John Charles McNeill, one of North Carolina's most celebrated poets, was born on July 26, 1874 in Scotland County near Wagram. Charles was the youngest of five children born to Duncan McNeill and Euphemia Livingston McNeill. His father was one of the first graduates of Trinity College, now Duke University, and in addition to running a sizable farm was at various points of his life an editor, lecturer and writer. John Charles McNeill was first and foremost a student of nature and grew up hunting and fishing along the banks of the Lumber River. It was there that his love of his native land, so often referred to in his poems, was cultivated. John Charles McNeill began his formal education at Richmond Academy and stayed there until he was 17. In 1891 he moved to Whiteville, North Carolina and spent a year with his sister, Mary Catherine Memory, while attending Whiteville Academy. At the age of 18 McNeill accepted a teaching position at a one-room school near Statesboro, GA near where his sister Ella Caroline Watson lived.

In September 1894 John Charles McNeill entered Wake Forest College as a freshman. McNeill quickly distinguished himself by winning the Thomas Dixon Medal for an essay entitled  "Causes and Results of the Crusades" . It was at Wake Forest that Charles would meet Dr. Benjamin Sledd, the head of the English department. Dr. Sledd would spend many evenings with McNeill discussing poetry while "piles of compositions were forgotten as we talked the hours away over poets." While English was McNeill's major field of study, in 1897 he passed the bar exam and received a license to practice law in the state of North Carolina. He graduated from Wake Forest College with a Bachelor of Arts in 1898 and a Master of Arts in 1899. McNeill taught English at Wake Forest College while working on his Master's degree.

Upon graduation Charles headed to Mercer University in Macon, Georgia to teach English grammar and composition. His stay there was short lived, and in 1900 he moved to Lumberton, North Carolina and began practicing law. McNeill purchased an interest in the local newspaper, the  Argus, for which he occasionally wrote editorials. He sold his interest in the paper in 1902, returned to Scotland County, and opened a law practice with Angus McLean in Laurinburg. During this time McNeill was elected to a one-term seat in the State Legislature.

While his trade was practicing law, McNeill's life work and craft was dedicated to writing. In 1902 his poems began to appear in the Century Magazine and the  Youth's Companion. It was McNeill's sincere desire to make writing his career, and in 1904 he was given that opportunity when the city editor of the Charlotte  Observer, H.E.C Bryant, offered him a job as a freelance writer for the newspaper. The editor of the  Observer, J.P. Caldwell, gave McNeill complete freedom to "write whenever and whatever he pleases." His writings ranged from short stories and overheard conversations to intimate essays.

In 1905 McNeill was honored as the first recipient of the Patterson Cup, an award given to honor a writer of "the highest literary skill and genius" in the state of North Carolina. President Theodore Roosevelt, who happened to be touring the state at the time, presented him with the cup. One year later his first volume of poems entitled Songs of Merry and Sad was published. The book was a collection of poems previously published in the  Observer, the  Century Magazine, and the  Youth's Companion.

In 1907 McNeill's health began to fail and he was forced to return home to recuperate. On October 17, 1907 John Charles McNeill, at the age of 33, died suddenly from a bout with pernicious anemia. He is buried in Spring Hill, North Carolina. A second volume of his poetry entitled Lyrics From the Cotton Land was published posthumously.