Scotland County NcArchives Photo Person.....McNeill, 1874-1907, John Charles 
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Name:               John Charles McNeill, 1874-1907
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John Charles McNeill, 1874-1907

Transcribed by Mary Modlin.  This book is available for online reading or PDF 
download from Google.

SPRING HILL is the name of a community in the heart of the original Scotch 
settlement of North Carolina, and generations of that substantial stock have 
come and gone without loss of the blood or the spirit which is everywhere 
their glory.

In this community John Charles McNeill, the poet, was born, July 26, 1874, and 
there he was reared.

Of the contribution of locality, of blood and of moral and intellectual 
atmosphere to genius, we can make no proper measure.  But I regard it 
important to the purpose of this sketch that the reader first obtain a 
conception of the Spring Hill region and people.

The land lies low, and the far horizon makes its moving appeal wherever the 
eye may fall.  The fields present vistas of corn and cotton and grass, with 
the woods of cypress and pine and gum in the background.  The houses are the 
headquarters of wide-sweeping and well-kept farms, and the vine an fig tree 
flourish near by.  Throughout the settlement winds the Lumber River, wine-
colored, steady, deep, and swift or slow, according to the season; a darksome 
stream, where the red-throat, the pickerel, and the large-mouth bass find 
homes all to their liking, save for he fisher-boy who overtakes them with bob 
or bait.  To spend a sunset hour beneath the cypress gloom hard by; to catch 
the note of the far-circling fields in the stilly hour; to respond to the 
color of land and heaven and horizon and the sombre quiet all around---is to 
realize that this is the poet's clime.

"The poet in a poet's clime was born."

The center of this community is an ancient church, school, and temperance 
hall, the three being within speaking distance of one another.  Of the 
civilization of this settlement I need say o more; these are their witnesses.  
The church was presided over throughout these generations by two really great 
ministers---Daniel White, the patron saint---if the Scotch will tolerate that 
term---and John Monroe, the patriarch of the people.  It is impossible to 
measure the impress of these men; they ministered according to the best 
traditions of their callings.  They were the wisest, the most eloquent, and 
the best men their people had ever known; their chosen leaders, their 
spiritual fathers and daily examples.  Not only did they dominate the church, 
the school, and the lodge; their lives prevailed over all, and do prevail to 
this day, though they have long been gathered to their fathers.

The temperance lodge was no insignificant member of this trinity of social, 
intellectual, moral, and spiritual springs.  Here the young people were 
accustomed to assemble to exercise their gifts in entertainments and debates.  
That there was sufficient interest to sustain the institution speaks 
abundantly of the moral fiber of the community, and I could produce an array 
of facts that would convince every other community in North Carolina that such 
an institution is worthy of all that it may require.  I could name leaders now 
serving North Carolina who received their strongest impressions and found play 
for their best gifts here.  So much for the locality.

John Charles McNeill is a lineal descendant of Daniel White and John Monroe; 
his grandfathers, John McNeill and Charles Livingston, emigrated from 
Argyleshire, Scotland, about the beginning of the nineteenth century.  His 
grandmothers were born in America.  His father, Duncan McNeill, now enjoying a 
hale old age, and his mother, Euphemia Livingston, who has lived to read the 
poet's exquisite lines to her, are most excellent people.  Their home is the 
typical home of a Scotch farmer and leader---leading man---full of light, rich 
in books and periodicals and music, given to hospitality and generous of 
comfort, a fireside of sweet living and high thinking.  Captain McNeill is 
himself a stalwart citizen, fond of public speaking, in which he is 
accomplished; devoted to the young, one time an editor and lecturer, a writer 
of verse, an earnest supporter of his church and party, an insatiable reader, 
and, personally, a most delightful companion.  His wife is likewise a woman of 
gifts and graces worthy of her line; gentle, all-womanly, her face a delight 
of sweetness and her ways the ways of a mother-heart.  Their godly lives adorn 
their confession of Jesus Christ.

John Charles, born of such parents and reared in such a community, spent his 
youth in the occupations of the farmer's boy.  His chief task was to "mind the 
cows," and he know also the plow and the hoe; but I have heard it said that he 
lost many a furrow because he would read and plow at the same time.  To bring 
the cows home at evening; to do the chores of the household; to attend school 
in the hours; to fish and hunt and roam the woods and swim the river and 
explore the swamps whenever he could---these were the other elements of his 
making.  He is to this day a woodsman of parts, the trees and flowers and 
birds and beasts, their habits and wants, are known to him as by second 
nature, and likewise, the homely features of farm life, the negro songs and 
customs, the local ne'er-do-wells, the original characters---one would infer 
upon a brief acquaintance with him that they no less than the more innocent 
children of nature were his peculiar friends.

He entered school in early youth and proved an apt student.  His preparation 
being completed in the Spring Hill and Whiteville academies, he entered Wake 
Forest College, graduating therefrom in 1898 at the head of his class, in 
recognition of which honor he was awarded the privilege of making the 
valedictory address.  His poetic gifts were manifested early in his college 
career, and Professor B. F. Sledd was prompt and diligent to encourage and 
direct him.  In the college magazine his verses often appeared, and they were 
from the first of an order to command attention.  In fact, while his poetry 
has gained in range, finish, and abundance in the years since, the strain of 
his productions may yet be traced in all his verse.

He was chosen to assist Professor Sledd as tutor in the department of English 
while he was taking his bachelor's degree, and he improved the opportunity 
that was thus afforded to remain another year and win from Wake Forest the 
master's degree---the highest that the college awards---in 1899.

In 1900, he was elected assistant professor of English in Mercer University, 
of Georgia; but after a year he relinquished this post for the practice of 
law, having prepared for that profession at Wake Forest in 1896-97, and 
received from the Supreme Court of North Carolina license to practice in 
1897.  He opened an office in Laurinburg---within a few miles of Spring Hill.  
It was my fortune to spend a day with him during this period.  We were 
together in his office; there were clients, but their causes were obviously 
foreign to the genius of Mr. McNeill.  The while he would be discussing some 
poem or reading at my request one of his own, in would come some troubled 
spirit seeking his assistance in getting back a mule that had been swapped in 
a none too sober moment.

Nevertheless this was a fruitful period in Mr. McNeill's career---both as a 
poet and a lawyer.  The Century Magazine readily accepted his verses, printed 
them with illustrations, and encouraged him to send others.  On the other 
hand, clients increased, and, moreover, Mr. McNeill's fellow-citizens sent him 
to the General Assembly of North Carolina---a member of the house.  In this 
relation he acquitted himself well, bringing to his tasks a homely knowledge 
of his people and a sound common sense.

But there was no suppressing the higher call.  With that find appreciation 
which has made the Charlotte Observer notable for its young men---as well as 
its "old man"---Editor J. P. Caldwell offered Mr. McNeill a place on his 
staff, with the freedom of the paper and the world.  I have the editorial 
announcement to support me in the statement that Mr. McNeill was assigned to 
no especial post nor required to perform any particular work.  His task was to 
write whatsoever he might be pleased to write.

We owe it to the Charlotte Observer that Mr. McNeill has had such freedom to 
exercise his gifts.  His poems have come in perilous abundance; and at the 
same time he has done work as a reporter of public occasions that alone would 
have commanded for him a place on his paper.  He has also produced no little 
prose of original character and great worth---paragraphs portraying life, 
humorous incidents, observations; and now and then a series of excellent 
fables as native to the soil and as apropos as those of Ęsop.

Mr. McNeill's column of verses promptly commanded the enthusiastic praise of 
readers throughout the State and of the press in other states.  He was hailed 
as a poet indeed, and at the first year's end he was unanimously awarded the 
Patterson Cup, in recognition of the fact that he had made the best 
contribution to literature in North Carolina.  This cup was presented to Mr. 
McNeill by President Roosevelt.  Within the year following Mr. McNeill 
published his one volume entitled "Songs Merry and Sad," and the first edition 
was promptly exhausted.

Mr. McNeill's poetic gift bears these marks:  it is lyric; it is genuine; it 
is of the sun rather than the lamp; it is close to nature---the earth, the 
seasons, man and beast, home, and the daily round of experiences.  It is 
suggestive rather than descriptive, and spontaneous rather than labored.  
There is pathos and humor; but above either the strain of tenderness in 
dominant, tenderness of phrase and of feeling.  One feels that he has yet to 
strike the greater chords, and at the same time he is convinced he reads that 
he has all but done that, so nearly having attained it, that at any moment the 
larger gift may be ours.

Such songs as "Oh, Ask Me Not," "A Christmas Hymn," "When I Go 
Home," "Harvest," and "Vision," are tokens of a rich vein of the genuine gold; 
while the poems "October," Sundown," "If I Could Glimpse 
Him," "Alcestis," "The Bride," "Oblivion," "The Caged 
Mockingbird," "Dawn," "Paul Jones," as I have intimated, though they have not 
yet elevated Mr. McNeill above the ranks of the minor poets, they carry a 
charm, they work upon the imagination with a power, they afford a subtle joy 
that bespeaks the noblest promise.

Since writing the foregoing sketch, the South Atlantic Quarterly has appeared 
containing a critical appreciation of the poems of Mr. McNeill, by Edward K. 
Graham, professor of English literature.  He declares that Mr. McNeill is the 
first "North Carolina poet to win the ear of the whole State"; and speaks of 
his volume as "the most poetic collection by a North Carolinian that has yet 
appeared."  He adds, "At a time when poetry has lost the appeal of passion, it 
is peculiarly grateful to come into the warm confidence of emotion always 
gentle, intimate, and manly, and in its best moments, infinitely tender."  
Professor Graham's conclusion, on the whole, is implied in his final 
sentence:  "Conviction of great poetic power we seldom feel in reading the 
volume, but the presence of the diving gift of poetry we are always sensible 
of---the gift to minister to some need of the spirit---as when a simple heart-
song speaks the heart of all mankind."

Thus the scholar's critical insight confirms the public taste which had 
already chosen Mr. McNeill as the favorite writer of all this region.


Josiah William Bailey.

Books by John Charles McNeill available on Google Books:

Songs, Merry and Sad, published in 1906 by Stone & Barringer Co., Charlotte, 
N. C.

Additional Comments:
Source:  Ashe, Samuel A., Weeks, Stephen B., and Van Noppen, Charles L., 
Biographical History of North Carolina, From Colonial Times to the Present, 
Volume VII, Charles L. Van Noppen, Greensboro, N.C., 1908, pp. 312-317

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