Withers, William Banks

William Alphonso Withers was born on May 31, 1864 in Riverview, North Carolina, near Davidson College. Withers was the son of William Banks Withers and Sarah L. Rutledge. He had seven siblings: Ida who married a Sloan, J.R., Jamie, Banks, Rosa, Victoria, and Mary B. who went by "Mamie".

He received his A.B. degree from Davidson College in June of 1883, and his A.M. from Davidson in 1885. From 1884 through 1888, he served as Assistant Chemist at the North Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station in Raleigh. From 1885 through 1902, and again from 1905 through 1915, he was the North Carolina State Statistical Agent for the United States Department of Agriculture. He did graduate work at Cornell University from 1889-1890, where he received the Sage Fellowship in Agricultural Chemistry during that time. In 1917 Davidson College awarded him an honorary ScD.

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