Anson County NcArchives Biographies.....Smith, William Alexander 1843 - 
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 February 15, 2008, 9:49 pm

Author: Leonard Wilson  (1916)

WILLIAM ALEXANDER SMITH

IN 1815, just one hundred years ago, the battle of Waterloo ended the
fifteen-year contest between Great Britain and Napoleon. Then, as now, Great
Britain had financed her various allies during this long and desperate struggle.
Though the country had never been invaded, it had necessarily suffered from this
immense and long continued drain upon its resources. Moved by their necessities,
and inspired by the same strength which had enabled them to carry on the
fifteen-year war, the British people steadfastly settled down to peaceful
industry with the result that the next twenty-five years were perhaps the most
prosperous in the history of the country. In 1865, just fifty years after
Waterloo, the people of our southern States were confronted with a condition
tenfold more serious than that of England in 1815. Not only had they carried on
for four years what was, up to that time, the greatest war in all history, but
their country had been overrun in a large part by hostile armies, their houses
and buildings in many cases burned, their live stock killed, their local
industries annihilated, their agriculture reduced almost to nothing, and all
their capital had utterly vanished. The surviving Confederate soldiers, on their
return to their ruined estates, faced a condition as nearly desperate as man had
ever confronted, but the courage of the men who had followed Lee, Jackson,
Johnson and the other great leaders, did not quail before this new task. The
impartial historian is compelled to admit that, great as were the qualities
shown by these soldiers in their four years' campaign, the work which they later
did in the rebuilding of their country reflects greater credit upon their strong
qualities than did their warlike deeds, marvelous as they were. This story has
to deal with one of these men, who, now passed the Biblical three score and ten
years, can look back upon fifty-four years of as loyal service to his State and
nation as that ever given by any man in its annals.

    Major William Alexander Smith, of Ansonville, was born on January 11, 1843,
on the old Nelme (or Nelms) homestead on the banks of the Pee Dee River. His
parents were William Grove Smith, of whom further mention will be made, and his
wife, Eliza Sydnor Nelme, descended from John Nelme, a native of the Isle of
Skye. As the Smith family originally came from Hertfordshire, England, and the
Nelme family from Scotland, Major Smith's blood is, therefore, English and Scotch.

    William Grove Smith was a man of means and gave to his son the best that the
section offered in the way of educational advantages. His first training in the
log school-house near his home recalls to men of the older generation in the
South the old field schools from which came some of the greatest minds of the
South in the generations preceding the war. At the proper time he entered
Davidson College, which has always borne a high character for the quality of
training given to its students.

    Major Smith as a youth was not of robust frame, but he possessed marked
ability, was a good student, had ambition, and he entered heartily into the
sports of his fellow-students. He made fine progress in his studies, and was a
member of the sophomore class when, in April, 1861, the lowering political
clouds burst into a flame of war. Descended from soldierly stock on both sides,
the spirited youth of eighteen volunteered in the Anson guards, a company
organized by Captain E. T. Hall, which was the first company raised in Anson
County and the first to offer its services to the Governor of the State. In
June, 1861, Charles E. Smith, brother to W. A. Smith, became the captain of this
company. Ordered into camp, it came into contact with the Buncombe "rough and
ready guards," of which the famous Z. B. Vance was captain, and these two
companies, with others, were organized into the Fourth Regiment of Volunteers
with Junius Daniel as colonel. Later this regiment became known as the
Fourteenth Regiment of State Troops. They were ordered to Norfolk, camped at
Suffolk; and remained near Burwell's Bay until the spring of 1862. This long
period of exemption from active participation in campaign work led to its being
one of the best drilled regiments in the army. In the great campaign of 1862
they participated in the first battle at Williamsburg, again in the battle at
Seven Pines, and then in the Homeric Seven Days' Battle around Richmond, being
at that time under the command of Colonel William Johnston, a very gallant
officer, who during the war received no less than seven wounds. The regiment
made a fine record for gallant conduct and in its ranks there was no braver
soldier than private William Alexander Smith.

    Up to July 1, 1862, he had gone unscathed through the bloody campaign, but
on that day was made the heroic but useless charge at Malvern Hill, which
resulted in such heavy loss to the attacking force. Private Smith was one of the
victims of that dreadful repulse. Edmund F. Fenton, a private of Company C of
the Fourteenth Regiment, tells the story in these words:

    "The writer of this picked up the bloody and desperately wounded boy lying
nearest the enemies' guns, faint from the loss of blood and without murmur or
groan, we bore him to the rear. We never left his side until placed in the
tender care of his loving and praying mother. For six months Major Smith hovered
between life and death. The devotion and careful nursing, and the prayers of his
Christian mother at length prevailed and the beardless boy's life was spared to
the world, but the wound received at Malvern Hill has made him a cripple for life."

    The Smith family shared in full measure in the losses which fell upon the
South. The crippled young soldier had to face the problems of a new day with the
most slender equipment of material resources, rich only in ability and undaunted
courage.

    In 1866 Major Smith started a small mercantile business at Ansonville, and
from the very start he showed a natural aptitude for business life. His
undertaking so far prospered that on December 3, 1869, he was married to Miss
Mary Bennett, daughter of Mr. L. D. Bennett, and sister of Captain Frank
Bennett, who was the commander of the sharpshooters of the Twenty-third
Regiment. Captain Frank Bennett was one of those heroic spirits who halt at
nothing in the service of their country. He was wounded at Seven Pines in 1862,
at Chancellorsville in 1863, at Spotsylvania in 1864 and, further, lost an arm
at Hatcher's Run in 1865.

    Major Smith was fortunate in his marriage. The bond between himself and wife
was such that his home life left nothing to be desired. During the forty-five
years that they traveled side by side this ideal life was marred only by the
loss of the three children born to them, all of whom passed away young, but this
great personal grief to the parents resulted in the enrichment of their lives in
dealing with others, and no woman of her day in North Carolina had to her credit
a more splendid record of good deeds and hard service than Mrs. Smith, while
Major Smith who still abides is known to all men for his good works. His
mercantile business continued to prosper and eventually he was able to retire
from that line of business with a handsome fortune, and to become interested in
manufacturing.

    The development of cotton manufacturing in the South has been most
remarkable. Many men now in middle life can recall when it was utterly
insignificant. To-day the Southern mills consume more bales annually than do the
Northern mills with all their generations of accumulated capital and experience.
Major Smith has contributed his part to this result, as President of the Yadkin
Falls Manufacturing Company and of the Eldorado Cotton Mills. He became also
President of the Carolina Construction Company. The first man in his county to
recognize the importance of the telephone and its constantly increasing value,
he organized and became President of the Pee Dee News Transit Company.

    Notwithstanding his attention to these large interests he never lost his
love for the land, because that was in his blood. He became owner of the old
family plantation on the Pee Dee River by a purchase from the other heirs of
their interest. On this place he has made a 1500 acre plantation which is one of
the best in its section, and his success in this direction has been commensurate
with that achieved by him as a merchant and manufacturer. His ability as a
farmer gained him recognition at the hands of the Governor, who appointed him a
delegate to represent North Carolina in the Farmers' National Congress, held at
Sioux Falls, North Dakota—a most honorable appointment.

    Prosperous as have been his material affairs, and busy as he has been, he
has found time to give his full measure of service to everything bearing upon
the communal welfare of the people.

    A man of strong religious convictions, he has been for many years a
prominent figure in the work of the Protestant Episcopal Church. For twenty-five
years he has been an attendant upon the Diocesan Conventions as a delegate from
his parish. Since the organization of the Thompson Orphanage and Training School
more than twenty years ago he has been a member of its board of managers, and
greatly interested in the care and training of the destitute little children in
that most worthy institution. For many years he has been a trustee of the
University of the South at Sewanee. He is a trustee of the Boys' Church School
at Salisbury, and, himself a lover of good reading, which includes constant
study of the Bible and such classic authors as Sir Walter Scott and Robert
Burns, he takes a profound interest in education, and has made large personal
donations for schools and libraries. It is said that every public school in
Anson County has been benefited by his generous gifts. It is also said that no
worthy boy seeking education has ever been denied assistance by Major Smith. So
strongly has this idea of helping in educational ways governed him that, though
he has been helpful to his relatives in many ways, he has been especially so in
the matter of securing for them educational advantages.

    His interest in church work has had one most beneficial result. One of the
principal movers in the building of All Souls' Church in the village of
Ansonville, he designed and planned the building which has proven so admirably
suited to the purpose for which it was built that it has been adopted as a model
for other church buildings. The Diocesan Convention conferred upon him the
greatest honor which can come to a layman by electing him a delegate to the
General Convention of the Church in the United States. This honor he declined.

    He has been active also in fraternal life; he has been long a member of the
Kilwinning Lodge of Masons, and of Webb Chapter of the Royal Arch Masons, he is
a Knight Templar, and in these orders he has been Secretary and Worshipful
Master of the Blue Lodge and High Priest and Grand Lecturer of the Chapter. He
has never withheld his help from any well-planned measure of a constructive
character in his community. This has led to his zealous participation in the
movement for the building of good roads, which at this moment promises more for
the farm interests of the South than any other one project.

    His devotion to his old comrades in arms has been as unwearying as it has
been beautiful. One of these, Private Fenton, referring in a most feeling way to
this trait of Major Smith's character, says: "I know Major Smith's love for his
comrades in arms better than others because I am one of the unfortunates
myself." Again he says: "I once heard the Major express in words this beautiful
thought, 'I may not travel this road again and while I am here I want my stay to
be not only pleasant to myself but enjoyable to others.' "

    Major Smith succeeded his brother-in-law, Captain Frank Bennett, as
commander of the Anson Camp, U. C. V., and served for some years as Inspector
General of the Second Brigade, U. C. V. with the rank of Major on the staff of
General W. L. London. As a labor of love he has compiled a history of the Anson
Guards, of which he was a member, and which company carried the flag in all
honor from Williamsburg to Appomattox. This is purely a personal venture at his
own expense, all that the other members of the company were called upon to do
being to contribute to the details of the story.

    William Grove Smith, father of Major Smith, was the son of John and Mary
(Bellyew) Smith. This name, Bellyew, has since been changed into Bellew. William
Grove Smith inherited a handsome property from his father, was a man of large
personal popularity, and at the age of twenty-three was elected Colonel of the
Anson County Militia. He was in that position in 1831 when there was great
apprehension of a negro outbreak resulting from the Nat Turner insurrection in
lower Virginia. The news of this spread among the negro population, and in the
lower Cape Fear country they sought to rise. The agitation was promptly
suppressed and several of the agitators were executed in Wilmington. In Anson
County there was no demonstration. William Grove Smith served as Justice of the
Peace and Chairman of the County Court, was a man of high personal character, of
exceptional intelligence, modest in expression but strong in his convictions, a
planter of large means, and liberal and generous with his friends. His character
may be best illustrated by the statement of the fact that, though deprived of a
large part of his means by the war, he devoted the residue of his fortune to
paying more than $100,000 of security debts, to which he was bound by
obligations made in more prosperous days before the war. Although never a seeker
after public place, the people of Anson in the dark reconstruction days elected
him to represent them in the Constitutional Convention of 1868. He died November
5, 1879.

    John Smith, grandfather of Major Smith, was one of seven brothers, of which
he became the most noted. He was a large planter and slave owner, served in the
Legislature from 1821 to 1826, as Justice of the Peace, and as member of the
County Court. Major Smith's great-grandfather was John Smith, the immigrant, who
was born in Hertfordshire, England, who came to America about 1750, and first
located in Virginia but soon moved to Anson County where he located some three
miles from the present village of Lilesville, on a creek that was afterwards
called "Smith's Creek," taking its name from him. As the country settled up John
Smith became one of the most prominent and influential men of the community.

    He married Mary Flake, the only child of Samuel Flake of North Carolina, by
his first wife. By his second wife Samuel Flake became the ancestor of Flavel
Flake of Anson County. At the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, John Smith
promptly aligned himself with the patriots. In the extreme southeastern section
of North Carolina, along the Cape Fear and down into South Carolina, the Tories
were very active. While Mr. Smith was absent from home in the public service a
band of Tories came to his house and robbed it of everything of any value which
could be carried off. It is related that the particular article whose loss was
most grievously felt by Mrs. Smith was her large wash pot, which had been
imported from England, which she found it impossible to replace. The Tories had
a very bitter hatred toward John Smith and evidenced it by taking the blanket
from around Mrs. Smith's little baby.

    In the maternal line Major Smith's mother was the great-granddaughter of
John Nelme, a native of the Isle of Skye, off the west coast of Scotland, and
whose family was of high standing in the Old Country. This name has become
corrupted in our time to Nelms.

    Charles Nelme, one of the immigrants, was an officer in the First Virginia
Artillery Regiment during the Revolution. He married Eliza Sydnor, and their son
Presly Nelms came to North Carolina settling first in Franklin County and later
in Anson County, where he married Anne M. Ingram, daughter of Joseph Ingram, of
which marriage was born Eliza Sydnor Nelms, mother of Major William Alexander
Smith.

    The story has been given here briefly of a man who is a real country
builder. It must be borne in mind that in the last analysis the moral force of a
nation is of more value in the perpetuation of its institutions than its
material force. The man, therefore, who contributes only in a material way,
however strong he may be, however large his work, lacks the most essential
element in permanent up-building. Brick and mortar must perish, but character
lasts. When, therefore, a man is found who has been diligent in business and by
reason of that diligence has himself prospered and has been helpful in improving
the conditions of his community, he is to be commended. But, when to that he
adds the highest moral quality, when he has measured his conduct towards his
fellows by the Golden Rule, when he has shown a large hearted spirit of charity
in all his dealings, when he has not only preached but also practiced generous
doctrines, both in business and in social life, that man is a true country
builder.    Such a man is William Alexander Smith.

    One of the greatest of English authorities gives a list of more than six
hundred Smith families which in the last five hundred years have won distinction
in Great Britain. The short biographies published in British encylopaedias of
these Smiths would make a considerable volume. The Hertfordshire Smiths, have,
according to that authority, a common ancestor in one Thomas Smith of
Nottingham. A list of seven families descended from this Thomas Smith is given,
one in Nottingham, one in Scilly Isles, and five in Hertfordshire, all using the
same Coat of Arms, and all acknowledging the same descent. To this family
belongs General Smith-Dorrien, who holds high rank in the British army and who
commands part of the English army in France in the great war with Germany. There
are several titles in the various branches of this family. In addition to those
enumerated above there appears to have been a Sussex and a Surrey family
claiming this same descent. It is one of the most widely spread of the prominent
Smith families of England.

    The Coat of Arms shows:

    Arms: Or, a chevron cotised between two demi griffins couped respecting each
other in chief, and a like griffin in base sable.

    Crest: An elephant's head erased or, eared gules and charged on the neck
with three fleurs-de-lis, azure two and one.

    Motto: Tenax et fidelis.


Additional Comments:

Extracted from:

MAKERS OF AMERICA
BIOGRAPHIES OF LEADING MEN OF THOUGHT AND ACTION

THE MEN WHO CONSTITUTE THE BONE AND SINEW OF AMERICAN PROSPERITY AND LIFE

VOLUME II

By
LEONARD WILSON,
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

ASSISTED BY PROMINENT HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL WRITERS
Illustrated with many full page engravings
B. F. JOHNSON, INC.
CITY OF WASHINGTON, U. S. A.
1916

Copyright, 1916
by
B. F. Johnson, Inc.


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