Furnifold Simmons: The Tar Heel Boss

A tenth of a mile from here stands the birthplace of Furnifold McLendel Simmons, born January twentieth, eighteen fifty-four, on his father's Jones County plantation. Simmons would become one of the most powerful Democratic political bosses in American history. He served in the United States House of Representatives from eighteen eighty-seven to eighteen eighty-nine, then built a statewide machine so effective he delivered North Carolina to the Democratic Party for a generation.

He served as United States Senator from nineteen oh one to nineteen thirty-one, three full decades, and chaired the Finance Committee during World War One. His machine politics, however, rested on violent white-supremacy campaigns, including the eighteen ninety-eight Wilmington massacre. His refusal to support the party's presidential nominee in nineteen twenty-eight ultimately ended his career.