USA > South Carolina > History of South Carolina > Part 9
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HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
Benjamin Jenkins married Mary Grimball, dauglı- ter of Joshua Grimball. Her great-grandfather was Paul Grimball, who came to this country in 16SI and was secretary and deputy to one of the Lord Pro- prietors who governed the Carolina Colonies at that time. Paul Grimball was quite prominent in the Colonial period, and his name is referred to several times in MeGrady's "History of South Carolina." Benjamin and Mary (Grimball) Jenkins had four children : Sarah Grimball,, Mary, Samuel and Ben- jamin. Sarah married Archibald Whaley; Mary married John Patterson; Samuel married and had children and died in the year 1822. Benjamin, the remaining child, was a planter and owned extensive estates on Wadmalaw Island and on Stono River. He married Martha Reynolds, and they had four children, William, John T., Sarah Bailey and Ben- jamin James. He died before 1820 and was sur- vived by his wife, Martha, twenty-two years. Sarah Bailey married William Horace Rivers in 1838. They had two children, of whom in later years a daughter married back into the Jenkins family.
Benjamin James Jenkins was born near the year 1800, doubtless on his father's home plantation in St. Paul's Parish. He married Sarah T. Patterson. Her parents having died when she was young, she and her sister had made their home with their uncle and aunt, Daniel Townsend and Hepzibah (Jen- kins) Townsend. Benjamin James and Sarah had children, of whom the seventh was Septimus Hamil- ton Jenkins. Benjamin James died on James Island ahout 1847.
Septimus Hamilton Jenkins, son of Benjamin, was married at Edisto Island, South Carolina, to Mrs. Annie Manson Bailey, nee Gautier. Among their children was Claudius Bissell Jenkins, who was born in Summerville, South Carolina, on July 3, 1865.
His mother was descended from Pierre Gautier, a French Huguenot minister, who was born January 19, 1729, at Nismes, France. He was educated for the ministry at Geneva and at Lausanne and was driven from France during the persecution of the Protestants and in October, 1754, went to Jersey and on the 26th of October, 1755, was ordained a priest of the Church of England by Bishop Hoadly of Winchester. In 1758 he married Annie Manson, of Lower Normandy, and about this time he moved from Jersey to Bristol, England, where he lived un- til his death. One of his children, Peter William, the grandfather of Claudius Bissell Jenkins, was born in 1771, and came to this country during the latter part of the eighteenth century.
Such is a brief account of the sturdy ancestry which endowed Claudius Bissell Jenkins with his native characteristics. As a boy he attended school at Rockville on Wadmalaw Island, at an early age worked in a country store, and at nineteen, in 1884, moved to Charleston and took a position with the Cameron & Barkley Company. Since then his progress and success have been marked. It has been said of him by one who knows him well, "As poets are born and not made, so Mir. Jenkins was born a business man,"
At the age of twenty-two he was made general manager of the Cameron & Barkley Company, be- came vice president two years later, and eigliteen years ago became president, the office he still holds.
The Cameron & Barkley Company, dealers in ma- chinery, mill supplies, etc., is one of the largest houses of its kind in the South Atlantic states. The firm was established in Charleston immediately after the Civil war in 1865, and as a result of its steady growth branch houses have been established in Jack- sonville, Tampa and Miami, Florida.
The General Asbestos and Rubber Company, also located in Charleston, of which Mr. Jenkins is presi- dent, is the outgrowth of a small business which about nineteen years ago came under the control of Mr. Jenkins and his associates. It has grown into the largest plant of its kind in North America, and is one of the largest in the world. The headquarters are at Charleston, while branches are maintained in most of the leading cities of the United States. This business, starting with a capitalization of $10,000, now has an authorized capitalization of $5,000,000, and its snecess is entirely due to the wide vision, enterprise and ability of Mr. Jenkins and his associates.
Mr. Jenkins is interested in a number of other enterprises. He is president of the Rose Bank Farm Company ; president of the Prospect Farm Company ; president of the Carolina-Florida Realty Company. He is a director of the Peoples National Bank of Charleston; director in the Myakka Company, a large timber corporation; director in the Charleston Trust & Guarantee Company; vice president and director of the Simons-Mayrant Company, a con- tracting and engineering firm ; and a director in the Boulevard Realty Company. The Boulevard, a resi- dential section of Charleston, was under considera- tion by the city officials for three-quarters of a century, but the culmination of the plans and ideas was attained only when Mr. Jenkins applied his energy and pushed the enterprise forward. It is now completed, a splendid addition to the city, Mr. Jenkins' own home being one of the delightful resi- dences located there.
Mr. Jenkins is a member of the St. Andrews So- cicty, the St. Cecilia Society, the Huguenot Society, the New England Society, the Carolina Yacht Club, the Charleston Country Club, the South Carolina Historical Society, is a ruling elder in the First (Scotch) Presbyterian Church, and is deeply inter- ested and takes an active part in the Young Men's Christian Association. Other similar institutions and civic affairs claim his attention. He has served on the board of directors of the Charleston Chamber of Commerce and for some years was a member of the Charleston Militia with the rank of major on the staff of Gen. Edward Anderson.
Mr. Jenkins regards life as an opportunity to do good, is a generous giver, and no worthy cause has ever met a refusal from him. He is especially liberal in his church, believing sincerely in the good to mankind which religion brings. Aligned with the democratic party, he is not especially active or aggressive in political matters. His friends and as- sociates know him as a representative citizen with temperate views on questions of morals or expe- diency and as a direct influence in the city's welfare, and for many years his name has been closely linked with the growth and development of Charleston.
June 25, 1880, at Santuc in Union County, Mr. Jenkins married Miss Lula Thomas. She was born
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HISTORY OF SOUTHI CAROLINA
at Santuc December 1, 1871, a daughter of Dr. John P. Thomas and his wife, Susan Rivers. She is a descendant of Sarah Bailey Jenkins. Her ancestry is traced to one James Thomas, who with his brother Anderson came to South Carolina be- fore 1760 and settled in Fairfield District. Both brothers married, and their children later moved to Union District, South Carolina. James had large land holdings, especially near Shelton Ferry, South Carolina. He had a Revolutionary record as a mem- ber of the South Carolina Militia, as did liis brother.
David Anderson Thomas, son of James, was born in 1785, inherited and acquired large estates in Union County, and for his bride he wooed and won Eliza Frances Farr, daughter of Col. William Farr, Revolutionary officer and at one time sheriff of Union County. Ten children were born to this couple. David Anderson Thomas died at the ripe age of eighty-three in 1868.
Dr. John Pulaski Thomas, third son of David Anderson and Eliza (Farr) Thomas, was born in 1818. He was twice married, first to Frances E. Kelly, by whom he had four children, and secondly to Susan Rivers, daughter of William Horace and Sarah Rivers, nee Jenkins. Lula Evelyn Thomas, second daughter of this marriage, became the wife of Claudius Bissell Jenkins on June 25, 1889. Her father died in 1900.
The surname Thomas had its origin in the same Christian name and appeared as a surname in the British Isles after the Norman Conquest. As it has come down through the generations we find it not only hoary with age, but loaded with honors. Its sons have attained fame in civil and military af- fairs, in the realnis of learning and finance, as authors, dramatists and legislators. From the vari- ous lines that early settled in this country branches have now spread over the United States, and to their number have been added those who sought freedom's shores at later successive dates. The Welsh families of this name are said to claim the greatest antiquity, and various lines spring anciently from a common origin, tracing back to Elystan Glodrydd, Prince of Fferllys. Many of the Welsh Thomases came to Pennsylvania and the Carolinas in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth cen- turies, some of whose ancestors were doubtless of the princely Welsh lineage.
Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins had eight children, all liv- ing except the third son, Chilton Hamilton Jen- kins, who died April 24, 1896, at the age of eight months.
The first son, Claudius Bissell, Jr., born in Janti- ary, 1801, attended the Charleston public schools, the McCauley High School at Chattanooga, and after completing his education in the Eastman Business College at Poughkeepsie, New York, entered busi- ness with the General Asbestos & Rubber Company and is now its second vice president, sales manager and director. He married Miss Jeannie Black Hyde.
John Thomas Jenkins, the second son, born in August, 1862, took the same public school course, and after finishing began work with the Cameron and Barkley Company, of which he is now one of the vice presidents. He is also secretary of the
General Asbestos and Rubber Company. He mar- ried Miss Hess Waring Lebby.
Charles Rees Jenkins was born in January, 1807. After a high school course he attended the Porter Military Academy, where he graduated with honors and was the valedictorian of his class. He also graduated with honors from Davidson College of North Carolina, following which he entered the Medical Department of Johns Hopkins University, remaining 212 years, but then decided to enter the ministry of the Presbyterian Church and is now at the Columbia Theological Seminary at Columbia, South Carolina.
Pierre Gautier Jenkins, born in November, 1900, and Rivers Thomas Jenkins, born in October, 1902, are both graduates of Porter Military Academy and are now students at the College of Charleston.
Lula Jenkins was born in November, 1893, and received her education at Ashley Hall, Charleston, and the Hamilton School in the City of Washington.
Lillie Eason Jenkins, born in October, 1898, graduated at Ashley Hall in 1916, from there went to the Agnes Scott College at Decatur, Georgia, and took a finishing course at Gunston Hall, Washing- ton, D. C.
MELVIN ST. J. BLITCH. Among the earnest and enterprising men whose depth of character have gained him a prominent place in the community and the respect and confidence of their fellow citizens is Melvin St. J. Blitch, who is widely known as a successful planter and gardener on Johns Island. A man of decided views and landable ambition, his influence has ever made for the advancement of his kind, and in the vocation to which his energies have been applied he ranks among the successful planters of his community.
Melvin St. J. Blitch, who resides in a comfortable home at No. 12 Calomel Street, Charleston, was born on Yonges Island, South Carolina, on September 9, 1888. He is the son of N. H. Blitch, whose personal sketch appears elsewhere in this work. Mr. Blitch who is the eldest of the children born to his parents, received his elementary education in the public schools, supplementing this by attendance at the col- lege of Mt. St. Mary's at Emmettsburg, Maryland. Immediately upon completing his education Mr. Blitch engaged in farming, making a specialty of potatoes, cabbage and truck commodities, and to say that he has been more than ordinarily successful is but to reiterate a fact widely recognized by those who know him. He is the owner of 350 acres of good land, which he maintains at a high state of cultivation and from which he is reaping rich returns.
In 1909 Mr. Blitch was married to Eulalia D. Devereux, the daughter of John H. and Elizabeth (Veronee) Devereux. To them have been born four children, namely : E. Doretha, Melvin, Jr., John H. and E. Elizabeth.
Fraternally Mr. Blitch belongs to Lodge No. 242, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, of Charles- ton, and to P. N. Leech Council No. 704, Knights of Columbus. His religious membership is with the Catholic Church. Mr. Blitch, by boldly facing the responsibilities of life and by determined and untir- ing energy, has carved out for himself an honorable
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HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
success and is richly deserving of the high standing which he enjoys among those who know him.
ROBERT GOODWYN RHETT, of Charleston, has vied with many of his conspicnous ancestors in point of broad and efficient citizenship and manifold serv- ices to his home city and state.
His earliest American ancestors were Thomas Landgrave Smith, governor of South Carolina in 1693, and his brother George Smith, who were grandsons of Sir George Smith of Exeter. Sir George was also grandfather of George Mouck, Duke of Albemarle. A grandson of George Smith came to the Carolinas and married a second consin, Sabina Smith, granddaughter of Governor Thomas Smith. In 1744 their son Thomas married Sarah Moore, granddaughter of Col. William Rhett. Of their children Thomas Moore adopted the name of Rhett, which was then about to become extinct. William Rhett, an ancestor of Robert Goodwyn Rhett, was in 1706 speaker of the House of Com- mons of South Carolina, and was also commis- sioned a vice admiral of the English Colonial Fleet. In 1777 he commanded the expedition which re- sulted in the capture of the pirate Bonnet.
Mr. Rhett's grandfather was a planter and took no part in public affairs. Two of his brothers, how- ever, were distinguished, Albert Moore and Robert Barnwell Rhett. Albert Moore Rhett, in the same year that he was admitted to the bar, entered the State Legislature, and quickly took rank among the foremost debaters in that body. In 1843 he moved to Charleston and in October of the same year was stricken with yellow fever and died at the early age of thirty-four. Rohert Barnwell Rhett was a lawyer of brilliant abilities, served in Congress for a number of years, and upon the death of John Calhoun succeeded that great South Carolina states- man in the United States Senate. He was the rival of Jefferson Davis for the presidency of the Confederate States.
Albert Moore Rhett, father of Robert Goodwyn Rhett, was born in South Carolina in 1834. His name is, associated with the pioneer development and manufacture of fertilizer from the phosphate rock discovered at Charleston in the late '60s.
Robert Goodwyn Rhett was born at Columbia March 25, 1862, son of Albert Moore and Martha Goodwyn Rhett. He grew up in and around Charleston, attended Porter's Military Academy, and also an Episcopal High School near Alexandria, Virginia. In the fall of 1879 he enrolled as a student in the University of Virginia, from which he was graduated with the Master of Arts degree in 1883, and completed his law course there in 1884. He then entered the law office of Brawley & Barn- well at Charleston, and in 1886 formed a partnership with George M. Trenholm under the firm name of Trenholm & Rhett. In 1893 W. C. Miller and in 1899 R. S. Whaley were admitted to the firm, which was then styled Trenholm, Rhett, Miller & Whaley.
While Mr. Rhett quickly earned a high place in the legal profession, his energies have been more and more directed into business and finance. Fol- lowing the example of his father he has done much to develop the manufacture of fertilizers, and be- came instrumental in establishing two large fac-
tories and continued to give his personal direction to the business until it was sold to the Virginia- Carolina Chemical Company. At one time Mr. Rhett was a member of the Board of Directors of not less than twenty-five Charleston companies, in- cluding railroads, banks, cotton mills and a num- ber of large mercantile establishments. In 1896 he was elected president of the South Carolina Loan & Trust Company and filled that office until 1900. Since 1899 he has been president of the Peoples National Bank of Charleston.
Mr. Rhett organized the Commercial Club of Charleston and was its first president. He has given his influence to the democratic party in local, state and national campaigns and was a delegate at large to the National Convention at St. Louis in 1904. He served as alderman from 1895 to 1903, and from 1904 to 1912 was mayor of the city. When he be- came mayor real estate values had touched the low- est ebb since 1883. He originated the boulevard project, and through the confidence felt in him by business men and other organizations the city made tremendous strides of progress.
Mr. Rhett has enjoyed several honors that have served to make him a national character. He was president of the League of American Municipalities in 1905-06, was president of the Chamber of Com- merce at Charleston in 1915-16, and from 1916 to 1918 was president of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States. He is a member of St. Andrews Society, the Hibernians, the Charleston Country, and Carolina Yacht clubs, and while im- mersed in practical business affairs has cultivated many of the tastes of a cultured gentleman.
November 15, 1888, he married Miss Helen Smith, of Charleston. She died in 1904. On August 8, 1906, he married Miss Blanche Salley, of Salley's, South Carolina.
DUNCAN D. McCOLL, a lawyer of Bennettsville, in practice there for over twenty years, is widely known over the state in public affairs by reason of his long service in the House and Senate, represent- ing Marlboro County.
Senator McColl was born at Bennettsville, March 17, 1877. His grandfather, David McColl, was a native of North Carolina, and the first of the family came from the highlands of Scotland to America about 1790, locating in North Carolina. Duncan Donald McColl, father of the Bennettsville lawyer. was born in Robinson County, North Carolina, and in 1858, settled in Marlboro County, South Carolina, at Bennettsville. He was a lawyer, and after get- ting well established in practice he entered the Con- federate army, and was all through the war. He had the abilities which made him a leader in public and business affairs. He organized the first bank in the county, known as the Bank of Marlboro. and was its president until his death. At the time of his death he also held the office of solicitor for his circuit. He died at the age of sixty-eight. The bank which he established is one of the strongest in this section of the state, has a capital stock of $60,000, and its president is his son, Hugh L. Mc- Coll, while D. D. McColl is a director.
The mother of Duncan D. McColl was Nellie Thomas, danghter of Capt. J. A. W. Thomas, of
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HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
Marlboro County. Captain Thomas was distinguished for his cloquence, zeal and energy as a mmister. He preached in Marlboro County for nearly half a century. When the war came on he raised a com- pany and was its commander throughout the period of hostilities. Captain Thomas was of Welsh origin, his ancestors coming to this country about 1byg, establishing their first home on the eastern shore of Maryland, and later Rev. Robert Thomas came to South Carolina as a pioncer minister of the Baptist faith.
Duncan D. McColl was one of seven children. His sister Pearl is the wife of Rev. Bunyan McLeod, of Charlotte; Alexa, is the wife of H. W. Carroll, of Bennettsville, and Nell is the wife of Ernest H. Prugle, Jr., of Charleston.
D. D. MeColl was reared in his native place, hav- ing a public school education, graduated from the literary department of the University of South Carolina in 1897 and finished his law course in 1898. The same year he was admitted to the bar and has been achieving recognition as one of the leading lawyers of the state. He served as a member of the Lower House of the Legislature for eight years, from 1902 to 1910, and is now representing Marlboro County in the Senate. He has been a member of every democratic state convention for the past eighteen years, and was a delegate to the national convention in 1904 and a member of the committee that notified Judge Parker of his nomination. He has been chairman of the County Democratic Com- mittce for six years and for an equal time a member of the State Executive Committee.
Mr. McColl is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias, and is a member of the Baptist Church, the church of his family. November 2, 1899, he married Henrietta Sheppard, third daughter of former Gov- ernor Sheppard. They have four children: Helen Wallace, Elcanor Thomas, Frances Maxwell and Duncan D., Jr.
ANDREW J. RILEY. Both as a business man and representative of his ward in the City Council, Andrew J. Riley measures up to high standards of citizenship, and is recognized as one of the eminently worthwhile men of Charleston. He is a native son of Charleston, where he was born April 4. 1854, to which city his father, Patrick Riley, a North of Ireland man had come in young manhood. A weaver by trade, after coming to Charleston Patrick Rilcy engaged in the manufacture of gas, and was so engaged at the time of the outbreak of the war between the states, in which he enlisted in support of the Confederacy, but was released, as it was deemed he was more useful to Charleston as a gas manufacturer than in the army. He lived to be sixty-two years of age, and was survived by his widow, Mrs. Ann (Collins) Riley, also born in the North of Ireland, who lived to be seventy-nine years old. They had five sons and four daughters, seven of whom survive and are residents of Charleston, and of them all Andrew J. Riley is the third in order of birth.
Growing up at Charleston, Andrew J. Riley at- tended both the private and public schools of the city, and then served an apprenticeship at the plumb- ing trade. In 1887 lic and P. L. Guillemin formed a partnership which continued for four years, and
then Mr. Riley severed his connection, and since then has been in business for himself, maintaining a first-class plumbing establishment. During the whole time he has heen in business Mr. Riley has been located on King Street, and within a few doors of his present site. In addition to this enterprise, Mr. Riley is president of the Hibernian Mutual Insur- ance Company and president of the Metropolitan Building and Loan Association. For twenty-four years he was a member of his ward in the City Council, and is still connected with municipal mat- ters, a member of the fire board.
In 1898 Mr. Riley was married to Mary E. Oliver, also born at Charleston, a daughter of Henry Oliver, a contractor and a soldier in the Confederate army during the war between the states. Mr. and Mrs. Riley became the parents of the following children : Margaret Oliver, Andrew Joseph, Jr., Mary Emily, Ann, Henry Oliver, Francis Collins, Lawrence Gill- more, Joseph Patrick, and John Edward, all of whom were born at Charleston, and still survive. Mr. Riley belongs to St. Patrick's Catholic Church. He is a member of the Knights of Columbus and the Elks and the Hibernian Society. A man of broad sympathies and generous impulses, he is very charit- able and has long cared for many of the indigent of the city, making it his duty to look after theni, especially those of his own ward. During his long connection with civic matters he has gained an in- sight into the real needs of Charleston, and is always found in the front ranks of the boosters of the city, realizing that in municipal affairs, as in everything else, it is necessary to advertise the advantages in order to attract new enterprises, and maintain the magnificent prestige so long held by Charleston.
EDWIN WALES ROBERTSON was born in Columbia, South Carolina, September 3, 1863, the son of Thom- as James and Mary O. (Caldwell) Robertson, and is of Scotch-Irish ancestry. He received his early education at Emerson Institute, Washington, D. C., where he finished in 1880, and from there attended the Hopkins Grammar School at New Haven, Con- necticut, where he received the certificate of grad- uation in 1881. He then entered Yale University and graduated in the Academic Department with the class of 1885. He returned to Columbia and entered the Law Department of South Carolina Col- lege, from which he graduated in 1887. He prac- ticed law from 1887 to 1894 in Columbia in partner- ship with M. Herndon Moore, afterwards Dean of the Law School of the South Carolina University.
In May, 1892, Mr. Robertson and his associates established the Canal Dime Savings Bank of Co- lumbia, of which he was made president and which position he held until January I, 1898, when that bank was consolidated with the Loan and Exchange Bank of South Carolina and Mr. Robertson bc- came president of the consolidated bank. The same interest acquired control of the Central National Bank of Columbia in 1002, and Mr. Robertson was its president until its absorption, together with the Loan and Exchange Bank of South Carolina, into the National Loan and Exchange Bank of Columbia on July 7. 1903, since which time he has been presi- dent of the last named bank.
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