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Rh tary to Governor Vance, 1877-78, and to Governor Jarvis, 1879. He was admitted to the bar in 1878, and began the practice of law in Salisbury, North Carolina, in 1880. He was a member of the lower house of the state legislature, 1883, 1885, 1887, 1893, 1899; was speaker in 1893, and candidate of the Democrats for speaker in 1887. He was president of the North Carolina Railroad Company in 1894; the candidate of the Democratic members of the state legislature for United States senator in 1895, the Populists and Republicans uniting on J. C. Pritchard as their candidate, and effecting his election. He was president of the Democratic state convention in 1900; a trustee of the University of North Carolina from 1894, and presidential elector for the state-at-large in 1900. He has been prominent in local affairs in his native city, being elected president of the Salisbury Savings Bank and a director of the Wachovia Loan and Trust Company and of the Davis and Wiley Bank, and an officer and director in various other financial and educational institutions. He was affiliated with the Chi Phi Society and the Knights of Pythias and Elks fraternities. From his boyhood he has been an active member of the Methodist church. As a young man before reaching his majority he was active in political affairs, and became acquainted personally with the leading statesmen and lawyers of North Carolina when boys of his age were at play and had no fixed purpose in life. He possessed the faculty of making friends, was a youth and man of strong personality, affable manners, and great strength of character.

He was married, October 31, 1878, to Mary P., daughter of Senator Augustus Summerfield and Margaret J. (Baird) Merrimon of Raleigh, North Carolina, and three of their five children are living in 1906. Senator Overman credits his success in life to systematic study and recreation, temperance, sobriety and determination to succeed, having a fixed purpose to make himself useful to his time and generation in any position he may be called upon to fill.