USA > Arkansas > Biographical and pictorial history of Arkansas. Vol I > Part 39
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Charles Walton England was born in the old homestead at Brownsville, February 28, 185S, and like his brother John was deprived of his patrimony by the civil war. Educational facilities were beyond the reach of the poor, in the vicinage where he lived, when he first attained scholastic age, and his interests in this respect were, of necessity, entirely neglected. At the age of fourteen he left home without the simplest rudi- ments of an education, to commence the battle of life, first, as a daily laborer, economizing and husbanding his limited re- sources, to foster and minister to nobler and higher ends. Desire for an education as the foundation for rational enjoy- ment and usefulness to society, intensified his nature and as- sured its ultimate attainment, no matter how great the obsta-
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cles adversity threw in his youthful pathway. With the scanty accumulations from daily labor and the hungry avidity with which he applied himself, he soon exhausted the meager re- sources of the common pay-schools of the period, and passed the region of the three R's in the scholastic zodiac.
The most exalted point in his youthful ambition was to mas- ter the curriculum prescribed by the University of Virginia, but that was in the problematical, the shadowy distance, with many rugged obstacles interposing. At this juncture in the lives of these affectionate brothers, there came to the front a noble trait, which honored one and blessed the other. Fortune had begun to favor the elder, and he looked out with a sympa- thetic heart on the wide and weary chasm the younger was he- roically struggling to span, unlocked his limited exchequer, and said: " Brother, help yourself ; achieve an education; I will honor all your drafts in that direction as long as it is possible for me to live and raise a dollar to spare." At su- preme moments like this, noble natures honor the Divinity which created fallen man. It was not long until the industri- ous and aspiring youth knocked at the doors of Emory and Henry College, to be turned away from its classic portals with the announcement : " You have not advanced far enough to enter the freshman class of this institution." Staggered, down- cast, foiled for the time, head and heart summoned courage from the depths of a heroic nature, and he retreated, deter- mined to return master of the obstacles which drove him away. He employed a private tutor in the winter of 1876, under whose guidance he soon became qualified, and was, on his sec- ond application and examination, admitted to freshman honors in Emory and Henry. After winning sophomore honors in this ancient seat of learning, established by the descendants of the cavaliers, he matriculated at the University of Virginia, where he remained two years in the zealous embrace of the idol of his youthful ambition. Coming home, after four years' absence in the schools, to enjoy a brief vacation, expecting to return and complete the university course, he was disappointed by the temporary financial embarrassment of his brother John, and at once commenced the study of law in Little Rock, un- der that able and distinguished jurist, Judge Henry C. Cald-
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well, and was admitted to the guild in May, 1882. In No- vember, 1883, he formed a partnership with his brother at Lonoke, and the relation still continues. Possessed of a logical and analytical mind, he is a terse and close reasoner, caring nothing for, and never indulging, that ornate style which attracts and pleases jurists and auditories. Poor himself in beginning of life, he has never forgotten that charitable con- sideration to which worthy humility and distress is always en- titled. In this he practices the tenets of the religion he pro- fesses, and charity expands his well-proportioned manhood.
HON. C. W. SMITH, ELDORADO.
The career of this young man is as remarkable as it is prom- ising, and interesting as it is brilliant for one just entering on man's estate. He was born in Union county, Arkansas, June 30, 1856, and was prepared for college in the schools of the county. He was graduated from Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Virginia, in 1879, both in the literary and law departments of that seat of learning, with the degrees of bachelor of arts and bachelor of laws. These high honors were well merited and most worthily conferred. He was examined before and licensed by the court of appeals in Virginia in 1S79. Afterward, in the same year, he was examined and enrolled in the circuit court of his native county. In 1882, and again in 1884, he was elected county and probate judge of Union county. The ability and efficiency with which he discharged the duties of this office warranted the conviction, in the minds of the electors of the thirteenth circuit, that he would be equally as efficient on the circuit bench, and in November, 1886, they elected him circuit judge. There are many old and able law- yers in the thirteenth circuit, composed of the counties of Union, Calhoun, Columbia and Washita, some of whom aspired to the office. The fact of his election over all opposition, in the district where he was born and raised, speaks more effect- ively than any mere comment or assertion of opinion the author might advance. Those who know him best entertain no fear of his ability to sustain the rapid promotion the people have accorded him.
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JUDGE JOHN R. EAKIN, HEMPSTEAD COUNTY.
Hon. John R. Eakin, associate justice of the supreme court, was born in Shelbyville, Bedford county, Tennessee, February 14, 1822, of Scotch-Irish descent. His lineage is traced back for two centuries to the highlands of Scotland, where the name and blood is purely Highland Scotch. One of this family emi- grated and settled on an Irish plantation in Ulster, Ireland, and there married a lady of pure Celtic blood, and from this union our jurist has sprung. In religion they were Presby- terians, and for many generations lived at and near London- derry.
John Eakin, the father of the jurist, emigrated from Ireland in 1817, and settled at Shelbyville, Bedford county, Tennessee, embarked there in mercantile pursuits, and for that country and time, massed a colossal fortune. He was munificently generous and hospitable, and the son inherited this trait, with the fortune, which descended to him on the death of his father in 1849. In his early youth he was remarkably fond of letters, and advanced rapidly in his studies ; at the early age of eleven he entered the college at Jackson, Tennessee, and there ac- quired the rudiments of the classics. In 1838.he entered the University of Nashville, Tennessee, and graduated from that institution in 1840. After leaving college he still pursued his classical studies, in connection with history, for one year at home. In 1841 he began the study of law at Shelbyville, under a private tutor, and after studying for one year, entered Yale College as a law student, and remained there for one year (1842-3). After his return from Yale he studied law one year longer, under Andrew Ewing of Nashville, Tennes- see, and in 1844 was licensed by the supreme court of Tennes- see to practice, and opened an office there, and practiced in Nashville from 1844 to 1853, when he moved to Wartrace, Bedford county, Tennessee, and became an agriculturalist and horticulturist for several years, expending all the while, rap- idly, the fine estate inherited from his father.
In 1857 Judge Eakin moved to Washington, Hempstead county, where he resided until his decease. He took no part in the war as a soldier. He opposed secession and war with pen
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JOHN R. EAKIN.
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and on the stump. But when Sumter was lighted up, he reversed his attitude. He owned and edited the Washington Telegraph through the war, and avoided suspension. He was a whig as long as that party had an organization, and upon its demise became a democrat of necessity, not of choice. In 1866 the electors of Hempstead returned him to the legislature, and on the organization of the house he was a candidate for speaker against the Hon. Bradley Bunch. The first vote resulted in a tie, the second in the election of Bunch. The speaker, in recogni- tion of his well-known legal attainments, appointed him chair- man of the judiciary committee, than whom no member was better qualified to fill the important office. The war and other destructive factors impoverished Judge Eakin, and at the return of peace he resumed his professional career at the bar until 1874, when he was again called by the suffrages of a free people to serve them in high official station. After the pois- oned Upas of reconstruction had exhausted its baneful influ- ences, the free electors, in 1874, elected him to the constitu- tional convention of that year to frame our organic law ; and the enfranchised citizen, with unfettered power, gave his fine talent and services to the people, who, in further recognition of his talents and abilities, in the fall of 1874 nominated and elected him to the high office of State chancellor. In 1876 he was renominated by the democratic party, and re-elected to the same high office.
In 1878 there was a very animated and spirited contest be- fore the State democratic convention for the nomination to the office of associate justice of the supreme court, Judge Eakin and the Hon. Sam. W. Williams being the leading competitors, Williams leading the field until the last ballot, which, after the withdrawal of all other candidates but these two, resulted in the nomination of Judge Eakin by a majority of three. He was elected by a large majority to that his last and greatest office, and he brought " mature judgment and scholarly attainments" to the discharge of the duties it imposed. The high encomium embodied in the quotation is from the pen of the man he de- feated for the office. Judge Eakin died suddenly and unex- pectedly on the 3d of September, 1885, in the sixty-fourth year of his age, at Marshfield, Missouri, where he had gone to
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spend his summer vacation with relatives. He was a man of very decided convictions, strong, striking and marked indi- viduality, and when the advocate encountered these dominant traits in the forum over which he presided, he found formidable opposition, where authority and precedent were not likely to avail over the convictions which unconscionsly dominated the mind of the jurist. But no man ever doubted the honesty, sincerity or purity of his motives, actions and judgment, how- ever much he might differ with him. He possessed fine con- versational powers, enriched, embellished and crowned with refined, classical taste and attainments, which lent a charm to every social circle he favored - the more so because so free, easy, graceful, and wholly devoid of ostentation. In early life, and along down the mature walks of manhood, he became addicted to a social custom and failing, which, at times, seemed to challenge the empire of manhood; but he rallied his in- tellectual resources and broke the chains of the tyrant, and accomplished one of the greatest, grandest moral conquests and achievements in the power of man, and, in this intellectual triumph over the evil passion, ascended transcendently higher than all the civic honors achieved by his learning and genius. John R. Eakin was a genius, and his adopted State sustained a great loss in his death.
THE WOOD BROTHERS.
Judges J. B. and Carroll D. Wood are the sons of a Baptist minister, the Reverend John S. Wood of Hamburgh, Arkansas. Their gifted mother died when they were quite young, leaving five little boys to train and educate. The pious father was always poor in this world's goods, looking to the great here- after rather than to the fleeting pleasures of this life - follow- ing strictly the monitions of the Master. In time their mother was replaced in the person of an accomplished step-mother - a school mistress from New England. This lady is remarkable for having lavished the wealth of an accomplished mind and the treasures of an affectionate heart on the children God had committed to her care. Under her fostering care they all grew to man's estate, and all are eminent in their respective spheres for integrity and sterling worth. Three are lawyers. J. B.
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Wood was born near Lacy, Drew county, Arkansas, in 1851. When quite young his father moved to Hamburgh, Ashley county. His educational resources embraced the common schools of Hamburgh, and that inexhaustible fount of love and learning found in his step-mother. The five sons committed to her care were all impressed by her with the conviction that a noble field of usefulness lay invitingly before them, and that all things within the range of laudable ambition can be accom- plished ; and this confidence, with the "hope that springs eter- nal in the human breast," has constantly led them onward and upward. J. B. Wood read law with the Hon. J. W. Van Gil- der of Hamburgh, and was there admitted to the bar in May, 1872, and immediately entered on his professional career. In 1875 he moved to Hot Springs, where he still resides. In 1878 he was elected prosecuting attorney of the seventh circuit over talented and formidable opposition.
In 1880 he was elected his own successor. In 1882 he was elected judge of the seventh circuit over opposition that stood in the front rank of the profession. In 1886 he was again elected judge of the seventh circuit. These accomplished facts attest his great popularity in the seventh circuit, where he is best known. He is a graceful and fluent writer and speaker, and is a fine lawyer and jurist for his age. The younger brother, Carroll, was born in Ashley county, July 8, 1857. Like his elder brother he acquired his primary education under the guidance of his step-mother, and in the common schools of Hamburgh. The career of this young inan is phenomenal and worthy of the highest commendation. The author wishes all the youth in America could read his history and drink in his ambition with the noble impulses which guide head and heart. At the age of seventeen all his pecuniary fortune consisted of an economical outfit of clothing and $35 in money. The clothing was easily compassed in a hand grip-sack. With this outfit he set out on foot from Hamburgh to the university at Fayetteville, a distance of three hundred and eighty-five miles. Occasionally he found some relief by riding in wagons short distances, that chanced to be passing his way. The wayside traveler who looked on that dusty boy, sore of limb and weary of frame, little knew he was gazing on an eagle that would at 54
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no distant day soar above the Alps. He accomplished the weary journey at an expenditure of $6.75. After entering on his scholastic duties he obtained work on the college grounds in shrubbing them off at ten cents per hour, during the intervals he could spare from his books, but this work only lasted one month. He then engaged with a hotel proprietor of the town to wait on the dining-room and wash dishes at spare intervals to pay for his board and lodging.
During his second collegiate year he obtained a similar situ- ation in a private family. In the interim between the sopho- more and junior years, he found employment in a dry goods store. The president of the university paid him a salary as secretary during the senior course. He "messed " with the boys in the steward's hall during the last two years of his uni- versity career. At the commencement of his junior course he was awarded the medal for the best original oration, in a con- test between the junior and senior classes He took a thorough classical course and was graduated in 1879. From college he went to Hot Springs and read law with his brother, Judge Wood, and in August, 1880, was licensed to practice law. In the fall of 1880 he moved to Monticello, and commenced his professional career in partnership with his brother, Z. F. Wood, a gentleman of eminent worth and distinguished ability, whose history, to a great extent, would be a repetition of that of his two distinguished brothers, and for this reason alone is omitted in this volume. In 1882 his ambition for professional promo- tion led him to measure lances with Colonel Robert H. Dead- man, a popular gentleman, of great worth and acknowledged ability, in a warm contest for the office of prosecuting attorney in the tenth circuit. The popularity and magnetism of the young man may be judged from the result. He swept the field like a cyclone, and was elected by a majority of nearly six thousand votes. His strength and popularity in 1884 was so great that no man opposed him, and he was re-elected with- out opposition. There is nothing more remarkable in this than the fact he had the ability to sustain himself in a district teeming with good lawyers.
In 1886 his ability and popularity was again subjected to a severe strain in a contest for the office of judge of the tenth cir-
HON. ROBERT H. CROCKETT.
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cuit, against such old stagers and veterans as Norman of Ashley, Simons of Chicot, and Duffie of Dallas, for the democratic nom- ination, and the man of destiny was again triumphant. The Hon. John M. Bradley was then the incumbent, he refused to make way for the democratic nominee, and opposed him, independent of party affiliations, and " David slew Goliath," at the polls, and had above five hundred stone left. When elected judge he had just become constitutionally eligible to the office, having prac- ticed six years and one month. In November, 1886, he married Miss Reola Thompson, the accomplished daughter of our State superintendent of public instruction, W. E. Thompson. His life truly indicates him to be a man of great energy and strongly- marked individuality of character. In all things and relations where it is admissible, he is as mild and gentle as a woman, but austere and unbending where duty requires it. His struggles have been noble and heroic, and evinced the highest order of moral courage when he donned a waiter's cap and apron to wrestle with honest poverty, that he might minister to the in- tellectual hunger of a lofty nature. The reward is as noble as the effort that made it possible; only six years spans the distance between the waiter's apron and the judge's ermine.
HON. ROBERT W. CROCKETT, DE WITT.
" Bob Crockett," as he is called by all of his familiar friends, and they are legion, was born in Paris, Henry county, Ten- nessee, February 15, 1832, the son of the Hon. John W. Crock- ett, who succeeded his father, the celebrated David Crockett, in congress, and Mary L. Hamilton, the daughter of the Hon. John A. Hamilton, one of the first circuit judges in west Ten- nessee. . The Crocketts were among the first settlers in the Cumberland valley, and came in the immigrant tide led by the celebrated pioneer, General James Robertson, who opened up the first pioneer settlement in Tennessee, in 1769, at Watauga, on the Holston river, in east Tennessee, and ten years after- ward colonized the historic Cumberland valley. These hardy pioneers, inured to toil and dangers, were as noble and as chiv- alrous a people as the world has known, and their descendants bear the impress of the line from which they sprang. Their his-
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tory is written in the blood of two hundred battle-fields, and every page of it attests the chivalry of her sons.
The name of "Davy Crockett" is a household idol in Ten- nessee to-day, to all of her sons and fair daughters, and will be as long as her literature is preserved. He was not great in the lettered guild of colleges and universities - that was a heritage to be won by the blood of the father and trans- mitted to his descendants; but he was noble and great in the heroic virtues, the stay and pride of his country in the perils which called for a patriot's heart and a soldier's arm, whether in Indian wars on the border, or as volunteer aid to an infant State rallying her sons and mustering her guns in a struggle for empire. He fought his last battle and fell at the Alamo, enriching the heritage of an empire at its birth, and writing his name with his sword high on the temple. The historian has recorded the deeds, and the muse has tuned his lyre and sung of the hero of the Alamo. "Bob" was a wild boy, and did not heed the Christian Koran in his young days like he does now. Much of his early boyhood was spent in New Or- leans, where his natural inclination for adventure was stimu- lated, and he ran away, went to sea, and skipped before the wind for nearly a year before his romance was cooled. Return- ing to New Orleans a sadder but wiser boy, he soon became inflated with fillibuster notions and joined the revolutionary forces of Lopez, the fillibuster, and proceeded with him to invade Cuba, where he learned to crave and enjoy all the good there is in a hasty retreat, and to appreciate the fact that it is better to make a good run than a bad stand. When he returned home to anxious parents, they concluded to gratify the military aspi- rations of the precocious youth by sending him to the Military Institute of Kentucky, where he could learn discipline while acquiring an education. Here the wiry edge of rebellious youth wore off gradually, and " Bob" settled down to busi- ness. After completing his course at the institute he settled in Memphis, Tennessee, where his parents then lived, and read law with Isham G. Harris and J. E. R. Ray, and was there admitted to the guild in 1853. In the mean time, whilst read- ing law, he became associated with Smith P. Bankhead as edi- tor of the Eagle and Enquirer, the leading whig journal of
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Tennessee at the time. In 1856 he removed to Arkansas, settling near Crockett's Bluff, where he lived until 1881, when he re- moved to. De Witt, where he still resides. He served four years in the Confederate army, and, at the close of the war, was colonel of the Eighteenth Arkansas infantry.
No braver knight than " Bob Crockett " ever wore a plume or drew a sword. He has, until recently, lived a quiet, retired life, eschewing politics until 1884, when the electors of the thirteenth senatorial district commissioned him to represent them. His wit and humor is sparkling and contagious. At this writing (1887) he is a very formidable competitor for gubernatorial honors. His social powers are inexhaustible ; without intending it he at once becomes the "head center" of every social circle he graces. As a humorist, he inherits the genius of his grandfather, " Davy Crockett," who could con- vulse acres of people with laughter. Once when canvassing west Tennessee for congress, in opposition to the celebrated Adam Huntsman, a flock of guinea fowls perched on a neigh- boring fence whilst he was addressing the electors and com- menced their favorite racket. Stopping suddenly, with in- dex-finger pointing to the choristers, he solemnly exclaimed : " Listen, gentlemen, the very fowls are hallooing for Crockett, Crockett, Crockett." And the woods are full of electors who will pick up the chorus for "Bob " in '88, as they did for " Davy " in 1830.
MAJOR-GENERAL PATRICK RONAYNE CLEBURNE.
This sketch is condensed by permission of Judge L. H. Mangum from his well-written history of General Cleburne; which appeared in the Kennesaw Gazette of June 15th, 1887. General Cleburne was born near Cork, Ireland, on the 17th of March, 1828, the descendant of an ancient Tipperary family of English Quakers, who crossed the Irish channel after Crom- well became master of England. His father was a graduate of the best colleges of medicine and surgery, and felt great solici- tude in the education of his children, but died during Patrick's minority, and a collegiate education was never attained by the wayward youth. At sixteen years of age necessity taught him the propriety of adopting some avocation in life, and he chose
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that of druggist, and apprenticed himself to Mr. Justin, in the little town of Mallow. Soon thinking himself master of the business, he went to Dublin and applied for examination, but was subjected to mortification and deep chagrin on learning that a knowledge of Latin and Greek was indispensable. He failed, and his sensitive nature drove him to hide his shame as a com- mon soldier in the British army, which he forthwith joined and kept himself concealed for more than a year, but was finally recognized by Captain Pratt, an officer in the regiment, who knew his family. This brought him a sympathetic friend, and ultimately his release from the now dull and monotonous British army confined to the barracks in Dublin.
Released from the army, he headed for Queenstown, and on the 11th of November, 1849, embarked for the United States via the Mississippi and New Orleans. His first abiding place was Cincinnati, where he became clerk to a druggist under our prac- tical system which ignores Greek verbs and Latin roots. At a later day he came to Helena and commenced his career in Arkan- sas as a prescription clerk. In a year or two he became part owner of the establishment, and began the study of law and gen- eral literature. In 1854, as orator of the day at a masonic cele- bration, he achieved local celebrity, and met with much encour- agement to prosecute his legal studies. In 1856 he was admitted and enrolled on the roster of the bar, and entered immediately on his professional career. When he came to the bar a violent, spasmodic contest was in progress between the democratic party, under the brilliant leadership of the hot-headed Thomas C. Hindman, and Dorsey Rice, a leader of the know-nothing party, into which Cleburne was unintentionally drawn as a participant in one of the bloodiest tragedies ever enacted in Helena. On the forenoon of the fatal day the mutual friends of Rice and Hindman interceded and thought they had amicably settled the trouble. At this juncture Hindman invited his friend and non-combatant Cleburne to dine with him, and the invitation was accepted. On their way to dinner Dorsey Rice came suddenly on them, leveled his pistol at Hindman's breast and fired. Hindman was wounded, but immediately drew his pistol and returned the fire. Cleburne stepped aside, drew his pistol, without firing or raising it, and stood looking on to see
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