USA > North Carolina > History of North Carolina: North Carolina biography, Volume VI > Part 53
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Although Mr. Davis' natural inclination was towards the legal profession, his early efforts were directed to a business rather than a professional career. He was a student of the Cape Fear Acad- emy at Wilmington for many years and, at the age of sixteen, became a clerk in the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company's offices and re- mained in the service of that corporation until 1898. In that year he enlisted in the army of the United States for service in the Spanish-Americau war, going out as sergeant-major with the Second North Carolina Regiment.
When he was mustered out of the service his hereditary bent asserted itself and he became a student of the law under the careful direction of his father, and completed his course in the law department of the University of North Carolina in June, 1900. Admitted to the bar in 1900, he became associated with his father in the practice in June, 1902, under the firm name of Davis & Davis and immediately entered upon a very full and active practice in the courts of North Carolina, both state and Federal, and soon became one of the most skillful and best known practitioners at the Wilmington bar, and was actively. connected with much of the most important litigation in his sec- tion of the state. The health of his father became so impaired in 1915 that he was compelled to retire from the practice of law, and in January, 1916, George Rountree having resigned the Superior Court Bench, the firm of Rountree, Davis & Carr was organized and enjoyed a large and important practice for a year. On January 1, 1917, that firm was dissolved because Mr. J. O. Carr had been appointed United States district attorney, and it was succeeded by the firm of Rountree & Davis, consisting of George Rountree and Thomas W. Davis.
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Mr. Davis was division counsel of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company before the forma- tion of his partnership, and the firm of Rountree & Davis is now division counsel for that company. That firm is also attorney for, and Mr. Davis is a director in, the Tide Water Power Company, and the firm is attorney for insurance companies, fer- tilizer companies, and other important industrial enterprises.
He is a member of the American Bar Associa- tion and since 1906 has been secretary and treas- urer of the North Carolina Bar Association. He is president of the Cape Fear Club, a member of the Cape Fear Country Club, the Columbia Coun- try Club of Washington, D. C., and the Carolina Yacht Club.
On September 13, 1918, he received a commis- sion as major in the judge advocate general's de- partment of the United States army, and imme- diately assumed the duties of the office.
On November 14, 1905, Mr. Davis married Anna McKay Peck, daughter of the late George A. and Elizabeth Peck, of Wilmington, North Carolina.
CHARLES MOORE STRONG, M. D. The debt owed by mankind to the profession of medicine and surgery is one that cannot be fully discharged, nor should it be regarded lightly, for from the men connected with this vocation have come the most illuminating truths regarding the race and the methods to be followed in curative and preventive measures. The life of the physician and surgeon is one of constant self-sacrifice. Unlike almost every other man, he cannot end his day's work with the setting of the sun, nor can he look for- ward to nights of untroubled slumber. In his hands are life and death, and the summons is liable to come at any moment for him to assist in bring- ing into the world a new soul, or to snatch from the grave one whose sands of life are running low. It is little wonder that the doctor grows gray in the service, and that his shoulders bend beneath the responsibilities placed upon him, and yet it is but seldom that any one of the profession com- plains. In fact, the majority seem sustained by some inner fire; devoting themselves, their bodily strength, as well as their intellectual vigor, in as- sisting others, and thus it is that they are held in such grateful affection by those whom they have attended in the time of dire need.
In this class is found Dr. Charles Moore Strong, one of the most prominent of the physicians and surgeons of Charlotte. He has devoted nearly thirty years to his honored calling, and has be- come particularly well known in the field of surgery, in which branch of his calling he has gain- ed a reputation which extends far beyond the im- mediate limits of his community. Doctor Strong was born in Steele Creek Township, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, in 1862, and is a son of Dr. John Mason and Eleanor ( Harris) Strong.
The family comes from the same stock from which sprang Sir Christopher Strong of London, and on coming to America first located in Pennsyl- vania, from whence they removed to South Caro- lina, where resided the paternal grandfather of Doctor Strong, John Moore Strong. Judge Strong, of the Supreme Court of North Carolina, was a relative of this family. Dr. John Mason Strong, who died in 1898, at the age of eighty years, was born in 1818, in York County, South Carolina. He received a splendid classical and professional education, secured his Bachelor of Arts degree from Washington College of Pennsylvania, and
studied medicine at Jeffersou Medical College, Philadelphia, from which he was duly graduated with his degree. He had also previously to this studied medicine at the old Charleston (South Carolina ) Medical College, which was in itself a famous school in its day. In 1848 Doctor Strong located in Steele Creek Township, Mecklenburg County, where he practiced medicine continuously for a period of half a century, with the exception of the period of the war between the States, wnen he was serving as a surgeon in the Confederate Army. Doctor Strong was a fine type of the old Southern physician and gentleman, a grand man of his age and community, a strong character, but kindly and generous, and greatly beloved by the people among whom he practiced. As a prac- titioner he was firm, yet gentle, resolute though sympathetic. Never hesitating to adopt heroic measures when necessary, he ever brought to the bedside of the sufferer his own gentle nature. Doc- tor Strong was a member of the North Carolina secession couvention that met at Releigh in the spring of 1861, and at a great personal sacrifice entered the Coufederate Army at the opening of the war and did valiant service as a surgeon with several regiments that went out of Mecklenburg County. The greater part of his service was under General Hoke. Doctor Strong married Eleanor Harris, who was of Irish ancestry, a daughter of Dr. Charles Moore Harris, of York County, South Carolina, one of the leading physicians of his day.
After securing a good literary training Charles Moore Strong studied medicine in the University of Maryland Medical School, from which he was graduated in 1888, and soon thereafter began prac- ticing medicine in Steele Creek Township with ltis father. Later he located at Charleston, where he las since risen to high rank in his calling. He took post-graduate work quite extensively in the New York Polyclinic in 1891, and since then prac- tically every year he has attended clinics and post- graduate schools in various cities of the North and East, and in hospitals in London, Berlin and Vienna. Doctor Strong's work is confined almost exclusively to surgery, in which branch of his pro- fession he has achieved a degree of eminence that is indeed gratifying. He is an indefatigable work- er, as well as a constant student and close and careful investigator, and everything that he does is accomplished with thoroughness and efficiency. He is a member of the County, State and Southern Medical Societies and the American Medical As- sociation, and a Fellow of the American College of Surgery. For twelve or thirteen years the Medical College of North Carolina was conducted at Char- lotte, a high grade institution in which Doctor Strong was one of the leading spirits and in which he had the chair of abdominal surgery and diseases of women. A younger brother of Doctor Strong, Dr. William Strong, is also a well-known member of the medical profession of Charlotte.
Doctor Strong married Miss Kate Miller, of York County, South Carolina, and they are the parents of one son, Charles Moore Strong, Jr.
DR. OREN MOORE, who is engaged in practice at Charlotte with his uncle, Dr. Charles Moore Strong, is one of the younger members of the profession who has already made a distinct impression upon the people of this city. He was born at Pineville, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, in 1886, a son of W. F. and Elva (Strong) Moore, the latter being a sister of Doctor Strong. The Moore fam- ily came from South Carolina, and is of Irish and
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English ancestry. On coming to America the fam- ily first located in Pennsylvania and went thence to South Carolina, at a period long before the out- break of the Revolutionary war, Major James Moore was an ancestor of Doctor Moore and a distinguished Revolutionary patriot of South Caro- lina. He was a Militia Captain at the outbreak of hostilities, and for conspicuous bravery shown in saving the day for the patriots at Huck's defeat, known as the battle of Brattensville, was commis- sioned a Major in the regular Continental line.
Previous to his medical studies, Doctor Moore received a thorough preliminary education at Dav- idson College. He studied medicine at the Medical College of North Carolina at Charlotte, from which he was graduated with the class of 1911, and since that time has been engaged in the practice of his profession here. He has also taught in the Medical College of North Carolina, where for a time he held the chair of medical diseases of women. Doctor Moore is a splendid type of the thorough, efficient, ambitious young physician and surgeon. Like Doctor Strong, his work runs largely to surgery, in which he displays splendid skill and a technique that is the cause of much praise being bestowed upon him from older men in the profession who have observed his methods. Doctor Moore is con- stantly alert to the progress made in medicine and surgery, attends clinics in the larger cities, par- ticularly when some new surgical method is being demonstrated, and in a general way keeps himself in touch not only with the literature but with the personal werk and experiences of the leading lights of the profession. He is a consistent at- tendant of the meetings of the leading medical as- sociations, in which he holds membership.
Doctor Moore married Miss Louise Murphy, of Union, South Carolina, and they are the parents of one son, Oren, Jr.
JAMES EDWIN LATHAM has fairly and justly earned a place among the big and dominant leaders in the business and industrial life of North Carolina. It would be difficult to enumerate even all the varied important interests that engage his attention in a single day. Some of the best known business organizations and industrial institutions in the state get much of their guiding power and direction from this business man whose home and headquarters are at Greensboro.
He was born on a farm in Stony Creek Town- ship, Wayne County, North Carolina, son of Nor- fleet Franklin and Nancy Belle (Gardner) Latham. . His mother was a daughter of Josiah Gardner. The grandfathers, James Latham and Josiah Gardner, were planters and prior to the war had slaves that cultivated the fields. Nor- fleet F. Latham entered the Confederate army soon after the breaking out of the war, went to the front with his command, and was ready and prompt to discharge every duty and obligation as a soldier until the close of the war. He then returned to the farm in Wayne County. That section had been visited by both armies, the live- stock had been taken away, the fences destroyed, and altogether it was a scene of desolation such as perhaps only the people of Northern France at this time can possibly appreciate. Norfleet F. Latham had much of the energy and resolution which has distinguished his son. He started in to recuperate his losses and he lived to enjoy a modest competence and see his sons reared in habits of industry and occupying useful places
in the world. These sons are Joseph M., Thomas R. and James Edwin.
The early life of James E. Latham was spent in the environment of his father's farm and country neighborhood. He attended country school, graded school at Goldsboro, and gained his first business experience as clerk in a hardware store in that city. He remained a clerk four years, when ill health obliged him to resign. He then took up the business of cotton buyer at Newbern. He had to overcome the handicap of being a comparative stranger in a new community and having to acquire the confidence of business men in his judgment. The first year he handled only about 1,500 bales. The business grew slowly but steadily and in 1904 he removed to Greensboro. Here from the first he has been an important factor in the business affairs of the city and surrounding territory.
His primary interests all these years have been the cotton business. In 1910 he organized the J. E. Latham Company, of which he became president. In 1917 he organized the Latham- Bradshaw Cotton Company to take over the cotton business of the J. E. Latham Company, which later corporation continues primarily to handle and develop real estate. Mr. Latham is also president of the Latham-Bradshaw Com- pany, which now handles upwards of 200,000 bales of cotton per year and sells to all the cotton markets of the world. It has agencies at Decatur, Alabama, Atlanta, Macon, Griffin, Elberton, Toccoa, in Georgia, Columbia, South Carolina, Clayton, North Carolina, Norfolk, Virginia, and also in New York City.
Mr. Latham is vice president of the Greensboro Warehouse and Storage Company. Next to Wil- mington this company has the largest warehouse in North Carolina. The capacity of its plant is 40,000 bales of cotton. Mr. Latham is presi- dent of the Pomona Mills, manufacturing cotton yarns and cloth; is president of the Latham Mills Company, incorporated, which has just com- pleted a mill for the manufacture of hosiery; is vice president and director and member of the Executive Committee of the Jefferson Standard Life Insurance Company, the largest life insurance company south of Philadelphia; a director and member of the executive board of the Dixie Fire Insurance Company at Greensboro, the largest fire insurance company in the South. In addition to these varied enterprises, all of which receive the full impetus of his energy and judgment, Mr. Latham has holdings that would identify him readily as one of the biggest farmers and stock- men in the state. His farm is located near Mebane in Alamance County and is known as the Lake Latham Stock Farm. It is the home of some of the finest specimens of Hereford cattle and Berkshire and Duroe hogs to be found anywhere in the state. Mr. Latham has not only made his farm valuable to demonstrate the value of high grade livestock to the farmers of North Carolina, but has contributed something in other practical lines to the agricultural resources of the state. He has carried on extensive experiments with different grasses for pasturage, and the result of these experiments, kept up at considerable expense to himself, has been freely published for the benefit of stockmen in the state. . Mr. Latham has also propagated different kinds of farm seeds and has produced what is known as Lake Latham Prolific
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Corn, recognized as one of the standard varieties of that staple throughout this section of the South.
The J. E. Latham Company owns some extensive tracts of land adjacent to the City of Greensboro. They are spending large sums of money in develop- ing this for suburban homes. A landscape gar- dener has been employed in the work, and a number of miles of fine streets of concrete, asphalt and sand and clay have been constructed. Fisher Park, a beautiful suburb of Greensboro, contains part of the company's holdings.
Mr. Latham is ex-president of the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce, is a member of the Mer- chauts and Manufacturers Club, and is a thirty- second degree Scottish Rite Mason and a member of Greensboro Lodge No. 602, Benevolent and Pro- tective Order of Elks. In 1892 he married Miss Maude Moore. Mrs. Latham was born at New- bern, daughter of James W. and Sarah J. Moore. They have two children, Mary Gordon and Edward.
A stranger meeting Mr. Latham on the street might easily identify him as a professional rather than a business man. But his identity becomes clear immediately he enters his office. Probably few friends or strangers ever find him at his desk when he does not have his coat off. He is a worker, and that accounts for the methodical and efficient way in which he handles so many varied enterprises. Greensboro people have always found Mr. Latham charitably inclined and ready to assist any worthy object. While not a member of any church, he is a believer and practices the Golden Rule. Outside of business he finds recreation in nature, in the handling of the soil and its products, and is also a follower of athletic sports.
GEORGE STEELE DEWEY. Among the younger men of North Carolina who have shown unusual fitness for the responsibilties and duties of larger business affairs, one whose position is well as- sured is George Steele Dewey of Goldsboro, who is at the head of several large industries and pub- lic utilities of that city.
A son of Charles and Mary Alice (Steele) Dewey of Goldsboro, he was born in that city August 19, 1881. He had a liberal education as preparation for his life work. He attended the public schools, Guilford College, Randolph-Macon Academy, the Virginia Military Institute, and took his technical courses in Cornell University, where he was graduated in 1905. After leaving uni- versity he found practice for the experience he had gained in university shop and class rooms in the machinery house conducted by his father and his uncle, George Dewey, under the name Dewey Brothers. When this business became Dewey Brothers, Incorporated, in February, 1908, Mr. Dewey assumed the general management of the plant and has since retained that position.
He is also president of the Goldsboro Electric Railway Company and is president of the Sim- mons Forced Draft Company. The energy with which he has prosecuted private business has made him all the more capable and useful in public affairs. He is chairman of the Wayne County Highways Commission, a member of the Board of Trustees of the Goldsboro Public Schools, is for- mer chairman of the Board of Public Works, and is a former vice president and director of the Chamber of Commerce. He belongs to the Algon- quin Club, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.
On November 24, 1908, Mr. Dewey married Jon-
nie Rodgers, of Loudoun, Tennessee. They are the parents of four children: Elizabeth Rhea, George Steele, Jr., Mary Alice and Samuel Rod- gers.
JOHN R. TOLAR. In the industrial history of North Carolina the Tolar name has been most conspicuously identified with the naval stores in- dustry. This is the business which engaged the attention of John R. Tolar of Fayetteville for a number of years, though he is now best known as president of the Tolar, Hart & Holt Cotton Mills at Fayetteville. The Tolar family has touched the life of North Carolina and the South at more than one point. Their deeds and sacrifices as soldiers during the great war between the states furnish an unparalleled record of patriotism in one fam- ily.
The Tolars were English people and early be- came identified with Cumberland County and that section of North Carolina. John R. Tolar's pa- ternal grandfather was Robert Tolar, who had a plantation on the east side of the Cape Fear River in Cumberland County, below Fayetteville. On the old home plantation fifteen miles below Fayette- ville John R. Tolar was born in 1848. He is a son of Capt. William J. and Isabella (McCaskill) Tolar. The MeCaskills were also prominent citizens of Fayetteville and Cumberland County, Isabella MeCaskill being a daughter of John McCaskill.
Capt. William J. Tolar was the oldest of nine sons. These nine brothers were all enrolled at some time or another in the Confederate service during the war between the states. History does not record a greater number of sons in one family as participants in that war and perhaps in any other military conflict to which our nation was a part. One of the most interesting memorials found in the Fayetteville cemetery is a monument com- meinorating the lives and deeds of these nine brothers who faced death and danger in a com- mon cause. By their service Tolar Brothers has become a name imperishable in the history of the South. Two of these brothers are still living: Matthew A., of Valdosta, Georgia, and Alfred H. Tolar, of Houston, Texas. The latter went to Texas soon after the war, settled in the west cen- tral part of the state and engaged in the news- paper business. He also represented a large and important district in the State Legislature, and the Town of Tolar in Hood County was named for him. For the past several years he has lived in Houston. During his service as a soldier he was wounded at the battle of Gettysburg.
Capt. William J. Tolar commanded a company of South Carolina Infantry during the war, and two of his brothers were in South Carolina regiments. The other brothers enlisted from North Carolina, and two of them gave up their lives on Southern battlefields.
Capt. William J. Tolar for many years was ex- tensively engaged in the naval stores business. He was one of the most prominent when that industry was at its height. A short time prior to the open- ing of the war and when the sources of resin and turpentine began to decrease in Cumberland County and vicinity he removed to the more abun- dant field in Horry County, South Carolina, but after the war he moved back to North Carolina and engaged in the mercantile business and in the production of naval stores.
Mr. John R. Tolar spent his boyhood days in Horry County, South Carolina, and was educated
Low. R. Polacy
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in local schools in South Carolina and North Car- olina. In 1872, at the age of twenty-four, he went to New York City and set up there as a commis- sion merchant in naval stores. New York was his home for some years and he still has business in- terests and a residence in that city. For the past ten years Mr. Tolar has spent more than half his time in Fayetteville, which is his home address.
In 1900, with Messrs. Hart and Holt, he built the Tolar, Hart & Holt Cotton Mills at Fayette- ville. He has since 1904 been president and ac- tive manager of this industrial plant, which prob- ably furnishes the biggest revenue from a single source to the welfare and prosperity of that city. The company is capitalized at $300,000 and the plant operates over 15,000 spindles. Its product is hosiery yarns.
There are many other cotton mills in North Caro- lina running a greater number of spindles and with a greater aggregate of production. There are some distinctions enjoyed by the mill and the com- munity which are perhaps more vital and signifi- cant in relation to the industrial welfare and prosperity of the state than mere size. The execu- tive heads of the company have taken justifiable pride in the fact that their mill represents a happy relationship between employers and employees, and the community is frequently spoken of as "The Happy Tolar-Hart Family." The reason for this is not far to seek. The managing officials, includ- ing President Tolar, have done all they reason- ably could for the health, comfort and enjoyment of the working people. Some of these things in- clude such conveniences as sanitary plumbing, running water in every cottage, a nice library building well stocked with readable books, base- ball grounds, children's play grounds, and with every cottage is a vegetable and flower garden. Annual prizes are given to stimulate competition in raising vegetables and flowers and in other mat- ters of community interest. A salaried community worker is employed, and gives her entire time to the comfort, pleasure and uplift of the employe. Such are some of the material facts that account for the welfare of this factory community, and there is in addition a general atmosphere and atti- tude of mutual co-operation and good will that further serves to discourage such things as strikes and labor troubles, and in fact such troubles have been strangers to the Tolar-Hart village com- munity.
This degree of public spirit so well exemplified in the factory village at Fayetteville has gone hand in hand with Mr. Tolar's business activities everywhere. He is united with the interests of Fayetteville by many bonds of family and personal affection and is looked upon as one of the citizens who have most materially influenced this substan- tial and industrial growth.
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