Winborne, Benj. B. (Benjamin Brodie), 1854-1919

Benjamin Brodie Winborne (April 14, 1854-1919) practiced law in Hertford County, North Carolina. He was the son of Major Samuel Darden Winborne and Mary H. Pretlow Winborne (d. August 24, 1900) and the grandson of Martha Warren Winborne, possibly the daughter of Robert Warren. In his youth, he attended Buckhorn Academy near Como under the tutelage of J.H. Picot, a school teacher of recent French ancestry. In 1871 he entered Wake Forest College and stayed until 1872. He graduated from Columbia University's law school in June, 1874. Winborne then entered employment as a law clerk in the firm of Smith and Strong in Raleigh, North Carolina until he came of age on April 14, 1875 to be admitted to the North Carolina bar. Two months after his admission to the bar, Winborne moved to Winton, North Carolina. He was elected solicitor in 1877. In January 1880, he moved to Murfreesboro, North Carolina and practiced law there until his death in 1919. From 1891 to 1897 excluding the brief period that he served in the 1895 legislature, he served as judge of the Hertford County Criminal Court. Winborne served in the North Carolina House of Representatives in 1895, 1905, 1907, and 1908 (special session), ran for Speakership of the House in 1905, and ran for North Carolina Attorney General in 1908. During the years of Winborne's law practice, his firm was known successively as B.B. Winborne (1875 to c.1879), Winborne Brothers (c. 1879 to 1892), Winborne and Lawrence (1892 to 1909), Winborne and Winborne (1908 to 1919), and eventually Stanley Winborne.

On December 23, 1879, Winborne married Cornelia (Nellie) Vaughan (b. 1853 or 1854), the daughter of Uriah Vaughan, a wealthy Hertford County landowner. To this marriage were born Stanley Winborne who became an attorney, member of both the North Carolina House of Representatives and North Carolina Senate, and North Carolina Corporation Commissioner; Benjamin Brodie Winborne, Jr. who became a farmer and merchant, and Uriah Vaughan Winborne and Micajah Winborne who died in childhood. Stanley Winborne married Frances Sharp Jernigan, (daughter of Thomas Roberts Jernigan) in April, 1912, and to this marriage were born Stanley Winborne, Jr., Mollie J. Winborne, Thomas P. Winborne, Frances J. Winborne, Rosa Vaughan Winborne, Vaughan Sharp Winborne, and Samuel Pretlow Winborne. Winborne's brother, Robert Warren Winborne, who practiced law with him in Murfreesboro until 1891, married Dora Merrifield (daughter of an Indiana judge), and moved to Virginia. Their sons were Roger Merrifield Winborne and Robert Warren Winborne, Jr. Dora Merrifield Winborne died in 1900, and Robert Warren Winborne married Rosa Vaughan, sister of Nellie Vaughan Winborne and daughter of Uriah Vaughan. No children were born to this marriage.