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 109
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PERSONAL MEMOIRS-ELMORE COUNTY.
S. C., in 1807, and died in Wetumpka, Ala., in 1887. She was the mother of six sons and four daughters, of whom one son, William S. Penick, and one daughter, Sallie E. Samuel, are now living. William S. Penick was reared on a farm, and received a good education. He grad- uated at the university of Alabama in 1848, with the degree of A. B .; he afterward, from the same college, received the degree of A. M., and, in 1856 he graduated from the law school of Cumberland university, at Lebanon, Tenn. He taught school for six years, four years in Louisiana, and two years in Alabama. In 1862 he entered the Confederate service in company C, Fifty-third regiment of Alabama cavalry, and served until the close of the war. Was orderly sergeant most of the time, and with his company and regiment operated in Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia and South Carolina, and during the year 1863, under Gens. Roddy and Forrest, was engaged in many skirmishes and battles. In March, 1864, his command joined Johnston's army at Dalton, Ga, and continued with this branch of the Confederate army in its march to Atlanta and Savannah, up to the time of the surrender of Gen. Lee. Around Atlanta and on the march to Savannah, his command, under Gen Joe Wheeler, was engaged in many skirmishes and battles. In these it was his good fortune never to be wounded nor captured. After the close of the war he returned to the practice of law at Wetumpka, Ala., and so continued until January, 1876, when he was appointed clerk of the circuit court of Elmore county, and was re-elected, without opposition, in 1880 and in 1886. In 1892, at the primary election, he was nominated by a large majority, but was defeated at the August election by the people's party, then in the majority in Elmore county. He has about 2,000 acres of land in Elmore county, a good portion of which is rented out yearly to tenants. He is one of the oldest citizens of Wetumpka, his father having moved here in December, 1835. On the 5th day of March, 1856, just after his graduation at the Lebanon school, he was married to Miss S. J. Bell, daughter of Robert and Eliza- beth Bell, of Wilson county, Tenn. To them were born eight children, as follows: William B., who died in September, 1863; Juliet B., who was married to Charles Lansdale, a prominent hardware mer- chant of Wetumpka, Ala .; Robert Lee, now of Montgomery, Ala .; Edward N., who has a prominent position with the Louisville & Nashville railroad, and the East Tennessee & Virginia railroad, at Calera, Ala .; John H .; Nellie A .; Hugh R., and Mary A. Mr. Penick and his wife are both members of the Methodist Episcopal church. He is a Mason of high standing, having held some of the highest offices in the gift of his local brotherhood. He has been secretary of the Masonic lodge at Wetumpka, Ala., for about thirty-one years, and is probably the oldest subordinate lodge secretary in Alabama. In politics he is an earnest democrat, his first vote for president being for Lewis Cass, and his last vote being for Grover Cleveland.
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MEMORIAL RECORD OF ALABAMA.
DR. EDWIN HUNT ROBINSON, physician and farmer near Robinson Springs, Elmore county, was born in Autauga county, Ala., October 22, 1827. son of Lewis G. and Mary A. (Whetstone) Robinson, natives of Orangeburg district, S. C., who came to Alabama in 1824. and settled in Autauga county, Ala., near Rocky Mount, where they spent most of their lives farming. Lewis G. Robinson was a successful farmer and business man, and was largely engaged in saw milling. He died in 1879, and his wife in 1868. They were both members of the Methodist Protestant church and had accumulated a good estate. Dr. Robinson's maternal grandparents, Rev. Jaseb and Martha (Jones) Whetstone, were natives of Orangeburg district, S. C., who came to Autauga county, in 1822, where they spent their lives. She died in 1843, and he in 1852. He was a local Methodist minister for fifty years, and a prominent Mason. In Alabama they accumulated a nice fortune. He was of English, and his wife of Dutch, parentage and had a large family of industrious children. Dr. Robinson belongs to a family of five sons and four daughters, as fol- lows: William Lawrence, deceased. of Autauga county, was all through the war; Dr. Edwin Hunt; Payton C., of Moorehouse parish, La., was also in the war; Dr. John Asa, surgeon in the war and died since in Mexico; Jacob Lewis, deceased, was in the late war. The daughters are: Martha, deceased wife of Dr. J. I. Lamar; Eliza, wife of Gavin Pou, a merchant of Pensacola, Fla .; Caroline, wife of Lewis A. Pou, also a. merchant of Pensacola, Fla .; and Mary A., deceased; Dr. Robinson was reared on a farm and had good educational advantages, including Latin, Greek and French. He read medicine with his uncle, Dr. John A. Whet- stone. and in 1849 graduated from the Medical college at Memphis, Tenn., and since that time has practiced in Elmore county. He is a very tem- perate man, and consequently well preserved and healthy, and not having lost twenty days from his business on account of sickness in all his years of practice. He uses neither tobacco nor intoxicating drinks. His services were too valuable at home to permit of his going to the war. He is a member of the county medical society. He takes a lively interest in the politics of his party, but he has never aspired to office. He was married November 10, 1859, to Jeromie, daughter of Walter and Rachael (Leysath) Knight, natives of Orangeburg district, S. C. They are the parents of seven children, as follows: Walter F., Zora D., wife of J. H. Spires, of Montgomery; Nellie Lee, wife of William Rugeley, of Mont- gomery; Griffin Edwin, Thula Omega, Erline and John, deceased. The doctor owns in different tracts, nearly 1.700 acres of land in Elmore county. He is serving his ninth year as worshipful master of Hampden- Sidney lodge, at Robinson Springs, No. 67. His wife and children are Methodist Protestants, while the doctor leans to the Universalist belief.
ANDREW W. RUCKER, farmer, of Elmore, Elmore county, was born in what was then Autauga county in 1844, the son of John and Emily (Williams) Rucker, natives of Bibb county, Ala., but located in Elmore
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H. P. TULANE.
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PERSONAL MEMOIRS-ELMORE COUNTY.
county in 1842. John Rucker was a planter of moderate means. He. was a Mason in good standing, and was sheriff of his county for two. terms. His father, Burton Rucker, was a Virginian, connected with the distinguished Virginia family of that name. He came to Alabama from Georgia in 1818, settling in Bibb county, where he died. He was a planter and tanner. The maternal grandfather of Mr. Rucker was Joseph Williams, who was a Georgian by birth, removed to Bibb county at a very early day, and suffered untold hardships during the pioneer period of the state's history. He was in the war of 1812, and died about 1870, and his wife a year later. He and his wife were Baptists. The father of Andrew Rucker is seventy years old and his mother about sixty-eight. They were the parents of fifteen children, six sons and nine daughters. Mr. Rucker in his youth received a country school education. Early in 1862, when but seventeen years of age, he went into the Confederate service in company A, Fifty-sixth Alabama cavalry, operating in the northern Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia campaigns. He was in many general engagements and skirmishes, but was never cap- tured or wounded, but. nevertheless, was a gallant soldier. After the war he farmed. On January 11, 1866, he married Mary Jane, daughter of G. W. and Mary E. Benson, natives of South Carolina, but early settlers of Alabama. He was a prominent man of his day, having been justice of the peace, tax assessor, clerk of the circuit court and then probate judge of Elmore county. Mrs. Andrew Rucker was born in Elmore county. and is the mother of ten children, two of whom died in infancy, and eight of whom are living as follows: Anson, William A., Mary E., wife of E. D. Roger; Myra, Thomas J., Ross, Sadie and Maurice. Mr. Rucker owns about 320 acres of land in Elmore county. He has been tax assessor and collector of the county. He is a member of the Hampden-Sidney lodge, No. 67, F. & A. M., and is active in state and county politics. His wife is a Methodist Protestant.
HORATIO B. TULANE, retired merchant of Wetumpka, was born at Bay St. Louis, Miss., in 1835, the son of Louis S. and Mary Ann (Giles) Tulane, the father having been born in Princeton, N. J .. in 1795, and the mother in Pennsylvania, in 1820. The father, at the age of seventeen years, went with his brother, Paul Tulane, to New Orleans in the shoe and clothing business. In 1837 he went to Montgomery, Ala., and then to Shelby county, where he was a planter for some years. He was after- ward in business in Mobile, and in 1848 settled at Wetumpka, and engaged in mercantile pursuits for some years, and died there in 1873. He was a very successful business man and left a large estate. His brother Paul was the founder of the celebrated Tulane university, at New Orleans, and was one of the wealthiest citizens of that city. The father of these gentlemen was Louis Tulane, an educated and refined French- man, who was largely engaged in planting at San Domingo, but at the
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time of the insurrection he removed to New Jersey, where he died. The maternal grandfather, Giles, went west at an early day and nothing is known of him. Mr. Tulane is the third born among two sons and five daughters: Artemese, widow of Jared Bates, deceased, of Birmingham; Sophia, deceased wife of Sidney McWhirton; Olivia, deceased wife of M. Burke; Isaline, deceased wife of A. J. Due; Louisa, widow of Rufus Kidd, deceased, and William, who died in infancy. Horatio B. Tulane went to school in various places in Alabama, but his education may be said to have been acquired in the schools of Wetumpka and Mobile. At the age of fifteen he clerked in his father's store, and served six years in. a similar position in the store of his uncle, Paul Tulane, in New Orleans. In 1858 he settled permanently in Wetumpka and engaged in the business of a merchant, which he has followed since with marked success. Early in 1861 he went to the field as a member of the Wetumpka Light Guards and served six months, and was assigned to the quartermaster's depart- ment as clerk, and in one of the raids through Alabama he had a narrow escape from death. Mr. Tulane has never married, but his time and talent have been fixed upon the intelligent conduct of his business, which has yielded him a most competent fortune.
HON. THOMAS WILLIAMS, the most extensive planter of Elmore county, was born in Greenville county, Va., August 11, 1825, the son of John Davis and Mary (Johnson) Williams, born in Granville county, N. C., in 1800, and in Greenville county, Va .. in 1796, respectively. He was a Baptist minister, and in the course of his ministry his work called him to Virginia, where he met and married the companion of his life, and after several years of work in Petersburg and other points in Virginia, in 1834, he settled at Wetumpka, where he remained in the ministry until his death, in 1871. He is said to have been one of the ablest divines of his denomi- nation in central Alabama. He built more churches, married more people and preached more funerals than any other minister before or after him. He was a man of the highest type of integrity and honor, and was known and loved by all men. He was thoroughly temperate and conservative on all subjects, and had no fellowship with hypocrisy or sham. He was a splendid type of the earnest, honest, christian exponents of the "humble man of Gallilee." He was the son of Thomas and Anna (Davis) Williams. Thomas Williams was a sturdy Welshman, who was killed in the war for American independence at King's mountain. Several years after, his widow went from her home with a negro boy, in an ox cart, disinterred the remains of her beloved soldier-husband and buried them beneath the rose and lilac trees of her own garden. The mother of Hon. Thomas Williams died at the advanced age of ninety-three, a pious Christian, a loving mother, and a faithful wife. Hon. Thomas Williams is the eldest of three sons and three daughters. He had but limited education. Up to his twenty-first year, his life had been spent between the plow handles. After this, he did collecting for a year or two, and thus earned sufficient
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PERSONAL MEMOIRS-ESCAMBIA COUNTY.
money to defray his expenses through East Tennessee university. He then read law, and at the age of twenty-seven years he was admitted to the bar and practiced for twenty-two years with phenomenal success. He was married August 20, 1852, to Rebecca E., daughter of John C. Judkins, of Virginia. The following children were the result of the union: Robert, William Yancey, Sampson H., Jennie D., wife of Peter A. Buyck; Harry L., a lawyer; Thomas J., Mary Johnson and Sett Storrs, the last named two dying in infancy. The home of Hon. Thomas Williams is two miles north- east of Wetumpka, and is one of the most attractive and beautiful country seats in the state. He has, beside this, about 12,000 acres of fine land in. Elmore county, so that he enjoys the ideal of an educated southern gentle- man-broad acres and a fine home. In 1891, the splendid place, with all its furniture, barns and provisions were destroyed by fire, destroying many valuable articles that money could not reproduce. Mr. Williams has. been a justice of the peace and registrar in chancery and prison inspector. In 1878, he was nominated in a hopelessly republican district for the leg- islature, and, to the surprise of everybody, was elected, and shortly there- after he was elected to congress. He began his congressional career in the extra session of the forty-sixth congress, and served with ability and distinction. He served on the committees of public lands, private claims, expenditures, etc. He and his family are Methodists, and belong to one of the best families in the state.
ESCAMBIA COUNTY.
JOHN N. ARENDS, deceased, was a native of Aachen, Prussia, born April 14, 1824. His parents were respectable people of the middle class, and were able to give him a fair education. At an early age he was apprenticed to a machinist, and, in the usual thorough style of the old- time foreigner, mastered that most difficult trade. So well did he apply himself that he became in after years, when he had emigrated to this country, one of the finest machinists in the south, sought far and near because of his thorough knowledge of machinery. While still a young man he took a trip to Paris, France. where he worked at his trade for some three years, in that time becoming quite proficient in the French language. He could, in after years, therefore, speak the three languages, German, French and English. Returning home, he and a brother-in-law started a machine shop of their own. About this time, probably in 1848, he married his first wife, Theresa Bouvet, a French lady, by whom he had four children. On account of the dullness of the times, and hearing of the splendid advantages offered good mechanics, he decided to emi- grate to America, and in the spring of 1856 the family landed in New York city. Proceeding inland, they stopped awhile at Cincinnati, Ohio. Times were hard and money hard to get when earned. as these were the days of the state bank currency in the north. Learning of the many
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MEMORIAL RECORD OF ALABAMA.
advantages of the sunny south land, Mr. Arends determined to go south, and in the fall of the same year the family moved to Mobile. Here Mr. Arends passed a number of eventful years, engaging in business with considerable success, having at one time one of the largest machine shops in the city. During the yellow fever scourge of 1858 he lost his wife, she dying of that dread disease November 7th. Mr. Arends was married to the lady who now survives him, Mrs. Margaret (Brady) Farrell, on the 26th of December, 1864, in the city of Mobile. Margaret Brady was born May of 1832, in county Cavan, north Ireland. She was one of twins, the eldest children of Thomas and Bridget Brady. The Bradys had been residents of that part of the county for centuries. Thomas, the father of Margaret, died while yet a young man, leaving a family of four children. The mother died on the old homestead in 1875. Richard, tlie twin brother, Thomas, the next, and Bridget, the youngest, now Mrs. McCon- nell, still live in county Cavan. Margaret came to this country in 1849, with the family of an uncle. They lived in Springfield, Mass., for a year, then moved to St. Louis, where in May of 1854 Margaret was mar- ried to Patrick Farrell. Two children were born to their union, Phillip, who lived to be one of the brightest and most popular young men of Brewton, only to be carried off by the terrible yellow fever scourge of 1883. He died on the 23d of October, after an illness of but five days, the pride of a devoted family. The second child, Annie, was married on the 4th of July. 1877, to John T. Hairston, then railroad agent for the L. & N. at Brewton. Mr. Hairston was born and raised in Macon county, Ala. Thence removed to Lowndes county, where he learned telegraphy, coming to Brewton in 1874. He engaged in the mercantile business in Brewton for some time, but not succeeding well, he again went to railroading. While holding the position of night operator at Flomaton, he was suddenly stricken with a fatal illness, and died April 17, 1882. To the marriage were born two children: Maggie S., who died in infancy, and Lucile A., now a miss of eleven years, who, with her mother, lives with her grandmother at Brewton. Patrick Farrell met death by drowning in Mobile bay, on January 6, 1862. It is not known how it occurred. He disappeared, and after a terrible suspense of three weeks to the widow, the body was found and, though in an advanced stage of decomposition, was recognized. The marriage of Mr. Arends and Mrs. Farrell occurred, as before stated, in 1864. One child was born-Aloise, now the wife of James Sowell. In March of 1865 Mr. Arends moved his family to Greenville, Ala., where he had been pre- vailed upon to accept the management of a wire mill. This not proving lucrative, and being asked to superintend the building of a mill at Brew- ton, Mr. Arends came to the latter place. This was in 1867, and he continued to reside here here to the date of his death. He followed the mercantile business much of the time, and was also postmaster of Brew- ton for a period of twenty years, from 1870. In 1881 he built part of the
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PERSONAL MEMOIRS-ESCAMBIA COUNTY.
handsome hotel property now standing, and opened it to the public as the Hotel Arends. Earlier in life, Mr. Arends had sustained a stroke of paralysis of the facial nerves. On the 6th of February, 1890, with no previous warning, he was suddenly visited by a stroke of apoplexy. He lingered for fourteen days, when death claimed him the 9th of Feb- ruary, 1890. Mr. Arends was an uncompromising republican in politics, and an ardent Catholic in his religious views. Three times every day faithfully during his residence in Brewton, the tapping of the bell at the Arends home told the people that religion with one of their citizens was an every-day affair.
J. LOREAINE BASS, M. D., an accomplished and progressive young physician of Escambia county, is a native of South Carolina, born in Marion county. that state, on the 4th day of February, 1864. His father, Thomas R. Bass, one of the most eminent physicians of the south, was a native of the same county and state, and was born in the year 1814. He was a finely educated gentleman, a graduate of the university of South Carolina, and his professional training was received at the Jefferson med- ical college, Philadelphia, and medical college of South Carolina, at Charleston, in both of which he completed the prescribed course and graduated with the highest honors. He practiced his profession at one place, Marion, S. C., for a period of fifty years and was the first demo- cratic representative of that county in the state legislature, which body he served two terms. This was just after the war, when both legislatures were largely dominated by colored members, which fact, with the corrupting way in which legislation was effected, so disgusted the doctor with politics that he abandoned the political field, never to enter it again. He was prominent in Masonic circles, and for several terms held the highest positions, within the gift of the order in South Carolina. He was united in marriage with Mary R. Carter at Darlington, S. C., in the year 1844, and raised a family of six children, as follows: Liston D., president of the Southern Female institute, Florence, Ala .; Ida I., wife of R. D. Rollins, Lake City, S. C .; Oscar L., manufacturer; Ella M., wife of C. S. Covington, Florence, S. C .; W. Leonidas, lawyer, Lake City, S. C., and Dr. J. Loreaine, whose name introduces this mention. Joseph Bass, father of Thomas, was a wealthy Englishman and came to the United States in company with a brother and settled many years ago in South Carolina, where he married and reared a family, several members of which left the impress of their superior abilities on their native state. Dr. J. Loreaine Bass grew up in an atmosphere of culture and refinement and was fortunate in having superior educational advantages placed at his disposal early in life. After pursuing his studies for some time in the schools of his native county he entered the university of South Carolina, from which he graduated in 1883, and immediately thereafter began a medical course in the South Carolina medical college, which he attended one year. Later he became a student of the Medical college of Louis-
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MEMORIAL RECORD OF ALABAMA.
ville, Ky., and after graduating from that institution in 1887, embarked in the practice of his profession in partnership with his father at Marion, S. C., where he remained for a period of one year, removing at the end of that time to Brewton, Ala., where he has since resided. During the year 1891, Dr. Bass took post-graduate courses at the Louisville medical college and Bellevue hospital, New York, for the especial treatment of female diseases, to which he expects to turn his attention largely here- after. The doctor has risen very rapidly in his profession and is now maintaining a very extensive and lucrative practice in Escambia and other counties. His career so far has been marked by much ability, and he easily ranks with the most successful and progressive medical men in the southern part of the state. The doctor and Miss Emma Lucas, an accomplished young lady of Charleston, S. C., were united in marriage, June, 1887. They have a beautiful home in Brewton and move in the most refined social circles of the city.
MILLARD F. BROOKS, the efficient circuit clerk of Escambia county, is descended paternally from an old Welsh family which settled in Virginia in the year 1740. His grandfather, Robert Brooks, was born in that state in 1760, served in the war of Independence from 1780 until the surrender of Yorktown, and in 1800 emigrated to South Carolina, thence in 1810 to Georgia. Subsequently, about the year 1836, he changed his residence to Alabama, locating in Pike county, where his death occurred in 1845. By his third wife, a Miss Gillmore, whom he married in Georgia, he had several children, one of whom Jordan G. Brooks, born in the year 1818, was the father of the gentleman whose name heads this sketch. Jordan Brooks was by occupation a farmer, taught school for a number of years in Pike county, Ala., and took an active part in political affairs as a whig. He supported the Bell and Everett ticket in 1860, and bitterly op- posed secession, but after that ordinance was passed, deemed it his duty to stand by his state; accordingly, in 1862, he entered the Thirty-third Alabama regiment, with which he served first as private and later as lieutenant and captain until his death at Murfreesboro in 1863. In 1844, in Pike county, he married Mary S. Walker, daughter of Andrew Walker, and in 1859 moved to Butler county. After the war, in 1871, Mrs. Brooks moved to Escambia county, settling at Evansville, and three years later she moved to Bluff Springs, Fla., together with her two younger chil- dren, where she died on the 5th day of November, 1891, in the seventy- first year of her age. Andrew Walker, father of Mrs. Brooks, was a. native of Ireland. He came from that country to the United States in 1816, and settled at Charlotte, N. C., subsequently moved to Alabama, and died in the county of Pike about 1835, at the age of seventy-five. Jordan G. and Mary S. Brooks reared a family of eight children, namely : Hon. Leonidas M., judge of Escambia county court, resides at Pensacola, Fla .; Wilson W., in the employ of the P. & A. railroad, Marianna, Fla .; Robert W., Baptist minister, Bluff Springs, Fla. ; Emily V., wife of Sam-
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