Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 4.djvu/507

 \1RGIXIA BIOGRAPHY

379

ity. born November ti, 1857. died in girl- hood; Allen Princeton, or "Print." born January 31. i860; Nancy Emeline, or "Nannie." born April 21. 1862, wife of Homer B. Mitchell ; James Calvin, or "Jace," born September 12, 1864; Samuel Need, or "Sam," born February 16, 1867; Gracie Tru- man, or "Grace." born April 24, 1868, wife of James E. Lindsey ; Ida Lillian, born June I. 1871, died October 10. 1886; Benjamin Caudill. or "Caudill," born May 21, 1875; William W'ysor. or "Wysor," born Septem- ber 4, 1876. Of the sons, "Dump" owns and lives on a portion of the home place, while "Wysor" owns the remainder and occupies the family residence. "Print" is a traveling salesman for the Cosby Shoe Company, of Lynchburg. \'irginia, while "Caudill" is manager of the Pulaski Grocery Company, Pulaski. Mrginia. for which he traveled as salesman some fifteen years. They, and also "Nannie" and "Grace," live in Pulaski, each owning a splendid home. "Caudill's" being one of the handsomest in the town. "Jace" studied medicine and graduated, winning a gold medal, in the College of Physicians and Surgeons. Baltimore. Maryland, and in the practice of his profession and other busi- ness in connection, he has amassed quite a considerable fortune. He is also a Primi- tive or Old School Baptist preacher, and pastor of their church at Roanoke, Virginia, where he lives and practices his profession. Rev. Samuel Need Hurst, son of Allen and Nancy (Cook) Hurst, was born Feb- ruary 16, 1867, in Pulaski county, Virginia, and was reared on the home farm, in the lap of the foothills of ^lax mountain, in Hia- wassee district. His early opportunity for education was very limited ; the "old field schools" in that rural section were poor indeed. It took him some two or three years to learn his alphabet ; the letters, for convenience, being pasted on a shingle with a handle to it. He was some fourteen years old before he began to learn and to be fired with a spirit for education. He went to school in winter, and worked on the farm the remainder of the year. But often he burned the midnight lamp in his eager de- sire for knowledge. Finally his thirst for education became so great, he besought his parents (who were illiterate) with tears, to allow him to go ofif to college. His deter- mination and tears finally won. and with the little money he had saved from selling

nuts and other articles gathered from the farm, supplemented by advancements from his father out of his future patrimony, he attended Snowville Academy in 1883-84, and Virginia I'olytechnic Institute (then Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical Col- lege) in 1884-85, where he worked at inter- vals on the college farm, setting posts and shucking corn. He then stood a competi- tive examination in Virginia and won a Peabody scholarship (which paid him $400 cash), in the University of Nashville, where he attended in 1885-87, graduating with the degree of L. I. (Licentiate of Instruction). Having studied law privately on the farm, he rounded out his legal education by tak- ing Professor John B. Minor's summer course in the University of Virginia in 1888. Later in life, after practicing law and writ- ing and publishing law books for twenty years, in 1909 he went to Louisville, Ken- tvicky, with his family, and took the pastors' course in the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, graduating there in Old Testa- ment, New Testament, systematic theology, homiletics and elocution.

When eighteen. Rev. Mr. Hurst passed an examination for a teacher's certificate, the superintendent writing across the top, "Best examination in the county for 1885." After graduating from college he taught school, first as principal of Snowville Acad- emy, 1887-88, and in the latter year was elected to a chair of higher mathematics and English literature in Glendale Male and Female College. Terrell. Texas. Later he taught as professor of higher mathematics in Wytheville ]\lale Academy. Virginia ; a school at Dexter, Tennessee, near Memphis; and then a normal school of teachers in Martin county, Kentucky.

Studying privately and finishing his legal education as above stated. Rev. Mr. Hurst was admitted to the bar, April 24. 1889. and with but thirty dollars of his patrimony left, went out into the world to measure swords with the stern realities of life. He entered the law office of the late General James A. \\'alker. of W^ytheville. Virginia, teaching in the male academy in the afternoons to pay his board. He practiced law and wrote and published law books until 1909, when he forsook the law for the ministry.

Soon after going to the bar. Rev. Mr. Hurst discovered the necessity for a magis- trate's guide, and so commenced writing