AMONG the citizens of North Carolina who are remarkable for their success, and who have conquered difficulties and overcome obstacles by their skill and persistent endeavors, is William Thomas O'Brien, one of the foremost business men of Durham. Indeed, Mr. O'Brien's career presents a fine illustration of the common saying that "there is always room at the top" for those who merit the smiles of fortune.

In 1846, when the young people of Ireland were pouring into the United States in a steady stream seeking better possibilities amid new surroundings, John O'Brien joined the exodus, and his footsteps being directed southward, he found employment as a laborer at Lynchburg, Virginia, where, in 1850, he was happily married to Katherine McLaughlin, who had likewise come from her old home in Ireland. There, four years later, near Lynchburg, was born their son, the subject of this sketch. While his parents were poor, they had the common Irish characteristics of sturdy independence and rugged honesty, and the strong moral and intellectual traits that distinguish the Irish people.

In youth young William was strong and healthy, and he lived much out of doors, his special tastes leading him to mechanical pursuits. He had the advantages of a private school until he was fourteen years of age, and then for two years he was employed in a tobacco factory. But his inclination for machinery led him, at the age of sixteen, to enter a machine shop as an apprentice, where he served for four years learning his trade. The next seven years of his life he worked as a journeyman machinist in Washington, Baltimore, Georgetown, Philadelphia, Kansas City, Denver, Pueblo and St. Paul, making an extended tour through the Western country and becoming well acquainted with a large part of the United States. He had now attained such skill that he was offered a position in Washington to take charge of some large chemical works there, which, however, he resigned to become foreman of the machine shops of the Glamorgan Company at Lynchburg, having married, in October, 1883, Catherine Biggins, and being desirous of making a permanent home for his family in the vicinity of his parents. But in March, 1884, he abandoned that position to accept an offer of the Bonsack Cigarette Machine Company of Lynchburg, which was making the Bonsack machine, a new invention intended to supersede the manufacture of cigarettes by hand. The machine was considered important, but did not do its work satisfactorily, and Mr. O'Brien was employed to try to perfect it and introduce it among the various tobacco companies engaged in the production of cigarettes. As desirable as it was to use a machine for this purpose, the tobacco companies were skeptical about their practicability, and, indeed, the machine as first devised gave little hope of ever being perfected sufficiently to make it available. Shortly after Mr. O'Brien was engaged for this work he was directed to carry one of the machines to Durham and erect it at the Blackwell Durham Bull Factory. The progress with this machine was very slow and unsatisfactory, but Mr. O'Brien addressed himself to the perfection of the instrument with great skill and persistent labor, and after seven months, during which he invented many improvements, he had the satisfaction of realizing that the machine was fairly successful, and its output had increased to about 100,000 per day. In the meantime, however, the Bonsack Machine Company had refused to observe their contract with him, and Mr. J. B. Duke, recognizing the capabilities of Mr. O'Brien, and being hopeful of his ultimate success in making the instrument do the work intended for it, obtained a contract for him, allowing him three cents per thousand on all cigarettes made by the machines, and a little later this compensation was increased to four cents per thousand, as the perfected machine largely reduced the cost of manufacturing and added to the profits of the tobacco company.

After some three years of experimenting, the machines were so perfected as to give almost continuous satisfactory service, and the number in use had gradually increased to thirty-five, turning out nearly 4,000,000 cigarettes per day, whereas in the other factories throughout the country where the Bonsack machine had been placed it had proved a failure and had been entirely discarded as useless. Thus it was that Mr. O'Brien's skill as a mechanic and his patient industry perfected that complicated piece of mechanism, the Bonsack cigarette machine, to the enormous financial advantage of his employers, the W. Duke Sons & Company, whose cigarette business was the substantial foundation of their subsequent phenomenal success, leading to the establishment of the world-wide fame of the Dukes and the organization of the American Tobacco Company, one of the greatest developments of American industry.

At the age of thirty-one Mr. O'Brien had succeeded in saving $1000, which stimulated his zeal to secure a competency, and since then, by the exercise of economy, foresight and judgment, taking advantage of favorable opportunities opened to him by the loyalty of his friends, he has been enabled to accumulate a handsome fortune, being now one of the capitalists of Durham. But while engaged in building up a large estate, Mr. O'Brien has not been neglectful of matters that appealed to his philanthropic impulses or to his public spirit. He contributed the first $1000 toward founding the orphanage at Nazareth, and was largely instrumental in its establishment. He donated a lot worth $6000 as a site for the Catholic Church in Durham, besides making liberal contributions for its erection. He was one of the first to make a handsome contribution toward the removal of Trinity College to Durham, and his liberal donations to educational and charitable objects have been numerous and extensive. Born a poor boy, and having worked himself up beyond want, he appreciates the difficulties that many deserving people encounter in life, and he has always manifested a spirit to be useful to the meritorious and to give cheerful assistance when needed. While his beneficence toward his church, the Roman Catholic, is especially noteworthy, his liberality is not confined to that object, but is dispensed with a generous hand to many charitable purposes.

Successful in business, Mr. O'Brien has become interested in many of the enterprises that have contributed to the growth and importance of Durham. Although a modest and unassuming man, declining responsible positions rather than seeking high places of trust, he has still become a director of the Loan and Trust Company of Durham and a director in the Erwin Cotton Mills and of the Durham Savings Bank, and he has long been the superintendent of the American Tobacco Factory in Durham, a position which has afforded a fine field for the exercise of his mechanical talent, excellent judgment and fine capabilities. In politics Mr. O'Brien has always affiliated with the Republican Party. He has been chairman of the Republican County Executive Committee in Durham ever since 1894. In 1896 he was a delegate to the Republican National Convention at St. Louis, and in 1904 he was a delegate to the national convention at Chicago, and he has represented Durham County in all the Republican State conventions since 1898, and also in the congressional district conventions; and since 1902 he has been a member of the Republican State Executive Committee. Indeed, in recent years he has manifested a great interest in political matters, and has become a strong influence in the management of his party affairs in this State. He has, however, not sought for himself any political preferment; still, for two years, from 1900 to 1902, he served as an alderman for the city of Durham, taking a great interest in whatever concerned the prosperity and development of his community.

In early youth Mr. O'Brien's particular tastes led him to find recreation and exercise in rowing, and in recent years his favorite amusement and relaxation has been fishing and hunting, and he has established a large game preserve in the northern portion of Durham County, where he and his friends find interesting sport.

While his natural mechanical turn and the circumstances of his life led Mr. O'Brien to become a machinist, for which, indeed, he has a genius, his success in life he attributes to the influence of a good home, which inspired him to make the most of his opportunities; and this purpose was increased by his association with the forceful men with whom he came in contact in the course of his business career.

Being asked to offer some suggestion that might contribute to the strengthening of sound ideals and be useful to youths in attaining true success in life, Mr. O'Brien says: "I would emphasize the absolute necessity of being truthful in all things; abstinence from all intoxicants, strictly honest in all business relations and charitable in judgment toward those with whom we may differ."

Mr. and Mrs. O'Brien have four children, and he has a charming home circle blessed with the presence of a noble, Christian wife and three fine sons and one lovely daughter.
S. A. Ashe.

On the 27th day of January, 1906, after the above sketch was prepared, Mr. O'Brien died at his home in Durham.
(Source: Biographical History of North Carolina from Colonial Times to Present, By Samuel A. Ashe, Vol. III, published 1906)