Southern Appalachian Digital Collections

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Judge Thaddeus Bryson, Ed Bryson, and Elwood Parker

  • wcu_picturing-5491.jpg
  • This 1941 image of Thaddeus Dillard Bryson III (1903-1976), attorney, solicitor, and Superior Court judge, as well as mayor of Bryson City for three terms, with brother Edwin Constant Bryson (1905-1999), mayor of Bryson City in 1930, professor of Law at Duke University and served as Duke University Counsel, and Elwood Borden Parker (1912 -1981), duck hunting guide who lived in the Currituck Sound area of the Outer Banks, is part of the Stearns-Grueninger collection. Irving Kip Stearns (1895-1942) was president of Carolina Wood Turning Company from 1928 until his death in 1942. Stearns’ grandfather, Jeremiah Shank, started the company in 1903 as Bryson City Pump Works and it grew to be a thriving industry for the community. In 1911, Stearns was in the first graduating class of Bryson City High School. He had one son, Joseph Pease Stearns (1917-1948). In 1935, I. K. married Betty Grueninger (1896-1971).