USA > North Carolina > History of North Carolina: North Carolina biography, Volume VI > Part 72
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"Twenty-seven years ago, on the twentieth of May, Professor J. A. Campbell held the closing exercises of his new Buie's Creek Academy which he had established in this neighborhood and did me the honor to invite me to deliver the address. At that time in order to reach here from Raleigh it was necessary to leave Raleigh about ten o'clock on, say Wednesday morning, getting to Dunn at six in the afternoon and traveling through a long and sandy road I reached this neighborhood about midnight. After a night's rest we came to the school the next morning. It then took nearly twenty-four hours to get here from Raleigh. How different now. I had my breakfast at home, reached here on the Norfolk & Southern shortly after ten o'clock, will leave at five, and be back in Raleigh for supper. This statement of the transportation change is given here because every- thing else has changed as much, or more, for the better. The transportation improvement is typi- cal of the silent evolution that has gone on in this community and county ..
"Buie's Creek Academy had closed its first half year with an enrollment of ninety-one pupils. It had two regular teachers and a teacher of music, there were eight houses in this community, most of the students were in the primary or interme- diate grades, and except in a few places the homes were very small, very cheaply built, and there were few evidences of prosperity. The school building then had two small rooms and the speaker stood under an arbor while the audience sat on logs or stood up. That was in May, 1887. What a miracle has been wrought in these years. Now there is a large and handsome brick school build- ing of two stories, equipped with the modern school furniture as needs-as good as you find in any school of its character. There is a large audi- torium. The spacious stage will seat a hundred or more people and the auditorium will seat at least twelve hundred. perhaps more. The faculty has grown to twelve capable and experienced teach- ers and the enrollment of students for this term has reached 546. Think of it-from 91 to 546 in a rural community. When it was established, this school was thirty miles from any railroad, and now it is only four and one-half miles from the nearest railroad-here in the country and yet it has taught this year 546 boys and girls. The school has dormitories and the boarding pupils find board and lodging in the forty-five homes that have been built to this community. Men and women have moved in to educate their own children and to take boarders and young men and young women can get board here at a figure that is so cheap as to make it possible for many to obtain an education who could not otherwise be
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in school at all. It is a wonder how this school, so large and growing so steadily, has been built up in this quiet country place, and is an illustra- tion of what a man with an idea and a mission can do.
"Rev. J. A. Campbell was born in this county. He was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth and probably saw no silver spoon in his early youth. He went to Wake Forest College as long as he could get money to pay his way, and then came back here in his 'ain countree' and resolved to give himself to teaching the ehildren of his neighbors and to preaching to neighbors. His success shows that a man who is called to do a great work is most appreciated by his neighbors. Too many young men become, possessed of the idea that 'a prophet is not without honor save in his own country,' and think that to do good they must go away from home. However it may be with prophets, I am persuaded that the best work most men can do is to work in their own state and in their own community. Mr. Campbell 's success shows that in his case this is true. The man who goes into new places and into strange environment loses mueh of the knowledge that brings success. Mr. Campbell has often been urged to move his school to the railroad and to some important eenter and told that he needed 'a broader field.' He was too wise to listen to sueh adviee. He knew that he was called to a work here for which he is peculiarly fitted and that he could weigh more here than anywhere else. Emer- son says that if a man has a message for man- kind or can do something or say something better than anybody else, the world will make a path to his door even though he live in a forest. Mr. Campbell has an enrollment here in this rural section of 546-and no other school in North Car- olina of its class has anything like so large an enrollment. Josh Billings said 'I never argy agin a success. '
"The large enrollment, however, is not the big- gest thing about this school. The big thing about it is its spirit of earnestness, consecration, zeal and usefulness. There are outdoor amusements here as at other schools, and in addition there are the pleasure and health giving tonic of living in the country and the environment is stimulating to study and to right living. But the important thing here is that boys and girls are trained for serious work in a serious world. Simple faith in God is the dominating foree here and religion is the basis upon which character is builded. Other foundation than this, there is none. The spirit of this school is therefore the spirit of service for God and for humanity and many students here receive the impulse that sends them into the min- istry. The instruction is of the character needed and is such as sends out useful and educated men and women, nearly all of whom remain in North Carolina to devote their lives to its development and uplift.
"There is no great institution built exeept upon the foundation of a man. In Rev. J. A. Camp- bell's brain and heart this sehool was born when he was a lad and saw the sore need of this sec- tion for sehools in the reach of all the ehildren. When he had reached all this section, his vision broadened and he opened doors to many in other states and sections looking for just the sort of school that fills a real need. He has had a noble helpmeet in his wife, who as teacher and leader has been a full partner, the daughter of the late ex-representative William Pearson. Mrs. Campbell
has been a tower of strength to her husband. In his early days Mr. Pearson was its best support and stay and in his old age was honored by all. He faithfully represented Harnett in the Legis- lature and was a high type of the solid North Carolina farmer whose life has been given to leaving the world better than he found it.
"The story of Mr. Campbell's suecess here, without money or wealthy friends and in the faee of obstacles that most men would have regarded as insurmountable, is a story that should thrill the heart of ambitious North Carolinians. It is a story that makes the brightest page in the his- tory of Harnett County. He has builded well and the good work that is being done here will bear fruit long after Mr. Campbell and his associates have gone to their reward."
To complete the story told by Secretary Dan- iels should be added a few remaining sentenees of Editor Moore's artiele in the Biblical Recorder. Referring to the various difficulties that beset his work, and particularly the disastrous fire of 1900 after which it required three years to re- habilitate the school.
Mr. Moore says: "He went on with his work when other openings and easier fields invited him away. He had educational and religious ideals which he determined by divine help to build into the boys and girls who eared to assemble in his elass rooms. So he has wrought, now and again with sweat of blood, often making bricks with- out straw, sometimes in the darkness that eould be felt and sometimes in the sunlight that irra- diates and glorifies, until today there stands at Buie's Creek a plant worth fifty or sixty thousand dollars with an indebtedness not exceeding six thousand; manned by a strong faculty of twelve men and six women, every one of them an active Baptist; and attended by a student body reach- ing an enrollment of 520 this year. We do not wonder that of the B. C. A. boys forty-five are this year at Wake Forest, eleven in the Theo- logical Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, and two or three at the Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.
"One of Principal Campbell's valued helpers in this great work is Mr. M. C. Treat of Pennsyl- vania. That discriminating philanthropist . in 1898 began to help young ministers at Buie's Creek, lending not more than twenty-five dollars a year to worthy boys who could not otherwise go to school. He established there the Treat Fund for this purpose, and the register of those he has helped ineludes many worthy names. Mr. Treat also gave five hundred dollars to put the roof on the present Academy, and a thousand dollars to begin the fund for the girls' dormitory.
"Professor Campbell has been more than happy in his home life; indeed, his wife and children have been his associates and fellow workers, nor could he have accomplished so much without their intel- ligent aid."
In November, 1890, Mr. Campbell married Miss Cornelia Pearson, daughter of the late William Pearson above referred to. For years Mrs. Camp- bell assisted him in the school, first as primary teach- er and then as business manager. They have three children: Leslie Hartwell Campbell. a graduate of Wake Forest College with the class of 1911 and formerly a teacher in the Academy, receiving the Master's degree at Wake Forest in 1916, is now engaged in business as a merchant at Buie's Creek. Arthur Carlyle Campbell, a graduate of Wake Forest with the Bachelor degree in 1911,
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and Master's degree in 1916, did post-graduate work in Columbia University, was formerly teacher of English, Greek and Latin in the Academy, and is now in service with the North Carolina Troops in the National Army. The daughter, Miss Bes- sie Campbell, a graduate of Meredith College, is teacher of piano in the Academy. The two sons graduated at Wake Forest in 1911 and the father took his diploma at the same time-a striking event that elicited much comment at the time.
This article may properly conclude with the final paragraph of Editor Moore's sketch of Professor Campbell.
"Mr. Campbell is a prodigious worker. He has been clerk of the Little River Association since 1880. He has shepherded four large churches since 1889. From 1890 to 1896 he was superin- tendent of schools in Harnett County. For many years he has edited a bright monthly, the Little River Record. Much of the time he has managed a farm and several times has been called on as executor to settle valuable estates. He has sold books. He has worked fire and life insurance. What has he not done? And all of it has con- verged directly upon his great life work as a teacher of youth and a preacher of truth. Today his hands are as clean as they are busy, for all who know him remember his work of faith and labor of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. ' "
THOMAS ALEXANDER GREEN, of Newbern, is the type of citizen whose life and activities count for most in the essential welfare of any community. Thoroughly successful and a man of wealth, he has used his talents and means constantly in be- half of institutions and movements that benefit others as well as himself.
His early life was one of struggle and lack of opportunity. He was born at Newbern June 25, 1846, a son of Thomas and Ann Maria (Curtis) Green. His father, a native of Pamlico County, North Carolina, was a sea captain and went down with his vessel at sea. Owing to the early death of his father the only education Thomas A. Green secured was such as he could gain by diligent application to such books as came into his hands. While a youth he learned the carpenter trade and after the war he began clerking in a general gro- cery store.
In 1868, at the age of twenty-two, he estab- lished a small stock of groceries at Newbern and by shrewd business management and careful han- dling of his trade develoned a store which in time was reorganized as a wholesale business. He has long been identified with banking. In 1885 he es- tablished a private bank under the firm name of Green, Foy & Company. Later he was president of the Citizens Bank of Newbern until it was sold to the Newbern Banking and Trust Company, in which he is still vice president. He is also pres- ident of the Maysville Banking and Trust Com- pany of Maysville, North Carolina. Mr. Green is reputed to be one of the largest tax payers in Craven County.
Mr. Green has served on the city council and as chief of the fire department, and is a former president of the North Carolina State Firemen's Association and was its treasurer for ten years. Much of his time and effort have been expended in behalf of the public schools and for twenty years he was chairman of the public school board at Newbern. He is vice president of the Newbern Public Library. For fifteen years he was a di-
rector of the Masonic Orphans Home at Oxford, North Carolina, and has been entrusted with many responsibilities in the handling of widows' and orphans' funds maintained by the Masonic Order. He is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason and a Mystic Shriner, and is a past high priest of the Royal Arch Chapter and was formerly treasurer of the Knights Templar Commandery. For twenty years he was superintendent of the Sunday school and chairman of the board of trus- tees of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, at Newbern, and was one of the largest contributors to the new church edifice.
Mr. Green was married December 8, 1868, early in his business career, to Harriet Howard Mead- ows, of Newbern, who shared with him his early struggles and lived to enjoy the prosperity and influence of his later years. Mrs. Green died December 30, 1910. The only surviving child is Clara Maria, now Mrs. Alonzo Thomas Dill, of Newbern.
ALONZO THOMAS DILL has a distinctive record both in business and public affairs at Newbern, and he has done much to justify the confidence of the citizens in his capacity as a public leader.
Mr. Dill was born August 10, 1878, a son of Samuel L. and Sarah (Thomas) Dill. His father is general agent for the Atlantic & North Carolina Railway Company. Mr. Dill was educated in pub- lic schools, and his first position was with the Atlantic & North Carolina Railway Company, which he served faithfully and with enlarging view of responsibility for ten years. He resigned from that company to become teller of the Citizens Bank at Newbern and was with that institution until it was merged with the Newbern Banking and Trust Company. In subsequent years Mr. Dill has been active in the real estate business, and has used his business position to promote a number of things that are of substantial benefit to his community. A few years ago he saw the possibili- ties of Newbern as a tobacco market. To make the most of his possibilities he built the tobacco warehouse bearing his name and more recently he organized the company to operate a tobacco re- drying plant.
His sense of duty to the community in which he lives has never needed the stimulus of public honors and the first office to which he was elected was as city alderman from the Third Ward. He has been on the board of aldermen for the past four years, and as chairman of the finance com- mittee his services have been generally recognized. It was his thorough executive ability in private business and in connection with the finances of the city that led to his being proposed in 1917 as can- didate before the democratic primaries for the office of mayor. Mr. Dill is a popular member of the Woodmen of the World and is a trustee of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
He was married January 7, 1903, to Miss Clara Green, daughter of Thomas A. Green, a well known North Carolinan elsewhere mentioned in this pub- lication. Mr. and Mrs. Dill have four children, Harriet, Green R., Sarah Meadows and Alonzo Thomas, Jr.
GEORGE ADAMS CATON, M. D. During his resi- idence at Newbern Doctor Caton has not only contributed a highly specialized and expert serv- ice as a physician and surgeon to the welfare of the community, but has given the city an insti- tution of which it is deservedly proud. Doctor
John Berling hr
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Caton is proprietor and president of the Fair- view Hospital which he built and organized and the service of which is the product of his long and careful study of hospital management.
Doctor Caton is a native of North Carolina, born in Pamlico County December 4, 1871. His parents, John Scott and Catherine (De Lany) Caton, were practical and substantial farming people of Pamlico County. Doctor Caton had a liberal literary education as well as thorough preparation for his profession. From the pub- lic schools he entered the University of North Carolina, and subsequently enrolled in the Med- ical College of Virginia at Richmond, where he was graduated in 1898. His own experience and practice has been broadened and fortified by sub- sequent association with the ablest men in the profession and by frequent courses in clinics and universities He attended the Post-Graduate Poly- clinic at New York in 1904 and in 1911 he went abroad and for six months was engaged in post- graduate work in Berlin, Germany. For three years Doctor Caton practiced in his native coun- ty, and since 1903 has been a resident of New- bern. While he is a general practitioner, he gives more and more attention to his specialty in in- testinal and stomach diseases. It was in 1913 that Doctor Caton built the Fairview Hospital. This hospital is thoroughly modern in its ap- pointments and has accommodations for thirty- five beds.
Doctor Caton is a member of the Craven Coun- ty and North Carolina State Medical societies, the Seaboard Medical Society, the Tri-State Medical Society, the American Medical Association, and also belongs to the Anglo-American Medical Association at Berlin. Fraternally he is affiliated with the Improved Order of Red Men, the Wood- men of the World and the Knights of Columbus.
On November 3, 1898, Doctor Caton married Miss Katie Monk of Newton Grove, . Sampson County, North Carolina, daughter of Dr. John C. Monk. They are the parents of three children: Mary Kathleen, Anna Elizabeth and George Adams, Jr.
JOHN B. WRIGHT. North Carolina has in the person of John B. Wright of Greensboro an in- ventor and mechanical genius of more than ordin- ary distinction and merit. Mr. Wright is of an old and prominent family in the state, and one long noted for its activity in the Baptist church. A strong strain of mechanical ingenuity and in- ventive ability seems to have run through the stock, and perhaps John B. Wright has brought that talent to its highest perfection.
Mr. Wright is inventor and manufacturer of Wright's Automatic Safety Device for air brakes, known as the "Wright Little Watchman." This device is known throughout the country to that body of men whose business is concerned with the safe operation of railway trains. The invention has been frequently mentioned in technical jour- nals, and the Railway Age Gazette in its issue of December 15. 1916, described it under the title "Truck Safety Attachment." The function of this attachment is to set the air brakes whenever the car or tender truck to which it is attached is derailed, broken or deranged in any way. The Railway Age Gazette comments upon its various features and also calls attention to the fact that it has been put in successful operation on several rail- roads. Without resort to technicalities or dia- grams a brief explanation may be undertaken for
the benefit of the readers of this publication. By long and exhaustive tests Mr. Wright has de- termined just how far the trucks of a railway car move about, shift and oscillate during safe and normal conditions of operation. When the truck moves beyond its normal arch of oscillation it is due to some derangement caused by such troubles as broken rails, spreading of rails, the wheel leaving a rail, broken axles, splitting a switch and other abnormal conditions threatening the safe progress of the train. It is at this point that the Wright Little Watchman is applied. It is a mechanism automatically operated as a result of the abnor- mal oscillation or shifting of the truck from its ยท proper radius of action. As soon as such oscilla- tion passes the danger point the mechanism oper- ates instantly and sets the air brake as an emer- gency and in the great majority of instances the train is stopped before serious damage results.
Mr. Wright was born at Ridge Creek, six miles east of Troy in Montgomery County, North Caro- lina, in 1861. He is a son of Aaron and Eliza (Usher) Wright. His mother is still living, now at the advanced age of ninety-two. The Wright family has been in Montgomery County for several generations. Mr. Wright's uncle, Rev. David W. Wright, was a Baptist minister of great power and influence, and his talents were magnified through the career of his son, Rev. Dr. W. L. Wright, who, though dying in the prime of life, had gained a position as a talented and scholarly minister, a man of wide iufluence, and leaving a record of work accomplished and the impress of his lofty character upon thousands of people. It will be recalled that he conducted the last great revival meeting at Wake Forest. This was one of the notable events in the religious history of North Carolina.
The family has undoubted genius for mechanics. Mr. Wright's father had more than ordinary ability in the handling of machinery, though pri- marily he was a farmer. On his farm he conducted a saw mill, grist mill, cotton gin, blacksmith shop and had a great variety and assortment of tools. His seven sons were all possessed of more or less mechanical ingenuity. Even Rev. David Wright, though a minister, couducted a wagon and buggy shop.
It was in such environment that John B. Wright grew up. After leaving home he spent three years at Rockingham in Richmoud County, and in 1892 came to Greensboro in Guilford County, where he has since had his home. In 1893 he began work on the present invention. For years before it was perfected he gave the matter constant study and application.' He put the idea through a long series of most elaborate and exhaustive tests on various railroads throughout the country. In that time twenty-nine different models requiring new pat- terns were made and practically every one was put into regular service and thoroughly tried out. The success of this device is now assured, since it has been adopted by a considerable number of the large railroad systems of the United States.
For its manufacture and sale Mr. Wright organized the Wright Safety Air Brake Company, .with headquarters at Greensboro and a branch office in Chicago. He owns more than fifty per cent of the capital stock of the company and is its vice president and general manager. An import- ant feature of the invention, and one that has been constantly kept in mind by Mr. Wright in his experiments, is its simplicity and efficiency, combined with its inconspicuous position on the
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truck. It does its work when needed but the rest of the time is entirely out of the way and interferes in no sense with the operation and handling of the trains. This feature alone has commended it to experts in railway safety appli- ances.
While bringing his chief invention to perfection Mr. Wright for years made an exhaustive study of truck and track conditions, and is now said to be the best informed man on car and tender and engine trucks in the United States. As such authority he is widely known, and his knowledge and skill in the application and operation of the air brake is such that he has been commissioned as special air brake inspector by a number of prominent railroad systems.
While his time and industry have been chiefly devoted to the "Wright Little Watchman" he has perfected a number of minor inventions. One of the most useful and practical is the Wright Easy Blind Hinge, a device that simplifies the opening and closing of window blinds and holds them firmly in place to prevent rattling.
Mr. Wright was married in 1891 to Miss Fannie Register of Moore County. Her father, John D. Register, now lives at Jonesboro. Mr. and Mrs. Wright have seven children: Attie, Anna Meade, Esther, Jonsie Eliza, John B., Jr., Carey Newton and Edwin Judson. Mr. Wright and family are devout members of the Baptist church, the church of his ancestors.
JAMES JEFFERSON BRITT is a North Carolinian who has attained to the rare distinction of being a personality and a figure with a really national reputation, based not only on the fact that he has served in Congress and has been connected with some of the executive offices at Washington, but also because he possesses the character, abil- ities and the achievements which make him an object of admiration and interest to the American people.
Mr. Britt deserves a biography that would take the form and extent of a volume in order to indi- cate the strenuosity and romance of his career in rising from the humble surroundings of his youth to conspicuous eminence among his fellow men. James Jefferson Britt was born on a farm six miles from Johnson City in Carter County, Ten- nessee, March 4, 1861, a son of James Jefferson and Nancy J. (Underwood) Britt. His father was a farmer and mechanic and owned some land and stock at the outbreak of the war. Like most of the East Tennesseeans, he was pronounced in his Union sentiments and suffered much loss and personal hardship during the war, his farm being ravaged by soldiers of both armies.
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