USA > North Carolina > History of North Carolina: North Carolina biography, Volume VI > Part 56
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to work to rebuild their ruined business. It was discouraging work at first, but they gradually made headway, and as better and more settled conditions returned to the South this business be- gan to grow and again to prosper. They began to extend their trade to the rich cotton growing sections of Richmond, and what is now Scotland County of North Carolina and Marlboro County, South Carolina, especially to Bennettsville, the county seat of the last named. The price of cotton was high in those years, that section was especially prosperous, and on the first Monday of each month, the great sales day at Bennettsville, Mr. Tyson and Mr. Jones were always there with a long string of new vehicles for sale, which they had brought down from Carthage, one coupled behind another and pulled by horses over the long, sand roads. It required about a week's time to make the trip to Bennettsville and return, but they sold the output of the factory in this way, and brought back to Carthage the money to pay their men and extend their business, and it was this business that laid the foundation of their success in later years. The factory was kept busy and more men employed from time to time. In the year 1873 Messrs. Tyson and Jones bought Mr. Kelly's interest in the busi- ness and changed the name to Tyson & Jones, a name that has become known wherever vehicles are sold or used throughout the South. About this time Mr. Jones, who had made several busi- ness trips to the Northern cities to study condi- tions in the large factories there, became con- vinced that the day for the use of machinery in manufacturing had arrived, and that it was ab- solutely necessary for Tyson & Jones to use ma- chinery to meet competition, so an order was made for the purchase of a steam engine and boiler, saws, planers, drills and other machines. All this was shipped to Jonesboro, the nearest railroad point, and hauled on wagous to Carthage. Its arrival attracted more attention from the natives than would the unloading of a circus today. A large new building had been erected for the pur- pose and this new and wonderful machinery was in- stalled therein by a trained machinist from Balti- more, especially brought down for that purpose. This equipped the factory to turn out its work more rapidly, and its trade was accordingly ex- tended to other nearby points in the state and in South Carolina.
The business was not without its trials. In 1878 all the shop foremen and a number of the best workmen resigned their positions and left the service of the firm to form a rival and com- petitive company, and attempted by underselling methods to put the older concern out of business, and did succeed in injuring them for a time, but the new company was soon in financial difficulties and lasted for only a few years. Most of its men returned to the employment of Tyson & Jones.
In 1878 the railroad, now known as the Sea- board Air Line, was completed from Raleigh as far South as Cameron, and the latter place became the shipping point for Tyson & Jones and for Carthage-a great advantage, as it required a wagon haul of only ten miles, as against the former twenty miles from Jonesboro. The business thus expanded rapidly and new territory was opened for the sale of vehicles in various parts of North and South Carolina and even to the State of Georgia. Between 1880 and 1887 some new build- ings were erected, new machinery purchased and more men employed. An annual catalog was issued and business done in a wholesale way. In 1887 the
first railroad to Carthage was built, the line from Cameron to Carthage. Tyson & Jones and T. B. Tyson & Son were large subscribers to the build- ing fund. With the coming of this road the great expense and loss of time of the long wagon hauls was at an end, and for the first time in its long history the factory was placed on an equal basis with its competitors, and the railroad connection gave a great advantage in the future development of the business. The plant at this time was com- posed entirely of wooden buildings, roughly con- structed, and constantly filled and surrounded with stacks of lumber and other inflammable material, a very dangerous combination, but they never had a fire or a loss from fire of any kind.
In January, 1889, Mr. Tyson and Mr. Jones de- termined to try the corporation form of doing busi- ness, and a charter was secured for a corporation to be known as the Tyson & Jones Buggy Company, Mr. Tyson and Mr. Joues being the principal stockholders, the latter being president. Better buildings and equipment were supplied, a water system was installed and general improvements made in every direction. During all these years Mr. Thomas B. Tyson (1) continued his mercantile business, in partnership with his son, Lucien P. . Tyson, with energy and success. He was con- sidered one of the wealthiest citizens of the county, a successful and progressive man of affairs, and a man who made and held as large a circle of friends as any man who ever lived in this section, His death occurred in 1893. His mercantile interest was left to his son, Lucien P. Tyson, and his in- terest in the Tyson & Jones Buggy Company to his grandson, Thomas B. Tyson (II), who was then secretary and treasurer of the company, and who later became its president.
Lucien Person Tyson, son of Thomas B. Tyson, was born December 31, 1842. In 1860, at the age of seventeen years, he entered the University of North Carolina as a student. At the opening of the Civil war in 1861 he left the University and gave up his studies, to join the Confederate army. He was appointed first sergeant in Company H, the first company from Moore County, in the famous 26th Regiment of North Carolina In- fantry. His principal service in the first years of the war was in Eastern North Carolina, espe- cially in the battles around Newbern, when his regiment became part of the force defending that section against the invading Federal armies.
He was married in 1864 to Miss Nannie Marsh, daughter of Captain James F. Marsh of Fayette- ville. From this marriage was born a son, who was named for his grandfather, Thomas Bethune Tysou (II). Mrs. Tyson died in December, 1868, and her infant son was adopted by his. grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. T. B. Tyson, Sr.
Mr. Lucien P. Tyson was engaged for a time in the gold mining business in the western part of Moore County, then a promising field, but later returned to Carthage and entered the mercantile business with his father. After a few years he was married the second time, to Miss Eliza Jane Smith, who survives him, and to this union were boru two sons, Ralph L. Tyson and Lucien P. Tyson, Jr. He remained in the mercantile busi- ness for the rest of his life, succeeding to the entire business of T. B. Tyson & Son on the death of his father in 1893, and conducted that part of the Tyson interests until he retired from business. He was also vice president of the Ty- son & Jones Buggy Company from 1889 until 1907, and took an active interest in its affairs.
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He was one of the principal promoters, in 1887 and 1888, in the building of the new railroad to Carthage. He also built the large Tyson Hotel at Carthage and made his home there until his death in 1907.
The present head of the Tyson family and the Tyson interests in Carthage is Thomas Bethune Tyson (II), who is now president of the Tyson & Jones Buggy Company. He is the son of Lucien P. Tyson and Nannie (Marsh) Tyson, and was born December 26, 1866. He was reared in an atmosphere of successful merchandising and manufacturing. As a lad he received help and in- spiration by being taken by his grandfather on numerous visits to Washington, Baltimore, Phila- delphia, New York and Boston, and this early contact with the outside world has been of great educational value to him. He received his early school training in the Carthage schools, and in 1882 entered the famous Bingham Military School, now at Asheville, where he was a cadet for three years under Colonel Robert Bingham, a teacher who has been called by a great national magazine "the South's greatest school master." Return- ing to Carthage in 1885, he entered the Tyson mercantile establishment, where he remained for four years.
The manufacturing side of the Tyson interests appealed to him more strongly, however, and in the fall of 1890, and at the request of Mr. Jones, he took a position in the office of the Tyson & Jones Buggy Company. In 1891 he was elected secretary and treasurer of the company, and in 1910, upon the death of Mr. Jones, he was elected president, which position he now holds. He came into the business at a most fortunate time, the period when it was to begin its greatest growth and expansion. In 1895 the company made a large exhibit at the Cotton States Exposition in Atlanta that attracted wide attentiou and proved a splendid advertise- ment for its work. The business at this time was extended to all the Southern states.
In 1898 the company began its permanent build- ing policy, and in a few years the old wooden buildings of the early period were entirely re- placed by the large and substantially constructed brick structures now in use, forming a group of modern factory buildings, fully equipped with the best machinery, heated by steam and lighted by electricity, and protected by an automatic sprinkler system, which gives complete protection against fire.
In 1905 was built another railroad into Carthage, from Pinehurst, giving another valuable connection with the outside world. The Tyson & Jones Buggy Company subscribed for $10,000.00 of the stock of the line, and Mr. Tyson was elected president of the railroad company.
As the foregoing will show, the business of Tyson and Jones has grown from a very small and modest beginning to large proportions. From the small capital originally invested it has grown to its present capital and surplus of more than $150,- 000.00; from the little wooden buildings and primi- tive tools of 1857, to the splendid brick structures and modern machinery of today; from the local trade then, to the wholesale field of today that covers the South. This is a "manufacturing" plant where the entire work is designed and pro- duced from the raw wood up, not an "assembling" plant of other peoples' work, as are so many of the so-called vehicle factories of this section. And the output is the best that can be produced by
long experience, skilled workmen and modern equip- ment.
Mr. Tyson was first married in 1889, to Miss Nannie Moss Phillips. She died in February, 1897, leaving two children, Claude Phillips Tyson and Mary Glenn Tyson. Mr. Tyson's oldest son, Claude, graduated from the Bingham Military School at Asheville, in 1907, and followed this course for three years, at the University of North Carolina, and then filled a responsible position in his father's office until. the United States entered the World war. He is now in the Ordnance Corps of the American Army. Miss Mary Glenn Tyson is a graduate of St. Mary's School at Raleigh.
On October 2, 1901, Mr. Tyson was married to Miss Evelyn Burwell, of Henderson, North Caro- lina. She is a member of the well-known Burwell family of Virginia and North Carolina, whose history goes back to colonial times in both states. Four interesting children have been born to this mion, namely: Thomas Burwell, now at the Bing- ham Military School, Evelyn Randolph, Robert Marsh and Dorothy.
In 1907 Mr. Tyson built the present Tyson home in Carthage, on the site of his grandfather's original home, and this beautiful residence is said to be one of the finest examples of colonial archi- tecture to be found in the state of North Carolina. Mr. Tyson is prominently connected with every movement for the up-building and development of his section. He is president of the Board of Trade, and chairman of the board of trustees of the Carthage Graded School, and is much interested in the work of this fine school. He possesses all the good qualities of his worthy ancestors, and is a sterling representative of this fine old Moore County family.
J. BUREN O'BRIEN is a young man who has made his mark in the world both as a farmer and business man in Richmond County, Mr. O'Brien represents some very old American stock, of Irish origin, and his aucestry in its different branches have been identified with Richmond County and this section of North Carolina for over a century.
One of the most interesting stories of accom- plishment in the building up and improvement of North Carolina agricultural resources is contained in the life record of his father, Elijah Bascom O'Brien. This story was so well aud pointedly told in a pamphlet that had a wide circulation re- cently that it deserves repetition practically in the form in which it originally appeared.
In 1884 Elijah Bascom O'Brien, then aged twenty-six, inherited a one-seventh interest in a 246-acre plantation in Richmond County. The property, naturally poor and rolling, was badly run down, and Mr. O'Brien was forced to com- mence operations with no cash capital and only one mule for working stock. He was married and lived at first in a little log shanty that is still standing by the side of a splendid elm tree that he planted himself. His only other building was a rude lean- to which served as his barn and shelter for his mule. He commenced farming fifteen acres of land in corn, wheat, oats and cotton. From the outset he planted cowpeas profusely and did not attempt to grow corn or cotton on land that had not previously been in this splendid, soil improv- ing crop. He used little fertilizer, none under his peas, about 200 pounds per acre under his cotton, and practically none under his corn.
From 1884 to 1892 he estimates his yield to have
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been as follows: Cotton, one-third of a bale to the acre; corn, eight to ten bushels. After 1892, by increasing his fertilizer to 400 pounds under his cotton, he got yields of two-thirds of a bale; and by using about 250 pounds of cottonseed meal fertilizer under his corn, yields of from twenty to thirty bushels. For the last five years he has made bale to the acre, with five hundred pounds of fer- tilizer, always following cowpeas. His greatest crop of corn was forty bushels to the acre on four acres in 1907, using 450 pounds of fertilizer. It will be noted that Mr. O'Brien made good yields with very much less fertilizer than is the average in this section.
With the exception of one year, when Mr. O'Brien took a contract to maintain a road at twelve dollars and a half a month, he has done no work for wages off his farm. He has raised all his own supplies on the farm, and sold milk, butter, hogs and sweet potatoes as well as lint cotton. He has kept from ten to twenty head of cows, and has a good lowland pasture in Bermuda and native grasses. The cotton mills at Roberdell, a few miles away, have afforded a good market for his milk and butter, though he has marketed the but- ter principally, feeding the milk to hogs, which have also provided him with a good source of in- come. Sweet potatoes have also proved a good money crop. In 1913 he harvested 500 bushels on two and a half acres. He has had no difficulty in preserving these during the winter, and has al- ways secured a good price for those he did not consume at home. Mr. O'Brien has today a com- fortable two-story house with an extensive addi- tion, and estimates his property to be worth more than ten thousand dollars.
A valuable part of his record, emphasized in the article from which the above is a quotation, was that besides making a living and improving a badly run down plantation Mr. O'Brien reared and edu- cated a family of twelve children, eight daughters and four sons. But before going into this part of the record something should be said of his ances- try and the family lineage.
Elijah Bascom O'Brien was born in 1858 on the O'Brien plantation, not far from where he now re- sides, in Mineral Springs township of Richmond County. This place is about seven miles north of Rockingham. As already noted, this is one of the very old families of Richmond County. It was founded in this county by Lawrence, better known as Larry, O'Brien, a native of Ireland. Lawrence O'Brien, great-great-grandfather of Elijah Bas- com, came to this section of North Carolina in 1774. He had the courage and all the fighting qualities of the true Irishman, and was a Revolutionary pa- triot in the War of Independence from England. After the war he and his sons were awarded grants of land in Richmond County. Thus the O'Briens have been identified with Mineral Springs town- ship for nearly a century and a half. Elijah Bas- com O'Brien is a son of Dennis O'Brien, a grand- son of John O'Brien, and a great-grandson of Tillotson O'Brien. Dennis O'Brien married Martha J. Lovin. Hers is another large and influential family of Richmond County. By intermarriage the different generations of the O'Briens have be- come related to practically all the prominent names in Richmond and adjoining counties.
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Elijah Bascom O'Brien married Lucy E. Bur- roughs. They have given the best of educational advantages to their large family of children, and all of them do honor to their parents. Four of the daughters arc married and their husbands are
among the most substantial young men of Rich- mond County.
The oldest son is Mr. J. Buren O'Brien, first mentioned above. He was born on his father's place in Mineral Springs township in 1885. He acquired a liberal education and besides the ad vantages of the local schools attended the South- ern Industrial Institute at Charlotte and the Uni- versity of North Carolina. At the State Univer- sity he studied pharmacy with a view to entering the drug business and he took up that line of con- mercial endeavor at Rockingham, where he has been a resident since leaving college. The drug business proved too confining for his health, and he went to farming. He runs one of the high class farms of Richmond County. It is a seven-horse farm, and it shows the result of some of the pro- pressive enterprise which he exemplified in emu- lation of his father's substantial success.
Mr. O'Brien does not give his active attention to his farm but to his extensive real estate busi- ness in Rockingham. He is a dealer in farm lands and timber lands. Mr. O'Brien is secretary of the Richmond County Fair, and is secretary and man- ager of the Carolina Realty and Auction Company, which conducts sales of real property on a large scale. As a public spirited young business man of Rockingham he has naturally been called to posts of honor and responsibility. For two or three years he was deputy clerk of the Superior Court for the county and in the general election of 1916 was elected County Treasurer. However, he did not serve in that office. This was due to the fact that after lie was elected the Legislature abolished the office of county treasurer.
Mr. O'Brien married Miss Frances Steadman Smith of Fayetteville. She is a daughter of New- ton H. and Sallie (Steadman) Smith. She is also a niece of Major Charles M. Steadman, member of Congress from the Greensboro District. Mr. and Mrs. O'Brien have two children: Frances Stead- man and Lucy Cooper O'Brien.
FREDERICK CHRISTIAN TOEPLEMAN, whose death in April, 1918, was widely recorded both in this state and elsewhere, was a veteran in the tele- phone industry of America. It was a matter of personal health that brought Mr. Toepleman to Henderson, North Carolina, in 1895. While re- cuperating, he formulated the plans and as a thor- oughly qualified and experienced man in the tele- phone field became one of the three who organized the Henderson Telephone Company.
The direct outgrowth of this was the Carolina and Virginia Telephone Company, and finally in 1903 the various interests that had accumulated in the meantime were consolidated as the Home Tele- phone Company. Mr. Toepleman was vice presi- dent and general manager of this corporation. At the beginning the Henderson Exchange had fifty- five subscribers. The company now has in opera- tion 8,000 telephones, 31 exchanges, and its toll lines cover 3,000 miles. The original capital of the little local company was $3,000, and the cor- poration now is capitalized at $1,000,000.
Frederick Christian Toepleman was born at Mil- waukee, Wisconsin, November 5, 1868, and his wide range of experience and achievements was encompassed in a period of less than fifty years. His parents were Christian Frederick and Amelia Elizabeth (Pentler) Toepleman, the former a dyer and chemist. The son was educated in the public schools of Janesville, Wisconsin, and also had the advantage of three years in German technical
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schools. He took an electrical engineering course in Purdue University at Lafayette, Indiana.
His first regular employment was as a night operator for a telephone company at wages of $5 a month. Later he became district manager for the Wisconsin Telephone Company, and then went south to take an executive position with the South- ern Bell Telephone Company at Birmingham, Alabama. From that point he came to Hender- son.
Mr. Toepleman was also a director of the Citi- zens Bank of Henderson, a director of the Corbitt Motor Truck Company and a director and vice president of the Highland Home Realty Company. He was one of the organizers, the first president and at the time of his death chief executive of the Chamber of Commerce in Henderson. He served as a vestryman of the Episcopal Church and was prominent in Masonry and the Knights of Pythias, being one of the organizers of Sudan Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Newbern.
November 11, 1903, Mr. Toepleman married Miss Clara Della Crain, of Nevada, Iowa. Their only son and child, Frederick Leroy, born February 10, 1895, was educated in the public schools and in Bingham Military School at Asheville, and after- wards in the Agricultural and Mechanical College at Raleigh. He is now serving with the rank of lieutenant in the American army.
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EDWARD P. WHARTON. The sound judgment and quickening energy of Edward P. Wharton has entered so intimately into the larger business life and. affairs of Greensboro and the state that few of the larger institutions of that city could be mentioned which have not at some time been vitally benefited by his ability and influence.
Mr. Wharton was born on a farm in Gilmer Township near Greensboro and represents a long line of substantial American ancestors. His grandfather three times removed was Hinton Wat- son, a native of England who came to America in early colonial days and settled in Maryland. Mr. Wharton's great-great-grandfather was Wat- son Wharton, who came from Maryland to North Carolina and located in what is now Guilford County, where he spent the rest of his days and where some of his descendants are still found and others are scattered over many localities. The great-grandparents of Mr. Wharton were Elisha and Elizabeth (Schoolfield) Wharton. His grand- parents were James and Jane (Rankin) Wharton. James Wharton owned and occupied a plantation near Alamance Church, and operated it with slave labor. He was a successful business man. John C. Wharton, father of Edward P., was quite young when his father died and at the age of twelve years he moved to the farm near Greensboro which was his inheritance and where he continued farming life until the age of sixty-four. He then removed to Greensboro and lived retired until his death in his ninety-second year. He married Re- becca Rankin, who was born in Guilford County, daughter of Robert and Margaret (Scott) Rankin, granddaughter of John and Hannah (Carron) Rankin and great-granddaughter of Robert Ran- kin, who was born in the North of Ireland and came to America accompanied by his family about 1745, settling near Philadelphia and living there until his death. His son John came to North Caro- lina in 1764. settling in the east part of what is now Guilford County and where he secured a large tract of land bordering on Buffalo Creek. Later he divided this land with his brother, and a por-
tion of it is still owned by their descendants. Rebecca Rankin Wharton died at the age of sixty- two. She reared eight children : Alice, Mary, Emma and Lizzie, twins, Jesse, Edward P., Annie and William.
Edward P. Wharton grew up in the country dis- trict, attended rural schools and also the graded schools of Greensboro, and had habits of industry and thrift early inculcated into his character. He worked on the farm and his first regular occupa- tion was farming. Undoubtedly one of the chief elements in his successful career has been an ambi- tion and faculty of doing things a little better than others and in advance of the accepted standards of the time. Thus while he was a farmer and dairy- man he set a standard of progressiveness unknown at that time to this local agricultural district. He was the first to establish a milk route in Greens- boro and distribute milk to regular customers. As far back as 1880, which seems ancient history, he erected the first silo ever built in North Carolina.
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