Makers and Romance of Alabama History
by B. F. Riley · English · Gutenberg #41485 · 888,879 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Makers and Romance of Alabama History
Author: B. F. Riley
Release date: November 25, 2012 [eBook #41485]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAKERS AND ROMANCE OF ALABAMA HISTORY ***
Makers and Romance of Alabama History
Embracing Sketches of the Men Who Have Been Largely Instrumental in
Shaping the Policies and in Molding the Conditions in the Rapid Growth of
Alabama--Together With the Thrilling and Romantic Scenes With Which Our
History is Resplendent
BY B. F. RILEY, D.D., LL.D.
_Author of the History of Conecuh County; Alabama, As It Is; History of
the Baptists of Alabama; History of the Baptists of the Southern States
East of the Mississippi; History of the Baptists of Texas, and The White
Man's Burden; Ex-President of Howard College, and sometime Professor of
English Literature and Oratory in the University of Georgia._
"History is neither more nor less than biography on a large
scale."--LAMARTINE.
"All history is but a romance, unless it is studied as an
example."--CROLY.
"Biography is the only true history."--CARLYLE.
DEDICATED
TO THE WOMEN OF ALABAMA--
The Mothers, Wives, Daughters, and Sisters, without the fidelity,
kindness, and devotion of whom this proud commonwealth could not have
attained its present magnificent proportions, and on whose future loyalty
must largely depend the perpetuation of the grandeur of Alabama; who
though not conspicuous in the glare and tumult of the struggles which have
eventuated in the erection of Alabama into a giant state, have yet made
possible the successes of others by the quiet and wholesome force of our
home life; to these, our worthy women of the past and present, this volume
is most cordially dedicated by
THE AUTHOR.
BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION
The present volume is intended to be a substantial contribution to the
history of Alabama, by giving expansion to the recorded lives of its
foremost citizens--men who alike on the field and in the forum, on the
bench and in the sphere of commerce, in the lecture room and in the
pulpit, on the farm and in the court, in the field of development as well
as in the ordinary walks of life, have shared conspicuously in the
erection of one of the proudest of the American commonwealths.
The distinction achieved by these eminent citizens in various orbits are
worthy of perpetual record, and their respective deeds and accomplishments
deserve more than a bare reference in the current chronicles of the state.
Along the successive eras through which Alabama has passed, first as a
territory, then as a state, for a period exceeding a hundred years, each
of these worthies made a contribution to the construction of a mighty
commonwealth, and sheer justice requires that the specific task so
worthily wrought by each should be a matter of permanent record. The
effort is here made not to follow the beaten path of chronological
biography, so much, as to seize on the salient points in the life of each
eminent leader, show who and what he was, and that which he did. By means
of a method like this, these distinguished men become reflectors of the
period in which each lived and wrought.
In addition, is a series of romantic sketches which lie outside the
channel of ordinary history, and yet they serve the function of imparting
to its pages a zest and flavor that relieve it largely of commonplace.
These scenes derived from the transactions of nearly four hundred years,
have been carefully gleaned from every possible source, and are here
embodied for the first time in convenient form.
The conditions which have attended on the evolution of a great state from
the rawest of savage wildernesses, have yielded a store of material
intensely romantic. The original tribes with their rude settlements and
forts dotting the uncleared surface of Alabama over, skimming the waters
of the streams and bordering bays in their tiny canoes, and threading the
forests along narrow paths; the invasions of the Spanish and the French,
and their transactions and conflicts as they would encounter aboriginal
resistance, and the later and lasting occupation of the territory by the
Anglo-Saxon, who came with dominant determination to possess the land and
to transform it through the agencies of a conquering civilization into an
exalted government--these have yielded a harvest of romance exceptional in
its rareness and fascinating in its nature. While the record of scenes
like these afford diversion, at the same time, they serve as no inferior
contribution to our history. Like the lives of prominent makers of
history, these rare scenes are indexes of the times in which they took
place.
It is proper to say that the material embodied in this volume appeared
first on the pages of The Age-Herald, of Birmingham, Alabama, with no
original design of the expansion which they gradually assumed, and with
no purpose, in the outset, of embodying them in permanent form. As first
appearing, the individual subjects were treated under the general head of
Men Who Have Made Alabama, while the other sketches appeared under the
subject of Romance of Alabama History. The only change which they have
undergone has been in the way of the correction of certain minor errors to
which the attention of the author was kindly called, and for which he now
acknowledges his gratefulness.
The publication of this volume is due to numerous requests which have come
from both within and without the state, attended by a generous suggestion
of the historic value of the matter herein embodied. It is in compliance
with these requests that the volume is published.
INDEX
ABERNETHY, M. W. 289
BAKER, ALPHEUS 261
BAGBY, A. P. 18
BALDWIN, A. G. 62
BATTLE, C. A. 243
BESTOR, D. P. 105
BIBB, W. W. 1
BOWDON, F. W. 110
BOWIE, ALEXANDER 124
BREWER, WILLIS 361
BRYCE, PETER 181
CHILTON, W. P. 81
CLAY, CLEMENT COMER 14
CLAY, CLEMENT CLAIBORNE 48
CLAYTON, H. D. 275
CLEMENS, JEREMIAH 209
COBBS, N. H. 190
COLLIER, H. W. 58
CURRY, J. L. M. 219
DALE, SAM 5
DARGAN, E. S. 176
DEBARDELEBEN, H. F. 333
DOWDELL, J. F. 279
FITZPATRICK, BENJ. 33
FORNEY, W. H. 252
FORSYTH, JOHN 87
GOLDTHWAITE, GEORGE 92
GUILD, LAFAYETTE 284
HARALSON, JONATHAN 342
HARRISON, G. P. 265
HERBERT, H. A. 365
HILLIARD, H. W. 204
HOLCOMBE, HOSEA 53
HOOPER, J. J. 67
HOUSTON, G. S. 293
JOHNSTON, J. F. 365
KING, W. R. 23
LANGDON, C. C. 152
LEWIS, D. H. 28
MANLY, BASIL, SR. 120
MARTIN, J. L. 38
MATTHEWS, J. E. 171
MEEK, A. B. 115
MORGAN, J. T. 299
MURFEE, J. T. 317
MURPHY, W. M. 73
OATES, W. C. 338
ORMOND, J. J. 129
PELHAM, JOHN, 238
PETTUS, E. W. 256
PICKENS, ISRAEL 10
PICKETT, A. J. 133
POLLARD, C. T. 157
POWELL, J. R. 326
PRATT, DANIEL 142
PUGH, J. L. 305
RICE, F. S. 162
RODDY, P. D. 248
RODES, R. E. 224
RYAN, A. J. 321
SAMFORD, W. J. 346
SAUNDERS, J. E. 77
SCREWS, W. W. 351
SEMMES, RAPHAEL 233
SHELLEY, C. M. 270
SHORTER, J. G. 185
SMITH, E. A. 313
SMITH, ISAAC 43
STONE, G. W. 167
TOUMEY, MICHAEL 146
TRAVIS, ALEXANDER 96
TUTWILER, HENRY 137
WALKER, L. P. 194
WEST, ANSON 309
WHEELER, JOSEPH 229
WINSTON, J. A. 100
YANCEY, W. L. 199
THE FIRST WHITE INVADER 373
INGRATITUDE AND CRUELTY 379
TUSKALOOSA, CHIEF OF THE MOBILIANS 385
TROUBLE BREWING 392
BATTLE OF MAUBILA 398
AFTERMATH OF THE BATTLE 405
MURMURING AND MUTINY 410
THE CLOSING SCENE 415
ORIGINAL MOBILE 421
FORT TOMBECKBE 426
CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE CHICKASAWS 431
BATTLE OF ACKIA 436
AFTER THE BATTLE, WHAT? 441
THE RUSSIAN PRINCESS 446
EARLIEST AMERICAN SETTLERS 451
INDIAN TROUBLES 456
ALEXANDER MCGILLIVRAY 461
THE INDIAN "EMPEROR" 466
MCGILLIVRAY'S CHICANERY 471
A NOVEL DEPUTATION 476
THE TENSION RELIEVED 481
THE CURTAIN FALLS 486
LORENZO DOW 490
WEATHERFORD, THE "RED EAGLE" 495
ENFORCED ACQUIESCENCE 499
FORT MIMS MASSACRE 503
INDIAN GRATITUDE 508
THE CANOE FIGHT 512
A LEAP FOR LIFE 517
WEATHERFORD'S OVERTHROW 522
WEATHERFORD SURRENDERS 527
WEATHERFORD'S LAST DAYS 531
AARON BURR IN ALABAMA 535
BURR'S ARREST 540
A DREAM OF EMPIRE 545
THE TRIP AND SETTLEMENT 550
LIFE IN THE FRENCH COLONY 554
PRIMITIVE HARDSHIPS 559
LAFAYETTE'S VISIT 564
LAFAYETTE'S RECEPTION 569
LAFAYETTE'S DEPARTURE 574
OLD SCHOOL DAYS 579
THE CROSS ROADS GROCERY 584
EARLY NAVIGATION 589
HARRY, THE MARTYR JANITOR 594
A MEMORABLE FREEZE 598
TWO SLAVE MISSIONARIES 602
THE CAMP MEETING 607
THE STOLEN SLAVE 611
HAL'S LAKE 615
MEN WHO HAVE MADE ALABAMA
WILLIAM WYATT BIBB
On the extreme eastern boundary of Washington County, on a bluff
overlooking the Tombigbee River from the west, is the site of old St.
Stephens, the original, or territorial, capital of Alabama. At one time it
had a population of perhaps three thousand, composed largely of immigrants
from Virginia. At the time of its selection as the seat of territorial
government it was about the only place in the territory fitted to become a
capital, though Huntsville, on the extreme north, was also a town of
considerable pretension.
As early as 1817 St. Stephens was a bustling little center of culture and
wealth. In their insulation the people were proud of their little capital.
Their touch with the outside world was by means of sluggish flat boats
which were operated to and from Mobile. The original site is now a scene
of desolation. A few ruins and relics remain to tell the story of the once
refined society existing there. Some of the foundation masonry of the
little capital building and of the tiny treasury, an occasional column of
stone or brick, beaten and battered, rows of trees still growing in
regular order as they were planted nearly a century ago and a cemetery
with its stained and blackened marble remain to indicate that this was
once a spot inhabited by a refined community.
Here, as far back as 1814, Thomas Easton, the first public printer of the
Alabama territory, issued his little paper with its scant news of flat
boat tidings from Mobile, the improvements in the little town, the
exploits of hunters of turkeys, deer, wolves and bears, with a slight
sprinkling of personalities. St. Stephens had been a town of some
pretension for years before the first territorial governor, Honorable
William Wyatt Bibb, of Georgia, came across the country from the
Chattahoochee to assume the executive functions to which he had been
appointed by President Monroe. Bibb was amply equipped for his difficult
position alike naturally and by experience.
A graduate from William and Mary College, he chose medicine as a
profession and was actively engaged in his profession when he was chosen
to represent Georgia in the legislature, where, though still quite a young
man, he won distinction. When scarcely twenty-five years old he was sent
to Congress from Georgia. Later he became one of the senators from the
state, and later still was appointed by President Monroe, the territorial
governor of Alabama. His was an arduous task. The territory was dotted
over with straggling settlements of colonists who came from Virginia, the
Carolinas and Georgia and settled here and there, but the two chief
settlements were in the opposite ends of the territory at St. Stephens and
Huntsville. Roads were yet uncut, and in passing from one settlement to
another the colonists would follow the trails of the Indians which
threaded the forests through. To weld the widely separated communities
into statehood and lay the foundation of a great commonwealth required
more than ordinary statesmanship.
The boundaries of the territory had just been defined by the National
Congress, with the provision that the territorial legislature of the new
region should be those who were members of the Mississippi legislative
council and house of representatives who resided within the confines of
the newly created Alabama territory. Of that number, it so happened that
only one member of the legislative council, or senate, fell within the new
territory. James Titus, of Madison, was the only member of the upper
house, and during the first session of the legislative assembly he sat in
a chamber alone as the senate of Alabama. He was president, clerk and the
senate--all in one. He met, considered the measures of the lower house,
adjourned and convened with ludicrous formality. In the lower house there
were about a dozen members.
The initial message of the first governor showed a ready grasp of the raw
conditions and an ability to grapple with formidable difficulties. A
wilderness had to be shaped and molded into a commonwealth by the creation
of the necessary adjuncts, all of which the young governor recommended in
his first message. The promotion of education, the establishment of
highways, the construction of bridges and ferries, the definition of the
boundaries of counties and the creation of new ones, in order to fuse the
dispersed population into oneness were among his recommendations.
Perhaps the most notable service rendered by Governor Bibb was that of
thwarting the effort of the Mississippi constitutional convention, in
which convention was organized that state, in seeking so to change the
original boundary between the Alabama and Mississippi territories as to
include into the new state of Mississippi all that part of Alabama which
lies west of the Tombigbee River, or, in other words, to make the
Tombigbee the boundary line between the two proposed states. This imposed
on the young governor an important and arduous task, but with cool
aggressiveness, coupled with influential statesmanship, he succeeded in
preventing the proposed change. Had the change been made there would have
been lost to Alabama that valuable portion now embraced in the counties of
Sumter, Choctaw, Washington and Mobile Counties. To the active agency and
energy of this original commonwealth builder is Alabama indebted for the
retention of this valuable strip of territory.
Commercial and educational systems were organized by the incorporation of
banks and schools, and the first location of the seat of government of the
new state provided for by the selection of a site at the junction of the
Cahaba and Alabama Rivers, which new town was called Cahaba. Governor Bibb
was charged with the work of laying out the plans of the town and for
providing for the erection of a capitol building. Meanwhile the seat of
government was removed to Huntsville in order to await the completion of
the capitol at Cahaba.
His term having expired as territorial governor, and Alabama having now
become a state, Governor Bibb offered for election as the first governor
of the new state, and was opposed by Marmaduke Williams, of Tuscaloosa.
Bibb was elected, but died soon after. Two counties, one in Alabama and
the other in Georgia, were named in honor of Governor William Wyatt Bibb.
SAM DALE
No more romantic character figured in the early days of Alabama history
than General Sam Dale. Cool as an ocean breeze, and fearless as a lion,
his natural qualifications fitted him for the rough encounters of a
pioneer period. Like an ancient Norseman he sought danger rather than
shunned it, and hazard furnished to him a congenial atmosphere. He was
born for the perils of the frontier, and his undaunted spirit fitted him
for reveling in the stormy scenes of early Indian warfare.
A native of Virginia, Dale was taken to Georgia in early childhood, and
there grew to early manhood. From his earliest recollections he was
familiar with the stories of the lurking savage and the perils of the
scalping knife and tomahawk. He was therefore an early graduate from the
border school of hunting and Indian warfare.
When Dale removed to Alabama in the budding period of manhood he had
already won the reputation of being the most daring and formidable scout
and Indian fighter of the time. In numerous encounters he had been a
distinguished victor. Six feet two inches high, straight as a flagstaff,
square shouldered, rawboned and muscular, with unusually long and muscular
arms, he was a physical giant and the terror of an Indian antagonist. By
his courage and intrepidity, he excited the regard even of the Indians,
who called him "Sam Thlucco," or Big Sam.
The qualities possessed by Dale may be illustrated by the revelation of
one or two of his daring feats. Appointed a scout at Fort Matthews on the
Oconee River, in Georgia, which fort was under the command of the famous
Indian fighter, Captain Jonas Fauche, Dale slid with stealthy movement
through the country, and spied out the whereabouts and plans of the
Indians. Once while at a great distance from the fort, he was bending over
a spring of water to drink, two Muscogee warriors sprang from behind a
log, and leaped on Dale with tomahawks upraised. With entire coolness of
mind he pitched one of them over his head, grasped the other with his left
hand, and with his right plunged his knife into his body. Quick as thought
the other recovered himself, and rushed with madness on Dale just in time
to meet another thrust from his blade, and both lay dead at his feet.
Bleeding from five wounds which he had received in the combat, Dale
retraced the trail of the Indians for nine miles through the woods, and
when he came to the edge of their encampment he found three brawny
warriors sprawled on the ground asleep, while in their midst there sat a
white woman, a prisoner, with her wrists tied. He deliberately killed all
three as they slept, and cut the thongs of the prisoner. Just then a
stalwart Indian sprang from behind a tree with a wild yell, and with a
glittering knife ready to bury it into Dale's body. Dale weakened by his
wounds and his exhausting march, was thrown to the ground by the Indian,
who had him in such a position that within a moment more he would have
made the fatal stab had not the woman quickly seized a tomahawk and buried
it in the brain of the Indian. The woman was quietly escorted back to the
fort and returned to her home.
Peace having been made, Dale betook himself to trading with the Indians,
exchanging calicoes, gewgaws, ammunition, and liquor, for peltry and
ponies. His profits would have been enormous had Dale not been the
spendthrift that he was. But like many another, he never knew the value of
a dollar till he was in need. His trading led him across the Chattahoochee
into the Alabama territory in 1808, at which time we find him among the
earliest immigrants to this region. He was most valuable as a guide in
directing for years bodies of immigrants from Georgia to Alabama. He was
at Tookabatchee and heard the war speech of Tecumseh which precipitated
the war in Alabama, and straightway gave the alarm of approaching
hostilities to the inhabitants. A long and brilliant series of daring
exploits marked the years of the immediate future of Dale's eventful life.
Perhaps the most noted of his feats was that of the famous "canoe fight,"
on the waters of the Alabama River. This was a thrilling encounter, and is
inseparable from the great achievements which adorn the state's history.
It is too long to be related in detail, and only the outline facts can
here be given. With two men in a canoe, Austill and Smith, and the
faithful negro, Caesar, to propel the little boat, Dale sallied forth on
the bosom of the river to encounter eleven Indian warriors in a larger
boat. As the boat which bore the Indians glided down the river, the one
containing the three whites shot out from under a bluff, and was rowed
directly toward the Indians. Two of the Indians sprang from the boat, and
swam for the shore. Caesar, the negro, who paddled the canoe of the
whites, was bringing his boat so as to bear on the other, that they would
soon be alongside, which so soon as it was effected, the negro gripped the
two and held them together while the fearful work of slaughter went on.
The result of the hand to hand engagement was that the nine Indians were
killed, and pitched into the river, while the whites escaped with wounds
only.
In the early territorial struggles General Dale was engaged partly as an
independent guerilla, and partly under the commands of Generals Jackson
and Claiborne. At the close of hostilities Dale took up his residence in
Monroe County from which he was sent as a representative to the
legislature for eight terms. In recognition of his services the
legislature granted him an appropriation amounting to the half pay of a
colonel in the regular army, and at the same time gave him the rank of
brigadier general, in which capacity he was to serve in case of war.
Later, however, the appropriation was discontinued because of a
constitutional quibble, when the legislature memorialized Congress to
grant an annuity to the old veteran, but no heed was given to the request.
In order to procure some compensation for his services, General Dale was
induced by his friends to go to Washington, and during his stay at the
national capital, he was entertained by President Jackson. Together the
two old grizzled warriors sat in the apartments of the president, and
while they smoked their cob pipes, they recounted the experiences of the
troublous times of the past.
General Dale served the state in a number of capacities additional to
those already named. He was a member of the convention which divided the
territories of Alabama and Mississippi, was on the commission to construct
a highway from Tuskaloosa to Pensacola, and assisted in transferring the
Choctaws to their new home in the Indian territory.
His last years were spent in Mississippi, where he served the state in the
legislature. He died in Mississippi in 1841. His biographer, Honorable J.
F. H. Claiborne, says that a Choctaw chief, standing over the grave of
Dale the day after his burial, exclaimed: "You sleep here, Sam Thlucco,
but your spirit is a chieftain and a brave in the hunting grounds of the
sky."
ISRAEL PICKENS
One of the great commonwealth builders of the southwest was Governor
Israel Pickens, the third governor of the state. As a state builder he
came on the scene just at a time when his constructive genius was most
needed. His two predecessors, the brothers, Governors William W. and
Thomas Bibb, had together served the state little more than two years, the
former dying while in office and the latter, as president of the senate,
succeeding him and filling his unexpired term. Both these had wrought well
under raw and chaotic conditions, but the utmost that could be done within
so short a time was that of projecting plans for the future of the infant
state. While the foundation was well begun, the superstructure still stood
unbuilt.
On Governor Israel Pickens was imposed the task of the real erection of
Alabama into a state. It was an organization which called alike for skill,
wisdom, and executive direction of the highest order. Serious problems lay
at the threshold of the young commonwealth, and these had to be met with a
sense of delicate adjustment, and yet with a firm and deliberate judgment.
The domestic policy of the state was yet to be molded, and such precedents
established as would thereafter affect the destiny of Alabama. At this
time Governor Pickens was just forty-one years old. There was a demand for
extraordinary prudence in calling into conjunction with himself, by the
governor, the sagest counsellors that the state then had. Executive
leadership at this time must encounter a critical juncture. Fortunately
for Alabama, Governor Pickens was amply qualified for the onerous task
imposed. He sprang from one of the most eminent of the early families of
the south. The name of Pickens lingers in Carolina history today with a
flavor of distinction. Himself the son of a revolutionary sire who had
rendered gallant service as a captain in the struggle for independence,
Governor Pickens bore to the state the prestige of his family when he
removed from North Carolina in 1817. His educational advantages had been
the best that could be afforded in his native state, and the adjoining
state of South Carolina, to which was added a course at Washington
College, Pennsylvania, where he completed his legal education. A
practitioner at the bar for a period in his native state, a legislative
service of a few years and a career of six years in Congress preceded
Pickens' settlement in Alabama in 1817. Locating as an attorney at St.
Stephens, he was appointed to the registership of the land office.
It is insisted, and doubtless rightly, that no executive of the state has
in thoroughness of efficiency and in comprehensiveness of grasp of a
situation ever excelled Israel Pickens.
He became governor in 1821, and was re-elected in 1823, serving till 1825
to the utmost limit of incumbency under the constitution. Within the brief
period of four years he had constructed into compactness a state from the
crude and incoherent elements within reach. The qualities which he
demonstrated were firmness, deliberation, sedulous care, wisdom and
administrative force, to all of which was added a zest of labor. Never
hasty, but always at work, promptly recognizing any lack of deficiency in
the developing structure, and with equal readiness supplying it with a
sagacious eye to permanency, the interest of Governor Pickens was
undiminished to the close of his term of office.
So distinguished were these traits of statemanship that they excited
general comment among his distinguished contemporaries who insisted that
in unsuspended fidelity, unselfish devotion, wise projection and skillful
execution he has never been surpassed, if indeed equaled. That he
succeeded to the fullest in the accomplishment of his difficult task is
the verdict of posterity. Other executives since may have possessed more
shining qualities, others still may have been more profound, while yet the
deeds of others may have been more spectacular, but all who have succeeded
Israel Pickens derived the benefit of that so ably done by him.
When he entered the gubernatorial office conditions were necessarily in an
inchoate form. Rudeness and crudeness characterized the initial conditions
on every hand. Valuable as the service of his predecessors had been, his
lot was to raise into symmetrical proportions with every part perfectly
adjusted a mighty commonwealth, ready to enter on its career worthily,
alongside the older states. Existing conditions were incident to the
emergence of a wilderness territory into the dignity of statehood. But
when Governor Pickens retired from office as the state's chief executive
the structure was complete in all its parts. In the recent work of twelve
large volumes, "The South in the Building of the Nation," issued under the
auspices of the Southern Historical Publication Society of Richmond, Va.,
Governor Pickens is alluded to as "one of the great state builders of the
southwest."
Nor did his career end with the expiration of his term of office as
governor. The year following his retirement from the gubernatorial chair
he was appointed a United States Senator by Governor Murphy. Almost
simultaneously with this appointment came the offer of the federal
judgeship of Alabama from President John Quincy Adams, but the latter
offer was declined, and Governor Pickens entered the federal senate.
But Mr. Pickens was destined to enjoy senatorial honors but a short while.
In the latter part of the same year of his appointment as a national
senator, his lungs became seriously involved, tuberculosis was speedily
developed, and he was forced to resign his exalted station and seek
another and softer climate. At that time the West Indies was the favorite
resort of those thus affected, and Mr. Pickens repaired to Cuba with the
hope of recuperation in its balmy climate. But he survived his retirement
from Washington only five months.
Senator Pickens had not reached the zenith of manhood and usefulness
before he was stricken down, for at his death he was only forty-seven
years old. His body was brought back to Alabama for interment, and he was
buried within a few miles of Greensboro. In his death Alabama lost one of
her most popular and eminent citizens, and one of her foremost statesmen.
To him belongs the chief distinction of erecting Alabama into symmetrical
statehood.
CLEMENT COMER CLAY
Governor Clay was among the pioneers of Alabama. He was a native of
Virginia, the son of a revolutionary soldier, and was educated at
Knoxville, Tenn. Law was his choice as a profession, to the practice of
which he was admitted in 1809, and in 1811 he located at Huntsville, which
continued to be his home till his death in 1866.
From the outset, he showed profound interest in the territory and in the
promotion of its affairs, and two years after making Huntsville his home
he enlisted against the Indians, and was chosen the adjutant of his
command. His name is prominent among the territorial legislators in the
two sessions held prior to the admission of Alabama into the Union.
When the constitutional convention was held, Mr. Clay was not alone a
member, but was chosen the chairman of the committee charged with
submitting the original draft of the constitution. In one especial sense
he is, therefore, the father of the state of Alabama.
It was evident to the state builders of Alabama that no one was more
profoundly concerned in its fundamental construction than Mr. Clay, and no
one among those who had chosen the territory as a future home, was abler
to serve the young state in its first totterings in seeking to get full
upon its feet. The breadth and clearness of his vision, and the
unusualness of his ability marked him as one who was in great need under
such initial conditions. The character of his strength had been shown, and
he was destined to become one of the early leaders of the new state. He
was therefore chosen as a member of the supreme court, and in recognition
of his legal ability, though younger than any other member of the new
court, his associates chose him as chief justice, and he thus became the
first to occupy that exalted station in Alabama.
The rapid increase of population and the newness of conditions in a young
state were productive of increasing business, and called for men of legal
ability. In response to this demand, Judge Clay retired from the supreme
bench after a service of four years, and resumed his private practice. It
was shortly after this that he felt impelled in response to a mistaken
demand for vindicated honor, to brook a grievance against Dr. Waddy Tate,
of Limestone County, by engaging in a duel with that gentleman. The result
was the infliction of a painful wound to each, and the affair was over.
Happily for civilization it has outgrown this method of settling disputes
among men of sense.
Continuing for a period of years in his private practice, Judge Clay was
chosen in 1827 as a representative to the legislature from Madison County.
Two years later he was elected to a seat in the National Congress where he
served with great efficiency for three terms of six years.
Offering for the governorship in 1835 against General Enoch Parsons, of
Monroe County, the election resulted in his polling almost twice as many
votes as his opponent. It was during his term of office as governor that
troubles arose by an outbreak on the part of the Creek Indians. Governor
Clay at once ordered out the state forces, and as commander-in-chief, took
the field in person, co-operating with Generals Scott and Jesup of the
army of the United States in the suppression of the disturbance. For about
three months the troubles continued, but the unremitting activity of
Governor Clay finally eventuated in the suppression of the outbreak, and
peace was restored.
While he was still governor, Mr. Clay was elected to succeed Honorable
John McKinley in the National Senate. In this new orbit he was brought
into contact with the giants of the nation, and the services rendered by
him are a part of the national history. It was through the efforts of
Senator Clay that the pre-emption laws, discriminating in favor of
settlers, were enacted. Multitudes have been the recipients of the benefit
of this beneficent legislation without knowing or even thinking of its
source. By means of this law, thousands have been able to procure homes on
the public domain without which law it would have been impossible. No man
in the National Congress was more active than he in the adjustment of the
conditions for the greatest happiness to the greatest number.
Mr. Clay retained his seat in the National Senate only four years, when he
retired because of his financial condition, to improve which he returned
to the practice of law. However, his previous service on the supreme bench
induced Governor Fitzpatrick to appoint him to a position in the court in
1843. Here he remained only a few months, a fact which it seems was
contemplated in the appointment.
An additional service rendered by Governor Clay, and it was the last
public service for the state, was that of the preparation of a new digest
of the laws of Alabama, to which work he was appointed by the legislature.
His manuscript, as he had prepared it, was accepted by the judiciary
committee, submitted in unchanged form to the legislature, and has been in
use as authority to this day. The closing days of Governor Clay were those
of gloom. The occupation of Nashville by the federals in February, 1862,
resulted in the capture of Huntsville, where numerous indignities were
offered to many of the best people of the city of the mountains. Among
those who shared in these indignities was the venerable Governor Clay.
Because of his well-known sentiments, his home was invaded by the federal
troops, claimed and regarded as national property, and Governor Clay was
himself placed under arrest. He chafed under conditions like these, and at
his advanced age he conceived that the doom of the country had come. Nor
did the conditions of the close of the hostilities lend to his prospect
any relief. Considerations like these he carried as a burden, until
sinking under the weight, he died at the advanced age of 77 years, at his
home in Huntsville on September 7, 1866.
ARTHUR P. BAGBY
While Alabama was yet in its territorial swaddling clothes, Honorable J.
L. Martin, who afterward became governor of Alabama, met a young Virginian
who had just removed to the territory, and who himself was destined to
wear gubernatorial honors. This young man was afoot across the country,
carrying his personal effects in a bundle very much as a peddler carries
his pack. This tall and handsome youth was Arthur P. Bagby.
He was a young man of striking and even prepossessing appearance, tall,
graceful, erect, with classical mold of feature and black eyes that
twinkled with an unusual luster. He was among the many enterprising young
spirits who quit the older states of the south and moved westward with
empires in their brains.
Settling at Claiborne, in Monroe County, at that time one of the looming
settlements in south Alabama, Bagby at once turned to practical advantage
the excellent educational equipment with which he had been provided in his
native state. Recognizing in the law an opportunity, not only to
accumulate wealth, but a medium to distinction, Mr. Bagby entered a law
office and began his preparation for the bar. The rapid inflow of
population to the dawning state, the occupation of lands in all
directions, and the inevitable growth of wealth would beget litigation and
afford a harvest field for the best equipped of the legal profession.
Young Bagby caught the spirit of the times and was not slow to improve
the opportunity.
Highly gifted, Bagby was like many another young man with rare natural
powers, and came to rely on his natural endowments rather than on studious
application. His charming personality and fascinating manner made him
immensely popular, and his popularity was enhanced by a vivid imagination
and prolific and poetic utterance. From the time of his first appearance
before the public to the close of a long and eventful public career, he
was a most popular orator. His fame as an orator gradually widened, and
his services were in frequent demand, not only in the courts, but on
important public occasions.
He was not long in finding his way into public life, for in 1821 he was
chosen to represent Monroe County in the legislature. His companionable
disposition and uniform courtesy won the hearts of his fellow legislators,
and when he succeeded himself in the lower house after his first term, he
was easily elected to the speakership--the youngest member in the history
of the state to occupy that position, being at the time but little beyond
twenty-five years old. For a period of fifteen years he was kept in the
legislature, sometimes in one branch and again in the other. He closed his
career as an active legislator in the house as speaker in 1836.
His active interest in affairs had by this time made him one of the best
known public men in the state while his popularity was undiminished.
Perhaps Alabama never had a more popular public servant than Arthur P.
Bagby. To the equipments already named was that of the charm of a
perennial flow of natural, bright and animated conversation. Nature had
lavished her richest gifts on this unassuming young Virginian.
In 1837 Mr. Bagby became a candidate for governor. Favorably known by the
leading men throughout the state, the election of Bagby was in the outset
conceded, though he was opposed by a very popular man, Honorable Samuel W.
Oliver, of Conecuh. The popularity of Mr. Oliver was based on his
conservatism, and he was universally esteemed a gentleman of great
fairness. They were formidable opponents, the qualities of each commanding
the highest esteem, but the popularity already attained by the younger
candidate and his persuasive and exhilarating oratory made for him friends
wherever he appeared, and he was elected.
Up to this time the inauguration of a governor was regarded as so tame an
occasion that there was but a small attendance of the population on the
ceremonies, but when Bagby was inaugurated those who had heard him during
the campaign flocked to the capital to hear him on this august occasion.
From remote quarters the citizen high and humble sought his way to
Tuscaloosa, then the capital, to hear the inauguration speech of the new
governor. In full appreciation of this fact, Mr. Bagby was on this
occasion at his best. His appearance was hailed by the acclaiming
thousands, and his inaugural address delivered in a well modulated voice
and with splendid bearing, was wildly received by an idolizing
constituency. The men of plain garb and rustic manner rushed forward to
grasp the hand of the popular young governor, and his reciprocation of a
demonstration so generous and genuine was the most unaffected. Nor was his
popularity impaired during his administration. Two years later he was
swept into office by popular acclamation and without opposition. Though
the dual administration of Governor Bagby fell on stormy times, as the
issue of nullification was then dominant, he succeeded in so directing the
affairs of the state as to increase rather than lessen public esteem.
Nothing was more logical than that he should be elected to the National
Senate to succeed Honorable Clement C. Clay on the occasion of the
resignation of the latter in 1841. But a remnant of Senator Clay's term
was left when he resigned, but Mr. Bagby was easily re-elected when the
fragment of time had expired. Before the term of six years for which he
had been elected had closed, President Polk appointed Senator Bagby envoy
extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to the Russian Court, at St.
Petersburg. For this position he was admirably fitted, but served in the
capacity of minister not more than a year, and for political reasons
resigned on the accession of General Taylor to the Presidency.
Returning from Russia, Mr. Bagby settled again in Alabama, retiring to
private life from which he was summoned to public service by being
associated with Judge Ormond and Honorable C. C. Clay in the codification
of the laws of Alabama. This was the last public service rendered by Mr.
Bagby.
In 1858 he died of yellow fever in Mobile at the age of sixty-two.
Naturally endowed with the highest gifts and most varied talents, he gave
to these substantial expression in the conspicuous ability which he
displayed in the exalted stations which he occupied uninterruptedly for
more than thirty-five years. Arthur Pendleton Bagby adorned with signal
ability every position to which he was called, and throughout maintained
with happy blend and even balance a most courtly dignity and a charming
companionableness which put the plainest citizen in his presence at
perfect ease. Those who knew him best found it difficult to determine
which more to admire, his superior native dignity or his unaffected
cordiality, so undefinable was the charm which invested this gifted
gentleman. No chafe or worry of stress in public strain impaired the
affableness of his intercourse with others, and while he was honored by
his fellow citizens they were amply repaid in the splendid service which
he rendered the state and the nation.
WILLIAM R. KING
A native of North Carolina, William Rufus King, removed to Alabama in
1818. Lured to a region destined soon to take its place in the galaxy of
states, Mr. King was no novice in public affairs when he reached Alabama.
Indeed, he came crowned with unusual distinction for one so young in years
when he migrated to a territory which was just budding into statehood.
Though at the time only thirty-two years old, he had served with honor to
himself and to his native state as a legislator, solicitor and
congressman. When only twenty-four years old he had been sent to Congress
from North Carolina. His entrance into Congress in 1810 was simultaneous
with the beginning of the congressional careers of Henry Clay, John C.
Calhoun and William Lowndes.
Mr. King served with distinction in Congress for six years when he was
chosen secretary to the American Legation at St. Petersburg, under William
Pinkney, who was at that time minister to the court of Russia. After
spending two years in this honorable capacity, King returned to North
Carolina and subsequently removed to Alabama.
Buying a plantation near Cahaba, in 1819, he had scarcely located when he
was chosen a representative to the first constitutional convention of the
state. Together with Honorables Henry Hitchcock of Washington County, and
John M. Taylor of Madison, Mr. King drafted the first constitution of this
state. His clearness of perception, soundness of judgment and ability in
adjustment of matters of great moment arrested the attention of the
leaders of the coming state, during the session of the first
constitutional convention, and he was marked as one of the men of the hour
in laying the foundation stones of a great commonwealth. In recognition of
his ability, Mr. King was chosen one of the first national senators from
Alabama when the first legislature met in 1819. Of this prospective
distinction he must have been unaware, for at the time of his election he
was on a visit to North Carolina.
Mr. King lived in an atmosphere above that of ordinary men. He was a man
of solid rather than of shining qualities, and his life was redolent of
purity and of exalted conception of duty. There was a delicacy of
sentiment which characterized his conduct, an affableness and quietness of
demeanor, an utter absence of display or of harshness, a serenity and
gentleness, with no unbecoming speech to soil his lips, no action to repel
even the humblest civilian. On the floor of the Federal Senate the
Honorable R. M. T. Hunter, of Virginia, said on the occasion of Mr. King's
death: "He was a man whose whole soul would have sickened under a sense of
personal dishonor." He was far more forward in his assertion of the claims
of others than of those for himself.
No man in the public life of America ever more won by dint of intrinsic
merit than William Rufus King. Such was his bearing on all occasions that
men instinctively honored him. To him as a public man principle was the
path of the highest expediency. He wore his honor on his sleeve, and
would not scramble on a low plane for place, and would never learn the art
of petty politics. He engaged in political contests, but they were in the
open field and in full view of the eyes of the world.
Mr. King came to be the first citizen of the state, becoming Vice
President of the United States, but it was entirely due to his worth and
not to any of the arts of the struggling politician. Utterly without
assumption he was as spectacular on one occasion as another. His was a
quiet knightliness without dash, the stamp of a nobleman of nature,
without lordly port.
So unquestioned was his ability, so unerring his judgment, so profoundly
substantial his qualities as an ideal public servant, that the people of
Alabama honored him with official station for a period of almost
thirty-five years. In 1837 Mr. King was offered the position of minister
to the court of Austria, but declined because of the fact that the ardent
advocacy by him of the election of Mr. Van Buren might be construed as a
motive looking to future emolument--the payment of a political debt. Men
of that type were not so rare at that time as they now are.
When complications with certain foreign powers became imminent in
consequence of the proposed annexation of Texas as an American state,
there was the demand for the most scrupulous diplomacy and tact and for
the ripest statesmanship on the part of those who should be sent abroad to
represent the United States at the Courts of England and of France. A
single misstep at this juncture would mean limitless trouble. One
especially qualified by social prestige as well as sage statesmanship was
needed to be sent to the Court of France. It was just such an emergency
like this that called for the exercise of powers such as Mr. King
possessed, and he was accordingly appointed to this position and served in
this capacity for a period of two years, when he resigned and returned to
Alabama. The seat left vacant by Mr. King in the federal senate had
meanwhile been filled by Dixon H. Lewis, who was a popular idol, but of a
type entirely different from that of Mr. King. Both were models of honor,
each equally worthy of public esteem; but Lewis, ponderous as he was in
size, was a popular speaker and more of the bonhommie type than was King.
At this time, these were recognized as the two most distinguished men in
the state.
On his return home King's friends wanted him to resume his place in the
United States Senate, while the friends of Lewis were equally determined
that he should remain in a position which he had adorned for full two
years. Political maneuvering between the friends of the two distinguished
statesmen began, but negotiations seemed of no avail. It was inevitable
that each must test his strength before the people. King and Lewis were
personal friends, they were from adjacent counties, and both were
democrats. So conspicuous had Mr. King become now as a national figure
that many predicted that Lewis would not dare oppose him, but he did. The
contest was joined. It was a battle of giants. King, lithe, elegant,
smooth, plain and simple of diction, but clear as the shining of the sun,
without the gifts of the orator, but a superb talker, went before the
masses. Lewis, weighing five hundred pounds, his large full face beaming
with sunshine, and though large, a most telling orator who could relate an
anecdote with marvelous effect, while he possessed unquestioned ability to
give frequent expression to passages of oratory, won his way rapidly to
the public heart. As is well known, Lewis won, but the two friends were
destined each to be gratified, for Governor Chapman was able soon to
appoint Mr. King United States Senator in the stead of Senator Bagby.
During the administration of President Fillmore Mr. King was chosen to act
as the presiding officer of the senate, and in the summer of 1852 he was
nominated for the vice presidency, elected on the national ticket with
Franklin Pierce, but died the next year at his home at Cahaba, Ala.
DIXON H. LEWIS
In a number of respects the Honorable Dixon Hall Lewis was a very
remarkable man. He was precocious, though, in his early years, not
studious. Still, he held his own in his classes in South Carolina College,
as the university of that state was then called, with decided merit.
Possessed from the beginning with a popular turn, he was a great favorite
in college circles, and was counted an all-round good fellow.
Lewis was a student at the South Carolina College during the time that
nullification was a dominant issue, and readily imbibed the principles
advocated by Mr. Calhoun, who was then the ideal of most young South
Carolinians. The more mature and thoughtful among the students shared in
the political issues of the time, especially when they were as exciting as
nullification then was. In subsequent years the great South Carolina
statesman never had a more ardent admirer and supporter than Dixon H.
Lewis.
One of the most remarkable facts connected with Mr. Lewis was his unusual
size. His remarkable corpulency and his enormous physique made him a
spectacle among men of ordinary size. His weight was excessive even in
boyhood, and it continued to increase so long as he lived. His death was
doubtless due to his excessive adiposity, and he was cut down at an age
when he should have been most useful.
Graduating from South Carolina College he removed to Alabama in 1822. At
that time Lewis was just twenty years old. Admitted to the bar, he began
the practice of law in Montgomery. His ability in the court room was at
once recognized, and had he continued, would doubtless have achieved
distinction at the bar; but his pronounced fondness for politics led him
early into that arena in which he spent the remainder of his life. His
career as a public servant began in the Alabama legislature. During the
years 1825-26-27, he represented Montgomery County in the general assembly
of the state. At that time he weighed about three hundred and eighty
pounds.
By dint of ability Mr. Lewis took a foremost position among the Alabama
legislators. When scarcely eligible by reason of age, he was chosen for
Congress from his district, and continued in the lower house of the
National Congress from 1829 to 1844, when he was transferred to the
Federal Senate.
Mr. Lewis belongs to the states' rights school of politicians, and never
had a cause a more fervid advocate. In Congress his influence was
pronounced, and for years he was the acknowledged leader of the Alabama
delegation in the lower branch of that body. He was unalterably opposed to
a protective tariff, and never let an opportunity slip to oppose its
fallacy and injustice. His principles were embodied in the platform
resolutions adopted by the national democratic convention which met in
Baltimore in 1840.
Ponderous as he was, Mr. Lewis was not impaired in his activity either as
a state legislator or as a congressman. His interest in all matters
public enabled him to overcome the hindrance encountered in his enormous
weight. It was one of his controlling principles never to be absent from
an important committee meeting, where he was always pronounced and firm in
the expression of his convictions. When in 1844 he resigned from the House
of Representatives to take his seat in the Senate, he was chairman of the
committee of ways and means, and the ability shown by him in the lower
branch led to his appointment to the chairmanship of the committee on
finance when he entered the upper chamber.
His life was a perpetual struggle against the difficulty encountered by
his weight. He could walk but little, and he could enter but few vehicles.
His private carriage had to be specially constructed with respect to
strength, and its entrance was of unusual width. In his home a special
chair or chairs had to be manufactured adapted to his size, and his
bedstead was of far more than ordinary strength. He moved from place to
place with exceeding difficulty, but in the constant warfare of the spirit
against the flesh the former predominated, for impelled by a gigantic
will, he declined to hesitate because of his immense weight and size.
In his trips to Washington and returning, in the days before railroads
became so great a convenience, Mr. Lewis had to travel in an old fashioned
stage coach, and always paid for two seats. A chair of unusual size was
made for him to occupy in the House of Representatives, and when he
entered the Senate it was transferred to that chamber. Yet, as has already
been said, Lewis was an orator of unusual power. His freedom of
utterance, pleasing manner, jovial disposition, and his ability to present
with clearness and power the issues discussed, with a reliance on well
arranged and thoroughly digested facts, made him formidable in debate, and
quite popular before a promiscuous audience.
In this memorable contest against Mr. King for the National Senate in
1841, the labors of Lewis were herculean. Weighing at this time about five
hundred pounds, he had to be helped to the platform, and on one occasion
when the weather was excessively hot, two devoted country constituents,
one on each side of the sweltering orator, relieved the situation by the
swaying of two large palm fans, which they employed with vigor while he
spoke with ardor. The contrast between Mr. Lewis and Mr. King was most
striking--the one ponderous and bulky, while the other was tall, thin,
lithe and sinewy.
Mr. Lewis declined to be jested about his size and was sensitive to the
faintest allusion to it. But his genuine chivalry forbade his taking the
slightest advantage of anyone, or of subjecting any to the least
inconvenience because of his condition. On one occasion while returning
from Washington, the steamer on which he was, was wrecked. The small boat
was ordered out for the relief of the excited and distressed passengers,
but he declined to enter it, for fear that his huge weight would imperil
the safety of the others. Remaining alone in extreme peril till the others
could be safely rescued, he was subsequently reached by the small boat and
saved.
Elected to the Senate in 1844, Mr. Lewis died in 1848. In the interest of
his health he went to New York during the latter part of 1848, was treated
as was supposed successfully and, animated by the prospect of a speedy
resumption of his public duties at Washington, he spent some time in
visiting the objects of interest about and within the city of New York.
But his special trouble returned with suddenness and he soon died. At the
time of his death Mr. Lewis was forty-six years old.
So nation-wide had become the reputation of this remarkable man that his
body lay in state for some time in the city hall of New York before its
interment in Greenwood cemetery. The funeral procession was one that did
honor to his career, for at its head, were the mayor of New York, the
governor of the state, and every congressman who was able to reach the
metropolis in time. He died just as he was emerging into the full exercise
of his splendid powers.
BENJAMIN FITZPATRICK
The galaxy of the names of Alabama's worthy sons would be incomplete with
the omission of that of Governor Benjamin Fitzpatrick. An uneducated and
orphaned boy, he came to Alabama from Greene County, Georgia, in 1816, to
assist in the planting interests of his elder brothers, whose lands lay
along the eastern bank of the Alabama River, about six miles outside of
Montgomery. He never attended school more than six months of his life, and
in his early days was inured to the rough encounters of the world. Colonel
Brewer states in his history of Alabama that Mr. Fitzpatrick, in
subsequent years, was accustomed to point out a field near Montgomery
where he tended a herd of swine for his brothers as the hogs would feed on
the mast of the oak woods.
Service as a deputy sheriff in Elmore County, which position brought him
into contact with the courts, aroused an ambition to become a lawyer, and
he prepared himself for that profession under the tutelage of the Hon. N.
E. Benson. Admitted to the practice of the law when he was barely 21, he
rapidly won popularity as a lawyer by his devotion to the interests of his
clients. After practicing for a period in Elmore County, he removed to
Montgomery, where he entered into co-partnership with Henry Goldthwaite.
The legal development of Mr. Fitzpatrick was rapid, and he was elected to
the solicitorship of the Montgomery circuit, and after serving one term
was again elected to the same position. By his marriage to a daughter of
General John Elmore his political fortunes were greatly enhanced. The
Elmores were one of the most distinguished families of the state, a son of
the general being a national Senator from South Carolina, another a
distinguished lawyer in Montgomery, still another was the attorney general
of Louisiana, yet another was secretary of state of Alabama and later
collector of the port of Mobile, while another was a federal judge in
Kansas. By his marriage Mr. Fitzpatrick became a brother-in-law to the
Hon. Dixon H. Lewis.
Driven by broken health from the seclusion of his law office, in 1827, he
repaired to his plantation near Montgomery, where he maintained a princely
country home in which was dispensed the hospitality for which the old-time
southerner was proverbial. At no period in the history of any land was
hospitality more sumptuous than in the princely homes of the South during
the régimé of slavery, and the home of the Fitzpatricks was a typical one
of the hospitality of those days now gone. For full twelve years he lived
contented and happy on his fertile plantation, unsolicitous of public
office, but in 1840 he was summoned from his retreat by the state
democratic convention to serve as a Van Buren elector, and succeeded in
swinging the state into the column of the democratic candidate from New
York. His ability was so distinguished during his campaign that he was
honored with the governorship of the state at the close of the same year.
During his period of retirement Mr. Fitzpatrick had remained in vital
touch with the existing issues of the time, and his powers were solidified
in his rural retreat, so that on his return to public life he was far more
amply equipped. This was at once manifest in his first message to the
legislature, which message by the breadth of its statesmanship stamped him
one of the foremost publicists of the state, and he easily succeeded
himself in the governor's chair without opposition. So exceptional had
been his dual administration that a joint resolution of the general
assembly approved his course as governor throughout, as well as himself
personally. He retired from the office of governor crowned with the
laudations of his countrymen.
Repairing to his plantation, he was summoned by Governor Chapman to the
assumption of the United States senatorship to fill the unexpired term of
Dixon H. Lewis. He was appointed again to fill the unexpired term of the
Hon. William R. King, and in 1855 was elected by the Alabama legislature
to the federal senate for a period of six years. It was during this period
of his career that the highest honor of the senate was conferred on Mr.
Fitzpatrick, as he was chosen by that body as president pro tempore.
In 1860, the second place on the national ticket with Stephen A. Douglas,
was tendered Senator Fitzpatrick, but this he declined because of his
disagreement with Mr. Douglas on his "squatter sovereignty" doctrine. This
indicates that Senator Fitzpatrick was not a secessionist, for he shared
in the views of other eminent southern leaders that secession was not the
remedy to cure the grievances of which he insisted the South justly
complained. But, like those with whom he shared in sentiment respecting
secession, this did not deter him from sympathy with the cause of the
South. In every way he contributed to the cause of the South when once the
clash came. Yielding his convictions, he continued a southern patriot, and
when the others of the South withdrew from Congress, he sundered his
relation from the federal government as a senator, and ardently espoused
the cause of his section.
The last public function of Senator Fitzpatrick was that of the presidency
of the constitutional convention of Alabama in 1865. While always
preserving a cheerful demeanor, there is little doubt that the results of
the war, in the complete wreckage of the industrial system of the South
greatly preyed on his spirit. He died when he was about seventy years old.
Few public men in Alabama have left a purer record than Governor
Fitzpatrick. His dominant characteristic was his integrity. He would never
yield to compromise of principle, holding that principle is indivisible.
If sternness was required to demonstrate this, then he could be stern. To
him justice was a supreme principle. He would never waver the width of a
hair even for the most cherished friend or kinsman. He was most exacting
of the performance of public duty by public servants, and in order that he
might rigidly comply with the conditions and terms of his oath of office,
he familiarized himself with every detail of the duties of his
subordinates. He made no pledge which he did not fulfill and committed
himself to no cause which he did not execute to the letter. To him public
office was a public trust, and to this he rigidly conformed. The
aggregation of the qualities which entered into the character of Mr.
Fitzpatrick made him an ideal public servant, whose course in life is well
worthy of emulation.
JOSHUA L. MARTIN
The year 1845 was marked by a rent in the democratic party of Alabama.
Governor Fitzpatrick's term was soon to expire, and it was necessary to
choose a successor. A lapse of interest had come to political affairs in
the state, due largely to the defeat of the whig party the year before in
failing of the election of the President. The result was that of
demoralization to the whigs throughout the country, for they had been
animated by the belief that they would succeed in capturing the
presidency. They showed no disposition, at any rate, to enter the lists
for the governorship in Alabama.
In May, 1845, a democratic convention was called to meet at Tuscaloosa,
then the capital of the state, and it was sparsely attended, a fact due to
the political indifference everywhere prevailing. However, the attendance
on the convention on the first day would have been much larger but for the
delay of the boat from Mobile, which was to bring all the delegates from
the southern counties.
The friends of the Hon. Nathaniel Terry of Limestone were intent on his
nomination for gubernatorial honors, and as those present were mostly from
the counties north, they were anxious to proceed to the nomination of
their candidate. There were others present, however, to whom Mr. Terry was
not the choice, and they sought to have the convention adjourn till the
next day, in order to await the arrival of the delayed steamer from
Mobile. But Terry's friends, who were evidently in the majority, with the
slim attendance already present, insisted on the nomination being made
that day. This evoked a stern protest on the part of the others, which
protest was read before the body, and afterward printed and circulated to
the injury of the candidacy of Mr. Terry, but, notwithstanding this
vehement protest, the nomination was made.
This was a signal for a storm. Many present were dissatisfied, and those
who arrived later swelled the roar of the tempest which sprang up at once.
Murmurings of dissatisfaction were heard on all hands, much to the
gratification of the whigs who had so often sustained sore defeat at the
hands of the much-boasted united democracy. The whigs not only chuckled at
the domestic quarrel of the democrats, but did what they could to widen
the breach between the two factions. The dissatisfaction at last found
vent in the naming of another democratic candidate for the governorship,
in the person of Chancellor Joshua Lanier Martin of Tuscaloosa. He was an
ardent democrat, was widely and favorably known, had served with great
acceptance in a number of positions, such as legislator, solicitor,
circuit judge and congressman, and as a voice had been denied many in the
convention, they proposed to resent it by seeking to elect another
democrat rather than the one nominated by the precipitate few. Judge
Martin did not seek the nomination, but when chosen under the conditions,
he accepted the popular nomination.
The issue between the two formidable candidates was now squarely joined,
the friends of Mr. Terry urging the platitudinous plea of party
nomination, and party loyalty, but this only served to augment the
popular flame. This was met by the counter plea of advantage having been
taken, and therefore the plea of support on account of the improper
nomination was without force. Never before had a rupture come to the party
in the state, and this was used as a reinforcement of the plea already
named, but without much avail.
Thus the battle raged and from its apathy the state was aroused from
confine to limit, and the land rang with the oratory of contending party
factions. Divisions and dissensions became rampant. Neighbor strove with
neighbor, and community struggled against community. Households were
divided, churches were sundered by divergent sentiment, and men wrangled
in anger as though the fate of the continent were seriously involved.
Reasons and counter reasons flew like bullets in battle, and the stock
arguments of the campaign became those of everyone, and he would use them
with all the fervor and friction of sudden originality. In view of the
unquestioned democracy of Judge Martin, his reputation, official and
private, his personal popularity, and the precipitate action taken in the
nomination of his opponent, it was clear that Mr. Terry was breasting odds
from the outset of the campaign.
Besides all this, the whigs, anxious to give as great a stagger as
possible to "the regular nominee" of the democratic party, lent support to
Judge Martin. Thus the campaign became suddenly stormy. Excitement ran
high, passion superseded reason, and clamor filled the air. Up to the
closing of the polls on election day, the question was so complicated by
the interlacing vote of the state, that no one could venture a prediction
of the result. But Judge Martin led his opponent by at least five hundred
votes. This was the first defeat ever sustained by a nominated democrat in
the state, for a state office, and, as usual under similar conditions,
there were dire predictions of the utter demolition of the democratic
party in the state of Alabama!
Be it said to the perpetual credit of Judge Martin that he bore himself
with singular equanimity throughout the prevalence of the strenuous
campaign. His was an atmosphere high above the clatter of the demagogue,
and it was understood that the place was undesired by him unless it should
come purely in recognition of his merit and fitness. In observing this
principle in politics, Governor Martin was never defeated for a public
office.
Governor Martin was by birth a Tennessean. Denied an advanced education,
he turned to the best account that which he had in the common schools,
which limited training he solidified by teaching during his younger years.
He reached Alabama in 1819, the same year of its admission into the Union,
finished his law studies, which had been begun in Tennessee, and settled
at Athens to practice. The political stations held by Governor Martin have
already been indicated, and by reason of these he took with him into the
gubernatorial office a thorough knowledge of public affairs. It was during
his administration that the Mexican war occurred, the demands growing out
of which he met with official fidelity. His term of office having closed,
he resumed the practice of the law, and, save when elected to the
legislature in 1853, he never filled another official station. For thirty
years, almost, he was in the public service, and a more faithful officer
the state never had. He died at Tuscaloosa on November 2, 1866, being
sixty-seven years old.
ISAAC SMITH
No man in the early annals of the state had a more varied or romantic
career than the Rev. Isaac Smith, a courageous missionary of the Methodist
Church. His life and labors do not find recognition on the page of secular
history, but the contribution which he made to the state in its early
formation wins for him a meritorious place in the state's chronicles. It
is doubtful that his name and labors are familiar to the present
generation of the great body of Christians of which he was an early
ornament, but they are none the less worthy of becoming record.
Mr. Smith enlisted from Virginia in the army of Washington while yet a
youth. Bright and alert, he was chosen an orderly by Washington, and
served in that capacity under both Washington and LaFayette. When the new
nation started on its independent career and when the region toward the
west began to be opened, Mr. Smith migrated toward the south, became a
minister of the Methodist Church, and offered his services as a missionary
to the Indian tribes. Hated because of their ferocity, the prevailing idea
in the initial years of the nineteenth century was that of the destruction
of the red man, but Mr. Smith felt impelled to take to him the gospel of
salvation.
His labors were not confined to any particular region and he trudged the
country over, imperiling his life among the wild tribes, who came to love
him because he was one pale face who sought to do them good. He founded
an Indian school near the Chattahoochee and taught the Indians the
elements of the English language. When Bishop Asbury, the most indomitable
of all the Methodist bishops, came to the South, Mr. Smith was his close
friend and adviser, and most valuable were his services to the bishop in
planting Methodism in the lower South.
All real teachers are greater learners than instructors, for in their zeal
to impart they must first come to acquire. Mr. Smith was an assiduous
student and with the growth of his years was an accumulated stock of both
wisdom and learning. As he passed the meridian of life he became a power
in his denomination and his counsel was freely sought in the high circles
of his church. When, in 1825, General LaFayette visited Alabama in his
tour of the South, he passed through the Creek Nation, in Georgia, and was
escorted by a body of Georgians to the Chattahoochee River and consigned
to the care of fifty painted Indian warriors, who vied with the pale faces
in doing honor to the distinguished visitor. Rowing LaFayette across the
river to the Alabama side, he was met by Rev. Isaac Smith. The great
Frenchman instantly recognized Mr. Smith as one of his boy orderlies
during the campaigns in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. There was a cordial
demonstration of mutual affection between the old French veteran and the
younger man, now a Methodist preacher. The painted Indian warriors looked
on the exchange of greeting with evident pleasure. It so happened that
LaFayette reached the Alabama side just at the point where stood the
humble school building of the intrepid missionary.
The first demonstration of greeting being over, Mr. Smith eschewing all
conventionality, and, in keeping alike with his Methodist zeal and the joy
which he experienced in meeting his old commander, proposed that all bow
in prayer. When LaFayette and Smith dropped on their knees the Indian
warriors did the same, and there on the banks of the deep rolling
Chattahoochee, beneath ancient oaks, in fervid and loud demonstrations of
prayer, the voice of Mr. Smith rang out through the deep forests. The
picture thus presented was worthy the pencil of the master--the ardent but
devout preacher, the great French patriot and the half hundred warriors,
each with his hands over his face, praying in the wild woods of Alabama.
The prayer was an unrestrained outburst of joy at the meeting of the old
commander and a devout invocation for the preservation of the life of the
friend of American liberty.
Yielding to the hospitable pressure of the boy soldier of other and
stormier days, LaFayette was taken to the humble cottage of the missionary
in the woods, and in order partly to entertain the distinguished guest and
partly to afford him an insight into aboriginal life, Mr. Smith arranged
for a game of ball to be played by the Indians. The day over and LaFayette
was taken into the cabin, served with the scanty fare of the pioneer
missionary, and beside the primitive fireplace the two, the missionary and
the great Frenchman, sat that night and fought over the battles in which
both were participants during the Revolution. They parted on the
following morning, LaFayette continuing his course toward Cahaba, the
state capital, and Mr. Smith resuming his treadmill round of duty as a
secluded missionary to the Indians. They parted with the same
demonstrations of affection with which they had met, and never again met
each other in the flesh.
With cheerful alacrity Mr. Smith continued his work among the Indians, to
which work he gave expansion in later years as the white population
continued to multiply. He was of immense service to the government in
adjusting the claims of the Indians and in pacifying them in the
acceptance of the inevitable lot finally meted out to them. As a
mediatorial agent Mr. Smith prevented much butchery in those early days
when the extinction of the Indian was so seriously desired.
With fame unsought and undesired, the Rev. Isaac Smith continued his
missionary and evangelistic labors in Alabama till forced by the weight of
years and the results of the privations of pioneer life to retire from the
scene of activity. He lived, however, to see the state of his adoption
pass from an infantile stage to one of great population and prosperity and
to witness the consummation of much of that of which he was one of the
original prospectors. Retiring in his last years to Monroe County,
Georgia, he died at the age of seventy-six. On the moral and spiritual
side he was one of the foundation builders of the state of Alabama. His
labor and sacrifice deserve recognition alongside that given of men whose
stations in life gave them great conspicuousness in the public eye. He
was of the class of men who labored in comparative obscurity, passed away,
and in due time are forgotten, but their works do follow them in their
everlasting results.
CLEMENT CLAIBORNE CLAY
Hon. Clement Claiborne Clay inherited all the strong traits of his
distinguished father. His birthplace was Huntsville, where he was born in
1817. In his boyhood years he would learn much of the struggles through
which the people of the state were passing in a transition from pioneer
conditions to those of real life, and thus manhood unfolded
contemporaneously with the development of his native state. His first
knowledge of Alabama was derived at a time when conditions were rude and
crude and during his career of more than three-score years he saw it
expand through successive periods, his sentiments keeping pace with its
development.
In most respects highly favored by fortune and condition, Mr. Clay knew
how to prize these and use them as stepping-stones to success. His father
was his most intimate companion, and the stations held by him were as
largely shared in by the son as was possible. So soon as young Clay was
prepared to do so he was sent to the state university, from which he
graduated at the early age of seventeen. While his father was governor,
the youth served as his private secretary and while his father was serving
as senator at Washington, the son was at the same time pursuing his law
course at the University of Virginia, which course he completed in 1840.
At the early age of twenty-five the junior Clay was elected to a seat in
the lower house of the legislature. He attracted attention at first by the
introduction of a resolution instructing the Alabama delegation in
Congress to support a bill favorable to refunding to General Andrew
Jackson the fine of one thousand dollars imposed on him by Judge Hall of
New Orleans in 1815 for declaring martial law in that city, under which
the judge was imprisoned by Jackson for discharging on habeas corpus a
member of the Louisiana legislature who had been caught in the act of
secretly communicating with the enemy and had been imprisoned by General
Jackson. The fine was for contempt and Jackson paid it, and now, after the
lapse of more than a quarter century, the sum was returned with interest,
the total being at the time of the refunding about $3,000.
The speech made by the young man in advocacy of his resolution won him his
first spurs. It flashed with fervid eloquence and was pervaded throughout
with the choicest diction. Many were the predictions of his future
greatness because of that speech.
His service in the legislature led to his retention in that body for three
successive terms, during the last of which he was elected by the
legislature to the judgeship of the county court of Madison. After serving
thus for two years, he resigned and resumed the practice of the law. Five
years later still, he offered for congressional representative, but was
defeated by the Hon. W. R. W. Cobb of Jackson County. The sting of defeat
was abundantly alleviated, however, when he was chosen by the legislature
a United States senator at the close of the same year. The distinction was
the greater because of the handsome majority given him over his
distinguished opponent, the Hon. R. W. Walker, Clay having received
eighty-five votes, while Walker received thirty-seven.
The gifts, training, and acquirements of Mr. Clay eminently fitted him for
this exalted forum. It was at the time when state rights doctrine was well
at the front and into the thick of the fray he entered as an ardent
disciple of Mr. Calhoun. His speeches on the floor of the senate chamber
won for him wide attention, and gained for him national renown. Throughout
the country his speeches were a subject of comment, while in Alabama his
name was on every thoughtful lip.
Having served for six years in the National Senate, Mr. Clay was again
chosen in 1859, and was in the senate when Alabama seceded in 1861, and
with all the other southern senators resigned, which furnished occasion in
harmony with the temper of that time to provoke a vote of expulsion of the
southern senators. On his return to Alabama, Mr. Clay was at once chosen a
senator from the state to the Confederate Congress. In Richmond he was in
vital touch with the Confederate government, the confidence of which he
enjoyed to an unusual degree. After a senatorial service of two years at
Richmond, Mr. Clay stood for re-election before the legislature of
Alabama, and was opposed by Colonel Seibels of Montgomery and the Hon. J.
L. M. Curry of Talladega. After a number of unsuccessful ballots Mr. Clay
withdrew in favor of R. W. Walker, whom he had previously defeated for the
United States senate, and Mr. Walker was elected.
In 1864 Mr. Clay was sent on a confidential errand from the Confederate
states government to the provinces of Canada. His mission was one of
diplomatic secrecy, but under prevailing conditions resulted in nothing
practical. While the nature of his mission was not known, it was supposed
to be that of exciting Canadian interest in the affairs of the
Confederacy, and to arouse such interest as would eventuate in procuring
an army of invasion of sufficient force to raid with success the northern
frontier of the Union. The northern press charged at the time that Mr.
Clay was abetting the adventurers who attempted the destruction of New
York City by fire.
During his stay in Canada, Mr. Clay was instrumental in inducing the
members of the peace party in the North to prevail on President Lincoln to
open negotiations with him looking to the settlement of hostilities
between the North and the South. An unofficial mission was entered on, but
without avail. When he learned of the capitulation of the Confederate
armies, Mr. Clay started from Canada on horseback for Texas, but, seeing
in the northern press that he was openly charged with complicity in the
assassination of President Lincoln, he changed his course and made his way
to Macon, Ga., where he might surrender with a view to a thorough
investigation. In reward for this expression of honor on the part of Mr.
Clay, he was seized, sent to Fortress Monroe, put in irons, where he lay a
fellow prisoner of Jefferson Davis for twelve months, without being
brought to trial on the false charges of treason and assassination. His
health was sadly broken under these cruel and disgraceful conditions, and
his release was finally procured by his devoted and gifted wife, whose
pleadings with the governmental authorities at last prevailed, and it was
believed, not without reason, that the government, as it then was, was
glad to appear to display magnanimity in view of the atrocious course
pursued concerning one who was thus being served purely on an unfounded
presumption, and one, too, who had gone beyond his way seeking a trial, in
face of the public charges. Mr. Clay died at Huntsville on January 3,
1882.
HOSEA HOLCOMBE
Altogether worthy of a place in the historic archives of Alabama are the
spiritual heroes who added so much to the moral life of the community,
converting disorder into order, and bringing calmness from confusion and
chaos. Among these may be named Rev. Hosea Holcombe, a native of North
Carolina, and for a period a pastor in upper South Carolina. Mr. Holcombe
came to Alabama in the early stages of its statehood and settled at
Jonesboro, in Jefferson County, from which point he pursued his early
missionary labors, undergoing all the privations and difficulties incident
to those days.
Without scholastic advantages, Mr. Holcombe turned to practical advantage
the slim resources which came within his reach, and by studious
application became possessed of more than an ordinary education for one
living at that period. He was Alabama's first church historian, and
rendered a lasting service to the state by his preserved record of the
early churches of Alabama.
While statesmen and publicists were laying the foundation stones of a
great political commonwealth, the pioneer missionary, especially of the
Baptist and Methodist denominations, was abroad with his wholesome
influence, checking vice, inculcating virtue, and seeking to bring the
lives of men into practical conformity to those principles which make
alike for the present, and the life which is to come.
Those old heroes, often trudging weary and footsore over mountain paths or
threading their way along the Indian trails winding through the forests,
visiting the primitive settlements of Alabama, and dispensing the truths
which make men better, are too often neglected in recounting the elements
which entered into the formation of a great state. Limitedly known while
living, and soon forgotten when dead, the substantial and fundamental
service rendered is not embalmed in the public records, and yet without
such agents, in a rude and crude condition of society, a state could never
become great. Far more valuable than is commonly supposed was the service
rendered by those pioneer preachers. In the absence of courts in those
pioneer days, matters in dispute were often held in abeyance for
adjudication till "the preacher" should come, and his unbiased decision
was usually accepted as final.
Mr. Holcombe was a leader among those humble but heroic men who braved the
terrors of the wilderness while Alabama was yet the hunting ground of the
savage, and though most of them were untaught in the schools, they
grappled with the gravest problems encountered on the frontier of
civilization, in bringing the chaotic elements of society into subjection
to the gospel, and in cool disregard of the dangers which threatened from
every side, by reason of the presence of the hostile Indian, they
evangelized the widely scattered settlements, preached, visited, cheered,
inspired, and built houses of worship for the future promotion of
Christianity.
Living and laboring with a zeal unquenched by difficulty or danger, they
passed from the scene of action, but their influence abode still, and as
a silent force has been transmitted through succeeding generations. Most
of those old spiritual heroes lie in unmarked graves. Soon leveled to the
surface, these primitive mounds left unindicated the resting places of the
genuine heroes, and the tangled vine and riotous weed came to usurp the
sacred though narrow places where sleep their ashes, but they, being dead,
yet speak in the characters and lives of those who have come after.
To this type of spiritual frontiersmen belonged the Rev. Hosea Holcombe.
His life was one of serious devotion to the cause of humanity and of God.
Without reward of purse, he labored unceasingly, eking out a bare
subsistence by the labor of his own hands, that he might have the
privilege of laboring for the welfare of his fellows. He founded all the
early Baptist churches in Jefferson County and frequent were his tours
into different parts of the state. His sage counsel was sought, and such
was the force of his character, that his decisions on all disputed
questions were taken as well-nigh oracular.
In those early days, and for generations, disputatious contention,
especially between the Baptists and Methodists, was frequent. If this had
its unpleasing side, as it always does, it was not wholly without
compensation, for it stimulated sacred study and grounded the masses in
the truths and principles of the gospel.
Like all others of the ministry of that remote period, Mr. Holcombe shared
in the prevailing controversial spirit of the times. In the maintenance
of his views he wrote a number of pamphlets, but his chief literary
production was a history of the Baptists of Alabama. While the work lacks
unity of arrangement, and is devoid of literary finish, it reflects the
spirit of the times, and is a monument to the privations and fortitude, as
well as the energy and struggles, of that period now grown dim.
As the population of the state grew, and the necessity of schools became
more urgent, this unlettered man became one of the earliest exponents of
education, and of all institutions which were conducive to the promotion
of the good of society.
The services rendered by men like Hosea Holcombe escape the pen of the
historian, because they lie apart from the spectacular and the din of
political and commercial struggle, remote from the universal flow; but
they are chief among the unseen forces the results of which assume shape
in the transmuted lives and characters of men and women and in the visible
institutions of which they were the chief founders. Their records are
usually assigned to the department of unwritten history, but their lives
and labors are the fundamental sources of the institutions, the beneficent
influences of which are ours of today.
One who leaves his impress on a generation lives for all time, for in some
form his influence works its way, though silently, and contributes to the
symmetry of character in the generations that follow. Deeds of benefaction
are noble, but a good man, in virtue of his life, is a benefaction, and
his daily walk is a constant asset of the good of the future. This admits
of application to the life of this pioneer preacher, which life extended
to near the middle of the nineteenth century.
The Rev. Hosea Holcombe died in 1841, and his humble grave is on his
original farm near Jonesboro, Jefferson County. A shaft now marks the last
resting place of the old hero. Till this was recently erected, a large
bowlder alone indicated where sleeps the pioneer preacher. Its native
roughness and solidity represented the times as well as the character of
the Rev. Hosea Holcombe.
H. W. COLLIER
There was not in the life and career of Governor Henry Watkins Collier
that which was apt to catch the popular eye and invite popular applause,
for he was not gifted with the flash of oratory, nor did he seek the
clamorous applause which passes with the day. Governor Collier was of the
practical mold of men who merely did things, who patiently wrought in
painstaking silence far away from the madding crowd and the host of empty
babble. He won distinction, but he did it by dint of granite merit, while
disdaining the acclaim which comes as the vapid breath of the hour.
A Virginian by birth, Governor Collier had the prestige which comes of
distinguished lineage. In the genealogical line were the names of such men
as Sir Francis Wyatt, one of the original English governors of Virginia,
and Admiral Sir George Collier of the British navy. But distinction like
this he relied not on, and his career throughout showed that he regarded
the life of each one a distinct entity dependent entirely on individual
worth.
Governor Collier came to Alabama in the flower of his youth well qualified
to respond to the demands arising from the colonial conditions of a new
state. He had been grounded in the solid soil of academic drill at a time
when the test of pupilage lay in the thought created by the student rather
than in the mere mastery of that already kneaded by others, and served to
the taste. For to be a student of those early times of even tolerable
tolerance one had to dig rather than to reap, as others had sown. By the
few really skillful preceptors of those primitive times, the student was
encouraged to create and originate his own material from the bare
principles furnished. This molded men of stalwart proportions, promoted
self-assertion, augmented confidence, stiffened reliance, and toughened
the fiber of character by effort.
Instruction of this character was given in the famous pioneer school of
Moses Waddell at Willington, S. C., where were trained for the stern life
of grappling with grim, original conditions such men as George McDuffie,
James L. Pettigru and Augustus B. Longstreet, and many others whose fame,
and, no less, whose example, remain as a perennial inspiration to aspiring
youth, for after all every man who is made is self-made. Be one's
advantages never so much or so meager, self and self-worth are at last the
determinative factor.
Girt with equipments like these borne from the Waddell school, young
Collier reached Alabama just as it was emerging into statehood. His first
residence was at Huntsville, where as a youthful pleader he opened his
little office, but soon removed to Tuscaloosa as the partner of Hon. Simon
L. Perry.
The demand for competent legislators and men for the occupancy of other
spheres, at a time when the population of the state was sparse, opened the
door of opportunity to aspiring young men to which class Collier belonged.
When only twenty-six he went as a representative from Tuscaloosa County,
and so profound was the impression made by this solid young man that the
legislature, at the next session, elected him to a place on the supreme
bench, a distinction the more pronounced because his competitor for the
place was Judge Eli Shortridge.
Four years later, on the occasion of the reorganization of the state
courts, Judge Collier was displaced from the supreme bench, but was
retained as a circuit judge for four years, at which time Judge Saffold
retired from his seat on the supreme bench, and Governor Clay appointed
Judge Collier in his stead, till the legislature should meet and elect his
successor. On the convening of the general assembly, Judge Collier was met
by a contestant for the honor in the person of Hon. A. Crenshaw of Butler,
but the election resulted in favor of Judge Collier, who received more
than twice the number of votes given his opponent.
For twelve years he continued to dispense justice in that high tribunal,
and the value of the service rendered the state by him is attested by the
luminous and voluminous decisions which run through thirty-five volumes of
the Alabama reports, a perpetual monument of valuable labor.
By this time no man so completely filled the eyes of the people of the
state as Judge Henry Watkins Collier. His high sense of justice, his
impartial incision, and his solid and unvarying calmness made him, without
self-effort to attain it, the dominant public figure in Alabama.
Practically without effort, he was chosen, almost by a unanimous vote of
the people, to the office of governor.
This was in 1849. Judge Samuel F. Rice, one of the brightest and ablest
of Alabamians, appeared against him, and the final vote stood 36,350 for
Collier and 364 for Rice, with a few scattering votes. At the close of his
first term for governor three competitors appeared in the field for the
same distinction--B. G. Shields, Nathaniel Terry and William L. Yancey,
and of a total popular vote of 43,679, Governor Collier was indorsed by
37,460 of these.
Nor was this due to an active canvass on the part of Governor Collier.
While he was by no means indifferent to his retention of the gubernatorial
chair, he preferred to base his claim on genuine merit illustrated in
official function, rather than by clamor for recognition before the
assembled multitude. He had scrupulously sought to make his work worthy as
a judge and as a governor, and was entirely willing that it should shine
by its own light. He could not plausibly plead for support or indorsement,
had none of the arts and tricks of the vote-getter, and therefore relied
on actual service and worth to give exploit to his value as an official
servant. His ideal of the office was lofty, and he felt that he could not
climb down into the arena of personal scramble when the people were as
fully informed of his competency as they would have been had he made a
heated canvass.
From the beginning to the close of his life, Governor Collier was under
strain. He did not fret nor chafe under the burdens imposed, but his
powers wore under the dogged strain of perpetual labor. Nothing could
deflect him from public duty. To him its claim was supreme. He died in the
ripeness of his manhood at Bailey Springs in 1865, being only fifty-four
years old, his early death being largely due, no doubt, to the overstrain
of his vigor.
JOSEPH G. BALDWIN
No more genuine compliment can be paid a book than to have the name of the
author so associated with it that at the mention of the work the name of
the writer is at once suggested. This is true of that once noted work,
"Flush Times in Alabama and Mississippi." So widely was the book for years
read, and so popular was it because of its reflection of a period of
southwestern history that to mention the work is to call in immediate
connection with it the name of the author--J. G. Baldwin.
On its appearance the work was greeted with popular applause and was
highly prized for its genuine merit. While the production of such a work
with its unique and sparkling wit, is worthy of the pen of anyone, the
fame of Judge Baldwin does not repose on it alone, for he was both a
statesman and jurist, and rendered valuable service to Alabama.
Beginning life under disadvantages because of meager education, Judge
Baldwin fitted himself for life by individual effort and private study and
became one of the most eminent citizens of the state, and later a
distinguished justice on the supreme bench of California. His qualities of
character were sterling, his relations to others uniformly courteous, and
his disposition one of perpetual sunshine.
In politics a whig, he was ever ready to champion the cause of that party.
He was a skillful tactician, and as one of the whig leaders in Alabama he
often occasioned concern in the ranks of his opponents. On the floor of
the legislative hall he was a formidable disputant, and while he often
dealt herculean blows, he held himself in courteous readiness to receive
them in return. Familiar with parliamentary principles, he held himself
scrupulously within limit, but stoutly demanded that this be returned by
his opponent. He was greatly admired for his manliness and uniform
courtesy, but was dreaded as an opponent. He could rise to heights of
greatness, but could never sink to levels of littleness. This reputation
Judge Baldwin established and maintained alike in legislative hall, the
court room, and in the social circle.
His was a fertile brain and his command of a chaste and varied diction was
unusual. Possessing an acute discrimination and a relish for the
ludicrous, he was one of the most jovial of companions. Living at an
exceptional period, and amidst conditions which often occasioned merriment
to himself, he was induced to embody his impressions of the scenes about
him in his famous work--"Flush Times in Alabama and Mississippi." It was a
time when credit was practically without limit and when speculation
proceeded on a slender financial basis, and not infrequently on no basis
at all.
It was a time of wild financial experiment, and ventures of divers kinds
were numerous. To withhold credit for any amount was a mortal offense, and
to present a bill was an act of discourtesy, as such act carried with it
the question of the honesty of the debtor. Loans were freely made by the
state banks to debtors. Private banking institutions sprang up like
mushrooms and with about as much solidity, the stock of such institutions
consisting of real estate on mortgage, upon the faith of which notes were
issued for circulation, payable in gold or silver within twelve months.
The prospective realization of the latter seems not to have been thought
of, nor was it cared for by the masses, so long as money was plentiful.
The reaction from a condition like this, entailing endless litigation and
crash on crash, is easily seen.
With a business and legal acumen, for Judge Baldwin had both, he watched
with sharp interest the trend of the period, and his work, "Flush Times in
Alabama and Mississippi," is a clever hit, describing the scenes attendant
on the time when money was flush. With an evident relish for fun he
presents the hubbub in the courts, in the places of business and elsewhere
when the notes fell due. The different characters portrayed with masterly
skill, the questions and answers, the indignation and consternation, the
rulings of country justices, the pleas of lawyers and many other elements
are vividly presented, and invariably with such a smack of real humor by
Judge Baldwin that the interest is unsuspended from the outset to the
close.
While there is much of the creative in the work to lend freshness and
humor to the many scenes, still the book is a practical history of a most
remarkable period which extended from 1833 to 1840. The work is unique in
the originality of its grasp of conditions, the raciness of portraiture
and in the description of the various transactions. Though at bottom
veritable history, the work is throughout garbed in incomparable humor
that may be read at any period with merriment.
In the same semi-serious vein in which Irving wrote his Knickerbocker
History of New York, but with a much richer tang of humor, Baldwin records
the doings of those rosy days which were anon merged into gloom, and it is
difficult to decide in which phase of the situation one finds more real
fun. He enters into no discussion, renders no opinion of his own, never
moralizes, but is content to hold himself steadfastly to a description of
scene and character in a manner most diverting to the reader. A work like
this was not devoid of a mission, and thousands laughed while they read
the record of their own stupidity and folly.
A more dignified work from the pen of Judge Baldwin was his "Party
Leaders," which embraces the records, policies and conduct of such men as
Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams, Randolph, Clay and others. The stamp of
originality is as clear in this work as in the one already commented on,
while the latter reveals the possession of a vast fund of information
relative to the private lives of the distinguished characters named. More
than that, it displays a power of nice discrimination of character.
Sharpness of analysis and felicity of parallelism of character are wrought
with the finishing touch of the verbal artist, in clean, elegant English
and with a dignity free from stilt or stiffness. This, too, proved to be a
popular work and was eagerly sought and read throughout the country. It
bears the label of the self-made scholar, the finish of the author who
works first hand, and is an embodiment of finished diction and of wide
research.
There was that in the presence, bearing, and intercourse of Judge Baldwin
that impressed one with his superiority, yet he was free, often even to
abandon, affable, and always companionable. He made ready friends of
strangers, and compelled by his bearing the highest respect of his
opponents.
Living for many years in Sumter County, he yielded to the alluring reports
which spread over the country in 1849 concerning the newly discovered
Eldorado on the Pacific slope, and removed to California. Without trouble
he fell into the rough and tumble conditions prevailing at that time in
San Francisco, entered on a lucrative practice, and later was chosen by
popular vote to a judgeship on the supreme bench of that state. He died in
California in 1866.
JOHNSON J. HOOPER
The three most noted humorists produced by the South were Judge A. B.
Longstreet, Judge J. G. Baldwin and Johnson J. Hooper. "Georgia Scenes,"
the chief product of Longstreet's humor, has been read for generations,
and will continue to be. "Flush Times in Alabama and Mississippi," by
Baldwin, is not a work of so popular a cast as the preceding one, but has
humor of a rare flavor, and "Simon Suggs," the inimitable work of Johnson
J. Hooper--these represent the humorists named and their best work. Each
of these occupies a distinct orbit of humor, and the merit of each has
been long ago established.
When Hooper saw that he was to be remembered chiefly by his "Simon Suggs,"
he regretted the publication, for it had in it no index to any ambition
which he cherished, but was dashed off at odd moments as a mere pastime.
The author desired to be remembered by something more worthy than a
ridiculous little volume detailing incidents of a grotesque character and
the twaddle and gossip in the phraseology of the backwoods. But if the
product be one of rareness, standing apart in its uniqueness and
originality, it is great and worthy, and the author deserves to be raised
on a popular pedestal to be studied as a genius.
Had Hooper not written "Simon Suggs" his name would have been obscure even
unto forgetfulness, and his genius unknown to the world. That which he did
was apart and above the ability of others to do. Its source is not the
matter to be thought of, but the production itself. At any rate, it is the
work by means of which the name of Hooper will live as Alabama's chief
humorist, and as one of the prominent merry-makers of the South.
Johnson Jones Hooper was a grandnephew of William Hooper, one of the
signers of the Declaration of Independence. The subject of present
discussion came from North Carolina to Alabama, and his first achievement
in politics was that of his election to the solicitorship of the ninth
judicial circuit, after a stubborn struggle with such men as Bowie,
Latham, Spyker and Pressley. But neither the law nor politics was suited
to the mind and temperament of Hooper. His being bubbled with humor, and
the ridiculous was always first discerned by him, as it is by all
humorists. In the quiet retreat of his humble sanctum, unannoyed by the
bustle of the throng or the rasp of strident voices, was the native
atmosphere of such a genius as was Hooper. It was in "The Banner" at
Dadeville, then an obscure country village, that Hooper first attracted
attention as a humorist. The droll scenes of the experiences of a census
taker of that time, discharging his official function in the backwoods,
where he encountered numerous ups and downs, were detailed in the rural
paper already named, with inimitable skill.
In the retreat of the rural regions, where the first lesson learned alike
by members of both sexes is that of independence and self reliance, and
where is straightway resisted anyone's interference with liberty, private
affairs, and "belongings," is the basis of a series of productions in his
little periodical, which themselves would have given Hooper fame. The
intrusion of a polite census taker into the cabin homes of the backwoods,
where statistical information was sought about poultry, pigs, soap, cows
and "garden truck," and where the rustic dames resented such intrusion
with broomsticks and pokers, afforded to this man of genius an opportunity
to hit off some rare humor, and in response to his nature he did so. The
scene, the actors, involving the polite efforts of the official to
explain, and the garrulous replies of the doughty dames, embracing
throughout the dialogue and the dialect, are depicted with the hand of the
master and the skill of the artist.
With its columns weekly laden with merriment so rare, the once obscure
"Banner" became the most popular journal in the state, and far beyond, for
it was sought throughout the south and the comical stories were copied far
and wide. Encouraged by the popular reception given these effusions,
Hooper addressed himself to a more pretentious venture by the preparation
of his "Simon Suggs." He had the basis of the character to be delineated
in a certain rude rustic of waggish proclivities who hung about the
village of Dadeville, and was well known throughout Tallapoosa and the
adjoining counties. With him as a nucleus, Hooper in the exercise of his
genius, constructed his "Simon Suggs."
That which gives to the production vitality is its unquestioned fidelity
to a phase of life prevailing in those early days, while it is underlaid
by principles which revealed actual conditions. The portraiture is that of
an illiterate, but cunning backwoodsman, bent on getting the most out of
life, no matter how, keen, foxy, double-faced and double-tongued who plied
his vocation in the perpetration of fraud by cant and hypocrisy, pretended
piety, and church membership.
Dynamic humor, occasioned by ludicrous dilemma, unconjectured condition,
ridiculous episode and grotesque situation follow each other in rapid
succession, and the effect on the reader is explosions of laughter.
"Simon" appears under varied conditions, and is sometimes closely hemmed,
in his artful maneuvers, but he is always provided with a loophole of
escape, due to his long experience and practice. His various assumptions
of different characters under shifting conditions, but remaining the true
"Simon" still among them all, and using his obscure vernacular always,
gives a kaleidoscopic change to the divers situations, and rescues the
stories from monotony. The skilled manipulation with which the whole is
wrought is the work of a remarkable genius. Nor is there break or
suspension, neither lapse nor padding, but the scenes move and shift with
fresh exhibition throughout, and the convulsive effect is irresistible.
"Simon Suggs" was published by the Appletons of New York and for years
spread with wonderful effect throughout the country, resulting in the sale
of many thousands of copies. From the notoriety produced Mr. Hooper shrank
with girlish sensitiveness.
In December, 1856, at a meeting of the Southern Commercial Convention,
held at Savannah, Hooper was present as a delegate from Alabama. The daily
press of the city announced his arrival with no little flourish as one of
the distinguished members of the body, and as the well known author of
"Simon Suggs." Doubtless this served to swell the crowd when the
convention met at night in the Atheneum. On the assembly of the delegates,
and after the usual formality of reception speeches and replies, and while
a committee was out arranging for permanent organization, Judge John A.
Jones, himself a humorous writer, the author of "Major Jones' Courtship,"
arose and moved that "Simon Suggs" be called on to give an account of
himself for the last two years. The presiding officer, who had evidently
never heard before of "Simon Suggs," arose with great dignity and said,
"If Mr. Suggs is present we should be glad to have him comply with the
expressed wish of the convention by coming to the platform." This was
attended by a craning of necks and looks of curiosity in all directions,
but "Mr. Suggs" appeared not. Hooper was seated in the pit beside Gen.
Albert Pike of Arkansas, wearing a green overcoat, and was overwhelmed
with embarrassment by the unexpected demonstration. He had the good sense
to keep quiet, for his humor could more freely exude from the nib of his
pen than from the point of his tongue. While to most others this would
have been flattery, to Hooper it was an occasion of painfulness. He
deprecated a notoriety won at so cheap a price, and by what he regarded a
means so unworthy as that of a work like "Simon Suggs." He sincerely felt
that depreciation rather than exaltation was his, as the author of such a
work, but in this he underestimated the power of his undisputed genius.
Hooper had a mastery of the English unexcelled by any southern writer.
Hon. Alexander Stephens pronounced his report of the Charleston convention
the finest illustration of the English language that had ever come under
his eye. Mr. Hooper was made the secretary of the Provisional Congress of
the Confederacy and for years was classed among the foremost of American
political writers. He died at Richmond, Virginia, soon after the beginning
of the Civil War.
WILLIAM M. MURPHY
For solidity and strength of character, forcefulness, and impressiveness
of presence especially before a jury or an audience, the Hon. William M.
Murphy was hard to excel. He was remarkable for antipodal elements of
character. That is to say, the active and passive virtues were so set over
against each other as to give him a unique combination of elements. While
morally and physically courageous, he was gentle as a tender woman, and
while he was a most formidable contestant in debate, he was just as
remarkable in his generosity, and spurned any suggestion or opportunity to
take undue advantage. While dreaded in disputatious combat, he was
respected for his uniform fairness. According this to others, he was not
slow in demanding the same in return.
Mr. Murphy was a North Carolinian by birth, and was brought by his father
as a lad of fifteen to Alabama two years after the state had been admitted
into the union. His educational advantages were without stint, his father
being amply able to furnish him with the best equipment for life. First a
student at the Alabama university, he afterwards completed his course at
the university of Virginia, which was at that time the most famous of the
literary institutions of the continent. Adopting law as a profession, the
gifts and qualifications of Mr. Murphy brought him into speedy notice.
He was for a number of years devoted to the practice of his profession
before he entered public life. At the age of thirty-four he represented
Greene county in the state legislature. He brought to the office of a
legislator an experience seasoned by years of study and court practice,
with a native courage and coolness, coupled with a force of boldness of
view that gave him one of the first places in the able body which
constituted the legislature of 1840. Three marked elements of strength
were his--great ability in debate, remarkable oratorical strength, and the
tact of leadership. These at once won the station of the headship of his
party.
At that particular time, the whig party in the house stood in the need of
a strong champion. The Hon. James E. Saunders, of Lawrence county, was the
leader of the democratic forces, and it never had an abler. Himself a
remarkable man, he was regarded by no little degree of fear by his whig
opponents, but he found in William M. Murphy a knight worthy of his steel.
Mr. Murphy met the giant of the mountains in debate, was amply able to
parry his well-directed blows, and was entirely equal as an advocate. His
elements of oratory were noted, while he would deal his heaviest blows. It
was a battle royal between the champions, the one from the hill districts
and the other from the black belt. The sparring of these mighty men was a
matter of interest, and became memorable for many years. They were equally
matched, yet very dissimilar in a number of respects. Later, Mr. Murphy
was the choice of his party for congress, but was defeated, after a
remarkable campaign, by his kinsman, Hon. Samuel W. Inge.
In 1849, Mr. Murphy represented his district in the senate of the state,
and three years afterwards removed to Texas, but his stay in the state of
the Lone Star was brief, for he returned to Alabama, and located as a
lawyer at Selma. While never recognized as a profound jurist, he was
without an equal as an advocate. His elements of oratory were singularly
unique. His initial approach to a cause in the court was usually attended
with a rugged and somewhat incoherent method, and it seemed that he had
some difficulty in getting under full way, but when he did finally reach
the point where his words would begin to warm by the friction of his own
thought, his was as overpowering oratory as was ever heard in an Alabama
court. Roused to a pitch where the cause came to possess the man, it was
like a tempest crashing through a forest. Absolutely transformed in
appearance, his manner, his voice, his logic would seem to catch on fire,
and all the elements of the great orator would respond to his bidding with
electrical facility. A series of thunderbolts could not have been more
terrible, and the cogency of logic more overwhelming than when this
remarkable man was at his best. It did not in the least savor of the rant,
but the combination of the terrible and overwhelming with the utmost
self-possession was that which made him inimitable. Invective, sarcasm,
irony, ridicule, persuasion--all lent their quota to the torrent which
swept like a Niagara. Nor could it be withstood. It was as irresistible as
the flow of a mighty river. Men listened to him entranced, sometimes
terror-stricken, at intervals pleased even unto delight, and always with
interest. His cast of oratory was peculiarly his own. He imitated no one,
nor was it possible to imitate him.
Mr. Murphy was cut down by a stroke of apoplexy at a period of life when
he was just fruiting into great usefulness and power. He was only
forty-nine years of age when the fatal stroke came. He died at his home in
Selma in 1855. Few men who have lived in the state have left a profounder
impress, in some respects, than William M. Murphy. His towering courage
was equalled alone by his uniform generosity of spirit. There was not a
small quality that entered into his character. Open, frank, noble, brave,
bold, gentle, courteous, and tender, he was all of these. His sympathy
once enlisted made him one of the most loyal and devoted of friends and
supporters. On the other hand, his opposition when once stirred was the
invitation of a storm. But he never forgot to be generous even to the
sternest of foes.
This galaxy of virtues with which his character was adorned awoke
universal confidence and won him popularity not infrequently among his
opponents. Set over against every stern or strong quality was a check or
balance that held his character well in poise. This gave him a ponderous
influence among those who knew him, as he was regarded as fair at any cost
of advantage to himself.
JAMES E. SAUNDERS
For quietness of force and reservation of power, Honorable James E.
Saunders was noteworthy. With a breadth of vision far above the ordinary,
a remarkable insightedness, and absolutely calm in his poise, never
disturbed by the clash or clamor of contest, he meted out his strength in
proportion to the demand of the occasion which elicited it, and invariably
left the impression that a fund of power was held in reserve for whatever
emergency might arise. He enjoyed the advantage of all self-collected men.
Never betrayed into warmth of feeling, he was oftener in position to
disarm the opposition than he would have been under the sway of passion.
There was an undertow of inherent force the seeming consciousness of the
possession of which made Mr. Saunders perennially serene.
His qualities soon marked him for distinguished leadership in the
legislature to the attainment of which leadership he came, not by
self-seeking, but by dint of his recognized power. He had served as a
legislator before 1840, but at that time, he rose to the first place in
the ranks of his party.
There was necessarily inseparable from his bearing the consciousness of
that which would have affected any man, with the sway of a strong
political organization of which he was the recognized leader.
Self-assertion becomes easy when there is little to be apprehended from
opposition. The dominant democracy in the lower house of the Alabama
legislature might have occasioned tranquility in the leader, even though
it had not been natural. Mr. Saunders not only held the whigs at bay, but
in awe. Nor was this the result of a hectoring spirit from which none was
freer, but because of his quiet ability to dispose of obstruction which
lay in his way.
This condition continued till there appeared on the scene William M.
Murphy of Greene. A trained lawyer accustomed to the rough and tumble of
the court room, naturally endowed with many strong points needed in an
emergency like that which confronted his party in the legislature, as
fully conscious of power as the leader of the opposition, and more
disposed to yearn for a gladiatorial combat than to spurn it, Mr. Murphy
was full panoplied as a leader of the whig party.
Unknown at first as to his qualifications, even to those of his own party
affiliation, he was hailed with delight after that the first issue was
joined. The two leaders were entirely dissimilar save in one
particular--in courtesy and fairness. In these they were at par. But when
met in combat Mr. Saunders was deliberate, plain, matter of fact, clear,
cool, divesting a proposition of every seeming objection, and investing it
with an atmosphere of transparency that seemed to place it quite beyond
the pale of doubt.
Altogether different it was when Mr. Murphy arose to combat it. With a
rugged sort of oratory he would seem to struggle with himself for the gain
of a substantial footing, which when once obtained, an avalanche was
turned loose, and under the thunder of its descent, gathered momentum as
it proceeded, the old hall seemed fairly to quake. Meanwhile his opponent
sat as stolid as a Stoic. By interruptions blows were given in the
calmness of his power, but they were parried with the roar of a stentor.
Thus surged the battle along partisan lines, the democrats possessing
themselves in complacent consciousness of strength, while the whigs would
catch inspiration under the demonstration of a leadership so splendid.
In all this never was Mr. Saunders in the least daunted nor was his masked
power the least exposed. His coolness was equalled only by the vigor of
his opponent. In nothing passive but always forceful and brave, he lent
mightiness of strength by a serenity that challenged the admiration of the
sturdiest opponent. In the gage and stress of conflict his thought flowed
without the least break in its coherency and without the slightest
disconcertedness. His equable temper never forsook him. To each contest he
would bring the same tranquil poise and it was maintained throughout.
Without hesitation he would face unblinking the severe ordeals to which he
was subjected in the stormy legislative days when he moved a giant among
the giants of Alabama. To be a legislator in those days meant much, for
the people filled the seats of legislation with their choicest spirits.
Mr. Saunders was not of a bantering mien, but he relied on the strength of
his logic into which he quietly injected a personal conviction so
overpowering that it would seem that no position could be more
impregnable, and thus it would look till it came to fall under the
iconoclastic manipulation of his formidable opponent. To be able to have
those days of partisan tempest reproduced in type would be to thrill
thousands at this late time.
As chairman of the judiciary committee in the house, the service rendered
by Mr. Saunders was fundamental to the interests of the state. Nor was any
one more profoundly interested in the educational affairs of the state as
was shown by his share in the establishment of the state university on a
solider basis, of the board of trustees of which institution he was a
prominent member. Mr. Saunders would have graced a higher station in the
affairs of statecraft than that which he held, and in a wider orbit would
have afforded an easier play of his strength. Dropping out of politics for
a short while, he became a commission merchant in Mobile, but in 1845 he
was appointed to the post of the port of Mobile, by President Polk, and
after an expiration of his term of office he was on the electoral ticket
in the campaign which resulted in the election of Pierce and King. Wealthy
and hospitable, his was a typical southern home of the long ago.
A devout Christian philosopher and a sedate statesman to which were added
the qualities of a superior man of business, the usefulness of Honorable
James E. Saunders was incalculable.
W. P. CHILTON
For numerous reasons the name of Judge William P. Chilton is worthy of a
conspicuous place in the annals of the great men who have made Alabama. He
was a learned and incorruptible public servant, a patriot of the highest
mold, a patient and manly gentleman in all his relations, and a typical
Christian. He moved among his peers with universal esteem, and amidst the
temptations of public life preserved a reputation untarnished even by a
breath of suspicion.
Of a pleasing temperament, he was jocular as a companion, always agreeable
in intercourse, mingling in true democratic style among all classes, and
yet he never depressed an exalted standard of manhood even an iota. In his
rigid fidelity to duty he represented the best type of the publicist, and
alike in private and in public, exemplified a genuine manhood. Even under
the laxest conditions and in the abandon of free intercourse with others,
he never soiled his lips with unseemly speech or with questionable joke.
There was nothing that escaped him which a lady might not hear--nothing
that he could not utter in a public speech.
He was a man of vast and commanding influence which proceeded from the
loftiest summit--that of a pure and exalted life. He was active in the
stirring scenes which affected the period in which he lived; never shied a
duty imposed, and always met his obligations in such way as to win the
highest meed of public praise. Men came to know him so thoroughly that no
pressure of a questionable matter was ever made, because his integrity was
proverbial. From his well known standard of life, men knew where to place
him on all questions which involved the moral sides of right and wrong.
Such was the life, such the career of William Parish Chilton.
The time may have produced men his equals in the qualities already named,
but it produced none superior to Judge Chilton. His was not an
ostentatious display of virtue in order to elicit attention, for none were
meeker, more placid and tranquil, but his was a silent influence which
impressed wherever it touched. His condemnation of wrong was not of the
demonstrative kind, but his disapproval was a silent expression which was
always powerful. As one of the ancient philosophers said of one of his
brother philosophers, "He always says the same thing about the same
thing," so it was in the uniform bearing and conduct of Judge Chilton.
In such an orbit he moved, in such an orbit he died, leaving in the
memories of those who knew him and in the records of the state, a life of
distinguished purity. He was in no sense a recluse, nor in the least
offish; on the other hand, he was most cordial, and his piquant humor was
relished as a season to pleasant conversation; but he would never sanction
by even a smile an unseemly joke or expression.
His was an active life. Indeed his increasing labor was a subject of
frequent comment. This necessarily brought him into connection with all
classes of men, but he moved amidst all scenes without the smell of taint
on his character. His habits of life were as regular as the movement of
the hand on the dial face. By this means he was gifted with a physical
manhood capable of severe strains of labor.
Beginning life as a young attorney in Talladega County, in co-partnership
with George R. Brown, Mr. Chilton was subsequently associated in the
practice of the law with his brother-in-law, the late senator, John H.
Morgan, the strong firm including two other distinguished gentlemen,
George W. Stone and Frank W. Bowdon. Chosen once to represent Talladega
County in the legislature, Mr. Chilton was afterward elected to a seat on
the supreme bench of the state, succeeding Judge Ormond. Later still, in
1852, Judge Chilton became the chief justice of the supreme court of
Alabama, which position he held with great distinction for four years.
Retiring from this judicial position, he became associated, in 1860, with
William L. Yancey in the practice of the law in Montgomery.
When the Confederacy was created Judge Chilton was elected a member of the
provisional congress of the young government and throughout its brief and
fateful history retained his seat in that body. Speaking of his interest
and activity, Honorable J. L. M. Curry, who was his congressional
colleague, said: "It was a common remark that he was the most laborious
member of the body." He loved labor equally from an instinctive energy and
from a sense of duty. On the floor of the Confederate Congress the opinion
of no member was esteemed of greater worth than that of Judge Chilton.
In the rough and tumble of debate, which he enjoyed, whether on the
hustings or on the floor of congress, he displayed rare humor, reveling in
original epigram and in rollicking anecdote at the expense of his
opponent. Fluent and eloquent, he was at home before a promiscuous
gathering. His innocent, sparkling wit afforded him vast power in
discussion. Among the ludicrous sallies used in opposition to another in a
speech, and one long quoted in referring to the remarkable conservation of
his opponent, he accused him of "reaching an extreme medium." Before a
popular assemblage he was irresistible in his joviality and power to
produce merriment. Yet this was always done in such way as never to
occasion offense. Nor did he ever yield to buffoonery. His contagious
twinkle of eye, his sunlit face and his ready husbandry of dictum suited
to the occasion, were so remarkable that he would sweep an audience as a
breeze a field of grain. Yet his thrusts were so tempered by good nature
that they left no sting nor pang of regret to the speaker.
Buttressed on a character such as he possessed, this variety of gifts gave
to Judge Chilton immense advantage. It was known to be impossible for him
knowingly to misrepresent or to take the slightest advantage and
consequently the spell of his influence was overwhelming.
Among his numerous traits may be named that of his intense interest in
young men. His counsel was frequently sought by a struggling youth because
of his transparent frankness, readiness and responsiveness. He manifested
a keen interest in his young brother-in-law, John T. Morgan, who was
perhaps more indebted to Judge Chilton than to any other for the
substantial basis with which he began his brilliant and eventful career.
It was not uncommon for him to seek an interview with a young man in whom
he discovered gifts, and aid him to gain a solid footing.
When sixty-one years old, Judge Chilton was still active and alert, his
natural force still unabated, and his spirit undimmed by years of
activity, and, when it seemed that many years of usefulness were still
his, he suffered from a serious fall, from which he never recovered. His
death in Montgomery in January, 1871, was an occasion of state-wide
sorrow. The legislature was in session at the time, and Governor Lindsay
announced the sad fact of his death in the following communication to the
general assembly:
"State of Alabama,
"Executive Department,
"Montgomery, Jan. 21, 1871.
"Gentlemen of the Senate and House of Representatives:
"It is with feelings of sorrow and regret that I inform you of the
death of the Honorable W. P. Chilton of the city of Montgomery. This
event occurred last night about the hour of 11. Judge Chilton was one
of our best beloved citizens, eminent as a jurist, and the people of
Alabama had often honored him with their public esteem and confidence.
As a member of the legislature, as a member of congress, and as chief
justice of our supreme court, he discharged his duties with devotion
and zeal. In the halls of legislation he was a statesman, and he
adorned the bench by his integrity and learning. The loss of such a
man is a public calamity, and it is fit that the departments of the
government of a state he loved so well should pay a tribute to his
memory."
The occasion of his funeral was a sad ovation of public esteem. The
legislature, the bar, the fraternity of Masons, of which he was an honored
member, together with multitudes of friends, sought on the occasion of his
funeral to accord to Judge Chilton the merits of his just deserts.
JOHN FORSYTH
For generations the name of Forsyth has been associated with distinction
in the records of southern history. The original member of the family,
Robert Forsyth, came from England to America before the revolution, and
was a member of the military family of Washington. His son, John Forsyth,
was at various times attorney general and governor of Georgia, a member of
congress for a period of fifteen years from that state, minister to Spain,
and was instrumental in procuring the cession of Florida. For six and a
half years he served as secretary of state, during the administrations of
Jackson and Van Buren. Robert Forsyth was the grandfather of John Forsyth,
late of Mobile, while John Forsyth, Sr., was his father.
Enjoying unusual advantages, socially and scholastically, the subject of
the present sketch turned them to great practical benefit. Among the
advantages which he enjoyed was that of a residence of two years at the
Spanish court during the administration of his distinguished father as
minister to Spain. He was a graduate from Princeton University, from which
he bore away the first honors of his class and delivered the valedictory
address.
Entering on the practice of law at Columbus, Ga., he continued there but
one year, when he located in Mobile, in the year 1835. He soon received
the appointment of United States attorney for the southern district of
Alabama, but the death of his father occurring in Georgia, necessitated
his return to that state, where he remained for twelve years, having taken
charge of his father's estate and devoting his time to planting, the
practice of law and the editorial management of the Columbus Times. It was
during that period that he enlisted to serve in the Mexican war as the
adjutant of the First Georgia Regiment.
He returned to Mobile in 1853, entered the lumber business, was burnt out,
and entered again the field of journalism by purchasing the Mobile
Register. In 1856 he was appointed by President Pierce minister to Mexico,
in which capacity he served for two years.
Colonel Forsyth's mission to Mexico was attended by much labor and
perplexity, as the duty was imposed on him of adjusting varied and
numerous claims against the Mexican government, which claims originated in
the nature of the war waged by the Mexicans. There were claims for
imprisonments, murders, confiscation, and others, and while Colonel
Forsyth labored without abatement, he had but timorous support from the
Buchanan administration.
As a matter of fact, President Buchanan was gravely absorbed in the rush
of events which tended toward the approaching Civil War, which broke like
a storm over the country in 1861, and his foreign policy was one of
conciliation. The reason of this presidential policy concerning Mexico is
now obvious. In view of the pending conflict in the American states, the
hostility of Mexico, for any reason, would be serious.
As an earnest advocate of the rights of the citizens of the American
states at the Mexican capital, Colonel Forsyth was gravely embarrassed by
the feeble support lent by his government, and this led to the severance
of his relations with the diplomatic service. Having resigned, he returned
to Mobile and resumed his editorial work.
With qualifications so varied, he was frequently called into active
service by the people. While his pen was actively employed, he was
summoned to such important posts as that of mayor of Mobile, legislator,
alderman in his adopted city, and other stations of public interest.
In March, 1861, Colonel Forsyth was sent, together with Messrs. Crawford
of Georgia, and Roman of Louisiana, on a peace commission to Washington.
There was but slight hope of accomplishing anything, and it is doubtful if
there was any more serious intention involved in the mission than that of
gaining time for a more efficient equipment of the South for the pending
struggle. It was a time for tactics, and a play for advantage. The mission
was a bootless one, and in due time the war burst on the country.
During the Civil War, Colonel Forsyth served for a time on the staff of
General Braxton Bragg, meanwhile retaining his connection with his paper,
for, after all, the pen was the most potent instrument in the hand of
Colonel Forsyth. After the close of the war he proved to be one of the
most masterly spirits in steering the state through the storm of
reconstruction. The pen of no one in the South was more powerful during
that chaotic period. Statesman, jurist and journalist, he was equipped
for guidance in an emergency like this, and with the zeal of a patriot he
responded to every occasion that arose. His excessive labor made sad
inroads on his constitution, his health was broken, but despite this he
was persistent in labor. He was of that type of public servants who sought
not applause for its own sake, but was impelled by an unquestioned
patriotism which yielded to demands of whatever kind, high or low, in
order that he might serve the public.
Much as Colonel Forsyth did in the exercise of his superior versatility,
all else was incidental to the wield of his prolific pen. He became the
South's most brilliant journalist. The compass of his vision was that of a
statesman, and during the troublous times which followed the Civil War,
the counsel of one like him was needed, and that counsel found most
profitable expression through the nib of his powerful pen.
Day after day, for a long period of years, the columns of the Mobile
Register glittered with thought that moved on the highest level and that
found expression in polished and incisive diction. It was brightened by
the loftiest tone of rhetoric, sustained throughout by the best strain of
scholarship, never lapsing, either in tone or expression, into the
commonplace. There was a fastidious touch in his style, a classical mold
to his thought, which, while they pleased the most scholarly of readers,
equally charmed the common people.
Under the sway of his forceful and trenchant pen the Mobile Register
became one of the most dominant factors in southern thought. That journal
found readers in all the states, and more than any other in the South at
that time, it won the attention of the metropolitan press. In no editorial
sanctum has he been surpassed in rareness of diction, nor in power of
expression.
GEORGE GOLDTHWAITE
There was a possibility at one time of Judge George Goldthwaite becoming a
military man. After spending his younger years in Boston, where he had as
school fellows such men as Charles Sumner and R. C. Winthrop, Goldthwaite
became a cadet at the military academy at West Point. Among his classmates
at the academy was General (Bishop) Polk, while in more advanced classes
were R. E. Lee, Joseph E. Johnston and Jefferson Davis. Goldthwaite was
within one year of the completion of his course when he became involved in
a hazing fracas and quietly left the institution, as he knew what the
consequences would be. At that time, 1826, Alabama was in the infancy of
statehood, and he a youth of seventeen. His brother was at that time a
rising young lawyer at Montgomery and the younger brother entered on the
study of law under his elder brother.
The thoroughness of mental drill to which he had been subjected in the
Boston schools, as well as at the military academy, made his headway in
law comparatively easy, and at the end of the year, when he was but
eighteen, he was admitted to practice and opened an independent office at
Monticello, Pike County. The youthful lawyer did not lack for clients and
he remained in this rural village for a period of several years, after
which he returned to Montgomery, where his ability became widely
recognized.
In 1843 he offered for the judgeship of the circuit court against the
incumbent of the bench, Judge Abraham Martin, and was elected. In 1850 he
was opposed by Jefferson Jackson, a gentleman of prominence at the bar,
and was again elected. In 1852 Judge Goldthwaite was chosen a justice on
the supreme bench, and four years later, when Judge Chilton resigned,
Judge Goldthwaite became chief justice, but after serving in this capacity
just thirteen days he suddenly resigned and resumed the practice of the
law.
For three years after the beginning of the Civil War Judge Goldthwaite
served as adjutant general of the state under the appointment of Governor
Moore. Just after the close of the war he was elected again to the
position of circuit judge, but in 1866, under the reconstruction acts of
congress, he was removed.
In 1870 he was elected to the United States senate from Alabama. This
brief and cursory survey of an eventful life affords but a bare hint of
the marvelous activity and usefulness with which the career of Judge
Goldthwaite was crowned.
Like most men of deeply studious habits, there was wanting in the bearing
of Judge Goldthwaite a spirit of cordiality. His peculiar sphere was the
court room or the law office. He had a fondness for the discussion of the
profound principles of law and reveled in its study. An indefatigable
student of the law, he was one of the ablest attorneys and jurists the
state ever had. The statement of a proposition by him was as clear as a
Syrian atmosphere and in its elucidation before a jury his diction was
terse, crisp and simple, so that the veriest rustic could understand it.
Quiet in manner and with unadorned English he would unravel a knotty
proposition so that every thread was straightened, and everyone who knew
the meaning of the simplest diction could readily grasp his meaning. He
was a master of simple diction.
On the bench, Judge Goldthwaite was profound, but always clear and simple.
Every word seemed to fall into its appropriate place, and not a flaw was
left in the statement of a fact or principle. In the social circle his
conversation partook of the same lucid diction, revealing a fund of
information and a versatility of learning quite exceptional.
Of a stocky build, he was not prepossessing in personal appearance, but
when he began to speak his diction glowed with the heat of a quiet
earnestness, and all else was forgotten but the charm of his incomparable
speech.
Judge Goldthwaite achieved but slight distinction as a national senator,
because it was a time when the voice of a senator from the South booted
but little. The wounds of the Civil War were still fresh and smarting, and
the calmness of his temperament and the aversion to hostile excitement
forbade his flaring in empty speech, as would have been true of many
another. As a matter of fact, his sphere was not the forum, and he had no
taste for the dull routine of congressional proceeding.
Judge Goldthwaite's mind was distinctively judicial. He served in the
senate as a matter of patriotic duty, and not as a matter of choice. There
was a peculiar condition which required his continued presence there, and
to this demand he responded. It was a time that called for calmness and
conservatism, and no one was better prepared to illustrate these virtues
than Judge Goldthwaite.
His deportment in the National Senate challenged the admiration of all. A
former classmate of Charles Sumner, as has already been said, he was the
poles asunder from the New England statesman in the views entertained by
Mr. Sumner, and often hotly expressed by him on the floor of the senate.
Judge Goldthwaite preserved a long and honorable career in Alabama, and
left behind him a record of fame. He was far above the petty affairs of
life, and lived and thought on an elevated plane high above most men. He
was a student, a statesman, a jurist and a philosopher--all. He was an
ornament to the state and easily one of its foremost citizens in all that
pertained to its weal. He was without foil either in conduct or in
character. His example was stimulating, and his influence elevating and
inspiring. Any state would have been honored by the possession of a
citizen so eminent.
ALEXANDER TRAVIS
The name of Travis is immortally linked with the tragedy of the Alamo,
where the gallant Colonel William Travis was massacred with his devoted
band in that historic fortress at San Antonio. The Rev. Alexander Travis
was an uncle of the hero of the Alamo. Colonel William Travis was a
resident of Alabama before he removed to Texas, and practiced law in
Clarke County. Thence he removed to Texas, where he became one of the most
prominent sharers in the struggle for independence.
One of the dominant traits of the Travis stock was that of cool courage.
This was illustrated as much in the life of the heroic missionary in the
woods of southern Alabama as it was shown by his nephew in the ill-fated
fortress of the Alamo. Alexander Travis removed to Conecuh County in 1817,
and was one of the pioneer settlers of that region. He was a man of peace,
but this did not obscure the heroic impulses of his nature, for in
grappling with the stern conditions of pioneer life, in seeking to bring
them into due subordination to organized social conditions, unusual pluck
was needed, not alone, but wisdom and prudence, as well.
While sharing fully in the hardships of the early colonizers of south
Alabama, Mr. Travis, as a minister of the gospel, led in all movements in
the emergence of that region from chaotic conditions to the higher plane
of advanced society. Himself denied the advantages of an education, he was
the foremost in all movements to provide for general instruction. He was
the founder of the town of Evergreen, now a bustling little center on the
Louisville and Nashville Railway, between Montgomery and Mobile. He
founded the academy at that point, which school has given place in later
years to one of the state agricultural schools.
There was a pathetic touch in the life of a man who would labor on his
little farm, cleared by his own hands, in the wilds of south Alabama, and
who, at night, when the labor of the day was over, would sprawl himself in
his little yard before his blazing pine-knot fire, and study his plain
English Bible--the only book in his library. Leaving his hut in the woods,
each week, in time to reach distant settlements to preach on Sunday, he
would throw his little wallet of cotton cloth across his shoulders, and
set out on foot to trudge the distance, sometimes of forty miles, for the
privilege of preaching to some distant community. He came to know every
foot of the wide Indian trails that wound through the forests over a vast
area, and knew every log on which he could cross the large streams in
those bridgeless days of the long ago. Nothing foiled him in the
excursions of good, for when the rains would swell the streams, he would
strip himself, cram his apparel within his wallet, and, being an expert
swimmer, he would hold his bag above his head with one hand, while with
the other he would swim to the opposite side, redress, and onward plod his
way.
Among the elements of abounding romance in our history, nothing exceeds in
interest the intrepidity of this pioneer hero in contributing to the
moral and spiritual side of the early days of our history. His
punctuality in meeting his appointments, and his devotion to the gospel
and to the people, won for him a confidence supreme. In those days when
courts were not, and yet where conflicting litigants were, cases for final
adjudication would be held in abeyance "till the preacher comes." Causes
were submitted, but he would never consent to a consideration of them till
the contending parties would agree to abide amicably his decision. Such
was the clearness and saneness of his judgment, the fairness of his
spirit, and his profound sense of right, that every litigant would
promptly accept this condition. He was jury, advocate, and judge, all in
one, and for many years, in that interior pioneer region, he acted in this
threefold capacity, while he rendered unrequited service as a missionary.
His was a strange, strong, romantic life, spent for the good of others to
the neglect of his own personal comfort. That class has dwindled to a list
so small and rare that today, when similar devotion is shown, the world
knows no higher designation for such a man than that of "crank," yet it is
the crank that turns things.
In later years and under better conditions, Mr. Travis came to ride the
wide regions through on horseback, with his leathern saddle-bags beneath
him. Under the tall pines which then grew in those southern parts, he
would frequently stretch himself at night, on the green grass, tired and
sleepy, with his head pillowed on his saddle-bags, and beneath the stars,
he would be wooed to sleep by the moaning pines above him. His faithful
horse was tethered close by to browse the wire grass and the native
peavines, while the missionary would sleep and await the coming of the
dawn. Without a cent of compensation, Alexander Travis labored through
many eventful years, creating the means with his own hands with which to
sustain his work, and uncheered by aught else than the consciousness of
duty to humanity and to God.
With the expansion of population, and with the growth of prosperity, Mr.
Travis came in the second half of his life to possess a measurable degree
of wealth, but from a steady purpose of doing good, he never wavered. He
was a man of commanding appearance, of natural dignity of port, and
possessed of the natural assertion which these give; yet he was modest,
and commanded esteem by his unquestioned qualities of leadership. There
was no element of flabbiness in his character, no cant and drivel in his
utterances, but in all that pertained to him he was a nobleman by nature.
His judgment was incisive and discriminative, his poise collected, and
while without the least exhibition of violence, he was courageous in his
entertainment of views, and pronounced in their expression. In nothing did
his courage so manifest itself as in his stoutness of spirit in the face
of difficulty. Nothing that he regarded as possible baffled him, and while
never stern, he was immovable from that which he conceived to be right,
whether reinforced by others or not. He was a benediction to the state
while living, and, being dead, he yet speaks.
JOHN A. WINSTON
John A. Winston enjoyed the distinction of being the first native born
governor of the state. He was a native of Madison County, where he was
born in 1812, and received his collegiate training at LaGrange College and
the University of Nashville. His grandfather was an officer in the army of
the Revolution from Virginia. The family name of Anthony was preserved in
that given the governor.
Governor John Anthony Winston first devoted his attention to planting. He
removed from the mountain region to west Alabama in 1834, and bought a
fine plantation in Sumter County, one of the counties of the famous black
belt. Six years after his settlement in Sumter County he was chosen its
representative to the legislature. To this office he was re-elected and
then chosen for the state senate, which position he continued to hold for
ten consecutive years, becoming the presiding officer of that body in
1847.
The ability of Governor Winston became more generally recognized in 1848,
when he went to Baltimore as a delegate to the national convention which
nominated General Cass for the presidency. Mr. Winston made a speech
before that body in the vindication of the national Democracy, which
attracted widespread attention and brought him into prominence before the
entire country.
During his senatorial career he entered into the cotton commission
business in Mobile, which commercial relation he continued till the close
of his life. While not engaged in official duty his attention was divided
between his planting interest and his business in Mobile, where he spent
much of his time. The sterling worth of Mr. Winston, his clearness of
judgment, range of comprehension, force of character and exact
practicalness, together with his undoubted leadership of men and
statesmanship, served to win for him an augmented public confidence, and
in 1853 he became the candidate for governor of the state, and was elected
without opposition. Two years later, at the expiration of his first
gubernatorial term, he was opposed by Honorable George D. Shortridge. The
campaign was one of unusual energy and even of bitterness. The state was
agitated throughout, both candidates appearing before large and excited
audiences in every part. Governor Winston was the democratic candidate,
while Mr. Shortridge espoused the cause of the Know-Nothing or American
party. Mr. Winston defeated his opponent by a majority of about twelve
thousand.
Conditions had now conspired to make the farmer-governor the great leader
of the Democratic hosts in the state. No man who has lived in Alabama ever
had a completer grasp on a party organization than that had by Governor
Winston at this time. Happily for the state, it was a power wisely used
with disinterested patriotism. The direction of affairs was as devoid of
the alloy of personal aggrandizement as was possible, and this was duly
recognized by the public. Governor Winston went as a delegate-at-large to
the Charleston convention in 1860, and after the nomination of Mr. Douglas
he led the electoral ticket in the state. On the outbreak of the war he
became the colonel of the Eighth Alabama Regiment, and as such served for
twelve months, when he was forced to retire from the service by an attack
of rheumatism which physically disabled him. His career as a soldier in
the army of Virginia was in harmony with his general reputation as a
civilian. His regiment was fiercely engaged at Seven Pines, because, being
at the front, it was brought into sharp contact with the enemy. The fight
was hand to hand, with odds in numbers against the gallant Eighth Alabama.
Colonel Winston was at the head of his regiment, and, placing his bridle
reins in his teeth, he led his force with a large pistol in each hand.
When commanded to surrender his reply was that he had not joined the army
to surrender and that was not his business. On his return home he devoted
his attention to planting, and with unabated patriotism aided in every way
possible the fortunes of the Confederacy.
In 1865 Governor Winston was sent as a delegate from Sumter County to the
constitutional convention of Alabama, and was afterward chosen for a seat
in the National Senate, but his seat was denied him, and he was afterward
disfranchised by the radical forces then in control of the government.
This closed his career of public service. He never recovered from the
rheumatism contracted while in the service in Virginia, and died in Mobile
on December 21, 1871, at the age of fifty-nine.
The combination of qualities entering into the character of Governor
Winston was more than ordinary, all of which characteristics were based on
a clear, solid foundation of remarkably good sense in all that he did and
said, privately and officially. He was altogether devoid of pretense or of
assumption. He moved on a straight line of impartiality and of unbiased
thought. He did his own thinking and reached his own conclusions. When a
conclusion was reached it was evident that he had gone over all the
ground, had weighed and measured every possible consideration, after which
was done it was futile to seek to dislodge him. His scrupulous firmness
sometimes bore the aspect of sternness, and in the absence of a diplomacy
to soften it a decision would sometimes offend the sensitive; but in view
of duty, none of these things moved him. He was not without the element of
gentleness and of profound sympathy, but above these rose his conscience,
the dictates of which he would not disregard.
While governor he was not in accord with much of the legislation enacted,
especially with respect to appropriations of the public funds, and there
was now and then friction between the executive and legislative branches
of government, but he did not hesitate to invoke the power of the veto
when he deemed it necessary. Because of this he won the sobriquet of "the
veto governor," but to him principle overtopped popularity, and the
protection of the common interest was a matter of graver concern than the
good will of the general assembly. While not possessed of oratorical power
on the stump or on the legislative floor, having a strident, rasping voice
and the mannerism of a man of business rather than that of a trained
speaker, he nevertheless won the populace by his directness and
sincerity. He retired from public life without the slightest tarnish on
his conduct or reflection on his career. An indication of his solid
popularity is found in the fact that the name of the county of Hancock was
changed in honor of Governor Winston to that of his own.
DANIEL P. BESTOR
In its phases Dr. Bestor's character was many-sided. He was at once a
planter, statesman, philosopher, educator and minister of the gospel.
Richly favored by nature, his gifts had the polish of the classical
lapidary and the expansion which comes of research, thought and
experience. He towered immensely above the ordinary man and the babble of
the multitude. Like Goldsmith's ideal preacher, Dr. Bestor rose--
"As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form,
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm,
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head."
There was nothing of the maudlin or mediocre type in his character. Every
movement and utterance, his face and bearing, all bespoke the man that he
was. Dr. Bestor was a native of Connecticut, where he was born in 1797.
Removing to Alabama by way of Kentucky when he was twenty-four, he began
at once a career of usefulness which extended practically through a half
century, a period which embraced all the great revolutions through which
the state has passed. In none of these was he an idle spectator nor
uninterested agent.
His educational advantages were the best the period could afford, and
these afforded him the buttress of an ever widening sphere of knowledge.
Possessing an intellect at once readily receptive and retentive, he was a
diligent student in a number of fields of research. From surface facts he
probed toward the bottom of principles and reached conclusions at first
hand. If occasion arose for a modification of opinion on any matter, he
yielded to new evidence, though it bore him to a position diametrically
opposite to that originally held. It is the small man who never changes a
viewpoint. The two classes represent respectively obstinacy and
consistency. Obstinacy is the inflexibility of pride; consistency, the
inflexibility of principle.
On reaching Alabama Dr. Bestor was impressed more by the lack of
educational facilities than by anything else. In the valley of the
Tennessee there were multitudes of young folk growing rapidly toward
manhood and womanhood with scarcely any facilities of instruction. He at
once became the pioneer champion of general and public education in the
state, and was the first to agitate the question in a comprehensive way.
He sought to supply the deficiency in the northern part of the state by
founding the once famous school in those parts known as the LaFayette
Female Academy. The school was patronized by the wealthy planters of that
region, and became the initial means of contributing to the womanly
culture of which the section was remarkable. Dr. Bestor was the principal
of the school and devoted the culture of his young manhood to its
promotion. Founded about the time of the last visit of General LaFayette
to America, Dr. Bestor derived its name from that of the famous Frenchman,
while to the cultured village which sprang up on the plateau on which the
school was located the name of LaGrange was given, in honor of
LaFayette's chateau in France.
This was the first school incorporated in Alabama. To the school the
legislature of Alabama in 1824 deeded a half section of land. Though
called an academy, the grade of the school was high and did advanced work.
At that time Dr. Bestor was everywhere alluded to as the great educator,
and his fame was spread throughout the state. Later, in 1830, the
Methodist Conference of North Alabama, Middle Tennessee, and North
Mississippi founded a school for young men in the village of LaGrange,
which also became a famous institution. Three years later Dr. Bestor
removed to Greensboro, taking with him as far as practicable all that
pertained to LaFayette Academy, and in that chief town of the canebrake
established another school and remained at its head for a number of years.
Still later he removed to Sumter County, where for ten years he divided
his time between preaching and planting.
It was while serving as a legislator from Greene County in 1837 that Dr.
Bestor revealed the first vision of a comprehensive public school system
for the state. His study and investigation of the subject led him to see
that with prevailing conditions unchanged, Alabama could never emerge from
its gloom of illiteracy. The scant facilities afforded by local or
denominational interests were altogether inadequate to existing demands.
Schools dotted the state over at favored points, but the ignorance in
large areas of the state was little short of the dismal.
Stirred by conditions like these, Dr. Bestor sought to go to the
legislature that he might acquaint the representatives of the people with
the results of his disinterested investigation. His plan was that which
actually came to prevail many years later, but after he had passed away.
In the legislature he threw his cultured being into the single cause of
education, procuring for it a special committee, of which he was made the
chairman. He prepared with great pains and labor an elaborate report and a
bill to be offered, and in due time it was submitted. The measure met with
stout opposition, especially at the hands of B. G. Shields, of Marengo,
the chairman of the general committee on education, who resented the
policy of a special committee as a reflection on himself and his
committee. In the opposition Mr. Shields was supported by Judge Smith, of
Madison. But general committees had never done anything, and for that
reason Dr. Bestor asked for a special committee.
The occasion was made a memorable one on the floor of the house by the
contest which it provoked. Dr. Bestor husbanded all his resources and
skill in the conduct of the contest and proved himself a giant in debate,
and, though met by much passion, he preserved his coolness and dignity
throughout the debate. He failed in his effort at that time, though his
labor was not in vain, for the array of facts presented respecting the
illiteracy of the state awoke wide interest which gave an impulse to the
educational spirit of the state which has not ceased to this time.
Coupled with all his immense work was that of an active pulpit ministry.
He was a great leader in the Baptist denomination and rendered signal
service in the thorough organization of the Baptist forces. With the
exception of a few years spent in Mississippi, Dr. Bestor's career was
confined to Alabama. He died at Mobile in 1869.
F. W. BOWDON
There is much more in unwritten history that affects the destiny of the
race than there is in that which is recorded. Gray's "gem" in his Elegy,
and his "flower" "born to blush unseen," illustrate the fundamentals of
the history of the race, wherein the bulk of worth is frequently
unmentioned, and, if so, often scarcely. While Franklin Welsh Bowdon was
by no means unknown, and while his worth was not altogether unrecognized,
who that knows him in retrospect today as one of the most matchless
orators of southern history? Who knows of his clearness of demonstration
in presenting the most tangled and abstruse of problems? Who today knows
not alone of the power already alluded to, but who that knows that his
ability before a jury has never been surpassed in the state, or that he
was peerless as a popular speaker before a promiscuous audience? Who that
has learned of his subtle force of illumination of difficult problems or
of knotty questions, in speech that glittered in its own chaste delicacy
and beauty of phraseology after having passed through the crucible of his
brain?
The history of others is perhaps more iridescent, because the drift of the
currents into which they auspiciously fell bore them into fuller and more
applausive view before the public eye, in which event it is the condition,
and not the man who happens to be its representative, that deserves
consideration. The force inherent in Frank Bowdon, and his superior
ability to wield the elements already named, really make him a prodigy
among the men who have made famous the history of the state. He was not
ambitious to be showy, nor sought he special occasion to flash his
powerful gifts, but when occasion did logically and legitimately come, he
was prodigious.
Many men fall just short of accorded greatness because of the needed
stride across the boundary over which others bound and catch the loud
plaudit of the crowd and are borne to the crest of eminence. Many another
receives undue applause because he boldly thrusts himself on public
attention and forces recognition, while others, far superior perhaps,
stand in manly disdain of bald tawdriness and the impudence of ignorance
of which certain competitors are the innocent victims. Gifted men are
usually, though not always, men of delicate taste, which is itself an
element of real greatness. It is the ripest and heaviest ear of corn that
hangs lowest. Mr. Bowdon, with the consciousness of his own power, which
every strong man has, eschewed the cheap clatter of the flatterer, and
always appeared in public to advantage because he was summoned thither.
This, at least in part, affords an explanation of the absence of the fame
which was justly his because of the possession of the vast powers already
named.
Frank W. Bowdon was a native of Chester district, South Carolina, and was
brought by his father to Shelby County, Alabama, while his gifted son was
still a child of only three years. On the farm of a thrifty planter and in
a home of piety and of hospitality the youth was reared. It was one of
those old-time southern homes where ease and elegance, culture and
refinement were, and where children were reared free from over-exaction
and with just sufficient freedom to develop real manliness.
Mr. Bowdon was educationally prepared for entrance on the State
University, which he in due time entered and from which he was graduated,
and entered at once on the profession of the law. He was admitted to
practice and settled at Talledega. His ability as a speaker was equally
suited to the court room and the forum. During the years of 1844-5 he
served as a representative in the legislature from Talledega County. His
ability in debate and his power of oratory brought him promptly to the
front. Nor was he ungifted in the manipulation of conditions by skillful
management in the execution of his chosen purposes. He was easily the peer
of the foremost of a legislative body graced by such choice spirits as
Thomas H. Watts, John Gill Shorter, Thomas A. Walker, James A. Stallworth,
W. O. Winston, Joseph W. Taylor, William S. Mudd, Thomas J. Judge, and
others. His reigning trait was decisiveness of conviction, which when once
possessed did not lack the underpropping courage of expression, and in
turn this expression was not wanting in the most radiant demonstration and
persuasion. No haughty spirit nor arrogant port entered into his
forensics, but, on the other hand, there was a refreshing repose that lit
up the whole with a confidence that was serene and assuring.
Two legislative sessions terminated his career in the general assembly of
Alabama, and on the occasion of the untimely death of General McConnell,
as the representative in congress from the seventh district, a special
election was ordered, with Thomas A. Walker and Franklin W. Bowdon as the
candidates for the vacancy. The result was the election of Mr. Bowdon.
This was followed by his re-election over Honorable Samuel F. Rice for the
term next succeeding, and over General Bradford for the next following
term.
For five years he held his seat in congress, a giant among giants. In a
wider sphere there was ampler scope for the play of his power, and it was
duly exercised. Brewer states that an English peer was present on one of
the occasions when Bowdon spoke, and the Englishman pronounced the effort
the ablest to which he had ever listened, and he had heard the greatest of
both English and American orators.
Nor was Mr. Bowdon's power confined to his oratory. It was abundantly
illustrated in his law practice, and in the preparation of his briefs.
Here were met, as elsewhere, the same logical incisiveness and clearness
that distinguished his utterances while on his feet.
In his person he was most commanding. He was fully six feet high, of
symmetrical build, and his handsome features, especially in the sweep of
oratorical passion and fervor, were a study for the artist. Zealous in
temperament, and confident of his footing in advance of any deliverance,
he shrank not to meet in mental combat anyone who might desire to brook
his views. He retired from congress voluntarily in 1851, and after a few
years removed to Tyler, Texas, where he soon after died. Bowdon College,
in Georgia, derived its name from this distinguished Alabamian.
ALEXANDER B. MEEK
For versatility, brilliancy, and general usefulness, few Alabamians have
surpassed Judge Alexander B. Meek. His was an unusual combination of
powers. He was a poet, author, orator, editor and jurist, and was
inconspicuous in none. One of the earliest graduates from the University
of Alabama, where he received the master's degree, he found full exercise
for his varied gifts during a career which extended through thirty-two
years.
Choosing the bar as a profession, Judge Meek entered on the practice of
the law in 1835. During the following year, 1836, he enlisted along with
others to serve against the Creek Indians in Florida, Mr. Meek going in
the capacity of a non-commissioned officer.
On his return from the Florida campaign, Mr. Meek was appointed by
Governor Clay attorney general for the state. At the expiration of his
term of office as attorney general, Mr. Meek sought gratification of his
literary tastes by creating a new local journal at Tuscaloosa, which he
called "The Flag of the Union." Later he edited in the same town a
literary journal called "The Southron."
The limited resources at his command compelled him to deflect his course
into channels other than those purely literary, and in 1842 he was
appointed county judge of Tuscaloosa, and during the same year published a
supplement to the Digest of Alabama.
Being appointed law clerk to the solicitor of the treasury at Washington,
he gained an insight into the life of the national capital, and perhaps
his residence there had some connection with his being made United States
attorney for the southern district of Alabama, which position he held for
four years, living meanwhile in Mobile. From this position he went to the
associate editorship of the Mobile Daily Register.
In 1853 we find Judge Meek representing Mobile County in the legislature,
where, as chairman of the committee on education, he reported the bill to
"establish and maintain a system of free public schools in the state of
Alabama." The bill providing for the scheme, together with a voluminous
and exhaustive report on education, excited profound interest in the
legislature, and the documents were so appreciated that five thousand
copies of the bill and ten thousand copies of the report were ordered to
be printed.
This was the dawn of a new era in education in this state. Various
attempts had before been made to gain the attention of the legislature and
the people of the state on this transcendant matter, but they had proved
of but slight avail till the work undertaken by Judge Meek. The astounding
prevalence of illiteracy in the state as exhibited by his report did more
than to arouse interest; it created astonishment, with not a slight degree
of apprehension. The work done by Judge Meek in this connection gave a
strong propulsion to educational work in the state and the interest
deepened and grew in intensity till checked by the Civil War.
Being elected judge of the city court of Mobile, Judge Meek found
sufficient time, amidst the exactions of his official duty on the bench,
to gratify, to some degree, his taste for literary pursuits. It was during
this period that he found time to write the three rare works which
established his literary fame. These are "The Red Eagle," "Romantic
Passages in Southwestern History," and "Songs and Poems of the South."
Some of these were a collection of fugitive contributions which he had
previously made to magazines and newspapers, and some of them were
prepared at the time specially for embodied publication.
Of the literary merit of his productions there is no doubt. They are
intensely southern in their flavor and represent the spirit which animated
what has come to be called "The Old South." An agricultural people, we of
the South gave but little attention, prior to the Civil War, to literary
pursuits. There were those like Judge Meek who wrote and wrote well, and
thousands of others could have done so, but there was but slight
encouragement, so that the literary culture of the South was largely
unknown and unrecognized by others. The genuine spirit of the people and
of the times is embalmed in the rare literary products such as we have
from the pen of this Alabamian.
That which has already been said affords a slight view of the stirring
scenes through which Judge Meek passed the major part of his life.
Possessing varied gifts, he sought to give vent in some measure to each,
but it is in his literary productions that his real fame abides. That
literature was his passion is shown by the fact that, whatever else he
did, he could not abandon the pen. But the market for his literary wares
was so limited that without ample means he was unable to prosecute that
alone. The two indispensable requisites of literary success--time and
leisure--were not his to command, and he was compelled to scuffle for the
expression of his charming thought as best he could.
The literary productions of Judge A. B. Meek have been more eagerly sought
by the later generations than by his contemporaries. The edition of each
was limited, his books have therefore become rare, highly prized by all
lovers of literature, but difficult to find. Certainly as much as any
other southern writer Judge Meek has immortalized the spirit and genius of
the South of a former period, which is now only a pleasing recollection.
More than any other, perhaps, he has embodied in enduring form the
peculiar elements which entered into our southern life. The mocking bird,
the magnolia, the long trailing moss of our southern swamps, the
honeysuckle, the traits and remnants of the vanished tribes of the Red
Men, and other elements peculiarly southern are embodied and embalmed in
the prose and poetry of A. B. Meek.
Without the weirdness of Poe, Meek surpassed him in deftness of touch and
daintiness of expression. There is an indefinable delicacy and a
subtleness of force and suggestiveness in many of Meek's passages which
have never been surpassed. Nothing can excel the beauty and color of some
of his verse. In one instance, while describing an Indian maiden, he
says:
"And her eyes flashing wildly when with gladness they shine,
Have the dark liquid flow of the ripe muscadine."
His responsive spirit absorbed the soft, bland atmosphere of his own sunny
region.
BASIL MANLY, SR.
Dr. Basil Manly was equally a patriot, an educator, and a preacher. He had
the prescience and sagacity of a statesman, and devoted much thought to
all matters that affected the state or nation, and as occasion would
require he would not hesitate to express his views. With him the question
was one of principle and not one of reserved silence because of his
position as an educator and minister. Though exceedingly reserved and
modest, there were reserved powers of aggressiveness in his nature which
were withheld, subject to the demand of principle. He was not of the
maudlin type who sought refuge in his ministry as a means of escape from
duty as a citizen and patriot. His views were always stated with such
calmness, wisdom and moderation as to carry force.
There were the balance and poise of elements in his constitution that made
him the successful college president that he was. His judgment was never
obscured by the mist of sudden passion, nor was he betrayed into warmth of
feeling that occasioned subsequent regret. A man of like passions with
others, his sterner expressions were held in restraint under the mastery
of a granite will, and were brought into action only as occasion required.
Firm as a mountain on its base, he was unmoved by suddenness of impulse or
storm of passion. His equable temper made him accessible to all, but in
his conduct he was swayed alone by principle. This left clear his sense of
discrimination and unobscured his judgment, which was never hastily
expended, and not till he was convinced of a cause.
Those superior traits gave to Dr. Manly a power with men, young and old,
and his influence was as wide as he was known. A knowledge of these facts
led to his being called, in 1837, to the presidency of the University of
Alabama. At the time of his election he was the pastor of an important
church in Charleston, S. C.
Dr. Manly was one of a distinguished family in North Carolina. Two
brothers of his were men of eminence, one of whom was Judge Mathias E.
Manly, of the old North state, while the other, Governor Charles Manly,
was the chief executive of North Carolina. The family has been
distinguished in the annals of the South for a number of generations.
Without demonstration, Dr. Manly took charge of the University of Alabama,
and with the beginning of his official incumbency began a new era of
prosperity in the history of the institution. For eighteen years he
presided over the institution, which never had eighteen brighter years in
its history. He was quietly identified with all the interests of the
state, and soon came to be known and prized as one of its foremost
citizens.
When Dr. Manly assumed control, the institution was still young, and was
in great need of increased equipment, but under his wise management the
needed facilities came, and within a few years he brought it to a pitch of
prominence that gave it wide reputation throughout the country. Indeed no
state institution in the South had a wider reputation, from 1837 till the
outbreak of the Civil War, than the University of Alabama. Young men from
other states, attracted by its standard of scholarship, sought its
classical halls for superior instruction. During the presidency of Dr.
Manly thousands of young men throughout the state were fitted for life's
rough encounters.
Dr. Manly not only possessed the high qualities already named, but he had
the power of impressing them on the rising youth that came under his
direction and discipline. His undoubted sincerity, as transparent as it
appeared, his genuine manliness, the quiet balance of genuine qualities of
worth, all of which were sobered and tempered by a piety which no one
questioned, and all admired, gave him an opportunity for the wield of an
influence which was used to the greatest advantage.
While the superiority of his intellectuality excited admiration, the
gentleness of his religious spirit begot the most respectful reverence. A
superior preacher, he was in constant demand in this and in other states,
to occupy pulpits on extraordinary occasions, all of which served to
reflect the distinguished institution of which he was the head.
One remarkable fact about Dr. Manly was that of his extensiveness and
variety of scholarship. His learning was varied, rather than profound. Not
that he was a mere smatterer, for no one despised more the pedantic and
superficial than he, but his research in different and distant fields of
thought was remarkable. He had devoted unusual attention on all subjects
then taught in the most advanced schools of learning, and was thereby
enabled to assist students in the various departments by timely advice,
not only, but was able to assist intelligently the direction of the
several departments in the great institution over which he presided. His
fame as a college president widened to the utmost limits of the states of
the South, and even beyond.
Wherever young men touched Dr. Manly, no matter how, whether in the
classroom, by social contact, by discipline, or by hearing him preach or
lecture, there was resultant benefit. His vast range of information
imparted in simplicity and yet always with dignity; his unusual method of
reaching young men, not by any fixed standard, but by means suggested at
the particular time, and his ability without effort to impart the
influence needed to guide and direct, never failed of impressing those
under his care.
The uniformity of his bearing was among the first impressions made on the
youth under his guidance. His manner was always the same. This was true
even of his manner of address. He was chaste without being gaudy; clear
without the slightest effort; earnest and zealous without exuberance, and
pathetic and sympathetic without cant. These gave him a grip on young men.
No one caught him off his guard. There was always the possession of a self
collection that produced ease in his presence and that left an impression
for good.
The influence of a spirit like that at the head of an institution of
learning in a great state is incalculable. The permanent good wrought by a
man like this through successive generations is beyond calculation.
ALEXANDER BOWIE
The Bowie family is of Scotch origin. In a large volume devoted to the
family history, the genealogists of the name have traced the lineage
backward even to the days of the old Vikings. Certain traits of worth and
of distinction have characterized the stock through the centuries.
Solidity of character, firmness, robust conviction, courage, and fidelity
of purpose are among the traits most conspicuous.
A notable instance of these traits is given here because of the
familiarity of the public with the subject named. The heroism of Col.
James Bowie on the occasion of the fall of the Alamo is familiar to every
boy and girl who is conversant of American history. Prostrated by typhoid
fever in the ill-starred fortress at San Antonio, he was one of the
devoted 185 who withstood the siege of Santa Anna at the head of an army
variously estimated to have numbered from 2,000 to 4,000. When the
commander, Colonel Travis, saw the inevitable fate of the brave little
garrison he called his men about him, plainly presented the coming doom,
and, after saying he was determined to die at his post, he drew a line
across the floor and asked that all who would remain with him should come
within the boundary thus marked. If others desired to cut their way
through or otherwise seek to escape, they were at liberty to do so.
With emaciated frame, Colonel Bowie, now rapidly approaching death, which
came a few hours before the fall, unable to stand, ordered his men to
bear his sick couch within the mark drawn by the commander. This is
indicative of the sturdy Scotch pluck and the firmness of character of
those bearing the name.
It will be seen from the present sketch that Chancellor Alexander Bowie
possessed to an eminent degree these conspicuous traits. He was a
distinguished citizen of Alabama for a period of thirty-one years. His
native place was Abbeville, S. C., where he was born December 14, 1789.
His father was a major in Washington's army, and his mother, a Miss Reid,
from which family, on the maternal side, came Honorable Whitelaw Reid, of
New York.
Choosing the bar as a profession, Mr. Bowie was a successful barrister at
Abbeville, S. C., for a period of years. His relations with John C.
Calhoun were the most intimate, and letters received by Mr. Bowie from Mr.
Calhoun are still preserved among the heirlooms of the family. They
illustrate the cordiality and freedom of the relations between these two
eminent men.
During the war of 1812 Mr. Bowie was the colonel of the eighth regiment of
South Carolina militia, and was later commander of the Abbeville
nullifiers. For a number of terms he served as a legislator in his native
state, and removed to Talladega, Ala., in 1835. Four years later, he was
elected by the Alabama legislature to the chancellorship of the northern
division, which position he held with great distinction for a period of
six years.
In response to the interest shown by him in the general affairs of the
state of his adoption, and in recognition of his ability, he was summoned
to a number of important stations, among which may be mentioned that of
the choice of himself as the first president of the state historical
society. In further recognition of his scholarship and profound interest
in education, he was chosen one of the trustees of the state university,
and was one of the foremost friends of that institution in the days when
it was among the leading colleges of the South.
Politically, Chancellor Bowie was a Democrat of the democrats, a firm
adherent to the Calhoun school, and therefore a stanch believer in the
principle of states' rights. His voice, pen, and influence were lent to
that cause in all the struggles through which Alabama passed from the time
of his removal to the state till his death. Never vehement or passionate
of utterance, he always wrote and spoke with a calmness and deliberation
that bore conviction. He took to his public functions the same solidity of
influential force and the self-mastery which won him quiet distinction in
the ordinary walks of life. The impression made by him was invariable,
whether as a neighbor, a private Christian, a political advocate, or a
representative of the judiciary, that of stable conviction, calm
determination, and withal a gentleness of spirit that instinctively shrank
from producing the slightest pain to any one. His silent life reinforced
his public acts and declarations, and gave to him an unusual power with
men of every grade and degree. That which he did and said was of a
character that took hold on the deeper conviction of men, rather than on
surface sentiment. A strong and vigorous speaker, he was frequently
before the public, and his utterances gained additional weight from the
fact that men knew that every word that fell from his lips sprang from a
source of profound sincerity and from a conviction as deep as his soul.
His scrupulosity of conscience was proverbial, and men listened to
Chancellor Bowie not merely for entertainment, for he was an attractive
speaker, but they listened believing. Back of his utterances lay a life of
unvarying integrity derived from a spirit of piety, which none dared
gainsay, and the lineaments of his classic face bore a conviction which
was itself convincing. When the life of a man is so pitched that the most
obstinate opponent is made to respect his views, such a man is an engine
of power in public life. This fairly represents Chancellor Bowie in his
multitudinous relations, private and public, and such a model of manhood
was he to the young men of his time. This reputation he steadfastly
maintained through more than three decades in Alabama, for a good that
transcends the pale of estimation not only to his contemporaries, but
which projects itself into the years of the future.
One principle alone dominated him in all his conduct and that was the
settlement of each question or cause on the basis of right. This was so
clearly demonstrated throughout his life and career that any decision or
opinion from the bench was unquestioned, and so profoundly did he impress
the public with this fact that he came to be called "the great
chancellor." All his wealth of learning, his garnered wisdom, and his rich
experience were laid on the altar of Right. Thus lived Chancellor Bowie
and thus he died, leaving a heritage of illustrious integrity to those who
were to come after him. The career of an eminent citizen like this is an
abiding benediction to any state. Chancellor Bowie passed to his reward on
December 30, 1866, at the advanced age of seventy-seven years.
JOHN J. ORMOND
The name of Judge John J. Ormond is inseparable from the judicial history
of Alabama. He was recognized on all hands as a jurist of superior
ability. The mold of his mind was singularly judicial, and his career as a
public servant shines through his jurisprudential service.
A native of England, Judge Ormond was brought by his father to America
while yet an infant, his parents making their home first at
Charlottesville, Va. Left an orphan in early youth, Judge Ormond's future
course was dependent on the kindness of others, but he was liberally
provided for, and means were found for enabling the youth to obtain more
than an ordinary education.
After his removal to Alabama, we find him first as a state senator, to
which position he was chosen in the early part of his professional career.
In 1837 he was chosen as one of the justices of the supreme bench. Here he
found a most congenial orbit, for his tastes were aversive to the rough
and tumble of political strife. In the seclusion of a law library among
the musty tomes of legal lore, or a seat on the bench of the court, met
the gratification of this giant jurist.
His studious habits served to impart a reservation of disposition, though
he was free from coldness and was not wanting in the elements of
companionship. His was the thoughtfulness of the student and the quietness
of the scholar. A voracious reader, he reveled in the masterpieces of
literature, the results of his close study of which showing themselves in
the beauty and charm of his style, both of which found expression in his
decision and opinions. Without apparent effort, his sentences have a
limpid flow in well-balanced form, while the purity and elegance of his
diction fascinates. The dignity of his diction is an inspiration, while
his thought, like the sun, shines, by its own light.
For twelve years Judge Ormond occupied a seat on the supreme bench, an
honor and an ornament. His decisions were the profoundest, though they
were garbed in the striking simplicity of our tongue. His long retention
on the bench is an evidence of the general confidence in his integrity of
character. This fact becomes more pronounced when it is recalled that
Judge Ormond was a whig in politics, yet such was the appreciation of his
worth both as a man and as a jurist, that he failed not to command the
esteem and votes of the dominant democratic party. By dint of merit alone
he compelled not only its recognition but its appreciation. No one ever
suspected Judge Ormond of taking an unfair advantage as a judicial officer
or as a man. The sincerity of his political convictions were conceded, and
all who knew him never thought of him as a partisan. With him political
creed was one thing, and judicial scrupulosity another.
Writing of Judge Ormond's death, a contemporary says: "He occupies a page
in the Alabama law reports that will pass down to future times, and be
cited as authority in the adjudication of human rights as long as the
common law maintains a footing among civilized nations." Though small and
thin with a visage somewhat drawn, his bearing was characterized by a
perpetual dignity which elicited the esteem of all.
There was a democratic simplicity in his intercourse with others which was
perennially refreshing. An utter absence of self-consciousness marked his
bearing, though he was universally recognized as one unsurpassed in his
judgment of the law, as well as a ripe and finished scholar. So far from
being ostentatious, Judge Ormond was disposed to shyness and taciturnity.
His conversation was marked by the finished diction of which he was a
complete master. Besides all this, he was self-contained and collected,
never allowing himself to be betrayed into undue warmth of expression, no
matter what the provocation was. He equalled the conception of the
proverb, a soft answer turneth away wrath. The combination of qualities so
rare, was the occasion of much comment among the lawyers of the time. His
opinions did not escape challenge, nor did his position always go without
criticism.
The character of the man as well as the clearness of his judicial judgment
may be seen from a single extract from a decision written by himself in a
celebrated case which came before the court during his incumbency of the
supreme bench. In that learned decision he says: "We have been admonished
by the plaintiff in error, that, notwithstanding the state is the party
interested as defendant, on this record, the true interest of the people
will be promoted by declaring the contract void. It required no admonition
to impress us with the conviction that the high trust reposed in us by the
people imperiously demanded of us to preserve pure the fountains of
justice. Nor will we profess an insensibility which we do not feel to the
approbation of the enlightened and virtuous; although all experience shows
that such is not always the meed of upright conduct. Our station imposes
on us the necessity of deciding the cases brought before us according to
our opinion of the law; it is a duty which we cannot avoid. If left to our
choice, it is not probable we would have selected this question for
adjudication; and as, in our judgment, the law is for the state, such must
be our decision, be the consequences to us what they may, and although the
judgment may subject us to the imputation of the bias which the argument
of the counsel supposes."
This extract affords a fair index to the character of the man, while it
equally furnishes a specimen of the lucidity of his expression. There was
never the absence of dignity from his expression, no matter what the
occasion. He was not without sensitiveness, but it was not the
sensitiveness of inflammation. When necessary, he could wither with an
overmastering diction, but it was always with the preservation of a
dignity which could not fail of success. The last service rendered by
Judge Ormond was that of his association with Messrs. Clay and Bagby in
the codification of the statutes of the state of Alabama.
ALBERT J. PICKETT
Alabama's historian, Albert J. Pickett, was a native of North Carolina,
and removed to Alabama about one year before it was made a state. In his
early years he mingled much with the Indians, learned their character and
disposition, and became profoundly interested in their destiny.
The first purpose in life of Mr. Pickett was to fit himself for the bar,
and he entered the office of an elder brother, William D. Pickett, to fit
himself for that profession, but on discovering that he had no aptitude
for the law he gave it up and entered on planting, to which he devoted his
life.
His interest in the Indians led him into an investigation of their
history, and this, in turn, to the events which had occurred in connection
with the invasion of their primitive domains by the whites. The
investigation proved a fascination and led to his preparation of the
"History of Alabama and incidentally of Georgia and Mississippi from the
earliest period."
Considering the paucity of material and the difficulty of obtaining it,
the undertaking was a colossal one, but Mr. Pickett gave himself to it
with a zeal worthy the enterprise, traveled much, wrote many letters, and
spent a large sum of money in the interest of the preparation of the
history. For years together, he was patiently and assiduously engaged in
the accumulation of data, the sifting of facts, and the preparation of the
two volumes. The most painstaking care was exercised with respect to
accuracy of statement, and this made the undertaking a most plodding one.
But in 1851 the author was enabled to issue the two volumes in neat and
attractive form.
So comprehensive was the work, so minute in detail, and so careful were
the citations that on its appearance it was greeted with great favor not
alone in Alabama, but elsewhere. Had the conditions of authorship been as
favorable as they now are, the work would doubtless have been more happily
arranged, but as it is, it is a monument of labor, skill, industry and
fidelity. It was an unusual occurrence that the history should have been
favorably mentioned in a message to the legislature by Governor Collier
and with such favor.
The style of the book is simple and easy, the statement of fact clear and
devoid of ornament or speculation, and throughout it is entirely free of
bias. The obvious intention of the author was to state fact as he saw it,
nor was a statement made by him that was not supported by undisputed fact.
No book was ever more scrupulously written as is shown by the care with
which each statement is made.
While in the light of subsequent events the unity of the work is somewhat
impaired and disjointed, still taken altogether, and the conditions
attending its preparation, it is a marvelous accomplishment. Pickett
provided a mine of fact into which all future historians of Alabama can
dig, certainly with respect to the history antedating the occupation of
Alabama by the whites.
The history extends no further than to the period of the attainment of
statehood of Alabama, and yet the author was able to bring it up to the
close of the middle of the nineteenth century. It is unfortunate that this
was not done, but he was averse to deal with the political aspects
presented by the different periods of the state's history. But in doing
that which he accomplished he has furnished a basis for all future
historians. That Mr. Pickett should have done so much, and done it so
well, makes him worthy of the perpetual gratitude of the people of
Alabama.
A gentleman of wide and varied information, his mind was a compendium of
valuable stores of knowledge
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