Newspapers / The State’s Voice (Dunn, … / June 1, 1934, edition 1 / Page 1
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Issued Twice a Month VOLUME 2 DUNN, X C, JUNE 1, 1934. S'x.* - r„- -....<■ "v* * .~jfe •T, :4* * > ^ • ..H•" ' . . :-ty*' -s-aiv *- /v-jrsi • rJ .5- f<f>? ■**>«.: " i i - * > • ■ . # - «' I HI.I ■ M.^1 ■ ■!■- : NUMBER 19 ■m MORE ABOUT MOORE AND ITS PEOPLE Judges Adams’ Passing The State’s Voice of May 15, bearing a brief tri bute to Justice Adams, had barely been circulated when the State was shocked by the news of his death. The words in praise of him living may stand as a tribute to him dead. Carthage has lost its most distinguished citizen; the State an able and upright judge. Here, as a fitting place, I may applaud the choice of Judge Adams’ successor—Judge Schenek, a worthy son of a worthy sire. Moore bounty Towns In the former article I wrote of Carthage and-of some of its fine eitizens. But space did not permit me to include Moore County’s othen good towns and villages, and I am takihg space in this issue to do so—in order to make the sketch of Moore county more complete and because it is a pleasure to do so. I have recently visited .nearly every place in the county bearing a name. I missed Jackson Springs, which thirty years ago was a popular resort. Its good old hotel has now gone down, yet a few fore gather at cottages to benefit from the use of the waters of the springs. I failed to find Niagara, where my friend J. V. Snipes, formerly of Chatham, is postmaster. It was not practicable to visit High Falls, in the northern tip of the county, where the cotton mill is still operated directly by waterpower. The cotton mill there belongs to the Jones family of Sanford and the WToody family of Guilford College and High Falls. Mr. J. Q. Reynolds, son of that fine farmer, miller, and merchant of the hill country of upper Moore, R. B. Reynolds* is superintendent of mer stiperii^tendent, Mr.’-G: C&mMri&ept ,&*&*&*? ing^Vltizetfs 'Of*- xipper-JMoore^ who long served MS'*' county commissioner.!''Abd T frad listed, as a present-., day-commissioner jjr; L. It. Shdw—but Slmws are no rarity in Moore./: -. '< ’ -~"f Aberdeen a Wrecked Town Aberdeen is the sore spot in Moore county. Only a few years ago it was one of the chief financial capitals of North Carolina and a busy and prosper ous commercial community. Today the contrast is deplorable. Probably the primary cause of the col lapse lies in the universal inclination to over-expand. But mismanagement cannot be readily eliminated as a more immediate cause of. the debacle which re sulted in the collapse of the great banking institu tion and the resulting impoverishment of the great family which built it up and directed its course dur ing the years of its safe and sane career, as well as the impoverishment of other citizens not only of Aberdeen hut of nearly a score of other towns in which units of the Page Trust Company were lo cated. One of these days, as I saw montus ugo m com menting upon the unjust criticism which befell J. Q. Sea well, cashier of the unit at Siler City, the blame will fall where It belongs—and that will not be upon the sons of Frank Page,' Sand Hills pioneer. Though Robert X. Page bore the title of president, I am authoritatively aware that the real executive power of the institution had been imposed opon another than a Page. I am informed that the actual control of the elder Pages ceased in the early 1920 s, Few, if any others, in Aberdeen or other locations of Page Trust Company units suffered such financial losses as the Pages themselves, and assuredly none other the heart pangs. One could well believe that R. X. Page would be living today but for the fail ure of the Page Trust Company, of which he was nominally president. From those piue barrens, so. graphically pictured, a hundred years ago or more by. the writer of /‘Horse Shoe Robinson”, the fortune on whieh the Page Trust Company" had been based had been gathered in the course of a'comparatively! few years. It>was shat tered in a much shorter period; and there are- rip more pine forests. ,from which to build another. Yet Aberdeen still* has some life. And among its., citizens are numbered some "pf the finest .character's I know. v •' -•: '••• . •> ■ ~ Some of ; Aberdeen's Worthies^ ^ It is out of the question-eveii mention-all tlie jrortby citizen* of Aberdeen or any other town, but *> . in each there are some whom it is a pleasure to in troduce to our readers. One can hardly think ,of J. Talbot Johnson, fine lawyer and genial gentleman, without thinking of his deceased sire, J. MacNeill Johnson, great lawyer, poet and historian, who passed away only a few years ago at the age of 71. In the dedication of a book of poems to Talbott in 1929, his father speaks of him as the “companion -of my early manhood, the business partner of my m&ture years—between whom and me there has alwayp existed an unstrained comradeship seldom seen between father and sen.” That relationship was something beautiful, as is the reverence and high respect the son, bears to the memory of his beloved parent. The father was a descendant of one of the earliest arriving Scotch families and knewt Scotch, history as he did his ABC’s. He w’as educated at Wake Forest College. Talbot went to the University three years and then to Wake Forest, where he received the DU. iB. degree in 1912. He has been practicing law at'Aberdeen ever since, as a partner with his father till his death. He now has as partner a young Vir ginian, Prank W. McCluer, a'graduate of Washing ton and Lee University, whom Mr. Johnson charac terizes,, as “bright, studious, and popular.” I did pot think to ask Talbot just- -how it came about that his father married up in-Chatham. Any way, Mrs. J. McNeill Johnson was a half-sister of out good friend Alex Cockman, manager of the Hickory Mountain game preserve, a picture of whom, with the dogs of his club you may have seen in the movies, for Alex and the dogs have been thus fea tured on the Pinehurst fields. ronnger, tieth birthday of Chatham-: the; six beloved wife, daughter of 'old -.V ,JU, “Thou dearest one! oh how I love thee yet, 1S0 sweet, so fair, 'so bright, so sunny, still Fresh as the morning rose, a breathing flower.” Truly, it is a vast privilege for Talbot to have been born and reared in a home where such love dwelt. The wife “the radiance of whose faultless face ne’er grown dim,” was Miss Annie Cockman, daughter of Mr. Mark Cockman of the Pittsboro community. And here is T. B. Wilder, whom of Aberdeen’s citizens I have longest known and esteemed. He is a native of Franklin, a graduate of Wake Forest with more than a dozen others of the class of 1882, of which class only three members survive, who will probably have met upon the Wake Forest campus be fore this is written, as the centennial celebration is calling all the old college’s alumni home for the occasion. The other two survivors' are Ttev. D. W. Herring, long missionary to China, and Henry G. Holding, for many years auditor of Wake county.— Later: I note that Mr. Holding has undergone an operation for appendicitis. Two Interesting Sidelights Mr. Wilder studied law under Judge C. M. Cooke aud was long associated with that great legal master. Mr. Wilder is another who is versed ^in North Carolina tradition. For instance, with respect" to Judge Cooke, he told me what is probably known to hut few—that the middle, name of Judge Cooke was “Mather," and that the Judge was a descendant of Cotton Mather of Old Salem (Mass.) fame. He tells of a monument ten miles above .Louisburg to the memory of Matthew Dickinson, graduate of Princeton and first , master of Franklin Academy, Loui^burg, a school that was chartered, if not in stituted, before the N. O. University was chartered. Dickinson had retired from teaching to study law at a country home. He had saved up several thousand dollars from a few years of school work—quite in contrast with teachers‘of the past century, except for a few brief years. He. was an uncle of Cyrus _W. Fields and 6f Donald (?) Dickinson, a member of CleveWlid’»'‘cabinet. The Fields family had the nninuftent Greeted. When the administrator of the >onng hian's estate wanted to send the money to the Fields family he delivered- it to Nathaniel Macon, who carried iV to Washington 'and there delivered it to a senator from young Dickinson’s own State, who on his- returahome delivered it to the legatees! . I spoke: of J. Vance. JJdwe in the last issue.. But I "'I.--'-, v , - - i?. • had forgotten that he was formerly a teacher down & .. at Trenton and later ran a paper therd, for two | years, which* came to me at Clinton in exchange for ' the Sampson Democrat. He is a University gradt* 3 , uate, A. B., plus law course.' He has practiced In 1 Aberdeen ten years and is now mayor*,*ahd a eandi-.’ -J date for judge of the Moore county recorder’s court. ‘ - tHe trained for the army but did not get across. * > • F. E. Flinchum is a successful Aberdeen merchant * • '£ whom one can but like. He was* born in Surry * ;; county, but was reared at Carthage, where his father and brother L. R still reside, the latter being A *\ | candidate for county commissioner. Mr. G. C. Seymour came from Georgia, but is : - thoroughly acclimated to the Sandhill section. He _ operates the Coca- Co]a. plant. His brother, O. L-» ’ : more recently came and is employed in the plant. J. . \V. Graham has long been a member of the Moore . co.unty. board of education, and chairman of it for * for the last two or three years.. He is a candidate unopposed to succeed himself. J. D. McLean is presi- 7 ^ dent of the Aberdeen Hardware Store/ G...CL Sey-r f| mour, vice-president. Here one also finds C: M. W11-. - son, who has been a fixture in the store since 1921. ^ Rev. E. L. Barber is the highly esteemed pastor of the Presbyterian church, Rev. Mr. Ball of the Metho- „ dist. The youhger Blues operate the Aberdeen and •. Rockffish railroad# built by the elder Blues. At the ; S A. L. depot I find two Chathainites as agents and , telegraph operators—T. A. Burns and J. G. Farrell/ while across at the freight depot there is Mr. Pen nington who married a? Pittsboro girl, but I have already tarried ? too; long at'Aberdeen^ r" i r § HereThre three is. pleasant -Villages! as tfrie. can find ; ' anj'vy^ece.,j O^. wp^lers rw%t alj.^e pe^^jU%|^ ^ * in5.jtlie. gopdi'homps; at ^ameron do till he realizes | that he is in the heart of the dewberry country and ^ i that Cameron is probably^ the largest dewberry mai^ . . ket in. the world. Marketing facilities identical with,r ’ the 'strawberry marketing system at Chadbourn. e^. » ist here. Berries are brought in for miles hnd, spldn for the spot cash. It is estimated that Cameron j will ship 350 to 400 carloads of dewberries this sea- ;.. son. Yass. is also to have the Chadbouru marketing ' system. It runs Cameron a close second in ship^j: ments. Down in the business section of Cameron < one finds Mr; H. P. McPherson, a native of Cumber- : ' land, but for forty years a merchant at Cameron.. Mryy 5J McPherson is a considerable planter as well as mer-v v chant. It is interesting to note the enhancement, gt * ': land Values in the Cameron section in the last third • . of a century. Mr. Cameron and his Tbrotherdndaw/y ’; Alex Turner, bought an old farm in .1902 which was , then assessed at $?50. Until last year when the as-, sessment value was reduced 25 per cent* the listed value, had been $21,000 for a number of years. Cot ton, dewberries, and tobacco are the money crops. , Mr. and Mrs. McPherson how own the whole plants- ' ,tion. Mrs. McPherson was a Miss Leach.* V ^ t And here is Mr. L. B. McKeithan,. another mer- *>; chant, farmer, and also fertilizer dealer. His farm consists of 400 acres. His father before him jras a ■'-merchant. He went down t* Bladen for bis1 wife— a Miss Ritchie of Clarkton. T ' . s . >*■ * W. (i. Parker is telegraph 'operator at Cameron '*■ and a dewberry farmer. He came here from Wake 23 years ago, where he married Miss Margaret ! Borse. Mr. W. A. Muse is S./-A. L. agent. He is a ’ He and Moore county product, judging by his name. Mr. Parker have been together there for twenty three years. At their store you will find Mr. and '” Mrs. 3. A. Phillips. Mr. Phillips seems to be some- '" what of a trucker as well as merchant, as he- had^ home-grown - asparagus fo rsale, which proved to be very fine too. I note that he has successfully intro duced strawberry culture into his community. '' x At Vass is a cotton mill. It was built by Mr. A. ^ Cameron, deceased, before he organized any corpora- 1 - tion. It is still1 managed, and largely owned, I be X X lieve; by members of the founder’s family. His son ■r% 5 Alton M. Cameron is president ; ,W. B, Graham, a Attorney" son-in-law, is secretary and treasurer. v Attorney w.'' D. Matthews of Southern Piles* Is another son-in- * law. Mr. Angus Cameron,-the founder, made his fortune >■ ■% .(Continued on Page Two};, - . , 2 .. . Ai’•«*; ski*/*;
The State’s Voice (Dunn, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
June 1, 1934, edition 1
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