USA > North Carolina > History of North Carolina: North Carolina biography, Volume VI > Part 6
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After an exceptionally successful career at Columbia, in 1901, Mr. Miller returned to Charlotte, where he established himself in business as a cot- ton merchant, under the firm style of Jasper Miller & Son Company. This is one of the important enterprises of Charlotte and has each year done an increasingly large business. As at Columbia, Mr. Miller has taken an active part in all move- ments which have added to the comfort and wel- fare of the people of the community, and has sought to aid other public-spirited citizens in se- curing improvements.
In 1878 Mr. Miller was united in marriage with Miss Minnie F. Howell, of Charlotte, and they have five children: George Lawrence, who is associated in business with his father; Mrs. Harriet Watts; Mrs. Minnie Asbury; Miss Louise; and Stephen A. The offices of the Jasper Miller & Son Com- pany are located at No. 210 East Fifth Street. Stephen A. Miller is now a lieutenant in France. Mrs. Miller died September 18, 1915, and Mr. Miller married the second time. On June 20, 1918, Mrs. Cora Poindexter Penn, widow of the late Richard Haden Penn, a leading lawyer at Bu- chanan, Virginia, became his wife.
JULIUS ISAAC FOUST. Hundreds of teachers as well as men and women in other practical walks of life are indebted for much of their early in- spiration and encouragement as well as technical training to this forceful and able and widely known North Carolina educator. Mr. Foust for many years has been connected as professor and president with the North Carolina State Normal and Industrial College at Greensboro, and his record in general school work in the state covers a period of more than a quarter of a century.
He was born at Graham, Alamance County, North Carolina, November 23, 1865, son of Thomas Carbry and Mary (Robbins) Foust. His pre- liminary education was acquired under private tutors, and entering the University of North Caro- lina he graduated Ph. B. in 1890. He also enjoys the honorary degree of LL. D. His abilities singu- larly qualified him for administrative school work, and in the course of his long and active career he
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HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA
has filled some very important positions. He was principal of schools at Goldsboro from 1890 to 1891, was superintendent of schools of Wilson from 1891 to 1894, and from 1894 to 1902 was superintendent of the city schools of Goldsboro. In the latter year he accepted the chair of Pro- fessor of Pedagogy in the State Normal and In- dustrial College at Greensboro. For a period of sixteen years he has been in direct contact with a large body of the teaching profession in the state.
In 1902 he was president of the North Carolina Association of School Superintendents, and in 1904 was honored with the presidency of the North Carolina Teachers Assembly. He is also a member of the National Education Association and he and his wife are identified with the First Presbyterian church, which he has served as elder.
November 22, 1892, Professor Foust married Sallie M. Price, of Wilson, North Carolina. She was born at Washington, North Carolina, daughter of Henry F. and Laura (Cordon) Price. They are the parents of two children: Henry Price and Mary Robbins. The daughter is a student of the State Normal and Industrial College. The son is an officer in the American National Army, being first lieutenant and at this writing is stationed at Camp Jackson.
W. THOMAS PARROTT, M. D. To no profession are there open greater opportunities of human and social usefulness than to the practitioner of medi- cine. One of the able men of North Carolina who have utilized to a remarkable degree these oppor- tunities is Dr. W. Thomas Parrott of Kinston. Dr. Parrott is a leader in his profession and in cer- tain lines has few pcers in the state.
Dr. Parrott gave Kinston one of its noblest institutions, the Parrott Memorial Hospital, which he served as president for a number of years. He is a former president of the Seaboard Medical Society, and is one of the well known members of the Southern Medical Association, the Tri-State Medical Association, and the North Carolina State Medical Society.
Dr. Parrott was born in Falling Creek Township of Lenoir County, September 11, 1875. He was a small boy when his father died, and he and his widowed mother removed to Kinston, where he attended the local schools in preparation for col- lege. In 1893 he entered the academic depart- ment of the State University, where he remained two years. Seeking an opportunity for self sup- port, he became clerk in a drug store, and from a practical knowledge of drugs and pharmacy the ambition grew upon him to become a physician. He spent three years in the drug store and then entered and graduated with the degree Ph. G. from the Maryland College of Pharmacy at Baltimore. A few months later he enrolled as a regular med- ical student in the University of Maryland. Dur- ing his summer vacations he practiced medicine with his brother. In order to have the opportuni- ties of a Southern clinical training he took his last course at Tulane University in Louisiana. While at New Orleans he gave special attention to the treatment of tropical and sub-tropical diseases, and during his active practice he has become more and more recognized as a specialist in tropical maladies.
Dr. Parrott. when he graduated from Tulane University in the spring of 1899, was the young- est member of a class of one hundred and four. teen. Soon afterward he was granted a state
license at the Asheville meeting of the State Board and began practice at Kinston. Dr. Parrott has since increased his general equipment and expe- rience by extended courses both at home and abroad. In 1900 he was in New York City and in 1902 went abroad, receiving a diploma for work in the London Polyclinic and taking special work at the Ormond Street Hospital for Children. At regular intervals since he has attended clinics and the schools of leading medical centers in this country.
Doctor Parrott served for a time as superin- tendent of Health of Lenoir County, and was for- merly surgeon of the Second Regiment, North Caro- lina National Guard, with the rank of captain, and retired from the service with the rank of major. He is now surgeon of the Kinston Fire Depart- ment and surgeon for the Norfolk and Southern Railroad Company. He was instrumental in help- ing with the plan for the Robert Bruce McDaniel Memorial Hospital at Kinston and has always been generous of his time and ability in promoting such institutions and the preparation and equip- ment of others for hospital work. Doctor Parrott is a member of the Christian Church. He has written a number of articles which have been read before the North Carolina Medical Society and other medical associations.
On March 15, 1916, he married Miss Jeannette Johnson, of Scotland County, North Carolina, daughter of Charles Johnson, a well known busi- ness man of that locality. Doctor and Mrs. Par- rott have one son, William Thomas Jr., born December 23, 1916.
JAMES COWLING MCDIARMID. of Fayetteville, has been associated with different phases of the lumber industry in North Carolina for about twenty years. Since 1909 his connection has been with the Southern Timber & Lumber Company of Fayetteville, one of the largest organizations of its kind in the South. Mr. McDiarmid is sales manager.
His own successful career is in keeping with the standards and merits of an ancestry which furnishes some of the interesting names and fam- ily associations of the Cape Fear section of North Carolina. The first of the McDiarmids in North Carolina was Rev. Angus McDiarmid, a Presbyte- rian minister who came from his native Scotland to North Carolina shortly before the Revolution- ary war. He was one of a group of brilliant Presbyterian clergymen, headed by Rev. James Campbell, who founded the Presbyterian Church in this colony or state. Rev. Angus McDiarmid was the fourth pastor of Old Bluff Church in Cumberland County. This church was founded in 1758, the same year that Barbecue and Long- street churches were founded. These three were the mother churches of Presbyterianism in North Carolina. Rev. Mr. McDiarmid also preached at Barbecue and Longstreet churches and it is in the Longstreet Churchyard that he is buried. He was a man of striking talents, learning and gen- ius. and was greatly beloved by all his people.
For several generations the McDiarmid ances- tral home was "Ardnave," at Manchester in Cum- berland County. It was in that old home that James Cowling McDiarmid was born in 1876, and both his father and grandfather were natives of the same environment. The McDiarmids gave up Ardnave only a few years ago. It is situated in the northwest part of Cumberland County on Lower Little River. Daniel McDiarmid, grand-
Lui curly W. T. Parrott
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HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA
father of the Fayetteville business man, was born at Ardnave, and he was responsible for making this one of the great plantations of the Cape Fear section. When in his prime he owned be- tween 300 and 400 slaves and his fields produced whole cargoes of cotton. He was wealthy, influ- ential, and without effort commanded a position of leadership among his people. His remains are among those buried at the Longstreet Church. His wife was Ann Eliza Wright, member of the Wright and Gillespie families of Bladen County, whose names are closely interwoven with the early his- tory of Cape Fear.
James Cowling McDiarmid is a son of Archi- bald Knox and Mattie (West) McDiarmid. His mother, who died in 1895, was born at Courtney in Grimes County, Texas, daughter of John S. and Rachel (Williams) West. Her mother, Ra- chel Williams, first married Archibald MeDiar- mid, a brother of Daniel McDiarmid named above. Their home, "Mount William," another of the old landmarks of Manchester, is now the site of Overhills, owned by Mr. Percy Rockefeller of New York. After Archibald McDiarmid's death she married John S. West and they removed to Texas, locating at Courtney in Grimes County. It was during an extended visit Mattie West made from her home in Texas to North Carolina that she met and married Archibald Knox McDiar- mid, who was the nephew of her mother by the latter's first marriage.
Archibald Knox McDiarmid was born at Ard- nave in 1849, and lived there continuously until a few years ago, when he removed to the vicinity of Lumberton in Robeson County, where he is now engaged in farming and manufacturing lum- ber.
James C. McDiarmid as a boy attended the lo- cal schools at Manchester and afterwards the Rock Hill Academy in South Carolina. Before taking up the lumber industry he was for several years in the railway service, being in the operating de- partment of the Atlantic Coast Line, first as a telegrapher and station agent and before he was twenty-one was assigned the responsibilities of train dispatcher. He left the railroad to enter the lumber business.
Like his forebears, he is an active communi- cant of the Presbyterian Church and is a charter member and an elder in Highland Church of Fay- etteville. He was one of the petitioners for the forming of that church, which was organized and founded in 1911.
Mr. McDiarmid married Miss Kate Robinson. Her father, Rev. C. W. Robinson, a prominent Presbyterian minister in North Carolina, is now pastor of the church at North Wilkesboro. She is a great-granddaughter of Rev. John Robinson, the first pastor, in 1800, of the Presbyterian Church in Fayetteville. He was both a preacher and a teacher, and is buried in Poplar Tent Churchyard in Cabarrus County. Mr. and Mrs. McDiarmid have four children, James C., Jr., Charles Robinson, Katharine and Janie.
EDWARD LEIGH BEST, superintendent of public instruction for Franklin County, chose educational work as a career while in the University of North Carolina, and has steadily pursued it with in- creasing responsibilities and honors for nearly fif- teen years.
A son of Donald Edward and Frances (Jack- son) Best, two of the oldest families in Franklin and Granville counties. Edward L. Best was born
in Franklin County August 30, 1883, was educated in district schools, the Mapleville Academy, and the University of North Carolina. He spent two summers in advanced studies in Columbia Uni- versity at New York. The administrative and executive duties of educational work have occu- pied him almost from the first. For two years he was principal of the Cedar Rock Academy and for eight years was principal of the Louisburg graded school system. Then in 1914 he was elected superintendent of public instruction for Franklin County and has carefully watched over aud super- vised the schools of this county for the past three years and has brought about many important im- provements and reforms. Mr. Best is member of the North Carolina Teachers Assembly, director of the course of education in the Louisbury Fe- male College and a member of the summer school faculty of the State College.
November 27, 1908, he married Miss Anna Rich- mond Malone, of Louisburg. Their two children are Mary Malone and Edward Leigh, Jr.
JOHN T. BURRUS, M. D. Besides the capable service which he has rendered in the private activi- ties of the physician and surgeon, Doctor Burrus has contributed to High Point one of the institu- tions of which the citizens are most proud, the High Point Hospital, of which he is owner.
The High Point Hospital was originally estab- lished as an institution by the State Council of the Junior Order of American Mechanics for the bene- fit of their members. Doctor Burrus bought the buildings and site, had the buildings remodeled, and then erected the present High Point Hospital on Boulevard Avenue. It is in every sense a modern and model hospital building, comparing favorably in point of equipment and facilities with the best hospitals in any state. It is of brick construction, two stories and basement, and the building and equipment represent an invest- ment of $30,000. Every item of the building construction was supervised with the idea of se- curing the highest standards of hospital arrange- ment. The building has steam heat and every other modern convenience. For individual patients there are twenty-five rooms and one open ward. In recent years the hospital has been well filled, affording its service to between forty and fifty patients. Those competent to judge say that the operating room is one of the most modern and complete in the South. The equipment includes the X-Ray and various other mechanical and elec- trical devices and various forms of baths. In fact it is not only a hospital in a general sense of the term, but is also a complete sanitarium. One of the most attractive features is the atmosphere of comfort and cheer about the hospital. Doctor Burrus maintains a thoroughly trained and effi- cient corps of nurses, assistants and orderlies. Nearly all his work is surgical, while his associate and assistant is Dr. Hugh McCain, in charge of internal medicine, laboratory and assistant in surgery.
Doctor Burrus is a native of North Carolina, having been born in Surrey County in 1876. His parents, John G. and Bettie (Reecc) Burrus, are still living in Surrey County. Doctor Burrus grew up in that county. After the completion of his high school course he entered Davidson College, where he took a combined course, graduating in 1898, with the degree M. D. He then attended Baltimore Medical College, graduating in 1900
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HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA
and receiving the M. D. degree. In 1902 he grad- uated from Grant University, with the M. D. degree. After the Baltimore Medical and Uni- versity of Maryland merged he received a degree from the University of Maryland. Doctor Burrus also took post graduate work, completed a course in the Polyclinic, New York, and New York Post Graduate College; graduated from the Skin and Cancer Hospital, New York City, has also studied abroad, and has specialized in surgery and gyne- cology since 1912. He was commissioned major in the Medical Reserve Corps April 11, 1917, ordered to Fort Oglethorpe on June 1, 1917, was made chief of the Surgical Service at Base Hospital, Camp Beauregard, Louisiana, September 26, 1917, and was chief of the service until April 1, 1918, when he was promoted lieutenant-colonel of the Medical Corps, National Army and put in command of Base Hospital, Camp Beauregard. Few physicians in the state have had a more thorough and ex- tended course of clinical instruction and associa- tion with the great surgeons and physicians of the New and Old World.
Doctor Burrus began the general practice of medicine at Jonesville in Yadkin County, North Carolina, and from there came to High Point, where his time has been almost entirely devoted to the upbuilding and maintenance of the High Point Hospital.
Doctor Burrus is a member of the County and State Medical Societies, the Southeru Medical As- sociation, the Tri State Medical Society and the American Medical Association, and is a member of the Clinical Congress of Surgeons. He is a Knight Templar and Scottish Rite Mason and a member of the Mystic Shrine. By his marriage to Miss Mary B. Atkins he has one daughter, Miss Iris Burrus.
JOHN L. CURRIE. In the death of John L. Currie, which occurred at his home in Carthage September 4, 1916, Moore County lost one of its most valuable and valued citizens. Mr. Currie exemplified. many traits that are everywhere ac- cepted as the fundamentals of good citizenship, and for all his success in material affairs his life meant most for its sturdy and irreproachable char- acter.
He was born November 4, 1861, three miles east of Carthage near Union Church, son of Neill R. and Jeannettee (Leach) Currie, both of whom were of Scotch ancestry. While of good family connections, he grew up in a period when the entire country was practically poverty stricken as a result of the devastations of war When he began to take the larger outlook on life, due to years of manhood, there were no industries or op- portunities within reach, and his early life had been one of constant toil. He and his brothers practically took care of the household, and it was as a result of overcoming obstacles that he was able to satisfy his ambitions for an education. He attended the famous Uniou Home School, and after finishing there was a teacher for a time. His old associates remember him in young man- hood as a youth of splendid appearance, and with fine character showing in every word and deed.
He had capacity for leadership and was early drawn into politics, and the record he made is one that may be read with pride by all his descend- ants. The first political office he held was that of county surveyor, to which he was elected on the democratic ticket when still a very young man. In 1886, the county being at that time
strongly republican, he was accorded the dem- ocratie nomination for sheriff against the repub- lican incumbent, William M. Black, a man who for years had been of powerful prestige and in- fluence in Moore County. The election resulted in the defeat of Mr. Currie, but that was the be- ginning of the overthrow of the republicau ma- jority, and two years later, when he was renom- inated, he was elected, defeating Mr. Black for sheriff by a comfortable majority. The citizens of Moore County always regard with a great deal of satisfaction the splendid record made by John L. Currie as sheriff. He held that office four terms in succession, a period of eight years, and was a most popular as well as efficient officer. In 1898 he was elected to the Lower House of the Legislature from Moore County.
Iu a business way he was successfully identified from 1900 until his death with lumber manufac- turing at Carthage. He was also one of the founders and the principal owner of the Bismarck Hosiery Mill at Carthage. His later prosperity enabled him to accumulate a large amount of min- ing and other real estate in the county seat and county. Though he was only fifty-five years of age at the time of his death, he had achieved, from the humble beginnings which have been sug- gested, and with only the assets of good char- acter, a fiue sense of honor and industry, a busi- ness position such as all might well envy.
Mr. Currie built his home on the top of the hill at Carthage, on an elevation that overlooks the most beautiful expanse of surrounding country for many miles. This is the home of his family and one of the best in Moore County At the time of his death Mr. Currie was chairman of the Board of Road Commissioners of Carthage town- ship.
In early boyhood he joined the Presbyterian Church, and his entire life was an expression of Christian principle. He was devoted to his church and Sunday school, served for many years as ruling elder of the church at Carthage, and was for about an equally long time superintendent of the Sunday school. To him more than to any other one person was due the building of the handsome new church edifice at Carthage.
Mr. Currie married Miss Mary Belle MeIver, of Sanford, daughter of the late Daniel B. Mc- Iver, of Moore County. Mrs. Currie and five children survive her honored husband, the children being Wilbur, William, Mary Lynn, John and Dwight.
JOHN C. ADAMS. Among the men whose activi- ties in various lines of endeavor have placed them in positions of prominence in their commun- ity few have had more useful lives than John C. Adams, whose interests and associations are par- ticularly identified with the interesting commun- ity of Linden in Cumberland County. He has lived there all his life, has been a successful planter, is a merchant, and while he shares the family characteristic of rather avoiding partici- pation in public life he has effectively upheld and loyally supported every movement and interest that involves the true and essential welfare of the community and its institutions.
Mr. Adams was born at Linden in Cumberland County in 1866, a son of William Gaston and Sebra Ann (Parker) Adams. His grandfather was of English ancestry and an old time citizen of Johnston County, North Carolina, living near Four Oaks, where William Gaston Adams was
Jahn Le Courrier
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HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA
born. The latter when a young married man came to to what is now Linden in Cumberland County, establishing a home there some years before the war. He was employed as an over- seer on the plantation of John Smith and later had a plantation of his own on Lower Little River, less than a mile from the present Town of Linden. It was on that plantation that John C. Adams was born. The latter's father made a creditable record as a soldier in the Confederacy, serving throughout the war. He and his wife were founders of the Methodist Church of their community and secured for its first pastor Rev. Mr. Avent from Chatham County. They remained loyal and devoted members of the congregation the rest of their days.
One of their sons is Rev. G. T. Adams, presid- ing elder of the Elizabeth City District of the North Carolina Conference, and one of the best known and most popular ministers of the Metho- dist Church in North Carolina. Another son, Mr. B. B. Adams, is a wealthy merchant at Four Oaks, the old home of the Adams family in John- ston County. This branch of the Adams family shows throughout the history of the various gen- erations the sturdiness of a most vigorous and wholesome race of people. Among the dominant characteristics have been a quiet, unobstentatious manner of living, wtih almost an aversion for politics or public life, but exhibition of valuable qualities in the building up of homes, in the pur- suit of business and in usefulness to their respec- tive communities.
The town now known as Linden was formerly known as Little River Academy, the community getting its name from the famous old school that for many years was one of the most successful educational institutions of the state. Many young men who have since made their mark in the world attained their early instruction in Little River Academy. John C. Adams as a boy was a student there, and owed some of his most effective train- ing to Prof. Jesse McLean. After his educa- tion he himself taught school for a time, but his main occupation since young manhood has been farming. His home plantation is one of the larg- est and most profitable in this section of the state. It is characterized by the richness of the soil and productivity that have made the plantations on the Lower Little River famous for over a century. In 1890 Mr. Adams also engaged in the mercan- tile business at Linden, and carries a large stock of general merchandise and has made the busi- ness count as one of the most effective business services in that county.
Mr. Adams' home at Linden is a costly, beau- tiful and commodious modern residence, one of the finest country homes in that part of the state. He and his family are active members of the Methodist Church. Mrs. Adams before her mar- riage was Miss Rowena Darden, of Sampson County. They are the parents of nine children : D. Ernest; Lillian Bradshaw, wife of Mr. E. J. Macon; Cora, Mabel, Pearl, Rowena, Charles W., John C., Jr., and Josephine.
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