Memoirs of Georgia; containing historical accounts of the state's civil, military, industrial and professional interests, and personal sketches of many of its people. Vol. II, Part 44

Author:
Publication date: 1859
Publisher: Atlanta, Ga., The Southern historicl association
Number of Pages: 1166

USA > Georgia > Memoirs of Georgia; containing historical accounts of the state's civil, military, industrial and professional interests, and personal sketches of many of its people. Vol. II > Part 44

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leading social and political questions of the time, and making his famous lecture, The Reign of the Demagogue, and Uncle Tom's Lost Cabin, so vital that states- men and educators have called the two orations distinct and vital moral forces in American politics. In every oration or speech that has fallen from his lips there breathed patriotism, fraternity, truth and sincerity. Like his great kinsman, his eloquence was logic on fire. Of all the achievements of Mr. Graves' life he himself takes most pride in the Georgia state campaign of 1894, where on the issue which he had raised of clean politics and a pure judiciary, he fought single-handed on the stump and in the columns of the press and reduced the old partisan majority of 70,000 to one of 20,000 by the issue he had precipitated. In this campaign Mr. Graves' three letters to the "Constitution" stirred the state like bugle blasts. They will go down in Georgia's history alongside of Ben Hill's Notes on the Situation and have had a distinct and powerful effect upon subsequent politics in the state. They are preserved in thousands of scrap books throughout the country. In summing up the life and achievements of John Temple Graves it may be well to know his own estimate of his motives and powers. "I have never felt that I was greater than others," said he. "I believe the merit of all my work is in its sin- cerity. I have never in one conscious moment of my public life said one word that I did not believe to be true. I have never with pen or tongue championed an unworthy cause. I have never used position, power or opportunity to gratify a private grudge or to prosecute a private gain. I have loved my country, loved humanity and reverenced God, and in the greater honors than I have deserved, which have come to me so lavishly, I have always felt the pain of my own unworthiness, and offered to myself and to the world no other explanation than I was sincere." In this statement his contemporaries concur. It is also well in this summary to record what the ripest thinkers and observers of his time have said of this truly remarkable Georgian. For all that may have seemed extrava- gant or overdrawn in any line of the foregoing sketch the impartial reader will find abundant justification in the voluntary and judicial estimate which the really great men of the country have placed upon the genius of this brilliant and accom- plished orator. These are the comments in brief :

"John Temple Graves is the most eloquent southerner of to-day."-Henry Wat- terson.

"He has the most phenomenal eloquence I ever heard."-Henry W. Grady.

"He is a born orator if one ever came into the world."-Boston Globe.

"He surpasses Ingersoll in rhetoric and delivery."-Robert Irwin Fulton.

"He is the most brilliant and statesmanlike orator heard in New York in years."-Grover Cleveland.

"John Temple Graves may be called the successor of Henry W. Grady." -"Public Opinion."

"Most finished orator I have heard in years. He should have been chosen to speak for the south at the Washington centennial."-Abram S. Hewitt.

"In John Temple Graves I have heard Henry Grady surpassed."-David B. Hill.

"Graves' 'Grady Memorial' oration is the finest piece of eloquence, written or spoken, within my knowledge."-Gen. John B. Gordon.

"I never heard a more remarkable oration than 'The Reign of the Dema- gogue,' by John Temple Graves."-Bishop John W. Beckwith.

"Graves' 'Grady Memorial' is the finest speech in the English language. It is simply a miracle of oratory."-Cassius Merrill.

"His speech is a mosaic of eloquence."-Thomas Nelson Page.

"He has the finest gift of eloquence I ever heard."-Benjamin H. Hill.

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Surely upon the foundation of words like these it is not too much to say that John Temple Graves was indeed the orator of his time. Better than that, history will accord him the merited title of patriot and statesman.

CHARLES N. WEST of Savannah, Ga., was born in Georgia Aug. 31, 1844.

His family were always identified with the coast of Georgia, Charles West, his great-great-grandfather, having removed from Charleston, S. C., to Liberty County, Ga., in 1754. His own father was Dr. Charles W. West of Savannah, and his mother, Eliza Whitehead, the daughter of Judge John Whitehead of Burke county. He entered Princeton college in 1859, but was called home after the election of Mr. Lincoln to the presidency. He then went to the university of Georgia for a few months until the opening of the war. He entered the Savannah volunteer guards as a private in 1861, and served with them until 1863, when he was detailed for the signal service, and remained in that service until the end of the war. He then taught school and studied law. He was admitted at Columbia county superior court in 1867. He commenced the practice of the law in Savan- nah in 1869, and shortly afterward married Mary C. Cheves, daughter of the late Langdon Cheves of South Carolina. He received the honorary degree of Master of Arts from Princeton college in 1874. He moved to Baltimore in the spring of 1877, where he practiced law, and became a member of the leading firm of Marshall, Fisher & West. His health requiring a milder climate he returned to Savannah, Ga., in 1883. He is the author of the sketches of Sidney Lanier and William Harris Crawford. He is a zealous and efficient member of the Georgia Historical society, and is a successful and competent attorney well fitted and endowed as a historian and jurist.

W. D. CRAWFORD, judge of the County court, Buena Vista, Marion Co., Ga., son of Samuel H. and Sarah J. (Dunham) Crawford, was born in Marion county in 1859. His paternal grandparents were members of old Georgia families. His grandfather, William Crawford, was a farmer, owned quite a number of slaves, and, late in life, removed to Alabama. He was a soldier in the Indian war of 1836. Mr. Crawford's father read law under Judge (ex-congressman) Hugh Buchanan, at Newnan, Ga., and entered upon the practice at Tazewell, but moved to Buena Vista when it was made the county seat, and continued his practice there. For a number of years he was clerk of the inferior court, and was at one time law partner of ex-Associate Justice of the Supreme court, Mark H. Blanford-now of Columbus, Ga. He enlisted in the late war, and died at his home from the result of a wound received at Griswoldville, Ga., near its close. His maternal grandparents were William and Elizabeth (Harris) Dunham. Mr. Dunham was born in South Carolina, was a large slave owner, came to Georgia and settled on a rice plantation in Liberty county, where he reared fourteen children to maturity. He was a descendant of one of the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Rock, Dec. 22, 1620. Mr. Crawford was reared in Buena Vista, where he received a good common school education. On completing that he read law under Maj. E. W. Miller, and was admitted to the bar in 1887. He gained a good practice at once, but he is now judge of the County court. He was president of the board of commissioners for a number of years, and mayor of the city three terms, con- clusive evidence of his ability and popularity. In 1891 Mr. Crawford was married to Miss Callie Miller-born in Marion county in 1867-daughter of Major E. W. and Sallie (Jones) Miller. Major Miller was born in Warren county, Ga., moved to Marion county early in life and practiced law many years. He was the first ordinary of Marion county and has represented the county in the general assembly.

WO Crawford

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He was a soldier in the Confederate army, and was by the side of Mr. Crawford's father when he was shot down at Griswoldville. Mrs. Crawford is a member of the Baptist church.

JESSE EDWARD MERCER was born in Webster county, Ga., Oct. 30, 1860,

and is the son of William H. Mercer, a prominent farmer of that county. He was given a common school education, and when quite a youth took service with his uncle, Capt. Philip E. Boyd, an extensive merchant and farmer of Leary, Ga. He was editor of the "Calhoun County Courier" for several years; at the same time was county surveyor at the age of twenty-one, and also conducted a lumber mill. He then sold his newspaper and milling interests and entered the mercantile busi- ness, which he subsequently disposed of and became the agent of the Central railroad at Leary, as well as the agent of the Southern Express company, and at the same time held the office of postmaster. Mr. Mercer came very near securing an appointment at West Point Military academy, and during his career as a journalist narrowly missed a duel with H. M. McIntosh of the "Albany News and Advertiser" over the public printing of Baker county. He represented his county in the first road congress held in the state. He is now serving a term in the state senate from the Ninth district, and at the same time is deputy revenue collector, with headquarters at Brunswick. In the senate he is chairman of the public road committee, and brought himself into considerable prominence by introducing a bill for the employment of the convict force of the state on the public roads and in swamp drainage. Mr. Mercer was married Nov. 25, 1885, to Miss Dora Colley, daughter of Judge John Colley, one of the pioneers of Calhoun county. She has borne him six children, only one of which is living. Mr. Mercer is a master Mason. He is what may be correctly called a self-made man, full of energy, self- assertive, possessing a large fund of general information secured by assiduous application, which demonstrates itself in both his writings and his conversation. Being but thirty-five, with all of his energies well in hand, the public will learn to know Mr. Mercer better as he grows older. He is, indeed, a rising man.

ALEXANDER PRATT ADAMS was born in Savannah, Ga., Feb. 20, 1852. He received his academic education in the schools of Savannah, and was pre- pared to enter college by the late William S. Bogart. He entered the University of Georgia in the Sophomore class in September, 1866, in the class of which three other distinguished Georgians, Judge Emory Speer, William R. Hammond and Howard Van Epps, were members. In the fall of 1869 he commenced the study of the law in the office of the distinguished jurist, Thomas E. Lloyd, and was admitted to the bar of the Superior court of Chatham county on February 26, 1870, and opened an office immediately in Savannah. In the year of 1876 he and his brother, Samuel B. Adams, formed a partnership for the practice of law, which continued till the year 1882, when, on the resignation by Judge Tompkins of the judgeship of the Eastern circuit, Mr. Adams was elected, and on November Io qualified to fill the unexpired term. He was re-elected to that office and held it until he resigned on May 1, 1889, when he at once became a member of the law firm of Denmark & Adams of this city, and so remained until his death on Sept. 25, 1892. This brief sketch epitomizes the short career of our distinguished and lamented brother. Two decades ushered him upon his active life, and two more decades brought that life of action, usefulness, honor and renown to its close. It may be safely asserted that his achievements lay within the limits of the last twelve years of his brief career. He was a youth of note. In the academy in Savannah his rank was the highest. He was classed as a fine debater at the age of fourteen, and when only sixteen years old he had acquired such a reputation as

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a debater that he was elected by a very large majority of the members of the Kappa society (a literary society in the University of Georgia) as its anniversarian orator. He was then in the junior class in that university. He was, no doubt, one of the many young men who, during their college course, are looking over and beyond the curriculum and campus into the broader fields of action and knowledge, where first honors are not the rewards of memory and rote and ribbon parchment. Speaking in a dead language is never received as proof of intellect or manhood. His brilliant career as lawyer and judge assures us that, when a collegian, he had chosen his field of future conflict and was then forging weapons fit for victory. Passing over the short period during which Mr. Adams practiced law before his elevation to the bench we will briefly comment upon him as a judge. Considering his age (being but thirty years old when he assumed the ermine), we can say-with the assurance, we believe, of all who practiced law in this court-that no one of his predecessors was his superior as a judge. He combined quickness of apprehension with breadth of comprehension; severity of logic with strong and helpful imagination; clearness of perception with accuracy of expression; a tull vocabulary with verbal eclecticism; patience with dignity, and urbanity with discipline. Ruling in perfect mastery over all these powers and aids was a noble sense of justice, tempered by mercy and directed by judicial wisdoni. If we were to name any one characteristic as the chief one of all the mental and moral powers of Judge Adams we would call it earnestness. It was the flame of his oratory, and by it he conquered. It was visible in all his actions and audible in every utterance, whether in his most im- passioned eloquence, or the gentle flow of social conversation. With this quality of soul, with a round, melodious voice, a mastery of language strong and appro- priate, a bold yet chastened imagination, a strength of logic which gave to a simple statement of a proposition the force of a demonstration, he ranked among the fore- most orators, whether on the hustings, or in the forum as an advocate. Even his charges to the grand and petit juries were often eloquent and always models of diction. But so far we have only looked upon the moral and intellectual man. There was another and a higher and sweeter life. Judge Adams died at the age of forty years. He had about reached the crest of the hill. In his upward course he had gathered honors, reaped rich rewards, listened to the plaudits of those below, so sweet to young ambition; he had reared his head above the clouds where vaulting youth fondly dreams eternal sunshine settles to remain. Having reached the contemplative period in life, he looked down and backward, and then down and forward, and he realized that, as he advanced beyond the crest, his worldly honors could be no prop to his feet, his intellectual lamp no light for his safety. Conscious of his weakness and dependence, he asked for divine aid. About a year before he became a member of the Independent Presbyterian church of this city, he led to the altar Miss Sarah Olmstead of Savannah. And we think it not out of place to say that this judicious step changed the current of a moral into a devotedly active Christian life. That earnestness of soul which was his strong characteristic, kindled into a brighter flame in the Christian, and illuminated every step he took until his mortal became immortal. Those who knew him best after his spiritual change unanimously bear witness to his absolute submission to the divine will, and his abiding faith that death is but the gate to immortal life.

HENRY HOLCOMBE TUCKER, deceased, was a Baptist minister whose ancestors, on both the maternal and paternal sides, were of the best old Virginia stock. His paternal grandfather, Isaiah Tucker, was born in Amherst county Va., about the year 1761, but moved to Georgia in early life and settled in Warren county where he married Miss Sarah Gibson. He was a man of classical attain- ments and literary tastes. His eldest son, Germain Tucker, the father of Henry

REV. DR . H. H.TUCKER.

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Holcombe Tucker, was born in 1794 and died when twenty-seven years of age, leaving two children, one of whoin soon died. Dr. H. H. Tucker was therefore the only representative of the family. His maternal grandfather, Rev. Henry Holcombe, D. D., was also a native of Virginia. Dr. Tucker's father was the son of a wealthy planter, and dying at an early age little is known of him except that he was a man of culture and elegant address. Dr. Tucker's mother was Frances Henrietta, fifth child of Henry Holcombe, D. D. She afterward became Mrs. Hoff and spent many years of her life in Philadelphia, but died in Atlanta, Ga., on April 14, 1877. Henry Holcombe Tucker was born May 10, 1819, in Warren county, Georgia, near the place now called Camak. When he was a mere child his mother removed to Philadelphia, which was his home until he was grown. In his sixteenth year he made a profession of religion and was baptized by Dr. William T. Brantly, Sr., in the Delaware river. He received his education at an institution founded by Benjamin Franklin-the academic department of the University of Pennsylvania. Having gone through a marvelous amount of most exacting drill in Latin and Greek, he entered the university as freshman in 1834, and remained until senior half-advanced, when, desiring to spend some time in Washington city, he left the university and entered the senior class in Columbian college, District of Columbia, where he was graduated A. B. in 1838. While at this institution he spent much time in the senate chamber of the United States witnessing the contests of those giants, Clay, Calhoun, Webster and others who were at that time leaders in political life. From 1839 to 1842 he engaged in mercantile business in Charleston, S. C., and then studied law until 1846, when he was admitted to the bar in Forsyth, Monroe Co., Ga., and practiced his profession until 1848. The knowledge of the practical business of life acquired by him during that decade remained with him ever afterward. While practicing law at Forsyth, Ga., he married Miss Mary Catherine West, who died in less than one year after. This severe blow drove the heart-broken mourner to the Bible for comfort, and he became convinced that he ought to preach the gospel. He immediately decided to enter the ministry, sold his law books and, after receiving license from the Forsyth church, repaired to Mercer university to obtain private instruction from the venerable Dr. John L. Dagg, then president of that institution. It was his intention to enter at once into the work of the ministry, but Providence ordered otherwise. Great pressure was brought to bear to induce him to become an educator and, reluctantly yielding, he taught for two or three years in the Southern Female college at La Grange, Ga., where he was ordained in 1851. In 1853 he was offered the presidency of Wake Forest college in North Carolina, but declined it, having previously accepted the pastorship of the Baptist church in Alexandria, Va., on the duties of which office he entered January 1, 1854. While in Alexandria Dr. Tucker married Miss Sarah O. Stevens, his excellent and accomplished widow. In 1856 he was elected professor of belles-lettres and metaphysics in Mercer university, which position he held until 1862, when the institution was in a measure broken up by the war. He became editor of the Christian Index on Jan. 1, 1866, but in July following resigned the position to accept the presidency of Mercer university, to which he had been unanimously elected in April. It was during his administration that the university was moved from Penfield to Macon, and he was one of the chief promoters of the removal. Resigning the presidency of the university in 1871, he went with his family to Europe and was absent fourteen months. While there he assisted in the formation of the Baptist church in Rome, and baptized a man in the river Tiber, probably the first time such an event had occurred there in fourteen or fifteen centuries, or perhaps since the days of the apostles. Dr. Tucker was elected chancellor of the University of Georgia in 1874, which position he retained until the summer of

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1878, when he became again the editor of the "Christian Index" in Atlanta, where he resided till his death. He never abandoned the ministry, but preached con- stantly as occasion offered. Being extensively acquainted, he preached many times, north and south, in many of the cities and towns on the Atlantic coast, from Maine to Georgia, and also officiated during a large part of one winter in the American chapel in Paris, France. Dr. Tucker was opposed to secession, and debated the issue publicly with some of the ablest speakers on the other side, but when the war broke out he promptly took sides with his own people and to the last co-operated heartily and zealously with the Confederates. One of the first to foresee the salt famine, which afterward so seriously affected the Confederacy, he was the first to call public attention to it, traveling over the state at his own expense and in public speeches urging the people to enter upon the manufacture of salt. For his zeal in this matter, strange to say, he was often ridiculed, yet he soon became the president of a large salt manufacturing company, which manu- factured the article at the rate of two hundred barrels per day; and many of those who ridiculed his scheme were afterward glad to purchase the salt which he manufactured. Dr. Tucker was also, early in the war, the originator and founder of the Georgia Relief and Hospital association, which corresponded in its objects with the Northern Christian commission. The institution was very popular with all classes of the southern people; enormous contributions were made to its support and by its aid relief and comfort were carried to tens of thousands of sick and wounded, and dying soldiers. During the war small-pox prevailed in many portions of the country and vaccine virus was exceedingly scarce. Dr. Tucker always carried in his vest pocket a lancet and vaccine virus with which he vaccinated all-old and young, white and black-who would submit to the operation. Here again he met with ridicule, but those who appreciate the wisdom and humanity of his work will respect and admire the man who thus braved ridicule for the public good. These facts and others that might be mentioned evince that his mind was of a decidedly practical turn. Dr. Tucker though a brilliant writer, who wrote much, published but little. About 1855 he published a series of letters on "Religious Liberty," addressed to a distinguished politician of this state, controverting an assertion of his in a public speech, that Romanists were the first to establish religious liberty on this continent. Dr. Tucker denied that Romanists had ever established religious liberty, first or last, on this or on any other continent, and he affirmed that in the establishment of soul liberty Baptists were the pioneers of the world. The discussion excited much interest, was largely copied by the press all over the United States, and was finally published in pamphlet form for general circulation. He also published a number of sermons and pamphlets, one of the best of which is entitled, The Right and the Wrong Way of Raising Money for Religious and Benevolent Purposes, in which he demonstrates the mighty power of "littles." In 1868 Lippincott & Co. published for him a small volume with the unique title The Gospel in Enoch, full of interest- ing and original ideas forcibly expressed. The striking feature of his writing is its originality; yet his thoughts so commend themselves to the reader's judgment that one wonders why those things have not been said before. A sermon of his on baptism, published by the American Baptist Publication society in 1879, received unwonted encomiums for its novel, yet strong and incontrovertible presentation of Scripture truth. It will, in all likelihood, tincture appreciably the literature of the long future in regard to the subject of baptism. In 1884 the American Baptist Publication society published for him a volume of sermons entitled The Old Theology Restated. His style of writing is clear, cogent, convincing and vigor- ous, frequently brilliant, sometimes thrilling, but always so perspicuous that it cannot be misunderstood. As a preacher he was bold, original and eloquent, ever

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proclaiming gospel truth. He never failed to rivet attention by the earnestness of his manner, the vigor of his language, the originality of his conceptions and the conclusiveness of his logic. His aim was to convince the mind, yet he could effectively reach the heart. He was a forcible rather than a graceful speaker, and scemed more concerned about the thought which he presented than about the dress in which he arrayed it, or the manner in which he delivered it. He was like a man in battle, who may be naturally graceful, but who forgets his graces in the fight. At the same time it is true that few men possess greater oratorical ability. In college his exercises in elocution gave such extraordinary evidences of genius as to occasion the prediction that nothing but the power of religion would keep him from the stage.

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Memoirs of Georgia; containing historical accounts of the state's civil, military, industrial and professional interests, and personal sketches of many of its people. Vol. II, Part 44

Author: Publication date: 1859 Publisher: Atlanta, Ga., The Southern historicl association Number of Pages: 1166

Author:
Publication date: 1859
Publisher: Atlanta, Ga., The Southern historicl association
Number of Pages: 1166