USA > South Carolina > History of South Carolina > Part 5
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MILENGE LIPSCOMB BONHAM, who has been a law- yer and man of affairs at Anderson for a quarter of a century, is one of South Carolina's best known citizens and is the fifth child of Milledge Luke Bon-
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liam, distinguished as a governor of South Carolina and an officer in the Confederate army.
The son was born at his father's old home in Edgefield, October 16, 1854. He was reared and educated there, attending school at Edgefield and Columbia, and in February, 1876, was honorably dis- charged with the rank of adjutant of battalion from the Carolina Military Institute. Lack of means pre- vented him from graduating. He studied law at Barnwell with Col. Robert Aldrich and was admit- ted to the bar in February, 1877.
Ile first located at Ninety-six, South Carolina, where associated with M. B. MeSweeny, afterward governor of South Carolina, he established the Ninety-Six Guardian and became its editor. The purpose of this paper was to promote the formation of a new county with Ninety-Six as the county scat. After the failure of this project Mr. Bonham spent one year at Newberry, where he edited the Newberry News, and in January, 1880, began the practice of law at Abbeville. In January, 18SI, he was appointed by Governor Hagood master for Abbeville County, and held that office four years. Ile declined reappointment in order to practice his profession. In August, 1886, Governor Shepperd appointed him adjutant and inspector general of South Carolina, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Gen. A. M. Manigault. He was regularly elected in November of the same year for a term of two years, and re-elected in 1888. He has al- ways been interested in military affairs, and served as aide to Governor Hugh S. Thompson, with the rank of colonel, and was captain of the Star Fort Guards of Ninety-Six, and also captain of the Abbe- ville Rifles. With the latter company he participated in the celebration of the centennial of the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown.
Mr. Bonham was general agent of the Union Cen- tral Life Insurance Company for several years. In 1894 he removed to Anderson and resumed private practice in association with Col. H. H. Watkins. Mr. Bonham has been a delegate to several state demo- cratic conventions. He is a member of the Society of Cincinnati. His name is known all over the state by Knights of Pythias. He has served as grand chan- cellor of South Carolina, several times as supreme representative of the state, and is now a member of the Supreme Tribunal of the Knights of Pythias. He is junior warden of Grace Episcopal Church of An- derson.
October 24, 1878. he married Daisy Aldrich, dangh- ter of Judge A. P. and Martha (Ayer) Aldrich of Barnwell, South Carolina. Her brother, Col. Robert Aldrich, married Sophie Smith Bonham, a sister of Mr. Bonham. Judge A. P. Aldrich, long prominent as a lawyer and jurist, was a son of Robert Aldrich, a native of Massachusetts, who came to South Caro- lina as a young man and had a successful career as a merchant at Charleston. Mrs. Bonham's given name was Martha Ayer, but she was baptized by the name Daisy and her true name has been all but forgotten.
Mr. and Mrs. Bonham have had an ideal do- mestic life and have been made happy by their children, three in number, named: Milledge Louis, Proctor Aldrich and Martha Ann. Milledge Louis Bonham was born at "The Oaks," the home of his
maternal grandfather at Barnwell, February 21, 1880. He is a graduate of Furman University, was in the war with Spain, and is now professor of history at Louisiana University. Proctor Aldrich Bonham, the second son, was born at Abbeville, August 28, 1883, was educated at Columbia and Anderson, George- town University and Charleston College, studied law with the firm of Bonham & Watkins, also took lec- tures in law at the University of North Carolina, and was admitted by the Supreme Court in 1905. Since 1908 he has practiced his profession at Green- ville, has served as solicitor of the Tenth Judicial Circuit, and has represented that county in the State Senate. Mr. Bonham's daughter, Martha Ann, whose pet name is "Mab," was born at Columbia, August 31, 1889, and graduated with honors from Notre Dame College in Maryland in 1910.
GEORGE RIVERS FISHBURNE, a prominent citizen of Charleston, was born in Colleton County April 23. 1877, and represents in his lineage a number of distinguished names in South Carolina history.
He is descended from a William Fishburne, a native of South Carolina of English ancestry, who made his will in 1751, at which time there were three generations bearing the name of William Fishburne.
The great-grandfather of George R. Fishburne was Capt. William Fishburne of the Revolutionary war and afterward Gen. William Fishburne in the War of 1812. Gen. William Fishburne was twice married. His first wife was Sarah Snipes, daughter of Maj. William Snipes of the Revolutionary war. His second wife was Mary Clay Snipes, a sister of his first wife.
Robert Fishburne, grandfather of George R. Fish- burne, was a well known citizen and rice planter of Charleston and Colleton County. He was the son of Gen. William Fishburne and Mary Clay (Snipes) Fishburne. Robert Fishburne married Harriet Chalmers.
Francis C. Fishburne, father of George R. Fish- burne, was born in Charleston in 1849 and died in 1910, and was long identified with the mining and manufacturing of phosphate fertilizer. Francis C. Fishburne married Sue Carolina Neyle, who was born in Colleton in 1851, a daughter of Charles and Emma Julia (Witsell) Neyle, both natives of the same county and of English ancestry.
George R. Fishburne was the third in a family of twelve children. He was reared and educated in Charleston and graduated from The Citadel in 1897. He is interested in the real estate, investment, banking and fertilizer business. In 1919 George R. Fishburne was married to Anne Waring Picking, a graduate of Johns Hopkins Training School for Nurses in 1918, daughter of Patrick Noble Pickens and Anne Simons (Waring) Pickens of Charles- ton.
J. NORWOOD CLEVELAND since leaving college has been identified with the management and operation of extensive farming and mercantile interests in Upper Greenville County. His home is at Marietta. As his name indicates he is member of two well known and prominent families in this state. His
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mother's people were the Norwoods, of the Abbe- ville branch of that family.
His father was the late Richard Mays Cleveland, a son of James Harvey Cleveland and grandson of Capt. Jeremiah Cleveland. Captain Jeremiah was a son of Robert Cleveland, who served as a. captain in the battle of King's Mountain during the Revolution under his brother Col. Benjamin Cleve- land. Capt. Jeremiah Cleveland was one of the earliest merchants of Greenville, having a store which he established about 1805 on the site now oc- cupied by the First National Bank. He had acquired extensive tracts of land in Greenville County, par- ticularly in the upper part of the county in Cleve- land Township. On that land several generations of the family have lived.
Richard Mays Cleveland died September 9, 1916, at the age of fifty-four, and had all the substantial character for which the family has been noted, and was individually a man of great usefulness and prominence in his community. He was elected a member of the Legislature and served two terms. He gave his personal direction to his extensive farm- ing interests and was one of the chief land owners in Upper Greenville County in the vicinity of Mari- etta. In that locality his sons J. Norwood and R. Mavs Cleveland continue many of the interests of their father as well as their own in farming and timber lands.
J. Norwood Cleveland was born in 1800 during a temporary sojourn of his mother at her old home in Abbeville. He has spent practically all his life in Greenville County, and finished his education in Furman University. While his major experience has been farming, he is also engaged in the general mercantile business at Marietta under the name Marietta Mercantile Company, an incorporation in which his chief associate is his brother R. Mays Cleveland. R. Mays Cleveland married Daisy Baughman and has three children: Richard Mays. J. Norwood 2d, and William H. He is a member of Ebenezer Lodge No. 101, Free and Accepted Ma- sons of Marietta; Cyrus Chapter No. 2, Royal Arch Masons of Greenville, South Carolina.
J. Norwood Cleveland married Miss Natalie Padgett of Edgefield. They have two children, James Norwood, Jr., and Elliott Padgett.
JACOB POPE MATTHEWS, president of the Palmetto National Bank of Columbia, and a recognized leader in financial circles of the South, began his hanking career at the age of twenty, as a clerk and book- keeper in the Farmers and Mechanics Bank of Co- lumbia, and a year later liad become its cashier. From that time to the present he has been identified with this bank and its successors, and his interests and connections have become widely extended in business and financial circles as an officer in a num- ber of the leading business and banking organiza- tions of Columbia, as well as in other sections of the state.
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Mr. Matthews is a native son of the Palmetto state and had a small town and rural district as his early environment. He was born March 7, 1873, at Etheredge Post Office in Edgefield County, South Carolina, a son of B. C. W. and Nancy Matthews. His father was a planter and merchant, and the
local school at Etheredge afforded the youth his first educational advantages. Later he became a student in Leesville College, at Leesville, South Carolina, still further supplementing his studies by a course in the Eastman Business College, at Pough- keepsie, New York.
When he entered the employ of the Farmers and Mechanics Bank, Mr. Matthews was not altogether without business training for he had worked as a clerk in his father's store, and had also been em- ployed in a similar capacity by T. J. Kernaghan at Batesburg.
After four years as cashier, the Farmers and Me- chanics Bank was combined with the Palmetto Bank and Trust Company, and Mr. Matthews was made secretary and treasurer, serving as such three years. At the end of that time the institution became the Palmetto National Bank, with Mr. Matthews as cashier. He was soon thereafter made vice presi- dent, and in 1916, was elected president.
He is also a director in a number of other banks and business enterprises, including the National Bank of Leesville, the Home National Bank of Lex- ington, the Bank of North, at North, South Caro- lina, the First National Bank of Batesburg, the Commercial Bank of Columbia, the Victor-Monaghan Company, an organization that owns and operates nearly a dozen important cotton mills, with head- quarters at Greenville, The South Carolina In- surance Company, of Columbia, the Consolidated Auto Company, of Columbia, and he is secretary and a director of Matthews & Bouknight Company, engaged in the mercantile business in Leesville.
As a member of the American Bankers' Associa- tion, he is widely known as an active and valued member. In this organization he has served as a member of various important committees, and has been instrumental in formulating some of the most important policies of the association, and it is not amiss to say that his keen perception and broadness of vision in financial questions have won for him deserved recognition by the banking fraternity.
In politics Mr. Matthews is a democrat, and while taking that interest in political affairs pertain- ing to both national and local matters, compatible with good citizenship, he has never sought, nor held public office. His life has been a busy one for he has been prompt to render service where his abili- ties were most effective, and whenever required. For four years he served as a member of the Gov- ernor's Guards of Columbia, and is active in the Washington Street Methodist Church.
At Batesburg, March 31, 1898, Mr. Matthews mar- ried Miss Martha George Kernaghan, a daugliter of Thomas J. and Kate M. (Soule) Kernaghan. Her father served as captain of a company in the Con- federate army during the war, being severely wound- ed near the close of the conflict. Both of her grand- fathers also fought in the same war. Mr. and Mrs. Matthews have one daughter, Katheryn Marie.
ARTHUR VEEDER SNELL. For the past eight years all the time, energies and enthusiasm of Mr. Snell have been directed through the Charleston Cham- ber of Commerce, of which he is secretary and manager. In making that organization what it ought to be, representative in membership of the
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best commercial and civic interests of the city, and in carrying out the various programs of its activi- ties, his personal program has been completely filled.
However, the importance of his work with the Chamber of Commerce should not be allowed to ob- scure one very striking and original achievement, which is destined to give Mr. Snell a permanent place in history. That achievement consists . in carrying out and perfecting the first successful plan dominated as the City Manager Plan of municipal government.
As all students of the subject know municipal government has been the hardest problem in Ameri- can life. Plan after plan has been tried to eliminate the evils of partisan politics, and the irresponsible and haphazard methods of conducting a municipal administration. One of the most promising of these was the commission plan, first adopted twenty years ago, and now widely in vogue over the country. An even more noteworthy step was the idea of a city manager, whereby the administration of city affairs would be concentrated, as in private corporation, in a single responsible body, consisting of a president or manager and board of directors.
Before coming to Charleston Mr. Snell was seere- tary of the Chamber of Commerce at Sumter, South Carolina, for a year and a half, and it was at Sum- ter that he first put into operation the city manager plan of municipal government. While the chief credit for this innovation belongs to Mr. Snell, it is a matter of pride on the part of South Carolinians that the first successful working out of the program was made in this state. Fully two hundred other American eities adopted the plan, either in whole or in modified principle, and students of municipal ad- ministration regard it as one of the most promising solutions of the many problems connected with civil government.
Mr. Snell is a young man of very wide experience in business, law and politics. He was born at Geneva, New York, in 1877, son of Marvin and Sarah ( Fonda) Snell. His paternal and maternal ancestors have lived in the Mohawk Valley of New York for several generations. Through his mother he is de- scended from the Holland Dutch Veeders who settled in New York in 1630.
Arthur Veeder Snell was educated in the grammar schools and high schools of Geneva, and graduated from Hohart College in 1899. The following year he did post-graduate work in history and diplomacy at the University of Chicago, and received his degree from that institution in 1900. He studied law at Columbian (now George Washington) University in the city of Washington, receiving bis I.L. B. de- gree in 1905. In the meantime and for some time after graduation he was connected with the Federal Department of Claims. His home was in Washing- ton six years and for four years he practiced law at Oklahoma City. For one year he had charge of special convention work at Duluth, Minnesota.
After this varied experience in the north and west Mr. Snell came to South Carolina, and after a year and a half at Sumter was made secretary of the Chamber of Commerce at Charleston in 1912. Since then he has been promoted to the office of manager of the Chamber. His early efforts were directed to making the body truly representative of the com-
mercial interests of the city. To that end he not only worked to increase the membership, raising it from 350 to over 1,200, but, more important still, con- verted the membership into a body of active workers, and at the present time the Chamber has behind it the great wealth and influence of all the best citi- zens. Moreover the Chamber of Commerce has pur- chased and now owns and occupies exclusively its own building, open to every organization in the city for all purposes except political. This property is worth between $40,000 and $50,000. A compe- tent office staff is maintained, including a traffic manager and other experts.
During the war with Germany the Chamber of Commerce organization was practically turned over to the government. Mr. Snell personally devoted his entire time to war activities, serving as a mem- ber of the State Council of Defense, as South Caro- lina food campaign director, as director for Charles- ton of all the Liberty Loans, had charge of the Red Cross membership campaigns, was a four-minute man, a dollar a year man, in United States Govern- ment War Ordinance Reserves, and director of the War Savings campaign.
The Chamber of Commerce has been the chief instrument directing and influencing the new era in Charleston commerce. Through its efforts a number of substantial industries have taken the place of the war enterprises centered there, and while Charleston no longer has its temporary navy and army camps, it has its great,army terminals for commercial use, its navy yard and a new refinery of the Standard Oil Company; also many other industries. In fact, a new impetus has been given to Charleston which has more than doubled its commerce within the last two years.
Mr. Snell is a member of the Episcopal Church, is affiliated with the Masonic Order and the Phi Kappa Phi college fraternity, St. Andrews Society, Hibernian Society, German Friendly Society, Navy League, and is a Fellow of the National Geographic Society. He is an ex-president of the Southern Commercial Secretaries' Association. He married Miss Jennie Hart, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. G. W. S. Hart of York, South Carolina.
ROBERT LEE RIGGS is not only a native son of South Carolina and a representative of an honored and influential family of Charleston, but he has also, through his own ability, initiative, energy and pro- gressive policies made a splendid contribution to the development of live-stock industry in his native state. Though he is an electrical engineer by profes- sion he now finds his time required almost exclusively in the management of his fine stock farm, which is situated at Otranto, fifteen miles from Charleston, and which comprises 1,055 acres, 300 acres of this extensive tract being utilized exclusively for the breeding and raising of pure blood and registered Duroc-Jersey swine. On the demesne, known as Adanac Farm, he maintains also a herd of pure bred short-horn cattle. A young man of energy and advanced civic and industrial ideals, Mr. Riggs has become a leader in the furtherance of modern and scientific methods of agriculture and stock-grow- ing industry in his native state, and his individual success is proving on a parity with his zeal and enter- prise.
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Robert Lee Riggs was born in the City of Charles- ton, September 13, 1885, and is a son of John Sidney Kiggs and Martha ( Reynolds) Riggs. After hav- ing profited by the advantages of the public schools of his native city he entered Clemson College, where he completed a special course in electrical engineer- ing and also availed himself of the advantages of the department devoted to agricultural science and modern farm enterprise-knowledge which has been of inestimable value to him in the promotion of his present farm industry. After leaving college Mr. Riggs entered service with the engineering board in charge of important construction and engineering work in the development of water power at Spartan- burg, a power that is now proving potent in the maintenance and expansion of manufacturing in- dustry in that city. He began work without salary, his primary ambition at the time being to gain prac- tical experience, and such ability did he manifest that he was eventually promoted to the position of assistant engineer on the same engineering board. Thereafter he acted as assistant engineer in the installation of the electrical and mechanical equip- ment of the Hudson River Terminal Building, in New York City. Later he entered the employ of the Western Electric Company, one of the greatest corporations of the kind in the United States, and by this concern he was retained in the building and equipping of the famous hotel known as Chateau Laurier, in Ottawa, Canada. Here he married Miss Helene Mills, daughter of Nathaniel Mills, Post- master of the House of Commons and a representa- tive of an influential family of the Dominion of Canada. He passed several years in the Dominion of Canada, where he finally established himself in business at Winnipeg, as a consulting and construct- ing engineer.
In 1915 Mr. Riggs returned for a visit at his old home, and while in his native city he became im- pressed with the wonderful opportunities offered for the prosecution of agricultural and live-stock enter- prise in South Carolina under the modern and ap- proved methods which he had observed and studied in the West. His convictions and progressiveness led to characteristic action on his part. He purchased 300 acres of land, at Otranto, and, on a small scale, began the breeding and raising of pure blood Duroc- Jersey swine. This became the nucleus around which he has developed his present large and prosperous enterprise as a stock grower, and he has not only added to the area of his landed estate, until it now comprises more than 1,000 acres, but has also in- stalled on the same the most modern improvements. His work will do much to bring the old Palmetto State to the front in this important field of industry.
Mr. Riggs holds membership in the American Insti- tute of Electrical Engineers, was formerly member of the Canadian Society of Civil Engineers, is a member of the South Carolina Development Board, and is affiliated with the Masonic fraternity, the Knights of Pythias and St. Andrew's society.
HENRY HITT WATKINS is an Anderson lawyer, for a quarter of a century associated in practice with Gen. M. L. Bonham, and his name has ap- peared prominently in connection with a number
of larger business affairs and civic and educational movements in the northwestern part of the state.
Mr. Watkins was born in Waterloo Township of Laurens County, June 24, 1866. His earliest paternal ancestor came from Wales to Virginia in the early part of the seventeenth century, probably in one of the voyages of Capt. John Smith, and settled in Prince Edward County, Virginia. The family lived there until shortly after the close of the Revolution. The founder of the family in South Carolina was the Anderson lawyer's grandfather, Jolin C. Watkins, who for a brief time resided in Abbeville County and then moved to Waterloo Township in Laurens County, locating on the old homestead on Reedy River. His second wife was the daugliter of John Moore, a Revolutionary soldier from Laurens Coun- ty, whose farm adjoined those subsequently owned by Jolin C. Watkins.
Capt. Henry H. Watkins, father of Henry Hitt Watkins, was born in Laurens County, May 26, 1818, and died March 22, 1866. His life was spent as a farmer and without participation in political affairs, though prior to the war he was a captain in the State Militia and during the war was a lieutenant int James South Carolina Battalion.
Capt. Henry H. Watkins married Hannah Eliza- beth Culbertson, a daughter of Capt. John Culbert- son of Laurens County. She was descended from Robert Culbertson, a Revolutionary soldier whose family immigrated from Ireland and first settled in Pennsylvania, long prior to the Revolution. Robert Culbertson entered the Revolutionary army from that state. During the war he came south and was a participant in a number of battles on South Caro- lina soil, and after independence was attained he settled permanently in Waterloo Township of Lau- rens County.
Henry Hitt Watkins therefore represents some of the older names in the history of South Carolina and has several Revolutionary antecedents. He spent his early life on his father's farm, and at the age of thirteen entered Furman University at Greenville. He was graduated and received the degree Master of Arts in 1883. a few days before his seventeenth birthday. Then followed a period of eight years in which he taught school, four years in the public schools and four years in Furman University, where he served as principal of the Preparatory School and secretary of the faculty. While teaching he read law under Wells and Orr at Greenville and Murray and Murray at Anderson, also took the summer course of lectures under Dr. John B. Minor in the University of Virginia, and was admitted to the har in May, 1892.
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