USA > North Carolina > History of North Carolina: North Carolina biography, Volume VI > Part 43
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Noah James Rouse was born September 13, 1861. in Lenoir County, North Carolina, a son of Noah and Mary Eliza (Harper) Rouse. His father was a prominent farmer of Lenoir County and for some years a member of the board of county commissioners, and Noah J. was given good educational advantages, first attending the com- mon schools of La Grange and subsequently pur- suing a literary course at the University of North Carolina, from which institution he was gradu- ated in 1881. For one year after graduation, in
association with J. Y. Joyner, now superintendent of public instruction of North Carolina, he con- ducted the La Grange Academy, a school of high grade at La Grange, North Carolina, and after a year of educational work he entered the University of North Carolina Law School, then directed by Hon. John Manning. Under this excellent precep- torship his advancement was rapid, and in August, 1883, he was admitted to the bar. He began prac- tice at Kinston, where for many years he de- voted himself to a general line of professional business, but gradually turned more and more toward a corporation practice, until at this time he is one of the best known corporation lawyers in this part of the state. The reputation of the eminent men in this field is not made in a day. In this broad domain unusual ability not alone de- mands natural abilities, but the most thorough preparation and strenuous, continuous and intense application and industry, while broad education and extensive knowledge of business, commercial and industrial principles are also requisites for success. In corporation law Mr. Rouse has stead- ily advanced to the front in reputation and the legitimate rewards of such a standing. However, he has not permitted the larger and more impor- tant matters involved in corporate interests to withdraw him from general practice, but has all the time been and is still engaged in an extensive practice embracing the various activities incident to the important business section in which he lives.
As Mr. Rouse became more and more deeply involved in corporation practice, he naturally came into contact with interests which attracted him toward financial, commercial and industrial . affairs -fields in which he soon became an active factor. He has been president of Rouse Banking Company of La Grange, North Carolina, since its organiza- tion in 1899, and upon the organization of the Citizens Bank of Kinston in 1901, converted into the First National Bank of Kinston in 1908, he was elected its president, which position he con- tinues to fill. In addition, he was one of the or- ganizers of the Bank of Kinston, now the Na- tional Bank of Kinston. In 1896 he was one of the organizers of the Kinston Tobacco Warehouse Company, the first to be organized in the con- munity, an enterprise which was promoted to en- courage the tobacco growers of the community and which was the forerunner of the great tobacco in- dustry of the city today. In 1902 he assisted in the organization of the Kinston Cotton Mills, be- coming president of that organization, a position which he retained until the pressure of other business caused his resignation therefrom in 1916. Formerly he was a director of the Chesterfield Manufacturing Company at Petersburg, Virginia, but the weight of so many other duties caused his resignation from that office also. He is a director of the Kinston Insurance & Realty Company and assisted in the organization of the Lenoir Oil & Ice Company.
One of the most forceful citizens of his com- munity, Mr. Rouse has always used his fine legal and business talents in the furtherance of what he has conceived to be for the best interests of the locality, merging the characters of attorney, business man and citizen into a high personal com- bination which has been generally recognized as an example well worthy of emulation. He is a member of the executive board of the Kinston Fair Association and a trustee of Atlantic Chris- tian College, Wilson, North Carolina. He has served as chairman of the Kinston Township Board of School Directors and as chairman of the
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Lenoir County Board, and was the first chairman of the board of city school directors, holding that position until he resigned to assume the duties of mayor of the City of Kinston, to which office he had been elected in 1903 and in which he served until 1907. His administration was one which served to advance the interests of the city in many ways and was characterized by the installment of a number of greatly needed civic and municipal reforms, and became notable for law enforcement. Prior to this time he had served very acceptably as a member of the city board of alderman. As a democrat he has been active in the work of his party. He has twice been a presidential elector from the Second Congressional District, supporting Grover Cleveland in 1892 and William J. Bryan in 1908. He was temporary chairman of the Democratic State Convention held in Raleigh in 1914. In 1913 he was appointed by Governor Locke Craig as a member of the constitutional commission to revise the state constitution and recommend amendments to the constitution for submission to the voters of the state. .
On October 15, 1889, Mr. Rouse was united in marriage with Miss Mattie Holland Rountree, of Kinston, and they have two sons, Robert Har- per and Charles Francis. Robert, after his col- legiate course, entered upon the study of the law at the University of Virginia, taking the three- year course at that university, and after a sum- mer course at the University of North Carolina was admitted to the bar in September, 1916, im- mediately entering upon the practice of the law with his father and so continued until the entry of the United States into the war with Germany, whereupon he promptly volunteered, before the enactment of the selective service law, and en- tered the first officers' training camp at Fort Ogle- thorpe, Georgia, from which he was graduated in August, 1917, and commissioned a lieutenant. Then, having volunteered for service overseas, he was immediately ordered to a port of embarka- tion, arriving "over there" on October 3, 1917, and is at this time actively engaged with the American forces in France. Charles, who is ten years old, only regrets that the new selective serv- ice law will not make him eligible to join his brother in the service of his country.
Mr. Rouse attributes much of his success to the assistance and encouragement of his wife, who, in addition to being a lady possessed of many charms and graces, is likewise a capable and intelligent woman of business. She is the efficient director of the Woman's Work Department of the Kinston Chapter of the Red Cross. The family hold mem- bership in the Christian Church, in which Mr. Rouse is chairman of the official board of an elder. As an agriculturist he has also been successful. He is the owner of the Governor Caswell home, known as Caswell Lodge, and adjacent thereto is a well cultivated and extensive farm on which Mr. Rouse employs from twelve to fifteen tenant fami- lies. This property, on which there are twelve flowing wells, is particularly well adapted for stock-raising, and Mr. Rouse has made a specialty of high-grade and registered stock. Widely and favorably known in professional and business cir- cles, he is also a general favorite socially.
Mr. Rouse has been a consistent and earnest supporter of the administration of President Wil- son, and has been at the forefront of those who have at all times upheld the President in his war policies and in his efforts and determination to maintain American rights. It is not surprising, therefore, that his energies have been directed
along many lines of war activities. He is the food administrator, fuel administrator and chairman of the legal advisory board of the county. He has always felt that all registrants under the selective draft law are entitled to advice and assistance without charge, and he has always rendered such service without any compensation whatever. He is also a member of the Four Minute Speakers of the county, and has been subject to many calls to speak, to which he has responded in behalf of the drives incident to the carrying on of the war.
PATRICK F. POPE. North Carolina is a very old state, but the day in which individuals make his- tory has not yet passed. The larger cities and communities of course depend upon the total ag- gregate of the services and activities of a large group of individuals, but there are some live and flourishing towns scattered over the state which reflect in a most interesting and instructive way the enterprise and forcefulness of one or at least a very few men.
One of these communities which well illus- trates the vital relationship with a single citizen is Coats in Harnett County. The citizen of great- est individual usefulness and service there is Patrick F. Pope, an extensive lumber manufacturer whose name has been associated with nearly every business and industrial enterprise undertaken since Coats was put on the map.
He was born in Cumberland County, North Car- olina, in 1872, a son of Willis J. and Margaret (Mitchell) Pope. From his earliest youth, aside from his limited time spent in local schools, he has been connected with the great lumber manu- facturing industry of Eastern North Carolina. From time to time other enterprises have taken his attention, but his main interests are still large- ly concentrated in lumber.
The part of his history which concerns the com- munity of Coats had its beginning in 1902, when he bought a tract of timber in Grove Township of Harnett County, and setting up machinery be- gan making lumber. According to the story which has been told, he already had a large pile of fin- ished lumber stacked beside the right of way when the first freight train pulled into the village from Apex. About the only other business enterprise on the site at that time was a general country store, 20 by 40 feet. Mr. Pope was not content to see Coats merely a side track station for his lumber mill and set about on a broad and liberal plan to bring other men of enterprise to the com- munity and upbuild a varied and important town. Some of the local citizens soon promoted a bank, in which Mr. Pope subscribed for stock and was elected its first president, an office he continued to hold until the institution was on a sound basis. He gave to the community a grist mill, a brick plant, a cotton gin, a roller flour mill, a big gen- eral store and apparently everything he touched prospered and has been a source of general ben- efit to the community. He also served five years as mayor, but had to resign from that office on account of the press of urgent business duties. He supplied the capital to an inventor of a new window shade and thus financed the Everlasting Window Shade Company. As proprietor of the leading mills at Coats he installed facilities for the operation of an electrical plant and a supply of water to the town. During the last year or so Mr. Pope has sold his mercantile interests, to which he did not have time to attend, but which has contributed largely to his individual prosper.
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ity. He has also sold the electric light plant, but still owns the water system of the town.
In recent months Mr. Pope bought some large timber tracts near Goldsboro, and is now operat- ing an extensive lumber manufacturing plant in that vicinity under the name of the Saulston Lum- ber Company. He is president and practically en- tire owner of the Coast Brick Company of Coats, which made the brick for all the store buildings in the town. His lumber mill, cotton gin and other industrial interests at Coats are carried on under his individual name. He is also a large farmer, and has some of the fine land in this section of the state.
Mr. Pope is as big in character and public spirit as he is in business enterprise. He has served as county commissioner of Harnett County and is a member of the Missionary Baptist Church. He married Miss Maggie E. Bain, of Cumberland County, and they are the parents of four children: Herman, Tyson, Elsa and Linwood.
AVERITT A. MCLEAN. In times of war and stress, perhaps, frail substitutes for cotton may be found in paper, nettle fiber and woodpulp, but for the ordinary uses of peaceful, civilized life, noth- ing can take the place of cotton. Private fortunes and community prosperity, in many sections of the South, rest on the cotton crop, and when the looms and spindles in the great mills are busy, business flourishes and people are happy, comfortable and contented. This has been the experience of Averitt A. McLean, table damask manufacturer and owner, with his sons, of profitable cotton mills at Gas- tonia and Bessemer City, North Carolina.
Averitt A. McLean was born at Swansboro in Onslow County, North Carolina, in 1858. His par- ents were Robert S. and Margaret L. (Wilson) McLean, both of whom have passed away. Robert S. McLean was born in Glasgow, Scotland. In the year of 1832 he came to the United States and set- tled at Swansboro, North Carolina, where his in- dustry, thrift and good judgment brought him independent fortune and he became well known on the eastern shore. He was a large planter and engaged in merchandising, went into the turpen- tine industry and dealt in naval stores, owning his own fleet of boats whereby he shipped the same to New York. The precipitation of the war between the states changed his fortune, as it did those of many others, and his wealth was dissipated to a large extent. About the time the war ended he was postmaster at Swansboro, and in that connec- tion an interesting story may be related. When he crossed the Atlantic Ocean another Glasgow boy, who had been one of his boyhood friends, named Allen Pinkerton, came over on board the same ship, and like himself, was on his way to make his fortune in America. When they separated in New York City they proposed to keep each other in- formed of their movements. Mr. McLean soon found interests absorbing his time in his new home at Swansboro, while Allen Pinkerton probably met with like conditions first in Canada and later at Chicago, Illinois, in which city he established himself, and, as the founder of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, became a world wide character. It was while Mr. McLean was postmaster that a general circular from the Pinkerton Detective Agency reached him, in relation to a bold Adams Express robbery. He wrote to Mr. Pinkerton and started a pleasant correspondence that continued until the death of Mr. McLean. One of Mr. Pinker-
ton's sons, Robert S., was named in honor of Mr. McLean.
The period immediately following the close of the war between the states was an unfortunate one in which to grow up, and Averitt A. McLean had but meager educational advantages and fewer op- portunities of every kind that would have been his portion under other conditions. He was no laggard, however, but bravely went to work as a boy, and after he left home spent ten years in Wilmington, North Carolina, and it was during that time that he became connected with the firm of Powers, Gibbs and Company, in the commer- cial fertilizer business. He learned its details, and when the great Virginia-Carolina Fertilizer Com- pany was organized he became associated with the same and was business representative of the corpo- ration in the Carolinas and Virginia, and while in that capacity resided at Richmond, Virginia, for five years. He has never severed his connection with the Virginia-Carolina, although since engag- ing in the cotton mill industry in Gaston County his duties with that corporation are not as active as formerly.
Mr. McLean came to make his home at Gastonia, North Carolina, in 1895, and owns one of the most handsome modern residences in that place. This is a great cotton manufacturing center and Mr. MeLean has large interests here. He is president of the Huss Manufacturing Company and owns the company mill operated at Bessemer City, five miles west of Gastonia, and is, also, owner and president of the Atlas Mill at Bessemer City. In both enterprises his sons, Averitt A. MeLean, Jr., Robert S. McLean and Earl D. McLean, are asso- ciated with him. A. A. McLean, Jr., is secretary and treasurer of both the Huss and Atlas Mills, and Robert S. MeLean, who is now in France with the United States Army, is vice president. Both mills are operated with all modern equipment, and the Huss Manufacturing Company, operated by that company, with a capital stock of $180,000, is equipped with 136 looms and 45,000 spindles, its product being a fine quality of mercerized and plain table damask. The Atlas Mill is capitalized at $100,000 and is equipped with 5,000 spindles. Here coarse yarns are manufactured, being used in the manufacture of gas masks and cartridge belts. The manufacturing of fabrics of all kinds has made rapid strides forward under the manage- ment of such able business men as the Mcleans, and it may be questioned if the day will ever return when Americans will depend upon another country for products they can better manufacture at home.
Mr. McLean in young manhood was married to Miss Effie D. Senn, of Columbia, South Carolina, and they have four children: Averitt A., Jr., who is a graduate of Trinity College; Robert S. and Earle D., are also, college men; and Lillian Grace. The younger son, Earle D., who is now in the United States Navy, was interested in agricul- tural pursuits, and on their farm of 350 acres, which adjoins Gastonia on the east, he has prac- tically demonstrated the value of the latest scien- tifie theories on the subject.
Mr. McLean is one of the representative business men of Gaston County. He has led a busy life filled with responsibilities, and that success has at- tended him is largely a matter of personal effort, for, as noted above, it may be seen that he had but few early advantages, fewer, possibly than many of the present employes in his own mills,
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whose youth found far easier conditions, but it remains to be seen if they, at his age, will occupy an equally foremost place in the business world and command the respect and esteem of so large a body of their fellow citizens.
WILLIAM GRIMES CLARK since leaving the Uni- versity of North Carolina, where he completed his education, has been an active factor in business affairs at Tarboro and is one of the men who most frequently have been called upon to serve the city and county in the more important administrative positions.
Mr. Clark, a son of W. S. Clark, was born at Tarboro April 20, 1877. He received his early education in Horner's Military School, and at- tended the University of North Carolina from 1893 to 1896. After leaving college he became asso- ciated with his father in the general merchandise business, but since 1914 has been engaged in farm- ing and real estate operations.
From 1900 to 1904 Mr. Clark was a member of the board of town commissioners, and again from 1910 to 1915 filled a similar position, and during that time was chairman of the finance commission of the town. In 1914 he was elected for a four year term as chairman of the board of county commissioners of Edgecombe County and is still filling that office. An active democrat, he was a delegate from North Carolina to the National Democratic Convention at Baltimore in 1912.
Mr. Clark is a director of the Farmers Banking & Trust Company of Tarboro and is president of the Cotton Belt Land Company. He is a member of the board of trustees of the Thompson Orphan- age at Charlotte, North Carolina, and a member of the Tar Heel Club.
April 17, 1901, he married Ruth Hardistry, of Prince George County, Maryland. They have two children, William Grimes, Jr., and John Hardisty.
MARION LESLIE DAVIS after a brilliant univer- sity career was admitted to the bar August 27, 1906, and has since been located at Beaufort. Professional honors as well as political have come to him in generous measure and his is one of the recognized names in North Carolina public life today.
He was born at Beaufort August 9, 1879, a son of John D. and Narcissa Elizabeth (Webb) Davis. His people were in comfortable circumstances and he was liberally educated, at first in the Beaufort grammar and high schools and afterwards in Wake Forest College, where he was graduated A. B. in 1905. Besides his high standing in scholarship Mr. Davis became a leader in a number of student activities at Wake Forest. He was president of the Young Men's Christian Association in 1904, was senior speaker in 1905, commencement orator, was member of the College Glee Club from 1903 to 1906, of the orchestra for two years, was senior critic of the Phi Society 1904-05, chief marshal of the Phi Society anniversary in 1904, was as- sistant keeper of rolls in 1903-05, and assistant in the Department of History the year following his graduation. He was also a member of the Phil- omathesian Society.
Mr. Davis continued his law studies in Wake Forest and was graduated LL. B. in 1906. Both before and since his admission to the bar he has enjoyed positions of trust and responsibility in his home city. He served as alderman of Beaufort in 1901-03 and city clerk in 1903. He was town attorney from 1907 to 1909 and county attorney
from 1907 to 1910, and in 1912 was again elected county attorney. He served as trustee of the Beaufort graded schools and secretary from their organization in 1909 until the day before election in 1910.
In 1907 Mr. Davis was a representative from Carteret County in the general assembly, and was a member of the State Senate from 1911 to 1913. He has been one of the ablest leaders of the demo- cratic party in the county. He was a member of the Third Judicial Executive Committee 1908 to 1910, again in 1912, and was secretary of the com- mittee from 1908 to 1910.
Mr. Davis is a past master of Franklin Lodge No. 109, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Woodmen of the World and the Supreme Knights of Harmony. For a number of years he served as deacon of the Baptist church and chair- man of the board of trustees, for eight years was superintendent of the Sabbath school and in 1908- 09 was vice moderator and in November, 1909, be- came moderator of the Neuse-Atlantic Baptist As- sociation. In 1910-11 he served as president of the Wake Forest College Alumni Association. Mr. Davis married Miss Ruth Ivey.
ELISHA BETTS LEWIS. The name Lewis has for a great many years figured prominently in North Carolina educational circles. Elisha Betts Lewis, of Kinston, has been prominent in educational af- fairs. For a number of years he has been an active executive official in fraternal organizations.
Mr. Lewis was born in Halifax County, Virginia, December 4, 1867, and has lived in North Carolina practically since he was four years of age. He is a son of Dr. Richard Henry and Eleanor (Betts) Lewis. His father was a physician and educator and was for several years before his death in 1917 the oldest living graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and also of the University of North Carolina.
Doctor Lewis taught school forty-four years in North Carolina and Elisha B. Lewis was educated under his father's direction at Wake Forest Col- lege and the University of North Caholina. In 1889 he became principal of the Asheville, North Carolina, public schools and remained there until 1894. While there he was granted a leave of absence to take special courses in Cook County, Illinois (Chicago), and in 1895 he finished the course in the University of North Carolina. From Asheville Mr. Lewis went west to Arizona as a public school teacher, and while there became con- nected with the United States Interior Depart- ment as Indian agent. He also spent a year in Montana on a ranch and as a teacher. From the far West he was called East as special instructor in geography in the Browning School of New York City.
Returning to North Carolina, Mr. Lewis was superintendent of the Concord Schools one year, and then removed to Kinston, where for one year he was city clerk. In 1900 he became private sec- retary to Congressman Claude Kitchin of the Sec- ond Congressional District. He has been asso- ciated with Congressman Kitchin as secretary ever since, and has spent much of his time in Wash- ington.
In 1903 Mr. Lewis was elected a member of the Sovereign Executive Council of the Woodmen of the World, and since 1905 has been state manager for that order. He was also active in the Junior Order of United American Mechanics and for six years has served as its national representative.
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Mr. Lewis is a Knight Templar Mason, a mem- ber of Soudan Temple of the Mystic Shrine, and was appointed grand steward of the Grand Lodge of Masons in North Carolina. In local affairs he is now serving as secretary of the Kinston Cham- ber of Commerce and the Kinston Fair Asso- ciation.
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