1905-1929
N. Hector McGeachy (1870-1956)
"Has Hector McGeachy always been sheriff of Cumberland County?"
That tongue-in-cheek question was included in a 1949 newspaper article, and it's easy to understand why. "Hec" McGeachy served as sheriff for 40 years, from 1910 to 1950, a tenure that saw him pursue criminals by buggy, horseback, automobile and airplane.
A mainstay of the local Democratic Party, he was proud that he never faced a second primary in any election.
Sheriff McGeachy typically did not carry a gun.
An obituary described his generosity: "He wasn't an easy touch for the professional beggar, but it was legend in Cumberland County that a deserving man could get help from Hector McGeachy if from nowhere else."
His son, longtime Fayetteville lawyer Neill Hector McGeachy Jr., was a leader in the state Senate in the 1960s and '70s.
E.E. Smith (1852-1933)
Ezekiel Ezra Smith succeeded Charles Chesnutt in 1883 as head of the school that became Fayetteville State University and led the school for much of the next 50 years.
Smith's breaks from his tenure at the State Normal School, as it was known, included his service as the U.S. minister to Liberia under President Grover Cleveland and as the adjutant to the Third North Carolina Volunteer Infantry during the Spanish-American War.
Dr. Smith was an ordained minister and served as the president of the state association of black Baptist churches.
During his tenure, the State Normal School moved from Gillespie Street to Murchison Road, and Smith persuaded the legislature to appropriate money for its first new buildings. Smith and his wife sold and gave enough land to increase the size of the campus from 50 acres to 92 acres.
An advocate of harmony between the races, he was called on many times to settle racial disputes.
''Dr. Smith was one of the most useful citizens, brilliant teachers, successful diplomats, loyal and gallant soldiers, popular, liberal, and broad-minded Christian gentlemen, successful pastors, and business men that North Carolina has ever produced,'' wrote A.B. Caldwell in ''History of the American Negro.''
Julius A. Culbreth (1871-1950)
This educator and businessman put the northeastern Cumberland County town of Falcon on the map as the historic center of the Pentecostal Holiness Church.
Julius Ainslie Culbreth retired from banking and other business activities in 1899 to devote his life to religion. He started the Falcon Camp Meeting in 1900, helped organize the Falcon Holiness School in 1902 and the Falcon Orphanage (now the Falcon Children's Home) in 1909. He served as president of the camp meeting and superintendent of the orphanage for many years.
Culbreth was also active in organizing the North Carolina Cotton Association.
An obituary described his influence in Falcon: "For a half century he had been the dominant figure of the little Cumberland County town. He named the town (supposedly by pointing to a box of "Falcon" pens on the counter when asked what to name the new post office - and the name stuck), he secured its charter and he was the man responsible for its development."
Dr. Paul N. Melchor (1865-1928)
He received his medical training at Shaw University in Raleigh, the first such program for black men following the Civil War. By the late 1890s, Melchor had set up his medical practice in Fayetteville, with an office on Bow Street, and was active in civic affairs.
Melchor served on the school board in 1897 and became one of the town's most influential black residents. Other black physicians during the first half of the 20th century in Fayetteville included Ben H. Henderson, C.A. Eaton, F.D. Williston, A.L. Banks, W.P. DeVane and Matthew L. Perry.
Melchor's son, Dr. Warren C. Melchor, was the first black physician to practice at the Fort Bragg clinics under the Civil Service System.
Dr. J.F. Highsmith (1868-1939)
Jacob Franklin Highsmith grew up in Sampson County, earned his medical degree in Pennsylvania and moved to Fayetteville in 1889. He had a landmark career in medicine: In 1899, he and Dr. J.H. Marsh opened the first private hospital in North Carolina, and Highsmith eventually became the sole owner, chief surgeon and administrator.
His family-oriented institution was known as Highsmith Hospital for decades, later renamed Highsmith-Rainey in honor of Dr. W.T. Rainey.
Dr. J.F. Highsmith organized the North Carolina Hospital Association. He served as president of that organization and the State Medical Society.
In his leisure time, he was known as a first-class farmer in his native Sampson County.
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