Vass, William Worrell, 1821-1896.

William Worrell Vass was treasurer, 1845-1893, of the Raleigh and Gaston Railroad and an official of the Chatham, the Raleigh and Augusta, and the Seaboard Airline Railroads (later merged into the CSX Corporation).

William Worrell Vass was born on 19 February 1829 near Oxford in Granville County, N.C., to Thomas Vass Junior (1777-1857), a farmer, and Lucy Hester. The family of Thomas Vass Senior (1738-1818), a Baptist minister and descendent of French Huguenots, had moved to North Carolina from Virginia in 1790.

Vass was educated in common schools. In his early adolescence, he clerked in the mercantile store of Major John S. Eaton at Henderson, and became a full partner in 1843. Eaton retired from his mercantile business in 1845. As the director of the Raleigh and Gaston Railroad, chartered in 1835, Eaton secured Vass an appointment as treasurer of the railroad on 1 January 1845.

The state bought the bankrupt Raleigh and Gaston Railroad in 1848 and Vass secured the position of president. Vass's administration proved a success and in 1851, as the line was again profitable, Vass returned to his duties as treasurer.

Vass was elected to serve as treasurer of the Chatham Railroad Company, later the Raleigh and Augusta Airline Railway Company, in 1862. He remained as treasurer of the Raleigh and Gaston, which consolidated with Seaboard Airline in 1893. Owing to his advanced age and health, Vass resigned as treasurer and was appointed honorary secretary of the new consolidated railroad. By 1896, Vass had achieved the distinction of being perhaps the longest continuously serving railroad official in the United States.

In addition to his career in the railroad industry, Vass also served as a Confederate major, a director of the Raleigh Institute for the Deaf, Dumb, and Blind, and as a trustee of Wake Forest College. He was an active member of the First Baptist Church of Raleigh for 49 years.

Vass's first wife, Amanda Freeman of Granville County, died without children. Vass married Lillias (Lillie) Margaret McDaniel, daughter of Reverend James McDaniel of Fayetteville, on 11 October 1866. This marriage resulted in three children; Eleanor, Lilla May, and William W. Junior, who became a prominent banker.

Vass died in Raleigh in 1896 and was buried in Oakwood Cemetery.

[From a draft of the sketch by Ronnie W. Faulkner for the Dictionary of North Carolina Biography .]