Marion Eaton Newsom was reared on his father’s farm and at the close of the civil war went to work for John Wesley Heptinstall in a country store. Two years later he married John Wesley’s daughter. Their son, Dallas Walton Newsom received his early education from his mother’s sister and in a school in Littleton NC. He was an outstanding student and at the age of twenty-two entered Trinity College, now Duke University. After graduation, he was hired by the president of the college as a private secretary. In 1901 he served as registrar of the college and later, in 1907 became the treasurer. He also served as a Durham County commissioner and as the county manager.

In his book of poetry, he recollected about his grandfather: Another gleam from the early years are the visits to town by my Heptinstall grandparents. I can see now that dark gray mare and the chestnut-brown horse drawing a well-built carriage into town, driven by Uncle Frank, the good and honest old plantation favorite. But it was a real joy as I beheld the benign and serene countenances of those good grandparents, half-obscured in the shadows of the carriage curtains. There was a silent safety in their presence, an overjoyous ardor to please them in everything. And then that rich dinner that somehow always turned up when they came-the fresh, clean table-cloth and napkins, the company cups and spoons, ad the best pickles and sweets. A nameless sadness always came to me in the afternoons when these good people kissed us all goodbye, and drove out homeward through the evening shadows.

NOTE: When researching family history, I noted a Frank Heptinstall on the 1880 census. This must have been the “Uncle Frank” referenced in the above quote.