The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-05-14
Washington Duke.


 l Was it Dr. Osler who said that a man had done his best before he was | forty years old?
 Washington Duke, the sire of the North Carolina Dukes and the founder | of the great Duke tobacco estate, gen. erous patron of education and lavish and cheerful giver to the cause of Christianity, had nearly crossed the half-century mark before he was heard of except in his own neighborhood, and 1 then as poor country farmer. He has | just died at his home in Durham, N. C., | aged eighty-four, a conspicuous exam pie of what a man may do even in | middle age-and a Southern farmer. at that-achieving the shining mark of a multimillionaire philanthropist. Washington Dukes parents were | poor people and he had little or no education. He was working on a farm on shares until he was nearly fifty years old, when he began in a very small way to manufacture tobacco. He prospered steadily until he became one of the richest men in the South, the endower of Trinity College and a leading benefactor of his Church, the Methodist Episcopal South.
 His own good sense, thrift and in dustry was well supplemented by the same excellent qualities of his sons, especially James B. Duke the organiz- CT and present head of the American Tobacco Company, or so-called trust.
 Washington Duke was born in 1921 on a small farm near Durham His family was not of the old slave-own- ing class, but of the class of poor farmers who owned small farms and did their own blowing and planting and harvesting. Thus he was working when the civil war broke out, when he was forty years old. Although a union man and firmly opposed to se- cession, he loved his state and cast his fortunes with the South. He enlisted and served in the Confederate Navy to the end of the war. His children, three sons and a daughter meanwhile lived with their grandparents in an adjoining county.
 After the war MT. Duke returned to his farm and worked for its owner on one-third share agreement. He re- ceived some leaf tobacco from the pur- chaser of his horses and this he ped dled through the country. For two years his struggle against poverty was so hard that he was unable to have his children with him. He recovered his farm through the failure of his em- ployer to pay for 1t, when he was in his fiftieth year.
 In politics he was a Republican and made no secret of his views. The
 
 lar in that part of North Carolina in that time of political passion and sec- tional bitterness. Yet they held to their convictions. It was even though. that they would be victims of Kuklux visitation, and he is said to have lived for some time in expectation of a dread visitation from the clan. But he put up a primitive tobacco factory on his farm and minded his business, while he managed to send his sons to the nearest country school, which was open but three months in the year.
 When James B. Duke was eighteen years old, his father offered to send him to college.
 Give me an interest in your busi- ness, father" he said; I'd sooner have that than go to college"
 Washington Duke then gave to each of his two sons one-slxth interest in his business. his third son being oth- erwise engaged. By this time the to- bacco factory had been removed from the farm to small wooden structure in the town. James Duke staid in the factory and attended to the manufac- ture and packing, while his brother, B N. Duke, now treasurer of the Ameri- can Tobacco Company. went on the road as a salesman. Gradually JamOA