Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 5.djvu/794

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VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

its first presses and installed a small print- ing-plant. The business grew quite rapidly from that time on, and new departments were added from time to time until to-day the plant is one of the largest and most com- plete in the entire South. The business now includes printing, binding, engraving, plate printing, office stationery and supplies, and office furniture.

Mr. Waddey early became connected with the movement for the organization of the employing printers, having been largely in- strumental in 1887 (prior to the organization of the United Typothetae of America) in organizing the Richmond Master Printers' Association, which sent a delegate to the first convention of the United Typothetae of America, held in Chicago in that year. At the first Typothetae convention attended by Mr. Waddey, held in New York, in 1888, he was elected corresponding secretary of the organization, and was reelected at subse- quent conventions until the offices of cor- responding and of recording secretary were combined, in 1891, when he was elected to that office. At the Toronto convention in 1892, Mr. Waddey declined a reelection, but owing to the resignation of his successor on the eve of the succeeding annual convention he accepted an emergency appointment from the president to act as secretary at the Chicago convention in 1893, 'it which con- vention he was reelected. He continued to hold the office of secretary until the conven- tion held at Rochester in 1896, when he again declined a reelection, and was finally permitted, after nearly nine years of con- tinuous service to lay aside the cares and responsibilities of that office. At the Ty- pothetae convention held in Kansas City, in 1900, Mr. Waddey was elected chairman of the executive committee, and was reelected at the succeeding convention, held in Pitts- burgh, 1901. Since 1902 he held no office in the United Typothetae of America, but was a loyal member and supporter of its policies. The immense business built up by Mr. Waddey since he has been at the head of his house, and the loyalty and good will of the army of employees who have helped to make the Everett Waddey Company one of the best-known concerns of its kind in the South, eloquently testify to the truth of the statement that energy, fairness, and a broad and liberal policy, spell success.

Jesse Gill Crouch. Member of a Virginia family, but a native of Walton county, Georgia, the fortunes of war rather than a formed determination brought Jesse Gill Crouch to Virginia after his father had left the Old Dominion for residence in Georgia. Mr. Crouch's settlement in Virginia occur- red through his being sent thither in charge of some Federal prisoners, he having en- listed in the Confederate service from Mis- sissippi, where he was engaged in business at the outbreak of the conflict.

The father of Jesse Gill Crouch, John Crouch, was born on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. He was a farmer all of his life, and, accjuiring property in Georgia, moved to that state and engaged in its cultivation until his death in 1887. He and his wife, Martha ( Bell) Crouch, were the parents of seven children, two of their sons giving their lives in defence of the cause of the Confederacy.

Jesse Gill Crouch, son of John and Martha (Bell) Crouch, was born in Walton county, Georgia, Noveml:)er 26, 1839. His home was in the ])lace of his birth until he was nine years of age, when his parents moved to Meriwether county, in the same state, and in both localities he attended the public schools, continuing his studies until he was a youth of eighteen years. At this time, in partnership with a brother, he went to Mis- sissippi and established in business as a furniture dealer, being so engaged when war broke out between the north and the south. He enlisted in a troop of Mississ- ippi cavalry, and in different commands served in the Confederate army throughout the four years conflict, afterward becoming a member of Company C, Twenty-fifth Regi- ment Virginia Infantry, still later becom- ing a gunner of artillery, firing the shot that sank the Galena. He was twice wounded in action, and after coming to Virginia in 1862 in charge of a detachment of Federal pris- oners was thenceforth in the eastern theatre of war. His record was a proud one, and although he had many narrow escapes from death during the four years and was struck twice, his was a more happy fate than those of his two brothers, who met their deaths in the struggle. From the close of the war until his death, which occurred April 23, 1901, Mr. Crouch was in business as a con- tracting carpenter, a calling he adopted upon