Harper, G. W. F. (George Washington Finley), 1834-1921

George Washington Finley Harper (1834-1921) of Lenoir, N.C., was a merchant, Confederate officer, railroad builder, banker, and entrepreneur.

From the description of G. W. F. Harper papers, 1838-1921 [manuscript]. WorldCat record id: 23030702

George W.F. Harper attended Davidson College in 1855 and 1856 as an irregular student in the science course. He served as a Trustee of Davidson College from 1904 to 1921. He was also director of the State Hospital in Morganton, N.C. and president of the Bank of Lenoir.

From the description of Papers, 1855-1856. (American Museum of Natural History). WorldCat record id: 722092739

George Washington Finley Harper (1834-1921), merchant, Confederate officer, railroad builder, banker, and entrepreneur, was born at Fairfield Plantation in Wilkes County, N.C. One of three children of James and Caroline Finley Harper, he received classical school training near his home and, in 1855, enrolled at Davidson College, graduating four years later. After college, he entered the general merchandise business with his father, a founder of the town of Lenoir in 1841 when Caldwell County was formed.

In 1862, Harper enlisted in the Confederate Army as a private in Company H, 58th North Carolina Infantry Regiment. He was promoted to first lieutenant in July 1862, to captain the following September, and to major in the fall of 1863. He fought in skirmishes with Union forces near Cumberland Gap in Tennessee and participated in raids in Kentucky. In the summer of 1863, the 58th North Carolina Regiment joined the Army of Tennessee at Chattanooga, and the following September Captain Harper led his troops in the Battle of Chickamauga, where more than half of their regiment was killed or wounded. The Union Army pushed the Confederate forces into Georgia for the winter; during its follow-up invasion of the state in the spring of 1864, Harper received a leg wound at the Battle of Resaca and was sent home to convalesce.

By the time Harper rejoined his regiment in the fall of 1864, Atlanta had fallen and the regiment was stationed at Columbia, Tenn. Following his participation in the Battle of Franklin in November, the major was put in charge of captured Union prisoners, transporting 1,700 of them to Corinth, Miss., in December. By February 1865, Union forces had pushed the Army of Tennessee into North Carolina, and, in March, Harper fought at the Battle of Bentonville.

After the war, Harper rejoined his father in business in the firm of H. Harper & Son. He also became involved in railroad expansion. In 1873, Harper began rail construction from Lenoir to Hickory for the Chester and Lenoir Narrow Gauge Railroad Company. He was elected chair of the company in 1884, and, from 1893 to 1900, served as president and general manager of the reorganized line, Carolina and Northwestern Railway Company (using standard gauge rails).

In addition to retail merchandising and railroad building, Harper found time for other business and community endeavors. He was a commissioner for the town of Lenoir; director of Lenoir's Fire and Hose Company (organized in 1876), of a local building and loan association, and of the Lenoir Furniture Factory (reorganized in 1899 as the Harper Furniture Company); trustee of the North Carolina Hospital for the Insane at Morganton and of Davidson College; organizer of the Lenoir Board of Trade; president of the Green Park Improvement Compnay, holding a controlling interest in the summer resort at Blowing Rock; and vice-president of the Lenoir Cotton Mill. In 1893, Harper founded the Bank of Lenoir, and, from 1894 until his death, served as its president.

Harper's numerous activities did not prevent his pursuit of political and literary interests. He won election as state representative during the 1880-1881 legislative session, as mayor of Lenoir in 1886, and as a delegate to the Democratic Convention of 1888 in St. Louis. In addition to financially supporting the establishment of a local library, he contributed some works of his own: Sketch of the Fifty-Eighth Regiment North Carolina Troops (1901); Emma Lydia Rankin (1908); Reminiscences of Caldwell County, North Carolina, in the Great War, 1861-1865 (1913).

In 1859, Harper married Ella A. Rankin, daughter of the Reverend Jessie and Ann Delight Rankin. They had two children, George Finley Harper and Ellen D. Harper Bernhardt. An active Presbyterian layman, Harper was buried in Belleview Cemetery, Lenoir, N.C.

From the Dictionary of North Carolina Biography .

From the guide to the G. W. F. Harper Papers, 1838-1921, (Southern Historical Collection)