Location: US 117 (East Center Street) in Faison
County: Duplin
Original Date Cast: 1950
Samson Lane Faison, brigadier general in the U. S. Army, was born November 29, 1860, in Faison. He was educated in private schools in the area, including Faison Academy. He was appointed to the United States Military Academy at West Point and graduated in June 1883 as a second lieutenant. Faison was assigned to the First Infantry, serving under General George Crook in Arizona against the Indians. He was present at the council between Crook and Geronimo, leader of the Chiricahua Apache, in Mexico in March 1886.
Faison was promoted to first lieutenant in 1891 and enrolled in the Army’s Torpedo School. He became a recruiter for a time and later became a senior instructor in the Infantry Tactics Department at West Point. Promoted to captain in 1898, Faison resigned from West Point the following year to fight in the Philippines. While there he served as adjutant general to several units and as judge advocate of military commissions and judge of the provost court. When he returned to the United States in 1903, Faison was given command of Fort Mason in California and later was transferred to the quartermaster general’s office in Washington, D. C. In 1906 he was promoted to major and returned to the Philippines, where he commanded Camp Downs. Two years later he returned again to the States and in 1910 was appointed to study at the Army War College. After graduation he stayed on as an instructor and administrator.
Progressively moving up in the Army ranks, Faison spent time in Panama and Hawaii before the start of World War I. On August 30, 1917, he was promoted to brigadier general of the National Army (a wartime promotion) over the Sixtieth Infantry Brigade of the Thirtieth ("Old Hickory”) Division. During the war, his division served in Belgium and France, serving with distinction at the Hindenburg Line at Bellecourt, France. There Faison’s troops were the first Americans to break through the line, producing a victory for the Allied forces. After the war, Faison returned to his rank of colonel. He was promoted to brigadier general in the regular army on June 14, 1922. He retired less than six months later, after having served in the Army for over forty years. Faison died at his home in Baltimore in 1940 and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
References:
William S. Powell, ed., Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, II, 177-178—sketch by Charles M. Ingram
Samson Lane Faison Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, online finding aid at: http://webcat.lib.unc.edu/search~S1?/afaison+samson/afaison+samson/1%2C…