USA > North Carolina > History of North Carolina: North Carolina biography, Volume VI > Part 78
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WILLIAM J. HARRINGTON, of Glendon, Moore County, has one of the notable business centers of North Carolina. Such an estimate is made ad- visedly and with due regard to the fact that North Carolina has many successful business men, bankers, manufacturers, merchants and others. But in many well informed quarters there is an in- creasing belief that the wholesomeness, attractive- ness and completeness of American civilization rests on the life of the country. It is in his man-
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agement of an extensive plantation that Mr. Har- rington 's career and works. become of special in- terest among the leading men of North Carolina.
His plantation is located in the northern part of Moore County, in Deep River Township on . Mclendon's Creek and near Deep River, a few miles north of Carthage, the county seat, and three miles south of Glendon, a station on the Nor- folk Southern Railroad. It is also on a modern improved highway that is a part of the good roads system of Moore County. By his own efforts, his skill and energy Mr. Harrington has made this one of the finest plantations in this part of the state.
He was born in Moore County in 1875, one of a family of ten children, six sons and four daughters, eight of whom are still living. From his earliest youth he has been a steady, industrious, hard work- ing ambitious man. His ambition especially took the direction of acquiring this home farm, paying off its indebtedness and making of it one of the best places of its kind as well as a home for him- self and family. How well he has succeeded every one in that county knows, and the fact can be proved by very brief description.
Mr. Harrington is now a "single track" farmer. The distinction attaching to his plantation is that it is a specially well balanced property. It is large enough, and its facilities have been so carefully arranged, as to provide labor and productiveness practically all the year around. One part of it con- tains a grove of native timber. Mr. Harrington has carefully practiced forest conservation. The new growth is carefully looked after, none of it is cut down, and for the mature timber a home mill is operated for conversion into lumber, and this is one of the commercial resources of the place. Away from the timber are large fields given over to cotton, which is the principal money crop, wheat, corn, oats and everything else that can be grown to keep a large plantation at the height of its pro- ductiveness.
Mr. Harrington has spent a large part of his life in the original homestead of his plantation. For about two years he was in the livery business at Carthage. When he married in 1902 he had no resources whatever in capital, though his deter- mination and spirit to succeed were equal to a large volume of capital. By careful dealing he was able to buy the four hundred acres constituting his father's old farm, and this by subsequent pur- chases has been increased to nine hundred acres. On the land are seventeen living springs. In addi- tion to the splendid home of Mr. Harrington and family he has erected fourteen tenant houses on the place and made many other improvements. It is one of the farms that seem to point the way for new conditions in agricultural management. There are very few if any lax periods when the personnel of the working force has no employment. Mr. Harrington keeps about thirty-five employes the year around, and he has carefully trained them for different branches of the work, so that it is an interchangeable system, and practically the entire force can be set at any emergency task. Of late years Mr. Harrington has become greatly in- terested in livestock. The stock from his farm brings the highest prices in the open market. He has a registered Angus bull at the head of twenty- one grade Angus cows and heifers, also keeps a number of grade Hereford heifers, and at the present writing his cattle number about seventy- eight head, including a few of his famous Jer- seys. He is also a breeder of registered Berk- shire hogs.
The mainspring of the enterprise is Mr. Har- Vol. VI-19
rington himself. He is one of the busiest farm managers and supervisors that could be found anywhere. He is a dynamo of energy, never has an idle moment, and is on the go from early morn- ing to late at night. It is intelligent and re- sourceful management of this kind that makes possible the running of a big farm on the same principles as a modern factory. The Harrington plantation is, in fact, a big community in itself, and it requires a number of carloads of flour, sugar and other plantation supplies to keep the establishment provisioned for a single year.
Mr. Harrington comes of a notable family in this part of the state. The Harringtons are of English origin, and have been in Moore County and adjacent counties since prior to the Revolution. One especially prominent member of the family was the General Harrington who was commander of the American forces in the Revolutionary War and directed the operations of several brilliant campaigns in the upper part of South Carolina and the lower part of North Carolina. His direct descendants still live in Richmond.
William J. Harrington is a son of Thomas and Mary (Jackson) Harrington. His mother is still living. Her father, Maj. John C. Jackson was a Confederate officer, and the Jackson family were large owners before the war in the upper part of Moore County and the lower part of Chatham County.
Mr. Harrington's paternal grandfather, Elias Harrington, was married at a place on the old Fayetteville Plank Road, and then settled near White Hill Church, four miles north of Cameron in Moore County, where he spent the rest of his life. Thomas Harrington, who died in 1915, was born at that home place and served as a Con- federate soldier. In 1870 he and his brother A. B. Harrington bought the farm where William J. now lives, so that for nearly fifty years it has had practically a single ownership. These brothers bought 1,000 acres. This land is part of the old Alston property of Revolutionary history and was originally owned by George Alston, to whom it was granted by the King of England. The adjoining land, known as the "Horseshoe,'' was owned by George Alston's brother Phillip. The Alstons had come from England and settled in the upper part of Moore County long before the Revolutionary war. In the second year of that war Fanning, a pronounced British Tory, evi- dently looking for conquest and the spoils of war, left Wilmington and came up through the Cape Fear section to Deep River in the upper part of Moore County in command of a troop of Tories. The Alston brothers, hearing of the approach and realizing the object of the expedition, hastily gathered together a band of patriots and in a sanguinary conflict defeated Fanning in a duel of arms on what is now known as the Andersou Jones farm, a portion of the original Alston lands, of which the Harrington plantation is a part.
Mr. William J. Harrington is naturally a man of the highest standing and credit in the business and financial world, is a director of the Farm Loan Bank for Moore County, and for all the demands made upon his time and energy by his own busi- ness is keenly alive to the importance of the ad- vancement and welfare of his community and county. He is a member of the Methodist church.
He married Miss Blanche Davis, daughter of John W. Davis, of Moore County. Mrs. Harring- ton was born on the farm adjoining the place where Mr. Harrington's mother was reared on Deep River.
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Mr. and Mrs. Harrington have three children, Eugene, Mary Ruth and Lucile.
HENRY M. WORTH, known among his numerous friends over the state as "Hal"' Worth, has had a busy and active career and is one of the hon- ored residents of Ashboro. He was born at Ash- boro in 1860, and is of noteworthy lineage and ancestry. In one line he is a direct descendant of John Carver, first governor of Plymouth Col- ony in 1621. Another line of descent connects him with Tristram Coffin, who together with a small colony bought land from the Indians and became the first settlers of Nantucket Island off the Massachusetts coast.
The successive generations of the Worth fam- ily going back to the earliest known ancestor are as follows: 1, William and Sarah (Macey) Worth; 2, John and Miriam (Gardner) Worth; 3, Joseph and Lydia (Gorham) Worth; 4, Dan- iel and Eunice ( Hussey) Worth; 5, David and Eunice (Gardner) Worth; 6, John Milton Worth, who was born near old Center Church in Guil- ford County, North Carolina, in June, 1811; 7, Capt. Shubal Gardner Worth, who was born in Montgomery County, North Carolina, in 1836; and 8 Henry M. or "Hal" Worth born in 1860.
Tristram Coffin, the pioneer of Massachusetts, married Diana Stephens; their son James married Mary Severance; Mary, daughter of James Coffin, married Richard Pinkham; Shubal Pinkham, Sr., married Abigail Bunker; Shubal Pinkham, Jr., married Eunice Gardner; Abigail, daughter of Shubal Pinkham, Jr., married Stephen Gardner, and their daughter Eunice married David Worth, great-grandfather of "Hal" Worth. The mothers of John Adams of the celebrated family of that name, of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin and Daniel Webster, were sisters of "Hal" Worth's direct ancestors.
In a preceding paragraph Joseph Worth, shown as the third generation of the family, married Lydia Gorham. She was a daughter of Shubal and Priscilla ( Hussey) Gorham, a granddaughter of John and Desire (Howland) Gorham, a great- granddaughter of John and Elizabeth (Carver) Howland, Elizabeth Carver being of the same generation as John Carver, first governor of Ply- mouth Colony.
Daniel Worth, of the fourth generation, was born at Nantucket in 1739, and was the founder of the family in North Carolina. He located near old Center Church in Guilford County, where he was a substantial colonial farmer and planter.
His son David was a physician, and had his home near Center Meeting House. A son of this old time physician was the distinguished Jona- than Worth, governor of North Carolina during a portion of the war between the states, and also after the close of that war.
Henry M. Worth's grandfather, John Milton Worth, was a physician and attained prominence in public affairs, having many times been sent to the State Senate and House of Representatives, and was state treasurer for twelve years. He was one of the leading men of his eounty, largely engaged in businesses of various character, and built the mills of Worth Manufacturing Company, whose cotton cloths, sheetings and ginghams were widely sold throughout the country.
Capt. Shubal Gardner Worth, father of "Hal" Worth, was for a number of years an Ashboro merchant and was also interested in gold min- ing in Montgomery and Randolph counties. At the outbreak of the war he raised a company for
service in the Confederate army and was eom- missioned its captain. He resigned that com- mand to raise another company, and with it joined the Nineteenth North Carolina Cavalry, in the brigade commanded by Gen. W. P. Roberts. Captain Worth lost his life in one of the battles in the vicinity of Richmond on May 31, 1864. His remains were brought back and interred at Ash- boro.
Captain Worth married Elizabeth Elliott, a daughter of Henry Branson and Martha (Marsh) Elliott and granddaughter of Benjamin and Eliza- beth (Wood) Elliott. Benjamin Elliott was one of the progressive men of his time, having con- structed the first cotton mill in Randolph County and one of the first mills south of the Potomae River.
Henry B. Elliott, maternal grandfather of "Hal" Worth, was a man of superior education and an attorney of distinction. Just before the war broke out he moved to Missouri and was a resident of that state until his death. Henry B. Elliott's wife, as will be noted was Martha Marsh. Her brother, Alfred Marsh, married Sally El- liott, daughter of Benjamin Elliott, Sr. One of their children was a daughter Cornelia, who mar- ried George W. Thompson of Pittsboro. Their son, Alfred A. Thompson, now of Raleigh, mar- ried Lottie Love and their daughter is the wife of J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton, head of the his- tory department of the University of North Car- olina. Mr. Robert W. Thompson of Greensboro, who married Miss Annie Busbee, daughter of the late F. H. Busbee of Raleigh, is a son of Mr. Alfred A. Thompson.
Henry M. Worth was one of three children. His sister Elizabeth married Claude Creason and at her death left one son, Bertram Gayle, and one daughter, Lucy Daniels. His other sister, Ro- berta, was the wife of Richard Boyd of Boydville, Virginia, who died in 1907, and she is now Mrs. D. H. Collins, of Greensboro. She has three children, Sally, Evelina and Fred Boyd, the lat- ter now in France, being a lieutenant of infan- try in the American army,
Henry M. Worth was prepared for college in the old Bingham Military School at Mebane, and from there entered the University of North Car- olina. Before completing his course he left to become teller in the state treasury at Raleigh, under his grandfather, who was then state treas- urer, as above noted. Later for a number of years Mr. Worth was active in cotton manufac- turing and lumber milling, and has had a very busy and successful career. For some years he was attached to the department of justice, but is now a civilian officer of the war department, serving as inspector, Quartermaster Corps, of textiles being manufactured for the Government, with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, Quarter- master Corps.
Mr. Worth has been twice married. His first. wife was Miss Rosabelle Englehard, daughter of Maj. Joseph A. Englehard, who served as secre- tary of state during Governor Vance's adminis- tration, beginning in 1876. Mr. Worth married for his second wife Miss Laura Stimson, daughter of James H. and Julia E. (Stockton) Stimson, an old and prominent family of Davidson County.
FURNIFOLD M. SIMMONS has for eighteen years ably and forcefully represented North Carolina in the United States Senate, and his long eontinu- ous service gives him a ranking place in many of the Senate committees and has brought him a
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position hardly second to any among the men who control and direct the nation's destiny. He is chairman of the committee on finance, the premier committee of the Senate.
Senator Simmons is a native of Jones County, North Carolina, where he was born January 20, 1854. He grew up in the country and has al- ways kept in close touch with the rural districts and even with agriculture, though his own pro- fession has been that of a lawyer. He was grad- uated from Trinity College A., B. in 1873 and in 1875 was admitted to the bar. In the practice of law he steadily gained distinction and has been recognized as a leader in the profession even though the cares of public office have prevented consecutive practice for many years.
He first became known nationally when in 1886 he was sent from the Second Congressional Dis- trict of North Carolina to the Fiftieth Congress. He was chairman of the Democratic State Execu- tive Committee in the victorious campaign of 1892. In 1893 Senator Simmons was appointed collector of internal revenue for the Fourth Col- lection District of North Carolina, and served in that office during the second administration of Mr. Cleveland. He has long been the titular leader of the democratic party in North Carolina, and was chairman of the executive committee of the state in 1892, 1898, 1900, 1902, 1904 and 1906.
Senator Simmons was first elected to the United States Senate for the term beginning March 4, 1901. He succeeded Marion Butler, who had been chosen as a populist. Senator Simmons was re-elected in 1907 and in 1912 was the choice of the democratic primary, his two opponents being Governor W. W. Kitchin and Chief Justice Walter Clark. His present term in the Senate expires March 3, 1919.
Senator Simmons was the recipient of the hon- orary degree Doctor of Laws from Trinity Col- lege in 1901 and from the University of North Carolina in 1913. In 1875 he married Eliza Humphrey, of Goldsboro, North Carolina, and in 1886 he married Belle Gibbs, of Hyde County, North Carolina.
JOHN LAWRENCE NICHOLSON, M. D. A physi- cian and surgeon at Washington, but with reputa- tion and associations that make him well known throughout the state, Doctor Nicholson is the son of a physician, and brought to his professional practice sound native talent and thorough technical preparation.
He was born at Washington, North Carolina, May 2, 1879, a son of Dr. Samuel Timothy and Annie Elizabeth (Lucas) Nicholson. He received his early educational advantages in Ridgeway High School and graduated from Trinity College of Durham with the class of 1899. He took his medi- cal studies in the University of Maryland, where he graduated M. D. in 1904 and spent the following year as a resident student in the University Hos- pital of Baltimore. Returning to his native city in 1904, Doctor Nicholson at once entered upon a general practice as a physician and surgeon, and his successful position is well testified to by the various connections and relationships there to professional organizations.
He is surgeon for the S. R. Fowle Hospital, is local surgeon of the Atlantic Coast Line Railway, is a member of the Beaufort County and North Carolina State Medical societies and the American Medical Association, the Seaboard Medical Society,
the Southern Medical Association, the North Caro- lina Surgical Club, the Association of Southern Railway Surgeons, and the First District Medical Society. Doctor Nicholson also affiliates with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.
June 29, 1907, he married Miss Frances Hill, of Scotland Neck, North Carolina. Their two chil- dren are Josephine Whitmel and John Lawrence.
ROY RUSSELL BLANTON, former county recorder of Rutherford County, is an able young lawyer and has recently located for practice at Forest City.
He was born at Forest City March 12, 1883, son of John B. and Agatha (Stroud) Blanton, his father a merchant. He was educated in public schools, the Mars Hill Academy, one of the fa- mous preparatory schools of the state, and com- pleted his education in the literary and law de- partment of Wake Forest College. He has his Bachelor of Arts degree from that institution and in February, 1913, was admitted to the bar. In the same year he was appointed county re- corder of Rutherford County, and in 1915 was elected for the term of two years. At the expira- tion of that term of office he came to Forest City in January, 1918, and already does much of the law business in this section of the county. Mr. Blanton is a member of the Baptist Church and teacher of the Baraca Class.
JOHN H. BINGHAM. A man possessed of initi- ative and a knack for hard work can succeed in any line of endeavor to which he applies himself. This is true in farming as well as in other fields. Mr. John Houston Bingham, owner of a finely improved farm in the vicinity of Sugar Grove, Watauga County, North Carolina, has won marked success as an agriculturist and stock-raiser and in addition thereto he has achieved a fair amount of fame as a brilliant and versatile lawyer, his prac- tice extending throughout Watauga and adjacent counties.
In 1868, on Cove Creek, near Sugar Grove, North Carolina, occurred the birth of John H. Bingham, who is a son of William and Roxana (Presnell) Bingham, the former of whom is de- ceased and the latter of whom is living, her home being at Amantha, North Carolina. The pater- nal grandfather of the subject of this review was George M. Bingham, whose birth occurred July 20, 1805, on Reddy's River in Wilkes County, North Carolina, and he was a son of William Bingham, a native of Virginia, whence he came to this state as a young man. It is a tradition in this family that Benjamin Bingham, a brother of William, fired the last cannon at Yorktown. William Bingham, father of John H. Bingham, was a Confederate soldier and served throughout the Civil war, holding the rank of captain of his company. He died in 1873.
The late Maj. Harvey Bingham, of Statesville, an uncle of John H. Bingham, was a distinguished lawyer and teacher of law. He was born in Wa- tauga County in 1839, and passed to eternal rest at Statesville in 1895. As a soldier of the Con- federacy he was a member of Young Farthing's company, Thirty-seventh North Carolina Regi- ment. Later he became battalion major of the Watauga County Home Guard, having been dis- charged from his regiment on account of poor health. After the close of the war he located in Haywood County, where he taught school and studied law, being admitted to the bar in 1869. He was successfully engaged in the practice of his
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profession at Boone until 1881, when he estab- lished his home in Statesville, where he won great renown as an able attoruey aud where he con- ducted a private law school, in which a number of the most prominent lawyers of the state were equipped for the work of their profession.
John H. Bingham completed his early school- ing in the Cove Creek Academy and for twelve years he was a pedagogue in Watauga County. Iu 1898 he was nominated, ou the democratic ticket, for the office of clerk of the Superior Court of Watauga County, and although the county was then and still is normally republican, he was elect- ed to that office over a strong opponeut by a ma- jority of 225 votes. At the end of his term of four years he settled on his present farm on Cove Creek. Subsequently he studied law iu Wake Forest College and was admitted to the bar in 1913. Since that time he has won considerable prestige as a lawyer in Watauga and adjoining counties. He is a student and thinker, a fine pleader and speaker and ranks with the best at a bar which contains some of the ablest lawyers of the country.
Mr. Bingham's farm is located on Cove Creek, adjoining the Village of Sugar Grove and nine miles west of Boone, the county seat of Watauga County. Here he owns an estate of 100 acres right in the heart of the famous Cove Creek Valley, noted as the "garden spot" of North Carolina. He is also interested in stock raising and in this connection has an additional tract of pasture land of 150 acres at Meat Camp, north- east of Boone; he makes a specialty of cattle and sheep, and has been particularly successful with dairy cattle-Shorthorns, Holsteins and Here- fords.
Always greatly interested in matters of an edu- cational nature, Mr. Bingham was one of the founders of Walnut Grove Institute, in which he is a member of the board of trustees. This school has been generously supported by the citizens of this section and it ranks as one of the most suc- cessful academies in this part of the state.
Watauga County being a rich dairy country, it is naturally adapted for dairy products and the manufacture of cheese is rapidly becoming an im- portant industry in the Cove Creek Valley. Mr. Bingham was one of the organizers of the Cove Creek Co-operative Cheese Factory, of which he was the first president, and still remains in that office. He took a leading part in the inaugura- tion of this industry, making several trips to Ra- leigh to enlist the support of the state dairy de- partment and the factory was launched in March, 1914. This has been a. paying proposition, the annual dividends to stockholders, all of whom are local farmers and stockmen, amounting to 50 per cent, now fixed permanently at 10 per cent by stockholders.
In 1891 was celebrated the marriage of Mr. Bingham to Miss Alice Smith, a native of Wa- tauga County, North Carolina. They are the par- ents of eight children, whose names are here en- tered in respective order of birth: B. B. Bingham, Jennie, Nora H., Joe W., Dow H., Ophelia, Fin- ly and Robert Bingham.
In July, 1917, Mr. Bingham was appointed by Governor Bickett to the responsible position of chairman of the exemption board for Watauga County, and he has performed his duties in this connection with the utmost fidelity, justice and im- partiality. He is a democrat in politics, warm- ly advocating the party principles, although he is not an active politician. He has devoted him-
self assiduously to his profession and to his work as a farmer and stock-raiser. He is an original thinker, and as a man he is thoroughly conscien- tious, ever holding "That no man liveth to him- self, that no man dieth to himself"' as his motto, of undoubted integrity, affable and courteous in manner, and he has a host of friends, who honor him for his fair and straightforward career. That :
"One thought. but known To be thine own, Is worth ten thousand gleaned, From fields by others sown,''
is the proper view of the real student there pos- sibly can be no doubt.
SIDNEY HALSTEAD TOMLINSON is vice president and general manager of the Tomlinson Chair Manufacturing Company and president of the People's House Furnishing Company, both of High Point. In giving these institutions to High Point Mr. Tomlinson has achieved not only a commendable success from a private standpoint, but has benefited the community and made it pos- sible for a large number of families to live there, enjoy the advantages of a growing city, and have a steady and reliable source of income.
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