Chisholm Bisher

Born 1892, Denton, North Carolina

Died 1968, Lexington, North Carolina

Chisholm Bisher watched the world around him transform from candles to electricity, horses to automobiles, and agriculture to industry. Chisholm's brother, Crolie, died of typhoid during a terrible epidemic in 1901. In 1910, Chisholm married a beautiful girl named Mamie Minerva Morris. They raised four children through the hard times of the Great Depression, and even managed to send all of them off to college.

He was destined to live all his life in Denton, and saw it grow into the essence of small town America, with a Main Street aching for capture in a Norman Rockwell painting. Denton had been known as Finch's Crossroads prior to 1875. In 1878, a post office opened. Postmaster Peacock named the place after Denton, Texas for some reason unknown to this writer. The town was incorporated about 1910. Chisholm Bisher served as one of five Denton commissioners in 1924, 1926 and 1946. He reached the pinnacle of his political career when he became Mayor of Denton in 1938.

That same year he purchased the Rogers Hosiery Mill (established in 1930 by J.E. Rogers) on Main Street, and renamed it the Bisher Hosiery Mill. The mill thrived for 50 years.

Chisholm was a serious, hard-working man, but not without a wry sense of humor. One day during the 1930s, he was concentrating on writing out a deposit slip in the Carolina Bank & Trust Company on Main Street in Denton. A bank robber sidled up to him and jabbed the barrel of a pistol into his ribs. He stayed focused on his deposit slip, and waved the pest away. He figured it was some friend with a bad sense of humor. The robber poked the pistol into his ribs again. "Oh, go away," he grumbled with characteristic Bisher patience, and continued filling out his deposit slip. Eventually he came to realize that the robber was no prankster, and he grudgingly allowed the felon to interfere with his busy schedule.

In 1946, Chisholm moved into the former home of famous baseball pitcher Max Lanier. It was a beautiful brick homeplace a few miles south of Denton on Highway 109. A gravel driveway horseshoed around the property from the road, winding past a handsome white barn and garage behind the home. The large home’s hallways would resound with the laughter and games of grandchildren and greatgrandchildren for forty years, even long after Chisholm departed his mortal life. The homepage background shows the August 1954 family reunion at this home. The portrait of Chisholm on this page was taken at the same time (to his left is W. Flaude Morris, the uncle of Mrs. C. Bisher).

Chisholm Bisher passed away in 1968 after a long, hard bout with Parkinson's Disease and was buried near Denton.