USA > South Carolina > History of South Carolina > Part 13
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Samb Q. Stoney
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HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
the advantage of outside influence or funds. The man who starts in the world unaided and by sheer force of will, controlled by correct principles, forges ahead and at length reaches a position of honor . among his fellow citizens achieves such a success as cannot be understood by a man who inherits a large estate to start with. Such a man is a cred- itable representative of the class which has fur- nished much of the bone and sinew of this country and added to the stability of our government and its institutions.
On October 21, 1896, Mr. Gibson was married to Jennie Sweegan, the daughter of Mathew Sweegan, and to them were born eight children, of whom one is deceased. The living are: Mary A., a graduate of St. Genevieve College of Asheville, North Caro- lina, in the academic course; Agnes G., also a grad- uate of the same college, having taken the reg- ular higher course and finished with the highest honors in her class, she also receiving the silver medal for proficiency in French; Anita E., who graduated from St. Genevieve, academic course ; Charles Ellis, who is farming with his father ; Frances W., who is a student at St. Genevieve Col- lege; and John Lowther and Louise, in public schools. Mr. Gibson takes an active and intelligent interest in local public affairs and gives his support to all worthy movements for the public good.
ROBERT BEE LEBBY. A business founded on a small scale by Robert Bce Lebby at Charleston more than thirty years ago is now the Baily-Lebby Com- pany, machinery and supplies, one of the largest houses of the kind in the southeastern states.
Robert Bec Lebby was born at Charleston, July 16, 1865. He is a son of a once prominent physi- cian, Dr. Robert Lebby, also a native of Charleston, who served as a surgeon in the Confederate army and for many years practiced at Charleston. The Lebby family originated in Wales, and on coming to America first located in Massachusetts, the family · name being transplanted to South Carolina prior to the Revolutionary war. The mother of Robert Bce Lebby was Mary Eliza Bee, a native of Charleston and of Scotch ancestry. The Bee family was also established in this state before the Revolution. Robert Bee Lebby was the sixth in a family of eight children, one of whom died in infancy and another when about six years of age. Five are still living : J. Hinson, a planter on James Island; Mrs. T. B. Ellis, of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina; Julia B., of Mount Pleasant; N. W. Gervais of Chicago.
Robert Bee Lebby spent his boyhood days in Charleston, was educated in the Porter Military Academy and graduated from the College of Charles- ton in 1884. In 1887 he entered the machinery and supplies business, and is now vice-president and treasurer and one of the active executives of the Baily-Lebby Company. This business does a large wholesale and retail trade over the four states of North and South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, and has about fifty people in its employ.
In 1889 Mr: Lebby married Hess Waring Mikell, daughter of William E. and Marie (Hopkins) Mikell. Her father was at one time a leader of the Charleston bar. Mrs. Lebby is a direct descendant in one line of the historic character Landgrave
Smith of South Carolina. Mr. and Mrs. Lebby have three daughters, Marie M., Lucile B. and Hess War- ing. Marie was a volunteer nurse with Doctor Mc- Guire's unit from Richmond, and was on duty at Base Hospital No. 5 at Toul, France. She returned to this country in March, 1919. The daughter Lucile is the wife of R. C. Siegling of Charleston. Hess was married to H. T. Jinkins of Charleston.
Mr. Lebby is an ex-commodore of the Carolina Yacht Club, an ex-president of the Charleston Club, a member of the Charleston Country Club, and St. Phillips' Episcopal Church.
CAPT. SAMUEL G. STONEY is president of the Ag- ricultural Society of South Carolina, the oldest agricultural society on the western hemisphere, hav- ing been organized in 1785. This interesting lionor is perhaps the most appropriate index fo the activi- ties and influences of Captain Stoney during his long and useful life. He represents the old planting class of South Carolina, but his methods have al- ways presented progressive tendencies and have been marked by several enterprises into the newer field of southern agriculture. His chief hobby in recent years has been the growing of beef cattle, though at one time his extensive acres were almost solely devoted to rice and cotton.
Captain Stoney was born at Charleston in 1853, son of Samuel D. and Harriet Porcher (Gaillard) Stoney. The Gaillard and Porcher branches of the maternal ancestry represent two of the most prom- inent French Huguenot lines in South Carolina genealogy. His mother was a member of the Gail- lard family of St. John's Parish in Berkeley County. The Stoneys likewise have many associations with the low country of South Carolina. Several gen- erations of them have been planters, particularly interested in cotton and rice. The ancestral home, where Captain Stoney has his country residence, is the old Landgrave Smith plantation in Berkeley County near Mount Holly. This land has been in the possession of the Stoneys and family connec- tions since long before the Revolutionary war.
Captain Stoney was reared and educated in Charleston. The early training, which he regards as the best preparation for his life work, was re- ceived in Professor Joseph T. Caldwell's school. From early manhood, a period of over forty years, Mr. Stoney though a resident of Charleston has exercised his chief business activities as a planter. He is the owner of several plantations, principally in Berkeley County, which for long years produced abundantly of the rice and cotton staples of South Carolina agriculture. He was one of the last to abandon rice planting on a large scale in the face of conditions which made continuous production of rice unprofitable.
Like other practical and far-sighted business men he has been deeply impressed with the necessity, growing out of the World war and the changes it has brought about, of everybody working and trying to develop and improve the agricultural resources of the country, and increasing production of life's necessities to the utmost. His own part in that program is important, not only for the sum total of results, but the influences of his example. On his home place in Berkeley County he has established
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the nucleus of a herd of Herefords headed by a pure bred bull, and by interbreeding with the native stock has produced some valuable grades. In other lines, his planting, his timber cutting and lumber manufacturing are all carried on with the idea of giving as much work as possible to laborers, to the end that the soil may be conserved and enriched, and that new aventtes of production may be opened for the basic staples of meat and bread.
For a number of years Captain Stoney has been president of the West Point Mill, a rice mill located on the Ashley River in Charleston. In former years this mill did an extensive business in preparing the rice crop of the adjacent plantation for the market. Now, with the decline of rice planting in South Carolina, the winter of 1920 was probably the last season of operation for the mill.
The title by which he is familiarly known among his fellow citizens is due to several years of service as captain of the Charleston Light Dragoons. Cap- tain Stoney has never presented his eligibilities for political office, though he has served on numerous boards of commissions and through them has per- formed a great deal of hard work in the public welfare without remuneration.
Captain Stoney has an interesting family. He married Miss Louisa Cheves Smythe, daughter of the distinguished Charleston citizen, Mr. Augustine T. Smythe. Their children consist of two sons and two daughters. Both sous distinguished themselves in the World war. They are Lieut. Samuel G. Stoney, Jr. the elder, who was an officer in the Three Hundred and Eighteenth Field Artillery, Eighty-first Division, and Lieut. A. T. Smythe Stoney, the younger, who served with the Fifth Field Artillery, First Division, with the American Army in France, and each shared in the splendid record of their divisions. Before the World war they had been with the Charleston Light Dragoons on the Mexican border. Immediately after America entered the war with Germany they joined the First Officers Training Camp at Fort Oglethorpe. Both these young soldiers are now students of the Geor- gia Institute of Technology. The two daughters of Captain Stoney are Harriet Porcher, wife of Albert Simons; and Louisa McCord, wife of Lieut. Wil- liam S. Popham, of the United States Navy.
Captain Stoney has ever taken an active part in the good works of the community in which he has lived. He has served as vice chairman of the board of commissioners of the Charleston Orphan Home; president of the board of trustees of the Charleston Museum; chairman of the Board of Sanitary and Drainage Commissioners, and during the great war was a member of the local draft board. He is chair- man of the board of vestrymen of the old Goose Creek Church, and is also a vestryman in St. Michael's Episcopal Church of Charleston. He is also vice president of both the St. Cecelia and the Huguenot societies.
SMITH L. TURNER, M. D. It is not always easy to discover and define the hidden forces that move a life of ceaseless activity and large professional success ; little more can be done than to note their manifestations in the career of the individual under consideration. Dr. Smith L. Turner has long held
distinctive prestige in a calling which requires for its basis sound mentality and rigid professional training and thorough mastery of technical knowl- edge with the skill to apply the same, without which one cannot hope to rise above the mediocre in administering to human ills.
Smith L. Turner, who is now numbered among the leading physicians and surgeons of Hendersonville, was born at Lakeland, Florida, on August 11, 1880, and is the youngest of the seven children born to Elias and Saphironia ( Wilcox) Turner, who were born and reared in Georgia. The subject was reared under the parental roof and secured his elementary education at Tifton, Georgia, after which he took a thorough course in pharmacy at Mercer Univer- sity. Having determined to devote his life to the practice of the healing art, he then matriculated in the medical college at Atlanta, Georgia, where he was graduated in 1911, with the degree of Doc- tor of Medicine. Immediately thereafter he located for the practice of his profession at Otter Creek, Florida, where he remained until early in 1918, when he came to Hendersonville, and has since been identified with this community. Though not long a resident of this section of the state, Doctor Turner already occupies a conspicuous place among the pro- fessional men of the state, his record both as a skilled physician and surgeon and a public-spirited citi- zen and honorable gentleman being without reproach, for in every walk of life he is recognized by all classes as a high-minded, talented, courteous gentle- man of integrity and genuine moral worth. He has acted well his part in life and while primarily inter- ested in his own affairs he is not unmindful of the interests of others, as his efforts to advance the public good and promote the welfare of his fellow men abundantly attests. He is a member of the Colleton County Medical Society and the American Medical Association, while fraternally he is identihed with the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons and the Modern Woodmen of America. His religious meni- bership is with the Baptist Church.
In October, 1911, Doctor Turner was married to" Edna McTeer, the daughter of Elias McTeer, for- mer clerk of courts of Colleton County, and to their union has been born a daughter, Etta, who was born on September 13, 1912. The Doctor is a well educated, symmetrically developed man, who keeps abreast of the time in advanced methods in his pro- fession, and his general knowledge is broad and com- prchensive. Because of his earnest life, high at- tainments, well rounded character and large influ- ence he is eminently entitled to representation in a work of the character of the one in hand.
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EDWARD A. EVE. There are many influences at work stirring and revitalizing the agricultural in- dustry of South Carolina. Not all these influences originate among the practical farmers themselves. Bankers, business men and public leaders have thrown themselves heartily into the cause.
One of the business men first to realize the prob- able reduction in the cotton acreage, and to adapt the commercial machinery of the state to new con- ditions was Edward A. Eve, who in 1909 was one of the organizers of the Sea Island Cotton Oil Com-
Ewald . Our
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HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
pany of Charleston. The primary purpose of this company was to crush the sea island or black seed of the Sca Island cotton. Mr. Eve early recognized that the peak of cotton production had been reached, and in anticipation of the eastward advance of the boll weevil that the growing of cotton would steadily decline, and that means must be found to supply other raw materials for the great oil mill industry. He and his company therefore were the pioneers in South Carolina and also in the South in perfect- ing the processes and adapting the machinery of cotton seed oil mills to the production of oil from peanuts. The first peanuts crushed in the plant of the Sea Island Cotton Oil Company were brought from Virginia or North Carolina, and for the past seven or eight years Mr. Eve has lost no opportunity to advocate local growing of peanuts. His company inaugurated a vigorous campaign in that direction early in 1912, and in that year, as a direct result of this campaign, it is said that the peanut crop of Charleston County was twenty times larger than ever before. In the meantime the Sea Island Cotton Oil Company was rapidly perfecting processes for the manufacture of a satisfactory grade of peanut oil and peanut meal. All the regular agencies, in- cluding the daily press, agricultural organizations and trade journals, have been utilized in promoting peanut culture, and Mr. Eve has personally pre- pared much of the literature that has worked such a wonderful change in the agriculture of the low counties of South Carolina. He has been inde- fatigable in his efforts to instruct the farmers in peanut growing and give them the benefit of the best scientific and practical knowledge on the sub- ject. Much of this publicity work has been done at his individual or the company's expense, and con- sists of plainly written and easily understood printed and typewritten matter, sent free of charge to the farmers. For the growing season of 1920 Mr. Eve has on his staff an expert peanut man, who made personal visits to the farmers in the low counties.
Mr. Eve, who is general manager of the Sca Island Cotton Oil Company, was born at Beech Island in Aiken County, South Carolina. in 1873. He is a son of William R. and Elizabeth (Ham- mond) Eve, of Beech Island. His mother is a daughter of Hon. James H. Hammond, who served as governor of South Carolina from 1842 to 1844. He was also a first cousin of Governor Wade Hampton. Governor Hammond was the organizer of the famous Beech Island Agricultural Club in 1844, and by reason of its continuous existence is today probably the oldest agricultural society in the United States. Governor Hammond's beautiful home, "Red Cliff," built on a hill at Beech Island and still occupied by his descendants, can be seen for miles around and is one of the show places of the state.
Edward A. Eve was educated in the Beech Island schools and took special work, chicfly chemistry, in the University of Virginia. His business career began in the cotton seed industry under Mr. Chris- topher Fitzsimons, of Columbia, now head of the Southern Cotton Seed Oil Company of that city. Mr. Eve came to Charleston in 1909, and the Sea Island Cotton Oil Company was established in
August of the same year. He has been its chief executive and moving spirit ever since.
Mr. Eve was married to Saidee Ancrum, daughter of William A. and Anna (Calhoun) Ancrum, of Camden, South Carolina. They are the parents of six children: Anna Calhoun, Edward A., Sarah Norwood, Christopher Fitzsimons, Mary Pringle and Catherine Elizabeth, Mr. Eve's home is at Hampton Terrace.
JAMES WILLIAM ROUSE. The life of the scholarly or professional man seldom exhibits any of those striking incidents that seize upon public feeling and attract attention to himself. His character is generally made up of the aggregate qualities and qualifica- tions he may possess, as these may be elicited by the exercise of the duties of his vocation of the profes- sion to which he belongs. But when such a man has so impressed his individuality upon his fellow men as to gain their confidence and through that confidence rises to an important position, he becomes a conspicuous figure in the body politic of the com- munity. The subject of this review has forged to the front in a responsible and exacting calling and earned an honorable reputation in his native county as the head of one of the most important branches of public service. Because of his earnest life, high- attainments, well rounded character and large influ- ence he is eminently entitled to representation in a work of the character of the one in hand.
James W. Rouse was born on his father's farm near Brunson, Hampton County, South Carolina, on March 11, 1872, and is the son of James T. and Nancy C. (Snider) Rouse. The latter was the daughter of Jefferson Snider, a native of Hampton County, whose ancestors had come to this country from Germany some time prior to the war of the Revolution. The subject's paternal line also is traced back to German origin, the immigrant ancestor having crossed the Atlantic before the Revolutionary war. James T. Rouse, who was a native of Hamp- ton County, was a farmer by vocation, and was the son of James Ronse, also a native of the same county, where he too followed agricultural pursuits. James T. and Nancy C. Ronse were the parents of four children who grew to maturity, the subject of this sketch being the oldest.
James W. Rouse received his elementary education in the public schools of Brunston, graduating from the high school, and then hecame a student in The Citadel at Charleston, where he was graduated in 1894. He immediately began his career as a school teacher, a vocation in which he was eminently suc- cessful and to which he applied himself without in- terruption until 1910, when his abilities and experi- ence were substantially recognized in his selection as superintendent of education in Hampton County, which position he still holds. He is a well educated, symmetrically developed man, and, his work as an educator having brought him prominently to the notice of the public, there is a constant demand for his services where a high standard of professional excellence is required. He keeps abreast of the times in advanced educational methods, and his gen- eral knowledge is broad and comprehensive.
Mr. Rouse has been wisely economical of his means and has made good investment of his money,
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being now the owner of a fine farm of 300 acres, located about ten miles from the county seat of Hampton County, and on this he raises excellent erops. Hle enjoys to a marked degree the confidence and good will of the entire community. ,
CLAUDE EPAMINONDAS SAWYER. Men who are al- ways in the fight, and exerting themselves according to their convictions and the fruits of their experi- ence, are fortified to a large measure against the lack of credit and esteem frequently imposed upon men of less worth and value. Claude E. Sawyer, of Aiken, has been through countless legal and political battles and his satisfaction has always been in the contest itself, rather than the credit assigned or withheld.
He was born August 24, 1851, at Sawyer's Mills Postoffice in Lexington District, now Aiken County. He is descended from William Sawyer, a native of Virginia, who left that commonwealth prior to the Revolution and coming to South Carolina settled on Cloud's Creek in Edgefield County, in a portion of old Ninety-sixth District. He married Elizabeth Ilancock. Their son Anselm was killed in a battle with the Tories, as told in the annals of Edgefield County. Other sons were named John and George. George married for his first wife Elizabeth Bird (or Byrd) and had a large family, including Henry, who married Elizabeth Warren. After the death of his first wife George married Mary Jones and they had a large progeny.
Henry and Elizabeth (Warren) Sawyer had the following children: George V .; William Early; Permelia L .; Elizabeth; Thomas M., who was killed at the battle of Gains Mill in the War between the States, and Nancy B., twins; Henrietta; Winfield S .; Madza and Whitefield H.
William Early Sawyer, father of Claude E. Saw- yer, was born January 4, 1814, in Edgefield District, near Batesburg, and died at his home at Merritt's Bridge Postoffice in Aiken County, June 18, 1888. He was a man of distinction both intellectually and for his activities. Physically he stood six feet tall, weighed 200 pounds in his early life and 240 when he was stricken with paralysis. While he never at- tended college, he acquired a good education and possessed a remarkable memory. He was excep- tionally good in mathematics and as a surveyor was employed extensively in surveying railroad lines, though his chief business was as a farmer. He was a leader in his community and his counsel and ad- vice were sought by people far and near. He served as a deacon in the Baptist Church, and was known as a man of sound judgment and poise. He was jovial and possessed a fund of numerous stories and jokes with which he frequently amused people when they were out of humor. For several years he served as a trial justice, when the only remunera- tion of the office was fees, and it was his aim always to persuade people to settle their differences out of court. Before the war between the states he would accept offices only of this kind, such as carried no compensation beyond exemption from jury duty. He taught his son Claude E. surveying, and directed much of his reading, but above all he set his chil- dren a good example.
William Early Sawyer married in August, 1841,
Elouisa Winnefred Fox, who was born near what is now Steadman's Postoffice in Lexington District, now county, December 2, 1817 and died near Mer- ritt's Bridge in Aiken County May 26, 1910. She was a daughter of Jesse and Faraby ( Ward) Fox and her paternal grandfather, Thomas Fox, was a soldier in the Revolution, and lived to the venerable age of ninety-six, his granddaughter and her hus- band remembering him well. Elouisa (Fox) Saw- yer was a type of woman who well justified the en- thusiasm of her children, who called her the best woman that ever lived. She was profoundly, truly and conscientiously religious and practiced her re- ligion, being a member of the Baptist Church for seventy-eight years. She was quiet, had a soft, sweet voice never raised to a pitch that betrayed excitement or anger, and she never spoke evil of any one. She was industrious to a fault and read her Bible as long as she could see. She and her husband reared two sons, neither of whom drank or used tobacco, though the older son was in the war and in prison, while Claude E. Sawyer was in the Philippines in a great tobacco country where all his comrades smoked. Both brothers were born prohibitionists and were taught from infancy to hate liquor. The children of William Early Sawyer and wife are briefly noted as follows: Solon Socrates, the oldest, died at the age of two years; Ptolemy Searon, born February 4, 1844, was in the Confed- erate army in Company I of the Twentieth South Carolina Volunteers, and for eight months was a prisoner of war at Point Lookout, Maryland, and did not reach home until August, 1865. In prison he was cruelly treated, starved, allowed only one blanket, given green wood and no axe to cut it with, and suffered a severe case of scurvy, from the effects of which he never recovered. He died suddenly at Johnston, South Carolina, February 16, 1911, leaving eleven children by his wife, Frances Crouch, who had died March 5, 1892. Among their children was Dr. Olin Sawyer, of Georgetown, South Carolina. The second of the family was Amah Tolulalı, born February 13, 1846, and May 28, 1864, married to William Boatwright, who was a Confederate soldier and died in 1905. Tolulah died September 5, 1913, leaving three children, Leila Truchelut, of Savannah, Georgia, William Claude and Daniel E. The next in the family was Alma Elouisa, born, October 2, 1849, and still living. No- vember 21, 1871, she became the wife of John I. Cullum, also a Confederate soldier, who died in February, 1907. The next of the family is Claude E. Sawyer. Gelina Falls, the youngest, born May 28, 1856, was married January 3, 1883, to Lewis Barnwell Jones and they live in Edgefield and have two children.
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