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 45

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 45

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As a teacher and logician Dr. Tucker was unexcelled. He was a dialectician of the first order-for with him logic was a passion. Few young men have left college better grounded in the principles of logic, or better practical dialecticians, than those tutored at Mercer during his incumbency in the chair of logic. In mental power and intellectual fertility he had no superior among the ministers of our state. With a heart naturally tender, he was nevertheless a firm, positive man; stern and unyielding when occasion required, always independent, uncompromising and fearless, possessed of the highest degree of self-respect, he yet would have been willing, if necessary, to wash the feet of the humblest saint. The soul of sincerity, he despised all pretence and dissimulation, and with as kind and true a heart as ever beat in human bosom, he had a mind that entitled him to walk as a peer among the princes of men. In conversation and in social life he was in the highest degree entertaining and cultivated. In one sense he was not much of a student, but in another sense he was a great student. He was no worshiper of books, but he was a habitual thinker and did his own thinking. Even logic, his favorite study, he cultivated not so much by books as by ways known only to himself. He denied being learned, yet he was a fine scholar and possessed a large fund of general as well as professional knowledge. The degree of D. D. was conferred on him by his alma mater in 1860, and the degree of LL. D. by Mercer university in 1876.

At the time of his death he was proprietor and editor of "The Christian Index." He died in Atlanta, Sept. 9, 1889, from the effects of a fall.

DR. KINGMAN PORTER MOORE, a prominent physician of Macon, Ga., son of David H. and Susan (Calloway) Moore, was born in Monroe county, Ga., May 6, 1844. His father was a Baptist minister of much native power, and, as one of the pioneers in the early settlement of the eastern portion of Monroe county, did great work for the cause of religion and morality. His mother was Susan Calloway, daughter of Edward Calloway, also one of the early settlers of Monroe county, and a man of large influence and business capacity, who accu- mulated a large fortune and at one time represented his county in the general assembly. She was a woman possessed of an unusual amount of practical com- mon sense and business qualities, and yet as gentle and amiable as it is possible to be. Dr. Moore was born near Bolingbroke, in Monroe county, but removed with his father's family to Forsyth when about ten years of age, and it was here that his preliminary education was begun. After one or two years in the common schools he entered Hilliard institute at Forsyth with the first session of this new school, under Thomas G. Scott. Some years subsequent to this his father removed to Barnesville, Ga., and it was at this school, now Gordon institute, where he was being prepared for the junior class in Mercer university, when the war came on and thwarted so many well laid plans of the south's young manhood. Full of enthusiasm and the hot southern sentiment which filled the hearts of the young

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men of those times, he left school when a little more than sixteen years of age and joined the Barnesville blues, the first volunteer company to enter the Con- federate service from Pike county. This company went out under the command of the brave Dr. George M. McDowell, one of the foremost physicians of middle Georgia, and was assigned to duty in the Third Georgia battalion. Soon after entering the army Dr. Moore contracted measles at Lynchburg, Va., and for several months his life hung evenly in the balance, until it was decided by the physicians in attendance and his good captain that his frail constitution would not allow him to stand the vicissitudes of soldier life, and without his knowledge or consent he was honorably discharged from the army and sent home. During the early summer of 1862, having regained his health, Dr. Moore again enlisted in the Confederate service and joined the Griffin light artillery, a company then being made up at Griffin, Ga., under command of Obadiah Gibson, an old and promi- nent lawyer of his time. Soon after the organization of this company it was assigned to duty in the army of Tennessee and accompanied Gen. Braxton Bragg in his famous campaign through Tennessee and Kentucky during the fall and winter of 1862 and 1863. Returning from Kentucky, through Rabun Gap to Knoxville, Tenn., this portion of the army made the hard marches over the moun- tains to take part in the great battles around Murfreesboro and Tullahoma. Dr. Moore fought as a private in his company through the whole war, and was in many of the hottest conflicts and most noted battles of those dark days. For two long days during the terrible battle of Chickamauga the pieces of artillery of his company were kept intensely hot from constant firing. Perhaps the most pro- longed and heaviest cannonading of the whole war was that of Sunday's fight of that great battle, and Dr. Moore's command was in the thickest of the conflict. Many of the men of his company bled from the ears from the atmospheric con- cussion due to the heavy cannonading. He was in many of the battles and the heavy skirmishing and artillery duels from Missionary Ridge, around Dalton, Resaca, Lost Mountain and around Marietta, and in two heavy engagements around Atlanta-one on the extreme right of the line, where Gen. Walker was killed, and one on the Sand Town road, to the left of the line-and he was in the hottest of these battles. In this last engagement he received his only wound, a slight cut upon the head by a fragment of shell, which killed two other men in his company. This wound was slight, and he did not leave the battlefield. While Gen. Sherman was on his famous march to the sea Dr. Moore was with his com- mand under Gen. Hood on his memorable campaign to Nashville, and participated in the horrible battle at Jackson, Tenn .; also in the fight around Nashville, and during the memorable retreat fought at Huntsville and Stephenson. That part of the army to which he belonged came down through Mississippi to Demopolis, Ala., then to Selma, where another sharp and hard battle was fought. Retreating from Selma, the fragments of Hood's command made some slight resistance at several places, and the last battle, or heavy skirmish, in which Dr. Moore was engaged was in defense of the Girard bridge at Columbus, Ga. But the enemy succeeded later in the day in crossing over the railroad bridge higher up the river, and Columbus fell into the enemy's possession. The last battles were fought and the cause for which the south had spent so much of her means and so much of her patriotic blood sank forever. After the war Dr. Moore engaged in educational work the greater part of two years. Like many of the southern sol- dier boys he found himself not only without means but with an aged father and mother and single sister to look after and largely provide for; hence he had to work almost day and night to keep the wolf from the door, and to lay by suf- ficient funds to prosecute his chosen profession. Getting home from the army

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in the spring of 1865, he taught school the balance of the year near Barnesville, Ga., and began the study of medicine under Dr. George M. McDowell. The year 1866 was devoted to farming in the eastern portion of Monroe county, and reading medicine under Dr. D. B. Searcy. In 1867 he taught school near Bolingbroke, devoting his nights and spare moments from school duties to the prosecution of his studies. Leaving home and his young wife in October of that year for Baltimore, he attended medical lectures at the old Washington university, now College of Physicians and Surgeons. After returning from Baltimore he entered the At- lanta Medical college, then holding its annual sessions during the summer, and was graduated from this school in the fall of 1868. Dr. Moore was first honor man and valedictorian of his class. Immediately after his graduation he entered upon the practice of his profession at Knoxville, Crawford Co., Ga., where he did a large and successful practice. In 1879 he removed to Forsyth, Ga., the home of his early youth, and formed a partnership in the practice and drug business with the late Dr. L. B. Alexander, and for five years enjoyed a large and growing practice. While at Forsyth he delivered each winter a course of lectures on Anatomy and Hygiene to the young ladies of Monroe Female college. It was during these years that the college building and dormitories of this school were burned, and it is conceded by all that the present magnificent building owes its existence to the pluck and indefatigable efforts of Dr. Moore more than to any other one factor. For many years he was one of the most active trustees of this time-honored institution. Desiring to enlarge his field of work, Dr. Moore in 1883 removed to Macon, Ga., and was soon established in the front rank of the leading physicians of the place. He is a member and ex-president of the Macon Medical association, member and ex-president of the Medical Association of Georgia, and indeed has held every office within the gift of the State Medical association. When he was president of the association he enjoyed the distinction of being perhaps the youngest president the association had had up to that time. He is a member of the Southern Surgical and Gynecological association and the American Medical association. He was appointed by the governor in 1893 as one of the representatives from Georgia to the Pan-American Medical congress. In 1886 he took a post-graduate course at the polyclinic, New York, and also during the winter of 1886 and 1887 matriculated and attended lectures at the university, New York. Again in 1889 he took another post-graduate course at the polyclinic. In 1891 he was elected by the trustees of Mercer university to a professorship in this institution, and has up to date lectured on anatomy, physiology and hy- giene to the junior and senior classes in this famous college. Dr. Moore is not unknown in the journalistic branch of his profession, having contributed a large number of valuable articles to different medical magazines, the titles of some of which are the following: Puerperal Eclampsia, its Etiology, Pathology and Treat- ment; Anaesthesia in Labor, with Some Suggestions as to the Rationale of its Action; the Female Urethra, a Source of Trouble often Overlooked in our Gyne- cological Investigations; What Shall be Done with the Uterus after Abortions? On Which Side of the Line Does the Pendulum now Swing in the Battey-Taite Operation? Report of Thirty-two Abdominal Operations with one Death; Re- port of a Large Vesico-Vaginal Fistula, with Complete Eversion of Bladder, Reaching to the Vulva, Pregnancy at Five Months, Operation and Complete Cure. These, with many other articles, have appeared in the various medical journals and transactions of medical organizations, and have been well received by the profession. Since 1890 Dr. Moore has operated a private sanitarium and treated a large number of patients from almost every section of Georgia and adjoining states, and has done most of the major operations in gynecological

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work, including removal of one spleen. In general surgery he has been very suc- cesstul, having done several appendicitis and several lithotomy operations without a death. He is a Mason, member of the Macon lodge No. 5, F. A. M., was worshipful master of the lodges at Knoxville and Forsyth while residing at those places. He is also a member of Macon senate No. 117, K. A. E. O. He is a member of the Baptist church and has filled the office of deacon in his church for twenty years. In January, 1867, Dr. Moore was married to Miss Sallie M. Milner, of Pike county, Ga., whose lineage marks some of the most solid citizens of Georgia and Alabama. Of this union five children have blessed their home, the oldest, Dr. Johnson McDowell, having graduated from Mercer university in 1888, from the Atlanta Medical college in 1894 and from Bellevue Hospital Med- ical college, New York, in 1895; Minnie Lou, now Mrs. C. W. Steed, formerly professor in Gordon institute, now editor of "The Easy Chair;" Attie S., now music teacher in Waynesboro academy; Colquitt K., now in college at Mercer university, and Susan Marie, now at school in National Park seminary, Forest Glen, Md.

WILLIAM H. FELTON, ex-congressman and graduate in medicine, resides near Cartersville, Bartow Co., Ga. He was the only child of his parents, John and Mary D. Felton, and was born in Oglethorpe county, Ga., on June 19, 1823. His paternal grandfather, Job Felton, was a native of North Carolina, of Scotch-Irish extraction. He emigrated to Georgia in early manhood, settling in Wilkes county. He was a scion of the Felton family, whose descendants are found in many states of the Union-names worthily remembered in lines of intelligence and progress. He married twice, his second wife being a Miss Harrell (the family name still borne by the subject of this' sketch), and she was the mother of Dr. W. H. Felton's father, Mr. John Felton, who was born and reared in Oglethorpe county, where he lived from infancy until he removed to Athens, Ga., in the year 1835. A farmer by occupation as well as choice, Mr. John Felton relinquished his fertile lands in his native county to educate his only son at the university of Georgia, and to be near him during that crucial period of his career. John Felton was also a soldier in the war of 1812, entering one of the first volunteer companies organized in that part of the state, serving as captain of his company during the most of six months' service under Gen. John Floyd. He was in the battle of Calibbee, near the site of the city of Columbus, and was distin- guished alike for courage and patriotism. In the year 1847 Mr. John Felton and his wife, accompanied by Dr. Wm. H. Felton, moved to the county of Cass, now Bartow, where he continued to reside until his death, which occurred in the year 1870, at the ripe age of eighty years. His attachment to the Baptist church and his adherence to the whig party were the prominent features of his religious and political character. His wife, Mary D. Felton, departed this life in 1859 at the age of sixty-three years. William H. Felton was born in the Oglethorpe home, was reared on a farm and received his early school training in the old-field schools of that era. When twelve years old he entered the grammar school of Athens under the well-known preceptor, Mr. Ebenezer Newton. Matriculating in Frank- lin college in 1838, he graduated from the university of the state in 1842. He was a well-known speaker in the debates which were held weekly under the auspices of the Demosthenian and Phi Kappa societies; Dr. Felton being a member of the first-named literary organization. These debates were the distinguishing features of that period of university training, beginning on Saturday forenoons, often con- tinuing throughout the afternoon until I0 o'clock at night. These contests in forensic skill developed many of the statesmen and orators which made Georgia

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great in the eyes of the nation during the years which followed. The mention of A. C. Garlington, John Vason, Henry Hull and others of Dr. Felton's class, comes in close proximity with Benj. H. Hill, J. L. M. Curry, Thos. R. R. Cobb, Joseph Le Conte, Linton Stephens, E. H. Pottle and divers other names which illustrated Georgia on field and forum. Immediately upon leaving college Dr. Felton began the study of medicine under Dr. Richard D. Moore, a famous practitioner of Athens, graduating from the medical college of Georgia, Augusta, in the year 1844, the valedictorian of a splendid class of students. Dr. Felton was married in early life to Miss Ann Carlton, daughter of Mr. J. R. Carlton of Athens. This devoted wife and Christian mother died in 1851, leaving one child, a daughter, Mrs. Ann A. Gibbons. While scarcely out of his teens he taught a class of boys at the earnest request of patrons and friends; and the roll call would now bring forward the names of a number of Georgia's eminent men who were among his pupils at that time. He joined the Methodist church in the year 1839 when only sixteen years old, and held the responsible position of Sunday school superintend- ent, selected by the honored pastor of the church, Rev. W. J. Parks. After removing to Cass county, locating near Cartersville, Dr. Felton entered upon the active practice of his chosen profession of medicine; but the strain upon a delicate nervous organization proved too severe and forced retirement, with only agriculture and literary studies to occupy his attention. In 1848 he received a license to become a local minister of the Methodist Episcopal church, south. For upwards of forty years he gave tlie best efforts of his mind and strength to Sabbath pulpit exercises throughout the county. Large crowds followed these appointments, whether in town pulpits or under rustic bush-arbor meeting places. For nearly half a century, Sunday after Sunday, without salary or per- quisites, this faithful preacher devoted his best energies to the cause of God and religion; and it is probable that he preached more funeral sermons, and performed a greater number of marriage ceremonies than any man of his day and generation. Bishop Andrew presided at the ordination service when Dr. Felton was made a deacon, under the regulations of the Methodist church; and Bishop George F. Pierce conferred the office of elder four years later. When physical strength permits these pulpit exercises are still continued in and around his home. In October, 1853, Dr. Felton was again married-to the lady who bears his name at this writing-namely, Miss Rebecca Latimer, daughter of Maj. Charles Latimer, late of De Kalb county, Ga. Perhaps the history of the state does not present the names of any two persons whose national reputation equals that of Dr. Felton and his loyal helpmeet. With zeal, ability and perseverance, she has walked hand in hand with her husband for nearly half a century, sustaining, cheering and promoting his best efforts for good government and the benefit of the laboring classes of this county. During the heat of political campaigns in Washington and elsewhere, her intelligent counsel and general helpfulness have been his inspiration and strong support. With unceasing watchfulness she has been ever at his side, to caution, aid and defend, until she has made herself his pride and crown of rejoicing in the harvest days of age and honors. As one of Georgia's two lady managers of the World's Fair, she won encomiums of praise and apprecia- tion from her national colleagues, and she has been also selected to further the interests of the Cotton States and International exposition from its very inception In token of her beautiful loyalty to her husband's interests, as well as her patriotic endeavors for reform and progress in her native state, the legislature of Georgia invited her to the speaker's platform at one of its brilliant sessions, "as a woman in whom the state took pride." This auspicious union is blessed with one surviving child-Dr. Howard E. Felton-a practicing physician in his native county of Bartow. Dr. Felton's political career has been most remarkable as well as

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interesting to Georgians. In early manhood he attached himself to the whig party, and the imprimatur of these early whig principles has been discovered or developed under all the changes and environments of later years. His first vote was cast for Henry Clay; his first political speech was made in Watkinsville, near Athens, for the candidates of the whig party. So long as there was a whig party to support he remained loyal to its principles and candidates, representing Cass county in the legislature of 1851. After the war he united his fortunes with the democratic party, because he was in full sympathy with the southern cause, and served as a volunteer surgeon in Ocmulgee hospital, Macon, Ga., during several months of the civil war. Unlike many others, he does not regret the failure of the southern Confederacy, for while he was the owner of a large number of slaves, he is rejoiced at their emancipation, and believes the abolishment of human slavery to be the one great blessing that resulted from the war between the states. During reconstruction days and carpet-bag politics he was a loyal democrat, true to his own people and pronounced in disfavor of the greedy horde of politicians who "ran with the hare and held with the hounds" in Georgia. During the year 1874 there were unrest and great dissatisfaction with such methods and men. Complying with the urgent request of personal and political friends he announced himself as an independent candidate in the Seventh con- gressional district of Georgia for the Forty-fourth congress. For nearly six months this campaign went on, attended by unprecedented heat and bitterness. It was deemed rank treason to antagonize a party nomination by his political opponents, and the contest grew hotter every hour until the election, when the result hung in the balance three whole days before the vote was officially declared. Such a race, with such odds to contend against, had never been known in Georgia, or in the south, up to that time; and hundreds of people recall the . vision of a heroic candidate, without newspapers, or money, or organized sup- port to aid him, traveling constantly over fourteen large populous counties, speaking day and night; hurling defiance in the teeth of his defamers, and making the welkin ring in his defense of the rights of a free people until he won his election by a majority of eighty-two votes, despite the frantic but well-ordered opposition 'of the entire democratic organization of the state of Georgia. His service in the Forty-fourth congress gave him national reputation as an orator and statesman; and his merit was duly recognized by his position on the com- mittee of commerce, with river and harbor improvements. He succeeded in placing the Coosa river in the list of government undertakings or enterprises, and from that day to this the national work has gone steadily on to completion. His patriotic mind enlisted national aid for Savannah and Brunswick harbors, and his subsequent re-elections to the Forty-fifth and Forty-sixth congresses gave him enlarged opportunities to benefit the commerce of his native state and the entire south by his loyalty to their interests. Perhaps the distinguishing feature of his congressional career was his skillful diagnosis of the financial depression then afflicting the country, and his brilliant advocacy of the remonetization of the silver dollar. His speeches on this subject read like prophecy-in the light of experience and present financial disasters-which have surely followed the repeal of the law which permitted the limited coinage of silver. Hon. A. H. Stephens pronounced his famous "wrecker speech" to be the equal of the finest efforts of the early statesmen of the republic, when orators were giants in debate and marvels of eloquence. His unflinching advocacy of treasury notes and gold and silver coin to be kept equal in purchasing value with each other, each and all interchangeable at the treasury and a legal tender for all debts, public and private, constituted perhaps the clearest system of practical finance ever known to this government and gave him the confidence of his constituents and the approval of

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the state at large. A bill which made national quarantine effective, was also his pet and pride, and elicited strong words of approval from S. S. Cox and other national statesmen. At the opening of the Forty-sixth congress, Speaker S. J. Randall placed Dr. Felton on the first committee of the house, namely, ways and means. He had for his colleagues such names as Garfield, Kelley, Fernando Wood, Carlisle and Tucker of Virginia, the ablest men in congress. While Mr. Garfield was serving on this committee he was elected first to the senate, and afterward to the presidency of the United States, and was succeeded by Gov. McKinley on the committee. A revision of the tariff brought about the reduction of duty on many necessities of life, and placed quinine on the free list; but he has always been an advocate of a tariff for revenue raised from the luxuries of com- merce, with incidental protection to American industries. For six years this faithful public servant thus devoted his best energies to the service of his con- stituents, until the machine politicians of the Seventh congressional district reasserted themselves and with their methods compassed his defeat in the year 1880. In 1884 Dr. Felton was elected to represent Bartow county in the general assembly of the state, and was re-elected for two succeeding terms thereafter. It is no exaggeration to affirm that no member of the general assembly was listened to more attentively, was confided in more implicitly, or who exercised a wider or more potential influence than did this member from Bartow. Largely through his instrumentality, his determined and uncompromising opposition to the sale of the Western & Atlantic railroad, this magnificent property of the state was saved to the commonwealth. The result was that under a new lease the rental was increased from $300,000 per annum to $420,000-one-half of which goes to the public school fund. During the pendency of this lease bill excitement ran high. The accustomed lobby influences were present and rampant. Every plan, policy and suggestion was presented, pressed and urged, to effect the sale of the state's property and to defeat the will of the people; but this faithful representative never faltered from the advocacy of what he was convinced were the best interests of the people of Georgia, until the lease was perfected and the bill which he wrote out in his own home became the law of the state-with valuable amendments added thereto. The general result thus accruing to his labors will be found to be at the end of twenty-nine years-when this new lease expires, that its rental will have poured into the state's treasury over $12,000,000 in clean cash, the state coming into full ownership at the expiration of the twenty-nine-year lease, with all these betterments and improvements placed thereon by the lessees. From the day that Gen. Oglethorpe landed at Yamacraw until this good year 1895, no son of Georgia can make prouder boast of his valuable services to his native state than this constant flow of money, which for twenty-nine years will sing his praises as it falls into the strong box in the capitol, month by month, as the law directs. Unborn children will reap its benefits through the educational advantages thus provided. Bronze and marble tell the story of patriotism on the battlefield and in the halls of legislation; but this man's memory will be written on the hearts of the coming generations of the children of Georgia, and honored by the taxpayers of his native state. Dr. Felton was also the pioneer in the introduction of bills into two successive state legislatures to provide reformations for juvenile convicts, and the seed which was thus sown amidst personal criticism, defamation and invective on the part of his opponents, is bound to bring a harvest of fine results under the march of progress and awakened public opinion. Already reforms have been accom- plished in the convict system of the state growing out of his continual agitation of this subject. No matter what name may go upon the future records as the introducer or author of a successful reformatory measure before a willing general

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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 45

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