Person:Richard Torrance (5)

http://libweb.uncc.edu/archives/manuscripts/T/torrance.txt

Richard Allison Torrance (12/7/1833-5/22/1927) was the eldest son of James Galbraith and Margaret Allison Torrance. As a young boy, Torrance studied under schoolmaster Peter Stuart Ney--whom some scholars believe to have been the famous Marshal Ney, one of Napoleon's field commanders--from 1840 to 1845 [1-24].

From 1851 to 1855 he attended the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Seeking greater economic opportunity, Torrance ventured to Texas in 1856, where he purchased 640 acres on the Brazos River in Fort Bend County. In 1860 he had acquired nineteen slaves; by 1868 he paid tax on 678 acres. At the outbreak of the Civil War he joined Terry's 8th Texas Rangers, a cavalry company that fought under General Nathan Bedford Forrest. Torrance was wounded at Murfreesboro, and he lost a leg due to a gunshot wound suffered at Mossy Creek in 1863. After the amputation of his leg, he was discharged with the rank of captain.

He convalesced at Cedar Grove following his discharge from the Confederate Army, then returned to his plantation in Texas. In 1866, he was elected a county commissioner in Fort Bend County. Severe economic conditions, aggravated by the shortage of agricultural laborers, forced him to sell his plantation and return to Mecklenburg County in either 1868 or 1869. He and his family lived with his mother at Cedar Grove. After her death, he inherited the property and continued to farm it until his death in 1927.

In 1877 he was elected a justice of the peace in Lemley's Township in northern Mecklenburg County and in 1879 served as Mecklenburg County commissioner. In early May, 1880, Torrance applied for a position as census enumerator for Lemley's Township. He was appointed on May 13, 1880, as the enumerator for the 114th Census Division of the 3rd Supervisor's District. He also served as Mecklenburg County Tax Collector from 1889 to 1896.

Torrance suffered the loss of an arm in a cotton gin accident in 1883. According to family legend, a former slave ripped a drive belt off the gin with his bare hands, thus saving Torrance's life.

He married Bettie E. Reid (1836-61), daughter of Rufus L. Reid of Mount Mourne, on November 26, 1856. (Rufus, a successful merchant and planter, built Mount Mourne in northern Mecklenburg County, considered one of the finest frame houses of the period.) In 1861 Bettie contracted "Coast Fever" and died suddenly, leaving Torrance with two young daughters: Minna Eugenia (b. 1857) and Margaret Elizabeth (b. 1858).

He then married Patience Eliza Gaston (1/20/1843-6/10/1916), daughter of Dr. John Brown and Polly Buford Gaston of Chester County, S.C., on October 3, 1865. She stayed at Cedar Grove with her mother-in- law while Torrance returned to Texas until his permanent resettlement in North Carolina in the late 1860s. They had nine children:

    1) Richard Allison Jr. (8/21/1866-12/31/1943) married Lititia
       Nance.  They settled in Lincoln, Neb., where he established
       himself in "throwaway advertising";

    2) Gaston (b. 9/30/1868) lived much of his early life with his aunt
       Mary Buford Gaston, who probably reared him.  He attended the
       University of Virginia medical school (1896); and studied at the
       Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane in Philadelphia (1898) and
       at the Philadelphia Polyclinic and College for Graduates in
       Medicine.  Around 1900, he relocated to Birmingham, Ala., where
       he established a surgical practice.  He married Anne Wilkerson;

    3) Mary Buford (b. 1869) married Lynford Lardner Moore.  He studied
       at the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia (1893).  From
       1895 to the early 1900s, they worked in Japan and China as
       Presbyterian missionaries.  After returning to the United                                 States, Moore continued as a minister and apparently did not
       pursue a medical practice;

    4) Delia Isabel (12/27/1871-8/31/1962) married (1903) Howard A.
       Banks [editor, Asheville Gazette-News (1904), Hickory Democrat
       (1911-15), and the Sunday School Times (1923); and city editor,
       The Charlotte News (1907); in 1915, became private secretary to                                     the Secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels, and represented the
       department at the SanFrancisco Pan American Exhibition].  In
       1900, Delia worked for the Charlotte firm of Clarkson and Duls
       as a stenographer.  She also worked as an assistant teach
       the public schools before she married.  Their son, Richard T.
       Banks, is the present owner of Cedar Grove and donor of this
       collection;

    5) Susan Camilla (b. 12/26/1874) married Charlotte banker and
       entrepreneur John W. Zimmerman;

    6) James Galbraith (b. 11/26/1876) married Sophia Dunlap.  He
       worked as a salesperson for Southern Mill Supply Company;

    7) Kate (b. 12/24/1878) married Harry L. Sanders, a Charlotte
       entrepreneur;

    8) Hugh (9/16/1881-3/11/1966) married Louise Levi (8/16/1888-
       2/26/1977).  They lived in Florida, where he grew vegetables;
       and
               
    9) William A. (5/16/1884-5/22/1940) did not marry.  He attended the
       University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and worked as an
       automobile salesperson.

Richard Allison Torrance died on May 22, 1927 and was buried in the Hopewell Presbyterian Church cemetery. At the time of his death, the Cedar Grove land holdings numbered 1,200 acres, which were divided into eleven plots for his eleven children. Delia Torrance Banks received Cedar Grove.