The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1895-10-03

CHARLES BROADWAY ROUSS.
Of the Well Known New
York Merchant and PhilanthrOpist.


York Merchant and PhilanthrOpist.
From the Louisburg Times we see that
Rev. James Battle Avirett, scholarly
and accomplished gentleman and Epis-
copalian minister, is engaged upon a BIZ
ography of Mr.. Charles Broadway Rouss,
of New York City. AS is known to many
OF our readers Mr.. Rouss is a native OF
Winchester, Va, and is noted for his de-
votion to the South and it's history. He
is self-made man, and the story OF his
life as told by one SO competent and
we'll furnished as Mr.. Avirett could not
fail of interest und value to old and
young The Times says:
If for none other reason than that OF
honest, healthful gratitude, the people
of the South are entitled to know more OF
Mr. Rouss, whose success in the mercan-
tile world, is only equalled by his rare
thoughtfulness OF, and remarkable devo-
ton to- the people of his native land.
With fortune SO colossal as to range
away up in the millions, and yet COM
paratively young man, il life lasts, as
Ne trust it may, before he is gathered
unto his fathers, and his body placed
among Ills kindred in Stonewall Cemetery
in Winchester, Va, at the Northern gate
OF the Confederacy, it is not too much TO
say he will be the pOssessOr OF a princely
estate, of not less than fifty millions OF
money. Up to q certain point in his
wonderful life, there was with him a love
OF desire for money, OF certain excep-
tionai common-sense order. Primarily,
he desired to make all of his family thor
olghly comfortable and to place himself
in the position in which his friends and
Others could point to his remarkablesuc
cess as fully exemplifying his business
creed. the cardinal features of which is a
we'll digested and wisely directed antag-
onism in the Hydra-headed credit sys-
TEN in business. In both of these he
has succeeded beyond his most sanguine
expectations. Now he tells his friends
that he is just as rich as he wishes to be,
and that hereafter he proposes to ad-
minister upon his own estate in such
benefactions to public and private char
tiles as will gladden. the hearts of the
people OF the South, and his own as well.
For example, within the past four
months he has offered one hundred
thousand dollars for the establishment
of Confederate Memorial Temple, in
which may be safely kept the archives
and monuments of the men who followed
Generals Lee, "StOnewall" Jackson and
others Recently he has endowed two
scholarships in the Conservatory of art
in Paris, to be filled by the most compe-
tent young man and woman, to befOund
competitive examination. Not long ago
he gave $40, 900 to perfect the wa ter sup
ply in his old town of Winchester, Va.
Annually, he gives 81 900 to the Shen-
andoah Valley Agricultural Fair. He
has given, and fully equipped three
Steam Fire engines to the same old war
beaten town. Recently he gave $12, 200
with which to place a fine iron fence
around the "StOnewalf' Cemetery, in
which sleep four hundred North Carolina
Confederate dead, who with their COM
patriots from other States swell the
death roll to thousands. Daily he gives
sometimes five, ten, twenty and one hun
dred dollars to those of his Southern
friends whom he knows to be both needy
and deserving. The genuine Southerner,
yes, the truly kind hearted man or
woman the country over, without regard
to lines of latitude or longitude, will
gladly look into the history of this man,
largely the most phenomenal of his age
and generation. We mean no disparage-
ment when we say that Stephen Girard
enriched Philadelphia only after death
had stopped his brilliant career OF acqui-
sitiOn. AS with Girard so with Johns
Hopkins and McDonough the two great
Baltimore City benefactors. But this
man gives while he lives, and it may be
said HE LIVES TO GIVE and it only re-
mains to be seen, when he comes to die,
in how far and in what way his people
made poor by his death in one sense,
will be enriched by the climax OF his ben
of a noble University equipped with a
of the descendants of those men whom
this noble Virginia private touched
shoulder to shoulder and heart to heart
during the glorious days and deeds from
1861 to 1865. The history of this de-
voted Southern phianthropist, this
Prince Merchant, this EX-Rebel private,
this bold and brilliant Apostle OF the
Cash System, as against the enslaving
Credit, preaching the safe doctrine OF the
sound views of political economy in his
mammoth establishment on Broadway,
in New York, and from the counters OF
more than a thousand branch stores in
the United States and Canada, is being
carefully prepared by the Rev. James
Battle Avirett, late Chaplain of the
Ashby Brigade Army OF Northern Vir-
ginia. The work will be a labor of love,
painstaking, accurate and scholarly and
will go down with Southern literature as
embalming the memory, because cher
ishing the deeds of this man, of whom
the whole South should be proud, and
for whom she ought alike to be pro-
foundry thankful.
In this connection we may say that
Mr.. Avirett has already won high enco-
miums for his work along this line. Sew
eral years ago he wrote a Memoir OF
Gen. Turner Ashby, Stonewall Jackson's
famous cavalry leader, than whom there
was no m ore gallant and dashing officer
OF the Confederacy, whose intrepid spirit
received it's death wound on June 9th
1862. After referring to the life of Mr.
Rouss which the scholarly and accom-
plished author is engaged upon, the
Times says further:
We hear also that Mr.. Avirett has had