From the High Point Enterprise, September 21, 1965.
For over four decades a leading figure in the civic and business life of Thomaston, North Carolina, Nereus Clarkson English was a one-term state representative and one term Thomaston mayor who had extensive textile interests in Randolph County. A former president of the Carolina Underwear Company, English also held the posts of secretary-treasurer of the Ragan Knitting Mill and the presidency of Textile Industries. The son of Nereus Clarkson and Virginia Mae (Bouldin) English, Nereus Clarkson English was born in Trinity, North Carolina on April 20, 1904.
Born and raised in the Quaker church, English would attend the public school in Trinity and following graduation from the city's high school enrolled at Guilford College, graduating in the class of 1926. For a time English followed a teaching career in Nash County, serving as principal of the Spring Hope High School, and would remove to Thomasville in the 1920s. Within a short period of his arrival, English joined the Wrenn Hosiery Co., and later the Ragan Knitting Mill. He advanced quickly through the hierarchy of the textile industry and by the mid-1930s had succeeded to the presidency of the Carolina Underwear Co. of Thomasville. He would hold the additional post of treasurer of that company and secretary-treasurer of the Ragan Knitting Mill.
Nereus C. English married in May 1930 to Mae Addie Martin (1906-1974), to who he was wed until his death. The couple would remain childless. Remarked in his High Point Enterprise obituary as having had a "keen interest in governmental affairs" English made his first move into politics in 1932 when he was elected as Randolph County's representative to the North Carolina state legislature. Taking his seat at the start of the 1933-35 session, English's single term saw him named to the committees on the Caswell Training School, Claims, Corporations, Education, the Library, Manufactures and Labor, and Senatorial Districts.
By the 1940s Nereus English was acknowledged as one of the leading business figures in the Randolph and Guilford County areas, so much so that at one point he held the presidency of 15 textile concerns in the region. In addition to the above-mentioned businesses, English also was president of Textile Industries of Thomasville, president of Wrenn Knitting Mills and Circle Manufacturing, and president of Rowan Industries of Rockwell, North Carolina. English's non-textile business endeavors include directorships in the Wachovia Bank and Trust Co., the North State Telephone Co., the Carolina Supply Co., and People's Savings and Loan of Thomasville. He is also noted as having been the president of the English Motor Co., located in High Point.
From the High Point Enterprise, May 11, 1958.
Nereus C. English returned to politics with his election as Mayor of Thomasville, an office in which he served from 1947-49. A former member of the Thomasville city school board, English made additional headway into city civic affairs, including service as a trustee of the Thomasville city hospital, president of the Thomasville Chamber of Commerce, president of the Thomasville Rotary Club, and president of the Thomasville United Fund. He continued to reside in Thomasville until his death, which occurred at the Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem on September 21, 1965. Newspaper reports note that English had been admitted to the hospital for observation a few days prior to his death and died unexpectedly several days later. English and his wife Mae were later interred at the Springfield Friends Meeting House Cemetery following their deaths.
From the Biographical History of North Carolina: From Colonial Times to the Present, 1906.
Another North Carolina based "Nereus" that made his name through public service is Nereus Mendenhall, who, in addition to being a teacher and physician in his home county of Guilford also represented that county for one term in the state legislature. Mendenhall shares the same faith with his oddly named counterpart Nereus C. English, as both were lifelong members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). The son of George C. and Mary (Pegg) Mendenhall, Nereus Mendenhall was born in Jamestown, North Carolina on August 14, 1819. As the son of a local school teacher, Mendenhall attended school under the tutelage of his father in Jamestown, including one school that was open to slave children.
During his youth, Mendenhall learned the printing trade in Greensboro and in 1837 enrolled at the Haverford College in Haverford, Pennsylvania. Despite Haverford being a four-year institution, Mendenhall studied intently and was able to graduate after only two years. He would turn his attention to medicine following graduation from Haverford, and in the early 1840s enrolled at the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. Graduating in 1845, he soon returned to Jamestown to begin his practice, but later abandoned his profession after only a few years, citing that "his health could not stand the strain arising from his sympathy with human suffering."
Deciding that a career in academics might be better for his health, Nereus Mendenhall took on the post of principal for the New Garden Boarding School (now known as Guilford College), a Quaker-founded institution that had been established in 1837. Mendenhall would remain affiliated with the school at various intervals over the next two decades, and during this time carved out another career for himself in the field of civil engineering. He would take part in railroad surveying in both North and South Carolina and was affiliated with the North Carolina Central Railroad. This period also saw Mendenhall dedicate time to the study of languages, becoming familiar with Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.
Nereus Mendenhall married in October 1851 to Oriana Roxanne Wilson (1822-1890), who had been a student at the New Garden Boarding School. The couple would have five daughters: Mary (1852-1930), Laura (1854-1895), Julia (1856-1944), Gertrude (1862-1926), and Genevieve (1866-1934). As Quakers with a longstanding commitment to education, both Nereus and Oriana Mendenhall were later honored with a scholarship that bears their name, put forward by their daughter Mary Mendenhall Hobbs, who herself was the wife of the first president of Guilford College Louis Lyndon Hobbs.
During the Civil War period, Mendenhall returned to the New Garden Boarding School, and from 1860-67 served as its superintendent. As a Quaker, Mendenhall was an avowed opponent of slavery and firmly anti-war. While his anti-slavery convictions saw him viewed with "serious suspicion" by those who didn't agree with his views, Mendenhall's stature as a learned mind and dedicated Quaker saw him personally visit Confederate president Jefferson Davis to argue for the freedom of fellow Quakers who had been drafted or conscripted into the Confederate Army. Mendenhall also faced certain arrest during wartime for possession of antislavery literature (in this case several copies of the book The Impending Crisis.) Through the efforts of Mendenhall's younger brother Cyrus, Nereus's potential jail time was averted when the latter got word to Oriana Mendenhall, who proceeded to burn all of the copies of the Impending Crisis located in their home!
Following the conclusion of the Civil War Nereus Mendenhall made his first entrance into the political field, winning election to the North Carolina House of Representatives in 1874. Taking his seat that November, he would serve through the 1874-75 session and was a member of the committees on Education and Finance. Despite several biographies of Mendenhall noting that he served two terms, he in fact only served a single term, as per the Carolana database which details every session of the North Carolina legislature from colonial times to the present day. Towards the end of his term in 1875 Mendenhall was named the president of the board of commissioners for the newly built State Hospital for the Insane at Morganton, his full dates of service being unknown at this time.
After leaving the legislature Mendenhall was named as an instructor in Latin at the Penn Charter School in Philadelphia, where he remained through 1878. From 1878-1880 he served as superintendent of his alma mater, Haverford College. This period also saw him as an instructor, and from 1878-79 taught Science and Astronomy and in the year following was the instructor in Greek and Latin.
Following his return to Guilford County Mendenhall resumed surveying and also sat as a member of the county board of education. He and his wife remained connected to the New Garden Boarding School (which had become the Guilford College in the 1880s), residing in a cottage near the campus grounds. Widowed in 1890, Nereus Mendenhall survived his wife by three years and died at the home of his sister in Jamestown on October 29, 1893, aged 74. Both Mendenhall and his wife were interred at the Deep River Friends Cemetery in High Point, North Carolina.
From the Wilmington Weekly Star, November 3, 1893.
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