USA > South Carolina > Men of mark in South Carolina; ideals of American life: a collection of biographies of leading men of the state, Volume II > Part 15
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Mr. Norwood married Miss Vina Patrick, of Greenville; and after her decease, Miss Lida Goodlett, of Spartanburg. Some time after her death, in October, 1906, he married Miss Fannie Conyers. He has two children.
His address is Greenville, South Carolina; and his very attractive home is near that city.
WILLIE ROBERT OSBORNE
O SBORNE, WILLIE ROBERT, of Anderson, South Carolina, merchant, director and president of several manufacturing companies and of other important cor- porations, was born at Anderson, on the 9th of June, 1864. His father, William Moultrie Osborne, merchant and farmer, whose ancestors were of English descent, is cordially remembered by a wide circle for his integrity and his kindly charitableness of feeling and action.
Not robust as a boy, his tastes were for reading and study rather than for out-of-door sports. His educational opportunities were very limited-were, in fact, confined to attendance in boy- hood at common country schools near his home, and to reading at home. But early in his boyhood he came under the influence of strong biographies of men of marked character; and he writes that all his life he has been greatly influenced by biographical reading. In particular, he declares that biographies of successful men who began life in poverty influenced his thought and formed his ideals. "I believed that if other poor boys whose circum- stances were like my own could succeed in life and make their mark, I could." He was trained to hard manual work on a farm in his boyhood and youth. In October, 1880, he became clerk in a store at Anderson, and the rather exceptionally quick promotion and steady advancement which came to him in mercantile life convinced him that he had chosen the career in which he could make the most of his own powers and develop the widest influence. Of his mother, Mrs. Irene Jane (Clinkscales) Osborne, he writes, "the strongest influence ever brought to bear upon my life was my mother"; and to her high and earnest ambition for him he feels indebted for much of the inspiration of his life.
A clerk from 1880 to 1888, in the latter year he became a member of The Sylvester-Bleckley Company, continuing a partner in that firm until 1893. From 1893 to 1901 he was a member of the firm of Brown, Osborne & Company. Since 1901 he has been senior member of the firm of Osborne & Pearson, in the general mercantile business.
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Mr. Osborne is a director and the vice-president of the Anderson Telephone company; a director and the vice-president of the Corona Knitting mills; a director and the vice-president for some years and later the president of the Anderson Mattress and Spring Bed company ; he is a director of the Riverside Cotton mills and of the Toxaway Cotton mills, both of Anderson, South Carolina; a director and president of the Merchants' Grocery company, wholesale grocers; a director and president of the Domestic Manufacturing company; a director of the Perpetual Building and Loan association of Anderson, South Carolina, and a director of the Bank of Starr, South Carolina.
He has always taken an active interest in the social and civic life of Anderson. He is a director and the treasurer of the Anderson chamber of commerce, and the chairman of its com- mittee on education. He is an alderman of the city of Anderson, now serving his second term, and is chairman of the sanitary committee and a member of the following committees of the council : auditing, finance, civic improvement, streets, and police.
A member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, Mr. Osborne has for the last twenty years been superintendent of the Sunday school and a member of the board of stewards of St. John's church at Anderson, South Carolina; and he has served for seven years as treasurer and is at present chairman of the board of stewards. In 1905 he was a delegate from the Green- ville district to the South Carolina annual conference of his church. In 1906 he was a delegate from the Anderson district, and he served on several committees. He has acted as district steward of the Greenville district and of the Anderson district for the last three years.
Mr. Osborne has never married. He is a Royal Arch Mason, a Knight of Pythias, and a Noble of Oasis Mystic Shrine. He is the fraternal master of Security lodge, No. 241, of the Fraternal Union of America. He is identified with the Travelers' Protec- tive Association of America.
In politics he is a Democrat.
To the young people of South Carolina he commends these three cardinal principles: "honesty, sobriety, industry."
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FRANCIS LE JAU PARKER
P ARKER, FRANCIS LE JAU, M. D., an eminent physician and surgeon of Charleston, was distinguished among the professional men contributed by South Carolina to the armies of the Confederacy. He was born in Abbeville district, September, 1836, a son of Captain Thomas Parker, who com- manded the Abbeville volunteers in the last Florida war, and Eleanor Legare Frost, and grandson of Thomas Parker, first United States district attorney of South Carolina after the Revo- lution. He is also a grandson of William Henry Drayton, chief justice of South Carolina, and is a lineal descendant, on the maternal side, of the Reverend Doctor Francis Le Jau, rector of Goose Creek church, 1707-1717. Doctor Parker's family has been identified with the history of his state from colonial times. In 1855 he was graduated from the South Carolina Military academy, and in 1858 he was graduated in medicine from the Medical Col- lege of the State of South Carolina, at Charleston, having studied in the office of his uncle, the late Professor Henry R. Frost, M. D., one of the founders of the college. After his graduation from the Medical college he was elected one of the house physicians of the Roper hospital, April, 1858, and during the terrible epidemic of yellow fever which immediately followed he remained faithful at his post, himself suffering from the dread disease. Subse- quently he began the practice of medicine at Charleston, and was appointed assistant demonstrator and prosector of anatomy to Professors Holbrook and Miles of the Medical college at which he had studied. In March, 1861, after the secession of his state from the Union, Doctor Parker entered upon his first military service. He was commissioned assistant surgeon of South Caro- lina volunteers, and was assigned to the First regiment of artil- lery, Colonel Wilmot D. DeSaussure commanding, at Morris Island. In April, 1861, he participated in the bombardment of Fort Sumter and saw the first signal shell fired from the mortar battery at Fort Johnson, James Island, by Lieutenant James, formerly of the United States army, but at the time of the bom- bardment in the service of South Carolina. At the beginning of the War between the States, Doctor Parker was commissioned
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assistant surgeon provisional army of the Confederate States and assigned to duty at Manassas Junction, where he served on the staff of Doctor Williams, medical director of General Johnston's army. Subsequently he was assigned to duty as assistant surgeon and afterward was surgeon in charge of the South Carolina hospital at Manchester, Virginia, until after the battles before Richmond, 1862, when he was commissioned surgeon and assigned to the staff of Commodore Page, Confederate States navy, at Chapins Bluff, James river, below Richmond. But desiring more active duty, he obtained a transfer, and was appointed surgeon of the Hampton Legion infantry, Colonel M. W. Gary command- ing, Jenkins's brigade, Longstreet's corps, Army of Northern Virginia, and was on duty with this command in the Suffolk and Blackwater campaign about Petersburg and Richmond in 1863; at Chickamauga, and during the investment of Chattanooga and through the campaign in East Tennessee, when the skill and endurance of medical officers were severely taxed. While in Tennessee, Doctor Parker was attached to the staff of Major- General S. B. Buckner, commanding Hood's old division, and later was appointed chief surgeon of this division, subsequently commanded by General Fields. On the return to Virginia, he shared the fortunes of the First corps in the battles of the Wil- derness, Spottsylvania court-house, North and South Anna rivers, Cold Harbor, and in the fighting before Richmond and Peters- burg, and finally the retreat to Appomattox. Then he returned to Charleston, resumed his practice and renewed his connection with the Medical college, of which he was elected demonstrator in 1866 and professor of anatomy in 1870. Afterward he served as clinical lecturer on diseases of the eye and ear, and in 1881 he became dean of the faculty. In 1892 he was elected provisional president of the Alumni association. In 1894 he effected the reestablishment of the College of Pharmacy. For many years he represented the Medical Society of South Carolina in the annual conventions of the South Carolina Medical association. On Jan- uary 1, 1903, he was elected an honorary member of the Medical Society of South Carolina, and, on April 16 of the same year, honorary member of the South Carolina Medical association. Doctor Parker was one of the surgeons of the City hospital. He served as one of the editors of the Charleston "Medical Journal," to the columns of which he contributed many valuable papers.
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FRANCIS LE JAU PARKER
He has also written exhaustively and well for numerous other medical publications, including "The American Journal of Med- ical Sciences," "The Transactions of the South Carolina Medical Association," and "The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion," his papers dealing with general surgery, par- ticularly with diseases of the eye, ear, throat and nose.
Recently Doctor Parker resigned the deanship, and the pro- fessorship of anatomy, of the Medical college, and was elected emeritus professor of the branch last named.
Doctor Parker's address is Charleston, South Carolina.
THOMAS FLEMING PARKER
P ARKER, THOMAS FLEMING, cotton manufacturer, was born in Charleston, South Carolina, December 28, 1860. His parents were Thomas and Margaretta Amelia Parker. His father resided in Charleston for many years and was one of the merchant princes of his day. He was a man of culture, and in his home the leading men and women of the South in his day were frequently entertained. Soon after the opening of the War between the States he enlisted in the Confederate States army, and he was killed in the battle of Secessionville when he was only twenty-nine years of age. The earliest known ancestor in this country was John Parker, who came from the Island of Jamaica to South Carolina, where he died in 1695.
Thomas Fleming Parker passed the years of childhood and youth in the city of his birth. He completed the course of study at the preparatory school of A. Sachtleben, and subsequently entered the College of Charleston. Here his eyesight became impaired, and at the end of the sophomore year he was obliged to leave the institution and spend a large part of his time out of doors. He engaged in farming and out-of-door pursuits, and, though unable to continue the studies he had planned, he acquired much practical knowledge and training in affairs. He took a deep interest in the community in which he lived. For some time he was president of the Linville Improvement company, in North Carolina, which engaged in the improvement of land. Later, when he had regained his eyesight in a large degree, he became president of the Monaghan Cotton mills, at Greenville, South Carolina, and in this capacity he has become widely and favor- ably known. Although a decided innovation on the prevailing system of management, his methods proved a great success, and to a considerable extent they have been copied by many progres- sive mill owners in the South. These methods have solved the problem of how to permanently keep the operatives, which is by far the greatest difficulty which they have thus far encountered.
The Monaghan mills were organized in 1900 with a capital of $700,000. The property is located just outside the limits of Greenville, and forms a village of eighteen hundred population.
Men of Mach Publishing Company Washington, D . C .
Yours Sincerely Thomas .Parkur
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THOMAS FLEMING PARKER
Mr. Parker employed a landscape architect to map out the prop- erty, locate the streets and grades, lay out a park and a cemetery, and make suggestions along sanitary and esthetic lines. Houses were provided for the operatives and land upon which domestic animals could be kept was provided free. Thus the surround- ings were made so pleasant and healthful that operatives with families, when once located, had no desire to drift away to other mills. The mill building itself was improved in appearance by the planting of vines around it, and many of the men and women adopted the same method of beautifying their own homes.
Perhaps an even more important benefit was conferred upon the operatives by the formation of a branch of the Young Men's Christian association with excellent facilities for carrying on its work. It is said, in fact, that this establishment is superior in construction and equipment to any similar building in the state. Later the Young Women's Christian association was opened with a home of its own. The Young Men's Christian association, including club house and fixtures, cost approximately $18,000, and the stockholders admit that it was a most judicious expenditure. There is a secretary and assistant secretary for each association, men and women who work in the village and whose salaries are paid by the corporation. With institutions of this character, with delightful homes, and with all the modern facilities of a city for the operatives, the owners have no trouble in securing steady and efficient help, although the mill is located in a section where labor is at times alarmingly scarce. And it is due to the good judg- ment and wise management of Mr. Parker, seconded by the directors of the company, that such favorable conditions have been secured.
Mainly as the results of Mr. Parker's efforts, a Municipal league was formed in Greenville two years ago. The object of this association, of which he was made and still is president, was to make the city more attractive to its residents and to strangers. The public soon became interested. The services of landscape architects were secured, an associate branch was organized by the women, and the work of improvement was soon well under way. The league is non-partisan and non-political. Its membership includes practically every public-spirited citizen, and more than one hundred women. Much has been done to beautify and adorn
Vol. II .- S. C .- 14.
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the city and much more in the same line will be accomplished in the future.
Mr. Parker has chosen the life which is free from political cares and trials, but he sympathizes and votes with the Demo- cratic party. The only order with which he is affiliated is the South Carolina Society Sons of the American Revolution.
On April 6, 1887, he was married to Miss Lisa deV. Foulke, who died May, 1902. Of their two children, one is living in 1907. In June, 1906, Mr. Parker married Miss Harriet Horry Frost, of Charleston, South Carolina.
The address of Mr. Parker is Greenville, South Carolina.
JAMES E. PEURIFOY
P EURIFOY, JAMES E., of Colleton county, lawyer, state senator, was born in Edgefield (now Saluda) county, South Carolina, on May 9, 1872. His father, Daniel Byrd Peurifoy, was a merchant and farmer who represented his county (at first Edgefield, later Saluda county) for several years in the South Carolina house of representatives. The ancestors of his father came from England in colonial times and settled in North Carolina.
His boyhood was passed in the country, and he was early trained to regular tasks on the farm. He was not very strong, although seldom ill. He became fond of books and reading while still a boy; and he early determined to be a lawyer. But he had to support himself during his years of study; and he taught for some years after his college course was completed, meantime reading law, before he found himself in position to give his entire time to his chosen profession, the law.
By his faithful work as a boy in preparatory schools he qualified himself for and won a beneficiary scholarship in the South Carolina Military academy, from which institution he was graduated in June, 1894, with the degree of B. S.
In September of the same year he began to teach, as principal of the Walterboro graded school. He pursued law studies and was admitted to the bar (December, 1897,) while still teaching. In June, 1898, he gave up teaching to engage in the practice of the law.
After four years of practice his townspeople and the voters of the county had come to know him so well and so favorably that they chose him state senator in 1902. He served Colleton county in the upper house of the state legislature of South Caro- lina until 1906, when he declined reelection, desiring to give his entire time to the practice of his profession.
He is a Democrat in his political convictions, and he has always acted with his party.
He is a Knight of Pythias and a Free Mason. He has served as captain of a company of South Carolina militia.
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JAMES E. PEURIFOY
While still a teacher, in November, 1897, he married Carrie Hagood Witsell, daughter of Doctor Charles Witsell and Mrs. Emmeline Witsell. Of their three children, two are living in 1907.
Mr. Peurifoy is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. He has found his favorite form of exercise and recrea- tion in looking after his farm. Early following the example of his father in entering upon the career of a legislator for his county, Mr. Peurifoy has sought to qualify himself for his duties by special reading and by a broad-minded view of the possibilities for good which are within reach of the average American citizen. He is still very young. His friends look for much useful service of the state by him.
To the young he commends as the surest and firmest stepping- stone to true success, "scrupulous honesty in all transactions, sober and correct habits, and hard work-'keeping always at it.'"
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Men of Mark. Publishing Company Washington, D.C.
DOWA Jonly gellanke
JOSEPH CALVIN PLONK
P LONK, JOSEPH CALVIN, cotton manufacturer, presi- dent of the Cherokee Falls Manufacturing company, of Cherokee Falls, Cherokee county, South Carolina, was born December 9, 1852, in Cleveland county, North Carolina. His parents were John Jonas Plonk (now, 1907, living at the age of eighty-four) and Ann Ellen (Oates) Plonk, who died in 1905 in her seventy-fourth year. His mother had always been fond of reading, and was a woman of deep piety and exemplary life. The Bible was her constant companion, and its precepts and its spirit went into the training she gave her children. "If there is any good in me of any kind, I owe it to my mother," writes her son.
His father's family were of German extraction; his mother's were English and Scotch. His paternal great-grandfather, Jacob Plonk, came from Pennsylvania and settled in what is now Lin- coln county, North Carolina, before the Revolutionary war. His son, Joseph Plonk, was born in Lincoln county in 1788, and died in 1888, aged one hundred years and two months. He was a skilled workman, and made spinning-wheels, hand-looms, violins, and many other articles, without the use of machinery. Both of Mr. Plonk's maternal great-grandfathers, William Oates and Samuel Espey, came from Pennsylvania before the Revolution and settled in what is now Cleveland county, North Carolina. They were soldiers in the Revolutionary war, and were at the battle of King's Mountain, Espey serving as captain. William Oates, son of William Oates and grandfather of Joseph Calvin Plonk, built wagons and other vehicles. He was also a farmer, and a land surveyor. He died in 1857. John Jones Plonk, the father of Joseph Calvin, was born in Lincoln county, North Caro- lina, in 1823, and is still living at the age of eighty-four, having been an incessant worker himself and believing it a sin to be idle.
Descended from sturdy forebears, Joseph Calvin Plonk was blessed with a strong physique, which his life on the farm helped to develop. At the age of six he began to engage in helpful tasks, following the example of his father, who taught him that he ought not to "eat the bread of idleness."
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The War between the States began when he was eight years old. School facilities were very limited. In his twentieth year he attended a high school in Newton, North Carolina, for ten or twelve weeks, but Reconstruction troubles left the family without means, and he was forced to leave school to go to work. He found that unskilled labor hardly brought him a livelihood; and realizing his deficiencies, he determined to overcome them. By hard work and close saving, he accumulated money enough to enable him to spend ten months at a country academy. At twenty-three he began five years of alternate school teaching and study.
On April 13, 1880, he married Miss Laura Elmina Roberts. Three months of unsuccessful partnership "in a store," and two years as official surveyor of Cleveland county, were followed by his reelection as surveyor; but in 1883 he resigned and went into the lumber business, again meeting with failure.
About this time cotton manufacturing began to take on new life in the South. Several modern mills had been built in the vicinity of Charlotte, North Carolina, and Spartanburg, South Carolina. An accidental visit to one of these mills gave him the determination to learn the cotton manufacturing business. In September, 1883, he applied for work at McAdensville, and began by sweeping the floor of the mill. After about a week he was promoted, and as he made it a rule to do well whatever work was assigned to him, without asking questions, he began to find favor in the eyes of those above him. His wages at first were seventy- five cents a day.
After he had been at McAdensville for nine months, his superintendent resigned and went to Cherokee Falls, taking Plonk with him. At his new location he was made overseer of the card room at one dollar and twenty-five cents a day. Sixteen months afterward the superintendent went to take another posi- tion, and Mr. Plonk was left in charge of the mill at Cherokee Falls. In six months more he was made superintendent, at a salary of a thousand dollars a year-a position which he held until 1892, when he went to Georgia and built a new and more modern mill, and started work on printed cloths. This was the second mill in the South to make these goods, the first having been started in February, 1893, while this one did not begin operation until May of 1893. He stayed in Georgia two years,
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and in November, 1894, he returned to Cherokee Falls. In the meanwhile, September, 1894, the old mill had been destroyed by fire. At the unanimous request of the stockholders, Mr. Plonk rebuilt the mill on modern lines and on a much larger scale. He was made superintendent and general manager, and he held these positions until, in 1900, he was elected president of the company, which office he still holds.
Mr. Plonk is also a director of manufacturing corporations, a member of several important industrial associations, a vice- president of the National Association of Manufacturers, and president of the Cherokee Iron company, a South Carolina cor- poration dealing in mineral lands.
When he went to McAdensville he had just one five-dollar gold piece between him and starvation. He now owns one-eighth of the stock of the Cherokee Falls Manufacturing company, whose plant cost the stockholders half a million dollars; and he is the owner of much other property.
Mr. Plonk has necessarily had many opportunities to help others, and he has not neglected them. Remembering, doubtless, his own hard struggle to get a start in the world, he has been quick to extend a helping hand to others who have shown a dispo- sition to help themselves. He has done what he could for the interests of the employees of his mill. Religious services are maintained here, and there is a free school which is open seven months in the year and is well patronized. Mr. and Mrs. Plonk have adopted a daughter, to whom they are warmly devoted.
In religious preference Mr. Plonk is a Presbyterian; and he holds the office of deacon in his church. In politics he is a Dem- ocrat, though in 1896 and 1900 he voted for McKinley, differing with his party on the financial question. To young Carolinians he says: "My progress would have been swifter and my success more complete had I at the outset governed my life more closely by the golden rule. There are two sides to every debatable ques- tion, and at least two interests in every business transaction. To realize these facts, and to govern your actions accordingly, will inspire confidence in you; and that is worth more than money. 'The world deals with you as you deal with it.' There are excep- tions to this rule, but if your dealings are honest, open and upright, you will find ninety-five per cent. of the people you come in contact with willing to meet you on the same plane."
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