JAMES REDDING RIVES, I!

©

Lieutenant General/Baron Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell organized the
Boy Scouts in 1908 and the movement spread from Great Britain to many other nations;
it had reached the United States by 1910. The purpose of this group was to develop a
somewhat chivalrous attitude in young boys, to train them in the essentials of good
citizenship; a scout promised “on his honor” to help other people at all times and to do
his duty to God and his country.

James Redding (“Jimmy”) Rives, Il, who was born on June 11, 1889, at Rives
Landing on the Tar River near Belvoir, has the distinction of founding the Boy Scout
troop in Greenville sometime around 1915 or 1916. This was also one of the first Boy
Scout troops to be organized in Eastern Carolina.

Rives’ parents were James Redding Rives (December 23, 1850-January 10, 1903)
and Lucy E. Bellamy Rives (September 9, 1860-July 10, 1933). (See Entry 1070 in
Chronicles of Pitt County.) The Rives Family originally came from County Dorset in
southern England to Tidewater Virginia during the English Civil War (ca. 1640) and
migrated to Pitt County ca. 1760.

Young Jimmy Rives spent his early youth at his rural family home and, later, in
Greenville where, for a while, he was employed at the Flanagan Buggy Company. He
became interested in the Boy Scout movement and undertook to organize a troop in
Greenville (one of the “original” Greenville scouts was young Graham Flanagany);
Jimmy Rives arranged with then-Secretary of the Navy Josepheus Daniels to have a_
small U.S. naval boat sent up the Tar River in order to transport the Greenville scouts
on an excursion to Washington, N.C.—quite an expedition for that day! In later years,
when Jimmy Rives joined other members of his family who had moved to Enfield, N.C..,
he again became involved with Boy Scout work. Here, on one occasion, he arranged
for the Enfield scouts to make a trip to Virginia Beach, Va., again, some distance for that
era.

Jimmy Rives was inducted in the United States Army on March 6, 1918, and saw
military service with the American Expeditionary Forces around the Somme River. He
was honorably discharged on August 5, 1919. Afterward, he joined the American
Legion and was an active member for many years. He frequently played “Taps” on his
bugle for military funerals.

He followed a long-standing Rives Family tradition and became a member of the
Masonic Order. (A Masonic apron from his family, dating from the 1790s, was
presented to the Greenville Masonic Lodge some years ago.) Rives was also an active
member in the Enfield Methodist Protestant Church (later, the United Methodist
Church).

He was engaged in the mercantile business in Ahoskie and Baltimore, Maryland,
and, in 1925, returned to Enfield where, for over twenty years, he was associated with
his brother, Ralph C. Rives, in Rives and Company. Later, he owned and operated the
Rives Paint and Upholstery Company.

On March 1, 1920, James R. Rives, II, married Novie Shipp (September 9, 1902-
August 4, 1982). They later became the parents of a son, James R. Rives, Ill, a veteran
of World War Two, and also a member of the Masonic order, who died on February 10,
1976, and a daughter, Jeannette Rives (Mrs. Calvin) Johnson (born on November 17,

 
1922) who attended Mary Washington College of the University of Virginia, and
currently resides in Hampton, Va.

Jimmy Rives was a man of many talents. He was a skilled craftsman who enjoyed
making, refinishing and restoring furniture. Like his father, he was an outstanding
gardener and he enjoyed sharing with friends and relatives the produce he had grown.
His travels took him throughout much of the United States and into Canada. For many
years, he and Mrs. Rives operated a popular tourist home near Highway 301 in Enfield:
this was in the “pre-motel days” and the Rives Tourist Home became a well-known
business with some guests, enroute north or south, who returned annually.

James Redding Rives, II, died on February 25, 1972, and is buried in Elmwood
Cemetery in Enfield, N.C.

His daughter has graciously donated her fathers World War One diary to the
Manuscript Collection in Joyner Library, East Carolina University. This diary records
events and impressions dealing with military troop crossing on the Atlantic Ocean and in
war-torn France.

In a letter dated March 30, 1972, Paul S. Ernst, Supervisor, Registration and
Membership, Boy Scouts of America, North Brunswick, New Jersey, wrote that the boys
who belonged to Mr. Rives’ troops in Greenville and Enfield “. . . were fortunate in
having a leader who was in a position to arrange for them trips to Washington and
Virginia Beach. In all probability some of the boys would not otherwise have had an
opportunity to visit either of these places. I’m sure that everyone who was connected
with Mr. James Rives while he was active in Scout work will remember him with
affection.”

Sources: James Rives Childs, Reliques of the Rives (1929); The Enfield (N.C.)
Progress, March 2, 1972; The James Redding Rives, II, Papers (East Carolina
University Manuscript Collection); letter from Jeannette R. Johnson, dated March 17,
2004.

—Ralph Hardee Rives

Dr. Ralph Hardee Rives
P.O2Bex4e/
Enfield, NC 27823-0157

Names to be included in index:

Baden-Powell, Robert Stephenson Rives, James Redding

Smyth, Lt. Gen/Baron s Rives, James Redding, II (Jimmy)
Daniels, Josepheus GeeabRives, Jeannette

Ernst, Paul S. Rives, Lucy E. Bellamy
Flanagan, Graham Rives, Novie Shipp

Johnson, Calvin Rives, Ralph C.

Johnson, Jeannette Rives Shipp, Novie
Rives, James R., Ill