The state chronicle. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1883-1893, 1891-04-08

The development Of North Carolina
from Salisbury to Murphy has been
largely due to the Western North Caro-
lima Railroad Through this graf artery
the blood of prosperity has flowed and
is still flowing with increasing volume
into every county from the cotton fields
of Rowan to the meadow lands of Chero-
kee. No man has done more to forward
the completion of this magnificent com
| mercial highway, than has james w.
| Wilson, the subject of this sketch, who,
with short intervals of rest, for thirty
| 1--WE years, from 1868 to 1888, gave to
this Titan work his assiduous attention
| and unremittiug Gaze.
The tourist, westward bound, who
| speeds in a Pullman car from Salisbury
to Paint Rock in nine hours, will look
| from the Car windows on the finest piece
| of railway engineering that can be found
e lst of the Mississippi. In fact, it is
doubtful if anything can be found on the
great trunk lines that pierce the snow
capped Rockies and Sierras to surpass
this pathway for the moderniZed levia-
| than, than that from Round koob to
Swanpanoa is curved and looped and
twisted through tunnels and along dizzy
inclines, like lariat hurled through the
air.
| The credit of planning this great work
and carrying it out through all its per
picking details has been justly attributed
to the chairman of North Carolina's new
Railway Commission,
| Commissioner Wilson, son of the
distinguished Presbyterian educator and
divine, Rev. Alexander Wilson D. D !,
was born in Granville county North
Carolina on December 18th 1882, and is
therefore now in his fifty ninth year. He
was prepared for college under the IN
| struction of his father and at the cele
brated Caldwell Institute at Greensboro,
N G. In 1850 he entered the Senior class
at the University of North Carolina, then
the leading educational Institution in
the South Atlantic States, and gradual
ed with distinction in 1852. Some years
before he ef1tered college he had deter
mined on adopting the profession of a
civil engineer, and Immediately after Ills
graduation he joined a corps of engi-
neers under Gen. Rhodes, then making
a preliminary survey of a part of the
Western North Carolina Rail
road. Entering the service as a
rodsman, he soon gave evidence of that
talent which has since made him famous,
and rapidly rising to the position of as
slstant to his chief, he was assigned tC
work out the most intricate problems
connected with the location of the road
While engaged in this work, the young
engineer met Miss Louise, the beautifu
daughter of Col. Adolphus Erwin, Of
Pleasant Garden, Mcdowell county, ano
his wooing, prosecuted with the same
intrepid energy which has marked hi:
action in undertakings less pleasant ani
romantic, resulted in a wedding at the
stately old country seat on The uppe1
Catawba in the Spring OF fateful sixty
one. -,
A few months after his marriage, Mr.
Wilson needed the call of North Caro-
lima for troops, and raising company
of his boyhood companions on the Hav
river hills, entered Col. Fosters regi
ment as Captain. of Co. F., and made
brilliant record for bravery during til
terrible struggle between the States. 81
retired with the rank OF Major and viii
{ g. reputation as soldier and leader o
, men which entities him to q much NOR,
exalted position.
! Near ths close of the war Major Will
! son was appointed by Gov. Vance Supt
of the Western North Carolina Railroad
In 1876 he was elected President of tha
road and served four years until tn