USA > Arkansas > Biographical and pictorial history of Arkansas. Vol I > Part 26
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GEORGE C. WATKINS.
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been overruled, I speak only as my memory serves me." This is a high meed of praise, coming as it does from a frank and candid source fully competent to judge. He zealously sup- ported the cause of the south in the war between the States, and gave three young sons to swell her armies and fight her battles. His eldest son, Colonel Anderson Watkins, rose from the rank of private to that of colonel of the Eighth Arkansas Volunteers. This young hero was worthy of the noble sire who gave him the sword he honored so well; he fought un- harmed in eighteen battles and died at the head of his regiment in the battle of Atlanta, in the twenty-second year of his age. When the war ended he resumed the practice of law and be- came a martyr to its ceaseless drafts on his physical and mental energies. Overwork brought on premature decay and death. The late Chief Justice English says of him : "He taxed a frail physical constitution by long years of incessant mental labor, until his vital energies and nervous forces were exhausted, and to the regret of all he sank prematurely to the grave." Judge Rose says of him : "With an extremely delicate and fragile constitution, he had the capacity for an immense amount of labor. Through conscientious regard for duty he gave to de- tails the most minute attention, and bestowed on every thing a double amount of work. I do not think his sincerity and integrity were ever questioned in any matter, small or great. His word, once given, was irrevocable; nor did he ever at- tempt to change its effect by any evasion, however unex- pectedly its results might bear heavily upon him. With an even temper and mental discipline which kept him always on guard, a quiet and uniform deportinent, he possessed strong feelings and a nerve of iron. His reverence for the courts and administration of justice amounted to religion. His judgment was charitable, and he rarely spoke with great severity. His official life was without a blemish, his private life without a stain." These convictions and utterances came from one who knew him intimately in all the walks and relations of life. In 1841 he married Miss Mary Crease, who died in 1855. His second wife was Mrs. Sophia Curran, daughter of Senator William S. Fulton. In 1872 the physical constitution of Judge Watkins gave way to overtaxed energies, and he visited the
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springs of Virginia and the pure air of Colorado, attended by his honored and devoted son, Doctor Claiborne Watkins, but the vital forces could not be recruited, and he died in St. Louis, on the 7th of December, 1872, on his way home. In early manhood he professed religion, and lived up to its tenets.
JUDGE THOMAS WALKER POUND, YELL COUNTY.
Judge Pound was born in Rockingham county, North Caro- lina, April 5, 1811, of English-German descent. At this dis- tant day it is impossible to trace back the lineage of the family to its first establishment in America, there being no such record known now to any of the living representatives of the family. In early youth the boy crossed the Alleghanies with his own, and a number of other pioneer families on the road to Kentucky, where his father settled in the wilderness. There was no school in the forest where his father settled, and the practical, utilitarian demands of the times did not present any seeming demand for scholastic pursuits or attainment. The result was the boy grew up amidst wild frontier scenes and pursuits without acquiring any knowledge of letters, or being impressed with the conviction that an education is an important agent in life. But this idea, or rather apparent lethargy and indifference, was at an early age dispelled, as the young man came in contact with a higher civilization than that developed in the forest, and with a knowledge that education is necessary to higher advancement came desire and determi- nation to acquire it ; and he thus became his own teacher, and by force of unaided exertion he acquired a good practical Eng- lish education, and became conversant with a vast range of history, ancient and modern.
At twenty-four years of age he moved to Mississippi and embarked in agricultural pursuits. In 1843 he moved to Yell county, Arkansas, where he resided until his death, December 24, 1884. In 1846 he was elected clerk of Yell county, and held the office continuously until 1860, when he retired and commenced the practice of his profession at Danville, the county seat. In law, as in literature, Judge Pound was his own teacher, and was admitted to the bar by the supreme court in 1855. At the commencement of the war he cast his fortunes
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ELECTRO-LIGHT ENG. CO.N.Y.
HON. THOMAS WALKER POUND.
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with the south, and entered her military service, and was ap- pointed quarter-master with the rank of colonel in the trans- Mississippi department, and served continuously in that capacity until the close of the war, after which he returned to Danville to mend up his broken and lost fortune. In 1866 the electors of Yell county elected him to the legislature, and he devoted his time and energy to the service of the State during that mem- orable session. In 1878 Governor Miller appointed him judge of the fifth judicial circuit to fill the unexpired term of Judge Mansfield, who had resigned the office, and he filled the office with honor and credit to himself and the State. Judge Pound died as he had lived, an honored and upright man ; no man was ever loved and respected more by his fellow citizens than he was; he was not a brilliant man by any means, but he was emi- nently honest in intention and pure at heart, and was a wise and safe counselor in all things.
JONAS MARCH TIBBITTS, FAYETTEVILLE.
Jonas March Tibbitts, a native of New Hampshire, came to Arkansas in "the thirties" and settled in Fayetteville, where he remained until 1861, when he went north because he did not wish to participate in "the late unpleasantness." In 1844 he was elected prosecuting attorney, and held the office two years under the judicial administration of R. S. C. Brown. In 1850 he was elected to the legislature from Washington county, and there laid the foundation of his rapidly-acquired fortune. He was elected attorney for the old State Bank, and took charge of all its business connected with the Fayetteville branch, which embraced all the financial interests of the bank in north-western Arkansas. The bank was in liquidation; a very large amount of its assets passed through the hands of the bank attorney for collection.
The State aid bonds loaned to the bank, and the outstanding issue of the bank were receivable at par for all debts due the bank. The State aid bonds were depreciated to twenty-eight cents, and the bank issue to fifty cents on the dollar. Thrifty Jonas made large collections for the bank, bought up its de- preciated securities and settled with the bank at their face value, so his contemporaries say, and made a fortune out of State clientage.
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ALFRED W. ARRINGTON.
In all the creations of omniscient power there is nothing so inexplicably strange and curious to the inquiring mind as the complex mechanism evinced in the delicate organism of the human mind. In all the stores of either sacred or profane learning, there is nothing more conclusive to enlightened man, of God, and infinity, and immortality. Throw theology to the winds, consign its complex mysticism to oblivion, and we have the vehement con- clusion left. Great talents and great vices are often wedded in the same mind, and their compound results emblazon the world's history as far back as her au- thentic records extend, and when these fail us, legend and tradition lift and lend their dim lights in confirmation of the fact that imperfection is one of the primal laws of man's creation. Deny this and we embrace a theory destructive of the uni- verse; deny it and we crown chaos; deny it and we strike down that infinite wisdom and progression leading onward and upward in eternal gradation. The strange character, the curi- ons compound of frailty and greatness we now sketch give rise to these reflections. One Sabbath morning in 1833, two prom- ising young whig lawyers sat in animated conversation, about the prominent features of Jackson's expiring administration, and the chances for the succession in the approaching election, to fill the electoral college. A young itinerant Methodist di- vine had just arrived, and was announced as the officiating minister that morning in the little log church which then stood where the Capitol hotel now stands in Little Rock.
Absalom Fowler and Jesse Turner, impelled as much by curiosity to hear the young divine as by devotional feeling, entered the primitive sanctuary just as Alfred W. Arrington was announcing his text, " Evidence of the existence of God." The young auditors went away with the conviction that they had listened to the inspiration of no ordinary man. On their minds
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he left a fadeless impression. His language and voice rose in musical cadence on ornate key, and gradually expanded into rapturous rythm and a wilderness of splendor. He carried his auditory on magnetic wing in a tireless flight, and then, with the greatest facility and without the slightest friction, passed to grave argument and resistless logic.
The next year this erratic genius appeared in Fayetteville as the pastor of the local Methodist church, and drew immense andiences, but soon became involved in a crim. con. scandal, which was suppressed for a time, but ultimated in expulsion. From the Methodist he fled to the Campbellite church, and there officiated and flourished for a short time as a star of the first magnitude. But his worldly example did not harmonize with orthodox teachings, and he abandoned the church altogether, and took refuge in skepticism and deism. At this point in his history he read law and was admitted to the bar in Fayette- ville, and rapidly ascended to the zenith of his profession from the first case he argued. The mantle of a tyro never rested on his shoulders. He took the position of a master at once. His speeches were not all flashes of ornate and lingual splendor ; he combined chaste and elaborate rhetoric with a just and fascinat- ing logic. When he chose to deal in phillipic, he turned on his adversary like " a cataract of fire."
In 1842 he was elected on the whig ticket from Washington county to the legislature. He wrote a series of pamphlets called " South- West Desperadoes" which had a wide circula- ' tion at the time, but he wrote with more than poetic license, and when he wanted an incident or fact his fertile imagination supplied it. He wrote many fancy sketches of trials at which such celebrities as General Pike, Sargeant S. Prentiss, Chester Ashley and John Taylor figured, some in the character of the mock heroic, to heighten the striking contrast with his fabled hero. These fugitive sketches gave him a national fame. He was very studious at times ; in common with other lawyers of the day, he rode the circuit on horseback, and would often read for hours in the saddle. When he wanted relaxation he threw his books down and "painted the town." Once he called a large mass meeting and promised a free barbecue and plenty of free liquor, at which neither was to be had. When the assem-
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blage became angry and restless, he mounted an improvised rostrum, and made one of the finest temperance addresses ever delivered by man, and left many in tears and all in revolt against whisky. Afterward when speaking of this event to " Honest Alf. Wilson," he said : "Alf. when I made that big tem- perance speech, I had a pint under my belt." He was square built, weighed two hundred pounds, had large gray eyes always wide open, auburn hair, light complexion, long arms and enor- mous pedal extremities, was careless and inattentive to dress, and presented, in the general physical make-up, a very awkward appearance. By those who knew him, this is said to be a good photo of Arrington the celebrated. He was a whig elector in the campaign of 1844, pitted against Chester Ashley, but before completing the canvass he abandoned it and went to Texas with a mistress, leaving an estimable wife and several children, with- out any cause, whatever, and never returned to them. After a short probation in Texas, he was elected circuit judge, but great public dissatisfaction soon arose, and an effort was made to impeach him, but the author is not acquainted with the details. From Texas he went to Chicago, whither his fame · as a lawyer and orator without his imperfections had preceded him ; he took the city by storm and soon had an immense prac- tice. In Chicago he married a lady of refinement and culture known to the literary world. The late James R. Pettigrew told the author that the late Judge David Davis said he heard Ar- rington in the supreme court of Illinois make one of the finest arguments he ever heard. His rapid rise in Chicago is without parallel in the history of the profession. He was a native of Indiana. He died a few years ago in Illinois.
HON. ALFRED M. WILSON, FAYETTEVILLE.
Alfred M. Wilson, the son of James Wilson and Martha M. McElroy, was born on a farm near Fayetteville, in Lincoln county, Tennessee, the Sth of June, 1817, and, as the name of his ancestors indicates, is of Scotch-Irish descent. His grand- father, Captain William Wilson, immigrated from South Caro- lina in 1782 to Kentucky, and there became associated with and the intimate companion of Daniel Boone, and shared his dangers in the frontier Indian wars, and finally lost his life in
ALFRED M. WILSON.
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an ambuscade when pursuing the Indians. He is descended from James Wilson, of revolutionary fame, who signed the Declaration of Independence. On his mother's side he is re- lated to Governor Proctor Knott of Kentucky, and to Mrs. U. M. Rose of Little Rock. Ilis educational facilities were quite limited, and he belongs to that very numerous class of public men who owe their education to their own aspirations and un- aided exertions to rise above the station in life in which they were born. In 1837 his parents joined that numerous colony of Tennessee immigrants who settled in Washington county, Arkansas. He borrowed. law books from Governor Yell, his warm personal friend, and educated himself in the legal pro- fession, and was admitted to the bar at Fayetteville in 1839. In 1840, during his absence from the State, the legislature, without his solicitation, elected him prosecuting attorney for the fourth circuit, then embracing ten counties. In 1842 he was re-elected over the opposition of Isaac Murphy, who was governor in the reconstruction period. In 1846, by request, he drafted the bill providing for the liquidation of the old State Bank, which became a law. Under the provisions of this law the legislature unanimously elected him attorney for the Branch State Bank at Fayetteville, the business of which extended over all north-west Arkansas, and embraced fourteen coun- ties. He was required to give a bond of $30,000. This, to a poor man whose family and possessions consisted of himself and gray horse presented a great obstacle, and Colonel Wilson determined to ask no man or friend to assume such an obliga- tion for him. He was as sensitive as he was honest and worthy. In this dilemma Governor Yell and Colonel McKissick came to his rescue and voluntarily made his bond. More than $200,000 of the bank's assets passed through his hands, and he finally resigned his position as attorney for the bank a poorer man than when he accepted the trust. His faithful services and fidelity to the interests of the bank cused its officers to present him with a very flattering set of resolutions. In 1846 there was a memorable contest for the seat in congress made vacant by the resignation of Governor Yell. Colonel Robert W. Johnson and Judge William S. Oldham were the contest- ants. Colonel Wilson was not an aspirant, but during his ab-
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sence in Tennessee, and without his knowledge, his friends an- nounced him as a candidate. Up to this time he had been a very warm friend and supporter of Judge Oldham, to whose elevation to the supreme bench he had largely contributed.
Judge Oldham, after being assured of Colonel Wilson's de- clension, continued to assail him. This resulted in great ani- mosity, and led Colonel Wilson to very actively promote the canvass and election of Colonel Johnson to congress. In 1848 Judge Oldham was a formidable candidate for the United States senate, and would have been elected but for the oppo- sition he had needlessly aroused in Colonel Wilson. The colonel is a warm, steadfast friend, and when the gauntlet is thrown down by an adversary his motto is : " Lay on, Mac- duff ! and damned be he who first cries, hold ! enough." To thwart Judge Oldham's aspirations he asked the electors of Washington, where they both lived, for a seat in the legisla- ture, and they accorded it to him. In this memorable contest. Judge Oldham entered the race thirty-six strong. Judge W. K. Sebastian had eighteen followers, and Samuel H. Hemp- stead had ten resolute supporters. The remainder was scatter- ing, and it was the generally received opinion that when Hemp- stead or Sebastian gave way Judge Oldham would be elected. But Colonel Wilson worked with well-directed diplomacy, and succeeded ultimately in electing Judge Sebastian, the youngest senator on the floor of congress when he took his seat. Judge Sebastian was long the author's friend ; from him and Colonel Wilson the facts relating to this contest are derived.
In 1852, without any knowledge on his part, the Arkansas delegation in congress unanimously recommended him to the president for the appointment of United States district attor- ney for the western district of Arkansas, and the president ratified their choice. In 1856 he said to his personal friend, Colonel Robert W. Johnson : " Bob, pay off your political debts with my office ; I am not an applicant for the place." But to his surprise President Buchanan appointed him on the faith of a statement made to him by a clerk in the department of jus- tice, to the effect that he was one of the best officers in the ser- vice. The president took this step after finding the Arkansas delegation did not intend to recommend any person for his
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successor. During his eight years' service in this office he did not present a single claim for extra services. At the end of his term Governor Madill, then solicitor of the treasury, awarded him $3,000 for extra services, without any solicitation therefor.
The civil war found him in possession of a handsome for- tune, accumulated by his talent and prudent management, but it was all swept away in the destructive flood of war. He heartily espoused the cause of the south, and took part in the strife as colonel of a local military organization, and was en- gaged in some conflicts of serious import about Fayetteville. The torch was applied to his fine mansion and many other buildings belonging to him, and the close of the war found him and his family without shelter and penniless. He moved into an old, deserted shanty in Fayetteville, and went to work to support his family and rebuild his fortune, and in nothing has this worthy citizen ever displayed more moral courage than in his noble, heroic struggles at this period in his life. The pal- aces of the opulent and great do not furnish rich nourishment for the normal development of the higher and nobler phases of human life. The sordid and corroding influences of selfish ambition often smother the well-springs of true greatness ; not that greatness which strikes and dazzles the superficial multi- tude, but that true nobility of nature which springs from and is born of suffering. In 1877 he was elected to the senate, and served his constituents four years.
In 1880 he was a very prominent candidate for governor, and his friends say ought to have received the nomination but for the unjustifiable defection of the delegations from two counties. He is possessed of a rich and striking vein of orig- inal wit and humor. Once when riding with some friends past a battle-field, where he had commanded against the Fed- erals, he said : " Boys, a remarkable coolness sprung up between me and the Federals there, one hot day during the war." Ile has always commanded the confidence and esteem of his fel- low citizens, and has ever been faithful to every trust in all the relations of life. His talented son, Robert, is associated with him in the practice of his profession.
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HON. JOHN M. WILSON, CLARKSVILLE.
Judge Wilson, the elder brother of Hon. Alfred M. Wilson of Fayetteville, was born on a farm near Fayetteville, Tennessee, on the 31st of May, 1805. and was educated in the common schools of the vicinage. He read law under James Fulton, an able lawyer at Fayetteville, Tennessee, and was admitted to the bar there in 1830. He came to Arkansas in 1835, and located at Carrollton in Carroll county. In 1840 he moved to Clarksville in Franklin county, where he continued to reside until his death in 1867. In 1859 the legislature elected him judge of the fourth circuit, and he discharged the duties of the office to the entire satisfaction of the public. He was a good lawyer, an honest man, and a good citizen in all the walks and relations of life. He was never a candidate for office ; when elected judge, he was put forward by his friends. He died at Clarksville in August, 1867.
SAMUEL HUTCHINSON HEMPSTEAD, LITTLE ROCK.
Samuel H. Hempstead was born in New London, Connecti- cut, November 26, 1814, and came west with his parents in 1820 to St. Louis, Missouri. Of his boyhood we know nothing except the fact that he lived in St. Louis until he attained to years of majority. It is painful to be forced to this confession and to give up to the ravages of obscurity events of such recent date when they relate to an interesting, historic character. All of his valuable papers and correspondence perished in the vicissitudes of war, and he died during its progress, leaving his promising little boy, Fay, and all of his representatives without the means of preserving his early biographical history. All of his rela- tions, lineal and collateral, have passed away, save his son, Fay. But it is known that whilst a young man, in the service of a mercantile establishment in St. Louis, he attracted the atten- tion of Thomas H. Benton, and soon became the protege of this great man, with whom he read law. He was admitted to the bar in St. Louis in 1835, and in 1>36 came to Little Rock · and at once entered on a brilliant professional career. Soon after his arrival he was elected chief clerk of the house of rep- · resentatives, and held the office during the sessions of 1836,
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1837 and 1838. About 1840 he entered into partnership with Robert W. Johnson. In 1844 President Polk appointed him United States attorney for the district of Arkansas, and herein we trace the legible hand of his powerful friend at court, Thomas H. Benton, who gave the senate forthwith to be informed who Samuel H. Hempstead was, when his obscurity was intimated before that body. In 1852 he was presidential elector on the democratic ticket for the State at large, and canvassed the entire State. In 1856 he was appointed solicitor-general for the State by Governor Elias N. Conway, and was confirmed by the senate, and discharged the duties of that office three years. In 1856 he published a volume of decisions of the United States district and circuit courts of Arkansas, known as Hemp- stead's Reports. He was frequently appointed special judge of the supreme court, and in that capacity he builded the best monument to his fame, one that will outlive a shaft of marble.
In 1853 the legislature gave us our statute of descents and distributions, which admitted a very wide field of interpreta- tion and construction, and invited judicial legislation. The wisdom of the legislator was obscured in the uncertainty of language, which invited profound thought and the highest art of the jurist in interpreting and making plain the obscurity of language. The questions involved in this statute came before Judge Hempstead in the leading and celebrated case of Kelly's Heirs and others against McGuire and others, reported in 15 Arkansas Reports. The evolution and preparation of an opinion in this case involved more time and profound study than any case ever delivered in the courts of Arkansas, and a masterly opinion was ultimately evolved, which has become a. fixed rule of property. The inward or secret history of this case ought no longer to rest in tradition, and I will record it : After laborious investigation and study for months, an elabo- rate and exhaustive opinion was finally prepared, and by its author was privately submitted to the judgment and considera- tion of an able circle of lawyers, who disapproved of the orig- inal draft and the conclusions therein announced, and after luminous discussion in a field so fruitful and inviting to oppo- site conclusions. the judge became convinced, and consigned his original draft of the opinion to the flames, and prepared
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