Rowan County NcArchives Biographies.....Henderson, John Steele 1846 - ************************************************ 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 23, 2008, 4:33 pm Author: Leonard Wilson (1916) JOHN STEELE HENDERSON WHETHER measured by the standard of public service or of private usefulness, the Henderson family of North Carolina has, since its coming to the State, furnished in every generation standard bearers, who have never failed to lead their people in the paths of civic righteousness. A contemporary representative of this family, John Steele Henderson, of Salisbury, conspicuously illustrates the truth of the foregoing statement. He comes from a distinguished line of ancestors, who in every generation have been marked by competence, ability and high character. A survey of this line of ancestry will throw ample light upon the character of the representatives of the family to-day. One authority states that the Henderson family first came into prominence in the fifteenth century. In 1494 James Henderson, the first Knight of Fordell, was appointed Lord Advocate of Scotland. This Fordell is in Fifeshire. In 1504 he was a member of the Scotch Parliament, and in 1507 Lord Justice Clerk, one of second judges of the Judiciary. On September 9, 1513, he and his eldest son, John, fell in the battle of Flodden Field. The younger son, George, became the head of the Hendersons of Fordell, which appears to have been the main line in Scotland. Passing over the intervening generations, from this George Henderson was descended Sir John Henderson, an officer in the army of King Charles I, who married Margaret Monteith about 1625. They had issue, five sons and five daughters. Sir John Henderson was succeeded by his eldest son, John. The four younger sons married and left numerous descendants in Fifeshire. According to this English authority, the Virginia family was descended from Sir John Henderson through his grandson John Henderson, and his great-grandson William Henderson. This William Henderson married Margaret Bruce, and was known to have had three sons named Samuel, John and James, and these are credited with having been founders of the Virginia family. The Henderson family of North Carolina, however, do not accept this statement. According to their records Samuel Henderson was born in Hanover County, Virginia, March 17, 1700, and died in North Carolina, January 17, 1784. He married Elizabeth Williams, whose father was a native of Wales. She was born November 14, 1714, married Samuel Henderson, November 14, 1732, the day she was eighteen, and died in Granville County, North Carolina, in 1794. The Henderson family record makes Samuel Henderson a son of Samuel, who was son of Richard, who was son of Thomas, who came to Virginia in the early years of the Jamestown settlement. Whichever of these records is correct, this Henderson family is descended from the Hendersons of Fordell, Fifeshire, for the earlier generations of the family used the Coat of Arms of the Fordell family, which clearly showed their origin. Richard Henderson, son of Samuel, was born in Hanover County, April 25, 1735. Colonel Samuel Henderson moved to Granville County, North Carolina, about 1742, when his son Richard was a boy of seven. Samuel Henderson was the first High Sheriff of Granville County, yet the Hendersons shared in the hardships incident to the life of the frontier. Richard, son of Samuel, a man of great natural ability, after comparatively brief preparation, passed a brilliant examination under Chief Justice Berry and was admitted to the Bar. In 1769 he was appointed an Associate Judge of the Supreme Court, and in the next year, 1770, in his official capacity was drawn into the conflict between Governor Tryon and the organization later known as Regulators. Judge Henderson was peculiarly successful in dealing with these conditions, possessing, in a large measure, the qualities of ability, insight and tact. In American history, Richard Henderson is recognized as the leader in the early expansionist movement westward. For years he had interested himself in Western lands, and out of this landed interest, which later caused him to decline a re-election as Judge under the Colonial, and also under the new State government, grew the most interesting episode in his life. Taken all in all, the most momentous series of great historic events in the early permanent settlement of the Western wilderness resulted from the intimate association with Henderson, the leader in wilderness colonization, of the principal pioneering spirits of the age-Daniel Boone, James Robertson, Richard Callaway, Benjamin Logan, and their fellow-borderers. For years, Boone had acted as Richard Henderson's special agent for the examination of Western lands in behalf of the land company known as Richard Henderson and Company. As early as 1764, and again in 1769 for a two-year period, Boone in this capacity was scouting over the area now occupied by the States of Tennessee and Kentucky. By the Treaty of Watauga, held at the Sycamore Shoals on March 14 to 17, 1775, Richard Henderson purchased from the entire tribe of Cherokee Indians a vast tract of land for the Transylvania Company, which he had organized and of which he was the head. Goods and money, totaling in value ten thousand pounds sterling, was paid for the lands which comprised the great majority of the present State of Kentucky and a large section of the northern and eastern portions of the present State of Tennessee. A week before the treaty was held and signed, Henderson sent Boone ahead with thirty axemen to cut out a road to the new country. This road, which became the pathway to the new West, was called the Wilderness Road. Over this road, famous as being built by Daniel Boone under Richard Henderson's direction, passed thousands of the emigrants to the promised land of Tennessee and Kentucky. At the end of the trail, on the banks of the Kentucky River, Boone constructed a small fort called Fort Boone. This fort and the larger one built by Judge Henderson, as father and protector of the infant settlement, came to be known as Boonesborough. This was the historic settlement wherein white supremacy was first permanently established in the West and within whose walls the early inhabitants of Kentucky were saved from destruction by the Indians. By means of the Treaty of Watauga, Henderson succeeded in extinguishing forever the Indian claims to some of the richest lands in America. By ordering the cutting of the Wilderness Road he threw wide the portals of the gateway to the West. On April 20, 1775, one day after the Battle of Lexington was fought, Judge Henderson, with his gallant band of forty men, reached Fort Boone. With him he brought provisions, ammunition, tools, cattle-indeed all that was vitally needful to the infant settlement. A land office was opened and Judge Henderson convened the first Legislature of Transylvania, as the new Territory was named. At the meeting of this, the first Legislature on the American Continent to convene west of the Allegheny Mountains, eighteen representatives of the people sat under a huge elm tree and passed the simple laws requisite for the government of the wilderness colony. Five years later, Judge Henderson, with James Robertson as his agent, founded what is now the city of Nashville. He drafted, and he and his two brothers, Nathaniel and Pleasant, with many scores of others, signed, at Nashboro, on May 13, 1780, the famous compact of government for the settlers on Cumberland River, known as "the Government of the Notables." Henderson has been accorded eminence in history for two great achievements-for having been directly instrumental in drafting and securing the adoption of a written constitution of government for two distinct colonies; and for having been the moving spirit in the salvation from British hands of the vast wilderness region of Tennessee, Kentucky and the Ohio Valley. Following his successful establishment of a settlement and the formation of a government at Nashboro, he returned to his home in North Carolina, and here, near Williamsborough, on January 30, 17S5, at the comparatively early age of forty-nine, passed away this great pioneer, law-giver and nation builder. Judge Richard Henderson, the great-grandfather of John Steele Henderson, was not surpassed in intellect or force by any of his ancestors or descendants. His brother, Colonel William Henderson, was also a notable character. Entering the Revolutionary Army, he commanded the South Carolina troops at the battle of Eutaw Springs, and left behind him a reputation as a gallant soldier of striking military ability. John Steele, another great-grandfather of John Steele Henderson, was also one of our early nation builders. Born at Salisbury, North Carolina, November 1, 1764, liberally educated, a farmer by occupation, he served in the House of Commons in the State Legislature in 1787, 1788, 1793, 1794, 1795, 1806, 1811, 1812 and 1813. In 1788 he was a member of the Constitutional Convention and favored the admission of North Carolina into the Union. He was elected a representative from North Carolina to the First and Second Congresses as a Federalist. He was appointed Comptroller of the Treasury by President Washington on July 1, 1796, and reappointed by President John Adams. On December 15, 1802, he resigned, strongly against the earnest protest of President Jefferson, who fully recognized General Steele's great ability, although he had been affiliated with the opposite political party. He ranked as one of the great men of the day. On August 14, 1815, he was again elected from Salisbury to the House of Commons, and died on the day of his election. John Steele's parents were William and Elizabeth (Maxwell) Steele. His mother was a member of the great Scottish family of Maxwell which has held innumerable titles and honors in that country since that day more than six hundred years ago when Sir Eustace Maxwell was one of the most loyal and valiant followers of the great Wallace in his struggles for the freedom of Scotland. She inherited the spirit of her ancestors. The Maxwells came from Pennsylvania to Rowan County, North Carolina, on that great tide of German, English, Scotch-Irish and Highland-Scotch immigration, through the Valley of Virginia and into the Piedmont region of North Carolina from Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and northeast Virginia. Elizabeth was born in 1733, and married Robert Gillespie. Of this marriage there were two children: Robert and Margaret. Margaret married Rev. S. E. McCorkle, a famous scholar and divine. Robert Gillespie, Sr., was murdered and scalped by the Indians in 1763. His widow, Elizabeth, married a second time William Steele, whose parents were Samuel and Mary (Stephenson) Steele. The Steele family was represented by six brothers, who came from Ireland to America. Ninian became an eminent preacher, and James was a prosperous farmer. Robert Gillespie had established a tavern, and after his death and her second marriage Elizabeth Steele and her husband William continued to maintain it. It was a famous resort for the prominent men of that day. The account books of the old Steele tavern are in a good state of preservation. William Steele was a Commissioner of the Borough of Salisbury. He died November 1, 1773, thirty-nine years of age, leaving only one son, the John Steele whose record has already been given. John Steele was commonly called "General," because he held the office of General of Militia. Elizabeth Maxwell is the heroine of one of the most interesting of all true stories in American history. The story is given as it is told in reliable and fully authenticated records. "On a wild and wintry night, February 1, 1781, a lonely horseman sits his weary steed seven miles below Torrence's Tavern. He waits for news of the day's campaign. It is a crucial hour; only by bringing out the militia can he oppose Cornwallis. The preceding day he had sent Morgan towards the Yadkin. The messenger arrives with news that brings despair; General Davidson had been killed, the militia scattered, Cornwallis had crossed the Catawba, Huger is hotly pressed by the British and Greene begins his weary ride to Salisbury. After Morgan learns of the crossing of Cornwallis at Cowan's Ford, he begins his retreat, February 1, toward the Yadkin along Beattie's Ford, or Sherrill's Ford Road to Salisbury. They marched through the town and encamped about one-half a mile east of the town on the Yadkin road in a grove, where is now located the home of Honorable John Steele Henderson. A surgeon of the army, Dr. Joseph Bead, with hospital stores and a number of wounded, reached Salisbury. Dr. Read establishes himself at Steele's Tavern; Greene arrives. Dr. Read said: "It was impossible not to perceive in the deranged state of his dress and the stiffness of his limbs some symptoms of his late rapid movements and exposure to the weather. " 'How do you find yourself?' asks Dr. Read. " 'Wretched beyond measure, fatigued, hungry, alone, penniless and without a friend' (for one time heroic Greene was discouraged). "Mrs. Steele heard the general's remark and replied: " 'That I deny. Come in, rest, dry yourself, and in a short time a hot breakfast shall cheer and refresh you.' "A bountiful repast was soon spread. As he sits by the table with bowed head, she enters. Handing to him two bags of specie, gold and silver coins, her savings of years, she said: " 'Take them, for you will need them and I can do without them.' "On the wall of the room hung pictures, colored engravings of King George III and Queen Charlotte, which had been given Mrs. Steele by her brother, Dr. James Maxwell. General Greene took a piece of charcoal and wrote under the picture of the king: 'Oh, George, hide thy face and mourn.' " This colored lithograph was donated to the State of North Carolina, and is still in a good state of preservation. General John Steele, the only son of this splendid woman by her second husband, married in 1783, Mary Nesfield. There were three daughters of this marriage: Anne, who married General Jesse A. Pearson; Margaret, who married Dr. Stephen Lee Ferrand; and Eliza, who married Colonel Robert Macnamara. Dr. Ferrand's daughter, Mary Steele Ferrand, was the mother of the Honorable John Steele Henderson. Richard Henderson was the father of noted sons. Two of these sons, Archibald and Leonard, rose to great eminence in North Carolina and were widely known throughout the country. Archibald, the grandfather of John Steele Henderson, was born August 7, 1768. After receiving an academic education, he studied law and settled at Salisbury for the practice of his profession. It is said of him that he was the "most perfect model of a lawyer" ever produced by the State of North Carolina. His public service included membership in the North Carolina House of Commons in 1807, 1808, 1809, 1814, 1819 and 1820, together with four years in the Federal Congress as a member of the Sixth and Seventh Congresses. He was recognized during his life as the leader of the Bar in the western half of North Carolina. He was described by Chief Justice Marshall, who knew him well, as one of the most distinguished criminal lawyers of his age. His brother Leonard also rose to great eminence in the legal profession. He was born on October 6, 1772, and admitted to the Bar in 1794. Before engaging in practice he served as clerk of the District Court of Hillsborough. In 1800 he opened an office for the practice of law and immediately, by his great legal ability, attracted general attention. Profoundly interested in politics, he became an authority on public questions as well as legal matters. It is said that his ability to seize instantly upon the vital point of controversy was remarkable. He possessed the just and evenly balanced mind which was so prominent a feature in the character of his elder brother Archibald. He conducted a law school, which was considered the best institution of that sort in the State; and many of the most noted members of the North Carolina Bar received their training at his hands. In 1808 he was made Judge of the Superior Court. After ten years in that position, he was elected to the Supreme Court, of which, in 1829, he was appointed Chief Justice, which office he was holding at the time of his death, August 13, 1833. Another member of this family, whose record measured up to the standard which had been set by the earlier generations, was Colonel Leonard Alexander Henderson, brother of John Steele Henderson. During our Civil War he served the Confederate Army as Captain of Company F, Eighth North Carolina Regiment. General Thomas L. Clingman, the brigade commander, recorded the fact that Colonel Murchison having been killed, Captain Henderson was promoted on the field of battle to the command of the regiment, and while gallantly leading it in a charge was killed at the second battle of Cold Harbor on June 1, 1864:, at the age of twenty-two. He fell as brave soldiers like to fall-in the moment of victory; for this battle was one of the most tremendous defeats inflicted by the Confederates upon the Federals during the war. Other members of the Henderson family, not in the direct line of John Steele Henderson, have won distinction. Limits of space forbid more than the merest mention. Colonel Archibald Henderson was a fine soldier of our regular army. Major Lawson Henderson was a prominent citizen of Lincoln County, and to his family belonged the celebrated General James Pinckney Henderson, who held many offices of honor, was one of the founders of the Republic of Texas, Major General of the United States Army in the war with Mexico, and died a member of the United States Senate. John Steele Henderson, of Salisbury, was born in the town where he now lives on January 6, 1846, son of Archibald and Mary Steele (Ferrand) Henderson. This Archibald Henderson (2) was the son of Archibald Henderson(1), who was the son of Richard, who was the son of Samuel, the founder of this North Carolina family. Of the various distinguished members of this family, though some were more in the public eye, none of them were loftier in character or superior in strong qualities to Archibald Henderson (2). The Hendersons have always been firm supporters of education. Archibald(1) saw to it that his son Archibald was liberally educated at Yale University and the University of Virginia. While a student at the University of Virginia young Archibald became well acquainted with President Thomas Jefferson, founder of the university, whose residence at Monticello was only two and one-half miles away. In company with other students he frequently paid visits to the old sage, and partook of his generous hospitality. On his return to North Carolina he studied law, but eventually concluded to become a planter. It may be said here in passing that from these planters came many of the strong men who made the Southern States famous in ante-bellum days. They were cultivated, they had leisure, and they took a keen interest in public affairs. Archibald Henderson(2) was a man of great political insight and acumen; his public service, however, beyond the affairs of his home community, was confined to membership in the Council of State under Governor David S. Reid, who was Governor of North Carolina from 1851 to 1855. At the age of sixteen, in January, 1862, John S. Henderson entered the University of North Carolina. Before completing his course he left the University to enter the Confederate Army in November, 1801, as a private in Company B, Tenth Regiment, North Carolina State Troops, Confederate States Army. He served at Fort Clifton, near Petersburg, under General Lee, and at Fort Branch, and at Weldon, North Carolina. Without reentering the University he was graduated in June, 1865. His preparatory training before entering the university was at Dr. Alexander Wilson's school, Melville, Alamance County. He read law and was licensed to practice in the county court by the Supreme Court of North Carolina in June, 1866, being then but twenty years old. In June, 1867, his license was extended to embrace the superior courts, he being then of age. For a period of more than forty-nine years, he has been in the active practice of his profession, in which he has risen to great distinction. He is particularly noted for his laborious application. He masters the smallest details of every question which is submitted to him. He is both learned and thorough. In this respect he has long enjoyed a reputation that few lawyers or politicians ever achieve. His public activities and his business life have covered a wide range, so much so that it is hard to understand how he has found time for the active practice of law to such an extent as to win so large a clientele. Mr. Henderson used not long since the phrase, "I am a very busy man." One would think so. He has been counsel for every company which has been organized to develop the Narrows of the Yadkin River, during the past twenty years; and he is now counsel of the company controlling the power at that point. He served as Public Register of Rowan County from 1866 to 186S, and was elected a delegate to the North Carolina Constitutional Convention in August, 1871, which convention was voted down. In 1872 and 1874 he declined nominations for, and in 1876 was elected to, the North Carolina House of Representatives. In this position, he served two years; and having been elected to the North Carolina State Senate in November, 1878, he also served two years in that body. This included the special session of 1880. He was a member of the State Constitutional Convention in 1875, was elected by the General Assembly in 1877 one of the Trustees of the University of North Carolina. He was a delegate at large from North Carolina to the National Democratic Convention, at Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1880, which nominated General Hancock for the Presidency. In 1881 he was unanimously elected by the General Assembly one of three commissioners to codify the statute laws of the State, and as such rendered the State and the profession of the law excellent and conspicuous service. His work on the Code Commission greatly enhanced his reputation. In June, 1884, he was elected presiding justice of the inferior court of Rowan County; and in the same years was elected to the Forty-ninth Congress as a Democrat, and was re-elected to the Fiftieth, Fifty-first, Fifty-second and Fifty-third Congresses, making ten full years of service in the Federal Congress. He served on the Judiciary Committee in the Fiftieth and Fifty-first Congresses, and was chairman of the Committee on Post Offices and Post-roads in the Fifty-second and Fifty-third Congresses. In June, 1890, the degree of Doctor of Laws was conferred upon him by Trinity College. In 1900, he was again elected to the North Carolina State Senate, served that term and was re-elected in 1902. He has given many years of service to the Salisbury School Board, and to the Rowan County Board of Education; and is now chairman of the latter. He has also been an alderman of the town and, for several terms, a member of the Salisbury City-Water Works Board. He served as director of the Western North Carolina Railroad from 1877 to 1881, when it was sold to the Richmond and Danville Railroad Company. He is now, and has been for twenty-eight years, a director of the Yadkin Railroad Company. He is President of the People's National Bank and director of the First National Bank and Davis and Wiley Bank, of Salisbury. This brief record of public service shows clearly the enormous amount of work this man has given to the public, none of which has been paid for in money to any appreciable extent, except his Congressional service, and even that paid him much less than he would have earned by remaining at home attending to his private business. The catalogue of his activities, however, is not yet complete. He is a member of the Dialectic Society of the University of North Carolina and was once its President; he is a member of the Zeta Psi Fraternity of the same university. He is a member of the Old Hickory Club of Salisbury, and was, for several years, its President. He belongs to the Brotherhood of St. Andrew, and was, for two years, a member of its General Council. He is Senior Warden of St. Luke's Protestant Episcopal Parish, Salisbury, which position he has held for forty-two years, and is a constant attendant at the Diocesan Conventions. He was a lay deputy to the General Conventions held at Philadelphia, New York, Richmond and Cincinnati in 1880, 1883,1907 and 1910, and has only been hindered by his professional duties from attending these great church conventions more frequently. Mr. Henderson has a genius for legislation and a knowledge of public affairs not exceeded by any one of his generation. He has been prominent as a leader in every legislative body of which he has been a member. For the five terms he served in Congress, he was generally recognized as the ablest, most industrious and most efficient representative the State of North Carolina had sent to the House since the war between the States. In Washington and elsewhere he was frequently referred to as "the Congressman from North Carolina." He gave his services with unstinted devotion, not only to his district, but to every portion of North Carolina, and was called upon for courtesies by large numbers of people who lived in many other States. His speeches always attracted attention, and those on Tariff Reform and the Internal Revenue System were largely circulated as campaign documents throughout North Carolina. Few representatives more entirely commanded the respect and esteem of the House. None of the appropriation bills reported by him were ever amended without his consent, and every such bill was adopted without opposition just as he recommended it. This record is probably unmatched by any Congressman of his day. When chairman of the Post Office and Post-roads Committee, Mr. Henderson secured the first appropriation of $10,000 for rural free delivery, and this first free delivery route was established in his own County of Rowan, at China Grove. Mr. Henderson was one of the most influential opponents of the "Force Bill." In debate the most eloquent opponent had always to be on his guard; the clear, forcible style and incontrovertible logic of Mr. Henderson carried conviction to his hearers, who remembered what he said, and knew he was telling them the truth. As a public speaker Mr. Henderson has never failed to be equal to any and every occasion, and no political adversary ever got the better of him in debate. His political speeches were so ably and thoughtfully prepared that they have been the keynote of every North Carolina campaign in which he has taken part. His "Keynote Speech" at Lincolnton, in the campaign of 1902, was especially noteworthy. In 1890, when the Farmers' Alliance was greatly in the ascendant in the State, he boldly opposed the Sub-treasury Measure. Most of the Democratic leaders, against their better judgment, were swept by the popular tide. In spite of this fact, Mr. Henderson entered the campaign declaring the measure unconstitutional; and so great was his personal following, that he was re-elected by a majority of more than four thousand-a wonderful tribute at this period of the State's history. In 1894 he told the people from every stump in his Congressional District that there was no person then born who would live to see a law passed by Congress for the free and unlimited coinage of silver. These words made a lasting impression upon all who heard them, and are now remembered to his credit, although, at the time, at least one-half of his hearers disagreed with him. Time is triumphantly vindicating his prophetic foresight. Mr. Henderson has been peculiarly brave, candid and fearless throughout his political career, and has so impressed his absolute and unassailable integrity upon the people of North Carolina that even his opponents, while disagreeing with him, have never doubted the purity of his character or the sincerity of his convictions. It is of such stuff that statesmen are made. Where can one find a man who has tried more fully or more faithfully than Mr. Henderson to perform every civic and every religious duty? No matter how preoccupied with business affairs, he has never evaded a duty. One of the public services in which he takes pride and which is in line with the general trend of his character is the fact that in the special session of the General Assembly of 1880 he was largely instrumental in procuring the passage of a bill to erect the Western North Carolina Asylum for the Insane at Morganton and was a director of that institution until after his election to Congress. From time to time Mr. Henderson has written many sketches for newspapers on subjects of contemporary interest. He wrote the "History of Episcopacy" for Rumple's "History of Rowan County." His taste in reading runs to standard works, like Gibbon, Grote, Arnold and Hume in history, Hamilton's Metaphysics, Moral Philosophy, Logic, etc. He is an earnest Bible student and from his youth has taught in Sunday-school, now teaching a men's class. He thinks of his books as companions and admits that reading is a passion with him. One must not infer from this that Mr. Henderson is merely a student, for, though he loves books and study, he uses the knowledge and information there gained as tools in the strenuous work of a very active and practical man. Mr. Henderson was married in Asheville on September 30, 1874, to Elizabeth Brownrigg Cain, born March 21, 1850, in Hillsboro, daughter of Dr. William Cain and his wife Sarah Jane (Bailey) Cain, who was a daughter of Judge John L. Bailey, a man of distinguished ability and lofty character. The children of this marriage have been Elizabeth Brownrigg Henderson, who married Lieutenant Commander Lyman Atkinson Gotten, now Naval Attache of the United States to Tokio and Peking. They have two children: Lyman Atkinson Cotten, Jr., and John Henderson Cotten. Mrs. Cotten was educated at St. Mary's College, Raleigh. Next is Archibald Henderson, professor of pure mathematics in the University of North Carolina, who married Barbara Curtis Bynum. They have three children: Mary Curtis, Elizabeth Brownrigg and Barbara Gray Henderson. The next child is John Steele Henderson, Jr., member American Institute of Electrical Engineers, who married Ruth King, of Newton Highlands, Massachusetts. The youngest child is Mary Ferrand Henderson, who is unmarried. His children are all highly cultured, literary and intellectual. Mr. Henderson's son, Professor Archibald Henderson, deserves larger mention than any biography of this character can give him. Archibald Henderson possesses an unusual combination of qualities. One would hardly expect to find in a professor of mathematics the sort of literary faculty which distinguishes him in such a high degree. As a critic Mr. Henderson has gained an international reputation; and all of his books have been published abroad as well as in the United States. His "George Bernard Shaw" alone is sufficient in itself to establish a lasting reputation. This work is the result of years of study of the man and his works, and is full of the intimate personal touch that only personal contact can give. Mr. Henderson's work is regarded as the final word on the subject of this most brilliant and most misrepresented of all dramatists. Other works of Archibald Henderson have sustained his reputation as a broad and sane thinker and a brilliant and interesting writer. "The Changing Drama" is, by many critics, considered the most valuable and original work of constructive criticism dealing with the modern drama, ever published in this country. A passing criticism made years ago, to be exact, in September, 1904, illustrates the estimation in which John Steele Henderson is held by North Carolinians. Postmaster C. T. Bailey, of Raleigh, made the statement: "I believe there are just six men of mark alive in North Carolina." "Whom would you name?" inquired a reporter. Here is the list named by the postmaster: General R. F. Hoke, Ex-Senator M. W. Ransom, Colonel A. B. Andrews, Judge Jeter C. Pritchard, Colonel John S. Henderson, and Governor Charles B. Aycock. Enough has been told for the reader to grasp the fact that the subject of this brief biography is a strong man. The beauty of his life has been that the strong qualities with which he has been endowed, have been used to the extent of his ability and opportunity for the material and moral betterment of his people. A political democrat from conviction and a real democrat by nature, he has never gotten out of touch or sympathy with his people, and has won their regard by nearly fifty years of devoted and unselfish service. Mr. Henderson's views as to things which now appeal to him most strongly are the result of natural temperament, close observation and a long life of contact with all classes of society. When last interviewed, he said: "I take great interest in public education and as chairman of the Rowan County Board of Education I am doing everything in my power to extend the school terms in the country so that every child shall have the opportunity to attend school for the full period of nine calendar months in each year. Everything relating to the improvement of health and sanitation appeals strongly to me, and I favor legislation to protect women and children from all forms of vice. I favor the establishing of training schools and reformatories for boys and girls. I consider it a reproach to practical Christianity that there are so few asylums of refuge where girls can go to escape temptation, and to be cared for and rescued after they have fallen into temptation and sin. I am deeply interested in social service and every practical scheme for the uplift of human life. Legislation should be asked to extend help and relief to the needy and distressed and to all suffering in 'mind, body and estate.' In regard to women and children the hours of labor should be carefully regulated and they should not be required to work at night. The age of consent for girls should not be less than eighteen years in any State." The Henderson Coat of Arms (as brought to Virginia by John, James and Samuel Henderson), is as follows: Arms: Gules three piles issuing out of the sinister side argent, on a chief of the last a crescent azure between two ermine spots. Crest: A cubit arm ppr. the hand holding a star or, ensigned with a crescent azure. Motto: Sola virtus nobilitat. 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/henderso40gbs.jpg File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/nc/rowan/bios/henderso40gbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/ncfiles/ File size: 35.6 Kb