m became a Methodist preacher of the hortatory type for which the
South is famous--we catch glimpses of the older man battling with the
logs in the Cape Fear River, or penetrating the virgin pine forest,
felling trees and converting its raw material to the uses of a growing
civilization. Like many of the Page breed, this Page was a giant in size
and in strength, as sound morally and physically as the mighty forests
in which a considerable part of his life was spent, brave, determined,
aggressive, domineering almost to the point of intolerance, deeply
religious and abstemious--a mixture of the frontiersman and the Old
Testament prophet. Walter Page dedicated one of his books[2] to his
father, in words that accurately sum up his character and career. "To
the honoured memory of my father, whose work was work that built up the
commonwealth." Indeed, Frank Page--for this is the name by which he was
generally known--spent his whole life in these constructive labours. He
founded two towns in North Carolina, Cary and Aberdeen; in the City of
Raleigh he constructed hotels and other buildings; his enterprising and
restless spirit opened up Moore County--which includes the Pinehurst
region; he scattered his logging camps and his sawmills all over the
face of the earth; and he constructed a railroad through the pine woods
that made him a rich man.

Though he was not especially versed in the learning of the schools,
Walter Page's father had a mind that was keen and far-reaching. He was a
pioneer in politics as he was in the practical concerns of life. Though
he was the son of slave-holding progenitors and even owned slaves
himself, he was not a believer in slavery. The country that he primarily
loved was not Moore County or North Carolina, but the United States of
America. In politics he was a Whig, which meant that, in the years
preceding the Civil War, he was opposed to the extension of slavery and
did not regard the election of Abraham Lincoln as a sufficient
provocation for the secession of the Southern States. It is therefore
not surprising that Walter Page, in the midst of the London turmoil of
1916, should have found his thoughts reverting to his father as he
remembered him in Civil War days. That gaunt figure of America's time of
agony proved an inspiration and hope in the anxieties that assailed the
Ambassador. "When our Civil War began," wrote Page to Col. Edward M.
House--the date was November 24, 1916, one of the darkest