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 6
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served in the legislature he was admitted to practice before the supreme court of the state. . While a member of the legislature he served as chair- man of the committee on judiciary, then one of the most important com- mittees of that body, and he was also a member of the committee on cor- porations. In November of 1874 he was elected judge of what was then the sixth judicial circuit of Alabama, for a term of six years, and in 1880 he was re-elected without opposition, the circuit meanwhile having been changed from the sixth to the first, and much extended. In 1882 he resigned the office and resumed the practice of the law, but in December, 1886, he was appointed by President Cleveland to the position of United States judge for the southern district of Alabama, which position he now holds. He is a senior warden of the Trinity Protestant Episcopal church. Judge Toulmin was married May 4, 1869, to Miss Mary Montague Hen- shaw, a niece of the Hon. David Henshaw, secretary of the navy under President Tyler, and former proprietor of the Boston Post. Judge Toul- min's judicial ability is of the highest order. He is not deficient in a single quality which should belong to a jurist, and each of these qualities is developed to a degree very rarely attained.
REV. GARDINER C. TUCKER, rector of St. John's Protestant Episcopal church, Mobile, Ala., was born in Boston, Mass., October 1, 1851., An extensive mention of his ancestry appears elsewhere in this work. He received his collegiate education at Shurtleff college, a Baptist institution at Upper Alton, Ill. His mother died when he was about three weeks old, and his father died when he was about two years old. After the death of his mother, his father placed him in charge of Mrs. Willett, Boston. Mass., who, after his father's death, removed to Madison, Wis., and when he was eight years old moved to Alton, Ill., where she remained about eight years. At the age of sixteen, Mr. Tucker came south to Columbus, Miss., where two of his elder brothers resided at the time, and there he entered the employ of Humphries, Hudson & Co., merchants of that place, and remained with them until 1873. In that year with the money he had saved, he purchased the Columbus Index, a democratic paper, published weekly and tri-weekly, and was editor and proprietor three years. In December, 1873, he married Miss Melville L. Eckford, of Col- umbus, Miss., who is his present wife, and by whom he has had eight children, all of whom are living except one son and one daughter. There were five sons and three daughters. In 1876 he sold the Index, and removed to St Louis, Mo., where in the fall of the same year he entered the Baptist ministry, his father and grandfather having been Baptist ministers before him. In the spring of 1877, he was ordained, and remained in the Baptist ministry at St. Louis, until 1879. In 1877, he was made secretary of the Baptist association of the city and county of St. Louis, and served as such two years. His religious belief having by this time somewhat changed, he applied, in 1879, to Bishop Charles F. Robert- son. of Missouri, for holy orders. He was accepted, and ordained deacon,
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March 27, 1881, and was ordained priest. July 7, 1882. in the church of Holy Communion an St. Louis, by Bishop Roberison. He passed the five full canonical examinations in everything except Hebrew, with the highest marks in each. His first Episcopal charge was Christ church, Collins- ville, Ill., of which he was the rector a year and a half, when he was called to St. John's Protestant Episcopal church, west St. Louis. In 1885 he was called to St. John's Protestant Episcopal church, Mobile, and of this church he is still the rector. This is the largest parish in Mobile, having a membership of about two thousand. He has for two years been review editor of the Mobile Register. He is chaplain of the First regiment Alabama state troops, of which he is a member, and in which he has been a commissioned officer since 1886. He is also a member and treasurer of the Gulf City guards; he is a Knight Templar and chaplain of his commandery; he is an Odd Fellow, and grand chap- lain of the order in the state; he is a Knight of Pythias, and is very prominent in that order, as well as others; he is a member of the Knights and Ladies of Honor, and is a past protector of that order. In politics, he is a democrat. He was formerly a member of the fire department of Mobile, having received his education, as a fireman, in early life. He is an efficient pastor, a reputable citizen, and is exceedingly popular with all classes of society.
P. R. TUNSTALL, JR., D. D. S., of Mobile, Ala., was born in Baldwin county, Ala., October 6, 1834. His father is Dr. P. R. Tunstall, Sr., a native of Baldwin county, Ala., also a dentist by profession, and a resident of Baldwin county. He was the son of George B. Tunstall, a native of Virginia. The mother of Dr. Tunstall was Laura L. Slaughter, a native of Baldwin county, Ala., who died in 1874. Her father was Col. Lee Slaughter, who served as a lieutenant under Gen. Jackson in the Creek war. Dr. Tunstall began the study of dentistry in 1878. During the years 1879 and 1880, he pursued his studies under Dr. Robert A. Savage, of Mobile, and in the fall of 1881, he entered the Philadelphia dental college, in which he completed a full course, graduating in 1883. He at once began the practice of his profession in Mobile, and is now one of the leading dentists in that city. In politics he is a democrat, and he is a Knight Templar Mason. He was married September 17, 1884, to Miss Annie R. McCurdy of Mobile, by whom he has three children, two sons and one daughter. Paternally Dr. Tunstall is in the main of English ancestry, though on this side there is a slight admixture of Indian blood his paternal grandmother being a daughter of David Tait, a half-brother of the Indian chief Weatherford. The Tunstalls in Virginia were related to the Randolphs of that state, to which family the noted John Randolph of Roanoke belonged. Dr. Tunstall is a striking person physically. He is six feet one and one-half inches tall, and weighs 295 pounds. He is a rigidly temperate man, never having taken a chew of tobacco, nor smoked
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either a cigar or a cigarette. He has never taken a drink of liquor in his life either, except in case of sickness, and then only as a medicine.
THOMAS TATE TUNSTALL was born in Baldwin county, Ala., April 8, 1823. His father was George Tunstall, a native of Virginia, who died at Montgomery Hill, Baldwin county, Ala., July 28, 1842. He was a news- paper man by profession, and was once editor of the Nashville Whig, and was the first man to publish an American newspaper in the state of Florida. The paper was the Floridian, and published in Pensacola. The father of George Tunstall was Edmund Savage Tunstall, a native of Virginia, who died in the state of Kentucky, whither he had gone at an early day. The Tunstall family are lineal descendants of Sir Brian Tun stall, who was killed at the battle of Flodden Field in 1573, in the war between England and Scotland, so graphically described in Scott's Mar- mion, where he is styled "Tunstall of the white plume, Tunstall the'unde- filed." The mother of Thomas T. Tunstall was Elouisa Tate, daughter of David Tate (of Tate's Shoals, of the Alabama river), who was the son of Col. Tate, of the British army, who was a native of Scotland. She was the niece of the celebrated Creek warrior, Weatherford, the hero of the massacre of Fort Mims, who fought, with Gen. Jackson, the battles of Talladega, Tallushatchee, Emukfau and Tohopaka, and is the hero of Alexander B. Meek's poem, The Red Eagle. She died in 1873, at an advanced age. Thomas Tate Tunstall completed his education at Chapel Hill college, North Carolina. He then studied law, and distinguished himself, at the age of twenty three, by an address to the legislature of Alabama in advocacy of the claim of citizens of Indian blood to the right of suffrage. He removed to Texas in 1851, where he practiced law several years and returned to Alabama in 1854. In 1856, he was appointed United States consul at Cadiz, Spain, by President Pierce, where he resided until 1861, when he was removed by President Lincoln. He was subsequently arrested at Tangier, Morocco (February, 1862), at the insti- gation of the Federal consul, and confined for days in irons till called for and carried to sea on the United States corvette, Ino. He was trans- ferred a few days after to a merchant ship bound to Boston, where he was finally landed, the irons removed from his limbs after fifty seven days, by a blacksmith in the United States marshal's office, and then committed to Fort Warren by order of Secretary Seward. He was subsequently released unconditionally, by order of Mr. Seward. He repaired to Wash- ington, and after a lapse of several months, obtained a permit from Mr. Stanton, the secretary of war, to return to his home in the south. His southern blood and sympathies soon, however, got him into another dilemma. He procured a pass to run the blockade from the Confederate secretary of war, with a view to render some service to the now lost cause, when he was captured in the Federal lines and taken to the Old Capitol prison in Washington, where he was confined for six months as a spy, but was finally released upon condition that he would go to Europe
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and remain till the war was over. He honorably abided by his parole and returned to Alabama in 1866, having been absent two years. In 1867, he went to Texas, where he remained two years, returning to Alabama in 1869, and his residence since has been divided between Baldwin county and Mobile. Since 1869, he has devoted his time and attention to life insurance and has ranked as a first-class life agent. Early in President Cleveland's administration he was appointed consul to Ascension, Para- guay, but declined the position. In 1888, he was appointed consul to San Salvador. Central America, and remained there till 1890, when he was removed by President Harrison. He is a master Mason, initiated at Gibralter in 1857. He was married January 24, 1871, to Miss Josephine Crossland, who is his present wife. They have two sons-Thomas Tate, Jr., and Bryan, named after the gallant knight slain at the battle of Flodden. His home is now permanently in Mobile, where he is at present engaged in the government service in deepening the harbor.
GARRETT VAN ANTWERP, druggist of Mobile, Ala., was born in Albany county, N. Y., December 7, 1833. His father is Daniel Van Antwerp, a native of Albany county, N. Y., also, and is a resident of Mobile, though in his eighty-eighth year. He was the son of Andrew Van Antwerp, also a native of New York state, and of Dutch ancestry. Garrett Van Antwerp's mother was Maria Callanan, a native also of Albany county, N. Y. She died in 1842. Her father was James Callanan, a native also of Albany county, N. Y .. whose father came to the United States from Ireland prior to the Revolutionary war. Garrett Van Antwerp received a common school education, and in 1848 went to New York. and there obtained a position as clerk in a drug store, remaining in that capacity until 1858, in which year he came south, and located in Mobile. Here he was engaged as a drug clerk until the breaking out of the war, when he enlisted in the Twenty-first Alabama as a private soldier. Shortly afterward he was transferred to the medical department, and from that time until the close of the war he was in the hospital service. After the close of the war he resumed clerking, and so continued until 1868, when he engaged in the drug business on his own account. This business he has continued with but slight interruption ever since, and he is now one of the oldest and most highly respected druggists in the city. In politics he has always been a democrat. He is also a Knight Templar, and belongs to the Confederate veterans' association. He was married in 1868 to Miss Catherine Lain, of Mobile, by whom he has eight children, five sons and three daughters.
WALTER F. WALSH, grocer of Mobile, Ala., was born in that city, August 9, 1863. His father, P. W. Walsh, was born in county Mayo, Ireland, in 1838. and emigrated to the United States in 1852. At first, he located in New York. and remained there until 1855. He afterward lived five years in Illinois, and removed to Mobile, Ala., in 1860. Wiren the war broke out he was placed on detached duty and stationed in Mobile,
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where he remained until the war was over. He then established himself in the grocery business in Mobile, and has been thus engaged ever since. In 1862, he was married to Kate Gavin, a native of Ireland. He is a member of the Catholic church, and a member of the Catholic Knights of . America. Walter F. Walsh was educated at Spring Hill college, and. at Bay Saint Louis, Miss., graduating from Spring Hill college in 1879. After serving as a clerk in a store for some time, he went into business with his father, and he is thus engaged at the present time. He was married, in 1886, in Cleveland, Ohio, to Anna E. McDonnell, daughter of John McDonnell, of Cleveland, Ohio. He is a member of the Mobile lodge of Elks, and of the Catholic Knights of America.
COL. MORRIS D. WICKERSHAM, United States district attorney for the southern district of Alabama, was born in Chester county, Pa., March 14, 1839. His father was Caleb Wickersham, a native of Pennsylvania and an independent farmer, who died in 1874. The latter was a son of Caleb Wickersham, also a native of Pennsylvania, and an independent farmer, whose father was likewise a Pennsylvanian. Col. Wickersham descended from an old Quaker family founded by an emigrant from England. His mother was Abigail S. Pyle, a native of Pennsylvania, who died also in 1874. Her father was James Pyle, a native of Pennsylvania, a large land owner, and a Quaker, and a descendent from a Scotchman. It will thus be seen that Col. Wickersham is descended on both father's and mother's side of his family from Quaker ancestors, and no one will be surprised, therefore, when it is stated that he is himself a member in good standing of that denomination. He received an academic education, and at the age of nineteen, entered upon the vocation of a teacher. He was at first principal of the male high school at Columbia, Penn., which posi- tion he occupied one term. He was elected assistant instructor in mathe- matics and sciences in Washington academy at Columbia, Penn., holding this position one term. During that term he was elected a member of the faculty of the state normal school at Millersville, Penn., and in con- nection with this institution, he acted as assistant instructor in mathe- matics and Latin, and later as superintendent of the model school for three terms, resigning in September, 1861, to enter the Union army. He at once raised Company E, Seventy-ninth Pennsylvania volunteers, of which he was made captain, and joined the army of the Ohio at Louisville, Ky., and subsequently served in the army of the Cumberland from its organi- zation to its dissolution. This company he commanded until the fall of 1863, when he was transferred to the quartermaster's department. At first he was captain and assistant quartermaster, and later he was colonel and quartermaster. He was made chief quartermaster for the depart- ment of Alabama, with headquarters at Mobile, October, 1865, and in April, 1866, he was assigned to the position of chief quartermaster for the department of the south, with headquarters at Macon, Ga. During the war, for faithful and meritorious services he was brevetted major,
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lieutenant-colonel, and colonel in the line, his commissions for these pro- motions being issued by the war department at the request of Gen. George H. Thomas, and also at the request of Gen. Thomas, he was trans- ferred to the quartermaster's department, and made a full colonel in said service, thus enjoying five commissions granted at the request of that dis- tinguished Union general. He remained in Macon only a few months, when he resigned, and settled in Alabama. In 1868, Col. Wickersham settled his large army accounts, amounting to many million dollars. In said settlement a balance of 845 7-100 was found due him, and a war war- rant was issued for the same. Prior to the war he had cherished a desire, and fully intended, to enter Heidelberg university, Germany, but by reason of his service in the army, his purpose had to be abandoned. In 1865, Franklin and Marshall college of Pennsylvania conferred upon him the degree of master of arts, in recognition of his scholarly attainments. During the years 1867 and 1868, he took a very active part in the recon- struction of the state of Alabama. In 1870 he was elected treasurer of Mobile, serving two terms, and upon retiring from this office the incoming democratic city council and board of aldermen unanimously tendered him a vote of thanks for his fidelity to the interests of the city, a fact of which he may justly feel proud, when the high state of political feel- ing running at that time is taken into consideration. In 1871 he was admitted to the bar at Mobile, and in 1872 he was admitted to practice in the supreme court of the state. In 1873 he was appointed postmaster of Mobile by President Grant, and he was re-appointed in 1877 by President Hayes. He served nearly nine years, from 1873 to. 1882. The business of the Mobile postoffice, during said period, averaged annually about $1,000,000. In final settlement a difference of 50 cents only was found between the accounts as rendered by Col. Wickersham and as audited at the treasury department. In 1872 he was appointed by President Grant a member of the board of visitors to the United States naval academy, serving on the committee with Professor Bartlett of West Point. During the years 1883 and 1884 he traveled throughout the west, and early in 1885 he opened a law office in Mobile, where he has since remained in the active and successful practice of the law. Upon the inauguration of President Harrison in 1889, his fellow members of the Mobile bar, and the local state and federal judges, signed a petition to the president to appoint Col. Wickersham United States district attorney for the southern district of Alabama, and accordingly, on April 19, 1989, the president made the appointment. Col. Wickersham has held that office ever since. It is almost needless to say, after reciting the above narrative, that Col. Wickersham is a republican. He cast his first presidential vote for Abraham Lincoln in 1460, and his last for President Harrison. Every vote of his life, whether for national, state, or municipal officers, has been a republican vote. He is one of the most active and most highly respected republicans in the entire state of Alabama, as well as one of
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that party's most effective stump speakers. He has always been one of the most prominent southern republicans. He was a delegate in 1876 to the national republican convention at Cincinnati that nominated Ruther- ford B. Hayes for the presidency, and for several years served as a member of the state republican committee. He was also for several years chairman of the republican executive committee of Mobile county. He is a Mason and a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, and is at the present time chaplain of his post. Col. Wickersham was married July 3, 1866, to Miss Eugenia Fristoe, of Virginia, who died in 1874, the same year in which both his father and mother died. She left one daugh- ter. On January 4, 1883, he married Miss Agnes E. McGrew, of Wash- ington, D. C. In 1866 Col. Wickersham was instructed by the war depart- ment to purchase from the city of Mobile a tract of land for a national cemetery, and Mr. G. Y. Overall, who was then a member of the board of alderman, introduced a resolution providing for the conveyance to Col. M. D. Wickersham, as trustee, a tract of land for a nominal sum, the result being a beautiful national cemetery at Mobile. Though, as remarked in the beginning of this sketch, Col. Wickersham was, by the coming of the war, deprived of a warmly cherished desire of completing his education at one of the best universities in Europe, yet by a close and extensive reading he has become a ripe scholar, and has delivered numerous public addresses, some of which have attracted wide attention. His first public address was a eulogy on the life of Dr. Frisha Kent Kane, delivered in 1861. He has frequently been called upon to deliver Fourth of July addresses and memorial orations. He is a member of the society of the Army of the Cumberland, has served as its vice-president, is a member of the Alabama State Bar association. and is also a member of the American Academy of Political and Social Science of Philadelphia. Col. Wickersham is a fine specimen of physical manhood, standing about six feet high, perfectly erect, has a full chest, and a ruddy complexion, indicative of regular babits and a careful regimen, without which health cannot be maintained.
COL. PRICE WILLIAMS, JR., probate judge of Mobile, Ala., was born at Livingston, Sumter county. Ala., February 21, 1839. His father's name was Price Williams, also, the latter being a native of Virginia. He was a farmer and merchant by occupation, but in his youth he learned the carpenter trade. He came to Alabama from Virginia, some time in the thirties, and located first at Livingston. In 1848, he removed to Mobile, where he spent the remainder of his days, being for many years, one of the leading merchants there. While a resident of Livingston, he served as clerk of Sumter county for thirteen years. He was a promi- nent Mason, and served as deputy of the state of Alabama. He was a man of magnificent physique, being six feet tall, and broad in proportion, and he had great personal magnetism. He served as member of the state legislature of Alabama, and his death occurred in 1886. The
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mother of Col. Price Williams, Jr., was Pauline Nash, a daughter of Peter Nash, and, like her father, a native of Virginia. Both paternally and maternally, Mr. Williams was of Welsh descent. He was about ten years old when his parents removed to Mobile. He graduated from the Wesleyan university, at Florence, Ala., in 1859, as an A. B., and was the valedictorian of his class. For two or three years after graduating, he acted in a clerical capacity in Mobile for the firm of Gardner, Wil- liams & Co., the leading mercantile firm of Mobile, his father being a member. Prior to the breaking out of the Civil war, he was a member of the Mobile cadets, a local military organization, which won for itself an enviable reputation for courage during the war. In 1861, he entered the Confederate service in the capacity of a special aid to Gen. W. H. Har- dee, continuing in this relation about four months, when he was made adjutant by Gen. Hindman, of the Third Confederate regiment, and served with this rank four months. He was then assigned to duty as first lieutenant of company F, of the same regiment. After the first battle of Mumfordsville, he was promoted to the captaincy of company F, and commanded this company till the battle of Shiloh, in which he was severely wounded, and was disabled for many months. He organized the Pelham cadets, a battalion of two companies which he commanded. He was captured at Fort Gaines, in 1864, but immediately escaped from prison with Gen. Whiting, and rejoined his command in Mobile. He sur- rendered as a part of Dick Taylor's command at the su render of Lee. At the battle of Fort Gaines, he commanded the entire land force. At the close of the war, he returned to Mobile and engaged in the mercan- tile business as a partner with his father. He soon became a member of the firm of Threefoot & Co. In November, 1874, he was elected probate judge of Mobile county, and has held the office ever since, having been re-elected in 1880, and 1886, without opposition. In 1872, he was elected captain of the Mobile rifle company, a famous military organization, serv- ing as captain of this company till 1884. His company took first prizes at the contests at Arlington, Ala., Nashville, Tenn., and Dubuque, Iowa, under his command. He resigned the captaincy of this company, to be president of the inter-state drill at Mobile, in 1885. He was afterward elected to colonel of the First regiment Alabama state troops, which position he now holds. He is a democrat in politics, and he has been a delegate to most of the state conventions of his party since 1868. He is a member of the Protestant Episcopal church, and is a past eminent com- mander of Masonry in Alabama. He is a past noble grand in Odd Fellowship, and a Knight of Pythias. Col. Williams was married October 1, 1867, to Miss Maggie Marshall, daughter of William T. Marshall, a former promi- nent merchant of Mobile, and granddaughter of Jerry Austill, who, with Gen. Dale, was engaged in the celebrated fight on the Tombigbee river. Jerry Austill was appointed by Gen. Jackson to report on the location of the Indians. from Florida west to the Mississippi river. Col.
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