Rowan County NcArchives Biographies.....Beard, Peter Bryce 1858 - ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/nc/ncfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 February 24, 2008, 7:26 pm Author: Leonard Wilson (1916) PETER BRYCE BEARD ONE of the most interesting phases of our American life is found in the variety of occupations represented by the men who are really the makers of the country. They range through every class of business interests, through all the professions from the Supreme Court Judge to that of day laborer, representing every degree of learning and every gradation of ability. A fine exponent of this feature of our national life is Peter Bryce Beard, of Salisbury, North Carolina, whose business life has been that of a traveling salesman. This occupation in itself is, to a certain extent, a handicap to the man who wants to be active in the work of good citizenship, for its duties keep him away from his home the greater part of the time. On the other hand, he has been the strongest connecting link between our different States and different sections of the same State. The traveling man has constantly grown in public esteem during the last fifty years, and now occupies a place in our business economy so important that his sudden wholesale removal would dislocate the entire business of the country. To-day, measured by the standards of character and ability, our commercial travelers rank on a level with the best men in the country. Peter B. Beard was born July 20, 1858, in the town where his residence now is. His parents were Captain John and Ellen (Bryce) Beard; his family one that has been identified with Salisbury for one hundred and sixty-two years. His great-great-grandfather, John Lewis Beard, came from Pennsylvania to Salisbury in 1753 as the very first settler. He was German born, as were almost all the early settlers who came to lower Rowan and Cabarrus Counties, and who consequently received the title of "Pennsylvania Dutch" from their previous residence in Pennsylvania. John Lewis Beard lived only a short time in that State, during which time he married his wife, a Miss Snapp. He was naturalized in 1755, two years after moving to Salisbury. Prom the very beginning he was an active and interested citizen of his adopted country. He settled on a farm on Crane Creek, not far from the town of Salisbury, where a few years later he took up his residence and became one of the prominent men of the community. His house was used as headquarters by the British forces during the Revolution. In 1768 he lost a much-loved daughter, and that her grave might remain always undisturbed, he conveyed the title to a lot of 140 square poles, on which she was buried, to certain trustees of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. The little log house built on this site, whose use as a house of worship was freely granted to congregations of other creeds, was the first Lutheran Church in western North Carolina, and the foundation of the present large Lutheran community. Another interesting incident was John Lewis Beard's building of the so-called "Locke Bridge" spanning the Yadkin River. This he erected at his own expense at a cost of $30,000. The present toll bridge rests on the same piers. The Beards proved themselves true citizens in war as well as in peace. John Lewis Beard's name was one of the twenty-five on the Committee of Safety, a pre-Revolutionary organization of the County's most honored men, establishing and defending the rights of citizens, and enforcing its own standard of patriotism. John Beard, son of John Lewis Beard, followed worthily in the path of his father. He served in the Revolutionary War, and must have been a man of prominence, for when General Washington was making his tour of the Southern States in 1791, he was met at Charlotte, North Carolina, by John Beard, Captain of the Rowan Light Horse, who escorted him from that place to Salisbury. The sword that Captain John Beard carried on that occasion is now a treasured possession of Peter Bryce Beard. Another more important memorial to Captain John Beard is the fact that the land on which St. Luke's Episcopal Church now stands was his gift to the congregation of his day. His son, Horace Beard, was prominent in the political affairs of his generation. His grandson, John Beard, father of Peter B. Beard, served through the Civil War as Captain of Company "C," Fifty-seventh North Carolina Regiment. His military record was of the most creditable character, as shown in Clark's "History of North Carolina Regiments." Upon his return from the army Captain John Beard took a very active interest in political affairs, and in the matter of preserving the history of the Confederate soldiers. He reached the ripe age of eighty-two, and passed away greatly respected and honored by the citizens of the County in which his long life had been spent. Captain John Beard's wife, as her name indicates, was of Scotch extraction, and the Bryce family has in our own generation been represented by Viscount James Bryce, a former Ambassador of Great Britain to the United States, one of the ablest men of our time and one of the most widely known in the world. Mr. Beard's uncle, Dr. Peter Bryce, for whom he was named, was for twenty-four years superintendent of the State Asylum at Tuscaloosa, Alabama. His success in the management of this asylum, where he handled both white and colored people on the same farm, was so great that after his death the asylum became known as the Bryce Asylum. Peter Bryce Beard, of Salisbury, notwithstanding his distinguished ancestry and the broad acres of the former Beards, has had his own way to make. Dishonest guardians during his father's minority made away with a part of the estates, and later the Civil War, with the poverty it brought in its train, swept away the rest. Mr. Beard received little more than a grammar school education in private schools of his native town, and arriving at manhood became a traveling salesman, which has been his occupation for thirty-eight years. In these years he has represented one of the largest concerns in the country. No man making a profession of selling is better known in his territory, and no man is more highly respected than Peter B. Beard. He has made a success of his business operations, for early in life he determined to save at least a part of his income, and he states that the first money he ever saved was through a building and loan association, the definite purpose of which was to cancel a mortgage on his father's farm. Later he divided this farm equally with his four sisters, taking no personal advantage for the assistance which he had rendered. Since that early saving he has been an investor in real estate and bank stocks, all of which investments have proven successful and gained for him a substantial capital. Among his latest acquirements has been the Colonial Theatre building in Salisbury. He is Vice-President of the Davis and Wiley Bank, and chairman of its Finance Committee. He is a Director in the Salisbury Cotton Mills, President of the Salisbury Library Association, and Vice-President of the State Good Boads Association. He is a member of all the Masonic bodies, and a past exalted ruler of the Elks' Lodge No. 699. His religious affiliation is with St. Luke's Episcopal Church. Mr. Beard was married on October 22, 1890, to Pauline Parker, a native of Salisbury, and a daughter of Alexander and Sue (Price) Parker. Of this marriage there is one son, Bryce Parker Beard, who is a graduate of Horner's Military School, was chief marshal, and as captain won the colors for his company. While at the University of North Carolina he was elected president of the freshman class. He then took a business course, and is now following in his father's footsteps as a traveling salesman. Mr. Beard's contribution to his community in the way of public service has been continuous and important. For four years he was chairman of the Board of County Commissioners, and during that period succeeded in erecting the new court house in Salisbury, a building which speaks well for the County, and is said to be the best and most convenient court house building in the South. There are curious coincidences connected with the building of Rowan County Court Houses. The first one, a little frame building twenty by forty feet, was built in 1753. The next, dating back to 1800, was built of brick, and measured forty by seventy feet. After fifty years of use it was replaced by a third, (now the Stately Community Center.) Finally, in 1912, arose the splendid building of to-day. In each case the people of the County violently and bitterly opposed the new building as an unnecessary expense, and in each case they emphasized their disapproval of the building by relegating the Commissioners to private life after the expiration of their term of office. Appreciation of their work has come slowly-later. Mr. Beard's case has been no exception. The usual result followed; the Commissioners were defeated for re-election, but Rowan County has the finest court house in the South, and her people are very proud of it. The pioneer and the true developer are two men whose work is seldom appreciated at full value until later years show its wisdom. Mr. Beard's work in matters of public welfare has been touched upon in the court house matter. As County Commissioner he has rendered other important service. He has built the bridge across the Yadkin River connecting Rowan and Davidson Counties, a strictly modern structure, and the first free bridge in the County. The old marriage bonds, many written in German, some dating back as far as 1758, and all fragile with age, were legibly transcribed into a special book, and indexed for convenient reference, at his direction. He is also one of the fathers of the good roads movement in North Carolina. This movement, which in the last ten years has assumed immense proportions all over the country, has been participated in by the very best men in the country, the most farseeing men, the men who realize that some of the most difficult problems connected with our economic life can be forwarded to their solution by the creation of a system of good roads. They realize that these roads will facilitate not only the marketing of crops, but will be an important factor in the cheapening of the cost of production, and that the cost will be repaid many times over by the increased prosperity of the whole community. Mr. Beard's interest in this good roads movement and in other public matters has been so great that not only has he been an organizer, but also he has been constantly commissioned by the Governors of his State to represent North Carolina at various important gatherings. Under date of September 7, 1911, Governor Kitchin commissioned him as a delegate to the Cotton Growers' Conference at Montgomery, Alabama. On March IS, 1012, he was commissioned a delegate to the Southern Appalachian Good Roads Association to meet at Spartanburg, South Carolina.-August 15,1912, he was commissioned a Delegate to the American Road Congress at Atlantic City. Governor Craig succeeded Governor Kitchin, and we find his commission of Mr. Beard as a delegate to the National Drainage Congress to be held in St. Louis, Missouri, April 10, and 12,1913. Then follows a commission of the 19th of August, 1913, to the National Conservation Congress to be held in Knoxville, Tennessee. Next is a commission as a delegate to the American Road Congress at Detroit, Michigan, in the Fall of 1913. Another appointment was received, this time to the Southern Appalachian Good Roads Association at Asheville, North Carolina, October, 1913. Then, on August 27, 1914, Governor Craig sent an earnest appeal to Mr. Beard asking him to take part in a conference of representative business men to be held in Raleigh on September 1 to see if any measures could be devised to prevent the sacrifice of the cotton crop. A third appointment to the Appalachian Good Roads Association at Bristol, Virginia, on October 6, and 9,1914, is the most recent. The preceding accounts illustrate two facts: First, that Mr. Beard has, by ready and faithful service, deservedly acquired the reputation of a good citizen. Second, that he does not become weary in well doing. Many men under the enthusiastic impulse of the moment volunteer for public service and then fall by the wayside. Peter B. Beard has enlisted in the army of progress, and declines no call that spells betterment for the people of North Carolina. He has lived up to the best traditions of a family which, for one hundred and sixty years, has been rendering loyal service to the State. Additional Comments: Extracted from: MAKERS OF AMERICA BIOGRAPHIES OF LEADING MEN OF THOUGHT AND ACTION THE MEN WHO CONSTITUTE THE BONE AND SINEW OF AMERICAN PROSPERITY AND LIFE VOLUME II By LEONARD WILSON, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ASSISTED BY PROMINENT HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL WRITERS Illustrated with many full page engravings B. F. JOHNSON, INC. CITY OF WASHINGTON, U. S. A. 1916 Copyright, 1916 by B. F. Johnson, Inc. Photo: http://www.usgwarchives.net/nc/rowan/photos/bios/beard45gbs.jpg File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/nc/rowan/bios/beard45gbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/ncfiles/ File size: 13.6 Kb