Lenoir County NcArchives Biographies.....Stanly, William Franklin 1844 - 1911
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Jesse Vaughan - jlv@hal-pc.org
WILLIAM FRANKLIN STANLY
NOTE: Jesse Vaughan was told by Miss Eugenie Scarborough dec his day of birth was
Sept 25th. According to Mr. Vaughan he looked for the gravesite several years ago
at Maplewood and could not find it so it is not known if maybe he was moved to
some other location.
Following at Heritage Place, LCC
DEATH CERTIFICATE
Lenoir County
Wm Franklin Stanley
Date of Birth 25 Sept 1844
Date of Death 17 May 1911
Married
Birthplace Jones Co
Father Wright Stanley b Jones Co, Mother Sarah Becton
Buried Maplewood
The Free Press Saturday May 20 1911
Mr. W. F. Stanley Passes
Well known and Prominent Citizen of the City Died Wednesday Evening of Chronic
LaGrippe
Mr. W. F. Stanley, a well known citizen and former mayor of this city, died at
his home on Bright street Wednesday evening at 6:30 o'clock, after a lingering
illness of chronic lagrippe. The funeral took place Thursday afternoon at 5
o'clock and interment will be made in Maplewood cemetery. Rev. J. H. Griffith
will conduct the service. Mr. Stanley is survived by his wife and one son, Mr.
Harold D. Stanley. The following tribute to his memory is from the pen of his
lifelong friend, Dr. John A. Pollock:
In Memorian
After an illness of several weeks of chronic lagrippe, ex Mayor Wm F. Stanley has
been called away and is now at rest.
Born in Jones County, September 1844, came to Kinston soon after the death of his
parents; made Kinston his home, was educated at the old academy and later
attended the schools at Hillsboro.
He was of a historic family, and as a citizen and soldier, he met the inevitable
events of life, calmly and creditably.
At the call for volunteers for the defense of the south, Stanley, but a
stripling, promptly responded. When the fight was on at New Bern, Stanley, in
Fort Anderson, was among the last to leave the guns.
In the battles against Sherman in Georgia and at Fort Fisher, Stanley displayed
courage and judgment. When the federals landed near the fort, Stanly led the
charge and drove them back under the protection of their ironclads. During the
murderous bombardment he fought his guns and surrendered after the fort was rent
and torn by shot and shell, and when wounded and bleeding, Sergt. Nick Hunter
said, Stanly objected to giving up the fort and begged to not lower the flag
Boys don't lower the flag. When the surrender was made, he broke his sword and
threw it into the sea. Coming back from prison, he soon married Miss Nannie
Coward, and after her death married Mrs. Elizabeth Aldridge Tilghman.
In manner he was modest and deferential; in disposition constant, aspiring and
given to hospitality; in the way of fairness and truth one might say of him Dare
make a sounder man than Surry can be. He became an extensive merchant, was
elected mayor several terms, and the town clock will always be in rest of line
has a mark through it interest for the convenience of the public in general.
In politics a Democrat, in religion a Baptist. The good of Kinston and the
community at large was ever dear to his innermost nature.
The charm of the man was his innate fearlesancss (sic) and an earnest sympathy.
In the hours of danger and peril in sickness and in death, he was like unto the
brace, the chivalrous Frank Cox, ever ready to take time, to give timely advice
and stand steadily by his friend in need.
No man that is a man, can repress the cry of the soul, at the loss of a life-long
friend.
Good-bye, great heart, dear old comrade, we will meet again, where the morning
stars are shinning, dear old schoolmate of the long ago all hail farewell
until that time cometh where the shadows shall flee away, yea, when the
everlasting day-dawn of nevermore appeareth.
NOTE: The copy did not come out well from here to the end.
Lead gently, Father God, as he passes over the bar. Now in the saddened fullness
of time, now at the natural ending of a crucible friendship unbroken seven and
fifty years. I feel impelled to stand and say
This cold earth, that bears the dead body of Stanley
Dears not alive a stouter gentleman.
Dr. John A. Pollock
Kinston Free Press Saturday, May 10, 1911
THE PASSING OF MR. STANLEY
With the passing of Mr. W. F. Stanley, Kinston loses another member of her old
guard. The ranks are thinning year by year and even now most of its members have
crossed the bar. They have turned over their work to their successors; and the
Kinston of today is in the hands of its younger men. Will they build as wisely
and as well as did the old guard?. The answer remains to be ascertained.
Mr. Stanley has been prominent in Kinston's affairs. He was mayor of the
municipality and active in business circles. One of the touching incidents at the
close of his long and active career was the fact that at his death bed as a
devoted servant, fanning the flies from that beloved face which was soon to
become cold in death, stood his former slave body servant, his boyhood playmate,
the faithful servant of his young manhood on the battlefield and around the camp
fires of the great struggle between the states, the colored friend of his later
years. And during the last sad hours this old colored man was as constant and
true to his prostrate master as in the golden days of yere, when both were
carefree, or in those stormy times when the here master was undergoing a baptism
of shot and shell as the invader was trespassing on southern soil.
The younger men, into whose keeping has been confided the destinies of our
future, cannot afford to forget incidents like these that in the olden days
such genuine attachments were formed between master and slave, and that time's
ruthless touch is fast obliterating whatever remains of those chivalrie days.
Memories of this kind ought to soften the harsh ephumerial?? Spirit of the age,
recall as somewhat from the strenuous life and remind us that the sentimental,
the ideal values the noblest things of life, while the dollar is after all, a
poor measure of the true meaning of moral existence.
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