Edward James Parrish

Edward James Parrish (1846-1920) put the speaking skills learned as a Methodist lay preacher to a new use in 1871, leading Durham's first tobacco auction at the W.T. Blackwell Co.'s new warehouse.

Brother-in-law of Blackwell partner Julian S. Carr, Parrish went on in 1879 to open his own auction house, a brick building 56 by 225 feet that filled the block on Clay Street between Mangum and Church. Clay Street was later renamed Parrish Street in recognition, and Parrish had an elegant mansion built on fashionable Dillard Street.

Parrish lost the warehouse and many of his other assets in the nationwide financial panic of 1893 (his brother-in-law Carr was among his creditors who repossessed). Subsequently, he went to work for James B. Duke's American Tobacco Co. and served as its agent in Japan. By the time the Japanese government nationalized that nation's tobacco industry in 1904, Parrish had negotiated arrangements favorable to his employer and recovered his own financial health. After some indecision over his future, Parrish returned to Durham and prospered in real-estate speculation. He made a new home north of town, on the Roxboro Road near the Eno River, an estate he called Lochmoor.