USA > North Carolina > History of North Carolina: North Carolina biography, Volume VI > Part 7
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OSCAR CREECH. The county superintendent of public instruction of Nash County, Oscar Creech, is singularly equipped by inclination, training and experience for the duties of the responsible posi- tion of which he has been the incumbent since April, 1914. During this time it has been his fortune to have realized many of his worthy ideals in regard to an elevation of the educational .
standards in his community, and the school system here has materially benefitted through his ener- getic labors and intelligent handling of the many problems which have presented themselves for solu- tion. Mr. Creech is a native son of North Carolina, born February 3, 1886, his parents being Ransom Right and Henrietta (Sullivan) Creech, farming people for many years in Johnson County, where the family is well known and its members highly esteemed.
Oscar Creech was reared in an agricultural at- mosphere, dividing his boyhood between attendance at the public schools of his native county and work upon the home farm, but it was not his in- tention to follow the farming vocation. He had decided upon a professional career, and after at- tending the high schools at Smithfield and Clayton, enrolled as a student at Wake Forest College, from which institution he was graduated in 1908 after making a creditable record in his studies. For the four years that followed he served as prin- cipal of the high school at Castalia, this being succeeded by two years as superintendent of the Nashville graded schools, a position in which his work attracted much favorable attention and com- ment. He was recognized as acceptable timber for higher official positions, and in April, 1914, was elected to the office of county superintendent of public instruction of Nash. His labors in this post have left nothing to be desired, for he has not only proven thoroughly efficient, but conscientious and trustworthy as well, one in whom the people can feel their children's educational training is safely placed. His duties are by no means light, as he has the supervision of ninety-five schools in Nash County, and innumerable details must be continuously handled, while the superintendent has also labored earnestly to weld the whole system into a sound and compact body, working in unison and harmony, with progress and development in view as a goal. He is a member of the North Carolina State Teachers' Association, and among his professional brethren in the educational field is given high standing as an educator, executive and scholar. From boyhood Mr. Creech has been a member of the Baptist Church and much in- terested in religious work, and in June, 1915, was ordained a minister of the Baptist faith, and is now serving as pastor of the Nashville Baptist Church. He is fraternally affiliated with the Junior Order of United American Mechanics.
Mr. Creech was united in marriage, August 21, 1907, to Miss Mattie Louise Gulley, of Clayton, North Carolina, daughter of Marcus and Sophie (Ellis) Gulley, farming people of Johnston County. Of this union there are three children living: Orville Ransom, Leah Jessica and Oscar, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. Creech have a pleasant home at Nash- ville, where they have numerous warm friends, and take part in the various social amenities of the community.
JONATHAN HAVENS has been a conspicuous fac- tor in the business and industrial upbuilding of Washington for many years.
He was born in that city of North Carolina April 20, 1856, a son of Benjamin Franklin and Mary Elizabeth (Bonner) Havens. Prior to the war his father was an extensive ship owner and operated from thirty to forty boats in the coast- wise trade. The war came along and ruined his business, and thus Jonathan Havens grew up in somewhat straitened circumstances. He was edu-
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HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA
cated in private schools, and his first business enterprise was the construction of a flour and feed mill with a capacity of 200 barrels per day. He is still owner of the business known as Havens Mills, one of the largest plants in eastern North Carolina for the manufacture of flour and other food stuffs,
Since then his fruitful business enterprise has been rapidly expanding. In 1891 Mr. Havens established the Havens Oil Company, of which he is president, secretary and general manager. This plant has a capacity of forty tons of cotton- seed oil per day. He is also president of the Beaufort Iron Works, a ship building industry, employing twenty-five persons in the local shops. He has been president since its organization of the Bank of Washington, and is president of the Beaufort Farm Company, a corporation operating and developing farms. Mr. Havens was one of the organizers of the first Chamber of Commerce of Washington, and has served his home city as a member of the board of aldermen and also in the office of mayor.
JOSEPH F. MCKAY, M. D. The medical profes- sion of North Carolina, not to mention a large portion of the general public, will regard any amount of space well used which is devoted to some record of the MeKay family, representatives of three generations of which have been distin- guished in medical history. While the services of this long line of physicians have come to be pretty generally understood and appreciated among medical men throughout the state, the beneficiaries of those services for over eighty years have been chiefly in Harnett County.
The MeKays are descended from Highland Scotch who located in pioneer times in the Cape Fear district and constitute one of the best known Scotch names in that section. The founder of the family was Archibald MeKay, who was born in Scotland and came to Wilmington, North Carolina, in the latter part of the eighteenth century, estab- lishing his home in Robeson County. The record of the family in connection with the medical pro- fession begins with one of his sons, Dr. John Me- Kay, who was a man of special distinction, a scholar as well as a physician, and whose mental horizon was unbounded by every diverse field of knowledge. He was born in Robeson County, near old Floral College, graduated in medicine from the University of Maryland in 1823, and for several years practiced in Robeson County. He married in 1829 Miss Mary McNeill, and in the following year removed to Buies Creek in Har- iett County. From that year to the present time the people of that section have never been with- out the capable services of some member of the Mckay family. Dr. John McKay did his work in a comparatively pioneer era, enduring all the hardships and inconveniences connected with trav- eling far and wide to attend his patients scattered over the rural districts of several surrounding counties. On these rides he carried his medicines and also his surgical instruments, and most of these instruments are still carefully preserved by his grandson, Dr. Joseph F. Mckay, of Buies Creek.
The second generation of Mckay physicians was the late Dr. John Archibald Mckay, who died at the home of his son, Dr. J. F. MeKay, in Buies Creek, October 25, 1917. He was born March 13, 1830, at the home which had been established by
his father on the old Raleigh and Fayetteville stage road in Neill's Creek Township, Harnett County, and only about two miles from the home where he died. He attained the great age of eighty-seven years, seven months, twelve days. As a boy he attended the schools of his home community, and like his father his range of in- tellectual interests was remarkable. He was thor- oughly grounded in the classics and had the ideals and culture of a man of the old South. He matric- ulated in the University of North Carolina in 1849 and was graduated in the class of 1853. At the time of his death, so far as known, there was no other living survivor of that class. One of his class mates was his brother, D. McN. Mckay. Dr. John A. MeKay had been prepared for college at old Summerville Academy, near Lillington, un- der the direction of the famous Doctor Coiton. From the State University he entered the Medical College of the State of South Carolina at Charles- ton, where he was graduated in 1857. He almost immediately began practice at Buies Creek, as suc- cessor to his father, and continued to respond, to calls upon his services until a few years before his death. He was the oldest member of the medical profession in Harnett County.
Of his character and attamments a local paper has spoken as follows: "No physician in this county or section of the state stood higher in his profession than Dr. John A. McKay. His su- perior knowledge was given unreservedly to benefit the people among whom he had been born and reared. He had a high conception of the obliga- tions resting upon a physician, and the ethical standard set by him has had a most wholesome influence upon the profession throughout this whole section. No man ever came in contact with Doctor Mckay without being convinced that he was a man of superior intellect and learned not only in his profession but in almost everything that pertains to human knowledge. "
When a young man Dr. John A. MeKay married Miss Christiana Foy, of Wilmington, North Caro- lina, who died in 1880, the mother of five sons and two daughters. The living children are: Mary Isabelle, the widow of Dr. J. H. Crawford; Dr. J. F. Mckay, John A. Mckay, Rev. E. J. Mckay, Mrs. Martin B. Williams, and D. McN. McKay.
Dr. Joseph F. McKay, son of the late Dr. John A. Mckay and grandson of Dr. John MeKay, was born at the old Mckay homestead at Buies Creek in 1861. His academic training was acquired in Lillington Academy, and his medical education in the Medical College of South Carolina at Charles- ton, where he graduated with the class of 1884, just twenty-seven years from the time his father haa gone forth from the same institution with his diploma. He returned home to relieve his father of some of the burdens of practice, and thus his work is a direct continuation of the serv- ice so long rendered by both his father and grand- father. Dr. Mckay is a former president of the Harnett County Medical Society and also a mem- ber of the State and the Southern Medical as- sociations and Tri State Medical Association.
Like his forefathers, Doctor Mckay has always espoused the faith of the Presbyterian Church. He married Miss Mattie Rogers, of Lillington, North Carolina. They have four children: John A., now a student in the Johns Hopkins Medical School; Mrs. Alton M. Cameron of Vass, North Carolina, Joseph Lister, and Martha.
J. M Kan
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HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA
LEONARD OSCAR HAYES, M. D. A prominent physician of Fremont, where he has practiced medicine since 1899, Doctor Hayes has also given his time and energies to many of the movements and enterprises connected with the general wel- fare of the community, and has distinguished him- self alike by public spirited citizenship and by thorough capacity and service in his profession.
Doctor Hayes was born in Wilson County, North Carolina, September 8, 1871, a son of John and Elizabeth (Bass) Hayes. His father was a farmer, and it was on a farm that he himself spent his early life. His people were in a position to give him a liberal education, and besides the public schools he attended a military institute at Fre- mont, Trinity University at Old Trinity, and took his medical work in the University Medical Col- lege at Richmond, Virginia, where he was gradu- ated M. D. in May, 1897. For a year or more Doctor Hayes practiced in one of the smaller communities of North Carolina, but since Janu- ary, 1899, has been located at Fremont, and has acquired a large general practice. He is a mem- ber of the Wayne County, the Seaboard and the North Carolina Medical societies.
For one year until he resigned he served in the office of coroner of Wilson County. He has been an alderman of Fremont, a member of the school board, health officer, and is one of the three mem- bers of the executive committee of the road com- mission for Wayne County. Doctor Hayes has acquired a large amount of farming property, in- cluding about 700 acres, and so far as his pro- fessional interests permit he gives his supervision to its management and cultivation. He is a char- ter member of the Wilson Country Club, and is affiliated with the lodge and chapter of Masonry, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Knights of Pythias, and the Junior Order of Unit- ed American Mechanics.
Doctor Hayes was first married January 9, 1898, to Miss Minnie Aycock, of Fremont, daughter of Frank M. Aycock. Five children were born to this marriage: John, Frank, Leonard Oscar, Jr., Elizabeth and William Benjamin. On May 6, 1916, Doctor Hayes married Perrine Stover, of Heath Springs, South Carolina. Mrs. Hayes had been a teacher in the Fremont public schools for four years before her marriage.
WALTER WELLINGTON WATT is a native of Meck- lenburg County and has called the City of Charlotte his home since 1880. Life and experience have brought him abundant opportunity, and few men have converted such opportunities into more prof- itable and successful results. In a business way Mr. Watt is known as president of the Southern Hardware Company, one of the largest concerns of its kind in the South, and has a host of business connections that make him well known over sev- eral states.
A certain class of men ridicule the influence of ancestry, but all the notable careers of the ages and modern scientific investigations prove that "blood will tell." Mr. Watt never knew his father, a man of saintly character whose work as a minister of the gospel was completed before the great war and ten days before this son was born. But to the personal guidance and splendid in- fluences thrown around him during his youth Mr. Watt acknowledges a lasting and grateful debt to his mother, one of the truest and noblest old time southern gentlewomen that ever lived.
His father, Rev. James Bell Watt, was born in
Fairfield County, South Carolina, in 1820. He was the older of the two sons of James Watt and Margaret (Robb) Watt. He was educated at Due West, South Carolina, where he also studied for the ministry of the Associated Reformed Presby- terian Church. He was twice married, his first wife being Miss Margaret Bell, of Chester County, South Carolina. They had seven children, the two oldest Charles Bell Watt and Franklin William Watt, serving in the Confederate army. Franklin W, died in the service from wounds received at Gordonsville, Virginia, about 1862. Early in his ministry Rev. Mr. Watt moved to North Caro- lina, and for some years filled the pastorate of the Little Steele Creek Church of the Associated Reformed Presbyterians. While there his first wife died and he married Louisa Angelina Neal, youngest daughter of General William Henry and Hannah (Alexander) Neal of Little Steele Creek. About this time Mr. Watt severed his connection with the Associated Reformed Church on account of his divergent views with that church in the matter of restricted communion. He then joined the regular Presbyterian communion and was called to the pastorate of the Big Steele Creek Church. This is a historic and famous church in the Presbyterian denomination of North Carolina. He was pastor of the church until his death on Septem- ber 17, 1860, and is buried in the churchyard of that noted congregation.
Through his mother Mr. Watt is descended from some of the oldest families of Mecklenburg County, including the Neals, the McCrearys, Griers and Alexanders. The Neal family was founded in America by Henry Neal, who came with Roger Williams to America and settled in Rhode Island, and later some of his descendants located in Penn- sylvania. The founder of the family in North Carolina was William Neal, of Scotch parentage, who came to Mecklenburg County from Pennsyl- vania some time between 1715 and 1725, and was one of the first white men in Mecklenburg County.
A son of William Neal was the celebrated Capt. Henry Neal, great-great-grandfather of Mr. Watt in the maternal line. Capt. Henry Neal was born about 1734 in Lower Steele Creek Township of Mecklenburg County. He served as an officer of the Continental Line, commanding a company in the First North Carolina Troops. Through the services of this noted ancestor Mr. Watt has membership in the Society of the Cincinnati and is also a member of the Sons of the American Revolu- tion. Mr .. Watt's mother was a granddaughter of Samuel Neal and her father, Gen. William Henry Neal, was prominent in the militia organization of North Carolina, a large planter and land owner, cotton manufacturer and a man of prominence in his day.
Louisa Neal Watt, mother of Mr. Watt, sur- vived her husband more than half a century and died at the ripe old age of eighty-two. She was laid to rest beside her husband in the Big Steele Creek Churchyard in May, 1917. She was born at the Neal homestead near Catawba River in the southwestern part of Steele Creek Township, known as Lower Steele Creek, December 6, 1835. She was only eighteen years of age at the time of her marriage to Rev. James Bell Watt. She was de- scended from men and women who were strong characters, and exemplified their characteristics in her own life. Once convinced of the righteousness of a cause, she never changed her mind. Righteous- ness was her watchword and she never compromised
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HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA
with evil. She was a strong, true and noble char- acter. Of the best Scotch-Irish Presbyterian stock, in every phase of her life she exemplified the highest type of her people. Reared in the East and with the comforts and generous living usual on the great plantations of the ante-bellum period, she had never known any sort of work until at the beginning of the great war she was left a widow with three small sons. Impoverished by the scourge of war, her indomitable spirit carried her to the goal of her ambition to rear and educate her sons, and these three fine men are proof that she did her work nobly and well. Her sacrifices and her hardships of that time will never be known, since she never talked of them. Mrs. Watt, although strong with the strength that de- velops in the face of hardship and deprivations, was most womanly in the sweetest and gentlest of womanly ways. She was greatly beloved by all who were fortunate to be her friends and ac- quaintances. She was typically a southern lady, with all the graces, refinements and high intelli- gence that the name implies. In religious faith she was uncompromisingly Calvinistic. Born under the shadow of old Steel Creek Church, she lived her life according to the Confession of Faith and the Shorter Catechism, these with her Bible being her guide through life. She was never absent from church, and every cause of the church had a re- sponse from her mind, heart and purse. Her three sons, all of whom still survive, are: Dr. William Neal Watt of Austin, Texas; James Bell Watt of Steele Creek; and Walter Wellington Watt of Charlotte.
Walter Wellington Watt was born in Steele Creek Township, Mecklenburg County, September 27, 1860. From what has been said of his mother it is needless to speak further of his boyhood environment. He was educated at the Steele Creek Academy and also at the famous Bingham Mili- tary Academy at Mebane, then under the manage- ment of Col. Robert Bingham. He graduated in the class of 1880 and at once took up the hard- ware business, which has been his chosen field of effort and the arena in which his powers and abil- ities have shown at their best. He acquired his preliminary experience in the hardware store of Kyle & Hammond at Charlotte, and several years later went to New York and acquired a detailed knowledge of the business with some of the larger retail and wholesale concerns. In the fall of 1888 he gave up a position in New York City carry- ing a salary of $1,800 a year, and accepted a posi- tion of uncertain income with the Supplee Hard- ware Company of Philadelphia. His earnings in the new position were to be due entirely to the results he achieved as traveling representative in the South Atlantic States. Mr. W. W. Supplee, head of the business, shared the prevalent opinion that the South was a receding rather than an ad- vancing section. Mr. Watt thought otherwise. He had an abiding faith in the future of the South and made no secret of his conviction. More than that, he proved his faith by hazarding all upon the success of his undertaking. The first year he earned less than $1.000. The twelfth year he earned about $10,000, and the scope of the business has continued on an increasing scale during the remainder of the twenty-seven years he continued in relationship of southern sales manager. In con- sequence Mr. Supplee came to be one of the most zealous advocates and friends of the South, and frequently visited in the Carolinas.
Besides the engrossing duties which took him
so much of the time to other localities and other states Mr. Watt has energized and built up a chain of hardware stores throughout the two Carolinas. He became leading stockholder in 1908 and for a number of years has been president of the South- ern Hardware Company of Charlotte, is vice presi- dent of the Standard Hardware Company of Gas- tonia, president of the Rock Hill Supply Company, president of the Newberry Hardware Company, president of the Horry Hardware Company of Conway, South Carolina, vice president of the Florence Hardware Company of Florence, South Carolina, vice president of the Marion Hardware Company of Marion, South Carolina, vice presi- dent of the Bennettsville Hardware Company and vice president of the Hartsville Hardware Com- pany. He is also president of the Hardware Fire Insurance Company of the Carolinas, having organ- ized the Retail Hardware Association of the two states which later formed the insurance company. He has also been and is national councillor for the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce. Fraternally he is a Master Mason. Mr. Watt married February 18, 1903, Miss Elizabeth Reed of Savannah.
Some of the broader significance of his life and activities is well told in an article which ap- peared in a Charlotte paper a few years ago, and which may properly conclude this sketch.
"Extensive traveling, which has taken him into every state in the Union, have given Mr. Watt a variety of interests. He has made a study of politics and has a clear comprehension of how the game is played. He has a keen sense of justice that makes him the champion of the weak against the aggressions of the strong, and when he finds himself once enlisted in a fight where his prin- ciples are involved he does not know how to quit. Mindful of Mr. Watt's keen discontent with con- ditions that do not square with his ideas of jus- tice, the late Joseph P. Caldwell was wont to say jokingly in his presence, 'the only thing that keeps Walter Watt from being an anarchist is an income of $10,000 a year.'
"It was while traveling in the Northwest that Mr. Watt became interested in the subject of education. He observed that even the most poly- glot communities showed signs of progress and of more modern living than in his own native sec- tion. He began to analyze the situation why this should be so. The strain of blood was not bet- ter, nor anything like so good; the climate was inferior, for here in North Carolina is one of the best in the world; the North Carolina soil is far superior. By a process of elimination he reached the conclusion that the difference lay in the educa- tion. The people of the Northwest were receiving practical vocational training, which brought the schoolroom life into close touch with the life out- side. Mr. Watt then became an advocate of voca- tional training.
"As chairman of the Board of Education of Mecklenburg County -- the only public office, by the way, which he ever consented to fill in all the years of his residence-Mr. Watt's positions were always clearly defined. He stood for vocational training, and decided progress was made in this direction. He believed that the small outlying schools were being neglected in favor of the cen- tral strongly established schools and he made war on that tendency. He found the property of im- poverished widows assessed at sixty-six per cent of its value for taxation while highly valuable properties were assessed at sixteen per cent and he made war on that situation, demanding an
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8. Mars
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HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA
equalization-not a blanket increase which merely increased the injustice-and was instrumental in adding $2,000,000 to the tax books before a halt was called. An increase of $6,000,000 had been expected as the result of the complete process. Under his leadership it has been authoritatively stated, Mecklenburg was the first county in the United States to provide an automobile for its superintendent of schools and now more than 100 counties have followed suit.
"Though now devoting himself entirely to his private concerns, Mr. Watt never for a moment loses touch with the sweep of current life. He knows what's what. If anyone thinks otherwise, try him out. In combat he is a foeman worthy of any steel. As a progressive and aggressive fac- tor in the upbuilding of the community and state he is a dynamic force whose value is beyond com- putation."
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