same time his work as a lawyer and publicist counted heavily in the settlement of some of the most mixed problems of early state affairs. He was a lawyer in some of the most celebrated cases.
In November, 1787, he was appointed by the General Assembly a member of the council and sole commissioner to revise and compile the acts of the General Assemblies of the Late Province of North Carolina. This work was always known as Iredell's Revisal. He was one of the most able and energetic advocates of the adoption of the new federal constitution in 1787, and it is said that his labor and eloquence contributed more than anything else to the ratification in November, 1789. In the meantime his fame had spread abroad. President Washington, recognizing his great abilities by his debate in the North Carolina Convention for the adoption of the con- stitution, nominated him for a seat on the Supreme Bench of the United States February 10, 1790. His nomination was indorsed by the Senate the same day and he took his seat in the August term of 1790. Thus his learning and abilities were impressed upon that court in many of its primary decisions in the interpretation of the constitution, and some of his opinions and arguments may be found in the cases of Chisholm vs. Georgia, Calder vs. Bull, Penhallow vs. Doane, Hylton vs. United States, Ware vs. Hylton and Talbot vs. Johnson. "Unquestionably he was the ablest constitutional lawyer on the bench until the advent of Marshall, and in all other respects the equal of Justice Wilson. While his labors upon the Supreme Bench were but light, those of the Circuit were arduous and exhausting-his circuit at one time compelling him to travel eighteen hundred miles."
In the summer of 1799 his honorable life was nearly spent. The severe labors of the circuit and the climatic influence of the sickly region in which he lived and traveled had undermined his constitution and his health gave way. He died at Edenton September 20, 1799. "The immature lad of seventeen, torn by stress of fortune from a gentle home and transplanted in a strange and wild land-springing in a day into the maturity of manhood, rising abrubtly into the full radiance
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of public life-called in rapid succession from one high office to another until he had exhausted all, and filling all with equal roundness, until at the last, weary and worn, he sinks into rest followed by the love and respect of all."
THOMAS NIXON. When, more than a century and a quarter ago, George Washington said "Agriculture is the most useful as well as the most honorable occupation of nian," he uttered a great and significant truth and one which holds good today. The vocation of farming forms the basis of all business prosperity, and the life of the agriculturist whose operations are con- ducted in an intelligent and energetic manner is the life of independence. However, not all pos- sess the abilities necessary for success in this vocation, and very few have attained the pros- perity that has come to Thomas Nixon, who, with the exception of a short period in his youth, has devoted his entire career to the tilling of the soil and is now one of the most substantial men of the agricultural class to be found in Perqui- mans County.
Thomas Nixon is himself a product of the farming community in which he now resides, having been born on the family homestead in Perquimans County October 12, 1869. His par- ents were Thomas and Cornelia (Townsend) Nixon, honorable and honored farming people, who passed their entire lives in this community, rounding out successful careers and laboring to such good effect that they accumulated a good property, were able to pass their declining years in retirement and comfort, and won and held the respect and esteem of their fellow-citizens. The country schools furnished Thomas Nixon, the younger, with his early educational training, following which he entered what was then known as the New Gordon High School, but is now Gilliford College. Upon the completion of his studies he began to teach school, and would no doubt have continued and succeeded as an edu- cator, but the death of his father called him home after he had taught only one term, and, taking over the reins of management, he began to carry on the work from the point where his father left off. That he has been successful in his operations is shown in the fact that he is now the owner of 700 acres in Perquimans County and supervises operations on about 800 acres more, and of this land 700 acres are under culti- vation. His farm is equipped with modern buildings, substantial and attractive, and other improvements have been installed, while the work is done with the latest improved machinery and the most approved modern methods. He has made a study of his vocation and treats it more as a profession than merely as a means of gain- ing a livelihood, and for this reason he has suc- ceeded in greater measure than some of his less progressive brethren. Mr. Nixon has other interests and is a director of the Hertford Bank- ing Company. He is public-spirited in his sup- port of movements for the general welfare and has done his share in assuming the responsi- bilities and labors of citizenship, although he has never cared for public office and takes only a voter's interest in political parties and their conflicts.
Mr. Nixon was married December 21, 1897, to Miss Edna Jones Graubery, and to this union there have been born four children: Julian Grau- bery, Marjory Graubery, Dorothy Graubery and
Edna Jones. Mr. and Mrs. Nixon and their children belong to the Episcopal Church. The family is highly esteemed in the community, where its members are recognized as desrable acquisitions of society.
JOHN CROOM RODMAN, M. D. The distinguished abilities and service of Doctor Rodman of Wash- ington have made him most prominently known in the field of surgery and medicine. He is a man of many prominent associations in his profession and is, also, well known in social and patriotic organizations.
Doctor Rodman was born December 27, 1870, a son of Judge William Blount Rodman and Camilla D. Croom, his wife. He received his education in the best private and public schools of that time. He entered the University of North Carolina in the fall of 1888 and remained there for two years; and later he entered the medical department of the University of New York, the Bellevue Hospital Medical College, and received his degree from that institution in the spring of 1892. He returned im- mediately to his home in Washington, North Caro- lina, where he began the practise of his profession, in which he has had abundant success both as a physician and surgeon.
Dr. Rodman's services have been as follows: Member of the North Carolina State Board of Medical Examiners, 1908 to 1914; chief surgeon Washington and Vandemere Railroad (N. C.), 1905; member A. M. A., North Carolina Medical Society (vice president), 1904; Seaboard Medical Association, secretary, 1889, president, 1906; Beau- fort County Medical Society ; Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity; Sons of Confederate Veterans, com- mander, North Carolina Div., 1902-3; in politics democrat; Episcopalian; Mason; member of local club of Elks, member of the Knights of Pythias; also served as president of North Carolina Society of Sons of the American Revolution. He was ap- pointed acting assistant surgeon of Public Health Service in July, 1895, and is still in the service, and was appointed in December, 1917, by Presi- dent Wilson chairman of the Medical Advisory Board for District No. 17 of North Carolina.
June 7, 1904, Doctor Rodman married Olzie Whitehead Clark, of Wilson, North Carolina, and they are the parents of five children: John Croon, Jr., Olzie Clark, Archie Clark, Owen Guion and Clark Rodman.
RALEIGH RUTHERFORD HAYNES. "Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war," and among those whose names deserve to stand high on the roll of honor in North Carolina for their achieve- ments in peace is Raleigh Rutherford Haynes, a native of Rutherford County, where he was born on June 30, 1851.
His father was Charles H. Haynes, a farmer in that county, a deputy sheriff, and a neighborhood teacher. His mother was Sarah, a daughter of Elijah Walker, a man of considerable means, a slave-holder, whose farm was near Ellenboro in the same county. Mrs. Haynes bore her husband eight children, Raleigh being the fourth child and the eldest son; and he was only eight years of age when his father died in 1859.
Mrs. Haynes was possessed of a good mind, and was eminently practical, but particularly was she even-tempered, and noted for her amiability and gentleness, and for the wisdom and foresight with which she trained her children. From early youth Raleigh became helpful to his mother on the farm,
R. R. Neaguco
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studying his lessons at night, so that by the time he was twenty he had become a capable man. He then went to Union County, South Carolina, to learn how to cultivate cotton. After two years he returned to his home at Ferry, and added to his farming operations both a store and a saw mill. This beginning was indicative of his enter- prise, his energy and his capacity. He was success- ful from the start. He planned thoughtfully and acted prudently and wisely. His mother had counselled him, "never go security, never act as guardian, nor hold office,"' and observing her in- junctions, he avoided pitfalls and, while interested in public matters, he was not led by them away from his business.
He was happily married on January 29, 1874, to Amanda Carpenter, a daughter of Tennessee Car- penter, a well-known citizen of the county. They were both consecrated Christians, and for sixteen years she was a helpmate to him, indeed, their lives being happy and fortunate. She bore him eight children, and on her death in 1890, he became both father and mother to them, exercising such tender care and affection for them that his guid- ance had the happiest influences on their lives. Later he married Litia Kelley, who, however, died childless in about a year.
As the years passed and Mr. Haynes prospered, he invested in lands until he was known as one of the largest landowners in that part of the state; and his reputation for wisdom, prudence, and suc- cess constantly grew. Near by was the old High Shoals land on the Second Broad River, embrac- ing many acres, chiefly a wilderness of vines, thorn bushes and bamboo, but with much valuable timber and a fine undeveloped water power. This he purchased in 1885, and for two years he employed himself in getting it in order, cleaning up the farming land, building tenement houses, and clear- ing off the river banks, with the ultimate purpose of developing the water power and erecting a mill of some kind, the nature of which he had not then determined.
But in July, 1887, in pursuance of his well de- fined purpose, he, along with others, began the work of building the Henrietta Mills, and he was a liberal subscriber to the capital stock of this corporation, and did a large part of the work in getting things in shape and in constructing a large number of tenements surrounding the mill. This work covered a period of five or six years. About eight years after the Henrietta Mills was started, Mr. Haynes and his associates began to build Henrietta Mills Number Two, at Caroleen, and in this connection he did a great deal of work in obtaining the land needed, having surveys of the power made, and he built the first hundred tenements, besides start- ing up a store at this point and assisting in many other ways. In 1897 he bought the necessary land and built the Florence Mills at Forest City, the same being named for his oldest daughter, but later on he sold out his holdings in this mill witlı satisfactory advantage to himself, but never dis- posed of his interest in the Henrietta Mills, owning about one-twentieth of the whole at the time of his death.
But it was in 1900 that lie selected a site for another mill, lower down on Second Broad River, in a wilderness where once, when a lad, he had been lost, and where there was a great volume of water running to waste. He discerned the rare possibilities of the location, and there he determined to lay the foundations of a great enterprise. In- deed, he was a dreamer of dreams, but withal a
man of sound practical judgment. In the depth of his hazel blue eyes there shone a light of a master-builder; and in the energy of his clear and wonderful brain was found the basis of suc- cessful achievement. His conception was not merely to build another mill and to create another industrial center, but to gather about it an orderly community of happy, God-fearing working people, enjoying all the conveniences and comforts of improved social conditions. Such was the vision he saw, and it became the dream of his life. To this consummation he devoted his energies. Still he had other and diversified interests. He was associated in many enterprises. He was concerned in an extensive lumber business in Eastern Caro- lina and in Georgia; in a line of general stores; had large banking interests, being president of the Haynes Bank at Henrietta, president of the Commercial Bank at Rutherfordton, director of the Charlotte National Bank, and of the Southern Loan & Savings Bank, Charlotte, but his chief interest centered around Cliffside, where he alone could see the beginning, and far into the future possibilities of his dream.
Here from a once barren waste has sprung the largest gingham mill under one roof in the South, with a prosperous, beautiful town of happy people about it.
The Cliffside Mill is built on Second Broad River, and the "Falls" afford most of the power necessary to run the machinery, the balance being generated on the ground. Seven thousand five hun- red bales of cotton are used yearly, and 70,000 yards, or forty miles, of gingham are turned out daily. The mill does its own coloring and finish- ing and the product is ready for the jobbers when it leaves the mill. Two classes of gingham are manufactured, the Cliffside, a staple gingham, and the Haynes, a standard.
Near the mill entrance are seesaws Mr. Haynes had built for the children, and nearby are the offices which harbor the brain power of the mill and in which the clerical work is transacted. Across the street are the company's store and a library built of red brick. Then there are the moving picture hall, Cliffside hotel, postoffice, bank, garage, flower mill, skating rink, ice factory and a steam laundry.
The water supply of Cliffside is the boast of the town. and has played an important part in its remarkable health record.
Cliffside has three churches, picturesque and substantial where services are largely attended and the children carefully trained.
An ideal graded school, with six teachers, gives 350 children, six or eight months' instruction each year. The doctors, also, instruct the children, giving addresses on health, personal cleanliness and the right mode of living.
The broad streets of the town are lined with trees and finely cropped hedges. The four hundred prettily built and neatly painted houses flanking the streets are homelike and attractive with flowers growing in profusion, tor Mr. Haynes offered prizes every year for the most beautiful yards and neatest kept premises. The houses are lighted with electricity and the sanitary arrangements are the best. The people take pride in the furnishings of their homes. many having pianos as well as auto- mobiles. They have regular clean-up-days for their premises, and a visitor invariably notes the spot- less appearance of the whole town.
In these homes live a contented, healthy, indus- trious, law-abiding, God-fearing people. They are
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an independent people, too, for in 1917 the Cliff- side operatives had on deposit with the Mill Com- pany $51,000, at 6 per cent interest.
In the past ten years seventy-five or more fam- ilies have moved away to farms they had bought with money saved at the mill. Many have gone from the mill to bigger things. You find them in the schoolroom as instructors; in the pulpit as min- isters of that Gospel the quiet man who founded Cliffside ever tried to practice in his daily life, for Raleigh Haynes carried his religion into his busi- ness. He felt that this was the way to serve his generation. He sought to make his Cliffside peo- ple ideal by banishing ignorance, poverty and pain, and by teaching them to love God supremely and their neighbors as themselves. He not only be- lieved in justice as a principle but he practiced it. It was the rule of his life.
Such characteristics and purposes in life de- served the highest measure of human achievement, and indeed it was graciously vouchsafed him.
He attributed his success to such maxims as: Always to be truthful; pay every cent you owe; always keep at something; have plenty of energy; never give up, and then, most of all, he said, "I never engage in anything that I did not go to God and ask Him to prosper that business as He thought best, and my advice to all is not to engage in any- thing in which you are not willing to ask God's help." His marked Bible shows from whence he drew his strength.
This verse marked "Sept. 23, 1903," lets one see where he caught the vision of the ideal mill town: "Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness and his chambers by wrong; that useth his neighbor's service without wages and giveth him not for his work."
He was at all times the friend, counsellor and helper of his people, and they loved him and helped him realize his vision.
Mr. Haynes had been a great sufferer for some thirty years, yet he did not let it interfere with his duties. In the summer of 1916 he became ill, but the autumn found him back at Cliffside mnuch improved, and the weeks went by into Christmas when all his children and grandchildren gathered to his spacious and well appointed home. After the greetings of joy and love he sat apart as usual in the quiet of his own room. After his death, hidden away among his papers, letters were found written that night.
That in his heart he had heard the "long dis- tance call"' is evident and his house was set in order. He felt that ten years more were needed to perfect things he had planned, and willed that the property be left intact that long under the guidance of his son, Charles, who is a worthy successor of such a father,
One last word he had to say that Christmas night:
"I just want to say that I know full well that some of these days I shall have to give up this life. All of us will have to, how soon none can tell, and it is no doubt best that we do not know.
"I want to say in this connection that I feel that I have done my duty to my family and loved ones and to my country. It is true that I have had many obstacles, but I have discharged my duty as best I could.
"I hope that the undeveloped plans I have laid may all some day be complete and the country blessed and benefited by them and that my friends and loved ones be blessed in many ways and that they be better men and women, and that they
can and will serve their country as best they can, and serve each other in a way that is right, and we all may meet by and by up yonder where we can live as an unbroken family in heaven *
* * ",
February found him at his Florida home in St. Petersburg, accompanied by his youngest son, Grover Cleveland. Returning late in the afternoon from an outing in his car February 6, 1917, he talked to a man in the yard about his drive and seemed most cheerful. He then turned to go into the house, and at that instant death claimed him with a smile on his face, a smile his family say that lingered even when he was brought back home again.
His life teaches what a man may do. His zeal and high ideals inspire one. The school, the churches, the mill, the town and country sustained a heavy loss and on his children and on the leaders of the town has fallen a great responsibility. Real- izing this, a memorial service was held at the Bap- tist Church February 11, 1917, and the leaders in all of the works with warm devotion, fervid zeal and untiring efforts, laid themselves on the altar of service.
This is in brief the life's activities of Raleigh Rutherford Haynes, a patriotic and successful North Carolinian, combining in his name the eap- itol city of his Commonwealth, and his well-beloved native county, and embodying in his charaeter- those traits and qualities which make men great.
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