USA > South Carolina > History of South Carolina > Part 26
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Thomas L. Clinkscales grew up on his father's farm and acquired a high school education in the Ebenezer School under Prof. C. C. Recd. In 1878 he married Emma Florence Harris, a daugh- ter of Ezekiel Harris. Mrs. Clinkscales died in 1895, the mother of seven children, named Harris Eugene, Julian Edgar, Walter Calhoun, Addie Belle, Emma Elizabeth, Margaret Jane and Elmer Ernest. In 1896 Mr. Clinkscales married Lillian Selma Wright. daughter of Hon. W. P. Wright of Anderson County, long a prominent farmer and former member of the Legislature. Mr. and Mrs. Clinkscales have three children: Tommie Wright, a daughter, Mayme Lucile, and William Newton. A son by his first wife, Elmer Ernest, was in the army on some of the battle fronts in France and later with the Army of Occupation in Germany.
For thirty years Mr. Clinkscales had his farm and business activities in Martin Township. He
then moved to his present place in Honea Path Township, where in 1912 he built a modern and beautiful country home, one that would be envied by many prosperous city dwellers. The house has a complete equipment of acetylene light, water system and all other comforts and con- veniences. His present farm is known as the Harris farm. Mr. and Mrs. Clinkscales are mem- bers of the Baptist Church.
Ile was elected from Anderson County to the State Legislature in 1916, and re-elected in 1918. He served as chairman of the committee on agriculture, on local legislation and on claims. He proved a stanch friend to the good roads movement and supported the bill by means of which Anderson County was enabled to issue bonds for building good roads.
L. W. HARRIS is a prominent young attorney, mem- ber of the law firm of Tillman, Mayes & Harris, and represents the business of that firm as head of its Anderson office.
Mr. Harris was at one time private secretary at Washington to Senator Tillman, and few men in the legal profession have enjoyed more influential asso- ciations and have had greater advantages in their early career than Mr. Harris.
He was born at Fairplay in Oconee County, South Carolina, September 23, 1891, a son of T. . R. and Elizabeth (Lee) Harris. His parents were born in Upper South Carolina. Educated in the Fairplay High School, he attended Washington and Lee Uni- versity in Virginia, studying law, and was graduated in 1915. He also took a post-graduate law course at Georgetown University in Washington, D. C. In September, 1915, he became private secretary to Sen- ator B. R. Tillman of South Carolina. He was his private secretary until the following June. It was an opportunity that would he coveted by any young man whether preparing for the law or for general busi- ness, since it brought him into close touch with a man of genuine greatness and with the great men of the country assembled in the national capital. He also had the rare educational and other opportunities afforded by a residence at Washington.
Mr. Harris took up the active practice of law in the summer of 1916 at McCormick, South Carolina. At that time he was a member of the firm Tillman, Mayes & Harris, the main office of which is at Greenwood. Mr. Tillman, the head of the firm, is a son of the late Senator Tillman, Mr. Harris prac- ticed less than a year. Early in the war with Ger- many he made application for the officers' reserve corps but could not be accepted on account of a minor defect. Subsequently, however, he enlisted as a buck private in the One Hundred and Eighteenth Field Artillery and was trained at Camp Jackson, Columbia. He was sent overseas and arrived with this organization in France only a few days before the armistice. While he did not reach the fighting front it will always be a matter of lasting satisfac- tion that he volunteered and freely offered his serv- ices to the Government at the time of necd. He was returned to America December 20, 1918, and received his discharge at Camp Gordon, Atlanta, January 9, 1919. He then resumed his place in the law part- nership of Tillman, Mayes & Harris and in Febru-
Leon W. Harris.
IS Dal-
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ary, 1919, established their Anderson office, his senior partners remaining at Greenwood. Mr. Harris is a Methodist, and is affiliated with the Masons, Knights of Pythias and Woodmen of the World.
THOMAS FRASER DIAL is president of the Tozer Engine Works at Columbia. These works are his- toric and for many years have been one of the leading industries of the City of Columbia. The business was founded about the close of the Civil war, in 1865, by Richard Tozer.
As an inventor and perfecter of the great prin- ciples of steam engineering Richard Tozer deserves a high place in American industry. He developed and perfected the famous Tozer engine, which brought into use a new principle in generating steam, practically revolutionizing the steam engine. The original shop where Richard Tozer built his first engine was in the nine hundred block on Washing- ton Street, and subsequently the factory was estab- lished in the seven hundred block on Gervais Street, and still later the present large and modern plant was built in the six hundred block on Green Street. This modern plant has every facility and equipment at hand for the fabrication of the company's prod- ucts. The Tozer Engine Works are not an assein- bling plant, as the engines are built complete from the raw materials. The chief output is portable, semi-portable and stationary engines and boilers, mostly for agricultural and general plantation use. With the increased growth and development of the business the demand for the Tozer engines is far in advance of the facilities of the plant at Co- lumbia to supply. It is superfluous to speak in South Carolina of the many splendid features of the Tozer product, though it may be mentioned that the Tozer boiler can be raised in from twenty to thirty minutes, using about half the fuel of other boilers.
In additions to the building of Tozer engines and boilers, a large repair and replacement business is carried on. The plant carries a large stock of iron and brass castings, engine fittings, United States in- jeetors and ejeetors, Pickering governors and re- pair parts, boiler flues and boiler fittings, and gen- eral machinery parts.
While Thomas Fraser Dial only recently became executive head of this industry, his family have been interested in the business practically from the be- ginning. His father was the late George L. Dial, who died in 1886. Born at Columbia he was for many years a member of the firm of Tozer & Dial, machine and engine builders. George L. Dial mar- ried Arianna Livingston, a cousin of the late John Frazer Livingston, president of the Columbia, New- berry & Laurens Railroad, of whom there is a sketch elsewhere in this publication. After the death of George L. Dial his widow became the wife of John A. Willis. John A. Willis continued the Dial Engine Works, as the business was known after the death of Mr. Tozer. Subsequently the Tozer Engine Works were incorporated, and following the death of John A. Willis the presidency of the company was as- sumed early in 1918 by Thomas Fraser Dial.
Thomas Fraser Dial was born in Columbia in 1882. He was educated in the local publie schools and as a boy became a runner for the Bank of Co- lumbia, where he remained for about two years. He
then entered the service of the Palmetto National Bank and grew up with that great institution, now the largest and most important bank in South Caro- lina. He rose through successive promotions to the position of assistant cashier, and for seventeen con- secutive years was with the Palmetto Bank, resigning in 1918. His training as a banker has been a valu- able asset in the conduct of his present extensive business.
Mr. Dial married Miss Maie Boylston, of the prominent Charleston family of that name. They have but two children, T. Fraser, Jr., and Margaret Boylston Dial.
FLOYD MATTISON Cox. Several of those enter- prises which put the seal of progressiveness upon the City of Belton had their source of inspiration, founding and management in the Cox brothers, prominent among whom is Floyd Mattison Cox, who though he began his career without special capital or advantages has come to be regarded as one of the most virile and prominent figures in the business life of Anderson County.
Mr. Cox was born at Belton April 18, 1877, a son of George Washington Cox. His father was born in the same county and was a Confederate soldier. At the beginning of the war he enlisted in Company K of Orr's Regiment of Rifles, was chosen captain of his company, and in 1862 was wounded at the'battle of Gaines' Mill. Later he suffered typhoid fever and was incapacitated for further active duty. Captain Cox in early life was a cotton planter and factor and later for many years was public cotton weigher. He died at Belton in 1902, when past seventy years of age. His wife, Martha Mattison, was also a native of Anderson County and member of an old and re- spected family. She died in 1911, at the age of seventy-seven. These parents had twelve chil- dren, six sons and three daughters reaching ma- ture years. The father was a Master Mason, and he and his wife are members of the Baptist Church.
Floyd M. Cox grew up at Belton, attended pub- lic school, and spent two years in Furman Uni- versity at Greenville. On leaving college he went to work as a clerk with the firm of D. C. Brown & Brothers at Anderson. Four years later the Brown Brothers and Mr. Cox bought the furni- ture, grocery and undertaking business of J. T. Cox, a brother of Mr. Cox, at Belton. The busi- ness there was continued under the firm name of F. M. Cox & Company. In 1901 C. F. Cox, an- other brother, bought the interests of the Brown brothers and the business, still under the name of F. M. Cox & Company, is owned by the Cox brothers.
In 1908 Mr. Cox and J. C. Garrett built an ice factory at Belton, and conducted it for two years, when C. F. Cox bought the Garrett interest, and the Belton Ice Company, now regarded as an in- dispensable factor in the commun ty, is another evidence of the enterprise of the Cox brothers.
In 1916 the F. M. Cox Company took the local agency for the Ford automobile, and in connec- tion therewith operates a garage and accessory
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shop. In 1916 the brothers also acquired the rights of a patent adjustable bearing for cotton mill looms, and later a patent known as Robert's clamp for a spinning frame. With S. H. McGee they organized a $150,000 corporation to manu- facture these patents. This corporation is known as the Textile Specialty Company, and is a promi- nent industry in the textile world. Besides manu- facturing their own patents the company does a general foundry business.
This is one of the leading industries at Belton. As this brief survey shows, Mr. Cox is in every sense progressive and aggressive in business af- fairs, and his individual prosperity has been thor- oughly justified by the service he has rendered his community. He is a member of the Masonic Order. With his wife he is active in the Baptist Church. He married Miss Anna Cobb, of Belton. in 1904. They are the parents of three sons and two daughters.
WILLIAM AUSTIN TRIPP, M. D. While his work as a physician and surgeon has been confined to his home community in Brushy Creek Township of Anderson County, where he was born and reared, Doctor Tripp has long been a prominent member of the South Carolina Medical fraternity and is a trustee of the South Carolina State Medical College.
Doctor Tripp, who holds the first license granted by the present Medical Board of South Carolina, issued in 1894, was born in Brushy Creek Township September 21, 1866, a son of John Rohert and Harriet Elizabeth (Johnson) Tripp. . The family tradition is that three broth- ers, John. Nick and Joe Tripp, came to South Carolina from Virginia in carly times. Joe went on to Georgia, Nick settled in Anderson County, while John Tripp, the great-grandfather of Doctor Tripp, settled on Reedy River in Greenville County. He reared three daughters and two sons, Elias and Robinson. Elias Tripp settled in Pickens County. His oldest son was John Robert Tripp, who was born in Pickens County, a son of Elias and Sarah Ann (Smith) Tripp. At the age of twelve years he removed to Greenville County, and from that county enlisted in the Confederate army and served four years as a soldier. After the war, in May, 1865, he married and rented a farm of his wife's grandfather in Anderson County. Ten years later, in 1876, he bought land in that county and continued a stanch and capable farmer until his death in 1910. He had two chil- dren, Doctor Tripp and Essie Cornelia, who mat- ried Hubbert B. Smith.
Doctor Tripp grew up on a farm, attended an old field school, and graduated in 1894 from the Atlanta Medical College. Since then he has en- joyed an increasing reputation as a physician and surgeon in Brushy Creek Township. He is a member of the Anderson and Pickens Counties Medical Societies and the State Medical Society. Hle was appointed by the governor county treas- urer to fill out an unexpired term, serving in that office one year. Doctor Tripp has some valuable farming interests. He is a Master Mason and a Knight of Pythias.
In 1883 he married Miss Elizabeth Bryant, of Anderson County. Three of their children are deceased and eight are still living. The oldest son, Charlton Maxwell Tripp, is a graduate of the Atlanta School of Medicine, and lett a growing practice at Pelzer, South Carolina, to enter the National Guard Thirtieth Division, was commis- sioned a first lieutenant and in that capacity rendered service in France. He held the rank of captain when he was honorably discharged. He is now practicing at Easley.
JOSEPH NORWOOD. Probably no one name has greater significance in South Carolina banking circles than that of Norwood. Joseph Norwood of Colum- bia, who might easily count a dozen important offi- cial relationships with South Carolina banking firms, is a younger brother of John W. Norwood, also one of the allest men in South Carolina finance.
Joseph Norwood was born at Charleston, South Carolina, February 14, 1875, son of George A. and Mary Louisa ( Wilkins) Norwood. The family an- cestry in America goes back to Col. Henry Norwood. who settled in Virginia about 1660, and was appointed treasurer of that colony by Charles II. The founder of the family in South Carolina was John Norwood, who about 1770 located in the Darlington district. George A. Norwood was in his time a farmer and planter, a cotton merchant and banker, formerly the head of G. A. Norwood & Company, cotton and naval stores commission merchants at Charleston. Mary L. Wilkins was a daughter of Rev. Samuel B. Wilkins, a well known Baptist minister in South Carolina.
Mr. Joseph Norwood received his early education in private schools in Charleston and in Marion, and finished his training in the University of Chicago, graduating in 1897 with degree of B. S. Leaving school in that year he gained a practical knowledge of banking at Wilmington, North Carolina, and later was assistant cashier of the City National Bank of Greenville, of which his father was president. In 1903 he organized and became cashier of the Bank of Piedmont. From 1905 to 1907 he served as cashier of the American National Bank at Spartanburg. On selling his interest in that bank he engaged in the wholesale lumber business. In 1908 Mr. Norwood organized the Union Savings Bank of Columbia and in 1010 this hecame the Union National Bank. At the end of 1918 he sold his interest in that bank and the purchasers consolidated with the Peoples Na- tional Bank under the title of the Liberty National Bank of South Carolina.
Mr. Norwood was one of the organizers in 1902 and the first secretary and treasurer of the South Carolina Bankers Association. He was a director of the South Carolina Insurance Company of Colum- bia, of the People's National Bank of Conway, of the Commercial Bank at Blackville, of the Barnwell Banking Company of Barnwell, until he sold his interest about the first of the year 1919. He organ- ized the Security Bank of Cowpens and the Bank of Tryon, North Carolina, and was president of both institutions until he sold out. He is now engaged in dealing in commercial paper.
Mr. Norwood is a former chancellor commander of the Knights of Pythias and a deacon of the First
for. Norwood
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Baptist Church. April 26, 1898, he married Miss Fannie Edwards of Greenville.
LUTHER HAYNE LEWIS. In all the years of their residence in Anderson County the Lewis family has exemplified the finest qualifications of citizen- ship, industrious enterprise and sterling integrity of character.
The first American ancestor of this family was William Lewis, who was of Welsh ancestry and was born in County Down, Ireland, in 1740. On coming to America he settled in Loudoun County, Virginia, and is understood to have been a soldier in the Revolutionary war. Later he moved to South Carolina, settling in Union and later in Washington County, where he died in 1820. His children included Major, Elisha, Sam- uel, James, John, Thomas, Jesse and William, and two daughters. The branch of the family under present consideration was continued through the son Jesse, who was the father of Jonathan Berry. Lewis.
Jonathan Berry Lewis was born in 1810 and died in 1891. He established the first store at Belton, and was a prominent merchant and bnsi- ness man of that community for many years. He married Mary Gambrell, a daughter of John Gambrell. Two of their children died in infancy, the others being Charles Berry; Robert Augustus who for many years was a prominent business man and citizen of Belton; America, Rachel Mar- garet and Luther Hay .. e. The only ones now liv- ing are Rachel and Nannie.
Charles Berry Lewis married Frances Cooley, and they were the parents of Luther Hayne, Mary, Fred W. and Jesse A.
Luther Hayne Lewis was born in Belton Town- ship September 24, 1878, and grew up on a farm, acquiring his education in the local schools. For several years he worked in the Belton store of his uncle Robert A. Lewis until the latter's deathi. He was a favorite of his uncle, who generously remembered him in his will and whose extensive farm lands Luther Hayne Lewis now manages. Mr. Lewis married Tecora Scott December 12, 1907. She is a daughter of Archie and Jane (Terry) Scott. Their two children arc named Clarence Hayne and James Archie Lewis.
J. M. HARRISON. One of the most conspicuous figures in the present-day history of South Carolina is J. M. Harrison, of St. Andrews Parish, a man actively identified with the agricultural interests of this locality and who has for a number of years ยท been widely known as one of the representative men of his section of the state. Equally noted as a citizen whose useful career has conferred credit upon the community and whose marked abilities and ster- ling qualities have won for him much more than local repute, he holds today distinctive precedence as one of the most progressive and successful men that have here inaugurated and carried to successful termina- tion large and important things. He is essentially a man of affairs, sound of judgment and far-seeing in what he undertakes, and every enterprise to which he has addressed himself has resulted in liberal financial returns, while at the same time he has
won and retained the confidence and esteem of all classes.
J. M. Harrison, who operates an important plan- tation on St. Andrews Island, across the Ashley River about one mile from Charleston, was born at Norfolk, Virginia, on the 20th of September, 1871. He is the son of J. M. and Bettie (Crom- well) Harrison. The father was married twice and the subject is the second in order of birth of the five children born to the first union. He was reared in his native place and secured a good practical education in the public schools. After completing his studies, he was variously employed until 1900, when he came to South Carolina, his first employ- ment here being with W. C. Geraty, on Yonges Is- land. The following year he was in the employ of N. H. Blitch at Meggetts. In 1903 Mr. Harrison determined to embark in business on his own ac- count and located on his present place. He first acquired 210 acres of land from James Doran, to which he added land from the Craft and Voorhees estates, so that today he is the owner of about 1,000 acres of fine land, of which 700 acres are under cul- tivation. Mr. Harrison has made many fine and substantial improvements on his estate, which is now numbered among the finest farms in the State of South Carolina. On the place there are twenty-one tenant houses and two splendid residences. A big convenience is the fact that a railroad shipping sta- tion is located on the farm, through which runs a railroad line. As many as 1,000 persons are at times employed on the place. The products of the place are varied in character, comprising potatoes, beans, beets, carrots, cotton, corn and hay, besides which Mr. Harrison gives a fair share of attention to the raising of live stock, in which also he has met with pronounced success.
Mr. Harrison was married to Alma Geraty, who died in 1919, leaving three sons, James, Marvin and Randolph.
Mr. Harrison has been remarkably successful in his farming operations and has earned the enviable position which he now occupies among the farmers of his state. At the same time his popularity is equally due to his fine personal qualities, which have commended him to all who know him.
JOHN BAILEY ADGER, a mechanical engineer by profession, has been prominently connected with industrial affairs, and more recently with the de- velopment of hydro-electric power in South Caro- lina, for many years.
Mr. Adger, whose home and business are now at Belton in Anderson County, was born ir Charleston April 19, 1858, a son of Capt. Joseph Ellison and Susan Cox (Johnson) Adger. His par- ents were both born in Charleston. His grand- father, James Adger, a native of County Antrim, Ireland, came to this country with his widowed mother, spent several years in New York City, and then settled at Charleston, where he was a merchant. Capt. Joseph Ellison Adger was also a Charleston merchant, and died there in 1898, at the age of seventy-six. During the war he was quartermaster with the rank of captain in Hagood's Brigade in the Confederate Army. His wife was a daughter of Dr. Isaac Amory John-
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HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
son, who died when a young man, and her grand- father was Joseph Johnson.
John Bailey Adger was the sixth in a family of thirteen children. He spent his early life in Charleston, attended the local schools, was a stu- dent in Kenmore School in Virginia and received the Master of Arts degree in the University of Virginia in 1880. For one year he taught the Preparatory Department of the University of Louisiana, and in 1883 graduated with the degree Mechanical Engineer from Stevens Institute of Technology at Hoboken, New Jersey. For eight- een months following his graduation Mr. Adger was assistant treasurer of the Charleston Iron Works and in January, 1885, entered business with the firm of James Adger & Company, which then operated a line of steamships between New York and Charleston ports.
Mr. Adger remained in Charleston until 1904, when he moved to Belton and organized the Bel- ton Hydro-Electric Power Company. He is president and treasurer of this corporation, which is one of the producers for electric power for industrial purposes in the upper part of the state. Mr. Adger served a period of twenty years, from 1885 to 1905, as president of the Charleston Y. M. C. A., and has always been deeply interested in that movement. He is a Presbyterian. In 1887 he married Miss Jane A. E. Warren, of Charleston.
JOHN WIGFALL LILLARD, who came to South Caro- lina from his native state of Tennessee, was one of the executive officials in the Union National Bank of Columbia for five years, and is now head of one of the leading general insurance agencies of the state.
Mr. Lillard was born near Decatur, Tennessee, September 30, 1877, son of Allison W. and Louise Elizabeth Lillard of Knoxville. His ancestors on both sides were gallant soldiers of the South during the Civil war. The records of the state capitol in Nashville disclose many self-sacrificing deeds of heroism and daring performed by the men of the Lillard family. Some of them were officers and others were content to serve as privates in the ranks. Mr. Lillard's mother was a direct descendant of John Locke. He was a great English scholar and writer who with . Anthony Cooper (for whom the Cooper River was named) outlined the first constitution and laws under which the Carolina colonies were gov- erned, known in history as the "Locke Constitution."
John W. Lillard received a public school education in Tennessee and left school to go to work as office boy and messenger in the Knoxville office of the Mercantile Agency of R. G. Dun & Company. He remained with Dun & Company steadily for nineteen years. During that time he was promoted step by step, and eventually was made manager of the Co- lumbia office, and thus became a resident of South Carolina in October, 1904. After six years as office manager, he became cashier of the Union National Bank of Columbia in September, 1910, and held that office until September 1, 1915. Since then he has been in the general insurance business and is also an officer and director in a number of corporations.
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