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 13
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dent of the state Medical association, read at the session of 1882, was an epoch-making document and led to a radical change in the prison system in the state. In half a dozen trenchant pages he so powerfully summed up the evils of the then existing system-so emphasized the squalor and degradation of prison life, and the terrible lesson taught by the excess- ive death rate among the convicts-as to compel the attention of the people and the law makers of the commonwealth. In the next session of the general assembly, which began a few months later, the convict question became a subject of earnest discussion. One very elaborate effort was made through the daily papers to invalidate his statistics and to neutralize the force of his arguments. This provoked a rejoinder more elaborate and conclusive than the original message; and the result was a thorough revision of the law. He published in the Montgomery Advertiser in 1875, during the session of the state constitutional conven- tion, an argument to show that the right of a state to secede from the Union was one of the rights that had been lost through the results of the war. The argument is logically unanswerable; but for want of space, not even a summary of it can be given. The subject of his annual ora- tion before the state Medical association was "What is life? or rather What are the dynamic agencies of life?" In this address he undertook to extend the doctrine of the conservation of energy already accepted in the domain of inorganic science, to the phenomena of living oragnisms. A brief quotation will show his line of argument: "We are left to deal with those forces with which we are more familiar in their relations to inorganic matter. The ultimate fact of these forces, so far as knowable, so far as observation and experience have determined, is motion. The ultimate fact of the organic forces. so far as knowable, is also motion. There is, then, a generic unity of the forces of the organic and inorganic world. Motion, therefore, is the genus. Heat, light, electricity and other modes of motion, all mutually convertible, are the species." In December, 1874, he published in the Richmond and Louisville Medical Journal a review of the transactions of that year of the Alabama State Medical asso- ciation. Usually such reviews are of little importance, but this one showed that the writer of it had read, with appreciation, the articles he undertook to notice, and then he discussed them from the standpoint of a competent knowledge of the profession literature of the special subject of each one of them. It is specially noticable on account of its criticism of Dr. Cochran's very elaborate paper on the "White blood corpuscle, " and its criticism of Dr. Michel's paper on "Yellow fever." The most remark- able of all Dr. Gaston's contributions to the literature of medicine is the paper published in January, 1876, in the American Journal of the Med- ical Sciences under the title of "Medico-legal evidence of independent life in the new born child." He takes the ground that the sole distinctive condition of independent extra-uterine life is to be found in the establish- ment of pulmonary respiration. The human infant, and the same is true
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of all young mammals, begins an independent career of its own only when it has breathed in the breath of life with the air of this world. This argument is perfectly -conclusive. Not only so, but it must be held hereafter by every man who can comprehend the ground upon which it is based to be so absolutely invulnerable as to make any attempt at adverse criticism ridiculous. It is surprising that this question should not have been sooner placed on proper physiological grounds. Dr. Gaston has won distinction in surgery as well as in medicine. Among his more important cases may be mentioned a number of successful exsections of the elbow and shoulder joints, operations for strangulated inguinal her- nia; exsection of hip-joint for hip-joint disease of ten years' standing, with complete bony anachlosis of the joint, with complete recovery and a useful joint; nephrotomy for pyonephrosis by deep dissection through lumbar region, death sixty-two days after operation, the other kidney having been diseased; operation for psoas abscess with complete recov- ery and all the usual amputations and ligations. Dr. Gaston was married in 1857 to Sallie J. Torrance, of Mecklenburg county, N. C. He has three children. These short notes show that Dr. Gaston is a man of unusual ability and attainments. In acuteness and subtlety of intelligence he has few equals. Both in thinking and writing his style is brilliant, polished, strong, incisive, direct-clear as crystal and elastic as Damascus steel. It goes without saying that he exercises a comprehensive and command- ing influence in the medical profession, and amongst the people of his city and state. This sketch is condensed with additions from that pub- lished in "Representative Men of the South."
WILLIAM HALTON GARSIDE, one of the oldest druggists of Montgomery, was born in Yorkshire, England, July 7, 1828, and came to America with his father ( his mother being dead ) in 1842, settling in Paterson, N. J., where he lived until 1848, and then went to New York city, where he clerked in a drug store two years, and then, in the fall of 1849, came to Montgomery, Ala., and clerked in drug stores there until about 1855, and then went into the drug business, on his own account, which he carried on until March, 1860, when he sold out, and after the war clerked in a drug store in Montgomery, owned by his former partner, Stephen Hutchins, for two years and then, when Huchins & Williams faited, he continued with their successors, Blount, Wetherly & Co., until they also failed about 1870, and then he clerked for E. C. Fowler, druggist, at Montgomery, until 1875, then bought out an interest in a similar store, and the firm of Garside & Alexander was thus organized, and continued until 1889, when the firm was changed to a stock company, known as the Montgomery Drug company, of which Mr. Garside is president. He is also a director in the Walker County Coal & Land Co., and was for twenty-five years a director in the Montgomery Gas Light company. Formerly he belonged to the Masons and Odd Fellows, but has dropped his membership. He is a member of the Presbyterian church, and has
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been since 1863, and has been an elder in the church at Montgomery for years. His marriage took place in 1860 to Ellen Turner Graham, daughter of Judge William Graham of Autauga, Ala., who was for fourteen years state treasurer, and to this union there have been born three children, of whom one, Halton, died at the age of seven. The two surviving children are named as follows: Mary A., wife of George L. Harris, of Mont- gomery: William Owen Garside, D. D. S., of Montgomery, Ala. James Garside, father of William H., was born in Yorkshire, England, about 1800, and came to America in 1942, with his four children, as follows: William H., Alice, widow of Merrit Dayton, and who now lives in Upson county, Ga .; Owen, who now lives in Upson county, Ga .; and Sarah, who died unmarried. The mother of these children died in 1837.
JACOB GEIBEL, carriage manufacturer of Montgomery, was born in Germany, April 7, 1847, and in 1850 came to America with his parents, who located on Long Island, where they lived, and where Jacob went to school until 1860, when, with his parents; he removed to Henderson county, Ky., where he finished his education. Leaving school at the age of fourteen, he worked on his father's farm until 1865, and then served his time, learning the trade of a carriage woodworker, in Henderson county, Ky., which took him seven years; he then worked at his trade there until 1873, and then, in 1877, moved to Montgomery, Ala., where he worked at his trade until 1884, when the present Montgomery carriage company was organized, with Mr. Geibel as one of the three partners. Mr. Geibel was married, first in Henderson county, Ky., in 1869, to Mary Held, daughter of Jacob Held, one of the pioneers of the county, and had born to him three children, of whom two died in infancy; one, Lulu, unmarried, survives. Mrs. Mary Geibel died in 1882, and Mr. Geibel married Cora Adolf, née Fincher, and to them have been born three sons, as follows: Fred Emanuel, and Okeley Mills, and Cator Adolf, twins. Jacob Geibel, father of Jacob Geibel, was born in Germany in 1830, and came to America in 1850. He had seen military service in the old coun- try in 1848. He lived on Long Island, N. Y., until 1860, and then moved to Henderson county, Ky., where he remained until 1873, and then went to California, where he died in 1882. He married Margaret Falery, and to them were born five children, of whom two died in infancy (one on the way over the ocean), and three now survive, as follows: Margaret, wife first, of Henry Fenn, of Henderson county, Ky., and second, of Henry Busch, now living at Evansville, Ind .; Jacob Geibel. whose name heads this paragraph, and Joseph D., of Montgomery, Ala. The mother of this family died June 22, 1866. Mr. Jacob Geibel is a member of the Masonic fraternity and is a Knight of Pythias.
ABRAHAM GERSON, merchant of Montgomery, was born in Bavaria, Germany, December 28, 1826, was educated in his native country, and went into the general merchandising business with his father, and remained with him until he came to America in 1852, locating in Mont-
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gomery, Ala .. and at once entering into the dry goods and grocery bus- iness. He was married, in 1859. to Babette Strauss, daughter of Samuel Strauss, a native of Bavaria, in which country the marriage took place. To this union, there have been born six children, of whom two died in infancy, and four survive, as follows; Carrie, wife of A. Behr, of Mont- gomery; Samuel, of Montgomery; Nathan, of Montgomery, and Meyer Gerson, of Montgomery. Mr. Gerson is a member of the B'nai Brith, and the American Legion of Honor, and. during the late war, was a mem- ber of the Home militia. Meyer Gerson, father of Abraham, was born in Bavaria, and died in his native country. He served under Napoleon I. for six years. He married Rosina Kuhn, and to them were born four chil- dren, as follows: Regina, deceased in 1867, wife of Lazarus Seeleman; Mose L., died in Montgomery, Ala., in 1891; A., of Montgomery, and Jacob, of Bavaria.
COL. JAMES G. GILCHRIST, one of the most prominent and highly esteemed citizens of Montgomery county was born in Richmond county, N. C., in 1814. He is a son of Angus and Elizabeth (McNeel) Gilchrist, both natives of North Carolina, the former born in 1770, the latter in 1793. They spent all their lives in their native state, Mr. Gilchrist dying in 1833. He was a man of fine talent and was an educated gentle- man, and was very prominent in public affairs. By occupation he was a farmer and a surveyor, and in politics he was a whig. His father, John Gilchrist, was a native of Scotland, and he was reared and married in his native land. He was a sea captain for many years. After coming to this country he settled in North Carolina. followed farming and died in that state. Laughlin McNeel, father of Mrs. Elizabeth Gilchrist, was also a Scotchman; came to America when a young man, and married in North Carolina. He also followed farming, and died in that state. He was a soldier in the Revolutionary war as a tory. Mrs. Eliza- beth Gilchrist was the mother of five children, three sons and two daughters, and died in 1852. Colonel James G. Gilchrist was reared on a farm, with but limited education until he was twenty years old. He then entered Princeton college. in 1836, but remained only a short time, going thence to Schenectady, N. Y. He graduated in 1839 from the uni- versity of South Carolina, and the same year married Elizabeth Briggs, daughter of William Briggs, a civil engineer of considerable note. Mr. Briggs was an Irishman, and died in Columbia. S. C. Mrs. Gilchrist was born in Pennsylvania, was the mother of six children, and died in 1852. These children were: Angus, who served in the Sixth Alabama infantry all through the war, at first in Virginia and later in the Tennessee army. After the war he became a farmer, but is now deceased; Sallie, died young; Anna, died young; Kate, deceased wife of Frank McLean; Elizabeth, present wife of Frank McLean: Mollie, married G. W. Shack- elford, now deceased. Col. Gilchrist married Elizabeth J. McGehee. daughter of the celebrated Abner McGehee, in 1954. She was born in
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Alabama, and died in 1891. She was a most excellent lady and was the mother of three sons. all deceased, named, Abner; James, who was a prominent member of the legislature during 1890 and 1891. He was a very talented young man, a fluent and forcible speaker, and of com- manding dignity. There were few, if any, young men his equals in the state. He died in 1891. The other son was named Thomas. He was a school teacher and died while at school. Col. Gilchrist came to Ala- bama in 1840, settling at Haynesville, where he practiced law sixteen years with marked ability and success. In the fall of 1861 he raised a company for the Confederate army, and was made its captain. It was Company I, of the Forty-fifth Alabama infantry, and at the organization of the regiment he was made its colonel, and served in this capacity with distinction. He spent the winter at Pensacola, and in the spring of 1862 he joined the Tennessee army at Corinth, Miss .; and was with Bragg in his Kentucky campaign, fighting at Perryville, Murfreesboro and other places, and in April, 1863, he resigned on account of ill health. He was a gallant, brave and fearless soldier. After the war he engaged in farm- ing and has been thus engaged ever since. He now owns one of the fin- est plantations in Montgomery county, ten miles south of Montgomery. He was a member of the first legislature that assembled in Montgomery in 1847-48, and he was also a member of the same body in 1859-60. He was at this time elected to the secession convention, which absorbed the attention of the legislature and the people for some time. During his first term, in 1847-48, he served on the judiciary committee. He has been a member of the board of revenue for eighteen years, ever since it was established. He is a man of superior ability, firm in his convictions, honest in his purposes. an instructive and entertaining conversationalist, and one of the most conspicuous men in Montgomery county.
HON. EDWARD ALFRED GRAHAM, attorney-at-law at Montgomery, was born at Wetumpka, Ala., October 18, 1852, and was educated at Hender- son, Tex .. Montgomery, Ala., and the Washington and Lee university, at Lexington, Va. Leaving the latter in June, 1872, he came to Montgomery and studied law in the office of his father and that of Judge Thomas M. Arrington, was admitted to the bar in June, 1874, and has practiced in Montgomery, with unvarying success ever since. In March, 1877. he was appointed clerk of the circuit court, by Gov. Houston, and was elected in 1880, but resigned in 1881 to follow strictly his profession. In 1882, he was elected to the state legislature, and served two years, and in 1886 was elected to the state senate, and served four years. He has twice served as city recorder, and in 1889 was elected mayor of Montgomery and declined a renomination. For a number of years he was a member of the city school board, and once achieved a fine reputation as captain of the Montgomery Greys. He is active in democratic politics; is a K.of P., and in this order has served as past grand chancellor and as representative from Alabama to the supreme lodge. He was married in December, 1876, at
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Eufaula. to Miss S. C. Thornton, daughter of the late Dr. William H. Thornton of that city. The father of Mayor Edward Alfred Graham was the late Malcolm D. Graham, a member of the Confederate congress from Texas, and attorney-general of the state from 1859 to 1861. The father. died in Montgomery, Ala., in October, 1878, aged fifty-two years.
JACOB GREIL, one of the chief wholesale grocers of Montgomery, was born in Bohemia, in 1839, was educated principally in Bohemia, came to America in 1856 and located in Chambers county, Ala., where he clerked until 1860, when he went into business in Milltown, Ala., and remained until the war broke out, when, as fourth sergeant, he entered company D, Capt. Broome, Fourteenth regiment, Alabama infantry, then commanded by Col. Thomas Judge and afterward by Col. Bayne. He served as fourth sergeant two years and was then made commissary sergeant, and served as such until about February, 1864. He took part in the battles of Will- iamsburg, Va., Seven Pines, seven days' fight around Richmond, second Bull Run, Antietam, Frazier's Farm and many minor skirmishes. After leaving the service he settled in Montgomery, Ala., and went into the retail grocery business. which he carried on until 1872, and then went into the wholesale grocery business together with his brother Nathan. Jacob Greil has served twelve years as alderman of Montgomery, and was at one time commissary of the Second regiment, Alabama state troops, with the rank of captain. He is vice-president of the Farley National bank and vice-president of the National Building & Loan association; director in the Capital City insurance company and director in the bank of Montgomery; is a chapter Mason, a K. of P. and since 1882 has been grand master of exchequer of the grand lodge of K. of P. of Alabama. Also he belongs to the A. O. U. W., American Legion of Honor, the National Union and the Elks, the latter of which he is a trustee. Mr. Greil was married, in 1871, to Mena Lobman, daughter of Henry Lobman, of Montgomery, Ala., and has had nine children born to him, as follows: Naham J., Benjamin S., Terry Tilden, Gaston, Mamie, Blanche, Stella, Lottie and Juliette. Solomon Greil, father of Jacob Greil, was born in Bohemia in 1810, and came to America about 1872. He married Sarah Long, a native of Bohemia, and had born to him six children, as follows: Nathan, of Montgomery, Ala .; Jacob, of Montgomery; Lewis, of Selma, Ala .; Benjamin, of Charleston, S. C .; Kate, wife of Max Baum, of Mont- gomery, Ala. and Lena, wife of Joseph Leiter of Montgomery. Lewis Greil, one of this family, was in the Confederate service, enlisting in 1862 in the Fourteenth Alabama regiment (infantry), and serving until the war was about over.
CHARLES EDWARD HAILS, president of the Montgomery Brewing Co., was born in Montgomery county, Ala., on his father's farm, July 2, 1856, and was educated at Spring Hill college, near Mobile, Ala. Leav- ing the latter in 1872, he engaged in farming for two years and then set- tled in Montgomery and engaged in the cotton business until 1879, and
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then went into the grocery business until 1885; he then went into the manufacture of fertilizers, as manager of the Alabama Fertilizer Co., holding the position of manager until 1889, and then until 1891, he acted as manager of the Daily Dispatch; in November, 1889, he was elected president of the Montgomery Brewing Co., a stock company which was organized in May, 1889, and has continued to hold that position ever since. He was married November 4, 1884, to Florence F. Troy, daugh- ter of Daniel S. Troy, of Montgomery, and to them have been born four children, as follows: Troy, Sarah, Mary and Helen B. Mr. Hails is a member of the Catholic church. His father, George W. Hails, was born in Columbia, S. C., in 1811, and moved to Alabama about 1840. He was a farmer and served in the Mexican war. He married Sarah Bozier. a native of Columbia, S. C., and to them were born nine children, of whom seven grew up and now survive as follows: Sallie, wife of Geo. O. Jan- ney; Mary, wife of Dr. C. K. Duncan; Rebecca, wife of Major V. Elmore; Robert, George W., Thomas J., and Charles E: Hails, all of Montgomery. The father died in 1865, and the mother died in 1882. The grandfather was Robert Hails, a native of South Carolina.
WILLIAM RANDOLPH HALE was born in Montgomery county, Ala., January 10, 1853, and was educated in the common schools of the county. Leaving school at the age of fourteen. he went into a mill in Montgomery and remained one and a half years, and then was apprenticed to the book- binding trade, served five years and then worked as a journeyman until 1882, when he purchased an interest in the book-binding and printing establishment of Borntt & Brown, was then formed to W. D. Brown & Co., which was afterward formed into a stock company known as the Brown Printing Co., of which W. R. Hale is president. Mr. Hale was elected in May, 1891, alderman in ward two, of Montgomery, for two years. He was married in January, 1882, to Josie L. Hammond, daughter of the late Joseph Hammond of New York, who came to Alabama before the war. Mr. Hale is a member of the Knights of Honor and National Union and Odd Fellows. His father was Josiah Hale, who was born in Georgia in 1812 and moved to Alabama about 1850, and was a farmer all his life. He died in 1865. He married Sarah A. Sinclair, daughter of William. Sinclair, a native of South Carolina, and to them were born three children, as follows: W. R. Hale; J. R. Hale, Montgomery, and Mary. F., wife of T. J. Burton of Texas. Josiah Hale served in the Mexican war and was in the reserves in the last war. His wife survived him until 1891. Mr. Hale's great grandfather Hale came from England, prior to the Revolution, and settled in South Carolina.
JOSEPH L. HALL was born at Autaugaville, in Autauga county, Ala., in 1851. He was educated at Emory and Henry college, Virginia, and at the university of Georgia. He left the latter school in 1871 and went to Montgomery, where he began his business career as a clerk for LeGrand & Co., wholesale grocers. He was thus engaged for two years. For the
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next ensuing two years he was engaged in the warehouse business, and then started on his own account the business of merchandise brokerage. He was very successful as a broker, and in 1890, when the Farley national bank was organized, he was elected its president, a position he now holds. Mr. Hall's first wife was a Miss Farley, a daughter of James A. Farley, a well-known banker of Montgomery. His second wife, whom he mar- ried in 1887, was a Miss Susy Morris Barker, a beautiful blue-grass belle, of Kentucky. Mr. Hall is one of the most prominent of the busi- ness men of Montgomery; he is still young, has a striking personal appearance, fine manners and has an assuredly bright future.
BRADFORD HARDIE, wholesale grocer of Montgomery, Ala., was born in Lee county, Ark., March 25, 1859, and partly educated at Montgomery, Ala., where he came with his parents when ten years of age; this pre- paratory education was supplemented by an attendance at the.Agricultu- ral and Mechanical college at Auburn, Ala. Leaving the latter in 1880, in 1882 he went to Birmingham, Ala., where he remained with the Birm- ingham Iron works until 1884, when he settled in Montgomery. His father, of the firm of Gay & Hardie, dying at that time, young Bradford and the son of Mr. Gay, Charles L. Gay, together with John W. Durr, Jr., succeeded to the business, and the firm became Gay, Hardie & Co., under which style it continues. Mr. Hardie was married, in 1889, to Mary, daughter of Quinn Thornton, deceased, at one time a professor at How- ard college. James White Hardie, father of Bradford, of Montgomery, was born near Huntsville, Ala., May, 1831; first attended the common schools in Talladega county, Ala., and then entered Oglethorpe univer- sity of Georgia in 1849, graduating in 1851. He there, soon after, married Miss Margaret Caperton, a daughter of Hugh Caperton, Esq., of Jack- son county, Ala., after which he became a resident of Jackson county and engaged in farming. A year later his wife died, leaving one daugh- ter, Margaret, now wife of W. H. Clanton, of Jackson county, Ala. Mr. Hardie then went back to Talladega county and took care of his wid- owed mother and carried on the farm, also marrying, about 1858, Fan- nie, daughter of Gen. J. T. Bradford, of Talladega county, Ala .; by her he had two children: Bradford Hardie, of Montgomery, Ala., and Darthula, now wife of Judge Leonard Hendrick, of Fort Smith, Ark. James W. Hardie then moved to Philips county, Ark. where he pur- chased a plantation and engaged in farming until the spring of 1861, when, foreseeing the war, and that he would be compelled to take sides. he sold his farm and slaves and returned to Alabama with his family and enlisted in the Eighth Alabama cavalry regiment, commanded by Col. Martin, of Mississippi, and served as a private until discharged in 1864 on account of wounds. After his discharge he remained in Talladega, Ala., until the war closed, and then, in 1866, was elected to the legislature from Tal- ladega county. In 1867 he moved to Montgomery and went into business with Mr. Gay, which was carried on until his death. Mrs. Hardie died in
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