Southampton County Virginia USGenWeb Archives Obituaries.....Camp, John M., 1963 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/va/vafiles.htm ************************************************ JOHN MADISON CAMP RITES HELD FOR J.M. CAMP, PROMINENT INDUSTRIALIST Funeral services were Tuesday morning for John Madison Camp, 78, of Franklin who died Sunday morning in a Richmond Hospital after a brief illness. He entered the hospital Thursday and was thought to be on the way to recovery when death came unexpectedly. One of Virginia;s leading industrialists, he was also prominent in agriculture and as a public officer with active interests and large influence in many diverse fields. He was a director of Union-Bag-Camp Paper corporation, and had been director and vice-president of its predecessor Camp Manufacturing Company. He was long a member of the Board of Supervisors of Southampton County, and its Chairman for the past several years. He was president of the V.M.I., occupied his interest and held his devotion almost equally with family, business and church. His loyalty was a watchword at the institute, his benefactions to it were material, and his continuous service there brought him in close association with the great figures of recent history who have frequented V.M.I.’s parade ground and participated in its operations. At one time he prevailed upon the college to purchase a large tract of land near the school for future homes for faculty members and retired faculty members. Though the land was never used for that purpose it is today referred to as Camp’s Corners. Mr. Camp began work with the Company in 1906 in the sawmill at Franklin. In 1910 he moved into the managership of Judson Lumber Company at Carrabelle, Florida. In 1911 he became superintendent of the lumber mill at Wilmington, North Carolina to build and operate the mill until 1920. While there he was in 1915 made assistant secretary of the Company, and when his brother, P.R. Camp entered the armed services in 1918, he was moved to Franklin to take charge of logging operations. Promoted in 1918 to Vice-President, he was returned immediately after World War to Wallace, and in 1922 built the Company’s mill at St. Stephens, South Carolina. He moved again and finally to Franklin in 1923, but continued to operate the Wallace Mill until it closed down and the St. Stephens mill until it was disposed of in 1942. Mr. Camp has been at various times president of Carolina Western Railroad, Vice-President of Roanoke Railway Company, President of Franklin & Carolina Railroad, Secretary-Treasurer of Chesapeake-Camp Corporation. He was Vice-President and General Manager of the old Camp Manufacturing Company, and officer and director of all the Company’s subsidiaries. At the time of his retirement he was Vice-President in charge of all timber and wood procurement. Until recently he was a member of the Board of Visitors of Virginia Military Institute, and at one time Chairman of that Board. He has contributed much to the Virginia Manufacturers Association and has been one of its most outstanding Presidents. After his retirement from active management of his company in 1950, he and Mrs. Camp traveled extensively until he was requested to serve in the crisis created by the Korean Episode and became head of the Wood Products Division of the National Production Authority, in which he continued for two years. He was a strong advocate of timberland ownership and advanced cultivation of pine forest. His widely acknowledged prestige in the lumber and paper industry was due in large part to his insistence on those principles. If vigorous physique and excellent health, he experienced in his long life no significant sickness until his last. He was the first to die of the many children of P.D., J.L. and R.J. Camp, who were the founders of the Camp Company, since the death of the parents which occurred, respectively, in 1924, 1925 and 1915. It was an unbroken span of thirty-eight years for the sixteen immediate descendents of those three industrial pioneers. Camp was a devoted member of the Baptist Church, first at Sycamore Baptist Church, in Southampton County, of which his father and mother were among the founders, and throughout his adult life at Franklin Baptist Church in Franklin. He had been a deacon for the latter for many years. His parents were the late Paul Douglas Camp and the late Mrs. Camp, who was Ella Virginia Cobb, both natives of Southampton County. He married Mary Elizabeth Webb, of Fort Smith, Arkansas, who survived him and was with him in Richmond at the time of his death. He is also survived by three children, Mrs. Charles Lee Smith, Jr., of Raleigh, North Carolina, John M. Camp, Jr. of Franklin and Mrs. Lawrence McNeill Johnson of Aberdeen, North Carolina, by ten grandchildren; and by his sisters and brothers, Paul Ryland Camp of Franklin, Mrs. Webster Upson Walker, of Bridgeport, Connecticut, Mrs. William Marion Ballard of Franklin, Mrs. Charles R. Younts, of Atlanta, Mrs. W.R. McDougall, of San Antonio, Texas, Mrs. Robert Franklin Marks of Boykins, and Dr. P.D. Camp, Jr. of Richmond. A funeral service was held in Franklin Tuesday morning at 11:00 at the Franklin Baptist Church. Interment followed at Poplar Spring Cemetery. Pallbearers were John E. Ray III, Sol W. Rawls, Jr., Robert C. Ray, Robert B. Allport, Clifford A. Cutchins III, Joe D. Neikirk, A. Clifford Miller and Major General George R.E. Shell, commanding officer of V.M.I., Lexington. ****************************************************************************** JOHN MADISON CAMP John M. Camp was an industrialist who did much for the up-building of Virginia, especially in paper manufacturing and the conservation of timber, and who also made constructive contributions in the spheres of education and local government. He was the son of Paul D. Camp, the principal founder, in the 1880’s, of the Camp Manufacturing Co. John Camp grew up in the business, along with other members of his family, and they built the company into one of the south’s leading enterprises in its field. The company, now the Union Bag-Camp Paper Corp., dominates the city of Franklin and the surrounding area. Some facets of how this region grew and prospered, with the Camp family in a leading role, are charmingly and informally touched upon by Miss Frances Lawrence Webb in her recently published "Recollections of Franklin and Historical Sketches of Southampton County." John M. Camp was long active in community affairs. A member of the Southampton County Board of Supervisors for the past quarter of a century, he was its chairman for the six years preceding his death. As president of the Virginia Manufacturers’ Association he was active in promoting the industrial growth of the Commonwealth. As an enlightened advocate of sound forestry methods, designed to build up the timber resources of the state and nation, Mr. Camp worked tirelessly. He was among the first to see the necessity for abandoning the earlier destructive timber-cutting policies which prevailed in some quarters, and under which forests were recklessly slashed to pieces, with little or no thought for the future. But if Mr. Camp had one enduring passion, outside of his family and his business, it was for the Virginia Military Institute. As a member of its board of visitors, and then as president of the VMI Foundation - which post he held at the time of his death - he rendered conspicuous service to the institute. Only one other alumnus of VMI - the late John C. Hagan of Richmond - was the recipient of the VMI diploma of distinction, in recognition of "exceptionally distinguished service: to that historic institution. John M. Camp was a member of a family which has made important contributions to the progress of Virginia. He himself made one of the greatest contributions of all. John Madison CAMP, Chairman of the Southampton Co. Board of Supervisors, industrialist- son of Camp Manufacturing Co. founder Paul D. CAMP, VMI Foundation president, Franklin native, d. 6 Oct 1963, interred in Poplar Spring Cemetery (Annex 2, Plot 104*), Franklin, "The Tidewater News" (Franklin, VA), Oct. 10, 1963, pp. 1 & 3; donated tribute, source unknown *Southampton County Historical Society {SCHS} Cemetery Project, Poplar Spring list: http://files.usgwarchives.net/va/southampton/cemeteries/psanx2.txt His parents are buried in Section 1, Plot 56. SCHS Cemetery Project, Poplar Spring list: http://files.usgwarchives.net/va/southampton/cemeteries/poplar1.txt His mother's obit ("Tidewater News," Sep. 16, 1938, p. 1), with her marriage record appended, is posted at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/va/southampton/obits/c510e2ob.txt His widow's obit ("Tidewater News," July 11, 1966, p. 6) is posted at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/va/southampton/obits/c510m3ob.txt Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Parker C. Agelasto & Mrs. Bruce Saunders (bs4403@verizon.net), and re-formatted by File Manager. file at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/va/southampton/obits/c510j1ob.txt