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 5
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Jefferson Davis, and was on April 13, 1861, the same day on whch Fort Sumter was fired upon, ordered to proceed to New Orleans, and was attached to the McCree, a seagoing vessel for the Confederate States navy. He with others fitted out this steamer, and from that time until June, 1862, he served on her, the ironclad ram, Manassas, and the Gen. Polk, first as midshipman. then as master, and finally as first lieutenant of the last named vessel. In June. 1862. he was sent to Mobile from the Yazoo river, and made a lieutenant on the ironclad Baltic, and contin ued on that vessel in that capacity until November, 1862. He was then ordered to the seagoing steamer, Florida, as a lieutenant and the navi- gating officer, and continued on that vessel until she was surprised and seized by the Federal steamer, Wachusetts, in the Bay of All Saints, October 7, 1864, in defiance of the international law and Brazilian author- ity. The Wachusetts sailed with the captured vessel and part of her crew, to Fortress Monroe, from which Lieut. Stone and companions were taken as prisoners to Point Lookout, Md., thence to Wash- ington city, and there incarcerated in the Old Capitol prison. A few days later he was taken to Boston, and imprisoned at Fort Warren, until February 1, 1865, when he was paroled on condition that he would quit the jurisdiction of the United States in ten days. He, with others of the Florida, at once sailed for Liverpool, England, and soon afterward made arrangements to again sail in a vessel built for the Con- federate service in England, to be commanded by Capt. Murdaugh, C. S. N., but the end of the war was drawing near, and the vessel he had made arrangements to sail in, was not launched. He remained abroad in Lon- don and Paris until November, 1865, when he returned to Mobile, Ala. He then, for between one and two years after his return, ran a steamboat between Mobile and New Orleans. In November, 1868, he was appointed a clerk in the probate court of Mobile, and continued to serve in this capacity until March 24, 1881, when he was appointed treasurer of Mobile county, by the governor of the state. The office was created in 1881, and he was the first incumbent . He has served ever since, having been elected in 1884 and in 1888 and in 1892, without opposition. He is a dem- ocrat in politics; he is also a Mason and belongs to the association of Confederate veterans. He was married December 28, 1865, to Miss Eliza J. Horton, daughter of Judge Gustavus Horton of Mobile. The father of Mrs. Stone served as mayor of Mobile and probate judge of Mobile county, and was a very prominent citizen of Mobile. He died January 6, 1892, in the eighty-fourth year of his age. Mr. and Mrs. Stone have three sons living: Sardine Graham Stone, a physician of Marengo county, Ala. ; Raymond Stone, a naval cadet of the U. S. N., and George Edwin Stone, a cadet of the state university at Tuscaloosa. The pater- nal grandmother of Mr. Stone was Carynthia Graham of Scotch descent, but a native of Darlington district in the state of South Carolina. .
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JOHN F. SUMMERSELL, clerk of the city of Mobile, was born in Eng- land, August 15, 1842. His father's name was John F. Summersell also, and his mother's maiden name Mary Fairbrother. They came to the United States in 1846, locating in Mobile, where they passed the remainder of their lives. Mobile has been the home of Mr. Summersell ever since he came to this country with his parents. He was educated in the Barton academy at Mobile, and during his youth learned the trade of a book binder. In the spring of 1861 he entered the service of the Confederate States as a private in company A, Twenty-fourth Alabama infantry, and served until the close of the war, having been promoted to the rank of corporal during the time of his service. He participated in many of the . important battles of the war, among them being those on the Montgom- ery and Purdy roads in front of Corinth and Blackland, Miss. He then went down with Gen. Bragg on his Kentucky campaign, during which time he fought in the battles of Perryville and Salvisa. Returning with Gen. Bragg to Tennessee he participated in the battle of Murfreesboro, at which he was slightly wounded. He subsequently fought in the bat- tles of Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, Resaca, Cartersville, Cassville, Kenesaw Mountain, Atlanta, Jonesboro and Lovejoy's Station. He also took part in the Tennessee campaign of Gen. Hood, and was in the bat- tles of Spring Hill and Nashville. He subsequently served under Gen. Johnston in North and South Carolina, losing his right leg in the latter state. He surrendered in Washington, Ga., in 1865, and returned to Mobile. On recovering from his wound, he resumed the trade of book binder, which he followed till 1875. He was then elected city clerk, and served one term of three years. In 1878 he was elected city assesor, and in 1879 was again elected city clerk, which position he has held ever since, having been re-elected in 1882, 1885, 1888 and 1891, and that he has proved an efficient officer is sufficiently attested by these successive re-elections. In politics he is a democrat, and he is a member of the . order of Knights of Pythias, a Knight of Honor, a member of the Ancient order of United Workmen, of the Alabama state artillery, of the volun- teer fire department, of the Ancient Order of Haymakers, and of the Manassas club, and of the Confederate veterans' association. He was married January 30, 1872, to Miss Anna Harrington, of Mobile, a native of Ireland, by whom he has eight children living, five sons and three daughters.
HA'NNIS TAYLOR, LL. D., attorney-at-law of Mobile, Ala., was born at Newbern, N. C., September 12, 1:51. His father, Richard N. Taylor, was a native of North Carolina, and a merchant by occupation. He was the son of William Taylor, a native of Scotland, who came to this country with his brother, Isaac, in the early part of this century, and located in North Carolina. The mother of Hannis Taylor was Susan Stevenson, a native of Newbern, N. C., a daughter of James C. Stevenson, also a native of North Carolina, and a merchant and ship owner. The Stevenson family
Itanmis Taylor.
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has resided in North Carolina for many generations. Both parents of Mr. Taylor are dead. Hannis Taylor was prepared for college at Love- joy's school for boys, at Raleigh, N. C., and in a school taught by Dr. Wilson of Alamance county, N. C. In 1867 he entered the university of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, as a freshman, but at the end of one year's attendance, owing to the financial reverses of his father. he was obliged to leave college. Returning home, he began the study of law in the office of John N. Washington, of Newbern. In 1869 he came to Mobile, entered the office of Anderson & Bond, and read law with them until December 16, 1869, when he was admitted to the bar. March 29, 1872, he was admitted to practice law in the supreme court of Alabama, and on December 7, 1885, he was admitted to practice in the supreme court of the United States. Immediately after his admission, he began practice in Mobile, at the bar of which city he now occupies a prominent place. He has been a constant practitioner before the supreme court of Alabama for the past twenty years, and he has been connected with many cele- brated cases, among them that of Watson vs. the city of Mobile, which he argued in the United States supreme court. He was also of counsel in the freedom of the press cases, lately argued in the United States supreme court. For several years he-acted as solicitor for Baldwin county, residing at the time in Mobile. Mr. Taylor is known through- out this country and outside of it as the author of "The Origin and Growth of the English Constitution," a work published in Boston and in London in 1889, which has had a circulation both in America and Europe, and which has been adopted as a text book in many universities. Cur- rent Literature said that Mr. Taylor's work is the greatest produced in the south since Maury's "Physical Geography of the Sea." In politics Mr. Talyor is a democrat, and he is a member of the State Bar associa- tion, and served as its president two years. He is one of the governing counsel of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, and he is a member of the American Historical society and the Massachusetts Antiquarian socitey. He is vice-president of the Sewanee Historical society. The degree of LL. D., was conferred upon him by both the university of North Carolina and the university of Alabama. He is a trustee of the Medical college of Alabama. Mr. Taylor was married in May, 1878, to Miss Leonora Le Baron of Mobile, and by her he has five children, three sons and two daughters.
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JAMES GREY THOMAS, a physician "of Mobile, Ala., was born in Franklin county, N. C., December 15, 1835. His father, Maj. Joseph J. Thomas, was a native of North Carolina, a farmer by occupation, and died in 1888. Maj. Thomas was a son of Joseph Thomas, who resided in Virginia and who also was a land owner. The father of Mr. Joseph Thomas came from Wales, and founded in the United States a family which is a credit to the nation. The mother of James Grey Thomas was Sarah Sill, a daughter of Josiah Sill, who was a native of Virginia.
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Almost in his boyhood Dr. Thomas determined to be a physician, and his remarkable aptitude for the profession quickly manifested itself. At the beginning of his medical studies he read with Dr. Franklin Drake, of Washington county, N. C .; but subsequently chose Dr. Solomon Williams for his preceptor. This eminent physician prepared Dr. Thomas to enter upon a collegiate medical course, which he did in the medical department of the university of Pennsylvania in 1834. From this college he gradu- ated in 1856. After receiving his diploma he returned to Cedar Rock, Franklin county, N. C., and embarked in the practice of his profession there. Naturally pushing and ambitions and, moreover, greatly gifted and well read in his chosen profession, Dr. Thomas sought a broader field, and in 1858 he attended another course of lectures in Philadephia, and afterward located in Wilson, Wilson county, N. C. where he established a large practice which continued to increase up to the time the Civil war broke out. He was then appointed surgeon in the Confederate army of Virginia, and served in this capacity until his health failed. His medical and surgical skill were, however, of too high an order to be dispensed with where fighting was being done, and he was, on that account, transferred from the land forces to the navy, in which branch of the service he remained till the war was over. The recognition accorded him, on account of his talents, by the transfer of his services from the army to the navy, was a pleasing tribute to his great ability in his pro- fession; a man of inferior skill would have been allowed to go to his home. When he was released from duty on board the ship be was still far from being in a state of good health, so he sought the balmy region of the Gulf coast, settling near Mobile. Here the genial climate and bracing air soon brought back health and pleasure. In 1881 Dr. Thomas' friends prevailed upon him to locate in the city of Mobile, correctly surmising that his great talents would speedily place him in the front ranks of his profession, and that at the same time the acquisition of his services would redound much to the credit of the city. Yielding to the importunities of his friends he determined to practice in Mobile, and in 1881, located there permanently. Since that time his career has been marked by the most pronounced success. Ever since he began to practice , in Mobile his services have been in constant requisition and the highest honors of the profession have been showered upon him - such honors as only those who reach the highest walks in medical life achieve. In 1889 it devolved upon the state of Alabama, through its executive officers, to appoint a commissioner to the great Paris Exposition, and their choice fell upon Dr. Thomas. He was in Europe many months, during which time he gave the very closest attention to the hospital systems in Paris. Not content with the experience gained in the hospitals of the French capital he journeyed to London, and while there made a most complete and business-like examination of the great infirmaries and hospitals in that great city. He was treated with marked consideration and was
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accorded all facilities for noting the methods in vogue in these institu- tions. Leaving London, he visited the hospitals in Edinburgh and in Dublin, and returned to America, bringing with him a host of data, which have proved of incalculable benefit to him in his practice and to the people of the state at large, through his association with the various medical and health boards in the state. It may be mentioned in this connection that Dr. Thomas is a counselor of the State Medical associa- tion of Alabama, and member of the Electro-therapeutic association and Mobile Medical society, of which he has been the president. and of whose board of censors he is now a member; he is also a member of the com- mittee on public health, in which capacity his ripe experience and admir- able executive ability render him especially valuable to the commonwealth. Dr. Thomas is also a member of the Pan-American Medical congress. A stanch democrat and so popular with all classes, he has often been requested by his friends to accept of political preferment, but. true to the best interests of his profession, he has never permitted his name to be mentioned in connection with any political office, nor has he ever sought any notoriety in political affairs, content to continue his practice undis- turbed by the turmoil and strife of political life. Dr. Thomas is a member of the Masonic fraternity, and a member of the order of Knights of Pythias. He was married February 5, 1865, to Miss Hattie Ellison, of Washington, N. C., and two children-a son, and a daughter-have been born to them. Dr. Thomas is a member of the Protestant Episcopal church. Looking back over the career of this remarkable man, from the incipient stage of his medical education to the present time, his strict determination to succeed cannot but be noticed. A tireless worker from the first he has ever sought new fields to conquer in his profession, and hence the latest and best methods have been adopted by him in his treat- ment of disease and in surgery. These, combined with natural talents, and unchallenged integrity. have placed him in the prominent position he now occupies in medical and social circles.
MAJ. JOHN R. TOMPKINS, leading attorney of Mobile, Ala., was born in Edgefield, S. C., September 23. 1833. His father, Maj. John Tomp- ,kins, was also a native of Edgefield, and a planter by occupation, by which occupation he accumulated a large estate. He removed from Edgefield to Snmter county, Ala., in 1850. and spent the remainder of his life in that county, dying in 1886. He had served. while living in South Carolina, as a member of the legislature of that state. He was a son of the Hon. Stephen Tompkins, also a native of Edgefield, and a planter who also served as a member of the legislature of South Carolina. Stephen Tomp- kins was a son of Franklin Tompkins. a South Carolinian by birth, who served as a lieutenant in the Revolutionary army. The American branch of the Tompkins family. to which Maj. John R. belongs, has descended from Samuel Tompkins. who was born in Essex, England, and who, in company with two cousins, came to America about 1740. Samuel located
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in South Carolina, while one of his cousins located in Virginia, and the other cousin in New York. From the latter of these two cousins descended the Hon. Daniel D. Tompkins, vice-president of the United States under President James Monroe. The mother of Maj. John R. Tompkins was Mary Robertson, a native of Edgefield. S. C. who died in 1843. Her father was Ezra Robertson, who was also born in Edgefield, and who was of Welsh descent. Maj. John R. Tompkins was prepared for college at the Hodges institute of Abbeville, S. C. In 1850 he entered Yale college, remaining there a term and a half, when he was obliged to leave his studies on account of ill health. Returning to Edgefield, he entered upon the study of law in the office of Gen. M. L. Bonham, after- ward governor of South Carolina. In 1855 he joined his father at Liv- ingston, Sumter county, Ala., where for two years he edited the Sumter Democrat. On April 2, 1857, he married Miss Fannie Williams, sister o'f Col. Price Williams, of Mobile, and a lady of much literary ability. In 1859 he removed to Mobile, which place has since been his home. Dur- ing the first years of the war he was prostrated from sun-stroke, and ill health prevented him from uniting with any company of Confederate soldiers, as he most ardently desired to do. In 1863, however, having partially recovered, he entered the ordnance department, but his military record was exceedingly checkered, as he was discharged five times on account of ill health. In the latter part of 1863 he assisted Gen. Ramsey in organizing the Alabama state troops, having been appointed inspector- general on that officer's staff. This service was purely voluntary upon his part, as he was exempt from duty at the time. He was serving in the capacity last mentioned at the time of the final surrender. He had been admitted to the bar in 1857 at Livingston, and after locating in Mobile he formed a partnership with Howard H. Caldwell, a well known poet, whom ill health compelled to retire a short time afterward. In 1865, Maj. Tompkins was elected to the state legislature, and served one term of two years, being appointed chairman of the committee on corpor- ations, at the time one of the most laborious committees of the house, by reason of the fact that the several charters of institutions in the state had to be changed-one of the results of the war. While he bitterly opposed the proposition to give aid to the railroads of the state, yet the aid was voted to them. Maj. Tompkins filed his protest against the action, and predicted that it would bankrupt the state in ten years. The result was that the state was bankrupted in five years. In 1866 he was admitted to practice in the supreme court of the state, and in 1871 in the supreme court of the United States. At the close of his legislative term he turned his whole attention to the practice of the law, and in 1876 he was elected solicitor for the sixth judicial circuit of Alabama. and served one term of four years. In 1886 he was a candidate for the democratic congressional nomination, and came within one vote of receiving it .. Maj. Tompkins is a democrat in politics, but is a conservative one. He is a
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member of the Protestant Episcopal church, is a past grand master of Odd Fellows in the state of Alabama, and for six years was a member of the grand lodge of the United States. During the last of these six years he was grand marshal of that body. Maj. Tompkins has four children, three sons and one daughter; one of the sons, Charles W. Tompkins, is a lawyer by profession, and the partner of his father, the name of the firm being John R. & Charles W. Tompkins.
CHARLES J. TORREY, attorney-at-law of Mobile, Ala., was born in Claiborne, Monroe county, April 25, 1850. His father was Judge Rufus C. Torrey, a native of Massachusetts, a lawyer by profession, who moved from Massachusetts to Alabama some time in the thirties, and who spent the remainder of his days in this state, dying in 1882. Judge Torrey was a descendant of an emigrant from England. The mother of Charles J. · was Elizabeth Sargent Henshaw, a native of Alabama. She died in 1837. Her father was Andrew Henshaw, a native of Massachusetts, who came to Alabama shortly after the war of 1812, having served as a soldier in that war. Andrew Henshaw was a nephew of the Hon. David Henshaw, who was secretary of the navy under President John Tyler, after the death of Hon. Hon. A. P. Upshur. Charles J. Torrey was educated at an academy at Leicester, Mass., and at the Bellevue institute, near Lynch- burg, Va. He then devoted his attention to surveying for about two years, after which, in 1872, he entered upon the study of the law in the office of his father at Claiborne, Ala. He was admitted to the bar in the fall of 1873, and at once began the practice of law in Claiborne. Shortly afterward he received the appointment of register in chancery of Monroe county, and then removed to Monroeville, the county seat. He held that position some four or five years and then resigned. In 1879 he removed to Mobile, where he has since practiced his profession without interrup- tion and with success. He is a member of the firm of Pillans, Torrey & Hanaw, one of the ablest legal firms of Mobile. In the fall of 1889 he was elected city attorney of Mobile to fill out an unexpired term. which ended in 1891. At the close of this term he was re-elected to the office and he is now the incumbent, his term extending to March 15, 1894. In politics he is a democrat, and in religion he is an Episcopalian. He has been twice called upon to serve as a delegate to his party's conventions. He was admitted to practice before the supreme court of the state in 1877. He was married in January, 1887, to Miss Helen Gibbons, of Mobile, who is a member of the Episcopalian church.
HARRY T. TOULMIN judge of the southern district of Alabama, was born in Mobile county, Ala., March 4, 1838. His father was Gen. Theoph- ilus L. Toulmin, a native of Kentucky, and a planter by occupation, who came from Alabama to Kentucky with his parents when he was nine years old. The father of H. T. Toulmin spent the remainder of his days in Alabama, his death occurring July 4, 1866. He was a prominent dem- ocratic politician, and served in the Alabama legislature twenty-five
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years, during most of which time he was a member of the senate, and he served as presiding officer several times. He was appointed postmaster of Mobile in 1848 by President Polk, and served during the rest of his adminis- tration. He was again appointed, by President Pierce, and again by President Buchanan, serving until 1859, when he resigned. He had served as general of the state militia, and was in the Indian wars of 1814 and 1815. He was a son of Judge Harry Toulmin, a native of Eng- land, but of French Huguenot descent, who, upon emigrating to America, landed at Norfolk, Va .. and resided for a short time in that state, after which he removed to Lexington, Ky., in which state he became a promi- nent man. His profession was that of a lawyer, and during his residence in Kentucky, he served as secretary of state, and also as president of Transylvania university at Lexington. He was appointed United States judge of the territory of Mississippi by Psesident Jefferson, and it was because of this appointment that he removed to Alabama territory, and in that and the state of Alabama spent the rest of his life. His death occurred in 1824. The mother of H. T. Toulmin was Amante Juzan, who was of French parentage, born in Mobile and died in 1862. Judge H. T. Toulmin was educated in the university of Alabama and the university of Virginia, at the latter institution completing a partial course of law. He then attended one course of lectures in the law department of the uni- versity of Louisiana. His legal preceptor was the Hon. Robert H. Smith, a former distinguished lawyer of Mobile. He was admitted to the bar and began the practice in Mobile, in 1860, and on July 1, of that year, he formed a partnership with his preceptor. He had scarcely become established in his profession when the war broke out, and on April 23, 1861, he enlisted in the Confederate service as a private soldier in the Mobile cadets, which belonged to the Third Alabama infantry. He served throughout the war, or until April 26, 1865, a period of four years and three days. His first promotion was to the first lieutenancy of company H, Twenty-second Alabama infantry, in September, 1861, but shortly afterward, he was promoted to the captaincy of that company, and he served in that capacity until the battle of Chickamauga, having participated in the battles of Shiloh, Perryville and Murfeesboro, and during the progress of the battle of Chickamauga he was made major of his regiment, and commanded the regiment during the remainder of the engagement. Two months latter he was promoted to the lieutenant- colonelcy of the regiment, and in July, 1864, he was made colonel. He served as colonel until the close of the war, but had command of his brigade during a great portion of the time. He surrendered with Gen. Johnston at Greensboro, N. C. The war having closed, he resumed the practice of the law in the fall of 1865 in Mobile. He rose rapidly in his profession, and soon reached a position in the front rank among the leading lawyers of that city. Entering the political arena, he was elected to the state legislature in the fall of 1870. During the term he
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