The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1903-11-17
THELATE COL. ". T. RL ACK VEIL

The life of the Colonel ". T. Back
well. father Of Durham. reads like a
1olnance. AS a lad, at the call OF us
state, he s~houldered his musket and went
to the front, doing his duty Ike many an
other Southern boy IN the time that tried
souls. He had no opportunity 10
home with no money and little equipment
tc win large success in the Worlds al
fans. He never enjoyed the advantage
Of an education. He had no trade OF
strong right arm and his ability to zee
and grasp an opportunity.
Alter 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 aud
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 a 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. Ee improved his motheds all
the time and added better machinery UNI
til all over the world Blackwell's 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 a 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 Blackwell
| was not a fnancier. 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. It was q 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 s~trictest
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 al 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 as 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.