Brigadier-General Ellison Capers, Confederate Military History, a library of Confederate States Military History: Volume 5, South Carolina
Clement Anselm Evans, Ed.

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[513] S. C., building the first house in that now prosperous little town. Since locating there his attention has been given to mercantile pursuits and he is now a prominent and wealthy merchant, and he is also a half owner in the Seneca oil mills. He was married in 1872 to Miss Ludie C. Merriman, of Greenwood, S. C. Mrs. Coleman is president of the federation of women's clubs of South Carolina, and is a woman of great executive force and high literary attainments. They have two children: Dr. Edward M., who is now a practicing physician at Lavonia, Ga., and George Y., who is now associated with his father in the oil mill business.

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Dexter Edgar Converse

Dexter Edgar Converse was born in Vermont, in 1828. He is the son of Orlin Converse, also a native of Vermont, and a grandson of Paine Converse, a farmer of Massachusetts and direct descendant of Edward Converse, who came from England to America with Governor Winthrop in 1620. His mother was Louisa Twichell, a native of Massachusetts and daughter of Peter Twichell. She died in 1888. When D. Edgar Converse was but three years old he was deprived by death of a father's care and was reared and educated chiefly in Canada at the home of an uncle, where he remained until he had reached the age of twenty-one. This uncle was, like his father, a woolen manufacturer, and it was from him that the young man received his first lessons in this business, in which he was destined to accomplish such wonderful success. In 1850, after reaching maturity, he went to Cohoes, N. Y., and being employed there in a cotton mill for five years he obtained a good knowledge of that business in all its branches. In 1855 he came South and after a brief connection with a cotton mill at Lincolnton, N. C., he removed to Spartanburg county, S. C., and found employment in a mill at Bivinsville, now known as Glendale. In a short time he acquired a proprietary interest and from that time has been one of the owners of the mill, holding now a controlling interest in the stock. At the beginning of the war he enlisted as a private in Company I of the Thirteenth South Carolina regiment, of which O. E. Edwards was colonel. His captain was D. R. Duncan. There was, however, such need of accomplished manufacturers that the Confederate government detailed him to return home and carry on the