As a statesman he was eminently patriotic and comprehensive. To 
him more than to any other man is the State indebted for her existing 
works of internal improvement, her benevolent institutions, and the new 
impulse that the cause of education received at his hands. He founded 
Edgeworth Seminary, at Greensboro, N. C., for the education of young 
ladies, supporting it out of his own means during its long and useful 
existence. 
As a man of affairs, his great practical knowledge and experience led 
him into many useful enterprises. He was a pioneer in manufacturing 
in North Carolina, founding the Leaksville Mills in 1837, owning and 
conducting them with success up to the time of his death; in August, 
1866. 
While a member of the House of Commons he secured the passage 
of the charter for the North Carolina Railroad, and at the organization 
of the company was elected its president. He finished this great work 
of building the North Carolina Railroad, 223 miles long through the cen¬ 
ter of the State, turning it over to the State and stockholders, finished 
and equipped, without a dollar of bonded debt on the company, a feat 
which was never accomplished before or since in the history of railroad 
construction. In this more than any other achievement of his remark¬ 
able career, he demonstrated the salient feature of his character—great 
practical vigor. 
On retiring from the presidency of the North Carolina Railroad Com¬ 
pany, in his farewell address to the stockholders, in July, 1855, he said, in 
conclusion: “ Living, I have spent five years of the best portion of my 
life in the service of the North Carolina Railroad; dying, my sincerest 
prayers will be offered up for its prosperity and its success; dead, I wish 
to be buried alongside of it in the bosom of my own beloved Carolina!” 
This wish was realized. 
North Carolina owes him a large debt of gratitude for what he did 
for her, as well when he was in the private walks of life as when charged 
with the duties of high official station. 
As an individual Governor Morehead was a man of principle, pruden¬ 
tial in his habits, was a strict economist of time and means. He was 
temperate in all things, and his moral habits were eminently pure and ele¬ 
vated. No profane language ever issued from his reverential spirit. He 
was social and genial in temper, bland and dignified in his manners. A 
native of Virginia, it was upon her sacred soil the last scene of his event¬ 
ful life transpired. He died at Rockbridge Alum Springs, in August, 
1866, in the seventieth year of his age, exercising to the last a profound 
belief in the “ divinity that shapes our ends.” He was laid to rest “ in 
the bosom of his own beloved Carolina,” amid his monuments of renown, 
that perpetuate his genius and worth, and which ever stimulate a devoted 
patriotism and lofty State pride. 
10 
