of the Armisteads of Gloucester, Virginia. His genealogy is traced back to the Lees of that State, and to the Harramonds, the Jordans, the Blounts, the Spaights, and the Hills of North Carolina. He was born in Plymouth, North Carolina, October 11, 1808, and died January 17, 1856, in Virginia.
He was an eminent physician, at the head of his profession in Plymouth, and during the summer months the resident physician of the sea shore.
He was as great in heart as in mind, as nobly did he fill the station in life that he attained, adding honor to the honored line of his ancestry.
He left only one child, Meeta Armistead, who married Archibald Ashbourne Capehart.
Judge David A. Barnes long resided at Murfreesboro, but was a native of Northampton County; the son of Captain Collin W. Barnes, who was a most worthy man and greatly esteemed, the representative of his county in 1829 and 1830 in the Legislature.
David A. Barnes was educated at the University and graduated in 1840 in same class with Governor Caldwell, John W. Cunningham, Lucius J. Johnson, William Johnston, Judge Shipp, C. H. Wiley, and others. He studied law, and with such success that in 1865 he was made one of the Judges of the Supreme Court. He was elected a member of the Legislature in 1844, 1846 and 1850. During the war he was one of the Military Council of Governor Vance. In 1873 he was a candidate for Congress and defeated by C. L. Cobb. He married Betty, the daughter of Colonel Uriah Vaughan of Murfreesboro--to which place he removed; by his general manners and acquirements he always enjoyed the regard and esteem of his fellow-citizens.
Jesse J. Yeates was born and raised in this county. His father, James Boon Yeates, was a farmer, an enterprising and useful man, and his grandfather, Jesse Yeates, served in the Revolutionary war.
The subject of our sketch was born in 1829; received a collegiate education, read law with Chief Justice Smith and was Solicitor of the county from 1855 to 1860--this letter year he was elected a member of the Legislature.
When the Civil war commenced he raised a company and was elected Captain; he was appointed Major of the 31st North Carolina Regiment; at the battle of Roanoke Island was taken prisoner. He was Solicitor of the Judicial District from 1861 to 1866; and a member of the Governor's Council. In 1871 he was elected to the State Constitutional Convention; elected a member of the 44th Congress, 1875-77, and re-elected to the 45th Congress.
Major Yeates is much esteemed for his talents and ability. He has been twice married; his last wife is a daughter of James Scott, by whom he has an interesting family.
Richard Jordan Gatling, the inventor of the Gatling gun, is a native of this county, born September 12, 1818. His father, Jordan Gatlin, was an energetic, enterprising, and skillful farmer. He died in April 1848. The primitive log house where his son was born still stands, in Manney's Neck, near Murfreesboro.
He received an "old-field school" education and was himself a teacher for a while, in one of those rudimental institutions. In 1844, he went to St. Louis, Missouri, and was employed as a clerk in a dry goods establishment. In 1849, he studied medicine and attended a course of lectures at the Indiana University, as also at the Ohio Medical College, and received a diploma as a physician. He located at Indianapolis, where he married in 1854, the youngest daughter of Dr. John H. Sanders.
The crowning act of his life and of his many ingenious inventions, was the production of the "machine battery gun," which bears his name, the idea of which he conceived in 1861. In 1866 after repeated trials at Frankford Arsenal, at Washington and at Fortress Monroe, this weapon was adopted by the United States.
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