USA > Alabama > Memorial record of Alabama. A concise account of the state's political, military, professional and industrial progress, together with the personal memoirs of many of its people. Volume I > Part 104
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 | Part 107 | Part 108 | Part 109 | Part 110 | Part 111 | Part 112 | Part 113 | Part 114 | Part 115 | Part 116 | Part 117 | Part 118 | Part 119 | Part 120 | Part 121 | Part 122 | Part 123 | Part 124 | Part 125 | Part 126 | Part 127 | Part 128 | Part 129 | Part 130 | Part 131
896
MEMORIAL RECORD OF ALABAMA.
1870, and in December, 1873, wedded, for his second wife, Miss Mary McFaddin, daughter of the late Robert H. McFaddin, of Greens- boro, Ala. To this union there have been born seven children. In all the positions which Mr. Nelson has filled in business, social and religious life, he has displayed eminent ability and integrity, so that his name has become a synonym for fidelity in the performance of duty and uprightness in every official trust. There is no doubt that he will add to the honors he has already won in the position to which he has now been elevated.
GEORGE PEACOCK, proprietor of Peacock's iron works, general foundry and machine shop, manufacturer of mining cars and automatic self- oiling tram car wheels of his own invention, was born on a farm near Stockton-on-Tees, Yorkshire county, England, May 5, 1823. His parents moved to the town of Stockton when he was seven years of age. There he was raised and educated until he was fourteen years old, when he was apprenticed by his father to the Potrick Lane iron works, and he served seven years to learn the trade of an iron molder. He was bound by a regular indenture, containing a very strong contract, such as was custom- ary in those days. By this indenture, young Peacock enjoyed privileges in his training not common at the present time, these privileges being to learn the art of founding in all its branches, the character and mixing of metals, etc. Having selected his own trade, and being ambitious to excel therein, he became a close student in his trade, and at the age of seven- teen he mastered a practical problem, which is to the present time con- sidered the most difficult in metallurgy, namely, the laws of expansion and contraction. Perhaps no one at the present day has gone deeper into this difficult subject than has Mr. Peacock. On completing his apprentice- ship, the endorsement he received soon secured him a position in one of the largest establishments in Liverpool, England. There he won rank and pre- ferment, and remained in this position three years. He was offered positions as an expert in this country, by two parties, one of whom was the cele- brated Ericsson, who wanted him to assist in heavy castings in the con- struction of his caloric engines. After his arrival in New York, in Sep- tember, 1848, some misunderstanding led to a cancellation of the engage- ment, and Mr. Peacock accepted a position in Townsend's foundry and machine shops at Albany, N. Y. Here again he won a wide-spread repu- tation as an iron worker, and was much sought after. In about two years, he was induced to accept a position as foreman of the foundry department of the firm of Coller, Sage & Dunhams, at West Troy, N. Y. They were then trying to get into the cast-iron pipe business, and Mr. Peacock remodeled and improved the plant, and in less than one year he was pro- moted to the superintendency of the entire works. The business grew rapidly, soon increasing from ten tons per day to fifty tons per day. Early in life Mr. Peacock developed great executive ability, as is evidenced by the fact that, at the age of twenty-nine, he was superintendent over
-
1
1
GEO. PEACOCK.
899
PERSONAL MEMOIRS-DALLAS COUNTY.
500 men. He has always manifested great inventive genius, which was first developed in the improvement of shop tools, and he now has a national reputation for the invention of labor-saving tools. He revolu- tionized the system of pipe making in this country, being the first to introduce the casing flask for casting pipe on the end. Next, he invented what is known as the drop pattern, now used in all machine molding. Then came the green sand core bar, used in casting soil pipe. Also a system for casting all kinds of branches, curves, tees and crooked con- nections of all kinds of pipes. Then he invented the collapsable core bar, so valuable in the manufacture of large sized pipes, dispensing with the use of hay rope and much other expense well known to the trade. He next invented the casing for bells. After serving Coller, Sage & Dun- hams for three and a half years, he was induced to go to Cleveland, Ohio, where he built a grand new works for Ashcraft, McCammon & Co., designed especially for cast iron pipe. They were the first works on the flats, as that locality is called. At this time there are over $200,000,000 worth of plants on these flats. There he manufactured all the piping for the Cleveland city waterworks. After remaining there three years, he went to Louisville, Ky., for which city he also manufactured the water pipe. He was next at Natchez, Miss., as manager for C. B. Churchill & Co.'s iron works. This firm was among the first to manufacture munitions of war for the southern Confederacy, consisting of brass cannon, shot and shell. Here again Mr. Peacock's inventive talent was brought into exer- cise, resulting in an improved method of making shot and shell, by which the molder made four times the number as by the old method, and there was a less percentage of imperfection. At the fall of the lower Mississippi, in the fall of 1862, this concern moved their plant to Colum- biana, Ala. In the meantime, a company then building a large ordnance foundry at Selma, Ala., wrote Mr. Peacock to come at once to take charge of the foundry department. Before these works were completed they were sold to the Confederate States government, and the correspondence with Mr. Peacock was renewed by the officers in charge, but he could not accept the terms offered him. After he had fully established the ord- nance works at Columbiana, he was several times interviewed by the offi- cers in charge of the Confederate states naval cannon foundry, and at length his terms were accepted by them, and he removed to Selma as superin- tendent of foundry, an office which was created at the time by a special act of the Confederate congress. While serving in this capacity Mr. Peacock invented a system of- core making for shell, by which three times as many shells could be made as was possible under the old system. He also invented a system of taking iron from reverberatory furnaces by which any desired amount of metal could be withdrawn from the furnace, even if there might be twenty tons of molten metal in the furnace. It was under his supervision that reverberatory furnaces were put into suc- cessful operation in the melting of iron for the making of cannon by
900
MEMORIAL RECORD OF ALABAMA.
burning wood. This was then a novel experiment and a great success, as high as 50,000 pounds of iron being melted at one lighting and being reduced to fluid in eight hours, and at the same time the tensile strength of the metal being increased from 30 to 40 per cent. It was from this iron that was made the greatest cast iron cannon the world has ever seen. At the time these works were being started up there was inined in the state no coal that would coke, and it was while Mr. Peacock was in search of coal for this furnace that he found coking coal first, on the Raglin estate in St. Clair county. He at once built a coke oven of the bee hive pattern, in the fall of 1862, at Columbiana. Soon afterward he found a much better quality of coking coal in the Cahawba valley district, and during his travels in Calhoun county he found tripoli of good quality and in suffi- cient quantity to polish all articles made at the government works during the war. This tripoli was found in St. Clair county, where was found the first coking coal. At the close of the war Mr. Peacock established the first foundry in Selma, in June, 1865, which he since then has continued to operate. And he has also been otherwise variously employed in the man- ufacture of machinery and in the conduct of important enterprises. He is the inventor of the celebrated Peacock car wheel, many of which are in use throughout the United States. His self-oiling tram car wheel, invented in 1887, is a pronounced success, and he is now manufacturing this wheel and mining cars as a specialty, and employing some forty men. He is one of the few students of mechanical philosophy possessing inventive genius, the latter being conspicuously manifested in the inven- tion of labor saving machinery, in the foundry, machine shop, on the railroad and on the farm-a cotton press and a plow being among the latest of these inventions. Mr. Peacock's executive capacity has already been mentioned. He was married in England, at the age of twenty-two and one-half years, to Miss Mary Ripley, who died at Selma, Ala., in 1875. Mr. Peacock is a Knight Templar Mason, an Odd Fellow, and a communicant of the Protestant Episcopal church. He is a member of the city board of education, and has been for twenty-three years a member of the board of trustees of the Dallas academy, has for many years been chairman of the executive committee of that board, thus showing that he is held in high esteem in many different ways by his fellow-citizens.
EDMUND WINSTON PETTUS was born in Limestone county, Ala., July 6, 1821. His father, John Pettus, who was a. Virginian by birth and a planter by occupation, had moved from Virginia to David- son county, Tenn., at a time when that rich and fertile country had not ceased to attract the adventurous from other states. John Pettus married here a sister of John Anthony Winston, the first native born governor of Alabama. In 1809, John Pettus removed to Alabama, and after living a short while in Madison county, located in Limestone, where he died in 1822. His widow survived him nearly sixty years, dying in 1878. The subject of this sketch was educated at the common schools
903
PERSONAL MEMOIRS-DALLAS COUNTY.
and at Clinton college, Smith county, Tenn. After leaving school he began the study of law at Tuscumbia, in the office of Hon. William Cooper, and in 1841 he was admitted to the bar. He proceeded to Gaines- ville in Sumter county, where he formed a partnership with Hon. Turner Reavis. In 1844 he was elected solicitor of Sumter county, a post he resigned when, in 1849, he was carried by the gold excitement to Califor- nia. Returning after spending two years on the Pacific slope, he located at Carrolton, in Pickens county. In 1852, he took up the duties of solic- itor in that county and discharged them for two years. His administra- tion of the office of solicitor had brought him prominently before the people, and in 1855 he was elected judge of the seventh judicial district. Our subject violated Jefferson's pretended law of office holding. that few die and none resign, by resigning more than once. In 1858 he resigned his judgeship and removed to Cahaba in Dallas county, where he was living when the war began between the north and south. While the south was negotiating and planning for such co-operation as should render secession a fixed fact, Judge Pettus was dispatched a cominis- sioner from Alabama to the state of Mississippi. As Mississippi was the scene of his first work in behalf of the Confederacy, it furnished the scene of a martial exploit with which his name is widely associated. This occurred at the siege of Vicksburg. The enemy had captured a redoubt that was of great strategic importance and Gen. Stephen D. Lee ordered that it be retaken, in spite of the manifestly dangerous character of the attempt. It fell to the lot of Lieut .- Col. Pettus that he should get the order to retake the redoubt. He promptly accepted the duty and called for volunteers. It looked then as if to volunteer meant that the volunteer would go forth to certain death. Men shrank away. There was, however, there a body of men made of as stern stuff as the officer himself. Waul's Texas legion volunteered in a body. Selecting forty of them, and, together with three Alabamians who had also volun- teered, Col. Pettus stormed the redoubt, captured it and carried away 100 prisoners and three of the enemy's flags. His career as a soldier would carry us over the larger part of the history of the war and can be but briefly sketched. He entered the army in August, 1861, and was made major of the Twentieth Alabama infantry. He was shortly after- ward promoted to the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He was with Gen. Kirby Smith in the Kentucky campaign of 1862. In the succeeding winter he was assigned to Mississippi, and was in the engagement of Port Gibson and Baker's Creek and was shut up in Vicksburg. In October, 1863, he was appointed brigadier-general and took command of the twentieth, twenty- third, thirtieth. thirty-first and forty-sixth Alabama regiments. His com-
mand saw constant service to the end of the war, being at Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain, at Atlanta, Nashville and at Bentonville. His only wound was received at Bentonville. Returning home from the war, Gen. Pettus located at Selma and resumed the practice of the law. He now
904
MEMORIAL RECORD OF ALABAMA.
stands in the very front rank at the bar and does an extensive practice. Since the war Gen. Pettus has steadily declined political preferment. By a. common consensus of opinion he could have almost if not any office in the gift of the people of Alabama. He contents himself with active party work without its customary rewards. In Selma he participates regularly in all political work; he is a familiar figure in county conventions; he is none the less familiar in state conventions, and his powerful frame over- topped by a singularly great strong head has more than once caught the eye of the vast mob that goes to make up the miscellaneous audience of a national convention.
HON. FRANCIS L. PETTUS, attorney and counselor at law, at Selma. Ala., was born at Cahaba, Dallas county, October 7, 1858. He is a son of Gen. E. W. Pettus, a distinguished lawyer, whose memoir appears elsewhere in this work. Hon. F. L. Pettus was reared for the most part in Selma, to which city his parents removed shortly after the Civil war. Here he received his early education and was then sent to the Virginia Military institute at Lexington, Va., where he remained for one year. He then in consequence of failing health returned to his home and for a short time engaged in farming. Upon recovering his health, he. at- tended Davidson college, North Carolina, where he completed a classical course of two years. Leaving college in 1877, he went to Galveston, Tex., where for a year he was employed in the commission house of John D. Rodgers & Co., large cotton factors. Returning to Selma he entered the law office of his father, with whom he read law, and on April 9, 1879, he was admitted to the bar. Opening a law office in Selma he began the practice of his chosen profession. Subsequently he became associated with his father, Gen. E. W. Pettus and Col. N. H. R. Dawson, of Selma, in the practice of law, the name of the firm being Pettus & Daw- son. In 1880 he began to play an important part in the politics of the state, being elected a delegate to the state democratic convention, and he has been a delegate to four subsequent state conventions, in 1882, in 1884, in 1886 and in 1888. In 1882 he became clerk of the supreme court of the state, and continued to hold that position until November, 1884, during which time he resided at Montgomery. In 1886 he was elected as a democrat to the lower house of the legislature to represent Dallas county, and was re-elected in 1888, in 1890 and in 1892. From the first Mr. Pettus took an active part in shaping legislation and soon gained a reputation amongst his constituents for faithfulness and ability, thus securing their confidence and esteem. In 1888 he became chairman of the judiciary committee of the house, and such was his display of intelli- gence and power that during the session of 1890 he became a strong can- didate for speaker of the house. The contest was an enthusiastic and heated one, and though he was defeated it was only by a very small majority, showing that he was a popular and highly esteemed member of the house. - Mr. Pettus is a prominent Mason, being deputy grand master
905
PERSONAL MEMOIRS-DALLAS COUNTY.
of the grand lodge of the state. He is also a member of the Knights of Pythias and of the Elks. In 1880 Mr. Pettus married Miss Mary Knox, daughter of the late Maj. William S. Knox of Selma. Mrs. Pettus is an accomplished lady and confers grace and dignity upon the domestic circle. She is well descended on both sides of her family, being a de- scendant of the distinguished McCors family of Alabama.
GEORGE PHILLIPS, the present popular and efficient tax collector of Dallas county, was born April 7, 1846, on the old Phillips homestead, six miles northeast of Selma. He was reared on the home farm, and remained there until 1880, when he removed to Selma. He secured a fair common school education in the county, and spent two years in Prof. Tutwiler's Green Springs school, from October, 1859, to July, 1861. In the fall of 1861 he went to Tuscaloosa, and there, in April, 1862, he was examined for military service in the army, and with other cadets, on April 8, 1862, he was ordered to Loachapoka, as drill master, where he drilled soldiers for a few months for the field. In August, 1863, he entered company G, Sixth Alabama cavalry, as a private soldier, and remained in this company until the close of the war. From a non-com- missioned officer he was promoted, in January, 1865, to the rank of brigade commissary sergeant, which position he held the rest of the war. His command surrendered at Starkville, Miss., in May, 1865. He then aided his father on the plantation till his father's death, and con- tinued on the farm until 1880. During this time he was in the cotton warehouse business for three seasons at Selma. In 1880 he removed to Selma, and has continued in the cotton warehouse business ever since. In August, 1888, he was elected tax collector of Dallas county, and was re-elected in 1892. He is a member of the Presbyterian church, of the. Odd Fellows, and also of the Knights of Honor. He was married, in 1867, to Miss S. E. McIlwain, of Dallas county, who still lives, and is an elegant and accomplished lady. In this connection it is proper to introduce a sketch of the father of Mr. Phillips, George Crawford Phillips, who was born in Georgia May 15, 1815, and who died in Dallas county, Ala., on August 30, 1872. His father, George Phillips, was of Scotch-Irish extraction, and settled in Madison county when George Crawford Phillips was a small boy, but in 1819 he removed to Dallas county, and there died in 1835. He was a planter and was also a physi- cian, and had a large and extensive practice. He was a man of sterling qualities and was prominent in politics in his day. He was a member of the first constitutional convention of Alabama, and afterward was a. member of the state legislature. His son, George Crawford Phillips, was for the most part raised in Dallas county, where he lived and died. He was a planter by occupation. He received his education at the Ala- bama State university at Tuscaloosa, though he did not graduate. He studied medicine under his father, and was about to leave for a medical college when the death of his father occurred. He then became admin-
906
MEMORIAL RECORD OF ALABAMA.
istrator of his father's estate, and his course of life was turned. He became a planter instead of a student. He held several positions of honor and trust. For twenty-one years he was a member of the board of county commissioners for Dallas county, holding the office until the beginning of "radical rule." Before the Civil war Mr. Phillips was a whig, and as such was elected to the legislature from a democratic county, his election being due to the confidence in and esteem for him personally. He was several times a member of the legislature, and dur- ing the Civil war he was a colonel of militia, but participated in the war only to the extent of aiding in the defense of Selma. On the question of secession he was conservative, really of the Alexander H. Stephens type. He voted for Bell and Everett, but during the war he gave his entire support to the Confederacy. His sympathy and support were always freely extended toward the Confederate soldier, whether friend or stranger, and to all he was always kind-hearted and hospitable. He was one of those who love their fellow men. He was a devout Christian, and for many years was a deacon in the Presbyterian church. He was a friend of material progress, and assisted in bringing in the Alabama & Tennessee River railroad; was a stockholder in the company and a director for several years. On February 25, 1835, he was married to Miss Adeline D. Crawford, of Dallas county, Ala., and a daughter of John Crawford, who came to Dallas county, in 1817, from Tennessee, where his daughter was born. By this marriage he had eight children, four sons and four daughters. Two of these children died in early life, and a son. John C., was a member of Forty-fourth Alabama regiment, and died in camp during the Civil war, near Drewry's Bluff, Va. The surviving children are as follows: Mrs. L. A. Privett; Mrs. Frank H. Bates; Miss E. R. Phillips; Dr. W. C. Phillips, and George Phillips. The mother of these children died May 10, 1882, at the age of sixty- seven years.
PHILIP HENRY PITTS, one of the most prominent of the able lawyers of Selma, Ala., was born upon a plantation three miles east of Union- town, Perry county, Ala., January 27, 1849. His father, Philip Henry Pitts, was a planter by vocation, and was a native of Caroline county, Va., whence he came to Alabama in 1835, accompanying his parents, who thus became early settlers of Perry county. The father of Philp Henry, Jr., remained as a resident of Perry county until his death, which occurred when he was sixty-eight years of age. He married Miss Mar- garet Davidson, of Mecklenburgh county, N. C., who bore him ten chil- dren. She is descended from the well-known Davidson family of Meck- lenburgh county, N. C., which played an important part in the adoption of the Mecklenburgh declaration of independence, and still survives. Philip Henry Pitts was reared in Uniontown, Ala., and received his early scholastic training at Prof. Tutwiler's Green Springs school. In September, 1863, he entered the university of Alabama, but left the uni-
BRANT & FULLER, PUB$
909
PERSONAL MEMOIRS-DALLAS COUNTY.
versity to enlist, March 10, 1864, in Capt. Sharley's company of cadets. After a service in the army of four months. his father, thinking it best to take his fifteen-year-old boy out of the service, sent him to the above- named school, and he remained there three years. In 1868 he was sent. to Davidson college, N. C., from which institution of learning he grad- uated in 1871. For one year thereafter he taught school at Uniontown. Ala .. and during this year he took up the study of the law. At the end of the year he entered the law office of Hon. J. H. Bush, under whose guidance he continued the study of law until the fall of 1874, when at that term of the circuit court he was admitted to the bar. He at once formed a co-partnership in the practice of the law with Mr. Bush, his preceptor, the firm of Bush & Pitts continuing until 1878, in the fall of which year Mr. Pitts was appointed by J. N. Suttle, solicitor for the fourth district of Alabama, as solicitor for Perry county. In 1880 Mr. Pitts was elected, by the general assembly of the state, to the office of solicitor for the fourth district of Alabama, and he was re-elected by the general assembly in December, 1886. He has thus held the position of solicitor for fourteen years, and during this time in this position he has displayed marked ability as a lawyer and advocate. In January, 1891, a co-partnership in the practice of the law was formed with Col. N. H. R. Dawson, of Selma, to which city Mr. Pitts had removed in January, 1889. The law firm thus formed, of Dawson & Pitts, is regarded as one of the ablest and strongest in the state, and has a large and steadily increasing clientage. Mr. Pitts has played a prominent part in the politics of his state, being active in each local and general campaign, as an ardent and zealous democrat. He is a member of the Knights of Pythias, and he is also prominent in the Presbyterian church. Mr. Pitts has been married twice. In 1872 he married Miss Amanda McLean, of Lincoln county, N. C. She died in May, 1889, leaving five children. In October, 1890, he married Miss Marie Byrd, daughter of the late Judge William M. Byrd, a distinguished lawyer and jurist of Selma, Ala.
COL. W. W. QUARLES, the young and eloquent solicitor of the fourth judicial circuit of Alabama, comes from an old and distinguished family of Virginia, the Carolinas and of Tennessee, and the name holds a promi- nent relation to the public affairs of these states up to the present. time, as well as with the affairs of Alabama, in the person of the colonel. The family in descended from English stock of renown, Robert Quarles having been at one time poet laureate of England. The father of the colonel, William Washington Quarles, came from Edgefield. S. C., in the territorial days of Alabama, and here died about the close of the late war from pneumonia contracted from exposure while serving in the Confeder- ate army. In Alabama the name has attained prominence and celebrity, while in Tennessee possibly no other name is more widely known. Gen. J. M. Quarles, of Nashville, a brilliant lawyer, made one of the most able and eloquent speeches delivered at the democratic national conven-
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.