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 II pt 1 > Part 61
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were the parents of nine children, four of whom are now living. Benja- min F. Fitzpatrick was reared on the farm and received a good common school education. About 1837 he left the farm and went to Mississippi, where he was engaged for about four years in teaching school. He was married, in 1846, to Miss Elizabeth J. Moore, of Mississippi, and then settled on a farm in Chickasaw county, Miss., and followed farming until the war began. He volunteered as a private soldier in the Thirty-first Mississippi infantry. which regiment was in Featherstone's brigade, Loring's division, and Polk's corps. He was promoted to a captaincy, and was wounded July 5, 1862. at the battle of Baton Rouge. Remaining in the army until the close, he surrendered with Johnston's army at Greensboro, N. C., in April, 1865. At the close of the war he returned to his farm in Mississippi, but not succeeding in that occupation to his desire, he removed to Mobile in 1873, and engaged in the cotton factorage business, at which he has continued with success. After being thus engaged a few years, he admitted to partnership his three sons, J. H., W. H., and J. M., the firm name being B. F. Fitzpatrick & Co. He has five sons in all, two being residents of Arkansas. Mr. Fitzpatrick is a member of the Mobile Cotton exchange, of the Mobile commandery Knight's Templar, and of the Baptist church.
. SAMUEL PALMER GAILLARD. a prominent young attorney of Mobile, Ala., was born at Perdue Hill. Monroe county, Ala .. March 26, 1836.' His father was Dr. Samuel S. Gaillard. a native of South Carolina, a success- ful .physician, who still resides at Perdue Hill, Ala. He served as a captain in the Confederate army. The mother of Samuel Palmer Gaillard was Lucy Susan Frye, a native of Monroe county, Ala. She is still living also. Her father was John Frye, a native of Maine, and reared at Frye- burg. a town named in honor of the Frye family. Senator Frye of Maine is a member of a branch of the same family. S. P. Gaillard received what was equivalent to a high school education at Perdue Hill, Ala. In 1875 he moved to Mobile, and in 1578 entered upon the study of law in the office of Peter and Thomas A. Hamilton of Mobile. He was admitted to the bar in Mobile. July 5, 1881, and at once began the practice of law in Mobile, where he has since continued. In July, 1887. he formed a partnership with his former preceptors, the firm name becoming then Hamilton & Gaillard. This firm was dissolved November 1. 1591, and since then Mr. Gaillard has practiced alone. He was admitted to practice in the supreme court of the state, May 5. 18-4. In politics he is a demo- crat, and he is an elder in the Presbyterian church. He is a Mason, and at the present time is master of Athelstan lodge, No. 369, F. & A. M. of Mobile. He is an able young lawyer, and occupies a high standing at the bar. On his father's side. the family is of French Huguenot extraction.
VIVIAN P. GAINES, M. D., a practicing physician of Mobile., was born at Mount Sterling, Ala., September 21. 1852. His father was George W.
PERSONAL MEMOIRS-MOBILE COUNTY. 539
Gaines, a merchant by occupation, who died of yellow fever in 1853. His father was George S. Gaines, a native of Virginia, who removed to Alabama while it was yet- a territory, and there became a prominent man. He was one of the early settlers of Mobile, and was one of the most extensive frecholders of that city in his day. He was a brother of Gen. Edmund Pendleton Gaines, who distinguished himself in the battle of Erie, during the war of 1812. and for whose services in that war, congress awarded him a medal. Paternally Dr. Gaines is of both Welsh and Irish descent. His mother was Eliza C. Earle, a native of South Carolina, who died in December, 1879. Her father was Dr. J. B. Earle, a native of South Carolina, and a physician by profession. Maternally he is of English descent. He received his literary education in the Centenary Male institute of Summerfield, Ala., and upon leaving that school he began the study of medicine. In 1870, he entered the office of Drs. Gaines & Owen of Mobile, and in 1872 graduated from the Alabama Medical college. In 1973, he graduated from the college of Physicians and Surgeons of New York. He at once began the practice of his pro- fession at Mount Sterling. Ala., and in 1886, he removed to Mobile, where he has since remained, and where his practice is both extensive and profitable. He is a member of the State Medical association, and is at present its grand counselor. He is a member of the Mobile county Medical society and has served as vice-president of the society. For five years during his residence at Mount Sterling he was president of the board of censors of Choctaw county, Ala. For two years he was visiting physician to the Mobile city hospital, and for one year prior to that he was physician to the city Dispensary. He is a member of Trinity Episcopal church, and is physician to St. Martin's Guild, which is conducted under the auspices of that church. He is a Mason, a Knight of Pythias, and an Odd Fellow. Of the order of Knights of Pythias he is a past chancellor, and he is now noble grand of his lodge in Odd Fellowship. He is a member of the I. O. of R. M .. of the A. O .. U. W., of the Knights of Honor and of the American Legion of Honor, and president of the Alumni asso- ciation of Alabama Medical college. In politics he is a democrat. Dr. Gaines was married March 7, 1879 to Miss Maggie C. Tate, of Summerfield, Ala., by whom he has four daughters.
RHETT GOODE, M. D., physician and surgeon of Mobile, was born in Mobile county, December 5, 1852. His father was Major Garland Goode, a native of South Carolina. who. for a period of forty years, was the leading cotton factor in Mobile. He died in 1588. Dr. Goode's mother was Frances E. Burns, a native of South Carolina. Dr. Good obtained a commercial education in Spring Hill college and entered upon the study of medicine in 1868. his preceptor being Dr. J. T. Gilmore. a former pro- fessor of the Alabama Medical college, and graduated in 1871. During the last year of his course there hie acted as demonstrator of anatomy. In 1872, he entered upon the practice of medicine in Mobile, where he
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has since continued. He rose rapidly in his profession, and is now one of the leading physicians and surgeons of the city. During the summers of 1890 and 1891, he attended surgical clinics in the Johns Hopkins hospital of Baltimore, Md. He makes a specialty of surgery, and is one of the best and leading surgeons in the south. He was demonstrator of anatomy in the Alabama Medical college from 1855 to 1891, and, upon the death in the latter year of Prof. C. Toxey, Dr. Goode was elected to succeed him as professor of anatomy, which position he still holds. He is a member of the Medical association of Alabama, and is a member of its board of counselors. He was president of the Mobile county Medical society dur- ing the year 1891. He is surgeon of the First volunteer infantry and is president of the Manassas club of Mobile. In the yellow fever epidemic of 1882, he served as physician of the "Can't Get Away club," of which he is a member. He is also surgeon of the Mobile & Ohio railroad com- pany ; the Louisville & Nashville railway company; the East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia railway company: the American Casualty and Security company, and the Mobile street railway company. He is a member of the National association of railway surgeons. In politics he is a demo- crat, and for several years was a member of the common council of Mobile, and for three years alderman at large for the city. While a member of the council he was elected mayor pro tem. He was county physician for years, and was formerly a member of the board of health, and also of the quarantine board of Mobile bay. For many years he was a member of the democratic executive committee of Mobile county. He is a member of the society of Elks. He was married, October 28, 1886, to Miss Mabel Wiley Hutton, daughter of Dr. W. H. H. Hutton, surgeon in the marine hospital service. Dr. Goode and wife are the parents of one child, Mabel Rhett Goode, aged three years.
PETER HAMILTON was the eldest of the three sons of Rev. William T. Hamilton, who, with his wife were natives of England, although he was himself of Scotch ancestry. Peter was born at Harrisburg, Penn .. November 7, 1817, where his father was teaching school. The family were later at Philadelphia, where the Rev. Mr. Hamilton taught school and studied for the ministry, going thence as pastor to the Presbyterian church at Newark in 1823. Peter thence went with his younger brother. Thomas A. Hamilton. in 1829, to a school at South Hadley. Mass., and then attended Princeton college, New Jersey, from 1832-5. There, although not a hard student, he paid much attention to mathematics, and aided Dr. Joseph Henry in those experiments in sending messages by electricity which ante-dated Morse. He took second honor when he grad- uated in 1835. The family then moved to Mobile, having a rough sea trip on the ship Hector, Rev. Mr. Hamilton being called to the Presby- terian church there. From that time until his death Peter Hamilton lived at the Hamilton place on Government street. This is a typical, spacious southern mansion surrounded by oaks and magnolias, built by
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his father in 1839 on virgin soil, bought afterward by Mr. Hamilton, and now the residence of his own son. Mr. Hamilton always retained a fondness for the scenes of bis youth, and Princeton, and particularly Philadelphia, were his frequent resorts in after life when business or pleasure called him to the north. Mr. Hamilton read law at Mobile under Daniel Chandler, and came to the bar in 1838. He was an insatiate reader and student, but his modesty kept him in the background at first, and like many other young lawyers he made hardly a living for some years. He taught school at the Barton academy for awhile, and scholars of his still living testify to his kindness, accuracy and firmness. In his professional career he was at first associated with Daniel E. Hall, and in 1940, G. F. Lindsay joined the firm. Mr. Hall abandoned general practice for the case of W. H. Kennedy's heirs vs. J. Kennedy's executors, his wife being a plaintiff in that great and successful Jand litigation, which .. began-in 1839, and later Mr. Lindsay was killed in a steamboat accident. Mr. Hamilton made his first appearance about 1844, before the Alabama supreme court, then sitting at Tuskaloosa, in the case of Hodges vs. Dawes, found in 6 Alabama Report, 215. Chief Justice Collier, after hear- ing him on that occasion said to a by-stander that this young man would make his mark. In the Kennedy case Mr. Hamilton, as well as his younger brother Thomas, took much of the testimony for the complainant. This brother read law under John A. Campbell, and after becoming a partner of S. G. Fisher, a genial man and extensive practitioner, secured the admission of Peter also to that firm in 1848. After the death of Mr. Fisher the next year, the two brothers remained in partnership, and so always continued under the name of Hamiltons. Peter Hamilton was assigned the chancery, United States, and supreme court business of the firm, and thus was thrown in close contact with John A. Campbell, the leader of the Alabama bar, the two men becoming life long friends. In 1847, he was, as a whig, elected to the legislature. Notes still preserved by his family show that he carefully studied all important measures that came up, spoke often and to the point, then, as always after, advocating conservative legislation. From 1851, he was acting U. S. district attorney (taking the place of J. G. S. Walker, his wife's kinsman, who was district attorney at Mobile), and as such conducted the proceedings to condemn the eastern end of Dauphin Island at the mouth of Mobile bay for use as a fort for the United States. He was, from about 1860, in one way or another, associated with the M. &. O. railroad company. as director, counsel, vice-president, practically its manager, at the close of the war, long its attorney afterward, and the leading solicitor for the creditors and receiver in the foreclosure proceedings of 1875-6, which resulted in the issue of debentures which gave its creditors the control of the voting power of that corporation. He was in fact connected with the road's litigation so long as he remained in active practice. Among the men prominent in the early history of this company were Sidney Smith,
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Charles P. Gage, Duke W. Goodman and Mosos Waring, all close friends and frequent clients of his. Among the more celebrated cases with which Peter Hamilton was connected was Duan vs. N. O. railroad, in which he suc- cessfully opposed municipal extravagance (51 Ala. Report, 128), and Levrich vs. Mobile, and Hurter vs. Waring, in which he defeated the attempts of the city to appropriate the wharis Jong owned by private cit- izens, and resulting in their purchase by the municipal authorities by means of bonds still outstanding. Probably as well known were his . attempts to preserve intact the old Mobile school system from legislative interference, and the suit of Reid vs. Moulton, where he was in personal danger in the lower court, and in that above a partisan bench in violation of chancery jurisprudence investigated a contested election, and laid down principles which the supreme court, a few years later, overruled, on the lines of his contention (50 Ala. Report, 469, 54 Ala. Report 320). These were troublous times. "Inter arma silent leges." Corruption and violence ruled legislatures and courts. Mr. Hamilton's intrepidity in the discharge of his duties as a lawyer, withstood state and Federal judges, and in judicial conflicts with Judge Busteed on the United States circuit bench he made even that autograt respect if not fear him. In Waring vs. Lewis (33 Ala. Report, 615) he saved his friend, Moses Waring, from the liability for trust money invested in Confederate secur- ities, and previously in M. & O. R. R. vs. Thomas (42 Ala., 672), he par- ticipated in a great legal battle, and reversed a large judgment for the plaintiff in a damage suit. Later came Wright vs. Swann. and Clarke 110 U. S., 590, 602), validating attacked receiver's certificates of the Ala- bama & Chattanooga R. R .. and the long contested cases of Moog vs. Insurance Cos., in which his side was finally successful in defeating claims for insurance on a vessel fraudulently loaded and burned. Mr. Hamilton's masterly presentation of the circumstantial evidence against the plaintiff on the first trial of the Moog case, was his last great speech, and to D. C. Anderson and T. A. Hamilton are due the final results of this litigation. One of the most picturesque incidents of his profess- ional career was where he, a Presbyterian, on behalf of an Episcopal bishop, secured the annulling of a Catholic father's death bed will, which authorized priests to remove, to a foreign country, children long cared for by an Episcopal orphan asylum. The Catholic priest, who was Henry St. Paul's client in that case, stepped up to Mr. Hamilton in the Mobile probate court, after having heard his luminous discussion on the law of guardianship, and exclaimed, "What a grand bishop of the church you would make, M. Hamilton." (Desribes vs. Wilmer, 69 Ala., 25.) In the great ease of Stein vs. Bienville Co. (32 Federal Reporter, 876; 34 Federal Reporter 145, and afterward in the supreme court, 141 U. S., 67), Mr. Hamilton laid the foundation and wrote the argument which overturned a monopoly and give pure water to Mobile, and one of the touching things of his three last years of illness was the struggle of the
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great lawyer to study the cause whose presentation in court was then beyond his physical powers. But as a statesman and jurist Mr. Hamil- ton ranked as high as he did as a lawyer. Before the war he was a whig, and always an admirer of Webster. He opposed secession, but was of course loyal to his people when that measure was carried. He was not in the army. Like all other whigs, he became a conservative democrat after the war and bore his part in the struggle against radical misrule. The final rescue of Alabama from negro domination occurred in 1874, but there were great men before Agamemnon. The brilliant fight made by Hamilton, Little, Anderson, Martin. Cobb and others in the legistature of 1872, during the term of D. P. Lewis, the last republi- can governor, roused the state, stirred up democrats who had been luke- warm before, and thus led to the great victory under Houston in 1874. Mr. Hamilton was elected to the state senate in 1872, and until he left. that body, in 1876, he was the unquestioned leader of the legislature. There were at first two legislatures, and, as the sole democratic com- missioner to Washington, he arranged with Attorney General Williams a settlement which united them. The state was bankrupt, and he drew the bill to fund the domestic debt. At the request of the committee in charge he wrote at one sitting and without other aid than his prodigious memory what Speaker D. C. Anderson calls "the most complicated and diffi- cult piece of legislation in all the history of the state. the act of February 23, 1876," which ratified the settlement effected by commissioners with holders of the foreign debt and providing the mode of carrying it into execution. (Acts 1875-6, pp. 130-149). This funded not only the several bond issues of the state but also its obligations on account of endorsement of the A. & C. R. R. debt, and adjusted all the liens, suits, and trusts therewith connected. This great bill was enacted without a change, in the exact form in which it left his hands, and no error has ever been discovered in its many provisions. In 1879 and afterward he aided in the settlement of the Mobile city debt to the satisfaction of both debtors and creditors, and himself drew those wise provisions of the act which placed the administration of the trust therein created in the hands of the chancery court. (Acts 1880-1, p. 329.) In 1882 he was, without his solicitation, returned to the lower house of the legislature. There he was the soul of the joint committee which sat in Mobile and framed the revenue laws that with but few changes are still in force. and to him was due the com - plete separation therein of what he called the inachinery and the rev- enue provisions. Some years later, at the request of Judge Brickell, he as assistant commissioner, aided in the preparation of the Alabama code of 1886. His wonderful breadth of mind, depth of knowledge. keenness of insight and force of expression marked him out as perhaps the most rounded man in the public history of the state, and naturally made him thought of for high office. He more than once refused a place on the state supreme bench, and President Hayes is said to have hesitated between the
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conservative Hamilton and the republican Harlan for the supreme court of the United States. Admirers more than once urged him for senator, but at first the times were adverse and as he always refused to seek any office, oth- ers more versed in political methods secured the position and prevented his serving the state in the place where he would have reflected most honor upon her. As a citizen he took an active interest in all public matters, and to him most of all was due the origin of the Mobile board of. trade and of the Mobile Bar library .. He was twice married, the first time to Miss Anna M. Beers, in 1842. by whom he had two daughters and two sons. After her death he married, in 1862, Caroline Goodman, and she was the companion of his later and more famous years, dying after him. in 1892, without issue. On a professional visit to Washington in March, 1885, to argue the railroad commission case (116 U. S., 307), he was stricken with apoplexy, and only after many days could be taken home. The associate counsel announced to the court their inability to present the case in his absence, and argument was deferred until fall, when John A. Campbell took his place, although he also filed a brief. He gradually recovered sufficiently to transact all ordinary business, but could not after ward endure the strain of the court room or of protracted labor. His heart gradually gave way, and after many serious attacks he died a Chris- tian death, early in the morning of November 22, 1888. in the home and amid the family be loved so well. Mr. Hamilton. in personal appearance, was tall and well built, and in dress neat and refined. He wore a beard all over his face, but it was usually kept short. His eyes were grey and kindly, his rare smile pleasant, his manner quiet and unobtrusive. He usually seemed absorbed in thought, but at home and among friends was a delightful converser on any subject. He was a devoted son, husband, brother and father, and his character lovable in every way. In public speaking he was deliberate and commanding, never flurried, and always
1 threw a flood of light, often from the most unexpected directions, on whatever subject he discussed. He used no rhetoric and convinced by marshalling facts and principles in the most effective manner. He was indefatigable in the preparation of any case, working until late at night at home, preferably to his office. He argued on a few leading decisions rather than on case law in general, and drew freely from the principles underlying all laws and systems. The origin and growth of jurispru- dence, political science and political economy were his favorite studies, and history, mental science, mathematics, and logic, his chief recreation. He was, it is true, a great novel reader, but it was for relaxation rather than for pleasure. He would read one novel after another with little dis- crimination and hardly cared to remember even their names. His firm law library was well equipped, and his private library at home numbered several thousand volumes. being especially rich in the subjects named. He was not a church member, but was a regular attendant of the Presby- terian church and a firm believer and practitioner of its precepts. The
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tributes to him by the bar of Mobile, by public bodies, and by the press of the whole state, were many and sincere. His pure and exalted char- acter is a legacy of which the commonwealth as well as his family are proud, for the short inscription on the granite shaft above his tomb, words spoken of him by his surviving brother when once relating his life, tells but the simple truth: "In every relation of life, whether public or private, he was all that a man should be."
LEOPOLD HAMMEL, a leading merchant of Mobile, and the head of the firm of L. Hammel & Co., the largest retail dry goods house in the city, was born in Germany in 1850. He came to the United States in 1865. and settled in Mobile. He at first took a position as clerk with Goldstuker & Strauss, dry goods business, who were succeeded by Agnew, Strauss & Co., and they were succeeded by Strauss & Co., Mr. Hammel remaining through the several changes connected with the business. In 1873,' he himself succeeded Strauss & Co., and was at that time located at what is now No. 73 Dauphin street, in a small store room. In 1880 he removed to Nos. ,65 and 67 Dauphin street, and more recently he located at Nos. 61 and 69, uniting all the numbers in one store room. In 1880 Mr. Marcus Lyons became a member of the firm. and has since died, and his interest in the business was purchased by Mr. Hammel. He transacts a general retail business in dry goods. notions and millinery. The upper part of the house is devoted to carpets, mattings and house furnishing goods in general. His is decidedly the largest retail house in the city. He employs about 125 people. He is a stockholder in several institutions, but devotes his entire time and attention to his dry goods business, and his annual transactions are estimated at between $300,000 and $400,000.
WILLIAM J. HEARIN, banker of Mobile, Ala., was born in Clarke county, Ala., in January, 1825. His father was Robert Hearin, a native of South Carolina, and his mother was Nancy Mayfield, also a native of South Carolina. They emigrated to Alabama in 1819, the same year in which Alabama was admitted into the Union. Leaving school at the age of eighteen, on account of the death of his father, young Hearin took charge of the farm, and continued to conduct it till the breaking out of the war. In February, 1862, he entered the service of the Confederate States as captain of company A, Thirty-eighth Alabama infantry, which company he had himself raised in Clarke county, Ala. He served as captain of the company till the battle of Chickamauga, when he was promoted to be major, and soon afterward on the resignation of the colonel of the regi- ment he was promoted to be lieutenant-colonel, which rank he continued to hold until the termination of the war. During his term of service he participated in some of the great battles of the war, among them those at Ft. Gaines, Chickamauga, besides several minor battles and skirmisnes. After the close of the conflict, Col. Hearin removed to Mobile, and engaged in the cotton commission business, in which he has continued till the present time. He served in the state legislature of Alabama two
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