Copyright USGenNet Inc., 2014 All Rights Reserved USGenNet Data Repository Please read USGenNet Copyright Statement on this page: Transcribed and submitted by Linda Talbott for the USGenNet Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ =========================================================================== Formatted by USGenNet Data Repository Chief Archivist, Linda Talbott All of the above information must remain when copied or downloaded. =========================================================================== Biographical History of North Carolina, Vol 7 by Samuel A'Court Ashe pub. Charles L. Van Noppen, Greensboro, N.C. - 1908 [pp. 26-28] WILLOUGHBY FRANCIS AVERY ------------------------ WILLOUGHBY FRANCIS AVERY, youngest child of COLONEL ISAAC T. AVERY, was born May 7, 1842, at the old homestead Swan Ponds, on the Catawba, in Burke County. He was the Benjamin of a large family, the pride of his father, far past middle life at his birth, and as youth and man was cast in nature's strongest mold. His early instruction was received in part at the Marion Acad- emy, then conducted by MR. MORRISON, the youth boarding at his aunt's, MRS. ADOLPHUS ERWIN'S, at Pleasant Gardens, three miles distant, thus necessitating a daily walk of six miles. In all boy- ish exercises he was then famous, being of dauntless and most in- trepid spirit, and gifted with a frame of iron and nerve of steel. At the university he stood first in a large class, but left the institution to volunteer in the Confederate army, his first service being lieutenant in a company of cavalry raised in Burke County by COLONEL T. G. WALTON, which became Company F, Forty-third North Carolina or Third Cavalry. Later in the war he was commissioned second lieutenant in the Thirty-third regiment, commanded by his brother, COLONEL C. M. AVERY, on recommendation of LIEUTENANT- COLONEL, afterward BRIGADIER-GENERAL, HOKE, while his brother was a prisoner. In this regiment he became, by promotion for good con- duct, captain of Company C, composed mainly of men recruited in Forsyth and Yadkin counties. He was in many difficult and trying situations, several times wounded, and his death after the war was the direct result of an absolutely shattered nervous system, grow- ing out of a mouth and throat wound received in the battle of the Wilderness in May, 1864. This wound necessitated sharp surgery of the most painful nature and compelled the use of false teeth, which he wore with difficulty owing to the course of the ball. WILLOUGHBY AVERY had a remarkably fine sense of humor and en- joyed a joke even when he was the butt of it. One such now occurs to me in connection with his army experience. Late in 1864 or early in 1865, when the thin line at Petersburg was daily growing thinner and desertions had increased in frightful proportions, on a certain dark night a squad of men crossed the lines and took ser- vice with the enemy. Among them were some men of AVERY'S company; and the Federal line reaching up to the Confederate line so close as to permit conversation, a little Irish Federal sergeant mounted in front of the Thirty-third regiment and made proclamation for "CAPTAIN AVERY" - so the story was told. The "Johnnies" yelled back to know his reason. "I want him," said Pat, "to come over and take charge of his company." In humor he far surpassed, this writer's opinion, any member of his family; and they are a people, without exception, gifted in this regard. In the years after the war AVERY was connected at one time or another with the Asheville, Charlotte, Hickory and Morgan- ton press, and if from their files could be dug out, as has been done in the case of his nephew, the brilliant ERWIN AVERY of the Charlotte Observer, specimens of his rich and varied vein of humor, a veritable feast of good things would delight the lover of folk- lore. Nor was his genius confined to things witty and sharp. He could at times blow a bugle blast (in his paper) which roused the patriotism and party pride of men as effectively as the best stump efforts of VANCE and men of his like. Soon after the war he married Miss MATTIE JONES, of the Happy Valley family in Caldwell, by whom he had one child, which died in infancy, not long surviving the death of its mother. For years MR. AVERY remained a widower, when in 1875 he married Miss LAURA ATKINSTON, of Johnston County, a stepdaughter of HON. W. A. SMITH, by whom he left a son, WILLOUGHBY MOULTON AVERY, recently married to Miss EMMA SHARPE, of Greensboro, a granddaughter of JUDGE SETTLE. This writer can never forget the shock which came to him upon receiving a despatch at Statesville from MAJOR SMITH announcing MR. AVERY'S death at his (SMITH'S) home in Johnston County. AVERY had gone to the meeting of the General Assembly of 1876, intending to be a candidate for one of the clerkships, his paper, the Blue Ridge Blade, having rendered distinguished service in the VANCE-SETTLE, TILDEN-HAYES canvass then closed. He left Raleigh for a visit to his people, and our next news was that of his death - the death of young Lycidas in his prime - Nov. 24, 1876. WILLOUGHBY AVERY never held public office, never seemed am- bitious in that way; he was too much of a lover of a good time for business or business methods; and yet he worked unsparingly when his heart was in the task, and of newspaper work he was exceedingly fond. That was the work he had taken for his life-work, but its opportunity and emoluments were far less in his day than in ours. Along with W. A. HERNE and others of that school he was sowing in a field where J. P. CALDWELL and men of the later school reaped a fine reward as the demand grew and general intelligence advanced. But on that account what he did and praise for the power that was in him to have done more should not be passed by lightly. He was an all-round giant intellectually, evolving slowly, at times pain- fully, but a truth-seeker to the core, and having a mind analytic as well as synthetic. His reading was accurate, extensive and solid. As a critic his judgments were entitled to respect, and no man in this section ever evinced more of the Thackeray talent for satire upon society. W. S. PEARSON. =========================================================================== If you've reached this file through a SEARCH, you can access more of our growing collection of FREE online information by going to the following URL: http://www.us-data.org/ ===========================================================================