William Thornton Yancey was born in Person County on February 29, 1884. Yancey was an employee of Granville National Bank in Oxford for over thirty years, retiring as the bank's president in 1933. Later in life he owned a chain of car dealerships in the Oxford-Henderson-Roxboro area. He also served as president of the Oxford Rotary Club and on the boards of directors for the Granville County Library and the Central Orphanage of North Carolina. He died in Durham on November 28, 1969.