"Our Heritage"
Mt. Olive Tribune
Friday, December 18, 1992 By Claude Moore

In 1907 the Mount Olive Tribune published an industrial issue which carries innumerable articles on Mount Olive and Wayne County as well as many photographs of business buildings, hotels, mills, homes and of some of the county’s leading citizens. Theodore Roosevelt was President at this time and Robert Glenn was Governor of North Carolina. The United States was fast becoming industrialized and the county was prosperous with much faith in future development.

Among the photographs are pictures of: the Mount Olive Opera House; the J. A. Westbrook house; the Ben W. Southerland Sale and Exchange Stables and residence; the Bank of Mount Olive (founded 1902); the Bell Lumber Company; the Hotel Olivette; the S. A. Wooten residence; the De Brutz English home; the Y. H. Knowles residence; the home of J. F. Oliver (called "The Oaks"); the Ward’s Dry Goods Store; the E. J. Martin and Son Store; the William F. Martin house, the Summerlin Brothers Shop; interior view of the Aaron Pharmacy; the E. B. Flowers residence; and the Western Union Telegraph office.

There are photographs of J. W. Anders, Samuel J. Roberts, Alton M. Parker, B. H. Hatch, John Richard Jones, D. J. Aaron, George W. S. Sandlin, and Mayor Albert Sidney Grady.

Mr. Grady was mayor of the Town of Mount Olive at that time. He was born near Albertson in Duplin County in 1871 on a plantation called "Waterloo" (later owned and restored by Dan Fagg), and he was the son of Professor William H. Grady and a brother of the late Malcolm Grady, who was the sage of North Duplin.

Mayor Grady attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and studied law. He was a successful lawyer, a deacon in the Mount Olive Presbyterian Church, Sunday school superintendent and was one of the founders of the Mount Olive Graded School. Mayor Grady was married in 1906 to Miss Carrie English of Mount Olive.

The pharmacy for the town was owned and operated by David John Aaron, a native of Warsaw, and a son of Lipmann Aaron of Germany who settled in Warsaw after the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad was completed in 1840. Mr. Aaron was one-time mayor of Warsaw and a state senator from Wayne County after he settled in Mount Olive. Early in 1993, I will have an article in the Tribune on the prominent Aaron family whom I have known all of my life.

In 1907 the Western Union Telegraph office was operated by John Richard Jones, a native of Duplin County, who came to Mount Olive when he was young to clerk for E. J. Martin and Son. He was later employed by the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad and also had a brokerage business in Mount Olive. He began his employment with the Western Union Telegraph Company in 1905, and at the same time operated an insurance business.

The E. J. Martin and Son Company was the largest mercantile business in Mount Olive in 1907. The business was begun in the country by E. J. Martin and was later moved to town and located in a two-story brick building. They sold dry goods, clothing, groceries, hardware and fertilizers. Mr. Martin was associated in business with his son, W. Fred Martin, who took over the business after his father’s death. The son was later a town commissioner and treasurer of the town.

The Bank of Mount Olive was paying four percent in savings accounts and the cashier was M. T. Breazeale. He was assisted by Miss Carrie McGee.

The Hotel Olivette was owned and operated by Cullen Blackman Hatch, a son of Joseph Hatch and the father of Cullen B. Hatch now of Mount Olive. Mr. Hatch married Miss Eliza Holmes, the daughter of Mr. And Mrs. William Holmes. He attended Poughkeepsie Business College (N.Y.), was a merchant in the town for many years and was also in real estate.