Perquimans County NcArchives Biographies.....White, Wilson 
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Wilson White III wwwwwilson@aol.com August 5, 2009, 3:43 pm

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Author: Wilson White

LONG LIFE
By Wilson White

Introduction

Wilson White's upbringing may seem rather austere to us by today's standards, 
but his strict Quaker parents prepared him well for the challenges he was to 
face throughout his lifetime.

He was taught as a very young boy to fend for himself. His first successful 
venture was raising goats, an experience that was to be most influential in 
shaping his future business career. It helped make him self-sufficient at the 
young age of twelve, and responsible for making money on his own. From selling 
goats, he went on to selling food supplies, pilings, veneer woods (for a total 
of fifty years), barrels and baskets, lumber shooks, and a number of 
chemically mixed products (for his last fifteen years in business), including 
bleach, caustic soda, chlorine, and carbon.

Although we might conclude that Wilson White's father was severe with him, he 
saw to it that Wilson got the best possible education by taking him out of an 
overcrowded public school and putting him into a private one with the 
intention of sending him to college. His father's early death, however, when 
he was seventeen, cut short his formal education. Wilson took on the 
responsibility of looking after his mother and younger brothers and sisters, 
managing to send three of them to college, while his business pursuits became 
a necessity earlier than he had hoped.

Wilson White was a pioneer in the purest sense. He showed courage and 
determination when he moved from his home in Chapanoke, North Carolina, and 
went to Mundy Point, Virginia, a new territory that the Norfolk & Southern 
Railroad was just opening up by building tracks down through Princess Anne 
county to the Blackwater River. It was a good opportunity to build a ship 
canal store at this terminal and he took it; he built his store, and even 
established a post office shortly after moving there.

His close attachment to his older "Brother Jim" is evident: they went into 
business together in Chapanoke, but it was Wilson who chanced going to Mundy 
Point, setting himself up, buying timberland, and eventually enticing his 
brother to join him in the piling business once he was established.

Some of the striking reasons for his success in business were his acute sense 
of timeliness, coupled with his ability to recognize, perfect and market good 
products. He makes it all sound so easy, but what made it possible again and 
again was his keen sense of what would work and what would not. This awareness 
is a common thread woven throughout his career. His timing was perfect when he 
went to Mundy Point; he had a monopoly in the White Barrel and Basket Company, 
making containers for truck farmers to ship their products in; he managed to 
make waterproof plywood boxes for the Chevrolet Motor company, his biggest 
customer, when all others had failed before him; he turned rejected tapioca 
into an acceptable product by perfecting a process of drying it; he took on 
selling caustic soda which up until that time, was not a fast-moving product 
for the Bell Alkaline Company; and, of course, most significantly for Wilson 
White, he found a dealer who could supply the carbon best suited for the water 
of Norfolk, so that he still has this business today. Every year his contract 
with them is renewed. Mr. Cyril Walker, his long time friend and neighbor, has 
been of vital assistance in handling the work involved in this business, as 
well as taking care all his personal affairs.

Born in 1873, Wilson White will be ninety-six years old when you read this 
personal account of the many and varied experiences covering a good portion of 
these years. Most of his old friends have passed on now, but his sincerity and 
good humor always draw new friends to him.

He has lived at the Lafayette Villa Nursing Home in Norfolk, Virginia, now for 
a full year. Last summer he sold his house that he had built and lived in 
since 1915. It was beautiful and nicely fixed. He loved his home as much as 
any man could, but, still another phase of his life has begun at the villa. He 
has adjusted very well to his surroundings and enjoys being in the company of 
his new friends. Here, with the help of a tape recorder, he composed this work 
that took six months to prepare. He spoke decisively with an amazingly clear 
mental outline of his life, as if he had known all along that some day this 
story would be written. Mr. and Mrs. Walker very kindly operated the recorder, 
and it has been my privilege to put this material together; it is history as 
he told it.

While some of his delightfully warm personality comes through in the written 
word, his voice projects even further his gentle and agreeable disposition. 
Frequent chuckles make his stories all the more heartfelt and colorful.

There is a freshness to each new undertaking; he kept building, rebuilding and 
going into new fields when old ones had outlived their usefulness. Throughout 
it all, he was able to maintain a sense of dignity and moderation - a 
fortitude in coping with each situation that life presented to him.

His spirit is still as straight as the formal walking cane he saves for church-
going. "I want to look the best I can," is the way he puts it. Only his poor 
eyesight is a drawback for him, but this does not prevent him from looking 
forward to dining out occasionally and receiving visitors frequently. Over the 
telephone his vibrant voice comes through as that of a man in his forties.

Wilson White is having a rich and still active life, invigorating for himself 
and those around him. May those who read LONG LIFE find in its pages some of 
the joy of living that is his.

Patsey White Branigan
Granddaughter of Wilson White

December 1969

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART I. BOYHOOD DAYS

Family Background
Early School Days
Raising Goats - l885
Daddy's Business
Daddy's Horse and Buggy
My Own Horse and Buggy
The Case of the Stolen Pig
Henry Thompson
Brother Jim Finds a New Home
Brother Jim's Farm

PART II. LIFE AS A YOUNG MAN IN MUNDEN

Plans to Move to Mundy Point
New Life at Creeds
Arrival at Mundy Point
Establishment of a Post Office at Munden
Supply Store at Munden
Fishing and Hunting at Munden
New Road to Munden
Captains' Quarters and the Bridal Room
Stepping Out to Church
Courtship and Marriage to Patsey Ballou
Brother Jim Joins Me
Cyclone in Munden

PART III. PILING BUSINESS

Move to Charles City County
Move to Williamsburg
Move to Norfolk

PART IV. FIFTY YEARS IN THE VENEER BUSINESS

First Veneer Business
White Barrel and Basket Company
Lightning Strikes the Plant
Second Veneer Business in New Bern, North Carolina
Best Customer - Chevrolet Motor Company

PART V. SAWED LUMBER SHOOK BUSINESS

Selling Lumber Shooks
American Plywood Company 0uting

PART VI. CAREER IN CHEMICAL FIELD

"The Tapioca Man"
Selling Bleach
Selling Caustic Soda
Selling Gas and Coal Tar
Selling Roof Coating and Roof Cement
Selling Asphalt Shingles
Chlorine Business
Supplying Carbon to Norfolk City
Labor Strike
Chemical Company Sold
Eye Accident at the Plant

PART VII. MY CHILDREN

Theo White
Wilson White, Jr. and His Children
Margaret White

PART VIII. CLUB AFFILIATIONS AND CHURCH MEMBERSHIP

Interest in Church
Social Activities

PART 1. BOYHOOD DAYS

Family Background

Wilson White, born December 27,* 1873 in Perquimans County, North Carolina, 
makes me ninety-six years old. My father, Andrew Jackson White, was married to 
Harriet Elizabeth Wilson and they lived in Chapanoke. They had ten children: 
two died as infants, leaving five boys and three girls. Daddy's mother and 
father died when he and his sister, Jenette, were very young. Jacob and Sally 
Boyce were quite old, but were some slight relations to Daddy's father, so 
they took Andrew and Jenette and raised them near the Belvedere section of 
North Carolina, a great place for Quakers, and sent them to a Quaker school.

[*My mother claims I was born on the 27th day of December, but the attending 
midwife pinpointed the event as five minutes after twelve midnight, which 
would make it the 28th day. I have always taken my mother's say over the 
midwife's on this point because I think she was more likely to know better.]

Early School Days

My first recollection dates back to 1878, when I was about five or six years 
old. I attended my first school, which was located near Oak Grove Church. The 
school consisted of a small room with about fifty or sixty pupils and only one 
teacher. My first teacher was Miss Puss Hill. She was an old maid. School was 
in session for just about five months every year; that was about all of it 
because the people around there didn't have much money then.

Several years later, I remember Old Man Demsey Bartley. He was a teacher and 
boarded at my fathers home. In fact, most all the teachers boarded there. My 
trouble was that I had to sleep with Old Man Bartley, and he would have 
nightmares at night. He always told me to thump him on the back when he had 
one of those bad dreams, which I did, but I didn't like it. It went on, 
though, for the second and third terms of school.

Then Daddy told me he didn't think I was doing so well going to this public 
school, as it was entirely overcrowded. He suggested that he arrange for Mr. 
Mark Gregory, a very intelligent teacher who lived a mile from our home, to 
give me lessons and training for a year or more so I could possibly go to 
college. Mr. Gregory was a marvelously educated man, and said he would like 
for me to go there to the private school where he taught. I went there for 
pretty near two years, and I improved my education very much with his help.

I was getting a little bolder when I reached a little over sixteen years old, 
and was soon ready to pass to a higher school, but I was not quite old enough 
to go to college yet. Daddy had planned for me to go to college when I got to 
seventeen. Two older brothers, Jim and Dallas, had been to college and were 
already married and out on their own. My sister Maggie, two years older than 
I - pushing eighteen - had also been to college. She went to Murfreesboro 
Methodist College in Murfreesboro, North Carolina. Then there were two smaller 
brothers, Theophilus and Andrew, and my sister, Sarah, who was about two years 
younger than I; it was about time for her to go to a high school. Gracie was 
the youngest of all.

Unfortunately, when I was seventeen years old, Daddy passed away, and I had to 
give up the idea of entering college myself. I had to look out for my mother, 
the two small boys, Sarah, and little Gracie.  As I saw no chance of my 
continuing my education, I decided to start a small business with what little 
money I had and could borrow. I carried on everything the best I could, and 
eventually managed to have Theo, Andrew, and Sarah - all three - go to 
college.  Gracie married early and, therefore, did not attend college.

Raising Goats

In 1885, when I was twelve years old, there were few boys of my age close to 
our neighborhood. I was therefore kind of up against it to know what to do to 
entertain myself, so I purchased about half a dozen goats from a fellow who 
had them around there and wanted to get rid of them. I took those goats fixed 
a nice shelter for them at night, letting them go out during the day to eat 
the grass and anything else they could find. There was little cost in taking 
care of them - a little corn meal at night and that was all.

They multiplied very very fast, so that in about a year or so I had a right 
good crop of goats. They finally ran up to about fifty or sixty. It was then 
that I thought about butchering and selling them for fresh meat. I picked out 
the kids before they got too big and used surgery on them so there was no odor 
when I went to butcher them. As a matter of fact, that goat meat was just 
about as good as lamb meat.

We had a young negro man, about thirty-five or so, who worked for Daddy, and 
one day I told him, "Washington, I want you to butcher a goat, so I can sell 
it tomorrow." (We had no ice or refrigeration in those days.) I told him just 
how I wanted it cut up, and all, and he was right good at it. That was my 
first business transaction, which quickly turned into a steady thing; he would 
butcher a goat on Fridays, and as a rule we would take that goat meat over to 
my father's mill on Saturdays to let the people bringing the corn in to grind 
buy some of that fresh meat to take home with them. Otherwise, we had other 
people around in the neighborhood there who would buy it regularly, and they 
liked it. I got about two dollars for each one of them. That goat business 
went along pretty good, and it gave me the money I needed for spending money.

I don't remember my Daddy every giving me a dollar for spending money, much as 
I used to do around there. Another thing: I bought my own clothes and I don't 
remember his ever buying me a thing. But he fed my goats and, as he had no use 
for the edgings from the boards of the logs in his saw mill, he said I could 
do anything I liked with them - even take them and sell them to give me more 
spending money. I shopped around and some of the farmers who saw them really 
wanted them for kindling and making little fences around their plantations. I 
gave them all they wanted too - a whole truckload for fifty cents or a dollar. 
At any rate, the edgings money and the goat money was my spending money, so I 
kept right much.

Daddy's Horse and Buggy

Daddy's hobby was his fast horse and buggy. He didn't drink, or go out nights 
and carouse around, but he would take a day off every now and then and hook up 
his horse. His name was Cyclone and he was pretty speedy for a horse; in fact, 
he was about the fastest thing around there. Daddy would drive quite often to 
Elizabeth City, about eight miles from where we lived, or sometimes to 
Hertford, only six miles, and he'd always want me to go with him. I was the 
only boy around in the house there who could do anything - the two younger 
ones and the two older ones were off by themselves. So I'd go to town with 
him. I always wanted to go, anyway, because there was always something I 
wanted to buy - clothes or something - if I had the money. We carried on that 
way for a good long time, and it was a very happy life for all of us.

Daddy was a good provider for his family...splendid...and he always picked 
good men to work and cut his logs. He had oxen to haul those logs to the mill, 
and a good sawyer named Keton. I remember him very well. He would keep his saw 
right and saw the logs, and Daddy always had another man to keep up repairs. 
Then he'd have two or three others, as a rule, white men and some negroes. I 
was around those men so much - up until a youngster - that I learned a whole 
lot of things about the mill and everything else from them because when they'd 
go eat their lunch they'd talk and I'd just listen to them; I was pretty well 
informed about most everything. That's a fact.

My Own Horse and Buggy

After a while, I got so much money I hardly knew what to do with it all. When 
I got to be about sixteen, though I began to figure I'd like to have a horse 
and buggy, too...one I could ride out and take someone along with me. I told 
Daddy I wanted to buy a pony; didn't want a big horse, and he said, "Well, you 
got any money?"

"I got enough to buy a pony...I don't want to pay over fifty dollars for one, 
though."

So we went over to Hertford, North Carolina - that was the horse place of that 
whole section down there, including two or three counties. Matt White was the 
big horse man...sold them on time. We went straight to him and he smiled, 
saying, "Oh yes, oh yes, Sonny. I have just what you want here...a little 
black pony. How much you want to spend?"

"Fifty dollars."

"You want it on time?"

"No, I believe I have money in my pocket to pay for it."

He voiced his surprise. "You're the first man to come here with enough money 
to buy a horse." So I took the little black pony. But then I had to have a 
buggy. It so happened that in Hertford there was a big big buggy manufacturing 
company. John Q. Wood over there was the man for buggies. So I went there, 
found a second hand one that was pretty good, and bought it. I don't remember 
what I paid him for it, didn't pay much. So, there I was, all fixed up. It was 
a great joy to me to be able to have my own horse and buggy to use whenever I 
wanted.

There was an old colored woman who didn't live too far from us who had two or 
three boys. One of them, John Laurence, grown pretty near, stole a pig from 
somebody. The sheriff caught him and put him in jail. Well, the old lady was 
distressed to death because her main boy who worked was in jail, so she came 
to Daddy with her hard luck and asked him if he knew of some way he could get 
him out of jail because she needed him at home. She had one more son at home, 
but he wasn't big enough to do anything much, so Daddy signed a bond for two 
hundred dollars and they let him go; he bailed him out of jail.

Naturally, Daddy was looking for him to be in court for his trial so he would 
be released of the bond, but he just didn't show up when he was supposed to 
appear in court. Finally Tom Skinner, the big lawyer of that whole section at 
the time, said to Daddy, "Admiral" (his nickname for Daddy), "I'm afraid 
you're going to have to pay the two-hundred dollars here because they're still 
looking for this negro, but he hasn't shown up yet.

So Daddy had to pay it. And you know what? That negro never came back...never 
saw him around there again.

Henry Thompson

The disappearance of John Laurence was too bad for Daddy, but the next thing 
he did was ask the old woman, "What are you going to do, pay me back that two 
hundred dollars?"

"No, I haven't got two hundred dollars," she answered, "but I tell you what I 
do got. I got a little boy home. You use boys and men around your business. 
Why not take him and keep him long enough until you are satisfied you got your 
two hundred dollars back?"

"Okay, send him down," Daddy told her.

Well, he was not a real-black negro; he was a yeller negro...half white. But 
anyway, his name was Henry Thompson.

When he arrived, Daddy told Washington, "Washington, I want you to go over 
there to that little bedroom you got, and make it a little bigger so we can 
give you a little boy in there." So we got him Henry. He was about the 
smartest negro you ever saw. He was Henry Thompson and he never left Daddy. He 
even stayed there after Daddy passed away until I got grown, and when I went 
to Virginia I brought Henry with me. He was just like one of the family, and 
just as smart as he could be. He worked for me and stayed with me until he 
died when he was seventy some years old. He was just a white man's negro. 
That's right.

We had a maid there named Mariah, who was almost white. She'd been there for 
years but, boy, she was one of the best - she was a maid, she was a cook, she 
was a good nurse. Yes, sir, she nursed me when I was a baby, and I used to 
call her Aunt Mariah.

One day when Mother and I were in the house together, I kidded her by 
saying, "You have a nigger family around here - got one coal black and got 
another yeller, almost white.

She said, "You stop saying 'nigger'. You shouldn't say that. You should 
say 'colored folks.' And that was the way she felt about the word.

Brother Jim Finds a New Home

Daddy's sister Jenette married Joe White and they had a big farm just about 
one-half mile from where we lived. They were pretty well fixed, but didn't 
have any children of their own at the time (until later when they had a girl 
baby named Elizabeth), so Uncle Joe took my oldest brother, Brother Jim, over 
to their house just to have someone around there. He kept on staying, staying, 
and it got so he wanted to live there. It didn't make so much difference to 
Daddy because he had plenty of other children around the house.

Brother Jim stayed there until he grew bigger and could take charge of the 
farm. He raised everything they wanted - had horses there and all. He never 
came home to live again, though. He came home to see us all, but he never came 
home to live.

Brother Jim's Farm

When he grew up, he went out and bought a nice big old-time farm with a big 
house on it about two miles from where we were living. Daddy helped him but 
it, but Jim ran it, as Daddy had his grist mill and cotton gin, which were all 
he could look after, anyway. Eight to ten horses it took to run this big farm 
and ten to twelve men to keep it going.

One year along in April the fields needed to be plowed and the corn planted. 
But six of Jim's twelve negroes who worked on that farm left - walked out all 
of a sudden. They were paid off one Saturday and Jim never saw them anymore. 
But that farm was still very much there, and somebody had to work it so there 
would be a crop to harvest by the middle of July, so he came to Daddy and 
asked if there was any way he could help him. The only way was to shut down 
the mill and take his own men out there, if they'd go, and let them work the 
farm. He had five or six of them there and with Jim's six negroes left that 
would be enough to do the job. So he did that and also came to me and 
said, "Suppose you go on with him. You can plow a mule. Jim is all by himself 
and this being a family affair, I think you should help out. I'll grind the 
corn myself on Saturdays while you're gone. I've got to do that because the 
men will be bringing it in every Saturday expecting it. I can't do much 
sawing, a little, but not much because I won't have any help."

So I went out there. I was about fifteen then. When I arrived, Brother Jim 
asked me, "What do you want to do, you want to use a hoe or plow a mule?"

"I believe I'll plow a mule."

So he showed me the mule I was to use. I stayed right there, ate my meals and 
plowed that darn mule every day until we got the crop hilled up. To harvest a 
crop he didn't need so much help; he could do that on his own, which he did 
and managed to have a good crop that year.

Living in the house there at that time was an old white man named Balance. His 
wife did the cooking and kept the house. They had one son, about fifteen. That 
summer that boy got whooping cough, and I had to sleep in the same room with 
him. He'd have that cough so darn bad he'd wake everybody up. I had to get up, 
grab hold of him, and pull him out in the fresh air to keep him from dying. I 
had all that to go through with...I got through with everything though, and 
not long after that summer Jim got married to Melley Fanshaw.

PART II. LIFE AS A YOUNG MAN IN MUNDEN

Plans to Move to Mundy Point

I was often asked why I wanted to leave Chapanoke, North Carolina, and locate 
in Virginia. Well, it was this-a-way. Daddy, in his mill work, used to furnish 
the Norfolk & Southern Railroad with all their sawed ties used for culverts in 
the construction of the railroad. Sometimes they needed short pilings and he 
would bring the logs in over the swamps. At any rate, they would always give 
him the business.

Will King was a brother of M. K. King, who was the General Manager of the 
entire railroad, and he'd come down along about fall and want to go gunnin' 
for two or three days. He would always stop at our house. He'd pay for it; 
he'd pay Mother and then go out and shoot birds all day. Daddy had a good 
contact there with him; if Will wanted pilings or any kind of lumber, Daddy 
would get the business.

Will would always send an inspector to Norfolk to receive the pilings and 
ties. A man by the name of Nichols was the inspector. (He just died about four 
or five years ago here in Norfolk.) I'd always see him when he'd come down to 
inspect the lumber.  One day he said to me, "Why don't you get out of this 
place? There ain't no money in this poor country...whole lot more in Virginia."

I gave a lot of thought to what Mr. Nichols suggested, and told some of my 
friends about it. The Norfolk & Southern Railroad was building a thirty mile 
track down through Princess Anne County to the end of the line at the 
Blackwater River with a terminal at Mundy Point. They wanted a young man to go 
down and build a ship canal store there and stock the necessary food supplies 
and other items required by the incoming boats.

Charles W. Pettit owned a boat line in Norfolk; had eight or ten French 
steamboats that plyed the waters of North and South Carolina picking up local 
freight and delivering it to the Roanoke Dock in Norfolk City through the 
Albemarle Canal, a trip which took a full day to reach Norfolk and one day to 
return. The idea of building a water terminal to let the boats unload their 
freight onto the nearby railroad, which would deliver it in three short hours 
to Norfolk would represent quite a big saving in time. The train could then 
make two trips a day to Norfolk to unload all of the freight.

Quite a dock was built at Mundy Point and a very nice railroad station was 
established with a crew of about forty men employed to unload the freight from 
the boats and load it onto the rail road cars.

I began to investigate the place by first writing to Tom Land, the Sheriff of 
the County. I told him I was very much interested in the job, and had a nice 
letter back from him. He suggested that if I were to come down there, he would 
show me around the whole County. I arranged then to go to Virginia and look 
Mundy Point over. I went to Norfolk first to catch the steamer, Comet, and got 
off at Pungo Ferry. Sure enough. Sheriff Land was there to meet me and spent 
almost two days with me. He entertained me in his home, just a mile from the 
end of the railroad line, and introduced me to some of the best people 
there...lotta bums down there though, too. It was the crudest place I ever saw 
in my life. Men were even totin' pistols against each.

At any rate, I was very much impressed with the prospect, in view of the fact 
there was nothing like it where I came from. It looked to me like a big 
opportunity to go and build a store - get myself ready for the business while 
the railroad was finishing their track and depot, and the large wharf 
extending out from the shoreline.

I came back and reported to Brother Jim all about what I had seen and what I 
wanted him to do. I had hoped he would go down there with me and work. We had 
been in business together since Daddy passed away. His saw mill, grist mill, 
and cotton gin we had sold soon after his death, and ran a small general store 
together in Chapanoke. I had half interest in it and he had the other half. I 
suggested we sell out there and go to Virginia to put up that ship canal store 
at the terminal. But I didn't meet with a very good reception. Brother Jim's 
wife, Melley, didn't want to pull up and leave. She said to Jim, "Jim White, 
are you crazy enough to pull up from here, with a wife and two children and 
follow Will White over yonder to Munden?" 

"No, we won't go," he answered. So that put an end to it.

I thought it over and concluded to go anyway. So, after having completed four 
years of doing good business, we arranged to close up and sell the store in 
Chapanoke. It was a very nice store - two stories high. It took a few months 
for us to find a purchaser for the place and, in the meantime, Jim continued 
cutting the pilings when he had orders from the railroad, a very profitable 
side line for us.

I got every encouragement from the railroad people I saw at that time; they 
assured me they would throw all their trade to me. I made another trip and 
purchased a lot in Mundy Point on which to build the ship canal store, and had 
Frank Mercer, the contractor of Elizabeth City, build it for me. He had done, 
quite a lot of work for Daddy, so I knew him and he knew me. He didn't have 
any work to do then, so he was tickled to death for the job. I told him just 
what I wanted, took him over to Mundy Point, showed him where he was to put 
the store, and made arrangements in Elizabeth City for him to purchase all the 
building materials, including lumber, shingles, window panes, and various 
hardware items. Next I got a boat, which was not hard to find, which took him 
to Mundy Point, where all the materials were unloaded on the dock for him. I 
wanted the store built just as quick as he could get it done, so Frank took 
five men with him and began to build.

New Life at Creeds

Realizing it would be two or three months before I could get my building up, I 
began to think about a small vacant store in a place called Creeds, located 
one mile up the track from Mundy Point, which Sheriff Land had told me about. 
After finding out that it was available, I rented it and put in a small stock 
of groceries, more to get acquainted with the people and their customs so I 
wouldn't be a total stranger, and also to be close to Mundy Point and the 
construction that was going on there.

I boarded just one hundred yards away from the store with an old lady and 
gentleman by the name of White (no relation). He was a very nice old man. In 
fact, he was in the legislature. I never thought he knew anything much to be 
there, but anyway, he was. He took a great interest in me, and his wife did, 
too. She had been a widow and had a son who lived across the road - Bill 
Craft. He was quite a problem man. He was always scrapping down there and 
totin' pistols.

It took the railroad just about as long to finish their job as it did for me 
to get my building up. They were working hard, coming all the time and so was 
I, as well as you could expect for a brand new place where there was nothing 
but pine bushes before we got there.

Arrival at Mundy Point

After they got all through with the railroad, there were some nice depots all 
along the track, and Mundy Point was one of them. I met the General Manager of 
the whole railroad there M. K. King, who had been there since the railroad was 
started years before. He was married, although he didn't have his wife with 
him; left her somewhere up in the country.

When the locomotive made its first trip, people came in their coaches from all 
around - including the members of the railroad - to inspect things. I was in 
the store by then, and had fixed the place up properly. They all came in to 
see me and they were very very nice... very. They asked me, "How you goin' to 
get along? You goin' to be able to take care of the train and all the boats 
comin' in?"

"I'll be right here," I said.

One day, the Paymaster of the Norfolk & Southern Railroad came in. He was a 
dandy looking man. I was told later that he was the best looking man in 
Norfolk City. He was very peasant...very. He asked me, "Are you going to give 
me much credit?"

"I don't think so," I replied. I'll give the boat line credit, but I need the 
money in thirty days."

"Well," he said, "How about the railroad section crew?"

"I don't know about giving them credit. You got any suggestions about them?"

"Yes, we want to work with you. We know those men and they've got to have some 
credit. Ain't nobody got enough money down hereto run for thirty days without 
getting some money. I'll tell you what you do. You give me the names of the 
men who are going to work on this section - the men who you credit - tell me 
at the end of the month how much they owe you, and I'll take it out of their 
pay and give it to you," which I thought was a very very nice thing for him to 
offer. He said that would apply to anybody around there who worked on the 
docks. That was a very satisfactory arrangement. The men worked very hard 
unloading the freight from the boats onto the train, and at the end of the 
month the Paymaster deducted my bill from their pay just as he said he would.

Establishment of a Post Office at Munden

One evening, M. K. King came into the store, looked around and said, "You've 
got your Post Office up."

"Yep, I had a railing put around there and fixed it up nice so it would be all 
right."

The way I got that Post Office was to go to Norfolk and take up with the 
Postmaster of the City. I told him just what I wanted in trying to arrange a 
Post Office at Mundy Point to take care of the general trade there and enable 
the people to get some mail. He said, "All right but let's change the name 
from Mundy Point to Munden to avoid any confusion in the delivery of mail 
because there is also a Mundy Point in another part of Virginia." So from then 
on the "Point" was dropped and the name of the town officially became known as 
Munden.

Next he said, "How about Knotts Island?"

"Well" I said, "Knotts Island is nine miles from Munden and if you can get 
over that road in the winter, you're smart."

"I know it's difficult, but what we're going to do is transfer this Knotts 
Island mail to the new train. You'd be getting the mail in the morning and 
we'd have a carrier pick it up at night and take it on horseback to the 
island. It would give those people quicker service over there."

I knew there wouldn't be much mail arriving down there, but I did it just so 
there would be some, because the folks had to have letters from the railroad 
there. As a matter of fact, I had a few myself. So that's what I did there.

Supply Store at Munden

Business began to boom because of the eight steamboats coming in there all the 
time loaded with country products: chicken, eggs, cotton, potatoes, which were 
transferred immediately onto the railroad and delivered to Norfolk. They came 
into my store any time - day-night-Sunday-any time. They'd always need certain 
supplies - so much for a certain boat - and I'd give it to them, just what 
they wanted. The captain of the boat would sign a receipt for it, and we got 
along that way pretty good.

The supply store was also profitable because the local people who lived just 
across the Blackwater River a half mile began coming over to my store in 
rowboats to do their shopping.

Fishing and Hunting at Munden

At the end of Princess Anne County, on the east side, there was great fishing 
and shooting going on. The people made a living fishing and shooting ducks. At 
that time there was no limit to the law; you could shoot as many as you wanted 
and eat as much as you wanted...do as you pleased.

I had a very reliable man living not far from the dock and my place, who I 
counted on to do things for me. He was very nice about it - he was a high 
class man. I would hire him to go to the fish market every Monday night to 
make a bid on those fish and bring them back to the depot where we would 
barrel them up that night to have them ready to leave next morning at seven 
a.m. for market. I arranged with a Norfolk fish merchant of Odell Bros. to 
take my fish, when I could get them, and get the biggest price he could for 
them. Sometimes, I wouldn't get very many during the week - fishing ran that 
way. Then again, I'd get a flood of them - five, six, seven or eight barrels 
of fish from one catch. In that case we'd work until eleven o'clock at night 
to get them all barreled up. We didn't have ice...didn't particularly need any 
because they were hauled down to the dock the next morning.

That went on pretty good and, in the meantime, during gunning season the men 
would shoot and sell the ducks to me. I had a man one time who killed a sugar 
barrel full of butter ducks - that's what they were called then - but some 
would shoot canvasbacks and other kinds. That's the way they made their 
living...that and the fishing. There wasn't much else for them to do down 
there. Farming didn't amount to much. So it went on that way for the whole 
time I was down there. I did all the packing and shipping of the fish. 
Sometimes I would make some money on them, yet I might not make any. I had to 
take that chance.

New Road to Munden

I made a lot of friends down there in Munden and even far up the County. There 
was no good public road from the main one, which was about one-half mile away. 
I talked to some friends about the possibility of getting one in there. Old 
Mr. Kellum was one of them. I knew him quite well and told him what I wanted. 
I also had another friend, Early Whitehead, right close by my store who was a 
very prominent man. He was one of the Commissioners in the town. I also told 
him I was interested in getting the existing road straightened out so people 
could come right into my store from the main highway. They both said they 
thought it ought to be done, by all means.

Early had the best solution. "Tell you what you do. I know all about this 
business. I've been Commissioner in this town for a long time. You set a day 
when you want to invite us down here to eat dinner. Let us know about it and 
we'll come down. That's the way you'll get your road cleared."

So I did that and sure enough they came down as soon as I named the day; four 
or five showed up. They brought the necessary tools for trimming out the 
roadway and all, and we got a pretty good road in there. A short time after 
that, people began to drive down to shop a little. That's the way things 
worked down there.

Captains' Quarters and the Bridal Room

Now, when the boats began to land at Munden, the captains would want to take a 
room with their wives, who would come in from Norfolk to be with their 
husbands for an over night stay before they had to return to their boats. The 
railroad people had suggested when I was first building my store that I build 
a two story place and have as many rooms as I could on the second floor, which 
I did. The picture on the title page of this manuscript is that very store. I 
had five or six good big bedrooms I would rent to them, and I had one large 
room; it was more or less a living room with a big stove, where they spent 
time talking during the day. Some of the captains would be in there 
practically every night. I even built a kitchen outside in back of the store 
where they would go and do their cooking.

There was also a big wedding room for a bride and groom. When the new road 
opened up they'd come down to Munden from Norfolk City on the evening train 
and get in around six o'clock, where my horse and buggy would be waiting for 
them. I'd also send my negro man to drive them to Knotts Island, where they'd 
get married and come on back before eleven o'clock. They'd go to the bridal 
room, spend their first night there (chuckle), and be ready the next morning 
to catch the seven o'clock train back to Norfolk. There was a lot of that done 
down there. I think they used to give me five dollars for my horse and buggy, 
and my negro to ride with them. Well, that wasn't bad, because I had a good 
stable for the horse and it didn't take a while lot to feet it. That's the way 
I carried on.

Stepping Out to Church

I used to go to the Methodist Church in Creeds, which was hardly a mile from 
Munden, but I never joined it. I told them I would come and contribute, but I 
had better not join.

Oftentimes, in school season, some teachers would come in from different 
places where they were employed as governesses to teach the families' 
children - a lot of that went on all through that County there because the 
public schools weren't much good. When there were no boats due in on Sunday, 
I'd take my horse and buggy and pick up one of those gals and take them to 
church. I guess I was kind of social and they liked it too. All those people 
down there did. Yes sir, they were very very fond of me. They used to invite 
me to dinner, where they would cook a good duck or some fish - that's what 
most people had to live on.

Courtship and Marriage to Patsey Ballou

Patsey Ballou lived in South Boston, Virginia, and was employed by Sheriff 
Land of Princess Anne County as a governess to teach his three or four 
children in his home. That's where she met me. We managed to fall in love with 
each other. I was located just a mile from Creeds where Sheriff Land's home 
was. I made the opportunity to slip up to see her quite often, and she always 
seemed glad to see me.

Around the first of the summer she would depart and go home. Her father lived 
on a tobacco farm located ten miles out of South Boston. Patsey was a twin 
sister of Annie Ballou. They were the oldest girls in the family. They had one 
brother, Billy Witt, who was at that time an officer in the County.

The next year she was again employed by Mr. Land to come and teach his 
children. I was going on my fourth year at Munden when we agreed we were for 
each other, and the best thing we could do would be to get married that fall, 
which we did, along in November. I can't recall the exact date now, but we had 
no particular trouble.

We set the date that we would get married and I took the matter up with Luther 
Christie, who was a Baptist minister in Norfolk. He and I were boys together 
in North Carolina. He married a first cousin of mine and I felt he was the man 
to go with me and marry me. But he said he couldn't go up to South Boston; it 
was too far up for him...would take too much of his time...but suggested that 
I get married in Richmond, Virginia, so he could get the morning train out, 
marry me at night, and come back that same night. So I agreed to that.

Then I had to go to South Boston and present this plan to the Ballou family. 
They had planned for us to be married there - at the farm. But, anyway, I made 
two trips up there from Munden to the farm to see Patsey and make plans. The 
firs trip I spent the whole day and night, and gold Billy Witt when I would be 
arriving in South Boston the next week. As my train would get there about six 
o'clock in the morning, I asked if he would have a horse and buggy ready for 
me from the livery stable so he could take me out to the farm.

He wanted to kind of put on the dog because when I got there that morning he 
had two horses and a buggy. He wanted to show me off, see. But anyway, I went 
out with the two horses and all, and then was the time I spoke to Mrs. Ballou 
about our proposed marriage. She said she had no objection. She said to ahead 
and she and Mr. Ballou would be glad to cooperate any way they could. I told 
her we might have to get married in Richmond, Virginia, on account of the 
pastor, who I wanted to marry me, lived not far from there, and he didn't have 
much time to be deprived from his work for very long.

So Luther Christie came to Richmond and married us in the Ford Hotel, 
returning to Norfolk late that same evening. Annie, Patsey's twin sister, came 
to the wedding to be with us, as she was teaching school nearby. We also fixed 
it with the hotel to take care of the old negro woman Patsey's mother had 
given her to be our cook by giving her breakfast in the morning.

The next day the three of us took a train from Richmond to Norfolk, where we 
spent most of the day and took the afternoon train out to Munden.

Aunt Martha, the old negro cook we brought with us, got along very nicely 
until she got sick shortly after we got married. I got a negro family close by 
to take her and try to get her well...fix her up, but she died instead. Then I 
was in a rather bad way. Patsey wanted me to take her back to South Boston, 
and have her put away back there, but I talked her out of that because it was 
too expensive. I said I would try to get the undertaker who lived up near 
Creeds. He was an old-fashioned undertaker with a shop in his yard; made his 
own coffins, and had a single hearse - a one-horse rig. So I went down there 
to see him. I told him, "Mr. Winn, I'm in trouble because the old woman that I 
brought with me for my servant, she'd dead and I've got to dispose of her. I 
want you to bury her for me - make a medium-rigged coffin so we can put her 
away in good shape."

He threw up his hands and said "Good God, sir, I've never buried a negro in my 
life."

"Well, this is one time when you're going to bury one."

I knew Mrs. Winn very well; she was a very lovely person. She was the mother 
of Judge Ackiss. They had me for dinner two or three different times, so I 
went over to her and told her all my troubles.

"Mr. Winn says he's never buried a negro. It's time for him to change and bury 
one."

"Come on, I'll help you to persuade him." We went back to him and she 
said, "Mr. Winn, we've got to help Mr. White out. He's a new man in our 
territory here, he's connected himself good, he's a fine person, and I think 
we ought to try to overlook what you haven't done and do something now by 
putting her away."

Well, he finally agreed to do it, so we fixed it up, and he put her away in 
good shape. I thanked the negress who had been so nice to me taking care of 
her and doing what hadn't been done.

Brother Jim Joins Me

Inasmuch as I had had some experience in cutting pilings when I was in North 
Carolina, I was always looking for a growth of pines that would make pilings. 
Across the river I had seen a wonderful growth of pine timer. An old man came 
over to my store one day. I asked him where he lived. He said "Over in those 
woods in a log cabin."

"Who owns that timber?" I asked

"I don't know, but why don't you get in touch with Mr. Joe Ives in Norfolk, 
Virginia? He was raised in Blackwater and is now in the real estate business. 
If you contact him he could find out for you just who owns that timber."

As I went to Norfolk pretty near every week (I had a pass on the railroad so 
it didn't cost me anything), I went up to see Mr. Ives and on my second visit 
he said he had gone on Backwater to look at the records down there and found 
out just who owned that bunch of timber. "Do you want to buy it."

"What do they want for it?"

"Well John L. Roper Lumber Company owns it - three hundred acres of it, and 
it's too small a volume for them to put a mill in so they'd like to sell it.

"I'll go over and look at it."

Shortly thereafter, I employed the old man who lived in the log cabin to take 
me over in his rowboat and show me the whole tract. We went all through it one 
morning and went up to his log cabin the woods in the afternoon when he very 
kindly suggested that it was time to eat. Maybe his wife would have something 
for them. I was getting pretty hungry - it was three o'clock in the afternoon. 
He invited me into his two-room log cabin and his apologized for not having a 
real good dinner. I told her anything would be all right with me. She put up a 
little table with a little table cloth over it and brought in the lunch. It 
was boiled onions and corn bread, but it was good to me because I had been 
walking all the morning. After lunch, the old man brought me back to Munden 
and I managed to give him five dollars for his work that day. I was then in a 
position to make an offer for that tract of timber which was covered with 
pilings sixty to eighty feet long. I went to Norfolk and made the offer. They 
said they wanted fifteen hundred dollars for the whole tract. I offered them 
twelve hundred, and they took it.

I communicated with Brother Jim, who had refused to come to Munden with me at 
first, and told him about the new land I owned. When I got the deal all closed 
and the timber was mine, he came over and looked at it and went back and told 
his wife he had to go; he couldn't miss that opportunity of cutting those 
pilling off that three hundred acre tract. So he moved his family to Munden 
and occupied some of the rooms on the second floor of the store. He brought 
his logging equipment from North Carolina and began cutting pilings which he 
rafted in the water and sold to Nichols Bros., who were always in the market 
for those pilings. There was a big demand for them in Norfolk and the price 
was good.

So we worked there for quite a few months, and we actually sold eighteen 
thousand dollars worth of pilings off of that tract. There were a lot of small 
pines that were not large enough for pilings, which we put into cord wood and 
sold for several thousand dollars. There was quite a demand for that, too, in 
Norfolk City. The way we did it was to purchase a small barge to put that wood 
on and bring it over to Munden where it was sawed in short lengths, which was 
known as store wood in Norfolk City. S. B. Harold, who was then a commission 
merchant in Norfolk, owned the Norfolk Coal Co., and they were tickled to 
death to get that supply of store wood. In those days, they had customers who 
would come in and buy it in small quantities. After all the timber had been 
cut down, we got an additional five thousand dollars for the three hundred 
acre tract of land, so we were very much pleased with the whole thing.

Cyclone in Munden

After being in Munden for about six years, I want to tell you what happened. 
There was a cyclone down there which hit that darned place in the middle of 
the night. I had been married to Patsey for two years at the time. The cyclone 
came through there and blew, my god it blew houses down all around us 
everywhere and came very near blowing over the two-story building we had. It 
forced the door to little Theo's room out of alignment, so it would not open. 
I had to break the door down to pick him up in his crib, where he was sound 
asleep.

My store was crazed by the wind. It was large with heavy ceilings, and the 
next morning it hit the store front. I had bay windows so it looked like a 
sitting room, where I hung things on display for customers. I got out there 
first thing the next morning and looked: it was all blown in. The front glass 
was shattered and the house had trees leaning on it. I said, "By golly, this 
is a good time for us to get out of this place, it may blow down." It even 
blew the locomotive a little way down the track, that cyclone was so big, and 
it took some of the big doors out of the dock house and threw them out on the 
main road - scattered that house a mile. I'm not giving you any exaggeration…
just like it was. So that kind of put me against Munden.

Brother Jim was very optimistic, though, when all this happened. "First thing 
I'm going to do," he said, "is cut some pilings and put some up against the 
house. I want to see if I can't press it back, patch it some way." Well, he 
did it; I don't know how he did it, but he did. He went and cut some big 
pilings and put them on the side there, straightened the thing up and pressed 
it back.

Shortly after the cyclone, old man Pettit died. He was the one who owned 
seven, eight or nine boats - pretty good ones that went up and down the waters 
of North and South Carolina. Folks said he never used to go home. He had a 
common house in town. He would come into the store and say, "Lend me twenty 
dollars and charge it to my account." Then he'd go up town, spend the night, 
and come back the next morning on the train. He was a nice looking man...he 
kept a woman like that for years but never married her. 
PART III. PILING BUSINESS

Move to Charles City County

When Brother Jim had lived in Munden for two years, A. J. Reynolds & Co. 
bought a big old farm in Charles City County, Virginia, that had lots of short 
pilings on it - no long timber. They wanted Brother Jim and me to go up there 
and cut those pilings and deliver them down the Chickahominy River where they 
would be loaded onto a boat. I was about ready to get out of the supply 
business, anyway, because I had kind of a hunch that Munden opportunities 
might clear out, particularly after old man Pettit died, and sold his boats. 
So Brother Jim and I decided to make the trip and sell out. We took the team 
of mules, the logging equipment, the horses and wagons and also some men we 
had worked in Munden in the same line, up there to Charles City County to live.

We lived in an old farm house, which was the only place we could find. It was 
an old "L" shaped house with one big room and a good chimney. That's where we
lived...right there. We took our clothes; didn't have very much else to take with
us. Patsey and I had been married for two years. Theo was our first child born
at St. Christopher's Hospital in Norfolk, and was then a baby of six months, 
but she had been willing to go. It was quite lonely back there on that big farm
in the beginning, but I soon got agoin' filling orders for A. J. Reynolds. We
had to haul the logs out to the river, which went right through there, and float
them down to the dock where they were stacked to be picked up by the boats 
equipped with derricks so they could pick the logs right up off the docks. They
were pretty easy to handle because they weren't long - only around fifty or
sixty feet. It became more difficult when the logs were seventy-five, eighty
feet long.

So I got them all agoin', and we got along fine. There were plenty of men 
around there who worked for me - negro men. I liked the work very much and 
Patsey kind of liked it, too. She said, "It's kind of crude," but we liked it. 
You'd be surprised at the number of people we got acquainted with living back 
there. On Sunday, Patsey and I would go out around the country in our horse 
and truck wagon and we really made some good friends in Charles City County.

So we lived there for two years before Brother Jim and I finished cutting all 
the pilings. We had a lot of small wood left, too, which we cut into cord wood 
for A. J. Reynolds.

Move to Williamsburg

We next moved on to Williamsburg where we rented large rooms on the second 
floor of Judge Armstead's big brick house right next to Bruton Church. They 
were very glad to have Patsey, Theo, our new baby Wilson, Jr., and me there as 
their guests. Mrs. Armistead particularly said she was glad to hear a baby cry 
again; it had been so many many years since any of her own were small. She had 
two children, Frank Armstead, who was in college at the time, and Miss Julia, 
who never married; she was around the house all the time.

So we were very fortunate to find a nice place like that to live in right in 
the center of Williamsburg.

I expected to work in a nearby town called McGruder for one or more years 
cutting long pilings I was going to get there and haul them some little ways 
to the water, raft the logs, and get a tug boat in Norfolk to help me pull the 
raft out into Norfolk. We got started there pretty good. We had two mules, two 
horses, and two trucks where we loaded these pilings and took them to the 
water's edge. When we'd get enough logs together for a raft we'd call Nichols 
Bros. in Norfolk. They would send us the rafting gear, arrange for a tug to 
come up there and tow them into Norfolk when we were ready for them. Most all 
the piling would run sixty to eight feet, just a few ninety's, not many, and 
that's really what we were looking for. They paid us a good price for them. I 
think it was about one hundred and fifty logs that we'd get on a raft, but 
when we had to lift them and put them into water, we had to push the raft out 
because the water wasn't deep enough for a tug boat to come up there and pull 
them out.

I remember the first raft we took out was kind of late in the night - ten 
o'clock before the tug could get there. We had one or two negroes on the raft 
with us and one of them had a fit right on the raft. It was all we could do to 
keep him from going overboard; it was a terrible experience. Finally, the tug 
got in close enough to reach and hook up with the raft about eleven or twelve 
o'clock at night. So that cleared that one out.

Then we'd go right back - there was quite a lot of timber in there - and get 
another raft ready. It took some little time to get those logs out for a 
tugboat. We might be two or three months getting the next rafts. But, anyway, 
we did it and liked it very much. I was always with the men, around where the 
work was going on. What I did was go ahead of them and mark the trees that I 
wanted to cut because it wasn't every pine tree that was suitable for piling; 
it had to be reasonably straight. I had so much experience that I could look 
at the tree and tell approximately how long it was before we should cut it 
down. I would mark the trees and the men would cut them and haul them out.

I was always on the job early in the morning because I had a horse that I used 
to ride from Williamsburg out to McGruder in the morning and back at night, so 
it was very important for me to get there early in the morning to make sure 
the men were on the job and the horses and mules were fed. That worked out all 
very very nicely. I expect we were one and one-half to pretty near two years 
on that job.

Finally, the government came along in World War I and took everything out of 
McGruder - the farms there, the post office, and one or two stores. They came 
along and took that whole thing, everything, and made a big government 
reservation out of it. It's right there today...beautiful job they did, too. 
So that's about the end of McGruder.

Now, in addition to that land, I was always looking around for other pilings 
than log pilings if I could. I found another tract up around Lightford. 
Lightford was a little village between Williamsburg and Richmond. It was 
probably ten or fifteen miles outside of Williamsburg. I arranged everything 
up there. The worst trouble I had was getting a place for my team and enough 
men around that place to operate. But finally, I did secure enough and I got 
up mornings very very early - sometimes I'd go there before breakfast and stop 
on the way to get a sandwich or something.

After we got up there and got straight, there was an old negro living back 
there in a very nice looking house. He was a small farmer and I made 
arrangements with him to look after my team. He agreed to feed the horses and 
mules in the morning early for me. Well, that suited all right. That negro was 
very nice to me feeding my team every morning. He was a very nice looking 
negro and he had been living with him his wife, and she was a very decent 
looking woman. The house looked clean and good. I got up every morning about 
four o'clock in Williamsburg to go up to Lightford early because I went to 
work at six o'clock.

One morning, his wife said to me, "Mr. White, you eat breakfast kind of soon, 
don't you, in Williamsburg?"

"No, I don't eat there...it's too soon for me. I try to get up here, but I 
haven't found a place to eat around here yet."

"Mr. White, if you want to put up with it, I can fix you breakfast mornings."

"All right, we'll do that." So the next morning I got up there early and she 
had breakfast ready for me. It was right close to the water there and she 
could get a lot of crabs. I was very fond of deviled crabs. I could see that 
she was a good negro and a pretty good housekeeper, that's right. And I used 
to enjoy my breakfasts there...it was delightful. I kept that up for a year or 
more while I was cutting those pilings up in the woods. When you had sixty, 
eighty and ninety foot pilings you couldn't work as fast as you would when you 
were handling forty or fifty foot logs. We stayed there and had a good 
lineup...nice pilings.

After we got through there, it kind of looked like I was about ready to come 
to Norfolk...I didn't see anything else in sight in the way of pilings. But we 
did shop around a little bit and found just a few pilings where we could 
handle them pretty good near the water.

Move to Norfolk

Then I was about ready to come to Norfolk, more or less to get out of the 
piling business. We got everything all straight. The only way we could bring 
our team and mules there was on a boat that was running up the James River. I 
arranged to send Patsey and the children on the train and the team and mules 
on the river...that was in the winter. By that time Margaret had come along, 
so we had three children, all of them born at St. Christopher's Hospital in 
Norfolk City. I remember it snowed to beat the band that night. Anyway, I 
stuck with it, and we got into Norfolk kind of late at night...very late. I 
was then ready to pick up something in Norfolk to do.

PART IV. FIFTY YEARS IN THE VENEER BUSINESS

First Veneer Business

I still had my mules and horses and I looked around, looked around, shopped 
around right much for what to do. Brother Jim and I had some money, so we went 
into the wood yard business...sold firewood to folks, but we didn't like it so 
much - wasn't much in it - so we disposed of the wood opportunity to buy good 
stock in a small veneer plant which had been started in Norfolk. The man who 
started it didn't have enough money to finance it, so Jim and I helped him out 
with our money. Finally, I interested George W. Roper in joining us to operate 
and expand the veneer business.  We ran that business for five years until we 
had our first fire. In fact, our worst trouble was that the plant burned out 
two more times after that the plant burned out two more times after that. Each 
time we rebuilt it and that's the line of business I stayed in for fifty years.

It grew to be a big plant...cost a lot of money. We operated six days a week. 
The seventh day we washed the boilers and got up steam Sunday night at ten 
o'clock and went to work. We had a night and day crew. It was eventually 
considered one of the best equipped veneer plywood plants anywhere South.

I can remember way back when we were first starting the Norfolk plant and 
wondering where we were going to get orders to take care of the plant. At that 
time, the furniture manufacturers had not started to use gum for furniture but 
they soon fell in line. Today very near every furniture plant in the country 
uses plywood gum for that purpose.

Another thing, back about nineteen hundred and six, there came a man from New 
York down here named George Montgomery. He came here to see if I would be 
interested in manufacturing cigar box lumber from African cedar logs. There 
were few cigarettes in those days, but there were cigar box factories 
scattered all over the country, and the cigar boxes used were made from cedar. 
That's all we had here that would fit in.  This man wanted to know if we would 
manufacture cigar box lumber for him if he brought ship-loads of cedar logs 
from West Africa. It was a new thing, and I was wary. "Who would finance a 
shipload of these logs?"

"Mueller Shall Company of New York has agreed to finance the logs."

"How much would they cost?"

"Seventy-five thousand dollars a shipload. They will be logs of good size and 
all of the exact color of our Southern cedar. The cigar business people who 
make the boxes won't know the difference between the color of the West African 
cedar and our Southern cedar, which is getting scarce all the time. We're 
going to have to get something else to take its place sooner or later, and 
this is the only thing that will do it."

Well, of course, we hadn't been operating very long, but we did some figuring, 
and finally got together with him and said we would try. He said he would like 
to bring the firs load in to Lamberts Point to be loaded onto freight cars 
there and switched up to our plant just three miles up the track. I told him 
to go ahead. We made a contract providing for our getting so much money for 
cutting, putting into shape, drying, and tying it into bundles ready to ship, 
but we had nothing to do with the selling of it. We had to have the money 
before it left the plant...in that fashion.  We made the deal with him and he 
sent over the first shiploads which lasted us some little time at the plant 
because those logs were big, thirty six to forty inches in diameter. But we 
did it and found it to be the exact color of our Southern cedar, just like he 
said.

We built a shed because we had to make up right much ahead of time. When 
George Montgomery ordered, he'd want right much at a time and we didn't have 
space enough to store without building an extra shed to fill up as we got it 
made ready to ship.

White Barrel and Basket Company

Along with the veneer business, Brother Jim and I were asked by the truck 
farmers around there to make them some packages to ship their products in. We 
had practically a monopoly the way we did it. We bought a lot and built a 
plant right over on Mason Avenue in Norfolk where we began manufacturing 
potato barrels, bean baskets, strawberry quarts, and any other containers for 
products the farmers wanted to ship them in. I had charge of the manufacturing 
part of it and Brother Jim handled the selling to the farmers, as he had good 
fellowship relations with them, and probably could do it better that I could. 
We got quite a truck packaging business going; and had no trouble dealing with 
the biggest truck farmers around there, and we had some big ones, because they 
all extended out in Norfolk and Princess Ann counties. Where there used to be 
a truck farm is now a town built up there.

The farmers would bring their products into Norfolk, load them onto the New 
York steamboat line, The Old Dominion, and ship them to New York. That's the 
way it was. We liked our packaging business very very much.

One of our best customers, a big farmer, owned a nice farm of two hundred 
acres in Princess Ann County; it's covered today with a town. The unfortunate 
part was that he had a big crop, or he thought he had, until the drought came 
along and didn't leave him with much. What he had he didn't get much of a 
price for, so after the season was over he was broke. He owed the fertilizer 
people money and he also owed us about five thousand dollars for truck 
packaging. His crop was a failure. He came to us and figured that if we would 
let him have eight thousand dollars cash to pay us back and pay off the 
fertilizer people, he would give us a mortgage on his farm so we'd be safe 
until he could produce another crop. Well, we agreed to do that; a mortgage on 
his farm was better than nothing, so we loaned him eight thousand dollars. He 
paid the fertilizer and the packaging bills, which got him all out of debt 
except he still owed us eight thousand dollars.

Well, for some reason, I don't know why, he had a young son, just married and 
living in a beautiful old house, who wanted his Daddy to get out and go to 
Florida. "That's the place to go to truck - Florida," he would say. Well, the 
finally convinced the old man, but he didn't have the eight thousand dollars 
to pay us. He wanted to go, though, and finally asked us if we would take over 
the ownership of the farm. We agreed to do that.

It was a nice big truck farm, but we didn't want it because I wasn't a farmer. 
Brother Jim was, but he had something else to do, so we kept it and rented it 
to Gid Lambert for two years. He had a wife and two or three children; they 
lived there and farmed for two years.

Then we sold it, I think for about twelve thousand dollars. That put us out of 
the farm business.

That was just about the time when Wilson, Jr. and Theo were at the University 
of Pennsylvania. Wilson was a little but too young to go up there. He finished 
the high school when he was sixteen and I thought then that he was a little 
too young to go to school, but I thought again that if he stayed out maybe 
he'd get studying out of his head and want to do something else. So I let him 
go along with Theo...both of them at the same time.

But Wilson had some kind of breakdown late in the year. The doctor said the 
best thing to do was to let him get out in the country and do some work or 
something and come back again when he was all right. I asked Gid Lambert if he 
would take him and let him work; I'd pay his board and all that. He agreed to 
this proposal so Wilson went out on their farm and stayed for a whole year 
pretty near. He liked it out there very much, doing the work around there and 
they all liked him. Mrs. Lambert said; they never had as nice a man as that 
fellow around the house. He stayed out there and kind of roughed it in the 
country and never had any trouble since then.

Lightning Strikes the Plant

When I had been in this business for about five years, lightning struck the 
plant one night and burned the whole darn thing up...everything...the plant, 
even the five carloads of manufacturers' stock of African cedar made up ready 
to ship. George had paid up for the manufacture of the cedar. I don't know how 
he got out or settled with the Mueller Shall Company and the bank in New York, 
but he must have made some satisfactory deal because we got going pretty quick 
after that. Later on those logs were about all that were going out. But they 
lasted several months because it was a big pile of logs. Then he brought over 
the second shipload and we did pretty good on that. We finally manufactured 
all of it and shipped it out according to his order.

George's son, a young fellow, would stay around the plant to look after the 
shipping end of it; we would do the manufacturing, putting it in bundles, and 
loading it onto the cars. For some reason, I don't know why, that was the last 
shipload George brought over here. I think he had trouble satisfying the New 
York bank. At any rate, we never heard any more from him. He was right much of 
a schemer, anyway, hut he handled it pretty good.

I had the biggest veneer plant around - in fact, the only one in Virginia for 
quite some time. It was considered one of the best equipped veneer plywood 
plants anywhere South. But we had to get out on account of we had cut all of 
the timber and logs up there we could find. We were bringing logs from about 
one hundred-fifty miles from Norfolk, using about five carloads a day. We were 
bringing them in from Kelford, North Carolina - a tremendously long distance 
to haul in those days.

In the meantime, the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, which was handling those 
logs for us, raised their rates pretty near one hundred dollars on a car from 
Kelford to our plant in Norfolk. There was nothing to do but quit, and that's 
what we did.

Second Veneer Business in New Bern, North Carolina

My next venture was buying interest in a plywood plant in New Bern, North 
Carolina; not a big one, but pretty good sized, which I was engaged in for the 
next fifteen years. Now here's what happened.

I had been in the veneer business for so long that I had a very good sales 
relationship in New York with a man called Tifft. Tifft was the only name this 
fellow had. I was very fond of him. He would come down and visit with me, 
usually about once a year. Later he retired; left New York and went up to New 
England to stay...was going to live easy. I would always get a letter from him 
every Christmas, but haven't heard from him for the past seven years. I assume 
that he's past on. He was always one of my best friends. He was tops; had an 
office in the tower of the old Produce Exchange Building where he worked for 
us getting orders for our plant for fifteen years.

There was a small firm called the Newse [sic] Veneer and Box Company, which 
didn't have much business; they were scrapping around all the time and could 
hardly make a go of it because they didn't have any orders. I contacted them 
and asked them if they would be interested in my getting them some business. 
Of course they said they would.

They were kind of hard up for money, too, but they said, "Come down here and 
let's talk this thing over. We'd like you to buy some stock down here in this 
plant of ours."

Well, I looked them all over and tried the whole thing out. "How much stock do 
you want me to take?"

"Would you take five thousand dollars worth?"

"I might if I could have all the business here."

"You can have it all; we'll get it out for you, make a price on it, and you 
can sell it for what you can get."

So we hooked up that way. Then I got in touch with Tifft in New York and told 
him I had a supply of plywood boxes - that's what they were. I wanted him to 
contact some of those many many customers he used to get for me when I had the 
veneer business in Norfolk. So he did; he got out and knew right where to pick 
them up. He picked up orders, and we ran like that for fifteen years...just 
about as good a business as we ever had because at that time plywood boxes had 
just come in style. It had been just a short time that we knew anything about 
a plywood box.

In the meantime, I got orders direct, too, because I had contacts down here. 
The plant got very busy - they ran it six days a week. They were tickled to 
death with the setup, and I was too. I had one customer, P. H. Hanes Knitting 
Company of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, who were big users of plywood boxes. 
I went down to see them and I hooked up with them with orders for a year at a 
time. They would buy about twenty to twenty-five thousand dollars worth. They 
had a big plant - the biggest anywhere around there. I also picked up some 
more customers there that I used to sell. In the meantime, Tifft was busy 
getting customers up there in New York. It went on that way for pretty near 
fifteen years...that's right.

Best Customer - Chevrolet Motor Company

Tifft had two men traveling out of New York on up in Detroit - all the time 
looking for business because he was selling pine boards. At any rate, he 
picked up the Chevrolet Motor Company. They were the biggest users of boxes we 
ever had.

Tifft wanted me to come on up to see the Chevrolet people and make 
arrangements to do business together. They had a plant in Orange, New Jersey, 
not far out of New York, so I went up there and had a very satisfactory talk 
with the General Manager of the plant. He said, "Here's where we want those 
boxes, right here, not in Detroit. We're just beginning now to export some of 
these boxes to other countries. We'd like to make a change, though, because 
we're not satisfied at all with the sawed lumber we're presently getting. 
They're inch board boxes - very heavy - and the freight is pretty high on 
them. What we need are plywood boxes, provided we could get them to hold 
together, and be waterproof. We've tried some waterproof plywood already, but 
it didn't stand up at all. We've got to put these boxes outdoors because we 
haven't enough storage or room to take care of as many as we have to have to 
use in exporting shipments of small cars. If you can produce a plywood box 
made of five-sixteenths or three-eights of an inch lumber that would hold up - 
waterproof absolute - we'll give you the business."

"I think I can do it. It would require a special glue to be waterproof."

"Go ahead. Get us a carload or two," the Manager said. So I went down to New 
Bern and told them what I wanted.

They said, "All right, we can take care of it for you."

I cautioned them by saying, "You have to get a different glue because what 
you're using now is for textile work where it's all inside. This will have to 
be a special glue that costs more money than the glue you get here for local 
clients, and be waterproof enough to hold together outdoors - even when it 
rains."

They made the boxes with some special glue, and sent them up to Orange, where 
they unloaded them right outside there, and they held up...the rain didn't 
hurt them, although the boxes they tried from another company in North 
Carolina wouldn't stand up - came to pieces. Our boxes stood up, though, just 
as well as anything. You know what they did? They were so well pleased with 
them, they took one of those plywood boxes and put it on top of the building. 
They said they wanted to do that to discourage folks from coming around there 
wanting to sell their plywood boxes. He'd point proudly at the box and 
say, "You got anything that can beat that up there, that can take the rain, 
snow and all?"

But there was one stubborn old man head of a plywood mill in North Carolina, 
who said to me one day, "I can do anything you do." He told the Chevrolet 
Motor people the same thing. "I can produce anything Wilson White can put out. 
All you got to do is give me a chance."

"Well, if you can do it," the Manager told him, "we'd like to have two 
suppliers. We'll let you have some of the business." Sure enough, he sent them 
up a carload. When they were unloading outside, the rain came up and they 
began popping open. The Manager of the mill was disgusted and said, "Doggone, 
there's plenty of business without his!" So that's why I kept that business. 
Some months I'd ship him thirty thousand dollars worth; it saved freight that 
way. When they exported their cars to other countries, you know what they did? 
They took two boxes and put them together to make a shelter for the cars. That 
was the beginning of the Chevrolet Motor Company exporting cars. That was way 
back yonder.

After a number of years, I didn't renew my contract with the people in New 
Bern. Ben Johnson, a good friend of mine who built and operated the veneer 
company, was the main stockholder, but he had some trouble with the other 
stockholders. They all took sides - split up - and I got out and quit it.

I was able to transfer the orders that Tifft got; he had a lot of business 
with people in the textile mills who continued to use plywood, and that kept 
us going for possibly two or three more years. At times we would run short of 
orders for plywood boxes, but we also supplied panels such as drawer bottoms, 
mirror backs, things of that nature, to furniture plants, when there would be 
a call for them.

PART V. SAWED LUMBER SHOOK BUSINESS

Selling Sawed Lumber Shooks

After we got out of the plywood business, I took up the question with Tifft 
about handling sawed lumber shooks. I knew he had quite a trade in that line 
because he had been in business for thirty years. He was delighted to know 
that I could give him some sawed lumber shooks in place of plywood. So what I 
did was make arrangements with Barnes, a big sawed lumber shook company in 
Norfolk, to fill my orders. Tifft was tickled to death that I made a 
connection and we would handle it together. We went along with that for 
several years. It proved to be very profitable for both of us. As a matter of 
fact, he sold sawed lumber shooks to the Chevrolet Motor Company when it was 
difficult for them to get plywood shooks from other sources. This enabled him 
to get back some business which he had lost in the past.

We were about the first people in the country to produce a plywood box. There 
were eight people in the Southern states who made these shooks and about the 
same number in the New England states. I think there were eighteen in all and, 
of course, we were all friends as well as competitors. We had a way of meeting 
in New York once every two months to talk over all of our business together. 
We later formed a corporation called the American Plywood Company, which 
brought us all a little closer together. We employed a secretary for the 
corporation and his office was in New York City. He had all of our interests 
combined as one. We were all very friendly. They're all dead now except me.

We used to match prices at these meetings. It went on for years, and every now 
and then we would entertain the New England people for a few days in the South 
as our guests - we'd have the whole corporation here. I had the privilege of 
entertaining them at the Cavalier Hotel in Virginia Beach on two occasions - 
kept them for two or three days. We were all tickled to death to get together 
for these meetings. We were entertained in North Carolina once or twice. The 
whole group would attend and we would have the opportunity to discuss business.

American Plywood Company Outing

Then we would go up to New England where they would entertain us. The last 
time we met up there was about 1940. We Southern fellows all met in New York 
and then went up to Boston where they met and entertained us for a week. It 
was a very nice affair, and we drove all through New England and up into 
Canada after the meetings for three or four days as an outing for us. The 
sixteen of us got around by using several automobiles and one for the baggage. 
We all enjoyed this trip very much.

At the end of the week, we all began to break up; some went one way, some 
another. We Southern fellows went back to Boston and got a train from there to 
New York; that was the only way we could get out.

At that time, liquor wasn't sold much in America, but up there in Canada there 
was plenty of it all the time. It was strictly against the law, though, to 
bring any of it out of Canada. Every train that came out of there was searched 
to see if you had any liquor in your grips. Well, of course, I didn't bring 
any liquor; it didn't interest me at all. The man who ran the plant in 
Plymouth, North Carolina, Walter Simmons, didn't drink at all either, but 
those fellows further down in Carolina who also had plywood plants, and the 
ones up in New England, could slurp it up. It was a puzzle to know how they 
were going to carry some of it home because they knew their baggage would be 
searched at the United States line...definitely.

There was one fellow I knew very well...owned some interest in a plant in 
North Carolina. He was a Jew but he was a good one. He associated with 
gentiles...even married a gentile girl...but he liked his bottle. He solved 
the problem by putting two bottles of whiskey in the seat of his breaches and 
keeping his overcoat on when the inspector came through. Got away with it, too.

I was taken sick on the train and my friends reported it to the conductor. He 
said he thought it would be best for me to see a doctor at the next station in 
New Haven, Connecticut. He called ahead and when we arrived there, he stopped 
the train for thirty minutes to let the doctor come on and see me. The doctor 
gave me something. The trouble was with my stomach. I was right bad 
off...that's right. After the doctor got off and the train pulled out of the 
station, I went to sleep and didn't wake up any more till I got to New York.

Theo and Wilson, Jr. were then at the University of Pennsylvania. My friends 
got hold of Theo and told him to meet the train in Philadelphia, as I was 
sick, which he did. I went and stayed with him until the next day when I was 
much better and got a train to go on home. So that about ended the trip to 
Canada.

It was nothing unusual to find people who would drink liquor in those days of 
prohibition. One man who was a member of the organization brought me a bottle 
of whiskey when he came from Chicago to join me - a quart bottle. I put it in 
the safe and it stayed there fifteen years...never was opened. Finally, we had 
robbers break into the safe. When the police came they found the whiskey still 
there. They said they wanted to take it down to the Department where they 
could get a better look at the prints on that bottle. I never heard any more 
from them. I never heard another word about that bottle.

PART VI. CAREER IN CHEMICAL FIELD

"The Tapioca Man"

After a total of fifty years selling veneers, I got out of all of it and went 
into the chemical business. I first dealt with Victor G. Blodey of Baltimore. 
He was a very old man then and had made a wonderful success of his glue 
business. He had gone outside of Baltimore about ten miles and there he put up 
a big plant all by himself - all with his own money. He was the man who used 
to sell me tapioca in small quantities along with two other customers in 
Baltimore. Whenever I went up there, I would always call him up and he'd 
say, "Come on out here, I want to see you." Well, it was usually around lunch 
time. He'd take me out there to a place for lunch and I kind of always thought 
he wanted me to represent his company, but he never directly asked me to do 
it. I wouldn't have done it, anyway, but from then on I began to look to the 
future of tapioca, an imported product. I found that it was largely used by 
the big textile and plywood mills in the country. It looked to me like a good 
product, so I decided to go into the tapioca business.

When the ships brought their products in from other countries, there would 
always be from one to five carloads that had gotten damp from the sea air 
coming over. Therefore, they were rejected, but I used to experiment by buying 
some of that product, which was sold on the docks, whenever I could get it. I 
worked out a process of drying, packing, and selling it as good tapioca to the 
plywood and textile mills for making glue. It was a good product; I fixed up 
one section of my plant and used a method of drying that stock to put it in 
good shape.

From then on, I began to increase that business because every one out of five 
ships that would come in would have some of it. They'd load it in cars on the 
docks in Norfolk and down in Charleston, South Carolina. I'd go down there and 
buy what they had. I even went to Baltimore, bought what they had up there, 
brought it back, put it through this process of mine, and resold it. It got to 
be quite a business and people at the docks - all around the army base, 
Baltimore, North and South Carolinas - would refer to me as "The Tapioca Man", 
which I was because I supplied so many mills with it.

Selling Bleach

The next thing I took up was making bleach - the kind that is sold in quart 
bottles to stores. I also sold that bleach to all of the big Norfolk 
laundries, but it was a different quality from what I sold to the stores. The 
store bleach was five percent chlorine solution and the laundry bleach was 
sixteen percent chlorine, but I fixed up machinery for making it. It was made 
with caustic soda and chlorine. I used to sell it to wholesale merchants who 
bought and sold it to the retailers. I did not sell to the retail trade at 
all. It turned out to be a good product, and we shipped it to different 
places - even sent it to North Carolina. We supplied the Sunlight Laundry and 
two or three other big ones in Norfolk; we had standing orders from them to 
deliver so many five gallon cans once a week, which I did, and they all liked 
it. It was a very very nice product.

Selling Caustic Soda

In the early 1940's, I began looking around for a supply of flaked caustic 
soda. This product was used in a great many ways. The plywood mills all used 
it because the tapioca that I made for them included directions on the one-
hundred pound bags to add five pounds of flaked caustic soda and the necessary 
water to make the right solution of tapioca. It was not only the plywood mills 
that used it, but every Coca-Cola factory in the country used it as a 
cleansing product, and textile mills used it for making glue.

Every ten months I'd get an automobile and be gone about a week to ten days 
covering the North Carolina and part of the South Carolina areas selling the 
caustic soda to the Coca-Cola people, and a great many others who used it in 
their work. On one trip I went to Philadelphia because there was a big company 
up there dealing in flaked caustic soda, and I wanted to be their 
representative down here to buy it and take care of this whole territory by 
selling to anyone who wanted to buy it. On the same day and night that I went 
up to Philadelphia, the Bell Alkaline Company in Bell, West Virginia, sent 
their Manager down to Norfolk to see me because they made flaked caustic soda 
at that time, but didn't have the contacts to sell much of it. They had a 
warehouse that was bubbling over with caustic soda and were looking for me 
because someone had told them, "If you see Wilson White, he'll move that 
caustic soda for you."

The man stayed over until the next day, when I returned, and told me he wanted 
somebody to start moving the caustic soda for him. There was a lot of it used 
right here in North and South Carolina, so I said, "Well, I reckon I know as 
much about caustic soda as anybody else. I think I've used more than anyone 
around here, at least I used to use it in my veneer business. What kind of 
deal do you want to give me on it?"

"We'll give you fifteen percent, plus two percent on any sale you make. We got 
a warehouse full of it now."

Of course, that was a damned good commission. Ordinarily, five percent was 
pretty good, but they wanted me to do it. "Well, I said, I think I'll try it. 
Have you got anybody in Richmond handling this for you?"

"No," he said, "Mr. White, I'm going to tell you. We traveled a man down here 
for two years and he didn't get enough customers to talk about. He just didn't 
know who to sell or how to approach them." Of course, no one knew better than 
I did because I used to be in the plywood business myself. I used to buy it 
and I knew all those "birds" (competitors) in Virginia, South Carolina and 
North Carolina, so I knew just where to put it because I used it there, and in 
other places, too. So I took that business on.

I was already selling their chlorine and they were very much pleased with the 
way I was handling it. I went to work on the caustic soda and, boy, didn't I 
sell it! I knew every one of those plywood men in the South because they were 
my competitors once. I went to see every darn one of them...sold them - every 
one. And that isn't all I did. I saw the Coca-Cola people and they were good 
customers, too; they'd buy one hundred drums at a time. I kept on selling 
them, too.

The old man who owned Bell Alkaline and really made money, and a lot of it, I 
never met, but you know what the old man did outside of that? He had over 
twenty-four small newspapers scattered over Virginia, North Carolina, and 
South Carolina. He just made a business of it. Bill Stubberfield was his son-
in-law - married the old man's only daughter - and then Bill was made 
President of the company, that's what he was. He would come down any time and 
say, "I want to help you get some more business."

"Well," I said, "Come on over to the house and spend the night with me and 
we'll get an automobile in the morning and go to Richmond and all places 
around here we can." So he and I got to be just about the best friends that 
ever were.

He always told me, "You sell caustic soda to anybody you want regardless of 
their credit. I'll leave it to you whether it is safe to sell them or not."

I never had more satisfactory dealings in my life than I had with the Bell 
Alkaline Company. I enjoyed very much doing business with that company. They 
knew I did them a good job - couldn't be better than what I gave them. They 
finally sold the whole plant - everything - but I didn't go with them, 
although today it is known as a very good product and is used for a great many 
different things.

Selling Gas and Coal Tar

Now, another product that I handled was gas and coal tar. It was used by fish 
people for tarring their nets.

The biggest customer we ever had was the Ballard Fish Company in Norfolk City. 
At that time they had a big fishery over on the eastern shore - a big affair. 
They'd send their truck over and take just as many drums as they could get on 
a tank car. Of course, I had to bring that coal tar from way up in West 
Virginia, but I could get all I wanted there. Id' bring it in here in tank 
cars, and then put it up in second-hand fifty gallon drums, which I could 
always buy everywhere, and sell it as outside product; didn't have room to 
store it inside. I even sold about all the coal tar that was used two hundred 
miles around Norfolk City - sold it all up in Whitestone, Virginia, and 
Matthews County, and even as far up as Maryland.

I had one customer in Matthews County who was buying six hundred drums from me 
every year. And then I had one in Stumpy Point, North Carolina, one in Cape 
Hatteras, and everywhere that people were fishing, even right in Norfolk City. 
I also bought it from nearby places such as Raleigh and Durham, where they 
made a certain amount of gas tar, but very little coal tar. However, more gas 
tar was used than coal tar.

I dealt with the Texas Oil Company to bring the coal and gas tar in because 
they had tank cars in their plant in Norfolk. They had a small tank car that 
would hold probably eight thousand gallons that wasn't used very much. I would 
never know very far ahead when I would need a tank car, but they said, "We'll 
keep this tank car on our track here for you all the time. All you have to do 
is call us when you want it. This tank car is a little too small for us to 
take the place of a ten thousand gallon tank car." So they kept that car for 
me for years. All I had to do was call them up and tell them where I wanted 
them to send the car, and they'd do it.

One advantage of selling coal and gas tar was that it didn't have to be put 
inside the building. We kept a big yard full of it all the time. In other 
words, we'd have four or five hundred drums of both coal and gas tar in the 
yard out there, and we'd sell to anyone who came along. Most of the fishermen 
would come with their trucks and get what they wanted - ten or fifteen 
barrels - and we wouldn't have to deliver, but a lot of it we did have to 
deliver.

W. J. Woodley, a wholesale grocer, was a very nice friend and big customer of 
mine in Elizabeth City. He supplied small fisheries all through that territory 
down there, but we had to deliver the tar to him. The fish men had to have 
tar; their nets were no good if they didn't tar them. I'd go down there any 
time and get an order from him. It was really as good a business as I ever 
had. I shipped it to Crisfield, Maryland, and the whole territory on the 
eastern shore of Virginia: Manteo, Stumpy Point, Cape Hatteras, and all those 
other places down there used my gas and coal tar. I had a reputation for it 
because we canvassed all of the fishing territory in the whole area. It was a 
top business for a long time.

Selling Roof Coating and Roof Cement

There was a great demand here in Norfolk for roof coating and roof cement. 
About the best place in the whole country for it was right in Norfolk City. We 
had one of our departments fixed up for making this roof cement and roof 
coating. We sold it everywhere; every hardware merchant was a buyer for it and 
I stood in with most of them. We had one customer in Richmond, a wholesaler, 
who would send his truck down there and take away four or five hundred buckets 
of roof cement or roof coating. They had about fifteen small stores scattered 
up around Richmond, and wanted our cement and roof coating at every place. We 
had that business for a number of years.

Unfortunately, after several years, a fire destroyed my entire plant. It was a 
pretty bad fire because the morning it caught we were unloading a ten thousand 
gallon tank car of coal tar on the siding. I called to the men and told them 
to close the tar room and get out of the way. If they hadn't, the whole thing 
would have caught fire. They did - they got out - but the main building we 
were in all went down and pretty near five hundred drums of coal and gas tar 
we had stored out in the yard were completely destroyed.

You wouldn't have thought the fire could have done so much damage, but the 
coal tar became so hot that the drums began to pop open and the fire just 
blazed up everywhere. It was the biggest smoke from a fire, I was told, that 
Norfolk City had ever seen. It was so big that automobiles couldn't go down 
Church Street because all that tar was afire, and it stayed that way all day.

Of course, this fire didn't affect the contracts I had with Norfolk City 
Waterworks, but it did do right much damage to me because it burned up 
everything inside the building - everything. I first thought I would build 
somewhere else, but the more I looked around the better I could see for myself 
that cleaning up down there and rebuilding in the same place would be the best 
thing I could do.

My Richmond competitor came down to Norfolk and pretty near got all my 
customers right after this fire. In fact, their representative told some of my 
customers, "I understand Wilson White isn't going to rebuild."

"Well," I said, "We'll have to see about that." I was making it pretty warm 
for them and they knew it, too.

It took at least three months before I rebuilt the place and got back in 
business again. Not only fire damage, but the job there of cleaning up all 
that coal and gas tar floating around in the yard took us some little time. 
Everything else inside was gone.

Finally, when I was able to get everything built back again, I had new 
machinery; everything was better than before inside the plant. I made some 
changes for the better and things went on pretty good.

The new plant was made to take on the additional business of roof coating 
packed in drums instead of small cans. The roof cement they all wanted. When 
the first tunnel was being built between Norfolk and Portsmouth, it was to be 
plastered inside with roof cement - the whole thing - everything. They wanted 
a certain grade and they advertised for samples of different kinds. I sent 
mine in and got the business for that whole tunnel. They said it suited them 
just right. I used to deliver cement to them in six hundred pound drums; that 
was the way they wanted it. Sometimes they sent their truck over to my plant 
because they would run a bit low and pick up some themselves.

"You've got the right cement," they'd say, and they used it to plaster that 
whole tunnel from one end all the way to the other side.

Selling Asphalt Shingles

There was a man who worked for me about two years - James V. Lee. Everybody 
called him for short - Jim Lee. He was a good salesman - tops. He weighted 
over two hundred and sixty pounds and was over six feet high.

One day he said to me, "You know, Mr. White, places around Norfolk are going 
to be building up now pretty fast. Wards Corner already is, and I expect fifty 
or seventy-five more buildings are going to go up. They'll need a lot of 
shingles and roof coating, and I can get that business for you."

"Well," I said, "All right, but I've got to get a supply of those shingles 
first." He gave me the name of a factory up in York, Pennsylvania, that 
manufactured special asphalt shingles for homes.

"You get in touch with them because somebody's going to get that business and 
I can get it for you." He was that kind of a guy. So I got in touch with them 
and they said the best way to handle it would be for me to go up to York, sit 
down, and talk the thing over with them.

"All right, I'll be up there in the next two days." So I went up and spent the 
day with the Manager. I told him about all the building going on in Norfolk, 
not only the first big buildings in Norfolk's Ward's Corner, but all over 
Norfolk.

"Well," I said, "what price can you give me on these shingles now? If I take 
care of all the sales expenses and pay you for them, all you have to do is 
send a truckload down to Norfolk every day to meet the demand." He agreed to 
that.

The Manager was a very nice sort of fellow. He was a little fellow, almost red-
headed. He would often say, "I'd like to come down to Norfolk. You have some 
good looking women down there."

And I'd reply, "Yep, plenty of them. Come on down." So sure enough, I came 
back and Jim Lee got right on the job. They were pretty near ready to put the 
shingles on, so we got the business. I gave him half of the profits. He wasn't 
a cheap fellow at all; he was a good man, Lee was, tops. He had a nice family, 
too. He was his wife's second husband, and she was a member of the Lutheran 
Church. She had a grown son by her first husband, who was a minister then, 
just beginning to preach. Lee, himself, was not so religious...that's all. Her 
son was going to preach down here in this Lutheran Church the next Sunday 
morning. Lee, to my surprise, came over and wanted Mrs. White and me to go 
down and listen to him. I said, "Well, we'll go." I'd do anything to help Lee, 
because he was not religious, anyway.

At any rate, we got the thing going and the company in York, Pennsylvania, 
sent a truckload of shingles down almost every day. Of course, with all those 
houses down there, a truckload didn't go far. Lee had been doing other work 
for me selling roof coating, but then I didn't give him as much commission as 
I did on the shingles because I wasn't making it. But now I gave him half the 
profits I made, which was pretty good. He made right much money in those two 
years down there...right much. He was tickled to death with it and so was I. 
So we kept on that way for about two years. We not only sold to Norfolk, but 
Newport News, Portsmouth, and some other towns where there was some building 
going on. Almost all of them used asphalt shingles; hardly any of them used 
slate.

The roof coating and coal and gas tar netted me more profits than anything 
else we had yet covered; so much so that in roof coating we sold direct to 
pretty near every hardware merchant in Norfolk City, Newport News, Portsmouth 
and Hampton. Lee would do other things for me, too, because I had so much to 
do I couldn't take care of all of it myself. He was a very nice fellow to deal 
with.

Chlorine Business

About 1950, I took to selling chlorine to Norfolk City for their waterworks. 
Back in those days they were not using anywhere near what they are today. They 
would send a couple of trucks in a month - that would be just about all they'd 
want. Of course, it was a very competitive business then. They'd advertise 
everywhere for a price on chlorine. I won out, though, and kept that business 
for a good long time. Here's how it all happened:

I bought my chlorine then from the Bell Alkaline Company in Bell, West 
Virginia. The reason I bought from them was that they put it up in one hundred-
fifty pound cylinders; they didn't fool with a ton container because the risk 
was too great; if it ever were to spring a leak, the whole City would be in 
trouble. So I used to buy all my chlorine from them and I used right much of 
it.

Charles E. Ashburner was the City Manager then; he was the man who really 
started the waterworks because prior to his taking over, they didn't need very 
many chemicals because they weren't using the water. It was true we were 
supplying Virginia Beach and Chesapeake, but the quantity was very very 
limited compared with what they have grown to now. Ashburner was quite a key 
man; he was the man who really got things agoin' as far as the waterworks were 
concerned.

Supplying Carbon to Norfolk City

I had just finished my contract for chlorine for the following year when one 
of the biggest chemical outfits in the whole country that made carbon called 
me over long distance from New York. They knew I was selling Norfolk City 
chlorine and wanted me to see if I could sell their carbon to them, too. I 
told them it looked like it would be impossible for anyone to get anything in 
here that would be satisfactory because not only did they not use a great big 
volume of it there, but none of it they had been getting was satisfactory - 
none of it. I told them I wouldn't mind trying but said, "Let me ask you 
something: Will you guarantee your carbon will fit the analysis that the 
Norfolk City Waterworks wants?"

They said they would. "Absolutely. Tell the Purchasing Agent that our carbon 
will fit in exactly as it should."

"That's going pretty strong," I said, "but, anyway, I'll take a shot at it."

"We want you to be our representative in Norfolk because we know you have good 
contacts with the City suppliers." So I went down and talked to the Purchasing 
Agent - I forget his name now - I've outlived three of them up there (chuckle).

He said "Good God, I even hesitate to talk to you about carbon because we've 
tried so many samples and none of them have been satisfactory. However, if 
you'll guarantee this, that is, that it will fit the analysis of the Norfolk 
City Waterworks, I'll give you the business."

I said, "Ill do it - guarantee it. I'll take this contract and get it signed." 
So that's what I did. At that time they were only using a small truckload, 
sometimes it might be two truckloads of carbon every month. But the supply 
began to grow and then grew very rapidly. It wasn't long before they were 
using three or four truckloads a month. It went along that way for a good 
while, and it was all satisfactory for two or three years.

We did everything by truck, increasing all the time. I then suggested to 
Norfolk City that it would save time if they could arrange to unload on steel 
tank cars made for this purpose, instead of using truckloads. I knew one 
railroad that had some - plenty of them they could use, provided Norfolk City 
would lay a track so we could push the cars in there when we wanted to unload. 
Using these steel tank cars would take just two or three hours to unload, 
whereas emptying the thirty-five pound bags from the trucks took close to two 
days.

They said, "That is very interesting to us; suppose you take it up with your 
carbon suppliers and see what they say." So I took it up with them in New York 
and told them that conditions were improving all the time. They were very much 
interested in the idea because it would save freight, and Norfolk City 
Waterworks wouldn't have to unload those trucks full of thirty-five pound 
paper bags and then throw the damn bags away.

Labor Strike

We got all that going and it was working out satisfactorily, but then the next 
problem was a labor strike at the carbon plant. They were down for six months. 
The company said, "There's nothing we can do; we're in the hands of labor and 
don't know how long it's going to take to adjust this matter, but we're going 
to try."

"Well," I said, "What are you going to do about Norfolk City?"

"Don't ask me. That'll be up to you because our contract relieves us in case 
of a strike."

So I talked with the Norfolk City Purchasing Agent and he said, "It's up to 
you to solve this thing. We're giving you all the business, and it's up to you 
to find more carbon."

"It will be hard to find more that matches just what you've been using, but I 
think I can do it. There isn't any in this part of the world, but I've been in 
touch with a broker in New York who represents a foreign country that makes 
carbon. As far as being exactly like what Norfolk City Waterworks requires, I 
can't swear to it, but if you want it we can ship you two carloads from 
Holland."

"What's it going to cost?"

"The two cars will cost six thousand dollars in New York and you'll have to 
pay the freight from New York down here to Norfolk. They won't send any 
smaller quantities."

"All right, let's have it. We've got to have something." So those two cars 
were sent down here and they cost six thousand dollars plus the freight. He 
said, "How much do you want us to add for your profit?"

I said, "Nothing. All I want to do is help Norfolk City get goin' again."

"All right, we won't count any profits at all for you."

"Not a nickel." After I got that darn carbon in here, he said, "That's about 
the worst stuff we've ever had."

"Well, nothing else we can do but try and use it."

"Yes, but it's tough, just bad stuff."

"Well, I'm sorry, but I've done all I can do for you."

"We know that and we appreciated what you've done, but we hope we get going 
pretty soon so we can take this stuff and dump it in the water to get rid of 
it."

But it was six months before we got our plant going again. Of course, after it 
got going, it was a little time before we could get it all fixed up and get 
the carbon ready for use. But we did; we finally got it going, and it was all 
right.

The volume of carbon used went up from two or three truckloads a month to 
about thirty-five or forty tank cars a year over the last forty years, and I'm 
still their representative in Norfolk; I sign the contract once a year. The 
City never asks for bids from anybody else, as the quality of this carbon is 
so good - perfect - they wouldn't want to go to the trouble again of looking 
the whole country over to find other carbon that would do the job. I am very 
proud to handle this business for this big company. I think they are about the 
largest producers of carbon in the United States.

Chemical Company Sold

About 1954 we were approached by a man who wanted to buy my plant. I wasn't 
particularly anxious to sell, but I thought I would see what he wanted for it. 
He examined my books and saw about how much volume I had. Next he wanted to 
talk to some of my customers, so we spent two weeks calling on most all of 
the. He was very much impressed with what they said bout the quality of my 
products. After two weeks were up, he came in one morning and said, "I believe 
I'll take it." I quoted him a price on it.

PART VII. MY CHILDREN

Theo White

After Theo completed college at the University of Pennsylvania studying 
architecture, he went to Philadelphia and has remained there ever since as a 
commercial architect. He has been very successful in designing large buildings.

He married to Ann Lyn, who is a supervisor of a girl's school. They have no 
children.

Wilson White, Jr. and His Children

Wilson completed his education at the University of Pennsylvania. Next to the 
last year of his schooling, he embarked upon the first University World 
Cruise, visiting thirty-eight different countries for eight months. The only 
trouble was that sometimes he'd run out of money (chuckle) and would wire me 
and I had to send him some because it was costing a little more than he 
thought it would cost. But it was a wonderful opportunity, an education for 
him, and Wilson says today he's never regretted taking that cruise. He reads 
so much about all the countries, he knows just where they are, and almost 
feels like he knows the people.

Wilson did not study any profession at the University. He went there with the 
intention of taking business and finance courses, which he had already taken 
by the time he took the cruise; the trip just simply made it better for him.

After his college training, he went into the investment business with 
Alexander Brown & Sons in their New York office. He has done very well and 
continued in this business until he retired a year ago.

Wilson's son, Wilson White, III, has established his own municipal bond firm 
with offices in five cities, headquartered in New York. Though still a young 
man, he is highly thought of in his trade.

He married Joyce Rudd and they live in Summit, New Jersey, with their three 
children, Catherine, William and Elizabeth.

Wilson's daughter, Patsey, married Dick Branigan two years ago and they now 
live in White Plains, New York. They have a farm house in the country near 
Port Jervis, New York, which is their recreation home on the weekends.

Margaret White

Margaret went to high school in Norfolk and on to Miss Mason's School in 
Tarrytown, New York, which was strictly a girl's school. After she finished 
there, she got a job in Washington and then another fine position in New York 
as a secretary. Then she met Eddie Jay, who was one of the faculty in the 
Manlius School in Manlius, New York, a school for boys. He and Margaret were 
married in New York in a Methodist Church. They were very happy in the Manlius 
School. They had been there for two or three years and were delighted. 
Margaret had a way of inviting about fifteen of the young boys to their home 
every Sunday night and giving them good food and they loved it. They loved her.

She and Eddie decided that as he would probably remain there as one of the 
faculty at the school for a number of years, they would buy a lot and build a 
home outside the campus grounds. They built a lovely home and moved in. 
Margaret lived there only five days, when she was stricken with a heart attack 
and died immediately.

Patsey never got over the shock of Margaret passing away so quickly. We went 
up there and they were nice to us at the college. We stayed there and the next 
day the funeral was held in the City ten miles away. The school closed on that 
day in commeration of Margaret, and fifty of the boys were dressed in their 
uniforms - it was a military school - and attended the church.

PART VIII. CLUB AFFILIATIONS AND CHURCH MEMBERSHIP

Interest in Church

I joined the Epworth Methodist Church right around 1900. I enjoyed it and when 
I was made a member they immediately made me a Treasurer of the Centenary 
Fund, which was quite an honor, I thought. I was then made a member of the 
Board of Stewards and have been on the Board ever since. I have always done 
everything I could to help carry on the work of the church.

I also joined the Wesleymen Bible Class at about the same time and have made 
that my study all these years. They think a lot of me, and one year they 
elected me President. They tell me I am the oldest man in the Bible Class, and 
I appreciate the many honors they have conferred upon me over these years. The 
Church seems to appreciate everything I have done for them. The same thing 
would apply to the Westleymen Bible Class. When I used to go to the Bible 
Class every Sunday, Patsey would always go with me. I asked her one 
day, "Wouldn't you prefer going up and joining some of the women's classes?"

She said, "No, I'm only going here to hear the teacher, Father Powers."

The Roper family were all members of the Bible Class and Church and very 
active ones. I was very close to the Ropers during that time, and when Captain 
Roper built the Liberty Roper Home for old women, he furnished it and endowed 
it. He called me one day at my office and asked if I would come over to his 
house for a few minutes, which I did. He wanted me to be one of the trustees 
of the Home. I accepted and remained one of the trustees for forty-one years.

That was the last time I saw Captain Roper, as he had a home up in 
Pennsylvania, a summer home, and he was going there right away. He said he 
always wanted to dive a car through the country instead of going on the train 
and boat. He had never been through that country, so he took his car and his 
chauffer and started off. They got as far as Fredericksburg, Virginia, where 
the car stopped and he died right there.

Social Activities

I have had two very interesting organizational I belonged to for a number of 
years. One was the Sons of the American Revolution located in Norfolk - not a 
large membership, only about one hundred-thirty men were members of it, but 
they were outstanding men. I was invited about thirty or forty years ago to 
join them as a Son of the American Revolution, which I did, and I enjoyed 
being associated with them very much.

Our meeting was once a month from October through June; we would always step 
aside for the summer months. Being a seaport town, we had quite a few of the 
rank Navy men as members. On one occasion, the top ranking member entertained 
us at the Red Carpet Dining Room on the third floor of the building, which 
seated one hundred people. We were all invited to attend that dinner, 
including our wives, so we had about ninety in all who attended that dinner.

The other organization was Corinthian Masonic Lodge #266 in Norfolk, Virginia. 
I attended the Lodge regularly until about four years ago when my eyesight 
failed, and I had to give up the monthly meetings, but I always look forward 
to attending the annual meetings, which they want me to do. I always get a 
notice from the Master of the Lodge to be sure and come to the annual meeting, 
which has grown to eleven or twelve hundred for dinner. They have plenty of 
room for them in that new dining room down there. As a rule, I always went, 
but now it's got so I can't go unless someone takes me. Pope Milby across the 
street from my old house on Maury Avenue has been on the Funeral Committee of 
the different lodges - he is not a member of Corinthian Lodge, though. He 
would take me to most of the annual meetings, but now his health has failed 
him and he's eighty years old.

I asked the Master last year, "Why do you send me a special notice to attend 
the annual meeting?" The annual is usually the first part of December.

He said, "I want you to be here and stand up where all the members here can 
see you and you can tell them when you joined this Lodge early in 1889 and you 
are the only living member today that was here and helped to start this Lodge 
at that time with ten or twelve men."

The Corinthian Lodge has had the reputation of being the largest membership of 
any Lodge in the State of Virginia for a number of years and they do great 
work; they have committees that take care of everything and are continuously 
helping somebody in trouble, some way or other.

Parting Word

I have lived a good life, a busy life, and I'd be willing to go back and live 
it all over again.

The End

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