USA > South Carolina > History of South Carolina > Part 55
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HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
County and engaged in merchandising and cotton buying. He left Williamston in 1808 to come to Greenville, which city has since been his home. For several years he was a merchant but for some years past has been the selling representative of several cotton mills in Greenville and in the Piedmont region. He disposes of the product of these mills to the trade throughout the southern states. In this husiness he has traveled practically all over the United States and is thoroughly familiar with trade conditions in the North and West as well as in the South.
He was elected mayor of Greenville in 1904, and reelected in 1606 and in 1908. In the office for six years, he is accorded the honor of having been one of Greenville's most popular and efficient mayors, his administration having been filled with many use- ful accomplishments and the completion of important public improvements.
Mr. Mahon married Miss Mary Brown of Wil- liamston. They have ten children. One of these has received a great deal of distinction and is one of South Carolina's most popular heroes of the great war. This is Maj. Gabriel Heyward Mahon, who in April, 1919, was in a Government Hospital in New York recovering from severe wounds received in ac- tion in France. Major Mahon has had a notable mili- tary career. Born at Williamston, he was educated in the Greenville schools and in The Citadel at Charleston, where he acquitted himself most credit- ably in all the branches of military instruction which are emphasized in that noted school. He first served as private in the Butler Guards of Greenville and as a member of the National Guard of South Carolina saw active service on the border during the trouble with Mexico. He was captain of the Butler Guards on the Mexican border and was promoted from that rank to regimental adjutant. At the very beginning of the war with Germany he volunteered, was pro- moted to major and put in command of the First Battalion of the 118th Infantry, 30th Division. The 30th Division including the 118th Infantry was on duty with the British and Australian forces in the operations against the Hindenburg line during the months of September and October, 1918. Major Mahon was wounded and disabled in one of the first attacks in which the 118th participated. His bravery under fire and his efficiency and popularity as an officer have been the subject of a number of interesting newspaper articles and individual trib- utes. Apparently he was absolutely without fear and it is said that tales of his personal bravery and his deeds traveled far and wide along the battle line. He was one of the majors in the 30th Division who were recommended for promotion to a lieuten- ant colonelcy. He was unable to receive this pro- motion on account of the physical disabilities re- sulting from his wounds.
Another son, Brown Mahon, graduated with dis- tintion at the Greenville High School at the age of seventeen winning a scholarship at Furman Uni- versity, which scholarship he declined preferring to enter the cotton mill business, beginning at the hot- tom. After four years faithful service with the Judson Mills, one of the South's largest cotton mills, he was elected vice president and assistant treasurer at the age of twenty-one, thereby becom- ing the youngest high cotton mill official in the
United States, according to all available cotton mill statistics.
CAPT. OSCAR KERN MAULDIN, who in civil life is a prominent lawyer of Greenville, where he has been in practive over twenty years, has a well carned military distinction, having been a captain in two wars, the Spanish-American and the World war.
He was born at Greenville in 1875, a son of Gov- ernor W. L. and Eliza (Kern) Mauldin. A sketch of the career and character of his honored father, who was a Confederate soldier, Greenville merchant, and lieutenant governor and acting governor of South Carolina. has been written in extenso on other pages of this publication.
Captain Mauldin was educated in Furman Uni- versity at Greenville, and his student career at The Citadel no doubt contributed to his later success as a soldier. He studied law in the office of Earle & Mooney at Greenville, being admitted to the bar in 1896, and beginning practice the same year. He is a well read, hard working and earnest advocate and attorney, and has always had an exceptionally good practice.
When a very young man Captain Mauldin joined the famous Butler Guards at Greenville. At the beginning of the Spanish-American war he was elect- ed captain of the Guards, which joined the United States Volunteers as Company H of the First South Carolina Infantry. They were mustered into serv- ice May 4. 1898, and the company remained under the command of Captain Mauldin until November 10. 1898.
Captain Mauldin resigned his seat in the South Carolina Legislature in 1917 to give his services to the country. He attended the Officers Training Camp at Fort Oglethorpe, was commissioned captain, and assigned to duty in the Regular army as captain of Company H, Fifty-fifth United States Infantry. This regiment eventually formed a part of the Seventh Division, a regular army division that made a notable record in France. Captain Mauldin left America August 3, 1918, and soon afterwards was in active service at the front in the San Mihiel or Toul sector. He counts it his good fortune that he was able to participate in some of the most strenuous fighting in the last months of the war, and was on duty with his command for fifty consecutive days, his fighting continuing up to and including the 11th of November, 1918, the day the armistice was signed. He was badly gassed and was invalided home, reach- ing Greenville, February 12, 1919. Soon afterward he received his honorable discharge.
Captain Mauldin at once resumed his law prac- tice. Besides his service in the Legislature, to which he was elected in 1916, heading the Greenville Coun- ty ticket in that year, his name has been strongly urged by his numerous friends for the Congressional campaign of 1920. Captain Mauldin is affiliated with the Masons and Elks and other orders and clubs.
In 1905 he married at Charleston Miss Elizabeth Heidt. She is deceased. In April. 1919, at Ashe- ville, North Carolina, he married Miss Grace Mc- IIardy Jones, of a prominent family of both North and South Carolina. She is a daughter of Benson M. and Lily (Woodfin) Jones, the former a native
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of Newberry. Her grandfather was Col. Nicholas WV. Woodfin, a prominent member of the North Carolina bar. Mrs. Mauldin has been regent of the Asheville Chapter of the Daughters of the Ameri- can Revolution, her membership in that order being due to her descent from Gen. Charles McDowell and Maj. Joseph McDowell, Revolutionary soldiers in the battle of Kings Mountain and other can- paigns.
JOHN DRAYTON WILLIAM WATTS. In Laurens County the family name Watts is associated both past and present with every phase of progressive and efficient agriculture and stock husbandry. The member of the family just mentioned has been one of the leaders in the modern agricultural movement in that county, is a practical farmer, and is at present county supervisor.
He was born in Laurens County on a farm July 9, 1868. His grandfather was James Watts and his father was the late Col. James Washington Watts, also a native of Laurens County and affectionately remembered as "Colonel Wash Watts." He was a Confederate soldier, was a life member of the South Carolina State Fair Association and long held a place of distinct leadership in farming and livestock breeding. For two terms he represented Laurens County in the Legislature, one of these terms being the famous Wallace House of 1876. He lived a long and useful life and passed away at the age of eiglity-seven. He was three times married. His first wife was Sallie Jones who hecame the mother of seven children. His second wife, mother of John Drayton William Watts, had six children. His third wife was Mrs. Susan ( Burnside) Nance. Colonel Watts was almost a lifelong member of the Baptist Church.
John Drayton William Watts grew up on a farm and from early youth to the present time he has always had some part in farming enterprise. For the past forty years his home has been on a farm five miles west of Laurens. He served as farm dem- onstration agent for Laurens County four years. In 1916 he was appointed to fill an unexpired term of one year as sheriff, and in 1918 was elected county supervisor. This office is one of great importance in the present era of Laurens County when so much work is being done in the construction of highways. The county supervisor has full charge of all the roads in his county.
Mr. Watts married in 1891 Miss Clara E. Dial, a daughter of the late Capt. Albert Dial of Laurens County. Their only son Rev. James Washington Dial Watts is a Baptist minister and during the late war was a Young Men's Christian Association religious work director, and afterward a chaplain in the United States Army. Mr. and Mrs. Watts are members of the Baptist Church and he is affil- iated with the Woodmen of the World.
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JAMES LELAND ANDERSON, M. D., who has been a member of the medical profession at Greenville for ten years, is one of the high minded and progressive younger men who are working so effectively in the modern field of medical practice, and his qualifica- tions and abilities have gained him an enviable rep- utation in Greenville and surrounding territory.
He was born near Reidville in Spartanburg County January 20, 1883. He is a son of the late Maj. Frank Leland Anderson who died in February, 1909. Dr. Anderson was born at the old Anderson homestead! in the midst of a community in Spartanburg County where his ancestors and their descendants have lived since 1763. The sixth generation is now living on farms in that immediate locality. The progenitor of the family was William Anderson, a Scotchman from the north of Ireland, who first settled in Pennsylvania, emigrating from there to the Wax- haws, South Carolina, then to Charleston, and from there came to Spartanburg County where he settled on the Tyger River in 1763. His daughter Mary re- mained in Charleston and subsequently became the matron of the historic Orphan House of that city.
William Anderson was a stanch whig in the Revo- lution and it was on account of his patriotism for the American cause that he was murdered, soon after the close of the Revolutionary war, in 1783, by Tories disguised as Indians. One of his sons was Maj. David Anderson, ancestor of the Tyger River Anderson families as distinguished from the descend- ants of Denny Anderson who settled on the Enorec River. Maj. David Anderson before the Revolu- tionary war held a commission as magistrate from the King of England. He espoused the cause of the colonists and as an American officer was conspicuous at the battles of Ninety-Six, Eutaw Springs and elsewhere. "Tyger James" Anderson was the son of Maj. David Anderson, while Maj. Frank Leland Anderson was a son of "Tyger James."
James Leland Anderson is an A. B. graduate from Davidson College in North Carolina with the class of 1903. After one year spent teaching school he entered the University of Maryland Med- ical School where he completed his course in 1008. While an undergraduate student he won an appoint- ment to one year's service on the hospital staff of the University of Maryland, where he served for six months, but on account of the frail health of his father he returned home and began practice at Reidville. After the death of his father the follow- ing year he located permanently at Greenville. He conducts a general practice, but has equipped him self for internal medicine, a line in which his work has largely specialized and in which he has achieved notable success.
During the war with Germany Dr. Anderson was secretary and internist of the Medical Advisory Board of the Western District of South Carolina. He is now chairman of the Medical Committee of the Greenville City Hospital, which under an extent- sive plan of enlargement and improvement, being carried out at an expenditure of many thousands of dollars, will rank among the largest and best equipped municipal hospitals in the South. It is an institution of which the city is justly proud. Dr. Anderson is also a member of the State, County, Southern and American Medical associations. He married Miss Alline Matheson of Hartwell, Georgia, and they have a daughter, Mary Elizabeth, and a son, James Leland, Jr.
JAMES HENRY FOWLES in fifteen years has achieved success and dignity as a member of the Columbia bar. He is a man of thorough scholarship.
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and with increasing experience has shown ability to handle most creditably every case entrusted to him.
Mr. Fowles, who was born at Newbury, South Carolina, August 12, 1880, had an ancestral record that contains several distinguished names. His father John Newton Fowles served as a Confederate sol- dier in Company 1 of the Second South Carolina Cavalry. The great-grandfather of the Columbia lawyer was J. H. Fowles, an Englishman who served as a lieutenant in the British army during the War of 1812. After the war he remained in the United States and married, and his only son J. H. Fowles became a prominent clergyman of the Episcopal Church. He served churches at Beaufort and Walterboro, South Carolina, and also the Church of the Epiphany at Philadelphia. Rev. Mr. Fowles married Matilda Maxcy, a daughter of Milton Maxcy of Beaufort. Milton Maxcy was a brother of the first president of the South Carolina College.
The mother of James Henry Fowles was Adeline Johnstone, daughter of Chancellor Job Johnstone, one of the most distinguished jurists of South Carolina before the war.
James Henry Fowles completed his education in South Carolina College, graduating A. B. in 1901 and LL. B. in 1904. Prior to his graduation he gained much experience while employed in the law offices of Robert Moorman, P. H. Nelson and B. L. Abney. all prominent members of the Columbia bar. Mr. Fowles is now associated in practice with Waller Bailey. He is also attorney for the State Board of Health and director of the Perpetual Building and Loan Association. Mr. Fowles has been in politics only as a yeoman worker in the democratic party and has filled offices strictly within the line of his profession. He served as magistrate at Columbia from 1907 to 1917. Governor Manning appointed him solicitor of the Fifth Circuit and he was a candidate for election to that office in Novem- ber, 1918.
Mr. Fowles is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason and a Knight Templar and served as Master of Richland Lodge No. 39, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, in 1915-16. He is a member of the Columbia Club and of Trinity Episcopal Church. At Eastover, South Carolina, April 17, 1907, he married Miss Sophie Stuart Clarkson. Her father is Alex- ander G. Clarkson of Eastover, one of the most capable farmers in Richland County. Mr. and Mrs. Fowles have four children: James Henry, Jr .. Emily Heyward, Adeline Johnstone, and Amelia Clarkson.
JOSEPH W. JAMES has been identified with Green- ville's business affairs since 1906, for several years as an executive officer in the Bank of Commerce, and latterly as a cotton merchant. After his business affairs were successfully established he had planned to serve the community in other ways, and in 1019 concluded a successful two year term as a member of the city council.
Mr. James was born near Taylors, Greenville County, in 1889. a son of T. A. and Jane Rebecca (Holtsclaw) James. Both families are among the old and substantial ones of Greenville County. His parents are still living at the James homestead near Taylors. T. A. James was born in the same county,
and at the age of sixteen enlisted in the Confederate army, serving during the last two years of the war. For nearly half a century he has been a farmer, and his home is about a mile and a half from the Vil- lage of Taylors.
Joseph W. James grew up on the old homestead, attended country schools, and in 1906 at the age of seventeen came to Greenville. He was employed for a time as clerk in the Bank of Commerce, and re- mained there with that institution for six years, finally resigning as assistant cashier. Since then he has been in business for himself as a cotton broker, and his connections now extend over most of the counties of upper South Carolina.
Mr. James was elected to represent the First Ward in the city council in 1917. During his two years term he never missed a regular or special meeting of the city council, and never failed to vote one way or the other upon every measure before it. He has studied municipal problems, and has worked strenu- ously in behalf of a better as well as a bigger city. He became chairman of the sewer committee and it is a matter of record that during the two years of his term more sewer improvements were made in Greenville than in the eight preceding years. He was also chairman of the cemetery committee and a mem- ber of the street committee, light committee, and chairman of the building committee. One progressive measure which he introduced and saw pass was an ordinance forbidding shingle roof as a measure of protection against fire. That was a piece of legisla- tion greatly needed in Greenville.
Mr. James married Miss Lena Waddell of Green- ville. They have a family of three children, named Lena Waddell, Rose Rebecca and Joseph W., Jr.
WILLIAM BANKS DOVE, secretary of state of South Carolina, is of that type of citizen whose life has been as rich on the side of experience as it has been purposeful in achievement. Probably the ma- jority of his numerous friends esteem him most for his wholesome manhood and take little account of his successful record as a former educator and as a business man.
He was born at Halsellville, Fairfield County, Sontb Carolina, February 28, 1869, son of Richard Calvin and Nancy Elizabeth (Weir) Dove. Both parents were of Scotch-Irish ancestry. The Dove family was very largely Irish and came to South Carolina from Maryland. His maternal ancestors came directly from Scotland in 1796 and located in Chester County. They were originally known as Marjoriebankses, the family name having been sub- sequently simplified as Banks., Mr. Dove is a cousin of Dr. William Mack, editor in chief of "CYC" pos- sibly the best known book on law. Another cousin is Howard Banks, private secretary to Hon. Jose- phus Daniels. Secretary of the Navy. Mr. Dove is a nephew of Dr. J. B. Mack, Rev. William and Rev. Henry Banks, who were among the most prominent Presbyterian ministers of their day. Mr. Dove's father served four years in the war between the states, and otherwise spent his life on a farm.
. William Banks Dove was the oldes of six chil- dren. He attended country nublic schools, prepared for college at the Leesville English and Classical In- stitute, while D. B. Busby was its principal. He grad-
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uated from Catawba College with the A. B. degree in 1896, and the same institution gave him the honorary degree A. M. in 1916. He also took special Normal courses at the University of Tennessee, the Chautauqua Assembly of New York and other sim- ilar institutions.
As the record indicates Mr. Dove finished his education long after he had attained manhood. This part of his life was a very important one, not only for its mental training, but for the development of the qualities of determination and energy which more than anything else have been responsible for his sub- sequent prominence. He had a hard struggle to secure an education, and while his friends are posi- tive as to the sound measure of ability he possesses. Mr. Dove himself is more inclined to emphasize the influence of personal effort as the determining factor in his career. He taught his first school in a piney- woods district in Kershaw County, and earned the greater part of the money with which he acquired his higher advantages. He continued to teach and at- tend school alternately, and as a teacher has been connected with country schools, private high schools, colleges and city schools, and later was superinten- dent of schools at Reidsville, Lexington and Green- ville. He organized and was elected president of the Association of City School Superintendents at the Summer School of the South at Knoxville, Ten- nessee. The thing that has probably afforded him more gratification than any work of his life has been the opportunity afforded him since he left the school- room to assist many worthy boys and girls in the mill section of Columbia to secure an education and oc- cupy places of usefulness.
He has been a lifelong democrat, but outside of school positions never held a really political posi- tion until he entered the office of secretary of state. He became assistant secretary of state hy appointment of Secretary R. M. McCown in 1908. Then in 1916 he was elected to that office and was re-elected without opposition in 1918. Mr. Dove is affiliated with the Masonic order, the Knights of Pythias and the Junior Order of United American Mechanics. He is a past chancellor of the Knights of Pythias. He is a member of the Presbyterian Church and of St. Andrew Society. June 26, 1806, at Newton, North Carolina, he married Carrie E. Rowe, daughter of M. J. and Camilla Rowe. They have three children: Marion, W. Banks, Jr., and Herbert R.
It may not be generally known that Mr. Dove was anthor of the inscription prepared and offered for the Woman's Monument. This inscription reads as follows :
In Memory of
Those who in the sorrow and silence of separation endured the agony of a conflict they might not share,
Whose courage sustained the Southern soldier amidst the carnage of the battlefield,
Whose love and fidelity soothed the suffering of his sickness,
Whose gentle hands brushed from his pale face the gathering dews of death,
Whose faith and fortitude faltered not in the darkest hour of distress,
Whose inspiration transformed the gloom of defeat into the hope of the future, and
Whose memory shall not be forgot even in the hour of peace-the Women of the Confederacy.
AUGUSTUS M. CHREITZBERG, president of the First National Bank of Spartanburg, is one of the best known financiers in upper South Carolina. He is the fifth president of the First National Bank and has been continuously in the service of that institution for twenty years.
The First National Bank of Spartanburg was the first bank in Spartanburg County and was opened for business July 19, 1871. Its first officers were Gabriel Cannon, president; D. C. Judd, vice presi- dent ; and George Cofield, cashier. Mr. Judd and Mr. Cofield subsequently also served as president, and in 1914 Mr. Chreitzberg was elected president to succeed W. E. Burnett, who had been president since 1902. The First National is now nearly fifty years old, and has weathered many storms and has always stood as an example of the conservative serv- ice which such an institution can render any com- munity. Under Mr. Chreitzberg as president the First National Bank built its beautiful new home, which it has occupied since September, 1915. There are many features to the record of this bank which might well deserve emphasis. During the four years it has been housed in its new building, and in spite of unprecedented financial conditions, its savings deposits have increased more than 200 per cent and its commercial deposits nearly 400 per cent.
But most important of all is the record of this bank as a resource to the government during the war. In many ways it made real sacrifices for the benefit of the nation, and in order to do more than its full quota in the handling of the government's war indebtedness certificates the bank management passed up regular banking business and discounts which would have been more profitable. Beginning with the first Liberty Loan the First National Bank was placed on the honor roll for every one of the war loans. The bank answered nearly all calls with the total purchase of over $1,000,000 worth of cer- tificates of indebtedness, bearing 4 per cent and 41/2 per cent interest. Two million dollars worth of Liberty bonds of the first four issues were handled and sold through the bank to 3,000 sub- scrihers. At the beginning of 1919 the bank had to its own account and for the accounts of its patrons a total of $337,000 of Liberty bonds, besides $160,000 of certificates of indebtedness. In 1918 the officers of the hank sold $60,000 worth of war savings stamps. The First National also gave eleven of its men to the government service, seven of whom served with the colors.
Augustus M. Chreitzberg was born at Spartanburg in 1874, and while he has made a name for himself as a business man and banker, his father and grand- father left their impress as able ministers, educators and temperance advocates.
His grandfather Rev. Dr. A. M. Chreitzberg had the remarkable record of being an itinerant Metho- dist minister for seventy years. The Spartanburg banker is a son of Rev. Dr. Hilliard Francis and Ad- dria Eugenia (Kirby) Chreitzberg. His father spent all his life as a Methodist minister in South and
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