The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-11-14

The life Of the Colonel w. T. Back
well, father of Durham, reads like a
romance. AS a lad, at the call of his
State, he shouldered his musket and went
to the front, doing his duty like many an
other Southern boy in the time that tried
mems souls. He had no opportunity to
distinguish himself in war and returned
home with no money and little equipment
tc win large success in the Worlds af-
fairs. He never enjoyed the advantage
CT cn education. He had no trade or
strong right arm and his ability to see
and grasp an opportunity.
After all, this elusive thing we cal:
success largely hinges upon the ability
to see an opportunity and to embrace it..
There were plenty of men in Orange and
adjacent counties with more capital, more
education, more skill. as we ordinarily
count these things, than Mr.. Blackwell,
but they did not have his commercial
vision. He was the first to see that the
occupation of Durham by the Federal
Amy had created demand Tor bright
yellow Durham tobacco and to see if that
demand was supplied fortune would come
to the man who supplied the demand
better and quicker than anybody else.
With his own hands he began the manu-
facture of tobacco, working in the cru
dest way. He improved his motheds all
the time and added better machinery un-
til all over the world Blackwelrs Durham
Smoking Tobacco was regarded as the
best smoking tobacco made anywhere In
partnership with James r. Day and
Julian S. Carr the Blackwell Durham
Tobacco Company early in the seventies
became the most prosperous and biggest
thing in North Carolina. Beginning with
the capital of few hundred dollars Col
onel Blackwell sold his interest in the
npany, after it had been firmly estab-
lished, for two hundred and fifty thou
sand in cash. When he was rich he lived
in generous style and loaned his name
and his credit and his money to his
friends without stint. He established a
bank in Durham, which enabled many
young men to lay the foundations of
their fortunes. But Colonel Blackewil
was not financier. He trusted his
friends and was greatly imposed upon.
1t was not many years after he had put
two hundred and fifty thousand in cash
in his bank before the bulk of it had
been loaned to people who had lost it in
trade and speculation and again in ma
ture life he faced poverty after rolling in
wealth. 1t was severe blow to him. He
had cultivated tastes that called for large
expenditure of money. Suddenly he
found himself unable to crafty these
tastes and forced to live in the strictest
economy. But he never lost his warm
heart and his generous impulses and his
affection and regard for his fellows He
had given generously in his day of pow
CT. When poverty came to him, though
those he had befriended could not return
the dollars, they always held him in the
warmest esteem, and he enjoyed to a de-
gree not shared by any other Durham
man the affection of all the people in
Durham. He was made postmaster of the
town. city treasurer and given other po-
sitions of like character because of. what
he had done for Durham in its struggling
days.
Colonel Blackwell was a man who made
strong friends and he so lived among his
fellows az to garner many hearts. His
passing away closes the earthly career of a
generous hearted man, who in business
success and In business failure never per-
mitted his heart to become hard or his
life to become sordid.