USA > South Carolina > History of South Carolina > Part 44
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tory Loan campaign was awarded a government hel- met as a prize.
On December 29, 1903, he married Marie Kendrick, daughter of Dr. W. T. Kendrick of Montgomery, Alabama. They have two sons, Joseph Kendrick and William Dixon Duckworth.
The Kendrick family traces its history back 113 generations to the year 1116 B. C., or 3,024 years, and are descendants of a Saxon king. A leading New York paper a few years ago published a list of the American families of royal lineage, and the Kendricks were among the few named. Mrs. Duck- worth's ancestors played a conspicuous part in the history of our country; one Capt. John Kendrick was the first to carry the American flag into the Pacific Ocean and also the first to carry it around the world. He named the State of Washington and the Columbia River after the names of his two vessels. His land deeds saved to the United States all the state of Washington and the northern parts of Idaho, Montana and Minnesota. These papers are on record in Washington, and were brought up before Congress more or less up to the year 1860.
Mrs. Duckworth's great-grandfather was a colonel during the American Revolution, her grandfather was a colonel during the Civil war and her brother was a major in the Engineer Corps of the famous Rainbow Division ( Forty-second) during the recent World war between the Allies and Germany.
COLEMAN LIVINGSTON BLEASE, who was the storm center of South Carolina politics during his two terms as governor, has been a lawyer for thirty years, and after retiring from the governor's chair, he resumed practice at Columbia.
He was born in Newberry County October 8, 1868, son of Henry Horatio and Mary A. (Livingston) Blease. He acquired a liberal education, attend- ing Newberry College and receiving lis LL. B. de- gree from Georgetown University, District of Co- lumbia, in 1889. In the same year he was admitted to the bar and at once began practice at Newberry. For a number of years he was senior member of the well-known firm of Blease & Dominick, his partner being the present representative of the Third Congressional District in the National House of Representatives.
Governor Blease has been a figure in state and local politics as long as he has been a lawyer. He was a member of the state democratic executive committee for eighteen years; he served three terms as a member of the South Carolina House of Rep- resentatives, from 1890 to 1900, and was speaker pro tempore of the South Carolina House of Rep- resentatives in 1891-92. He was democratic presi- dential elector in 1896, and again in 1900. During 1901-1902 he served as city attorney of Newberry, and from 1904 to 1908 was representative of New- berry County in the State Senate, being made presi- dent pro tempore by that body in 1907-1908. In 1909 he was elected mayor of Newberry. He was chosen governor of South Carolina in the summer of 1910, and served from 1911 to 1915, resigning in January of the latter year, five days before the close of his term.
Governor Blease is a member of the Methodist Church; is past grand master and past grand repre- sentative of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows; is past great sachem and past great representative
of the Improved Order of Red Men, and is now chairman of the judiciary committee of the Great Council, Improved Order of Red Men of the United States. He is also past chancellor commander of the Knights of Pythias, and is an Elk, a Woodman of the World, and inember of the Loyal Order of Moose.
In February, 1890, he married Miss Lillie B. Sum- mers, of Newberry. Her father was a Confederate soldier, her grandfather was killed while a soldier in the Mexican war, and her great-grandfather was a colonel in the Revolutionary war.
Among the recommendations made to the Gen- eral Assembly of South Carolina by Governor Blease during his term of office, were:
The establishment of the Charleston Medical Col- lege as the South Carolina Medical College, with full state support, thereby giving to its diplomas the credit of the state, which was adopted, this institution now being one of the recognized lead- ing medical institutions of the United States, and its diplomas so recognized.
A marriage license law, in the interest of the sanctity of the marriage relation, which was finally recognized by the General Assembly, and a law passed to that effect.
An act to prohibit the sale of certain drugs and patent medicines, which he felt were worse on the morals of a people even than liquor, which was en- acted at the session of the Legislature in 1919. And the passage of a law prohibiting the sale of cigarettes and cigarette papers.
That white and negro convicts should be segre- gated on the chain gangs of the various counties, which was finally enacted into law, and which has tended to prevent the race clashes in the South which have recently been so frequent in the North. He in 1890 when a member of the House introduced the first separate coach bill offered in South Caro- lina, and possibly the first in the South.
More humane treatment in the penitentiary and on the chain gangs to the unfortunates therein committed, which has been adopted as the policy of the state.
Electrocution for capital punishment, as a more humane method than of hanging. Electrocution in 1912 was made the policy of the state.
Contending that the Columbia Canal had reverted to the state, under the contracts stated in acts of the Legislature, he urged that the General As- sembly pass an act so declaring, which was finally done, after a strenuous contest. In this connection the then governor contended that the entire' plant of the water and light company was on the state's property. All of these recommendations finally be- came merged in the Columbia Canal fight, in which the state has finally taken the position that the canal belongs to the State of South Carolina, and has gone into the courts to secure a reversion of the property to the state, amounting to millions of dol- lars in actual value.
He was instrumental in bringing about the aho- lition of the hosiery mill within the walls of the state penitentiary. In this mill convicts were leased to a contractor at so much per day, and Governor Blease contended that the mill was a "tuberculosis incubator." deleterious to public health, as well as to its inmates, and that it must be abolished. In
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1913 the Legislature abolished it, only one vote in the Senate being cast against the contention of the governor.
He recommended and was instrumental in the establishment of the State Anti-Tuberculosis Sana- torium at State Park.
Governor Blease urged upon the state its duty to fight against the encroachment of state's rights, particularly in several matters involving amend- ments to the Federal Constitution.
He called the special session of the General As- sembly of 1914, which established the state ware- house system, and provided for reduction of acreage in cotton until it was seen that reduction was no longer necessary. The calling of this extra session was the foundation of the present state warehouse system.
During his term as governor he urged a special and extra one-mill levy for the free needy schools of the state. His measure was defeated by the ac- tivities of those who desired to apportion the taxes to be raised. Mr. Blease's contention was that there should be an additional one-mill appropriation, to be apportioned by the State Board of Education where it might be most needed by the poorer schools.
While senator from Newberry County, Mr. Blease introduced the bill for night schools, which resulted in the establishment of these schools for the benefit of those who could not take advantage of the day schools. There were and are many other matters proposed by him which are bearing fruit, especially his system of paroling convicts and rec- ommending more humane treatment of those in the penitentiary and in chain gangs. He paroled and pardoned more than 1,500 while governor and only two have been re-committed.
The only way fairly to judge of the acts of Governor Blease during his occupancy of the execu- tive office is to read his messages, as contained in the Annual Reports to the General Assembly, and for one to know for himself what the then gov- ernor's ideas were, as therein expressed, and, from such, to form one's own conclusions, without taking them from biased reports which often contained only extracts of what Governor Blease really wrote.
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As a lawyer Governor Blease has been connected with many prominent cases in different counties of the state, and ranks as one of the ablest criminal and damage suit lawyers in South Carolina. His recent victories at the bar has added much to his already well established reputation as a lawyer and orator .- J. K. Aull.
CHARLES AUGUSTINE GAMBRILL has identified him- self with some of the largest business affairs of the state, and his home and headquarters have been at Anderson for nineteen years. Starting a business career when a boy, he has achieved success by draw- ing upon his own resources and fund of industry.
He was born at Charleston, South Carolina, Sep- tember 4. 1873, a son of Launcelot and Anna (Gar- vin) Gambrill. His mother was a native of Augusta, Georgia, daughter of Dr. I. P. Garvin. Launcelot Gambrill was a native of Maryland and of an old family of that state of English lineage. From the age of thirty-six for twenty-eight years he was a stock and bond broker at Charleston. He never had robust health, and at the age of sixty-four he re-
moved to Augusta, Georgia, and died a year later, leaving eight young children to the care of his wife. Not long afterward she took her family to St. Louis, Missouri.
Charles A. Gambrill grew up at St. Louis, at- tended the public schools, but left off his studies to 1:elp support his mother's family. He worked as an office boy in a manufacturing concern and later was promoted to bookkeeper. In 1898 he returned to South Carolina and found employment in the office of the Pelzer Manufacturing Company, cotton mills. After a year he joined a cotton oil mill at Pelzer, and two years following became secretary of the Phosphate & Oil Company at Anderson. He was connected with that industry five years, and having recognized the possibilities of the petroleum industry in this section he organized the Petroleum Oil Com- pany, of which he has been president and treasurer. Under his management this business has been greatly prospered, and now maintains headquarters at Anderson and branches at Greenville and Spar- tanburg.
Mr. Gambrill married Daisy Symmes in 1902. She is a daughter of Whitner Symmes, of Green- ville. They have one daughter, Anne.
ELLIOTT CRAYTON McCANTS is at present superin- tendent of the Anderson city schools, an office he has held since 1907. He has been a school teacher for thirty years or more.
He was born at Ninety-Six, South Carolina, Sep- tember 2, 1865, a son of Nathaniel Stephen and Ettie Elliott (Poole) McCants. He is of Scotch- Irish lineage on both' sides. His mother's people came into South Carolina by way of the Blue Ridge Mountains from Pennsylvania. She was related to the well known Gilliam family of South Carolina.
The paternal history goes back to 1730, when two McCants brothers came from the north of Ireland to America and settled in South Carolina. One of these was David McCants. His son James McCants had six sons, all of whom were soldiers in the Revolution. Two of the Revolutionary soldiers were Nathaniel and Thomas MeCants. Thomas had a son named James, while Nathaniel had a daughter named Jean. James married his cousin Jean, and of their two sons, Robert and Nathaniel, the latter was the father of the subject of this sketch. Na- thaniel Stephen McCants was born near Ninety-Six, his father having been born near Charleston. Nathaniel McCants was a physician, a graduate of the Medical College of Georgia, at Augusta, and practiced his profession at Ninety-Six, where he died in 1872, at the age of forty years. He had served as a surgeon in the Confederate army.
Elliott Crayton McCants, the oldest of three chil- dren, went to school in his native town. attended the South Carolina Military College, The Citadel, at Charleston, and was graduated with the Bachelor of Science degree in 1886. He began teaching in the fall of the same year at Abbeville and later taught at Greenwood, after which he also taught in the states of Louisiana, Virginia, Tennessee and Ar- kansas. On returning to South Carolina he was for two years in charge of the schools of Blackville and in 1900 was called to Anderson, where for several years he was principal of the high school and
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Joseph I. Sharon.
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since 1907 has been superintendent of the city schools oi Anderson.
Flutott McCants raised a company for the Spanish- American war, but the Government never called his men into service. He has been secretary of the South Carolina Teachers' Association and is a demo- crat in politics. Mr. McCants is one of South Carolina's authors, his published works being "In the Red Hills," published in 1904, and "One of the Gray Jackets," published in 1909.
September 19, 1889, he married Tressa Lipscomb, of Ninety-Six, South Carolina. They have a family of eight children. Mr. McCants is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and is a Master Mason.
JOSEPH DEXTER BROWN. As illustrative of the increasing opportunities of American life, an ever greater number of men find it possible to achieve independence after a score of years of sustained and effective business effort, and one of such men is Joseph Dexter Brown, wholesale grocer and promi- nent citizen of Anderson.
Mr. Brown has achieved his own success. He was born on a farm in Anderson County June 4, 1870, and started his business career with only the earnings of his manual toil as a farmer. This is one of the old families of South Carolina, having been estab- lished here several generations ago by George Brown, an Englishman. Elisha Brown, son of George, was born in Anderson County and was the father of John Brown, who served as a Confederate sollier and otherwise spent his life as a farmer. Ilis first wife was Eliza Stevenson, by whom he had one son and four daughters. After her death he married Amanda McCown, who was the mother of two sons and three daughters.
Joseph Dexter Brown, a son of John and Amanda (McCown) Brown, spent his early life in the coun- try, attended rural schools, and to the age of nine- teen was a student in the Patrick Military Institute at Anderson. On reaching his majority he formed a partnership with his brother D. C. Brown under the firm name of D. C. Brown & Brothers, and with combined capital of only a few hundred dollars engaged in the grocery business at Anderson. Be- sides groceries they handled other lines and rapidly extended their trade until they were among the chief general merchants in that section of the state. Joseph Dexter Brown in 1903, after twelve years of profit- able association with his brother, bought the entire business and founded the Dexter Grocery Company, a wholesale concern with trade relations all over Northwestern South Carolina.
This large and profitable business is only one of Mr. Brown's several relationships with the com- munity. He is president of the Commercial Bank of Anderson, and is a large stockholder in the North Anderson Improvement Company. For a man who started business with a capital of only $300 his career is an inspiring one. He is a prominent citizen as well as a financial power in his community, is a democrat, has sought no political honors, and is a member of the First Baptist Church of Anderson.
In 1904 he married Miss Eula Donald, who died in 1912, the mother of two children, Donald and Gladys. In 1916 Mr. Brown married Miss Frances
Vol. III-12
Finley, and they have a daughter and son, Eliza- beth and Edward Finley. Mr. Brown and family reside in one of the fine homes of Anderson.
JUDGE JOSEPH T. JOHNSON. For a number of years before his death which occurred at his home in Spartanburg May S, 1919, Joseph Travis Johnson was one of the commanding figures in public affairs. In the opinion of his contemporaries he was one of the ablest men who ever represented South Car- olina in Congress. The last four years of his life he served with strict fidelity, purity of pur- pose and unusual judgment the office of Federal judge of the Western District of South Carolina.
Judge Johnson was born at Brewerton, Laurens County, South Carolina, February 28, 1858, a son of Benjamin and Mary Johnson. He was a small boy when his father died. He lived on a farm, had the meager advantages of the country district, and those advantages were made more meager by the fact of the devastating period through which South Carolina had passed and was then passing in the war of the sections and the reconstruction regime. It was a triumph over obstacles and the result of hard work and steadfast determination to win at all costs that he obtained the equivalent of a good literary education and prepared for the bar. In 1879 at the age of twenty-one he graduated from Erskine College and received his A. B. degree. The same institution conferred upon him in 1917 the well deserved honorary degree LL. D. Then fol- lowed a period of teaching, and on May 30, 1883, he was admitted to the bar and at once began prac- tice at Laurens but later came to Spartanburg, a practice which brought him much success and prom- inence, and which was only interrupted when he became a figure in the larger affairs of the state and the nation. In 1900 he was elected to the Fifty-Seventh Congress to succeed Hon. Stanyarne Wilson. For sixteen years he ably, faithfully and conscientiously represented the Fourth district. He was re-elected to the Sixty-Fourth Congress in 1914, but resigned on April 19, 1915, to become judge of the newly created Federal District for Western South Carolina.
Not in a brief page or two would it be possible to say all that properly might be said concerning the career of Judge Joseph T. Johnson. The Spartanburg Herald reviewed some of the outstand- ing facts of his life editorially referring to him "as one of the remarkable men of his day and genera- tion, who rose from humble station in life to posi- tions of honor and influence by force of character and capacity for work." Concerning his career in Congress "he was a conspicuous and able member of that body, exerting a wide influence and enjoy- ing the confidenee and esteem of the leaders of both the democratic and republican parties. During his last years in the House he was ranking member of the committee on appropriations and it was in that position, perhaps, that his work was most effective. It will be recalled that in the first months of Presi- dent Wilson's first term, before the Regional Reserve Bank Act became a law, and the financial interests of the country opposing Mr. Wilson, were exert- ing every effort to discredit and break his adminis- tration in the making, Secretary of the Treasury McAdoo came to the aid of the country with tem-
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porary financial relief in the form of his 'erop mov- ing fund.' In shaping and determining that policy Judge Johnson was one of the members of Congress. who rendered Mr. McAdoo most valuable aid and counsel. And in that one crisis he rendered his party and his own section of the country fine service, worthy of the best traditions of Ainerican states- manship."
A tribute which only the death of such a man as Judge Johnson could bring forth was written by Major Hemphill as an editorial in the Spartanburg Journal :
"Joseph Travis Johnson is dead. He was sixty- one years of age. He died as he had lived, with conscience void of offence, at peace with God and in favor with his fellow men. For thirty-six years a lawyer of distinction practicing in all the courts of South Carolina, for sixteen years a member of Congress from the most important district in this State, for four years the judge of the Federal Court in the Western District of South Carolina, he led a long, honorable, useful life full of worthy ambitions and good deeds and will go to his grave 'by all his country's wishes blest' and with the love of his neighbors, who will long remember that they knew him as a man without spot or blemish and whose life was devoted to high service and noble ends.
"'Joe' Johnson as his intimates called him, was racy and of the soil. He inade his way in the world from humble beginnings to high station, from the arduous toil of the fields to the even more exacting service of the forum, from the companionship of other country boys to association with the mighty men of the Nation, and in every place he was the same virile, loyal, constant force for righteousness. His character could never be questioned, nor his courage impugned. He shunned wrong, he cham- pioned the right, he lived with his face to God, he passed over into the life everlasting firm in the faith that triumphs over death and the grave.
"It is no part of our purpose to give an account of Judge Johnson's distinguished public service- his former colleagues in Congress will doubtless pay tribute to his work at Washington and the law- yers who practiced with him at the Bar and then pleaded before him in the Court which he adorned by his learning in the law will do him deserved honor-but only to say that in his death South Carolina has lost one of its most distinguished sons and worthy citizens."
His success as a lawyer and in public affairs was happily supplemented by the beauty and affection of his home life. On July 30, 1890, Judge Johnson married Miss Sarah Anderson, daughter of Harvey W. and Amelia (Richardson) Anderson of Laurens County. While her qualities as a home maker are deeply appreciated by her children, Mrs. Johnson also supplied many other elements to the career of her honored husband, and her loyalty to him and faith in him was a source of constant inspiration. Judge Johnson was survived by Mrs. Johnson and the following children : Joseph T., Jr., Miss Mary, Harvey W .. Laurens, Benjamin Oswald, Charles Edwin and Elizabeth Johnson.
JOHN MACKEY KING, who has served as super- visor of Anderson County since 1913, is a farmer
representative on the Board, and owns a farm and lives near Belton. His farm is distinguished as one of the oldest family homesteads in the state, having been occupied by the King family for nearly a cen- tury and a half.
Strangely enough, this long period of time com- prises only three generations of the family. John Mackey King is the grandson of a Revolutionary soldier and is probably the youngest grandson of such a soldier in South Carolina or in the United States. It was his grandfather, Robert King, who established the farm in Anderson County. Born in Ireland in 1750, he came to this country in 1770, and after a brief stay in Maryland located, in 1772, on the land now included in the farm of John Mackey King. Not long afterward he left his fields to join the colonists in their struggle for independence and participated in a number of campaigns as a brave and resolute soldier. After the war he continued farming steadily in what is now Anderson County until his death in 1826. He married Sallie Dolby. She is memorable for the fact that she was the mother of twenty-three children, twenty-one of whom grew to mature years.
Josiah King, a son of the Revolutionary veteran, was born in Anderson County May 10, 1800. Farm- ing constituted his life work and he lived for more than three-quarters of a century in Anderson County, where he died March 4. 1878. His first wife was Nancy Holmes, a daughter of William Holmes, of a family of very early settlement in South Caro- lina. She was the mother of three children, one of whom died in boyhood, the other two sons reaching mature years. When Josiah King was sixty-nine years old he married Nancy A. McClure. Her only child is John Mackey King, who was born in An- derson County August 9, 1870, and by reason of his father's late second marriage, a period of 120 years separates his own birth from that of his grandfather.
Mr. King's mother, who was born in Anderson County November 16, 1842, and died March 20, 1919. was a woman of remarkable character and possessed and exercised better business judgment and skill than the average man. She was one of the eleven chil- dren of Edward J. MeClure, who was born in Ireland in 1803 and came to America when a young man. In South Carolina he married Millie Whitfield, and they settled in the western part of Anderson County. Mrs. Nancy King at the death of her husband took the management of the farm, and from that time until the day of her death had some part in its direction and operation. The farm was well man- aged and profitable under her direction. She was a consistent Christian and a member of the Baptist Church.
John Mackey King grew up on the home farm and had a good common school education. At the age of sixteen he began work as clerk in the mercantile house of Stringer & Poore at Belton. Capt. A. J. Stringer of this firm took his young clerk into his own home, and Mr. King has always felt that some of the principal sources of encouragement. training and his business character originated with Captain Stringer and his good wife, with whom he lived for five years. They were really parents to him during that time. After leaving Mr. Stringer's em- ployment he spent two years clerking in other
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