Erwin, George Phifer, 1840-1911.

George Phifer Erwin, son of Edward Jones (1806-1871) and Elizabeth Ann Phifer Erwin (1814-1890) of Morganton, N.C., was a Confederate officer, accountant, and bank president of Burke County, N.C.

From the description of George Phifer Erwin papers, 1779-1931. WorldCat record id: 31693223

George Phifer Erwin (1840-1911), son of Elizabeth Ann Phifer (1814-1890) and Edward Jones Erwin (1806-1871), was born and raised at Belvidere, the family plantation in Burke County, N.C. He attended Davidson College and received his degree as valedictorian of the class of 1861. After graduation, he entered into service in the Confederate Army. He served almost continuously from 1861 until the end of the war as a sergeant with the 7th and 11th North Carolina regiments and as assistant quartermaster to the 60th North Carolina Regiment. After the war, he returned to Burke County, studied law under Burgess S. Gaither, and was admitted to the bar in 1867. After a brief career as a lawyer, George Phifer Erwin became an accountant and served as treasurer and director of the Western North Carolina Railroad and president of the Piedmont Bank, located in Morganton, Burke County, N.C. He also served several terms as county commissioner. He married Corrinna Iredell Avery, and they had five children: Annie Phifer, Corrinna Morehead, Adelaide Avery, Edward Jones, and Eloise McCurdy.

William Waightstill Avery (1816-1864), George Phifer Erwin's father-in-law, was the oldest son of Isaac Thomas and Harriett Eloise Erwin Avery, George Phifer Erwin's aunt. He served as a Confederate congressman and army officer. William Waightstill Avery also represented Burke County for several terms in the North Carolina House of Commons. He and his father were two of the largest slaveholders in Burke County and used slave labor to work hundreds of acres of land and to mine gold fields in which the Averys had interests. William Waightstill Avery, a Democrat, supported secession in 1860 and represented North Carolina as chair of the state's delegation to the Democratic National Convention in Charleston, S.C. He was among those representatives who were refused seats later at the Baltimore convention. He died in 1864 from wounds received while leading Burke County volunteers against a party of Tennessee Unionists.

(Sources: Edward William Phifer, Jr., Burke: The History of a North Carolina County, 1777-1920, rev. ed., 1982; and William S. Powell, ed., Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, Vol. I, 1979.)

From the guide to the George Phifer Erwin Papers (#246), 1779-1931, (Southern Historical Collection)