William Graham Quackenbush was born in Orange County, North Carolina, on December 12, 1849, and died in Laurinburg, North Carolina, on March 9, 1903. A Christian, scholar, and philanthropist, he served as principal of Laurinburg High School for twenty-one years from 1879 to 1900. He was honored for his exalted character and for his ennobling influence upon youth, and people grateful for his love and service praised his gentle life with the words, "His life was gentle and the elements so moved in him that nature might stand up and say to all world, 'This was a man.'"