Armand John DeRosset III (1807-1897) was (a bit confusingly) known as “DeRosset Jr.”) until his father’s death. After graduating from the University of North Carolina at the age of 17, “Junior” wrote in a memoir that he longed to go to West Point, but was opposed by his father. Instead, he entered the Medical College of South Carolina in 1826 and later transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned his M.D. in 1828.
DeRosset III, however, wrote that he found medicine “quite distasteful” (although he liked surgery) and abandoned the practice after a few years. Instead, he ran a plantation in Brunswick County for a few years, entered into a partnership with Platt K. Dickinson to run the Phoenix Mill lumber business in the 1830s and in 1839, with John Potts Brown, launched a commission merchant and shipping business that prospered until the Civil War, even opening a New York branch.
He also invested in the Wilmington & Weldon railroad and was a director for many years. He later wrote that among his most satisfying accomplishments was serving as the railroad’s agent in Britain, exchanging bonds to buy iron rails for the line’s construction.
DeRosset III also was a Wilmington town commissioner. He was an original trustee and first president of Oakdale Cemetery; by a sad coincidence, his daughter Annie DeRosset (1848-1855) became the first person buried at Oakdale. According to biographer Mary Ellen Gadski, he held every post open to a layman in the Episcopal church, serving as a vestryman and senior warden at St. James Church and as treasurer of the North Carolina diocese.
http://www.myreporter.com/2011/10/are-there-any-members-of-the-derosset-family-still-living-in-wilmington/
