John Fletcher Bruton was a lawyer, educator, banker, and mayor who arrived in Wilson in 1881. He was an organizer of the N.C. Banker’s Association, an original director of the Federal Reserve Bank in Richmond, and president of Wilson Trust and Savings Bank. He was also a founder of Kinsey Female Seminary in 1897, now Barton College, served as a colonel in the N.C. National Guard, and was chair of the Board of Trustees of Duke University from 1927 to 1946. He died in 1946.