USA > North Carolina > Guilford County > The History of Guilford County, North Carolina > Part 14
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My son Shubal married Mary Brooks, and have now living John and Stephen and three daughters. He died in the State of Indiana in the year 1824.
My daughter Roda married Abel Coffin-had four sons and three daughters.
My son George married Lidia Coffin-have four sons and four daughters.
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My son Abel married Mary Bullock-had one daughter, Aseneth, born 3 mo, 10, 1813; Rachel, 7 mo, 4, 1817; Abigail, 12 mo, 12, 1818; Aleb B., 5 mo, 4, 1820; Mary Marier, 9 mo, 15, 1822; Nathan M., 2 mo, 18, 1824; Miriam P., 8 mo, 15 (faded out) ; Martha Jane, 4 mo, 11, 1832.
Stephen Gardner departed this life 20th of 3 month, 1830, aged 83 years and 5 months.
Abigail Gardner departed this life 10 mo, 29, 1825, aged 77 years and 15 days.
Roda Coffin departed this life 2 mo, 2, 1839.
Lydia Gardner departed this life the II mo, 28, 1833.
George Gardner, ser, departed this life the 8 mo, 6, 1836.
Jonathan Gardner died II mo, 5, 1843.
Mary Gardner departed this life March 17, 1867, aged 76 years, 9 months and 4 days.
Abel Gardner departed this life November 26, 1873, aged 85 years, 3 months and 25 days.
Eunice Worth departed this life the 17 of August, 1866, aged 86 years, 7 months and 17 days.
Nathan M. Gardner died Jan. 16, 1861, aged 37 years.
RALPH GORRELL.
This is a name which has been identified with this County since the Regulation War. The Gorrells, Gillespies and Donnells were soldier-patriots in America's first great struggle for liberty. To know them, read Caruthers' "Old North State." On the fair honor roll of the Colonial Dames and Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution their names still glow with the fire of true patriotism.
Hon. Ralph Gorrell, a descendant of Ralph Gorrell of the Revolution, was a distinguished lawyer and statesman of Guilford County during the Civil War period. A biographical sketch of Mr. Gorrell was prepared by Mr. John G. McCormick in the Histori- cal Monograph, published by Mr. James Sprunt for the University
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of North Carolina. This monograph gives the personnel of the Convention of 1861, of which Mr. Ralph Gorrell was a member.
Mr. Gorrell held many positions of trust. In early manhood he was elected to the General Assembly, and in that capacity he served the State upon many occasions. His devotion to duty, his sound judgment and wisdom made him an honor to his country. The following is a clipping from the Greensboro Patriot :
"Ralph Gorrell departed this life Saturday morning last, at 4 o'clock, in the 73rd year of his age.
"His death had been expected for some time past, but it is not the less mournfully felt by the community in which he had lived, respected and beloved, for over three score years and ten. He had been confined to his house since last February by disease, which seemed chiefly to affect his lungs, and for the last two months had kept his bed, becoming weaker until the lamp of life gradually went out, yet retaining to the last, in a remarkable degree, his mental faculties. Conscious of his situation, his last faltering words to the loved ones at his bedside were: 'I am dying-good- bye!'
"Mr. Gorrell had been distinguished in this community, in professional and public service, since his early manhood. When young, near fifty years ago, he was elected to the General Assem- bly, and has since, on many occasions, been chosen by his fellow- citizens to the Legislature, and has held other places of honor and trust connected with the improvement and progress of the State. In every station he was distinguished by fidelity and the wisdom and sound judgment of his counsels. Devoted to principle and acting on deliberately formed plans of action, he never stooped to the arts of the demagogue to secure popular favor. Hence the solid respect in which he has always been held by his fellow-citi- zens of all parties and classes.
"In his profession of the law, Mr. Gorrell furnished an ex- ample to every young member of the bar who would achieve an honorable and desirable reputation. His practice was marked not
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only by high honor in his intercourse with his brethren, but by sterling honesty with his clients. A laborious student and a con- scientious man, he acquired and maintained, through a long and chequered professional career, the character of a safe counsellor and able advocate.
"In addition to losses by the war and frequent suffering from bodily disease in the latter years of his life, Mr. Gorrell endured family afflictions more than usually falling to the lot of man. He had buried one daughter, just blooming into womanhood. Five sons were claimed by the grave-three of them before maturity, one just as he was entering public life with high hope of the future, one on the battlefield at the head of his company, and a son-in-law at the sad conflagration of the Spotswood Hotel, in Richmond."
GILMER.
About the name of Gilmer clusters much, not only of the history of Guilford County, but also that of the State and Nation. Coming to Guilford County in company with other Scotch-Irish from Ireland, by way of Pennsylvania, they settled near Alamance Church. William Gilmer, an active Whig of the Revolution, be- longed to Capt. Arthur Forbis' Company at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse, where they stood their ground, deserted by all the militia of North Carolina ; their leader fell, a martyr patriot to the cause of American liberty.
Capt. Robert Shaw Gilmer was the first son of William Gil- mer. His wife's father was Major John Forbis, another hardy Scotch-Irish Presbyterian of the earliest history of Piedmont Carolina civilization.
John Adams Gilmer was the son of Capt. Robert Shaw Gil- mer. He was one of the foremost men in the State and in the United States before the Civil War. His service in the Congress of the United States was during the term immediately preceding the Civil War. He exerted all the energy of his powerful will to turn the current which was fast leading to disunion. He was the
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warm personal friend of President Lincoln, by whom he was offered the place of Secretary of the Interior. Without hesitation he declined, taking part with the South, and soon he was a member of the Confederate Congress at Richmond. "He supported Gov- ernor Vance in preserving for his people civil liberty amid the clash of arms and the desperate resistance of a high-spirited na- tion, overpowered by superior numbers and more abundant wealth." (See Century Magazine, January, 1888.)
John Adams Gilmer was born November 4, 1805, and died May 4, 1868. He was reared on his father's farm, where he was accustomed to the plow-handles. At seventeen years of age, hav- ing acquired a fair English education, he taught school in the neighborhood. He boarded at home and dressed in clothes made by his mother's hands. Aided by means earned in teaching, Mr. Gilmer entered, in 1824, the Grammar School in Greensboro, N. C., taught by Rev. Eli W. Caruthers and Abner Gay. He boarded in the home of Mrs. Mebane, a friend of the cause of education, and a cultured woman. After two well-spent years in this school in closest company with the classics of the great languages and with mathematics-a combination which rarely fails to make great men-Mr. Gilmer, though having the advantage of culture, found himself in debt. He went to South Carolina, where, in Lauren's District, he taught for three years the Mount Vernon Grammar School. In 1829 he returned to Greensboro, where he studied law with Hon. Archibald D. Murphy, a great judge, statesman and scholar of the South. In 1832 John Adams Gilmer was licensed to practice law.
In this year he married Julianna Paisley, daughter of the Rev. Wm. D. Paisley, the first preacher in the Presbyterian Church in Greensboro. She was a granddaughter of Col. John Paisley and General Alexander Mebane-soldier-Whigs of the Revolution.
Thus reinforced by "Poverty, Patience and Perseverance" and a "good angel whose radiance guided and controlled me in darkest hours," John Adams Gilmer came to a bar already crowded
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by a brilliant array of the first men of the State-John M. Morehead, James T. Morehead, Thomas Settle, Frederick Nash, George C. Mendenhall, and, contemporary with him, Gen. John F. Poindexter, for several years solicitor-general of that circuit; William A. Graham, Secretary of the Navy; Hugh Waddell, Ralph Gorrell, John Kerr, men of the highest order, all of them. Mr. Gilmer built up his professional practice alone, "by individual attention to his business, by attending promptly to everything committed to him, by hard work and tireless energy." Early in his career he was elected to the office of County Solicitor for Guilford. In getting cases and in gaining them, his career was most successful.
By his eloquent advocacy and uncommon power of winning men, he was in the front rank of those who worked for internal improvements in this State, and who induced an economic and unprogressive Legislature to agree to subscribe, for building a great trunk railroad through North Carolina, two million dollars, conditioned on the previous subscription by individuals of one-half that sum. By energetic private work, by strong speeches in public meetings, and by a subscription of his own, he was a great factor in securing the performance of the condition precedent necessary for obtaining the grant of the State. Again in 1854, through his efforts, the State appropriated another million dollars for finishing the railroad. His influence and his vote were given to all the measures entered upon in 1848 navigation works, railroads, plank and turnpike roads in every section, the inauguration of a progressive public school system, the establishment of schools for the deaf, the dumb and the blind, and for hospitals for the insane, the geological survey of the State, the State Agricultural Society.
After the tide of public opinion in North Carolina had turned irresistibly toward Democracy, Mr. Gilmer was chosen to oppose Thomas Bragg for the office of Governor. Gilmer fought for Whig principles, but the Democratic party prevailed.
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John Adams Gilmer was a master of oratory. (See his speech for the establishment of insane asylums in North Carolina Third Reader.)
John Alexander Gilmer, a son of John Adams Gilmer, was born in Greensboro, N. C., April 22, 1838, and died March 17, 1892. He was a graduate of the University of North Carolina, of the class of 1858. He began the study of law with his father in 1860. He had completed his law course at the University of Vir- ginia, when he entered the partnership of his father in the practice of his profession. At the beginning of the War he was a member of the Guilford Grays, which was organized at Fort Macon, S. C., in April, 1861, into the Ninth and later into the Twenty-seventh Regiment of North Carolina. In 1862 he had been promoted to Major, and was in command at Newbern, N. C. At the Battle of Sharpsburg he was made Lieutenant-Colonel. In the Battle of Fredericksburg he was wounded, and again he was wounded at the Battle of Bristow Station, where the Guilford Grays, all except three men, were either wounded or killed. He was assigned to duty at Salisbury, N. C.
In 1864 he returned to Greensboro and resumed his practice of the law. Governor Worth appointed him Adjutant-General of the State. In 1868, in the convention at Raleigh, N. C., he was a delegate, but was counted out by General Canby, at Charleston, S. C. Gilmer was the forlorn hope of the people to battle with Canby and the recently enfranchised blacks and carpetbaggers in the Loyal League. In 1870 he was elected Senator from Alamance and Guilford, receiving a majority, though at the time of "Kirk's cut-throats" undisputed sway. In 1879 he was appointed Judge of the Superior Court of the Fifth District, and to the same office in 1880. He held courts in every county of the State. In 1891 he resigned this judgeship, having served with integrity.
Judge Gilmer was a member of the National Convention which met in New York in 1868. Judge Gilmer was a stockholder in the National Bank of Greensboro, the North Carolina Railroad
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Company, and was interested in any movement that promoted the industrial welfare of Greensboro or North Carolina. Full of love for his native land and the advancement of her people, he won a right to their high regard, worthy of his father's son.
Judge John Alexander Gilmer was married July 14, 1864, to Miss Sallie L. Lindsay, a daughter of Hon. Jesse H. Lindsay, who was the first president of the National Bank of Greensboro, N. C.
I give below some newspaper clippings which show something of the character of John A. Gilmer :
(Judge Gilmer for Governor.)
HON. JOHN A. GILMER.
Some weeks ago, we hoisted at our mast head the name of this pure and patriotic son of North Carolina as our choice for Governor of this great Commonwealth. We did not wish to name a man whose every energies were in seeking the place; whose whole aim was to become Gov- ornor of North Carolina. We wanted a man that the office was seeking, who, if left to his choice would prefer another. We wanted a man who would please the masses. One whom everybody loved and admired for his purity of character, untarnished by cliques-rings; one whose sole record has been only as Judge of the Superior Court and whose fame is lauded by the humblest citizen. Judge Gilmer is known from Cherokee to Curri- tuck, from Virginia to South Carolina, as one of the purest, ablest and best men in North Carolina. Sound in his political convictions, willing to swear by what is right and just towards every one; possessing peculiar attractions as a speaker, he would instill such an enthusiasm in the Democratic ranks as no other but the illustrious Vance could do. Nominate him and our victory is assured. He does not seek the office but would prefer to be left alone .- (Paper not known) .*
"ATTENTION ! COOKE'S BRIGADE,
"And all other soldiers and true men of North Carolina. At no distant date you are to nominate a candidate for Governor of North Carolina, and this is to call your attention and ask you to rally to the support of one of our old comrades, a man you all know but to love. One who in all the walks
* People who knew him say that Judge Gilmer was one of North Carolina's greatest men. He was brave, and did not shirk his part in the world's work. He was true and lovely in his life, and men loved to honor him.
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of life has reflected only honor to his name and State. Who as a soldier honored the officers and private soldiers of his command alike so long as they were gentlemen. One who at the battle of Fredericksburg, when shot down on the slope of the hill, and his men lay thick around him, and the storm of battle made many true hearts beat quick with terror, could rise up in his glorious manhood and unselfish devotion to his men, and com- mand the litter bearers, who were anxious to remove their beloved Colonel out of danger, "To remove these poor fellows first, he could wait, though unable to move.' John A. Gilmer is the man, you all recollect him; tell your neighbors and friends of other commands about him. There are other good men in North Carolina, but none better. And you know he is a modest man, and will not, like some, push himself forward, and I call on Cooke's N. C. Brigade, his comrades who knew him well, and are composed of men from the cloud-capped hills of the Blue Ridge to the restless, roll- ing breakers of the Atlantic. * * I call on you, one and all, to go to * your county conventions, tell your neighbors and friends of his gentleness in peace, of his valor in war, and come in your mighty strength to the State convention and hand our Democratic Banner to John A. Gilmer and our victory will be sure .- A Voice from the East." (The Farmer and Me- chanic.)
(Judge Gilmer would not allow his name to come before the con- vention.)
Jeremy Forbis Gilmer, soldier, was born in Guilford County, North Carolina, February 23, 1818. He was graduated at the United States Military Academy in 1839, third in honor of his class. He entered the engineer corps and was engaged in building forts and in making surveys, and in river and harbor improve- ments, until the Civil War, when he resigned his position as Cap- tain of Engineers and entered the Confederate Army. In 1861 he entered the service, and was Chief Engineer on General Albert Sidney Johnston's staff. In the Battle of Shiloh he was severely wounded. Upon recovery he was made Chief of the Engineer Bureau at Richmond. In 1863 he was promoted to Major-Gen- eral and ordered to Charleston to direct her defenses. After the War he engaged in railroads and other enterprises in Georgia. He was an honorable man.
Joseph Whitfield Gilmer was born April 3, 1819, and died March 16, 1887. For many years he was county survevor, serving
MAJOR C. M. STEDMAN, OF GREENSBORO, N. C.
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before and after the Civil War. In 1872 he was elected to the State Legislature, where he served in the lower house for two sessions. He was a ruling elder in Alamance, for thirty-two years Clerk of the Session.
HOSKINS.
The Hoskins family was among the first settlers of the County. Joseph Hoskins, the pioneer of the family in Guilford, came from Chester County, Pennsylvania, in the year 1773, having obtained from Earl Granville a grant for a large tract of land near Guilford Courthouse, on the waters of Horse Pen Creek. The Battle of Guilford Courthouse was fought on his land. His residence was situated about one-third of a mile westward from the first line of battle, and was taken possession of by the British and used first as Lord Cornwallis's headquarters, and subsequently as the hospital for his wounded. It is interesting to know that the home-place of this tract has never passed out of the ownership and occupancy of some representative of the family.
Joseph Hoskins was an ardent Whig and patriot of the Revo- lution, and shared with the Guilford men the hardships, dangers and glory of the great Battle of Guilford Courthouse.
In the year 1789 he was made Sheriff of the County, by ap- pointment of Governor Samuel Johnson-the same year that wit- nessed the ratification of the Federal Constitution by the State of North Carolina and the election of Alexander Martin, his friend and neighbor, to the governorship of the State, under the new Constitution.
Ellis Hoskins, 1795-1874, was a son of Joseph, and lived and died on the old homestead. He was a courtly, Christian gentle- man of the old school, and a devout member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. He was a soldier in the War of 1812- 14. Notwithstanding his strong Southern sympathies, he had a son who was a distinguished officer in the Union Army-Col. Jesse E. Hoskins, who had settled in Kentucky prior to the conflict.
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Jesse E. survived the War, and achieved distinction in the legal profession in the State of his adoption.
Joseph Hoskins, 1814-1880, was a grandson of the pioneer. He established himself at Summerfield in the year 1845, having purchased the Charles Bruce plantation. He was a large land- owner and a pioneer in the manufacture of tobacco in this County.
The family has furnished two Sheriffs for the County-the afore-mentioned, and Joseph A. Hoskins, of the present genera- tion, who owns and resides on the old homestead at Summerfield.
In the years just preceding the Civil War, many of the family of this name removed to Indiana, Ohio and other Western States. They went along with the steady stream that left this County and State and peopled the great Middle West. ..
The English ancestor of the family came over with William Penn to Philadelphia, in 1682.
MAJOR CHARLES MANLY STEDMAN.
Major Chas. M. Stedman, president of the North Carolina Bar Association, is a resident of Greensboro. He was born in Chatham County. His father and mother were Nathan and Euphamia Stedman. When twelve years old, the family moved to Fayetteville. At sixteen he entered the University of North Carolina. There he showed brilliancy as a student and orator. When Mr. Buchanan, President of the United States, visited the University in 1859, young Stedman, a member of the Sophomore class, was chosen by the Phi Society as one of the orators for the occasion. In 1861 Mr. Stedman graduated with highest honors.
He soon enlisted in the Army of the Confederate States, vol- unteering as a private in the Fayetteville Independent Light In- fantry. He served that company in the First North Carolina Volunteers at the Battle of Bethel, June 10, 1861. When the Forty-fifth North Carolina Regiment was organized, he was elected First Lieutenant of the Chatham Company (E). The regiment was sent to Virginia, where Major Stedman served under
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Lee in most of the campaign. He was promoted to Captain of his company, then. to be Major of his regiment. As Major he served in command at many battles, never shirking a duty. He has the distinction of being one of the twelve Confederate soldiers who were engaged in the first battle at Bethel and who surren- dered with Lee at Appomattox.
After the war, Major Stedman began life anew, entering his profession as a lawyer. He studied law with Hon. John Manning, at Pittsboro, meanwhile teaching school. In 1867 he settled in Wilmington and soon had built up a large and lucrative practice. In 1884 he received the nomination of the Democratic party for Lieutenant-Governor and was elected to that office on the ticket with Governor Scales.
When nominated, he resigned the attorneyships which he held for several railway systems, believing that to be his duty upon entering official life. As President of the Senate, he made a brilliant record, and won the encomium of being the best presiding officer in the State. Major Stedman has received many honors in this State. In 1880 he was a delegate to the National Convention which nominated General Hancock. In 1866 he married Miss Kate DeRossett, daughter of the late Joshua G. Wright, of Wil- mington.
THOM FAMILY.
This family migrated from Scotland to Ireland, and thence to America. In 1750, John Thom entered a plot of land south and east of Guilford, and built his home there. He married Miss Catherine Kerr, of another Scotch-Irish family living near by. They had thirteen children, eleven of whom lived to old age. Nine of these reared large families, from whom are descended many of the first families of Greensboro and Guilford County. At their old homestead, Daniel Thom brought up his large family of chil- dren. The place is still owned by the youngest son of Daniel Thom-Rev. William Francis Thom, pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Gulf, N. C. It is interesting and somewhat singular
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that the family of John Thom and the families of his sons gave each, with one exception, a son to the Presbyterian ministry. For sixty years this family have had a representative in the service of the Church.
Many of the male members of the family moved West, so that the name is almost extinct in the County. Still, the descend- ants are numerous. Rev. James Earnest Thacker, of Norfolk, Virginia, is a great-grandson of the pioneer, John Thom.
John Thom was a strict Presbyterian, thoroughly teaching his children in this doctrine. Many a winter's evening around a glowing. fireplace, with dignity and solemnity, he required his children to recite the Shorter Catechism.
His oldest child was born in 1771, and his youngest in 1796. During the Revolutionary War he was away from home, fighting for the freedom of America. He was in the regular army, and was consequently not with the militia at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse. His family cared for those wounded soldiers, how- ever.
John Thom was a ruling elder in Alamance Church prior to the Revolution. Among the other charter members here were Wiley's, Finlys, McBrides, McGeachys, Stuarts, Donnells, Mc- Ivers, Humphreys. In Church and State they have a record of integrity and heroic patriotism.
AMOS RAGAN was born in Davidson County, February 25, 1824-was a son of Amos and Elizabeth Ragan. His father died when his son Amos was a mere child. Never went to school but three months in his life. Had no school advantages. Had to work to support his mother. At fourteen years of age he went to Missouri and spent five years on the ranches, trading in cattle and taking them to St. Louis, Chicago and other large markets, and disposing of them. He then went to Tennessee and spent two years selling machinery in that State, Virginia and Georgia.
While still a young man he returned to North Carolina and settled in Guilford County, at what was then called Bloomington,
MCS RAGAN, HIGH POINT, N. C.
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and engaged in the mercantile business with Clarkson Tomlinson. For several years he did a good business in this line, for a small country place. In 1859 he was married to Martha E. English.
Since the Civil War he has devoted his entire time to farm- ing. He has farms in Guilford, Randolph and Davidson Counties. When he first bought the farm at Bloomington where he now lives, the land was so poor that it would not "sprout peas." His farming land is now worth $100 per acre, and yields from twenty-five to forty bushels of wheat to the acre. He has raised in one year as much as three thousand bushels of wheat from this farm. He has a farm of several hundred acres on Deep River, where the fertile bottom lands are very productive to raising corn. He raises from 2,500 to 3,000 bushels of corn every year.
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