USA > South Carolina > History of South Carolina > Part 63
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William Arthur McMurtry Erwin, only son of his father, was born at Erwin's Mill April 11, 1874. He grew up on the home farm, and learned the work of the fields and the operation of his father's mill. Thirteen years of age when his father died, and the only son, he soon afterward assumed the active management of the fields and the mill. Farming has always been a resource and occupation for him, and he continued the op- eration of Erwin's Mill until about ten years ago, when the dam was carried away by a flood and its wheels have since been idle.
Mr. Erwin left the parental homestead in 1903 and moved to his present brick residence just east of Honea Path in Anderson County in order to have better church and educational advantages for his children. He and his wife are members of the Presbyterian faith.
He married Miss Uraniah Katherine Latimer December 27. 1898. She is a daughter of M. L. Latimer of Abbeville County, Mr. and Mrs. Er- win's children are Luther and Malcolm. Mr. Erwin conducts his farming operations on exten- sive tracts of land, and has all the progressive character of his father. A few years ago he vis- ited Ireland and the birthplaces of his parents.
DANIEL QUIGLEY TOWLES. One of the most enter- prising of the younger generation of farmers in South Carolina is he whose name forms the cap- tion to this review, who has believed from the out- set of his career that the "wisdom of yesterday is sometimes the folly of today," and that while the methods of our grandfathers in tilling the soil and marketing their produce were all right in their day, yet in the twentieth century we are compelled to adopt new methods and farm along different lines, in order to meet changed conditions and require- ments. He has been a close observer of modern methods and is a student at all times of whatever pertains to his chosen life work, and he has as a result met with encouraging success all along the line, being today numbered among the leading truck farmers of the Southern states.
Daniel Quigley Towles was born at Martins Point, Wadmalaw Island, on March 8, 1883, and is a son of Francis W. and Mary (Quinn) Towles. Francis W. Towles was a native of Georgia, but came to South Carolina in 1864 and is now a resident of Martins Point. During the war between the states he served in the Confederate army, but since then he has confined his attention to farming. His father, Daniel Towles, was a native of Georgia, though the family was of Scotch-Irish origin, the emigrant an- cestor of the family having first settled in Virginia. The subject's mother was of good old Irish stock and she was born during the cmigration of the family to the United States. She was married three times, first to a Mr. Hofstettor, by which union she became the mother of eight children. Her sec- ond hushand was named Geraty and she bore him three children, while to the subject's father she bore four children, Daniel Q. being the last in order of birth.
Daniel Q. Towles received his elementary educa- tion in the common schools of his home community, supplementing this by attendance at St. Mary's Col- lege, at Belmont, North Carolina. At the age of fourteen years he started out on his own account, working for his father by the month. Steady and industrious and wisely economical of his resources, Mr. Towles was at length enabled to acquire a small tract of farm land, to the cultivation of which he applied himself with tireless energy. That was in 1903 and from that humble beginning has sprung one of the largest and most comprehensive farm- ing schemes in the country. The company of which he is the leading spirit controls 3,000 acres of truck land, embracing twenty-four farins, on which an average of 1,000 hands are employed. Mr. Towles lias the responsibility of the financial end of the business, which has grown by leaps and bounds to enormous proportions. The company ships prod- ucts of their farms to practically every part of the United States and even to Canada, the sales com- prising cabbages, potatoes, cucumbers, beans, beets, turnips, sweet potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, lettuce and peas. Some idea of the wonderful growth of the business since the organization of the company in 1915 may be gained from the following figures: 1915-total packages shipped, 386,216; cash realized from sales, $512,435.02; car loads, 2,370. 1916-pack- ages shipped, 430,410; receipts, $657,013.05 : car loads,
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2,599. 1917-packages, 523,645; receipts, $1,995,- 235.87; car loads, 2,730. 1918-packages, 593,967; receipts, $1,276, 110.41 ; car loads, 3.169.
In addition to the enterprise referred to, Mr. Towles has other investments, being president of the Hollywood Manufacturing Company; secretary, treasurer and general manager of the South Caro- lina Produce Association; secretary and treasurer of several other farming companies; president of the Hassell-Meeting Realty Company; he and his associates also own the Argyl Hotel, one of the popular hotels of Charleston.
In 1904 Mr. Towles was married to Enid Mixson and they have four living children, namely: Mary Beatrice, Daniel Q., Jr., Joseph Francis and Martha Catharine.
Religiously, Mr Towles is a communicant of the Catholic church. His fraternal relations are with Lodge No. 242, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, of Charleston, and the Knights of Columbus. Mr. Towles is essentially a man of affairs, of sound judgment, keen discernment, rare acumen, far-seeing in what he undertakes, and every enterprise to which he has addressed himself has resulted in liberal financial returns. His success in life has been the legitimate fruitage of consecutive effort, directed and controlled by good judgment and correct prin- ciples.
Jos. ALLEN SMITH was admitted to the bar in 1915, and except for about a year spent with the army, has been engaged in the practice of law in Orangeburg County. He enjoys a substantial busi- ness in general practice, and his work has brought him the reputation of being a skillful and efficient young attorney. Much of his practice has been in the settlement of estates, probate work and land matters.
Mr. Smith was born in Springfield, his present home in Orangeburg County, in 1890, son of James C. and Deborah Cornelia (Hutto) Smith. His parents still reside at Springfield, and in that vicinity his father was born, in what is now Lexington County. The grandfather was W. K. Smith, a Con- federate veteran, serving as a lieutenant in the Nineteenth South Carolina Regiment. The Hutto family has for many generations been identified with the history of Orangeburg County.
Jos. Allen Smith was educated in local schools and in Furman University at Greenville. He graduated in 1911, and for three years was a teacher. He studied law in the office of D. D. McColl at Ben- nettsville, and on being admitted to the bar opened his office at Springfield.
Soon after war was declared with Germany he vol- unteercd, entering a training camp, but was rejected on account of an affection of the eyes. Later he enlisted as a private and while the same handicap kept him from entering the training camp he was assigned to active military duty. He was with the colors about a year in Camps Jackson and Sevier. Mr. Smith is affiliated with the Masons, Knights of Pvthias and Woodmen of the World and is a member of the Baptist Church.
JOHN OWENS WILLSON, who since September. 1904, has been president of Lander College for Women at Greenwood, has lived a long life filled with many merited distinctions, including service as a Confederate soldier, as a lawyer, minister and educator.
Ile was born at Cedar Grove Plantation in what is now Berkeley County, South Carolina, January 27, 1845, a son of Dr. Jolin and Sarah E. (Owens) Willson. Both his father and mother represented the fine spirit and flavor of the old South Caro- lina aristocracy. His mother was a cultured woman devoted to her family and his father, while living in comfortable style on his plantation, also did the labors of a physician for his slaves and also for the poor for many years and represented his dis- trict in both branches of the Legislature. John Owens Willson grew up on the cotton plantation, and enjoyed those liberalizing influences of the best families of ante-bellum days. He attended private schools, also King's Mountain Military Academy, the Arsenal and The Citadel at Charles- ton. He left The Citadel in June, 1862, to become a member of Company F of the Sixth South Caro- lina Cavalry, and later served in Company I of the Third South Carolina Cavalry. He did his full duty as a soldier of the South, and in 1865, at the close of the war, he began the study of law and was admitted to the bar in November, 1866. He practiced that profession about seven years, first at Kingstree, then at Florence, and later at Marion.
In 1873 he joined the South Carolina Conference of the Methodist Church, South, and served in various pastorates until 1894, including five years as presiding elder. He was pastor of a church at Charleston at. the time of the earthquake, and was sent on a special mission to the north to raise funds to restore the injured' church buildings in that city. In December, 1894, he became editor of the South- ern Christian Advocate and was re-elected in 1897 for another term of four years. In 1902 lie re- sumed pastoral work at Abbeville, then in the Cokes- bury District, and since July 26, 1904, has been pres- ident of Lander College for Women. Wofford Col- lege bestowed upon him the degrec Doctor of Divin- ity in 1896.
Doctor Willson has been a delegate to the Gen- eral Conferences of his church eight successive times, and was a delegate to the Ecumenical Con- ference at London in 1901 and 1911. He has always been prominent as a worker with the Sunday School Board and was appointed a commissioner on the Joint Commission of Northern and Southern Meth- odism to make a common order of worship and pre- pare a standard catechism for both churches. Doc- tor Willson has seen much of the world by travel in Europe, Africa and the Holy Land. He is a democrat, a Knight Templar and Royal Arch Mason and a member of different fraternities.
April 27, 1871, he married Miss Mary O. Richard- son, of Marion County. She died January 19, 1873. the mother of one daughter, who became the wife of Col. T. Q. Donaldson of the United States Army. August 27,'1896, Doctor Willson married Miss Kathleen McPherson Lander, of Williamston, South Carolina.
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HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
WILLIAM RANSOM HAYNIE, M. D. The only im- portant interruption to his twenty years of suc- cessful practice as a physician and surgeon of Belton came when Doctor Haynie enlisted and served in the Medical Corps of the National Army, part of the time in the army camps of the United States and for several months over- seas in France.
Doctor Haynie spent nearly all his life in the same community where he now practices medi- cine. He was born on a farm near Belton August 25, 1870, a son of James P. and Elizabeth (King) Haynie, his father also a native of Anderson County. His grandparents, Luke and Elizabeth (Holmes) Haynie, were early settlers of that county. James P. Haynie was a Confederate sol- dier, serving throughout the war. Otherwise his time and energies were devoted to farming, and he lived a quiet and industrious life, dying at the age of seventy-one, respected and esteemed by a large community. Doctor Haynie's mother died at the age of fifty-four. His parents were Bap- tists and his father for inany years was a deacon in the church.
Doctor Haynie is the youngest son of six chil -. dren, one of whom is deceased. He remained on the farm to the age of twenty-one, finishing the high school course at Belton and taking two years of military work in the Patrick Military In- stitute at Anderson. A farmer's son twenty-five years ago could rarely depend upon his parents for liberal aid in getting an advanced education, and Doctor Haynie found means of defraying the expenses of his preparation for medicine. He taught school, farmed, studied at Vanderbilt Uni- versity, and in 1896 received his degree in medi- cine from the University of Nashville. Following that came a post-graduate course in the New York Polyclinic, where he has since taken other post-graduate work and also in the New York Post-Graduate Medical School. For three years Doctor Haynie successfully practiced medicine in the vicinity of Clinkscales Mill, twelve miles from Belton, and in 1899 returned to his home city and has enjoyed a commanding prestige among the physicians of that locality. He is a member of the County and State Medical socie- ties and the American Medical Association.
Doctor Haynie was commissioned a first lien- tenant in the Medical Reserve Corps of the United States Army July 15, 1918. His early services were rendered at Camp Greenleaf, Fort Oglethorpe, Camp Taylor at Louisville, and from Long Island he went overseas in November, 1918. He was on duty at Savenay, France, until Feb- ruary 14, 1918, when he was returned to this country and given his honorable discharge. Doc- tor Haynie is a Master Mason, a Knight of Pythias and a member of the Baptist Church.
June 7, 1899, he married Eunice M. Todd, daughter of James E. Todd of Due West, South
Carolina. The four children of Doctor and Mrs. Haynie are Janie Grier, James William, Moffatt Todd and David Patrick.
ROBERT L. MONTAGUE. In the development of South Carolina's great lumber resources no one man in recent years has figured more prominently and in- fluentially than Robert L. Montague. A native of Virginia, he was early trained to the practical and business side of lumbering. Mr. Montague has been operating in South Carolina for over twenty years and was responsible for bringing into the state six of its largest lumber corporations, and these com- panies have handled nearly a million acres of stump- age.
Mr. Montague was born in Mathews County, Vir- ginia, July 26, 1870, a son of Dr. Lewis B. Montague, a prominent physician of that state. He is also a nephew of Judge Robert Montague, of Virginia. The Montague family is of English origin and caine to Virginia in colonial times. Robert L. Montague's mother was Rosa Young, a native of Virginia. She was the third in a family of ten children, seven of whom reached mature years.
At the age of seventeen, after acquiring a com- mon school education, he went to work in the office of a lumber yard. He studied and worked and as- similated every bit of knowledge he could of lumber- ing in every phase .. He came to South Carolina in 1898, and subsequently was able to interest a large amount of New York capital through which the great mills were born at Georgetown. This enter- prise alone represents an investment of $3.500,000. He served as treasurer and manager of the cor- poration and also as treasurer, secretary and gen- eral manager of its railroad lines.
In 1902 Mr. Montagne came to Charleston and opened his offices in the People's Building. IJe is president of the Montague Corporation, Cooper River Corporation, Flint River Cypress Timber Company, Horry Red Cypress Company, Mount Holly Development Company, Williamsburg De- velopment Company; first vice president of the Charleston Farms Corporation; vice president of the North Charleston Corporation and North Charleston Development Company; treasurer of the E. P. Bur- ton Lumber Company, secretary-treasurer of the Santee Timber Corporation, general manager of the Midland Timber Company, and a director of the Peoples National Bank of Charleston. He is presi- dent of the Southern Pines Sales Corporation, be- ing also one of the principal organizers of the same. This organization, acting as selling agent for the various producers, has done more than any other single influence in stabilizing the lumber industry of the South.
Mr. Montagne is secretary of the Pine Grove Club and a member of the executive committee of the Charleston Museum. In 1896 he married Con- stance V. Adams, a native of Virginia. They have two children, Anne E. and Robert L., Jr.
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NIM BALOTTE SULLIVAN. In a comparatively brief period of years the late Nim Balotte Sullivan, of Anderson, compressed a tremendous amount of business achievement and earned a name among South Carolina's most successful business men and citizens.
He was born near Anderson November 16, 1863, son of Nimrod K. and Emily K. (Mattison) Sullivan. His parents were also natives of South Carolina and spent their lives in Anderson County. They had seven sons and four daugh- ters. One of the sons died in infancy and an- other, S. O. Sullivan, at the age of twenty-one. Four of the boys grew to maturity and hecame prominent in business. Nimrod K. Sullivan served with distinction as a Confederate officer, rising to the rank of captain. He died compara- tively young.
N. B. Sullivan was a small boy when his father died, and he was educated in the private school of Prof. W. G. Ligon at Anderson. After leaving school he entered the business now known as the Sullivan Hardware Company of Anderson. His oldest brother, the late James Mattison Sullivan, was then head of the firm, conducted under the title of Sullivan Brothers. At the age of twenty- one N. B. Sullivan became a partner with his brothers J. M. and II. K. Sullivan. He took more and more part in the management of the concern, which grew and expanded its trade relations all over upper South Carolina. He was president of the business when he died November 14, 191.4. Mr. Sullivan was a victim of tuberculosis and died at Asheville, North Carolina, whither he had gone for his health. Though death overtook him be- fore he was fifty-one years of age he had accom- plished most of those things which ambitious men with a full equipment of health and strength set out to achieve. With strict integrity he directed and helped build up a large business. acquired scores of warm friendships, and was universally respected and esteemed. For many years he was a member of the First Baptist Church at Ander- son, and gave liberally both of himself and his means to the general welfare. He never sought political honors, was a democratic voter, and out- side of business found his chief delight in his church and his home.
In 1885 Mr. Sullivan married Miss Lila Simp- son, daughter of the late Judge Archie N. Simp- son of Marietta, Georgia. Her father was a na- tive of South Carolina but spent most of his life in Georgia, where he became prominent as a law- yer and judge. Mrs. Sullivan was born and reared and educated in Georgia. She continues to live at Anderson, and her chief interests are now centered in her two sons, Samuel Orr and Nimrod Balotte Sullivan. Both sons served America and the cause of liberty in the great war. Samuel O. went overseas in the medical detachment of the One Hundred and Eighteenth In- fantry of the Thirtieth Division and saw active service in France. The younger son became a second lieutenant of field artillery, but the war closed before he was sent overseas.
AQUIILA RICHARD JOHNSTON, M. D. The man who deyotes his talents and energies to the noble work of ministering to the ills and alleviating the suf- ferings of humanity pursues a calling which in dig- nity, importance and beneficial results is second to no other. If true to his profession and earnest in his efforts to enlarge his sphere of usefulness, he is indeed a benefactor of his kind, for to him more than to any other man are entrusted the safety, the comfort and, in many instances, the lives of those who place themselves under his care and profit by his services. Of this class of men is he whose name forms the caption to this sketch, a man who has dignified and honored his profession by his able and self-abnegating services, in which he has attained distinction and success.
Aquilla Richard Johnston was born in Camp County, Texas, about forty miles from Jefferson, on November 15, 1870, and is the fifth in order of birth of the fifteen children who hlessed the union of his parents, Preston C. and Anna C. (Smith) John- ston. His father was born in Colleton County, South Carolina, and for many years followed the vocation of a teacher. He is now holding the office of clerk of the courts of Dorchester County, this state. The story of the life of Mr. Preston C. Johnston appears elsewhere in this work. The sub- jeet's mother is also a native of South Carolina and is a daughter of J. Pearson Smith.
Aquilla R. Johnston was reared and educated in Colleton County, South Carolina, completing the grammar and academic courses of study. Having decided to make the healing art his life work, he then matriculated in the Medical College of the State of South Carolina in 1901, where in due time he was graduated with the degree of Doctor of Medicine. He immediately located at Reevesville, Dorchester County, where he was soon in command of a satisfactory patronage. Possessing a mind well disciplined by severe professional training, together with a natural aptitude for close investigation and study, he has been peculiarly fitted for the noble calling to which his active life has been devoted. He has been a constant and careful reader of the best professional literature, and keeps himself in touch with the age in the latest discoveries pertain- ing to the healing art.
In matters outside of his profession Doctor John- ston has taken an active interest and has contributed in a very material way to the upbuilding of the business interests of the county in which he lives. In 1906 he was one of the prime movers in the organization of the Reevesville Bank, of which he was elected president, a position which he still retains. In 1916 the Farmers Bank of St. George was organized, and of this bank also the doctor was chosen president and is stilt filling the office. That the popularity and success of these two financial institutions have heen to a large measure due to the sound business judgment and personal popularity of Doctor Johnston is generally acknowledged. Both institutions are numbered among the strong and in- fluential hanks of this part of the state, and have been large factors in promoting and maintaining the business prosperity of the respective communi-
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ties in which they are located. Doctor Johnston has also taken a deep interest in farming matters and is the owner of about 800 acres of fine cleared land and about the same amount of timber and pasture land. He is also a large stockholder and secretary and treasurer of the St. George Cotton Oil Manufacturing Company, one of the successful manufacturing concerns of this locality.
In 1900 Doctor Johnston was married to Mary Portia Galgen, of Charleston, a union which has been blessed by the birth of two children, Mary Louise and Eveline Dupree.
The Doctor is a member of the Dorchester County Medical Society, the South Carolina State Medical Society, the Tri-State (Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina) Medical Society and the Ameri- can Medical Association, as well as the Southern Surgeons Association. Fraternally he is a Knight of Pythias and a member of the Masonic Order, in which he has attained the thirty-second degree of the Scottish Rite. Tireless energy, keen percep- tion and the exercise of the qualities of sound com- mon sense have been clements which have not only contributed to the Doctor's success, but have com- mended him to the confidence and regard of the people of the community with which he has been so closely identified and where he enjoys a well- deserved popularity among all classes.
WILLIAM ROBERT DENDY, M. D. For over thirty- three years Doctor Dendy has performed the part of a conscientious and able physician in the manufac- turing town of Pelzer, where he is at once one of the oldest and most beloved physicians and citizens.
Doctor Dendy was born at Walhalla in Oconee County, March. 10, 1862, son of William Harper and Sarah Jane (Steele) Dendy. His paternal grand- father was a native of Ireland. William Harper Dendy was born and reared in Oconee County, and died of tuberculosis in 1864, when Doctor Dendy was only two years old. There was one other son and one daughter. The father had volunteered his serv- ices in the Confederate army, but was rejected on account of physical disability. Four of his brothers, however, wore the uniform of the Southern cause.
The mother of Doctor Dendy was born at old Pickens Court House, a daughter of Hon. William D. Stecle, a farmer and planter and at the time of his death member of the Legislature. Mrs. Dendy married for her second husband, Dr. Charles Webb, of Hartwell, Georgia, and by that marriage had one child, a daughter. Doctor Dendy and his brother after their mother had become a second time a wid- ow brought her to Pelzer and built a home for her, where she lived in comfort the rest of her days. She died in 1916, in her seventy-eighth year.
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