"The man whose mind on virtue bent, Pursues some greatly good intent With undiverted aim, Serene beholds the angry crowd, Nor can their clamors fierce and loud His stubborn honor tame. Not the proud tyrant's fiercest threat, Nor storms, that from their dark retreat The rolling surges wake; Not Jove's dread bolt that shakes the pole, The firmer purpose of his soul With all its power can shake." In the latter years of his life, actuated by a desire to be useful in his day and generation, wherever opportunity and his ability might allow, he accepted the office of justice of the peace, an office which, to the honor of those who have filled it in North Carolina from the first organization of civil government until now, has ever been performed without pecuniary reward, and took considerable interest in administering justice in the County Courts of Wake, giving to this inferior tribunal the dignity and value of a Superior Court, to the great satisfaction of the bar and the public. He was thrice married; first, as before mentioned, to the daughter of Governor Turner; second, to the daughter of Colonel William Polk, and third, to Mrs. Delia Williams, daughter of Sherwood Haywood, Esq., in each instance forming an alliance with an old family of the State, distinguished by public service and great personal worth from an early period. The last named lady, the worthy companion of his life for thirty years, who survives him as his widow, receives in her bereavement the condolence and sympathy, not merely of this community and State, but that of those in distant lands and in other States of the Union whom, not the lapse of years nor the excitement of intervening events, nor the fiery gulf of civil war shall separate from a friendship accorded to her and her departed husband, as representatives of the personal character, the society and domestic virtues of their native State in better days of the republic. By the two latter marriages he left numerous descendants.