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 2 > Part 10
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was one of the most distinguished Presbyterian ministers in the state of Virginia. Alexander H. Clark was the third of six children, only two of whom are living, himself and a sister. A brother. James S., was in the First Louisiana battalion. afterward Fenner's Louisiana battery, during the first year of the war, and for three years in the western army, as a private soldier. He has since died. Mr. Clark graduated from the New Orleans high school at the age of fifteen. In April, 1861, he joined . the First Louisiana battalion, and served the first year of the war in Vir- ginia. Was in the Peninsular campaign, and was discharged in May, 1862. He then came home and joined Fenner's Louisiana battery, and was at the siege of Port Hudson, went on to Jackson, Miss., and to the relief of Vicksburg. He spent the winter at Dalton, Ga., and fought Sherman all the way down to Atlanta. Afterward he was on detached duty in the rear of Sherman's army, went back with Hood to Tennessee, fought at the battle of Franklin, was at Murfreesboro during the battle of Nashville, but rejoined Hood on his retreat when he reached the Ten- nessee river, and went with his command to Mobile, where they remained some time. After the fall of Mobile, he went up the Tombigbee river and surrendered in May, 1865, at Cuba Station. He was neither captured nor wounded during the war. After the war was over, he engaged in merchandising at New Orleans, remaining thus engaged until 1880, when he removed to Montgomery county, Ala .. where he has since resided, and has been engaged in farming. He is now one of the leading farmers in the county. He was married, in 1877, to Miss Sallie McGehee -Graves, daughter of Peyton S. and Sallie McGehee Graves, the former of whom was a native of Lowndes county, and died at New Orleans. in 1892, where he had lived about twenty-five years engaged in mercantile pursuits. Mrs. Graves died while Mrs. Clark was an infant. She was a daughter of Abner McGehee, who came from Georgia, and was one of the original settlers of Montgomery county. He owned, in this county, a large tract of land. and was one of its most prominent men. He settled nine miles south of Montgomery, at what is now McGehee's Switch, on the Louis- ville & Nashville railroad. when the country was a wilderness. Here he owned several square miles of land, and a large number of slaves. He was a most progressive and prosperous man: was of noble character, and a true Christian. He was a member of the Protestant Methodist church. and donated what was afterward known as the Bible building to the American Bible society, in order that it might have a branch in Mont- gomery. He was instrumental in building the Montgomery & West Point railroad, the first railroad in the state. He was amiable, magnanimous, and courageous, was kind and indulgent to his numerous slaves, and was one of the foremost men in the state. Mrs. Clark was born in Mont- gomery county, and is the mother of eight children. She is a member of the Protestant Methodist church, and is a cultured and elegant lady.
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While Mr. Clark is not a politician, yet he always performs his share of the work, and contributes his share of the money needed in a political campaign.
JOHN HUGHES CLISBY was born in Montgomery, Ala., in October, 1840, and educated there and at the Talladega, Ala., high school. Leav- ing school at the age of nineteen he went into the mercantile business in Montgomery, Ala., until March, 1861, when he entered in Maj. H. C. Semple's battery as a private and served eighteen months, and was then. transferred to the Fifty-first Alabama cavalry, commanded by John T. Morgan, now United States senator, and served until the latter part of 1864, when, on account of ill-health, he was transferred to the commis- sary department, and was captured at Macon, Ga., in April, 1865, by Wil- son's raiders. Mr. Clisby was in the following battles: Murfreesboro, Shelbyville, fights around Chattanooga, and many other minor engage ments, and after the war was over returned to Montgomery and re-entered the mercantile business, which he carried on until about 1873, when he went into the business of buying cotton, which he still follows. Mr. Clisby, however, is not confined to mercantile affairs strictly, but is a director in the Commercial Fire Insurance company and the bank of Montgomery, and since 1885 has been a member of the city council. He also is a member of the A. L. of H. and K. of P., and since June, 1884, he has been captain of the Montgomery field artillery, battery B, Ala- bama state troops. In 1884 he was delegate to the democratic national convention. He was married in 1865 to Fannie May Young, daughter of Micajah Young, a native of Baltimore. John Clisby, father of John Hughes Clisby, was born in Boston, Mass., in 1814, and came to Ala- bama in 1830, locating at Washington and later at Montgomery, where he went into the mercantile business and carried it on until 1877. He was captain of the Montgomery True Blues, and commanded that company in the Seminole war. He was married, in 1839, to Emily Hughes, a daughter of John Hughes, a native of South Carolina, who came to Ala- bama in 1818.
DAVID CLOPTON, late senior associate justice of the supreme court of the state of Alabama, was born in Putnam county, Ga., and was a son of Dr. Alford and Sarah (Kendrick) Clopton. David was graduated from Randolph-Macon college. Virginia, in 1840, with first honors, read law under A. H. Chappel at Macon, Ga., was admitted to the bar. and at the age of twenty-one began practice at Griffin, Ga., whence, eighteen months later, he came to Tuskegee, Ala., where he was engaged in practice until the outbreak of the late war. In 1859-60 he represented his district in the United States house of representatives, and was one of the seceding members in 1861. In the spring of this year he entered the Twelfth Alabama infantry as a private, and in the fall was, without his being notified in advance of the intention of his people, sent to the Confederate congress, in which he served until the collapse of the Confederacy, when
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he returned to Tuskegee, and resumed practice. In 1866 he removed to Montgomery and formed a partnership with George W. Stone and James H. Clanton, under the firm name of Stone, Clopien & Clanton, and the style was so continued until the death of Gen. Clanton at the city of Knoxville, Tenn., in 1869, when the two remaining partners carried on the business as Stone & Clopton until 1876, when Mr. Stone was appointed associate justice of the Alabama supreme court by Gov. Houston. Mr. Clopton then united with H. A. Herbert and William L. Chambers, which co-partnership lasted four years. In 1878 Mr. Clopton was elected to the lower branch of the legislature, was its sneaker during the second session, but refused to serve another term. In October, 1884. Gov. O'Neal appointed Mr. Clopton associate justice of the supreme court of Alabama, which position he held at the time of his death, February 5, 1892. The following resolutions. passed by the local bar the day after his demise; fully demonstrate the esteem in which he was held by the legal frater- nity :
"Resolved, That in the death of Hon. David Clopton, the bar of our country has lost one of its most gifted, brilliant, and eloquent advocates; the bench a pure, upright, and learned jurist; the state of Alabama a patriotic citizen, a wise statesman, and an able, faithful and efficient public servant.
"Resolved, That his life was distinguished by exalted virtues, and in his career he furnished an example of all those qualities that adorn char- acter and render him worthy of imitation, by all who appreciate and admire the traits of a noble manhood.
"Resolved, That we tender to his family our sincere and heartfelt sym- pathy in their great bereavement.
"Resolved, That the members of the bar attend the funeral of our deceased brother in a body; that a copy of these resolutions be sent to his family, and the attorney-general present them to the supreme court; the solicitor to the city, circuit and chancery courts of this county, and that the chairman of this meeting, present them to the Federal court, with the request that they be spread upon their minutes.
"Resolved that these resolutions be published in the papers of the city.
"David T. Blakey, Chairman. "John W. A. Sanford. "J. M. Falkner. "Tennent Lomax, "Horace Stringfellow."
April 7, 1892, in the supreme court room, where his former associates on the bench, and fellow-lawyers, engaged in doing honor to his memory, Gov. Watts made the following remarks:
"David Clopton was as near a perfect man as I ever saw. His mind was great in intellectual power. It was well cultivated by early education and the constant learning of a lifetime. The purity of his moral and religious character. was the admiration of all good men. He that ruleth his own passions, is greater than he that conquereth a city, and David Clopton did that.
"I knew him for more than forty years. For many years I practiced in the same courts with him-many times against him. many times on
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the same side with him. I never knew his temper to be in the least ruf- fled, even in the rough and tumble of a nisi prius trial. He was always kind and courteous to parties and witnesses, and to his brethren of the bar, and always deferential to the courts. He never abused or brow-beat witnesses or parties. I never heard him speak an unkind word to any human being. His mind was eminently analytic, he always knew the precise difference between one thing and another. His mode of speaking was always simple and direct. He was sincere, bold, candid and magnetic, in his speeches before courts, juries, legislative assembly, and before the people. He never uttered a sentiment he did not believe, and he never dealt in sophistry. His mind was clear. and logical. He was a lover of truth. for truth's sake. His heart was as pure as newborn snow; his manners as gentle and kind as those of the purest woman. All his noble qualities of head and heart were magnified and adorned by his sincere devotion to his duties as a follower of the meek and lowly Jesus.
"In his death, the whole people of Alabama mourn, and unite their voices with those of the members of the bar in paying tribute to his. virtues.
To this eloquent tribute, Chief Justice Stone responded as follows:
"I have known Judge Clopton since his early manhood. Industrious, painstaking, conscientious and gifted, his career could not be otherwise than a success. His growth was steady, but it was sure. He became a great advocate, an able and distinguished judge. Such was the estimate placed on him by the public, such, in an eminent degree, is the opinion entertained of him by his late associates on this bench. So well balanced were his mental gifts, so complete his moral structure, that devoted friendship, as well as impartial criticism must alike pause and reflect whether to award the pre-eminence to the wisdom and conscientiousness of his counsels, or to the simplicity, beauty and convincing power of his eloquent advocacy. Speaking for the court, I feel safe in saying, that as long as memory remains, we can never forget the wise and helpful counsel he gave, nor the tolerance of differing opinion, he always exhibi- ted in consultation. His very nature forbade that he should, or could give offense. In the home circle, and in his church relations, no man was ever purer or freer from fault than Judge Clopton. He was equally the model husband and father, and the exemplary, though humble and unobtrusive Christian. No act of his life ever gave occasion for a sus- picion, or semblance of reproach in these regards. A more completely rounded character throughout was seldom, if ever, met with in this world of ours. Such was Judge Clopton's character. known and proclaimed by all who knew him. A quarter of a century ago, close professional relations were formed between Judge Clopton and myself, which lasted for several years. I learned to know him well, and to know him was to love him. The friendship and esteem I formed for him were never dimin- ished during his life, for he never did. or said, aught to diminish them. His great worth, eminent ability, and stainless purity of character are, and ever will be, with me a cherished memory; and it affords me a pecu- liar pleasure to become the voice, and instrument of the court, in placing the resolutions of the bar on its enduring records."
Judge Clopton was thrice married. First, to Miss Martha E. Ligon. sister of Gov. Ligon. She died in November, 1867. The second marriage occurred at Columbus, Ga., in 1871, when he led to the altar . Mrs. Mary F. Chambers. She died in February, 1885; and November 29,
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Jasome Cochran
BRANT & CILLER OUDS
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1887, the judge's third marriage took place at Huntsville, Ala., to the brilliant and accomplished widow of the distinguished Clement C. Clay. The judge was a member of the Masonic fraternity, of the Methodist Episcopal church, south, and for nearly twenty years, superintendent of the Sabbath school.
HON. JOHN L. COBBS, late state treasurer of Alabama, was born in Bedford county, Va., December 7, 1832. His parents removed to Ala- bama in 1844 and located at Tuscaloosa, then the state capital. He was educated in part at the State university. He entered the Confederate service as a member of company D, Second Alabama cavalry, and in 1863 was transferred to the quartermaster's department. Immediately after the close of the war he removed to Montgomery and started a dry goods business, a business he had been engaged in a short while before the war began. Mr. Cobbs has long been noted as one of the solid business men of Montgomery, and his name is a guarantee of honor and good faith. In 1888 he was nominated for the high office of treasurer of the state, and was elected. He was renominated and re-elected in 1890. As treas- urer, he conducted his office with admirable skill and caution. There was not a single flaw in his management, a judgment which would be universally approved by the people of the state. Mr. Cobbs was married in March, 1858, to Miss Dolly Pegues, a niece of Senator Evans, of South Carolina. They have four children, one girl and three boys. Mr. Cobbs is a typical southern gentleman, of good manners, genial and hospitable. He has a large number of devoted friends, and, like the true friend he is, he is always planning to assist those about him.
JEROME COCHRAN, M. D .- The. Cochrans of this country are of an ancient family, very numerous in Scotland and in the north of Ireland, where for centuries many of them have occupied high positions. Accord . ing to the traditions of the family two brothers came over to the new world . many years before the Revolutionary. war and settled, one in Virginia, and one in Pennsylvania. The Virginia family, of which Dr. Cochran is a member, increased rapidly and its representatives are to be found in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Texas. Jerome was born in Moscow, Fayette county, Tenn., on the 4th day December, 1831. His father was Augustine Owen Cochran, and his mother Frances Bailey, of whom he was the eldest son. After a few years Mr. Cochran moved into Marshall county, Miss., where he spent the larger portion of his life as a cotton planter. Here Jerome passed a feeble and sickly childhood, after the fashion of country boys in a new country, seeing nothing and hearing but little of the great world and its multiform ambitions, excitements and dissipations. From his twelfth to his nineteenth year he was engaged alternately at work on the farm and at study in the summer when the press of farm work was over. at the neighboring school, where he acquired the rudiments of an English education. Subsequently he supplemented this poor beginning by an extensive course of reading and
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private study, gleaning everything within his reach in the fields of mathe- matics, logic, political economy, metaphysics, theology, biology, general literature. general science and the modern languages. His appetite for knowledge was voracious, and his faculty of acquisition was phenomenal. History, philosophy, poetry, fiction, science-nothing came amiss to his hungry intellect, and often after a day's hard work in the field he would hang over his books till midnight, and sometimes until the breakfast bell rang in the morning. From nineteen to twenty-four he taught school, making some money, accumulating books, and widening continually his field of study. In 1855 he married Sarah Jane, a daughter of Jared Collins, a well-to-do farmer of De Soto county, Miss. She died in 1879, leaving two sons and one daughter. In 1855 Dr. Robert Harrison, pro- fessor of materia medica and therapeutics in the Botanico-Medical college of Memphis, induced him to become a student of medicine in that institu- tion. He attended two courses of lectures and graduated as doctor of medicine in 1857. Before graduating he became satisfied that the peculiar tenets of the botanic system were untenable. His graduating thesis was a formal argument against some of the doctrines of the school; and the valedictory address of the class, delivered by him. was an energetic pro- test against medical sectarianism. After practicing two years in Mis- sissippi, he, in 1859, entered the medical department of the university at Nashville, Tenn., and became the private student of Prof. W. K. Bowling, hrough whose influence he immediately obtained the position of resident student in the hospital of the state of Tennessee. At the close of the session . in the spring of 1860, he was placed in charge of the hospital as resident physician. He received the regular degree in February, 1861. A few months later he was at work as contract physician in the Confederate hospital at Okalona, which contained 3,000 beds; and became the asylum - of the sick and wounded of the Confederate army after the battle of Shiloh. Early in 1862, Dr. Cochran was promoted to the full rank of surgeon, and continued on duty at Okalona until after the battle of Corinth, when this post was abandoned. A part of this large hospital was removed to Marion station where Dr. Cochran was on duty, and in charge of the stores at said station when Gen. Sherman advanced on Meridian only a few miles distant. All the other surgeons had left; but he, crippled and on crutches from an injury to his ankles received in a recent railroad accident, remained at his post, loaded all the empty cars that he could lay his hands on, attached them at the last moment to the last engine that passed down to Mobile, and thus saved to the Confed- eracy thousands of dollars worth of hospital property. Soon afterward he was assigned to duty as president of a conscript board, with head- quarters at Tuscaloosa; and here, his family having joined him, he remained on duty till the close of the war. Whilst waiting for the restoration of order, he turned his attention to the study of mental dis- eases in the insane hospital at Tuscaloosa. In June, 1865, he came
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to Mobile, a stranger, and without money for the purpose of practicing his profession. In this work a career of gratifying success was interrupted by ill health in 1870. In 1968 he was elected professor of chemistry in the Medical college of Alabama, and discharged the duties of the office until the spring of 1873, when he resigned. Before the commencement of the next session, the faculty cre- ated for him the chair of public hygiene and medical jurisprudence, which he filled until 1877, when he resigned under the following circumstances : From the bill to regulate the practice of medicine in Alabama, then pending in the general assembly, the senate committee struck out a clause providing that the faculty of the college should be one of the boards of medical examiners. Thereupon the faculty determined to oppose the passage of the bill. and Dr. Cochran, preferring the interest of the profession to the interest of the college, and not willing that any fancied allegiance to the faculty should embarrass his efforts with the general assembly, immediately resigned his professorship, which put an end to his connection with the college. Since 1870, Dr. Cochran has directed his efforts and studies almost wholly to public hygiene, and toward bettering the legislation of the state in respect to the laws regu- lating sanitary matters and the practice of medicine. So thoroughly did he comprehend the problems involved, and so completely did he solve them, that almost all that appears in the statutes to-day in relation to public health and medical practice, originated with him; that is to say, his plans found acceptance with the medical association of the state, and through its influence were enacted into state laws. Notable amongst these is the act to regulate the practice of medicine, by which for the first time in American history, the profession was given the power to determine by rule, and to test by examination, the qualifications of those proposing to commence the practice. The possession of a certificate of qualification from a board of examiners, appointed and governed by the association, is a condition. precedent with penal sanctions, to commencing the practice of medicine in this state. In February, 1879, whilst the bill to appropriate 83,000 annually, to be expended under the direction of the state board of health, was pending in the general assembly, Dr. Cochran was invited by the house to address it on the merits of the bill, which he did, speaking on the floor during the regular session. Those conversant with the usages of legislative assemblies will appreciate how signal a tribute of respect was conveyed in such a proceeding. Dr. Cochran commenced his public labors in the field of public hygiene by a series of papers, printed in the Mobile Register in 1870 on "The origin and pre- vention of the endemic and epidemic diseases of Mobile." These papers attracted a great deal of popular attention, and led to the adoption by the city of a health ordinance, of which Dr. Cochran was the author, cre- ating a health officer, and placing the sanitary supervision of the city in the hands of a board of health elected by the Medical society. Dr.
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Cochran was elected health officer, and served for two years, until the ordinance was abolished by the republicans, who came into the control of the municipality at that time. In the spring of 1874, small-pox was brought into Mobile, and became epidemic by the middle of November, having spread over the entire city. The board of trade became alarmed, and through its influence the original board of health was informally revived. They appointed Dr. Cochran health officer, with power to act The result was a sanitary triumph without a parallel. By location of cases, isolation, compulsory vaccination, disinfection and removal to hos- pital of all cases not properly cared for at home, the epidemic was pressed back step by step during the season of the year most favorable for its propagation, and at last was utterly exterminated. Epidemics of small-pox have often been prevented by timely attention to the first few cases; but it is believed that this is the only instance in which an epi- demic under full headway has been met and conquered. In the great epidemic summer of 1878, he was selected to be the physician at the low- er quarantine station at Fort Morgan, and was invested with very large discretionary powers. He resigned the position on September 30, to accept a position on the National yellow fever commission. He at once proceeded to New Orleans, where the commission assembled for organ- ization. In the discharge of his duties as a member thereof, after hunt- ing up the histories of the earlier New Orleans cases, he visited more than a dozen places, including Chattanooga and Memphis, making researches into the introduction and dissemination of yellow fever among the people, the object being to trace the causes of the progress of the pestilence in time and space in such a way as to furnish reliable statistics for protective legislation. From Memphis he went under orders to Richmond, Va., to attend the session of the American public health association, commencing November 19, 1878. The committee to which Dr. Cochran's report was referred described the work done by him as almost superhuman. Returning from Richmond, he resumed his investigations as a member of the commis- sion, but was soon called to Washington by an appointment on the board of experts, established to aid the committees of the senate and house of representatives in investigating the epidemic of 1878. Dr. Cochran was made chairman of the sub-committee of experts on the origin, cause and distinctive features of yellow fever. The thirty-four propositions in re- lation to yellow fever of the board of experts are especially Dr. Coch- ran's work, and constitute such a summing up of what is known of the natural history of yellow fever as is nowhere else to be found. The board of experts was dissolved in February. On April 11, Dr. Cochran was unanimously elected by the Medical association health officer for the state for the term of five years, and he has held the position continu- ously to the present time. The Medical association of the state, with a membership of 1.100 doctors, admirably organized and disciplined, is un-
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