Henderson, John S. (John Steele), 1846-1916

John Steele Henderson, member of the North Carolina General Assembly, United States congressman, lawyer, and a founder of rural free delivery of the mail, was born 6 January 1846 in Salisbury, N.C., the son of Archibald II and Mary Ferrand Henderson, a descendant of General John Steele, comptroller of the United States Treasury. In October 1874, Henderson married Elizabeth Brownrigg Cain (1850-1929). They were the parents of Elizabeth Brownrigg Henderson, who married United States Navy Captain Lyman A. Cotten; Archibald Henderson, professor of mathematics at the University of North Carolina, who married Barbara Curtis Bynum; John Steele Henderson Jr., electrical engineer for Westinghouse, who married Ruth King; and Mary Ferrand Henderson, who was active in the Democratic Party and in the Episcopal Church in North Carolina.

John Steele Henderson, member of the North Carolina General Assembly, United States congressman, city planner, lawyer, and a founder of rural free delivery of the mail, was born in Salisbury, N.C., on 6 January 1846, the son of Archibald II and Mary Ferrand Henderson, a descendant of General John Steele, comptroller of the United States Treasury under Washington, Adams, and Jefferson. John S. Henderson was educated at Alexander Wilson's school in Alamance County, N.C., and entered the University of North Carolina in January 1862. Five months after the death of his brother at Cold Harbor on 1 June 1864, Henderson, at the age of 18, left the University and enlisted as a private in Company B, 10th North Carolina Regiment.

Following the war, Henderson and other former students who had left the University before qualifying were granted degrees. Henderson then studied law, first under Nathaniel Boyden, then, beginning in January 1866, under Judge Richmond Pearson. Five months later, he obtained his license and, although not of age, opened a law office in Salisbury. He was soon elected register of deeds, serving until September 1868. In 1871, he was elected a delegate to a proposed constitutional convention, but the convention question was not approved by a vote of the people. After declining nomination to the General Assembly in 1872 and 1874, he was elected a delegate to the constitutional convention in 1875 and served in the 1876-1877 General Assembly, which implemented changes made at the convention. In the 1879 General Assembly, he was returned to the state senate, and, in 1880 and 1916, he was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention. He was one of three men selected to codify the law of North Carolina.

In June 1884, Henderson was elected presiding justice of the inferior court of Rowan County, and three months later was nominated for a seat in the United States House of Representatives. Henderson was elected to the 45th Congress and to four succeeding congresses, serving from 1885 to 1895. In Congress, Henderson was a member of the Judiciary Committee and chair of the Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads. His speeches on tariff reform and the internal revenue system attracted wide attention. In 1890, when the Farmers' Alliance was gaining power in the state, he declared that the subtreasury scheme was unconstitutional. His stand on the issue was opposed by most Democratic leaders, but he was still reelected by a majority of more than 4,000 votes.

Henderson's most important work in Congress came in 1893, when he safeguarded an appropriation bill for the Post Office Department that included $10,000 for free rural mail delivery. The first trial routes under the appropriation, after it had gradually been increased to $40,000, were in West Virginia, but soon after a trial route was established out of China Grove near Henderson's native Salisbury.

Henderson's opposition to the free coinage of silver was contrary to the view of most of the farmers in his district and probably was the chief reason for his defeat at the hands of the Populist-Republican fusionists in 1894.

Outside the political sphere, Henderson was active in the development of his county and state. It was he to whom the Southern Railway turned in acquiring land near Salisbury for its large steam engine repair shops, which Henderson helped to locate in what became, in 1898, the town of Spencer. In the development of the Narrows of the Yadkin River, he was associated with the men who secured capital for the development of water power in the area. While hard times caused this project to be aborted, it was later completed by the Aluminum Company of America, which added the great Badin Dam to the development.

Henderson, probably the largest landowner in Salisbury and the surrounding areas, was one of the city's earliest planners. When the Zion Wesley Institute (now Livingstone College) was established in Salisbury in 1882, Henderson purchased the adjoining land and laid out streets and lots. In July 1891, he bought a large parcel of land and, under the name of the Central Land Company, developed streets and lots in east Salisbury. In 1900, Henderson's real estate company purchased land on the east side of the Southern Railway opposite Spencer and established Southern City, which, after its incorporation in 1901, became East Spencer.

A member of Saint Luke's Episcopal Church, Henderson was senior warden for many years. In 1881, he wrote and published a history of the Episcopal Church in Rowan County. During the 1880s, Henderson co-published the quarterly parish paper.

Henderson was also active in education. He was instrumental in acquiring a large house and lot in Chestnut Hill for a boys school, which operated successfully from 1891 to 1899. His interest in education was further demonstrated in 1880, when, as a member of the General Assembly, he adjusted the Salisbury city tax rate so that the graded school law could pass on the local level. As a result, the law passed in the city by a vote of 311 to 11 and two new graded schools, one for each race, were erected. He also served for many years as chair of the Rowan County school board.

After retiring from Congress, Henderson served as state senator, 1901 and 1903, and as alderman for the city of Salisbury, 1900. He was a trustee of the University of North Carolina from 1877 to 1886 and received an LL.D. from Trinity College in June 1890. In 1877, he was elected a director of the Western North Carolina Railroad and served until 1880, when the railroad was sold by the state. He was also a director of the Yadkin Railroad, which ran from Salisbury to Norwood; a bank director; and a director of the Yadkin Valley Fair Association.

In October 1874, Henderson married Elizabeth Brownrigg Cain (1850-1929) in Asheville. She was the daughter of William and Sarah Jane Bailey Cain of Hillsborough and a sister of William Cain, electrical engineer and mathematics professor at the University of North Carolina. They were the parents of Elizabeth Brownrigg Henderson, who married United States Navy Captain Lyman A. Cotten; Archibald Henderson, professor of mathematics at the University of North Carolina, who married Barbara Curtis Bynum; John Steele Henderson Jr., electrical engineer for Westinghouse, who married Ruth King; and Mary Ferrand Henderson, who was active in the Democratic Party and the Episcopal Church in North Carolina. The Hendersons also had three children who died in childhood.

Henderson died on 9 October 1916 at Blythewood, the home he built on the edge of Salisbury in 1878, and was buried in the city's Chestnut Hill Cemetery.

(Adapted from the biographical note by James Shober Brawley in the Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, Volume III, 1988.)