USA > Arkansas > Biographical and pictorial history of Arkansas. Vol I > Part 9
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Archibald Yell was a worthy and honorable man; an officer of the government, of unblemished integrity ; a sincere devotee of the interests of his country ; a man of a kindly nature, amiable and obliging, and of heroic bravery. Frank, open, free-spoken, he harbored no secret malice.
Ex iracundiâ ejus nihil supererat: Secretum et silentium ejus non timeres. Honestiùs putabat offendere, quam odisse.
as Tacitus thus said of Agricola, so it could truly be said of Archibald Yell, "of his anger nothing survived ; his secret thoughts and silence were not to be feared ; he thought it more honorable to be aggressive than to hate."
And, as the same great writer said of the same great Roman : " Although he was taken away in the prime of life, he had, as to glory, lived the longest of lives."
TERRENCE FARRELLY.
BY GENERAL ALBERT PIKE.
This worthiest of men resided five miles from the Post of Arkansas, a mile or two below the plantation of his warm friend, that king among men, Ben. Desha. They were very unlike each other, both in appearance and character, but they were like brothers. Desha was a large, stately man, fitted to be an emperor. I never saw such eyes in any human head as his and those of his brother, John R. Desha, large, luminous, brilliant, terrible in anger. I saw Ben. Desha once at the Post of Arkansas drive a faro-dealer, who menaced him with a bowie-knife, out of the room by advancing upon him with a penknife, his eyes blazing like those of an angry lion, clear and piercing as a hawk's. I was talking with him in 1835, on the pavement at DeBaun's corner, when Wharton Rector came up and spoke to me, and then a few words passed between him and Desha, when Rector, flaming with anger, said : "Colonel Desha, this is the second time that we have had words together. The third time -- " " By God, sir," said Desha, coldly and sternly interrupting him, "make it the third time now." But the days of personal conflicts in Arkansas were over and nothing further was said.
Terrence Farrelly was an Irishman, some fifty years of age in 1833, when I met him at Little Rock and at once became at-
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tached to him. He was of plain features, unmistakably Irish, with heavy eyebrows and clear, frank eyes, as loyal, true and pure a man, of as kindly feeling and ready sympathy as any man I ever knew. When Henry Clay was defeated in 1844, he was so overcome by emotion that he wept like a child. I have had many friends, and I love the memory of many, but I have had no such friend, and no one's memory is so dear to me as his. He was not a lawyer in 1833, but had studied, and many years afterward was admitted to the bar and practised for some years. Always ready to serve his friends, his services were always in demand and always efficient. " Terrence !" exclaimed his friend James Scull, the territorial treasurer, " I shall go crazy over these infernal accounts. For God's sake, come and straighten them out for me!" and with infinite patience Terrence " straightened " them. Everybody confided in, everybody honored, everybody loved Terrence Farrelly. No man ever had a nobler troop of friends than he. He certainly never had one that he did not deserve to have; and I am sure that he never lost one.
Neque solùm vivi atque præsentes tales homines docent, sed hoc idem etiam post mortem assequuntur .- CICERO.
THOMAS HUBBARD. BY GENERAL ALBERT PIKE.
Major Thomas Hubbard, who resided at Washington, Hemp- stead county, was the Nestor of the bar there when I first went to the court in 1837 or 1838. He had been there then for some years ; how many I never knew. He was educated in New York and was a good, sound lawyer, who never per- mitted himself to doubt the absolute justice of his client's case, or to be convinced that the law was not as it was for the interest of his case it should be, if he could help it. He had a large practice in that circuit and attended to it well, always knowing accurately the facts and being well pre- pared with all accessible authorities in support of his propo- sitions. It was amusing to witness a pitched battle between him and George Conway. Hubbard was like a heavy line-of- battle ship, manœuvering slowly and changing his course with difficulty, with huge artillery of solid argument and apt au-
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thorities, sure of success if his antagonist would but keep still and let him at his leisure bring his guns to bear upon him. Conway was small in size, excitable, quick, nervous, of rapid speech, sometimes incoherent, shifty, skillful to evade authori- ties, now on this side, now on that, of the more heavily-armed vessel, peppering it with his light guns as a smaller bird stings and exasperates a larger and slower one.
Major Hubbard contracted a great affection for his cases and became actually unwilling to see the most aged ones come to" an end, as one dislikes to see that of an old friend. He had them of ten, fifteen and even more years of age, resented any attempt to bring them to what he considered untimely trial, and sincerely mourned for them and celebrated their obsequies, when, gray with age, they were gathered unto their fathers. To win one was almost as unwelcome to him as to lose it, when it had be- come hallowed and sanctified by time. He was a very true and a very honorable man, a staunch whig, a firm upholder of the laws, no time-server and no respecter of persons, of sturdy independence, rooted convictions and supreme integrity. He was grave and sedate, observant of all the proprieties of the profession, fair in references to and statements of authorities, and well entitled to be remembered kindly by those who knew him.
I must leave to others to speak of the living, Turner and Royston and Alfred M. Wilson and others, if there be any who, like myself, have outlived their contemporaries, and there are enough living who knew them to speak of those who came to the State in 1836, and afterward. Frederick W. Trapnall, in appearance every inch a nobleman, of bright, keen, quick intel- lect, gracefully eloquent, whose proper place was in the halls of congress ; of John W. Cocke, kindest and most genial of men, of brilliant genius, impulsive, ardent, eloquent, whom more than any other member of the bar I loved ; of Samuel H. Hempstead and John J. Clendenin, and George C. Watkins ; of Ebenezer Cummins and George W. Paschal; of William H. Sutton, of Chicot, and many others, whose memories time ought not to be permitted to obliterate.
Est enim gloria ea consentiens laus bonorum, incorrupta vox
Benè judicantium de excellente virtute. - CICERO.
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NOTE.
[Before receiving the last twelve sketches by General Albert Pike, the author had prepared short biographies of some of the same men, to-wit, John Taylor, Thomas J. Lacy, Edward Cross, David Walker, William Cummins, Archibald Yell and Terrence Farrelly, hence these characters appear in duplicate; not, however, with the unwarranted assumption that they will lend any thing to what the greatest of American scholars has written, any further than to fill in the details omitted by that great man.]
JOHN TAYLOR.
The eloquence of a master and polished logic of a profound reasoner were united in this eccentric, brilliant genius-exalted, heroic crank - who seemed only to desire temporary friends among his professional brothers, that they might the easier be brought within range of his "Parthian arrows" as material for the most brilliant phillipics.
Of his birth and early history but little is known by those who knew his career in Arkansas, but from known facts he could not have been born later than 1789, as he was a candidate for the United States senate in 1819, and not eligible to that office under thirty years of age.
He was quite poor early in life, but from sources not now known in the west, he became an accomplished scholar. When he attained to years of majority, he was admitted to the bar in Alabama, and about the same time married a celebrated beauty who, tradition says, soon tired of, and deserted him for another. He was an ordained minister in the Methodist church, but at what period in life he assumed ecclesiastical functions is not known to the author.
Alabama was admitted into the Union in 1819. In October, of that year there was an exciting contest for the United States senate between John Taylor and William R. King, who finally defeated Taylor by a majority of only two votes.
King had been defeated for the same office in his native State, North Carolina, and left there for more promising polit- ical fields and settled in the territory of Alabama. With Tay- lor, irony and sarcasm were terrible weapons. With these agencies he inflicted wounds that never healed. These wounds arrested his ambition and prevented the infliction of an improved edition of John Randolph on the United States senate. He became, ever after this burial of his high hopes
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and aspirations, a confirmed cynic, an Ishmaelite, and about 1837 abandoned Alabama and sought asylum in Arkansas, settling in Little Rock, in the fall of that year.
On first acquaintance he was affable and courteous to all members of the bar, and made a very flattering impression, completely secreting that biting irony and withering criticism which, on the first opportunity, he would hurl like the thun- derbolts of Jove.
Ile was six feet high, very slender, straight as an arrow, eyes gray, with the piercing flash of an eagle's, sharp features, rendered sharper by a long, sharp-pointed nose, small feet, long, bony fingers, blonde hair, combed back and resting on his shoulders, cap under arm, with spurs on.
This photo is given by Judge William Walker, who knew him well, and is drawn as he appeared in the court-house at Norris- town, in Pope county, opposite Dardanelle, in the winter of 1842, when taking position before court and jury in an old log court-house.
Not long after his arrival at Little Rock an opportunity to display his splendid abilities was presented, and he embraced and subordinated it to the full measure of his fame.
The speech was not preserved, but tradition yet hands down his oratory in Ciceronean splendor, with ripest thoughts and powers of the logician, a combination of faculties very rare, but when united in one man, they point to fame and the Pantheon.
About 1842 he defended a client at Norristown charged with murdering his wife. The trial was lengthy and resulted in conviction. A very careful and lengthy bill of exceptions was preserved during the progress of the trial by him.
John J. Clendenin, afterward judge, but then a young man, was prosecuting attorney and ex-officio attorney-general for the State, for some unexplained cause tore into shreds a vital part of the bill of exceptions, embracing the testimony of two important witnesses, without the knowledge or consent of Tay- lor. A few days after when he called on the clerk for the record, he for the first time discovered the terrible void in it ; and when Judge William Walker, who was then deputy cierk, told him of the unauthorized disposition of the record made by Clendenin, he became livid with rage.
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The mutilated pieces of the record had fallen through the puncheon floor, which Taylor tore up and gathered up the scraps, and after many hours ingenious labor succeeded in re- storing the evidence and had the clerk insert it in the record.
Judge Walker, who made out the record on which a human life depended, says it presented a remarkable appearance.
Taylor carefully preserved it as the text and foundation for a terrible phillipic against the author of its destruction, and produced the original as restored on the argument of the case in the supreme court, and in one of the fiercest phillipics ever uttered held up the mutilated skeleton in Clendenin's face and in thundering tones of eloquent indignation asked if it did not look like a departed ghost rising up in judgment against the stealthy, cowardly assassin.
The effect on court and auditory was electric, magnetic, con- vincing, overwhelming, and left an impression on all who heard it as durable as life.
The case was reversed but the second trial resulted in con- viction and hanging.
But in this connection I must say, for fear a wrong impres- sion might otherwise be indulged, that Judge Clendenin was a high-toned, honorable gentleman, and incapable of intentional wrong, but this was one of those unguarded and unfortunate accidents which called down on his head a terrific thunderbolt.
On another memorable occasion at Clarksville about 1841, Tay- lor represented the plaintiff in an ordinary civil suit and was op- posed by John Linton, a character as remarkable as that of his own.
When these two celebrities were opposed it was Greek meet- ing Greek - the battle of the giants.
Linton was an able lawyer and as careless and indifferent as Taylor in playing with lightning, but was devoid of that grace, polish and elegance of diction which distinguished Taylor.
William Cummins, Samuel Evans, Bennett H. Martin, Fred- erick W. Trapnall, Charles P. Bertrand, Samuel H. Hempstead, and many other celebrities of the "old bar of Arkansas," were in attendance on the court, and all of them very naturally en- joyed the luxury of an intellectual combat between those giants, and all, excepting Hempstead, it is said, entered into a con-
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spiracy to whet the remorseless appetites of these adversaries for each other, neither one of whom " would kneel to Jove for his thunder, nor bow to Neptune for his trident." Linton knew nothing of the conspiracy, but had imbibed all the venom nec- essary to the prompting of a terrible phillipic against Taylor.
But the latter had discovered the artful conspiracy to set Lin- ton on him, and to avenge himself on all gave royal rein to his unrivaled genius for that character of contest, and he took, first, the conspirators up, one by one, reserving Linton for his- peroration.
Judge Caldwell, who presided, and Samuel H. Hempstead were the only persons who escaped the devastation wrought by that forensic cyclone.
Hempstead was the only auditor who knew that Taylor would, with the fearless wing of an eagle, sweep down on all the bar but himself, and that his exemption was alone due to the fact that he had not joined the coalition.
Hempstead improvised a special seat for the occasion high up in the corner of the old log court-house, and no auditor in the Areopagus of ancient Greece ever enjoyed intellectual combat more than he did this.
Linton opened in an address to court and jury of great length and power, allegorically describing Taylor as his aunt, graph- ically depicting the emotional sensations of her corrupt and abandoned heart, her pale, thin, quivering lips, tall, slender form, long, bony fingers, as she invoked the offices of an angel to cover up the darkest deeds of hell.
He then paused, as if gathering renewed strength to hurl indignation at his adversary, and described her as she moved through the desecrated temple of justice in the robes and with the tongue of an arch-angel, a despised object of corruption, pollution and contamination, and then denounced her profession of religion as the consummation of all that is vile and odious and revolting to hell itself. [Taylor was a praying, professed Christian.]
During the delivery of this speech the conspirators were all greatly delighted and entertained, and up to this period did not have the remotest idea that they would be taken up one by one before the curtain closed on the scene.
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Taylor sat quiet under the excoriating affliction and as im- mobile as a marble statue, conscious in the plenitude of intellect- ual power to take care of himself.
He rose to reply, and commenced in slow, measured phrase, with all the dignity of a Roman addressing his peers in the senate, and with calm complacency alluded to all the indignities and insults which had escaped the lips of that puppet and moral monstrosity, who for some mysterious purpose had been created as a caricature on all that is elevated and noble in man -- and then gently turning the leaves of the Bible on the table before him, he unfolded the conspiracy which had culminated in this unwarranted attack on him, and pointed out and named all the lawyers and others, with an emphasis and richness and rythm of language which cannot be communicated to paper and said : "They are not content with this effort to revile and destroy me, but like the scoffer and mocker when Christ was crucified on Calvary as an atonement for the sins of mankind, they have mocked and reviled the religion I profess."
He indulged this pathetic strain until tears came to jury and auditor, and then after so artfully commanding and mastering the sympathy of his auditory turned with terrific force and re- sistless energy on the lawyers who had encouraged Linton's attack.
When he came to "Little Billy Cummins" he seemed to be reaching the climax of denunciation, and pointing to a singu- lar white spot of hair on his head said : "That is not indica- tive of honorable age, but like the mark that branded Cain is indicative of phenomenal crime."
Cummins could not contain himself any longer and sprung at him with the resolute venom and impetuosity of a tiger.
But Judge Caldwell, knowing that the lawyers who had been so unmercifully handled would probably not interpose, sprung from his seat on the bench, and with powerful grasp seized Cummins by the collar and commanded him to stop, and said with resolute emphasis : " You commenced it, you shall not interfere now," and order was restored.
During this episode Taylor folded his arms, with scornful curl of the lip and defiant menace, plainly indicating dauntless courage. He then proceeded, and, after finishing his indict-
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ment against Cummins, turned to Linton, and pointing his in- dex finger at him, enumerated the concentrated slanders which had fallen from his " polluted lips," and shaking his finger in his face said : "The derision you cast at my religion is the last and most venomous arrow of the cowardly Parthian, prepared by the defeated instrument of vice and hurled by the palsied hand of corruption ;" and then, with increased emphasis and a withering scowl of disdain, cried out : "Behold that huge mass of moral degradation ! "
For one hour this strain of invective was kept up against Linton, whose tongue frequently sought an embrace with the lower end of his sharp chin, indicating the mental torture rag- ing within, but he did not interrupt his adversary.
Judge William Walker, who heard this remarkable contest, tells me that he heard that great judge and profound scholar, General Albert Pike, years afterward, say: " It is a great mis- fortune Taylor's phillipics are not preserved for literature and posterity."
The Hon. Jesse Turner (that grand old Roman who is yet spared to us) tells me that Taylor was a great lawyer and splendid orator ; that after first acquaintance he did not mani- fest any further interest in you ; that he was a cynic and de- nounced his brother lawyers and said they wanted to poison him. [Evidently a melancholy vein of insanity which ought to have protected him against malice.]
That in common with other lawyers he rode the circuit on horseback all over the State twice each year, but departed from the usual custom in carrying a large bundle of books on his horse in front of his saddle for hundreds of miles. When the weather admitted, he would go to some secluded retreat in the dense forest and camp out by himself, and when inclement weather drove him at night for shelter to the habitations of men, he demanded a bed to himself, and when not accorded this, but compelled to share his bed with another, he would wrap or tie himself up securely in a blanket to prevent contact with his bed-fellow.
He left Arkansas about 1844 or 1845, and went to Texas and practised his profession there, and here we lose trace of him for several years, except occasional glances through the
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brilliant description of A. W. Arrington, another celebrated orator.
The next connection made is through my friend Hon. S. W. Williams, who tells me of a strange, sad scene which came under his observation in the supreme court-room in 1855. Twelve or fifteen years after he left the State he came back riding on horseback many hundreds of miles to indulge a desire to visit the scenes of other days. The old, gray-headed man was laboring under the weight of accumulated years, but was still vigorous in mind and body, and looked defiant, but cold and passionless as marble.
He went alone to the supreme court-room, whilst the court was in session, to look on the familiar scenes and faces which had witnessed his great intellectual combats once more before that tribunal should "know him no more forever." Many of the "old bar" had died, some had moved away, new judges presided on the bench, but many of the "old guard" were present, Watkins, Fowler, Bertrand, Clendenin, Hempstead, with whom he had measured lances in earlier days, and many young men who had come on since his departure.
As he entered the temple all met the cold glance of his eagle eye, and the elders recognized him, but no word or other recog- nition passed.
"Old John Taylor" never forgave a man he had once hated ; to hate once meant always ; and all who knew him knew his unrepentant, unforgiving nature.
Here was a scene worthy the brush of Raphael. Angry Jove towering among the silent gods.
The pen, the genius, the inspiration of Scott or Hugo could baptize it in a world-wide fame.
THOMAS J. LACY.
The following letter explains itself. It is from the cultured nephew of Judge Lacy, who has been a paralytic fourteen years, wholly unable to walk, and only at intervals able to speak or dictate to an amanuensis. He is a gentleman of great worth and high attainments, and wrote the letter to the author without any idea of its ever being published, but it will be appreciated
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all the more for that. This letter leaves nothing for the author except to supply the missing links as far as possible.
GLENDALE, KY., September 28, 1886.
JOHN HALLUM, Esq .:
DEAR SIR- I fear you will be disappointed. Colonel and Mrs. Doak are mistaken in thinking that I know much about the life and family of Judge Lacy. The principal part of what I know was gathered from time to time in family con- versations and rests entirely in memory. Having no records I can furnish no data ; this I regret.
Thomas J. Lacy was born in Rockingham county, North Carolina, the family having removed thither from about Fred- ericksburgh, Virginia. He was the son of Batie Cocke Lacy and Elizabeth Overton. Batie C. Lacy's father was William Lacy, and his mother, Martha Cocke. William Lacy, family tradition says, was high sheriff of Spotsylvania county under George III, Rex, etc. Judge Lacy's mother was the daughter of Colonel John Overton, of Virginia, and Ann Booker Claugh. I suppose this is far enough to trace the ancestral line in this democratic country. Here we run back to the hundredth generation of horses and bulls, when we don't know who our grandmothers were.
Judge Lacy's father had, however, a family record which carried him back seven hundred years to Hugh De Lacy, first viceroy of Ireland.
As the whole Clan Campbell are cousins of the Duke of Argyle, having sprung from the founder of the clan, so every Lacy, I suppose, traces his line back to the old Norman baron.
Judge Lacy was educated at Chapel Hill College, North Caro- lina. After completing his education he read law in the office of the celebrated John Pope, one of your territorial governors under the administration of General Jackson, his father having in the meantime removed to Nelson county, Kentucky. After studying law he settled in Springfield, Washington county, Kentucky, where his sister (my mother) lived. I was then too young to remember him.
His mother was cousin to Judge John Overton of Nashville,
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Tennessee, who as you know was the second of General Jack son in his celebrated duel with Dickinson.
Whilst in this State, Judge Lacy became the junior counsel for the defense in the celebrated case of The Commonwealth v. Beauchamp, charged with the murder of Sol. P. Sharpe. Gov- ernor Pope, who was senior counsel, told me that Lacy's was a masterly defense for so young a man. Beauchamp also in his confession spoke very complimentary of young Lacy's speech. How long Judge Lacy remained in Kentucky I don't know, not many years, however, before he located in Nashville, Tennessee, from whence he went to Arkansas as territorial judge. Of his career in that State I know nothing to write. I presume Gen- eral Pike is better acquainted with his career in Arkansas than any man living. I know he esteemed General Pike very highly as a friend, and as a man of learning, eloquence and ability. In about 1845 he went to New Orleans. Soon he was employed in a good many large and important cases notably in the Pulteney case, involving several millions of dollars ; Sergeant S. Pren- tiss was co-counsel with him. His course was too short, how- ever, to leave a permanent mark at the bar of that civil law State. He died of cholera in New Orleans in January, 1849, and was buried in the Protestant cemetery, in that city. I don't know that you care about the collateral connections of the judge's family ; I will state, however, at a venture, that Judge Lacy's maternal grandfather, John Overton, was the uncle of Dobney Carr, who married Patsey Jefferson, sister of Thomas Jefferson. Mr. Carr it was who introduced the resolutions in the general assembly of Virginia, to invite the other colonies to send delegates to a general congress representing all the col- onies, to take into consideration their common grievances and make common cause against the mother country. This resolu- tion was the initial of the continental congress. Wirt says he was the rival of Patrick Henry in eloquence, as you know. But his useful and brilliant life was cut short at the early age of thirty-six. I regret that my information is so scant. If I can, by correspondence with other branches of the family, furnish any other facts, I will do so. I do not know where a likeness of Judge Lacy of any kind is to be had.
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