USA > South Carolina > History of South Carolina > Part 17
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These activities are now being gradually discou- tinued, but Mr. King already has a big program ahead of him in his new post as secretary of the International Committee of the Young Men's Chris- tian Association, Southern Region, with headquar- ters also at Atlanta. The official duties of this office he entered upon in 1920.
While at Charleston Mr. King served as a mem- ber and chairman of the Playground Commission for a number of years. He is a member of the Sec- ond Presbyterian Church of Charleston, is a past master of Orange Lodge, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, of that city, is a Knight Templar and Thir- ty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner, and is past chancellor of Cowan Lodge No. 77, Knights of Pythias, at Waco, Texas.
Mr. King married Miss Louise Robinson of Charleston, a descendant of the Robinsons of Con- necticut and of the Adger family of Charleston. Their three children are Louise Robinson, Mary Adger and Richard Hayne, Jr.
JOSEPH A. STORFER is one of the largest property owners, foremost business men, and a source of much of the influence that has been most beneficial in the upbuilding and progress of Charleston in recent years. With all his present substantial resources Mr. Storfer began life with nothing, and has made his career by his own industry and good management.
Mr. Storfer, who among other associations in the
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J. A. STORFER
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City of Charleston is identified as president of the City Bank & Trust Company, was born at Chicago, Illinois, July 1, 1869. His father, J. A. Storier, Sr., was born in Austria and married Anna Mary Pfeiffer, a native of Bavaria, Germany. They came to America in 1867, having a son six weeks old when they reached this country. They located in Chicago, and J. A. Storfer, Sr., died November 13, 1919. He had been three times married. J. A. Storfer, Jr., is the second of four sons by the first wife, Sebastian J., Joseph A., Henry and George M., of Charleston, South Carolina.
Mr. Storfer spent his boyhood and early youth in Chicago. When eleven years of age he started to work as a means of self-support, and he acquired his education only in the intervals of other employ- ment. He learned the trade of paper hanging and decorating. That was the business, pursued so many years, which gave him the foundation of his fortune. On coming to Charleston he opened the Heriot & Storfer paper business. He sold this in 1901, then established the J. A. Storfer & Brother, wall paper and decorators. This business has con- tinued ever since, though in 1918 there was a shut down because of shortage of labor. In 1911 Mr. Storfer organized the C. B. Prentiss Company, dealers in carpets, rugs and other household goods. He is president of this and is also organizer and president of the Leiten Realty Corporation, is a director of the Windsor Realty Company, a direc- tor of the Charleston Trust & Guarantee Company. president of the Building and Loan Association, and was one of the organizers and is president of the City Bank & Trust Company. He owns the Timrod Inn, formerly the Commercial Club, is owner of the Silver 5 and 10 Cent Store Building, and has much other business property and has been one of the men most progressive in developing local real estate improvement. Mr. Storfer was one of the first advocates for the new hotel to be called the Francis Marion Hotel. He secured the property for the site and turned it over to the company at cost. He is one of the directors of the company. His faith in Charleston as a commercial city has been well justified, and he has given the commu- nity full recompense for the prosperity he has enjoyed by personally stimulating business and promoting development along every line. Mr. Stor- fer enlisted as a private in the Heavy Artillery of South Carolina in the Spanish-American war and served until November, 1898, when he was honor- ably discharged by Secretary of War Alger.
In 1898 Mr. Storfer married Mary A. Noland, a native of Charleston. Mr. Storfer is a past master of Washington Lodge, No. 5, Free and Accepted Masons, member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, Charleston Club, St. Andrews So- ciety, Hibernian Society, and for a number of years has been active in politics. He was an alderman when J. Adger Smyth was mayor. He has never missed casting a vote since he reached his major- ity. Mr. Storfer is one of the self-made men of Charleston. He has had full faith in the city, and his faith has been proven by the wonderful growth and success of the city.
GEORGE S. HOLMES. It is sometimes found that efforts die away and enterprise is engulfed in inertia when the individual gains his desired goal, while, 'on the other hand, the chances for success continually encourage the exercise of perseverance and energy. In almost every case those who have reached the highest positions in public confidence and esteem. and who are accounted among the most influential in business and professional lines are those whose lives have been devoted without cessation to deep study and close application. It is probahle that the law has been the main highway by which more men of merit have advanced to prominence and position in the United States than any other road, and it is not unusual to find among the leading citizens of a community a legal practitioner. To respond to the call of the law, to devote every energy in this direc- tion, to broaden and deepen every highway of knowl- edge and to finally enter upon this chosen career and to find its rewards worth while-such has been the happy experience of George S. Holmes, one of the leading legists practicing before the Charleston bar. Mr. Holmes has gained honor and position in his profession through the application of honesty, energy, perseverance, conscientiousness and self-re- liance, and has kept abreast of his calling in its constant advancement.
George S. Holmes was born at Charleston on No- vember 30, 1849, a son of Arthur F. Holmes. The founder of the Holmes family in Charleston was Francis Holmes, who on February 15, 1093, was united in marriage with Rebecca Wharfe by Cotton Mather. One of their sons was Isaac Holmes, born at Charleston, and one of his sons, named Isaac and also a native of Charleston, had a son, John Bee, grandfather of George S. Holmes. John Bee Holmes was born at Charleston and be- came one of the leading attorneys of the city, al- though he had the misfortune to lose his father, Isaac Holmes, when he was a child. One of the children of John Bee Holmes was Arthur Fisher Holmes, father of George S. Holmes, and he, too, was born at Charleston. During the trouble with the . Indians in this section he served in an effective campaign against them, leaving the army with the rank of major. Arthur F. Holmes was married to Amelia Smitli, a daughter of George Smith, a native of London, England, who came to the United States in young manhood and located at Baltimore, Mary- land, where his daughter, Amelia, was born. Of the thirteen children born to his parents George S. Holmes is the eleventh in order of birth. Seven of these children reached maturity and four are now living.
George S. Holmes was graduated from the Col- lege of Charleston in 1870 and was admitted to the bar in 1871. He has specialized on real estate law, and is an authority on property titles, never going into court, but being consulted as a last resort. He is a very heavy stockholder in the North Charleston Real Estate Company, and owns considerable prop- erty in the county. The analytical mind of the law- yer has solved many problems in realty transactions the laity could not fathom, and protected the pur- chaser against defects in title which would, if al- lowed to stand, invalidate the transaction. A man of public spirit, he has always given an intelligent
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and effective support to those movements looking toward a further development of the city and an improvement of its facilities and public utilities, and is recognized as one of the really worth-while citi- zens of this region. Mr. Holmes is a man of much reading, an authority on literary matters and ot critical taste in prose and verse. He is a daily reader of French and Latin, has studied Greek and even Hebrew. He is a member of the South Carolina Historical Society, and an ardent friend of the Charleston Library, serving on the book commit- tee. His hobby is local history. While a refugee in Athens, Georgia, Mr. Holmes, a lad of fifteen. served in a Home Guard for two weeks until the Confederate troops arrived.
JAMES MARSHI SEIGNIOUS is one of the most dis- tinguished citizens and successful business men of Charleston, whose record in this city is one of honorable effort and profitable results. His name has been connected with some of the most import- ant cotton, banking, industrial and commercial transactions of the city and state, as well as with public enterprises of vast moment. In all these relations he has shown signal capabilities and a high sense of the responsibilities thrust upon him.
He comes of an old and illustrious family. His paternal grandfather was born in Alsace, France, and during the revolution in 1789 and the reign of King Louis XIV with other Huguenots fled first to the Island of Martinique, Hayti, and later took passage aboard an American ship to Charleston, where he lived,, married and died. Both he and his wife were interred in Trinity Church cemetery at Charleston. The maternal grandfather of Mr. Seignious was John Thomas Wightman, Sr., a son of Maj. William Wightman, whose father was Wil- liam Wightman, Esq., of Harrow-on-the-Hill, County of Middlesex (near London) England, and served as Consul at Tunis, Algeria, under the British Crown about the year 1735. The maternal grandmother, Eliza Stoll (mother of Martha Hester Wightman Seignious) was born in Charleston Jan- uary 25, 1800, and died August 13, 1834. She was a daughter of Elizabeth (Douglas) Stoll of English and Scotch parentage, whose father, Justinus Stoll, was very prominent in the time of the American Revolution and owned a large part of the South Battery of Charleston in his lifetime, a relic of which is Stoll's Alley, which bears his name at the present time.
James Marsh Seignious was born at Charleston November 4. 1847, a son of Francis P. and Martha Hester (Wightman) Seignious, being fourth among their eight children. Both parents were born, reared and died in Charleston and are interred in the Trinity Church cemetery. Mr. J. M. Seignious was reared in Charleston, attended its schools, being graduated from the high school course with high honors in 1864 and delivering the class anniversary address. Like all youths of his generation he was determined to enter the army and had been with difficulty kept in school as long as he was. As was natural, he espoused the cause of the Con- federacy and responded to the call of his country and was at his post of duty until the close of the war between the states, when he just as courage-
ously faced the future and took a position in the office of the Charleston Daily News, that offered him but slight remuneration. The brilliant mind of the lad soon impressed his associates, and he had discharged the duties of assistant bookkeeper, then cashier, and finally general office manager, all be- fore reaching his majority. In 1868 he accepted the position of tutor in what is now Porter's Military Academy, and held it for a year. Too ambitious to remain in the school room, he reentered the busi- ness world as a member of the bookkeeping depart- ment of the First National Bank of Charleston, re- maining there until 1870, when he formed a co- partnership with J. B. E. Sloan as a cotton factor. This partnership was dissolved in 1881. Afterward Mr. Seignious continned the business under his own name, successfully extending his operations until he was ranked among the leading cotton factors and commission merchants of South Carolina. In recent years he retired from the active business in that line, after having passed through all the finan- cial panics in his business period successfully and with unimpaired credit.
Mr. Seignious has other interests and is now a member of the board of directors of the Bank of Charleston National Banking Association, is chair- man of the examining committee of the bank, a position he has held for over twenty-eight years; is a director of the Bank of Orangeburg, South Caro- lina, which bank he was a leader in organizing in 1887, and has ever since been a director. He was unanimously elected president for sixteen consecu- tive years of the Charleston Cotton Exchange, de- clining reelection in 1916. In evidence of their personal esteem and appreciation of the able and valuable service he had rendered and the excel- lent financial condition in which he had put the ex- change while he was president, the members pre- sented him with a handsome silver loving cup and a life membership in the exchange, he being the only president who ever received such testimonials.
Mr. Seignious served as a member of the Dock Commission and the Harbor Commissioner's of Charleston. He is now a member of the board of trustees of the College of Charleston. He is the royal Danish vice consul for South Carolina, to which consulship he was appointed in 1902 by the foreign ministry of Denmark, an appointment con- firmed both by the King of Denmark and the Pres- ident of the United States.
During the South Carolina Inter-State and West Indian Exposition of 1901-2 Mr. Seignious ren- dered the exposition and the people of Charleston signal services as manager of the ways and means department, and to him is due much of the credit of the success of that undertaking, which promoted friendly relations and brought to the attention of the country the advantages of the expansion of trade territory.
On many other public occasions Mr. Seignious has represented the City of Charleston and the State of South Carolina, notably in the industrial conven- tion of the cities and states of the Union held at Philadelphia; the Grain and Trade Congress held at Mobile, Alabama; and the meeting of the ways and means committee of the House of Representa- tives at Washington in the matter of the selection
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of a South Atlantic city for the United States sub- treasury. He was made spokesman of the delega- tion on each of these occasions, and for the able presentation of the claims of his city and state and his forceful and impressive manner of speech he won high praise.
For a number of years Mr, Seignious had been exceedingly active in the commercial affairs and prominent in the leading societies of Charleston. He is a member of the South Carolina and St. Andrews societies of Charleston. A very loyal democrat, he has been active in the councils of his party ' and was chairman of the democratic execu- tive committee of Charleston County during the years of the most bitter political contests in the state. He has presided over the county democratic convention and represented the county in many of the democratic state conventions. Though fre- quently solicited in recent years to become a can- didate for the mayoralty of Charleston, he has al- ways declined.
Mr. Seignions married first Christiana H. Pelzer, a daughter of Francis J. Pelzer, of Charleston. They were married November 19, 1868, and their companionship of over twenty years was terminated by her death August 10, 1889. Of the nine children four are living and married : Eva Antoinette, wife of V. B. Murray ; Mattie, wife of Joseph L. Barry; Elizabeth, widow of F. C. Bryant; and James M. In 1891 Mr. Seignious married Esther Barnwell Heyward, daughter of Hon. Nathaniel B. Hey- ward, of Beaufort, South Carolina.
A man of personal charm, culture, and wide in- tellectual interests, Mr. Seignious has made him- self felt in social circles, while his high ideals with regard to business obligations, and the taet with which he has handled numbers of difficult problems presented to him for solution, have advanced him in the confidence of his associates. With the ex- ception of a few months he has spent his life at Charleston, and in this city has found his inspira- tion and given to it the full force of his abilities, time and financial help. He has always had the good of his community close at heart, and has been willing to sacrifice personal advancement for the general welfare.
WILLIAM WILKINSON CLEMENT graduated from the South Carolina Military Academy and immedi- ately on leaving that famous school he entered the mercantile business and in 1896 accepted a position with the Read Phosphate Company at Charleston and for over twenty years has been superintendent of the plant.
Mr. Clement was born at Adams Run, South Carolina, forty miles from Charleston, November 6, 1871. The Clement family came to South Caro- lina about 1680. His great-grandfather and his grandfather, Morton Wilkinson Clement, were also natives of the Adams Run community. His father, James W. Legare Clement, was born in the same locality in 1842 and in 1873 moved to a plantation on Wadmalaw Island, and the last six years of his life he spent in Charleston. The mother of Wil- liam W. Clement was Sarah Wyatt Lebby, who was born in 1843 at Charleston, daughter of Dr. Robert
Lebby, one of the prominent physicians of his day. William W. Clement was the third in a family of nine children. Sarah Wyatt, the oldest, is deceased ; Robert Lebby now lives on the old homestead on Wadmalaw Island; Anna Motte Legare and Francis Wilkinson died in early childhood; James Wilkin- son Legare died while a lieutenant in the United States Navy; John F. Townsend lives at Colum- bia; Francis Walpole is a resident of Charleston, and Keziah V. (Ruby) is unmarried.
William Wilkinson Clement attended country schools and graduated from the South Carolina Military Academy, now known as "The Citadel," the Military College of South Carolina, in 1894. Two years later he accepted a position with the Read Phosphate Company and in 1898 was promoted to superintendent of its extensive plant. . Mr. Clement was elected an alderman of Charleston November 4, 1915. His maternal grandfather, Dr. Lebby, had for some time held the same position representing the same ward. Mr. Clement is a prominent member of the Masonie Order.
In 1910 he married Marceline Murray Jenkins, a daughter of Maj. John Jenkins, a Confederate vet- eran.
JULIUS H. JAHNZ is vice president and general manager of the C. D. Franke & Company, one of the largest carriage and automobile accessory con- cerns in the South.
Mr. Jahnz practically grew up in this industry. He was born in the Province of Posen, Germany, November 30, 1865, and was educated in German schools. At the age of fourteen he came to Charles- ton, and went to work for Mr. C. D. Franke. He put in all the hours of the day and at night by private instruction completed his education and gained a better knowledge of the English language. In 1892 the death of C. D. Franke, the founder of the business, resulted in a change, when by the will of Mr. Franke the business was sold on favorable terms to Emil and Julius H. Jahnz. The name, however, has been continued as C. D. Franke & Company. In 1895 Julius H. Jahnz became general manager and in the past twenty-five years has seen the business grow to be the second largest of its kind in the United States. In the spring of 1912 the firm, which up to that time had been jobbers in heavy hardware and carriage material, began han- dling automobile accessories. About that time they also erected their large warehouse, and have ex- tended the industry until it now uses several ex- tensive buildings with floor space of 125,000 square feet and private railway tracks, and is the largest automobile supply and accessory house in the South.
Mr. Jahnz was for a number of years vice presi- dent of the Charleston Chamber of Commerce. He is vice president of the Atlantic Savings Bank, vice president of the Atlantic National Bank, and a member of the Board of Public Works of the City of Charleston.
He is a member of the Masonic fraternity, served as president of the Friendly Society, and for eight years as president of the Arion Society, of which he has recently been made an honorary member.
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FRED WILLIAM SCHEPER. The true measure of in- dividual success is determined by what one has ac- complished, and, as taken in contradistinction to the old adage that a prophet is now without honor save in his own country, there is a particular interest at- tached to the career of the subject of this review, since lie is a native son of Beaufort County, where his entire life has been passed, and has so directed his ability and efforts as to gain recognition as one of the representative citizens of the vicinity, being a worthy scion of one of the sterling families of this section of the state.
Fred W. Scheper, well known merchant and public spirited citizen at Port Royal, was born in Beau- fort, South Carolina, on the 15th day of February, 1872, and is the son of. Fred William and Rebecca Scheper. The father, who was a native of Germany, came to the United States in young manhood, long prior to the Civil war, his first permanent location being at Charleston, South Carolina, where he re- mained for a time, and then moved to Beaufort, where he spent the remainder of his life, his death occurring when he was seventy years of age. Prior to the Civil war he became a naturalized American citizen, and when the great struggle between the states came on he enlisted and served in the armies of the Confederacy. His widow is still living, at the advanced age of seventy-nine years. They were the parents of six children, of which number the subject of this sketch is the second in order of birth. The father was an industrious and energetic man, keenly alive to his opportunities in those early days, and attained to a place of considerable prominence in the business world. He was successful as a merchant and also became interested in banking, having organized the Peoples Bank at Beaufort, of which he served as president up to the time of his death.
The subject of this sketch was reared in Beau- fort and attended the public schools there, later go- ing to school in Charleston, and completing his studies in Judson College in Hendersonville, North Carolina. Immediately thereafter he became asso- ciated with his father in business, continuing until coming to Port Royal and engaging in business here. He operates a general merchandise business, in which he carried a large and well selected stock of goods and, because of his business ability and his courteous treatment of his patrons, he enjoys a large and satisfactory trade. He has also retained his family interests in the Peoples Bank of Bean- fort, of which he is a director, and has other busi- ness interests.
Mr. Scheper was married to Beatrice Johns, of Macon, Georgia, and they have one son, F. W., who is now assistant cashier of the People's Bank at Beaufort. During the World war F. W. was a member of the Marine Corps.
Mr. Scheper has taken a deep interest in the wel- fare of Port Royal and has rendered effective and appreciated service as mayor of the town and as clerk and treasurer at different times. He was ap- pointed by Governor Manning to act as a delegate in the Atlantic Deeper Waterway Association, which met at Savannah November 12, 1915. Fraternally he is a member of the Ancient Free Masons and has served as worshipful master of the Blue Lodge.
He has taken all the degrees of the York "Rite up to and including the thirty-second degree of the Scottish Kite, and is also a member of the Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. He is a man of impressive personality, broad in his mental grasp of things and possesses the charac- teristics which ever beget esteem, confidence and friendship. His integrity has been of the most in- sistent and unswerving type and no shadow rests upon any portion of his career as an active business mian and sterling citizen.
HON. JOSFPII FROMBERG, who twice represented Charleston in the General Assembly, is one of the younger members of the bar of that city, and his career has been one of real achievement and dis- tinction.
Mr. Fromberg was born at Augusta, Georgia, May 27, 1890, and at the age of four years his father took the family to Sumter, South Carolina. He was educated in the grammar and high schools of Sumter, also attended school for a time at An- gusta, and had private instructors for his higher branches. In 1906, when he was sixteen years of age, the family moved to Charleston and in 1908 he entered the law college of the University of South Carolina, graduating in the summer of 1910 with the LL. B. degree. By a special act of the South Carolina Legislature dated February, Ig10, he was admitted to practice at the bar of South Carolina in June, 1910. He was then only twenty years of age. After his admission to the bar he opened a law office in Charleston, and his work has brought him a steadily increasing patronage and recogni- tion. He has handled many cases of interest and importance both in the State and Federal courts.
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