USA > North Carolina > History of North Carolina: North Carolina biography, Volume VI > Part 95
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"During his connection with the University, President Graham participated in various move- ments and was the recipient of many honors. He was a member of State and National Educational Associations; was president of the State Library and Historical Association in 1911-12, and of the North Carolina Social Service Conference in 1916. He was frequently in demand as a speaker and contributor to educational and literary publica- tions. Among his publications the most distinc- tive were his report to the Board of Trustees in 1916 in which he presented a broad educational program for North Carolina, and his inaugural address in which he set forth with a clarity and completeness that won wide acceptance, the func- tion of the modern state university.
"In 1914 the University of the South, at Se- wanee, conferred upon him the honorary degree of D. C. L., while in the same year from Erskine College, and the following year from Wake For- est and Lafayette colleges, he received the de- gree of LL. D. In 1918 he was invited to de- liver the baccalaureate address at Johns Hopkins, an engagement which he was unable to fill on ac- count of illness. At the time of his death he was serving with distinguished ability as Regional Director of the Students' Army Training Corps of the South Atlantic States; as a member of the Educational Committee of the Council of National Defense; as a member of the International Com- mittee of the Y. M. C. A., and as a trustee of the American University Union in Europe.
"On June 25, 1908, Mr. Graham was married to Miss Susan Williams Moses of Raleigh, whose earlier career as a student in the University and beautiful home life in the community after her marriage is one of Chapel Hill's most precious memories. Her death occurred on December 22,
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1916, she being survived by her husband and their only son, Edward Kidder Graham, Jr., now aged seven. "'
Among the many impressive tributes to his life one was from Secretary of the Navy Daniels, who said: "I think he was the most useful man in North Carolina and we would spare any man in the State rather than him. He was a man of clear vision, had the confidence of the entire state, and was truly representative of the best spirit of North Carolina. He bore not only a state but a national reputation as an educator, counsellor and great citizen."
RANDALL B. TERRY. A city is known by its products. Many thousands of people who have never been in North Carolina have some knowl- edge of the City of High Point, not on account of its individual citizens but because of the prod- ucts that come out of that community and are today used in hundreds of homes both North and South. High Point is North Carolina's great fur- niture manufacturing center, and the city now runs a close second to Grand Rapids, Michigan, in that respect.
One of the men who have contributed to this well deserved fame of High Point is Randall B. Terry, now head of the Dalton Furniture Com- pany, whose extensive plant furnishes employ- ment to hundreds of worl: nen, represents an enor- mous capital in fixed investments and machinery, and from whose doors the output of finished fur- niture goes to market both near and remote and even to foreign lands.
Mr. Terry was born near Rockingham in Rich- mond County, North Carolina, in 1883, and has attained a successful business position at a com- paratively early age. He is a son of C. B. and Annie (Hicks) Terry, who now reside at Ham- let in Richmond County. The Terrys are an old and prominent family of Richmond County, a lo- cality that has produced some of the most notable figures in North Carolina history. The Terrys originated in England, the first point of Ameri- can settlement was in Virginia, and from that commonwealth three or four generations ago they came into North Carolina.
Randall B. Terry was reared and educated in his native county and early evinced an inclina- tion that amounts almost to genius for commer- cial and industrial affairs. In 1904, at the age of twenty-one, he came to High Point and from the first was identified with furniture manufac- turing. He is an expert in the technical as well as the business details, and in 1905 he became associated with Mr. R. F. Dalton and others in organizing the Dalton Furniture Company. Mr. Terry has had the practical management of this business from its organization, and in 1913 he bought all the outstanding stock and is now sole owner of the extensive factory.
While the responsibilities of this large plant would seem sufficently onerous for the average successful business man, Mr. Terry is also presi- dent of the Wexler Land Company, president of the High Point Underwear Company, is a direc- tor in the Wachovia Bank and Trust Company, a director in the Piedmont Building and Loan Association, a director in the Amos Hosiery Mills, and a director in the Peoples House Furnishing Company. In 1912 he was elected a member of the Board of Aldermen of High Point, and has been generous in giving his time and ability to Vol. VI-23
the management of the municipal affairs. He is also president of the Commercial Club.
Mr. Terry married Miss Nancy Carr Heitman, of Trinity, Randolph County, North Carolina, and they have a daughter, Nancy Carr Terry.
ELLIOTT DAINGERFIELD is an artist whose word and work bear an accepted value and authority in artistic circles both in America and abroad. He claims North Carolina as the scene and in- spiration of his best works, it was the home of a portion of his youth, and for that reason North Carolina may well include him in its list of emi- nent citizens.
Mr. Daingerfield was born at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, March 26, 1859, a son of John E. P. and Maltida (Brua) Daingerfield. He spent his childhood and youth in Fayetteville, North Caro- lina, and was educated. in schools, academies and by private tutor there. To secure suitable instruc- tion he went to New York early in life and stu- died there under private teachers and in the Art Students League.
His great master and the source of his best inspiration was George Innes. In recent years Elliott Daingerfield has been accounted by art critics as the greatest authority on George Innes' work and style.
Mr. Daingerfield first. exhibited at the National Academy of Design in 1880. In 1897 he studied in Europe, but his most serious study has been in America, and he is one of the few of our leading artists who have stood out for an American School of Art of distinctively American charac- ter. One of his chief aims has been to estab- lish character and inspiration for American art as distinct from that of the countries of Europe.
Mr. Daingerfield was commissioned to paint the Lady Chapel in the Church of St. Mary. the Virgin in New York City, in 1902. Among his notable paintings may be mentioned "Madonna and Child," property of Haley. Fiske; "Child of Mary," which was awarded a silver medal; "The Story of the Madonna," given the Clarke prize at the National Academy of Design in 1902; "'Slumbering Fog"' in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He was for nineteen years professor of painting and composition of the Philadelphia School of Design. He is a member of the Fine Arts Federation, the New York Water Color Club, and is a member of the Lotos and Church Clubs of New York. Mr. Daingerfield has written two or three books and has been a frequent contribu- tor to art magaiznes, chiefly on his cherished subject, American art.
Mr. Daingerfield does both landscape and fig- ure work, but most of his achievement and his ambitions are in landscapes. It was for the purpose of developing his powers in landscape work that he has for many years been spending his summers in the heart of the Blue Ridge Moun- tains of Western North Carolina. He first came to Blowing Rock, Wautauga County, in the sum- mer of 1885, establishing a home here at that time. He has returned here every summer and is head of what is known as the Permanent Art School of Blowing Rock. Mr. Daingerfield is greatly devoted to this locality and its surround- ing mountain country. This affection for the re- gion is reciprocated by the home people, who through his long years of summer residence con- sider him one of their best friends and neighbors. Soon after he began his visits here he established his residence in the Village of Blowing Rock, but
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in the summer of 1917 moved to his beautiful new home, "Westglow," three miles west of Blowing Rock on the Yonahlossee Road.
"Westglow" is on the very crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains and occupies a position that is sublime and majestic in the extreme. The house is on a commanding elevation at the base of which winds the Yonahlossee Road, the turnpike from Blowing Rock to Linville. To the west is the great Grandfather Mountain, one of the highest peaks of the Appalachian system, which has re- cently been donated to the Government to be used as a national park. To the north, west and south the Blue Ridge Mountains sweep in great billows, almost always clad in a haze of deep blue through which the sunlight is never glaring, but almost golden, even at midday. The mountains are covered wtih grassy meadows and great for- ests. The arboreal growth on these mountains is remarkable for its almost tropical luxuriance and the great variety and beauty of the trees. A more inspiring location for an artist could not well be imagined. The house is a large two-story structure, very attractive architecturally, and is one of the show places of the Blowing Rock region. Here Mr. Daingerfield has his summer studio and is busy at his work until about the first of Octo- ber, when he usually returns to his New York home. In New York, which he regards as his commercial home, his studio is in the Gainsbor- ough Studio Building, 222 West Fifty-ninth Street. This building was erected by a small group of artists, Mr. Daingerfield being presi- dent of the company which built and owns it.
December 30, 1895, Mr. Daingerfield married Anna E. Grainger of Louisville, Kentucky, and they are the parents of two daughters, Marjorie Jay and Gwendoline.
FRANK P. MILBURN. It is by the character and substance of his work rather than by his personal presence that Frank P. Milburn is best known to the people of North Carolina. That he is one of the foremost architects of the country needs no as- sertion beyond the practical record of his work. Many of the most stately public, business and pri- vate edifices in North Carolina and many southern states attest the enduring and beautiful quality of his ideals and workmanship. Mr. Milburn former- ly had his home in North Carolina, but for a num- ber of years has lived in the City of Washington, where he is head of the firm Milburn, Heister & Company, architects.
He was born at Bowling Green, Kentucky, De- cember 12, 1868, son of Thomas Thurman and Rebecca Anne (Sutphin) Milburn. His father was a contractor of much ability and high stand- ing, and Frank Pierce Milburn started in the same business when seventeen years of age, and, to quote his own words used in a recent hearing before the committee on public buildings and grounds at Washington, "he worked in the saw- dust in the planing mill," and is first and last a practical exemplar of his profession. At an early age he made architecture his life work and brought to its study a business like performance which had much to do with his success. He was edu- cated in the schools of his native city and also attended the University of Arkansas at Fayette- ville.
He first entered business in 1888, and the first drawing he ever made was for John C. Under- wood, one of the finest civil engineers in the coun- try. Mr. Milburn worked with his father in the
contracting business for six years, but he has al- ways paid a great tribute to John C. Underwood, whom he has recognized as one of the masters of his art. In 1894 Mr. Milburn opened an office at Kenova, West Virginia, and his first work was the courthouse at Welch in that state. Two years later he opened an office at Charlotte, North Carolina, at which time he was made architect for the Southern Railway. This was the first big and important honor that came to him in his pro- fession. At Charlotte he built the Charlotte Na- tional Bank Building, twelve stories high, the first steel frame skyscraper in the State of North Carolina. At an earlier date he had built the Piedmont Building in that city, a substantial and handsome structure of the stone and brick style of construction then in vogue. He also erected the present courthouse in Charlotte and his rec- ord as a builder of courthouses is especially nota- ble, comprising the construction of at least sixty such buildings. In North Carolina he also built schools, railway structures and for over twenty years he and his firm have furnished the services of architecture and building throughout this state. He put up all the new buildings at the University of North Carolina to the number of eighteen, also the Blind Institute, the Capital City Club at Raleigh, and constructed court- houses at Winston-Salem, Charlotte, Goldsboro, Lumberton, Raeford, Greenville and the combined Court House and City Hall at Durham, one of the finest public buildings in the state. Other build- ings through which the citizens of North Carolina in widely separate sections can understand his architectural skill are a graded school at Char- lotte, passenger stations at Asheville and Salis- bury, County Jail at Salisbury, also the Citizens Bank of that city, the First National Bank at Durham, the First Presbyterian Church at Dur- ham. The numerous courthouses are scattered over the states of Virginia, Maryland, North and South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. Mr. Milburn built the addition to the Florida State Capitol and remodeled the South Carolina State Capitol, also the Goff Building at Clarksburg, West Virginia.
More than sixty railway passenger stations have been erected by Mr. Milburn. Included in these are the Richmond & Danville passenger sta- tions and Union stations for the various rail- ways at Savannah, Charleston, Augusta, Columbia, Meridian, Knoxville and many others.
Mr. Milburn has been permanently located with Washington as his professional headquarters since 1905. From that city he has directed his opera- tions over the entire South. Some of his best and finest work is now exemplified in the City of Washington itself. He and his firm were architects for the Bureau of Printing and En- graving at Peking, China, for the Commerce Building for the United States Department of Commerce, the Interstate Building for the In- terstate Commerce Commission, the Department of Labor Building, the American Federation of Labor Building, the Powhatan Hotel, the execu- tive and office buildings of the Southern Rail- way Company, the Real Estate & Trust Company Building, the District National Bank Building, the Union Savings Bank Building, the Potomac Electric Power Company 's Building, the R. P. Andrews Paper Company 's Building, the National Publishing Company 's Building, the Reeside Build- ing, the Washington Athletic Club Building and the department store of Lansburgh & Brother.
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As high as five million dollars worth of busi- ness annually has been transacted through his Washington office. Mr. Milburn is vice president of the Union Savings Bank of Washington, the oldest savings bank in Washington.
As an expert on architecture and construction of public buildings, he was especially called before the Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds of the House of Representatives in 1916, and presented to that committee a frank and straight- forward exposition of the principles and methods which he was convinced by long experience should be applied to government procedure in the matter of building construction. His statements before that committee make interesting reading, and are published in a separate pamphlet by the Govern- ment Printing Office.
Mr. Milburn is a Knight Templar and Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner, an Elk, and has repre- sented his profession of architecture in the Ro- tary Club of Washington. In politics he is a democrat. He has three children, Yancey, Fay and Jack. Yancey Milburn took up his father's profession and until the war began with Germany was his father's active assistant, having estab- lished a branch office in North Carolina to handle work in the southern states. He is now a captain in the National army and is in France.
Some years ago Mr. Milburn purchased an ideal country place in Maryland at Bradley Hills in Montgomery County, twelve miles from Wash- ington. This country place is known as "Fay- ance"' and is the home of many interesting and historic associations in addition to the charm that invests it as the home of Mr. Milburn and family. Under some of the giant trees surround- ing the home Anthony Trollope wrote "An Eng- lishman's Impression of America." Mr. Milburn lives at Fayance about eight months of the year. It affords him a retreat from a most busy career and also gratifies his natural fondness for nature and the great outdoors. There he renews his boyhood, and, as has been well said, it is "a place of replenishment; here he gets new ideas, plans new buildings, dreams new dreams of big things to be done, and after a season of rest he goes back to the world again better equipped than ever to build new monuments to his wonderful skill, ingenuity and ceaseless energy."
A writer who had some unusual opportunities to study Mr. Milburn's life and work, has fur- nished an interesting and attractive sketch of some of the larger elements in his makeup. He says: "Aside from his everlasting hard work it is Mr. Milburn's remarkable personality that has perhaps played the largest part in his career of success and large achievement. One of his charm- ing characteristics is his adaptability to all kinds of people and his clear insight into human nature. Good nature and candor are cardinal traits. He is straightforward in whatever he does, but what- ever he does is with the energy of a powerful nature to back his determination. He has per- haps more friends from New York to New Orleans than any other man in his profession. This is on account of his interesting individuality and his personal magnetism. He has the coveted charm of drawing people into his confidence and then cementing their friendship. He is fond of min- gling socially with big and distinguished men. One of the notable affairs of Washington's social life was his banquet to Josephus Daniels upon the latter's entry into Washington official life in May, 1913. Another of equal note was his banquet to
the Congressional Delegation from Kentucky. He does these things for the pure enjoyment of them, and not to promote any personal or political am- bition. He refused to have his name presented to President Wilson for appointment as one of the Commissioners of the District of Columbia.
"Few men in the South have acomplished so much before their fiftieth birthday as has Milburn. When we look over the work he has done and to which he has given his personal attention, the task seems almost impossible. But versatility, adaptability, and clear cut business methods are cardinal points in the makeup of his character, and these explain the success of his work. He has already built his monument in the hundreds of beautiful and costly structures bearing his name-but better than this his memory as a most delightful friend and companion shall live in the hearts of thousands who know him for his mag- netic personality."
EDGAR THOMAS SNIPES. Examples might be multiplied without number of successful North Carolina men who have been attracted to other states and have realized their expectations of use- fulness and service which followed them from their home community. The Hertford County family of Snipes has contributed its members to the bar of Philadelphia, where Edgar Thomas Snipes is now employed in the responsibilities of a large and important practice.
Mr. Snipes was born in Hertford County in 1881, a son of Elisha Thomas and Louisa ( Brad- shaw) Snipes. For several generations, this family has lived in Hertford County. In descent they are a combination of Scotch and English. Elisha Thomas Snipes was a man of prominence in his county, and represented it several sessions in the Legislature. The home town of the family is Menola. Another son of Elisha Thomas Snipes is Dr. W. E. Snipes of Franklin, Virginia.
Edgar Thomas Snipes received a very thorough and liberal education. The family has been loyal and devout Quakers for many generations, and most of his training was acquired in Quaker schools. He prepared for college at the Westtown Boarding School in Chester County, Pennsylvania, a Friends school, and from there entered Guil- ford College in his native state, where he was graduated Bachelor of Science in the class of 1903. He continued his studies in Haverford College near Philadelphia, graduating A. B. in 1904 and with the degree Master of Arts in 1905. He returned to his native state for his law studies and in 1906, was given the well merited degree Bachelor of Laws by the University of North Carolina.
During the next ten years Mr. Snipes enjoyed a successful and growing practice at Ahoskie in Hertford County. In 1916 he removed to Phila- delphia to become associated in law practice with Mr. Francis Fisher Kane, United States District Attorney, and Mr. Louis Barcroft Runk, secretary of the Law Association of Philadelphia. These two gentleman have since been called into law service, so that Mr. Snipes now represents tho en- tire legal business of tho firm.
A social event in which many North Carolina people were interested was the wedding on May 5, 1917, of Jane Chace Moon and Mr. Edgar Thomas Snipes. The ceremony was performed in the Friends Meeting House, Fallsington, Bucks Coun- ty, Pennsylvania. Mrs. Snipes is a great-nicce of Jonathan Chace, at one time United States
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senator from Rhode Island. The ancestral home of the Moon family at Morrisville is now the home of Mr. and Mrs. Snipes. It is known as "Mahlon Hall," and is a beautiful and dignified structure set in the midst of a magnificent estate of sixty acres at Morrisville, twenty-five miles from Philadelphia, and one of that city's most beautiful suburban towns. The Hall was estab- lished by Mahlon Moon, great-grandfather of Mrs. Snipes. He was widely distinguished as a suc- cessful horticulturist and nurseryman and created many of the beautiful landscape effects which now adorn the home.
J. S. P. CARPENTER is a native of North Carolina and had his technical training in this state, and his work as a specialist in textile engineering has brought him many advancements and responsi- bilities beyond the normal expectations of his years. He is now a member of the North Caro- lina Colony in the City of Philadelphia.
Mr. Carpenter was born near Lincolnton in Lincoln County, North Carolina, son of Ephraim and Mary Martha (Kiser) Carpenter. His father is still living in Lincoln County. The paternal grandfather was William B. Carpenter. The Carpenters are one of the old families of German origin who came from Pennsylvania to North Carolina about 1750, and has since been identified with what is now Lincoln, Catawba and Gaston counties. Mr. Carpenter's mother was a member of the Kiser family. This name is especially historic in what is now Gaston County. The present day descendants occupy land about five miles north of Bessemer City in that county, that was granted to their ancestors by the King of England and has been continuously occupied by the Kisers for a century or more.
J. S. P. Carpenter grew up on his father's farm. He attended local schools, Piedmont Seminary, in 1899 entered the Agricultural and Mechanical Col- lege at Raleigh, where he was graduated in 1903, and while in college took an active part in col- lege athletics and was a member of the foot ball team for three years. He specialized while in college in textile engineering and has made that his life work. He has held responsible places in several of the large cotton spinning industries of the South, especially in Gaston County and in South Carolina. In July, 1915, Mr. Carpenter went to Boston as inspector for the Federal Horticultural Board of the United States Depart- ment of Agriculture. His services were employed in technical work in connection with the use of foreign cotton in textile plants of the New Eng- land states.
He resigned that position March 23, 1918, to come to Philadelphia and take his present place as treasurer of the Mauney Steel Company. This company controls the output of a number of southern manufacturers of cotton yarn. It was organized in 1918, with a capital stock of$175,000, which has twice since then been greatly increased and has already attained a remarkable success. In six weeks the company had done over a million dollars worth of business, and composed as it is of active, energetic, progressive men, who know every detail of the textile industry, it has before it a brilliant future.
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