"Our Heritage"
Mt. Olive Tribune
By Claude Moore

Judge Strong - Editor, Poet, Lawmaker

Judge George Vaughan Strong who died in Raleigh in 1897 once operated a newspaper in Goldsboro. He was the Confederate States prosecuting attorney during the War Between the States & at one time was a law partner of Governor Charles B. Aycock.

Today, I visited what is left of the old plantation home of the Strong family, about 2 miles northeast of Clinton. It was here that Judge George Vaughan Strong was born in 1827. He was the son of Dr. Salmon Strong, a native of Connecticut who settled in Sampson County & married Eliza Sampson, a grandniece of the Honorable John Sampson, for whom Sampson County was named. Young George at an early age went to live with his granduncle, Dr. Frederick Hill, who at that time lived at Orton Plantation near Wilmington. He attended a private school directed by Professor Jefferson Lovejoy, distinguished educator of the period.

Young George attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill & graduated with honors at the age of 18 in 1845. He returned to his father's plantation where he wrote & published a volume of poems while doing farm work. He later went to Wilmington & while teaching there he met Anna Eliza Cowan, the daughter of a prominent Cape Fear family. They married at St. James Episcopal Church on February 25, 1851.

The Strongs moved to Goldsboro where he became owner & editor of the Goldsboro Telegraph. He studied law on his own with the aid of several friends who were lawyers & he was admitted to the bar. He became a law partner of the Honorable William T. Dortch & they had a most successful practice. George Strong was a member of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church & he was a vestryman for years & finally the senior warden.

In 1861 George Strong represented Wayne County at the historic Constitutional Convention which met in Raleigh & voted for secession. After North Carolina withdrew from the Union, he raised a company of soldiers of which he was elected Captain. Before he went into active duty he was appointed Confederate States District Attorney. He served throughout the War & for a short time after the war the Reconstructionists deprived him of his license to practice law. These disabilities were soon removed & he resumed practice in Goldsboro.

In 1871 Strong moved to Raleigh & formed a co-partnership with the Honorable Thomas Bragg, a former Governor of the State & Attorney General of the Confederate States & the Honorable W. N. H. Smith, a former member of the U. S. Congress. This became one of the strongest law firms in North Carolina.

Strong was elected to the Legislature from Wake County. While in this capacity he used his influence & oratorical talent in getting the University of North Carolina reopened. The University later conferred upon him the L. L. D. degree.

In 1876, Strong was elected Judge of the Criminal Court of Wake County in which capacity he served for several years. For a time Judge Strong conducted a private law school which was widely patronized & whose students gained eminence in the legal profession.

Judge Strong later became a law partner of Charles B. Aycock & Charles C. Daniels & much later, he and his son, Robert Strong organized the law firm Strong and Strong.

Judge & Mrs. Strong had ten children all of whom are now deceased. He died in 1897 & in 1934 a portrait of him was presented to the Supreme Court of North Carolina. Judge Frank Daniels of Goldsboro made the address at the presentation & he said of Judge Strong, "he was first a man, responsive to all that appeals to the highest manhood-family affection, devotion to friends, faithfulness to clients, loyalty to country, & the greatest of all loyalties, loyalty to truth and righteousness."