Background
James Iver McKay was born on 17 Jul 1792, in Bladen County, North Carolina. He was the son of John and Mary (Salter) McKay and the grandson of Bladen Iver McKay who emigrated from Scotland to North Carolina about 1780.
(Preface There are what are called labors of love when men...)
Preface There are what are called labors of love when men turn from their work in the business world and at great pains seek to accomplish something for the benefit and advantage of others. The present publication is the fruit of Mr. James Sprunt sdesire to collate information of general interest concerning the Cape Fear Eiver, because he has an abiding affection for the noble stream with which he is so familiar and is animated by a purpose to preserve in convenient form some account of local incidents that are worthy of being remembered. In the years just before the war, when I first began to know the active men of Wilmington, none stood higher in public esteem than Mr. Alexander Sprunt. He was a thorough man of business, whose intelligence and sterling worth commanded admiration, while his brother. Rev. James M. Sprunt, who was teaching the Grove Academy in Duplin, added to the credit of the name. These two brothers had come to the Cape Fear some ten or fifteen years earlier and had won what is most to be valued in life the good opinion of those who knew them. The passage of time has yearly added to the reputation of the name, until now it stands unexcelled in the business world. The father of these brothers, Laurence Sprunt, a farmer near the famous town of Perth, in 1812 married Christiana Mc Donald, daughter of a Highland family, whose brother, John Mc Donald, was a prosperous planter in Jamaica, and whose cousins, the Menzies, in Scotland, were prominent and wealthy. After his marriage Laurence Sprunt occupied a small farm known as Viewfield, near Perth, and there were bom his children, A lexander, James Menzies, and I sabella, all of whom were educated in Edinburgh. After graduating, Alexander became a partner in the firm of Reed, Irving Co. (Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.) About the Publisher Forgotten Books is a publisher of historical writing
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James Iver McKay was born on 17 Jul 1792, in Bladen County, North Carolina. He was the son of John and Mary (Salter) McKay and the grandson of Bladen Iver McKay who emigrated from Scotland to North Carolina about 1780.
McKay's only academic training, of which there is authentic record, was received at the Raleigh Academy, but he bore every evidence of a liberal education. He studied law and was admitted to the bar.
In 1815, McKay was elected state senator. Serving four consecutive terms, he was again elected in 1822, 1826, 1829, and 1830. On March 6, 1817, he was appointed federal district attorney for North Carolina. Elected to Congress, he served from 1831 until 1849, when he declined reëlection. His congressional career was distinguished. While chairman of the ways and means committee he would not allow the appointment of a clerk and did all the work himself. Yet in spite of economical notions he favored military preparations and obtained the establishment of Fort Caswell on the Cape Fear and the arsenal at Fayetteville. He was chairman of the committee on ways and means from 1843 to 1847 and was the author of the tariff bill of 1843 that failed to pass Congress. His report on the tariff in 1844 was an important state paper, and in 1846 he introduced the Walker tariff bill, which he had helped prepare. He died suddenly at Goldsboro and was buried at "Belfont. "
(Preface There are what are called labors of love when men...)
McKay's voice was harsh and unpleasant, but, fluent though terse in speech, and convincing because of the wealth of his carefully prepared information, he was regarded as one of the most influential debaters in the House. Public honesty and economy became his passion, and, as an untiring and profane enemy of claim agents and extravagant members, he won the reputation of being an "Old Money Bags, " to whose eyes a dollar seemed as big as a cart-wheel.
He rarely smiled and had the reputation of great severity, but he was warm-hearted, charitable personally generous, and exceedingly popular. He was much interested in the welfare of his constituents and is said to have spent more than his salary every year of his congressional service in buying government publications, chiefly concerning agriculture, and in distributing them in his district. He inherited property and amassed more. By his will McKay provided that his valuable plantation, "Belfont, " should become a county home and experimental farm for Bladen. His negroes, numbering between two and three hundred, were freed and sent to Liberia.
On December 3, 1818, McKay married Eliza Ann Harvey the daughter of Travis and Sarah (Robeson) Harvey, a woman of wealth, who died in 1847. They had one son who died in infancy.