USA > Georgia > The bench and bar of Georgia: memoirs and sketches. With an appendix, containing a court roll from 1790-1857, etc., volume I > Part 40
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The State
Seaborn Delk. vs. Indictment-Assault with intent to murder-in Decatur Superior Court.
Stephen F. Miller, the prosecutor, declined of his own accord the fur- ther prosecution of this case, which being made known to the defendant, he, defendant, acknowledged that he regretted the transaction. Where- upon, at the request of mutual friends, a written statement in relation to the matter was drawn up and agreed to, and the whole matter amicably settled in a manner disgraceful to neither in any point of view, but highly honorable to both. STEPHEN F. MILLER, SEABORN DELK.
BERRIEN, March 26, 1834.
Very little remains to be added. In politics Col. Delk had been a decided Troup man and a member of the State-Rights party, , figuring conspicuously at public meetings, and was the Correspond- ing Secretary of the Twiggs County State-Rights Association formed in 1833. He was quite dextcrous in debate, and had an earnestness of manner that impressed spectators with the idea of sincerity on his part. At the general election on the first Monday of October, 1834, it was said he voted against his old party friends for the first time,-for what reason the author is not informed. The judicial elections were to come on at the approaching session ; and it was pretty evident, from the manifestations of public senti- ment, that the Union party would have a majority in the Legisla- ture. Whether he was actuated by self-interest, or by the convic- tions of his judgment, in the course he adopted, is a secret which probably died with him in less than two weeks afterward; for on the 13th of October, 1834, he was summoned to another world, after an illness of two or three days, at the age of about twenty- eight years.
After their reconciliation, as stated, the usual courtesies were interchanged between Col. Delk and the author,-of course never
* The late Rev. Wilson Conner.
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with the same cordiality as before the rupture. The last interview with him was on the eve of Laurens Superior Court the week before he died, when he gave the author his Laurens papers, and requested him to appear in his cases, as the court in Wilkinson, in which he had the most practice, was held at the same time. The request was cheerfully complied with, and they saw each other no more. Col. Delk became indisposed at Irwinton, and was merely able to reach home to die in the arms of his family.
In selecting characters for this volume, the author felt that if he omitted Col. Delk altogether it might be attributed to a feeling of unkindness which even the grave could not cancel; and, now that he has noticed his career, with such comments as he believed justice authorized and truth demanded, it may possibly be alleged by some that the object of the author has been to cast a shade upon the memory of his former adversary. To this opinion, entertained by whomsoever, the author opposes his solemn disclaimer of any such motive. On the contrary, he takes the principal blame on himself in the origin of the dispute ; and, were it ever his privilege to stand by the tomb of Col. Delk, he could not resist that tender emotion which the remembrance of past bitterness never fails to inspire over the ashes of the dead.
Col. Delk's brother, David Delk, Esq., also a member of the bar, was killed by the Indians in the battle at Shephard's plantation* in Stewart county, June 9, 1836. The only child of Col. Delk, an . infant son named Warren, died first. His widow married Dr. James Moore, son of the late Dr. Thomas Moore, of Laurens county, and nephew of Col. Seaborn Jones, of Columbus.
* See White's Historical Collections, p. 641.
XIII. JOHN M. DOOLY.
FROM the renown this gentleman has acquired as a wit, much will be expected in his memoir illustrative of this peculiar faculty. The author can only submit his collections and leave the perform- ance to speak for itself.
Col. John Dooly, in honor of whom a county in Georgia has been named, was the father of JOHN M. DOOLY. The family pedigree and the public services of the brothers are noticed in a work* familiar to the public. They were originally from North Carolina, but removed to Georgia and settled in Lincoln county about the begin- ning of the American Revolution. In this county John M. Dooly was born : the precise date the author has not been able to ascer- tain. Nor has he succeeded in obtaining any account of his early life, where and by whom educated, with whom he read law, or what time he came to the bar. But these facts can be dispensed with in the abundance of his maturity.
By an inspection of the Register of Commissions in the Secre- tary of State's Office, it appears that John Mitchell Dooly was appointed Solicitor-General of the Western circuit, September 2, 1802, to fill a vacancy, and that on the 22d November, 1804, he was elected to the same office by the Legislature. Supposing that he was thirty years of age when he first received office, the date of his birth would refer back to 1772,-which is probably the correct period. In 1816, he was elected Judge of the Western circuit ; and in 1822, he was elected the first Judge of the Northern circuit, and in 1825 was re-elected by the Legislature. Of his other public services something may possibly be said in the course of the memoir, though the author regrets that no particular measure or question has been connected with his name, of which any record has been preserved worthy of his powers in debate. His character has been lost sight of in all other respects, partially, in the blaze of wit with which his memory is invested. The author will pro- ceed with such account as he has obtained from reliable quarters.
* White's Statistics of Georgia, p. 210.
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Other names have been introduced in the correspondence, as essential to the object in view.
A gentleman* of great intelligence thus writes :-
I retired from the bar in 1827, and, having been engaged in other pur- suits, I feel peculiarly disqualified to answer your queries. D. P. Hill- house, Esq., who was the editor, for a number of years, of a paper pub- lished in this place, informed mne recently, that William Harper, Esq., of Appalachicola, Florida, an attorney of Lincoln county, and a neighbor of Judge Dooly, knew more anecdotes relating to him than any other per- son, and had promised to write them out for him.
The lawyers of this circuit, when I was admitted to the bar, in 1810. were John Griffin, Esq., an old practitioner, who had been a judge of the Superior Courts a short time, and had the reputation of being a sound lawyer; Col. Thomas P. Carnes, A. S. Clayton, and Edward Paine, of Clarke county ; Thomas W. Cobb and Stephen Upson, of Oglethorpe ; John M. Dooly, of Lincoln, a man of an original and vigorous mind, and of whom more witty and humorous anecdotes are related than of any mem- ber of the bar in this State ; Col. Duncan G. Campbell and O. H. Prince, Esq., of Wilkes, and some others,-all gentlemen of high reputation at the bar, and a number of whom obtained offices of high honor. Col. Camp- bell dicd in 1828. Had he lived, he would no doubt have attained to the highest office in the gift of the State. Gen. J. V. Harris, formerly of Elbert, and now of Athens, and Col. M. Henley, of Lincoln, are (I believe) the only surviving lawyers who were practising when I was admitted in 1810. From a conversation I recently had with Judge Andrews, I ex- pect they could give you the history of the dispute between Clarke, Craw- ford, and Tait, which gave rise to the Crawford and Clarke parties, which agitated the State for so many years. They were on different sides in the dispute. You have probably written to them, and they are more com- petent to furnish the information sought than I am.
Many of the lawyers of the middle circuit attended our courts, to wit : Gen. Flournoy, Major Freeman Walker, Col. John Forsyth, Richard II. Wilde, Col. Ware, Col. Carr, George Carey, Judge Montgomery. Mr. Hopkins N. Brewer, a talented young lawyer, (my partner, ) died in 1833. R. M. Allison, a promising young lawyer, died previously. I have no doubt omitted the names of some. Judge Andrews can furnish you (if desired) with some anecdotes of Judge Dooly, and one relating to him and Carnes, and a negro man Charles, who was placed at the breakfast- table with them, some fifty years past,-which would give some idea of the state of society in the upper parts of the State. I find persons more wil- ling to furnish information when appealed to directly by the person want- ing it, than when it is applied for through the agency of a third party.
After the passage of the severe laws against gambling, Judge Dooly was very rigid in their enforcement. At the close of one of the Superior Courts in this place, the judge had retired to rest ; but the noise of a faro- table in the adjoining room disturbed him so much that he got up, dressed, and went in and told them that he had tried all legal methods to break them up, and had failed : he was determined to adopt another plan. And be- fore the night had closed he broke the bank, and told the parties to clear
* Alexander Pope, Sen., Esq., of Washington, Wilkes county, under date of May 8, 1851.
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themselves, and be more careful in future how they interfered with the court.
The anecdote of the roast pig has been published, and many others are related ; but I have too imperfect a recollection to furnish, and am a poor hand to relate them. The judge had a most admirable talent in this respect, and was an extraordinary man.
From another gentleman* of the same town the author has re- ceived a communication, of which the following is an extract :-
To begin with Judge Dooly. I had no acquaintance with him until [ was admitted at February Term, 1822, of Wilkes Superior Court. Five of us then made application, three of whom were broken merchants. 1 believe it was directly after Wirt's Life of Patrick Henry was published. You will recollect that Henry was a broken merchant. Dooly had lately read the work. The country having just passed through a severe peeu- niary crisis, many broken merchants were applicants for admission ; and, when three applied at one time, he said, in his petulant, satirical tonc. that Wirt's Life of Henry would do great injury, as it had given the world to suppose that it was necessary for a man to break as a merchant before he could make a lawyer !
He had a fine head, and the finest, brilliant, round black eye that was ever put in a head. When any thing began to operate in his mind, you would first observe it in the sparkling of his eyes. I have been told, by the old people who knew him when a student with Matthews in this place, that he was a little, sallow, pot-gutted lad, rather than a man, in his appearance. I have heard the judge say that he was so badly clad that he was ashamed to come into town. The office was just out of the town. He was born in Lincoln, near Savannah River, and saw his father killed by the Tories during the Revolutionary War, or soon after.
He and Carnes (Tom Peter, I think it was) used to practise in the upper districts of South Carolina. Huger, and some other high-toned gentle- men of the profession in that State, would not notice the two hoosiers from Georgia. Carnes said that Dooly took great delight in ridiculing them at every chance, and so successfully that they abandoned the prac- tice in those districts. I recollect a quotation Dooly gave from one of Carnes's speeches. His adversary had spoken of a syllogism, the major and minor proposition, and the consequence, &c. Carnes, in reply, to convince the jury that the gentleman had lugged in immaterial matter be- cause he had nothing material, complained of the indelicacy of mentioning in court the names of a very respectable, peaceable family residing over in Lincoln, Georgia, who had never had any thing to do with courts ; that old Major Syllogism would be exceedingly alarmed did he know that his name had been mentioned in a court-house ; that they must know that the minor Syllogism could never have been in court, being a minor ; and the cruelest cut of all was to name the blushing Miss Consequence, who hardly knew that there was such a thing as a court-house. He spoke of the family of Syllogisms as being large and respectable in Georgia.
As an evidence of the rudeness of the times, and the equality of master and slaves when they were few, he mentioned that he and Carnes had
* Hon. Garnett Andrews.
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driven hard, early one Monday morning, to the breakfast-house, on their way to one of the upper District courts. They had called for breakfast, making known their anxiety to eat and proceed. The good woman told them breakfast was ready, and as soon as Charles came they should eat. She called for Charles, and blowed for Charles, and sent for Charles. They were anxious to see Charles, not only that they might eat, but for the privilege of beholding so important a member of the family,-husband, brother, or son, as they supposed he was. Finally, Charles came walking leisurely up, and proved to be a large black negro fellow, radiant as ebony, odorous as a musk-os, and independent as a voter on the first Monday in October. " Well now, Charles," said the woman of the house, " I wish you would sit down and let the gentlemen cat, as they are in a great hurry to get off to court." "D-n your gentlemen," says cbony : " no more gentlemen than me are. Let 'em wait till their hurry is over." However, Charles was coaxed to the table, on which was a basin of clabber, three spoons, and as many pieces of bread. "Now, Charles," says the good woman, " do cat, and then the gentleman will begin." Carnes, being per- mitted, at length, to take some part in the festivities of the morning, picked up his spoon and said, (shaking it at Charles, ) " Now Charles, d-n you, spooney your own side ;" whereupon the trio breakfasted until the coagulated clalber gave way between the posts where the gentlemen and Charles were spooneying, and then they left the repast to Charles and his dignity.
Before he went on the bench, Dooly was fond of cards and conviviality, and was not always restrained afterward. I heard him say he never went to a faro-table determined to win a moderate sum and stop, that he did not succeed if left to his own judgment. He went to Augusta on one occasion, and determined that he would win fifty guineas each night that he might re- main. He carried out his resolution several nights, and was progressing well the last night, till some intermeddling friend began to advise him, when he began to have bad luck. IIe commenced drinking, and con- tinued to lose, and proceeded until he lost all.
He lived in the midst of a large plantation. A long lane led down to his gate, which you opened, and rode some hundred yards up to his house. One very hot day, a neighbor rode up to the large gate, and called and beckoned, until he called the judge, through the hot sun, to where lie was; and when within speaking-distance the neighbor asked him if he had seen any thing of Mark Bond, another neighbor. " No," said Dooly, as he turned about and walked back to his porch, from whence he watched him in search of Mark Bond as long as he was in reach of a halloo by Dooly. He then called and beckoned until the neighbor rode back through the gate and up to the porch, when the judge said, " I have not scen Mark Bond, and do not care if I never do," and turned on his heel and walked into the house.
I witnessed the scene of ordering the sheriff to discharge the stuffed pig on his own recognizance, which, together with the breaking of the faro- bank at Wilkes court, you have no doubt often heard.
When I first came to the bar, Wilkes court sat from two to three weeks in July. One evening, a lawyer of this place, during the July court, asked the judge and several other gentlemen, among whom was myself, to his office to eat watermelons. The judge had complained all the week of my being unusually slow in condueting my business. After we had caten all the melons before us, I proposed to go with another friend a
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few steps off to a cellar for more. "No, no, Andrews : don't you go," says Dooly : " they will get too ripe before you will return."
He was of feeble health, and more peevish when unwell than at other times, though always irritable. IIc also had great contempt for any thing like foppery. Being sick at Milledgeville, he was confined in the second story of the hotel. His friends had advised him to have a young doctor to prescribe for him who was rather foppish, and wore heavy brass- heeled boots, just as they were coming in fashion. After he had visited Dooly once or twice, he became disgusted with his manners, and thought the doctor took unusual pains to let it be known that he was shod after the latest fashion. He could hear the brass heels ring at every step up- stairs and to his door. When the doctor arrived at the door on the third visit, Dooly called out, " Ride in, doctor!"'
Ou one occasion, at Hancock, he was trying a prisoner for murder ; and the case turned on the point whether he was justifiable in shooting the deceased. The jury returned a verdict "That the prisoner had the right to shoot." So soon as the verdict was read out, Dooly called, in great apparent alarm, "Take care, Mr. Sheriff ! take care that he don't shoot this way !"
Dooly's father was prosecuting attorney about the close of the Revolu- tion, when some eight or nine men were hung in this county, under indict- ments about as long as your finger. The records are interesting and curious.
The author is indebted to a gentleman* of Columbus for the greatest variety of anecdotes concerning Judge Dooly that he has obtained from any quarter :-
When I first knew this extraordinary man, he was in the prime of life ; and I shall never forget the impression which his person made upon me. He had a large head, with a bold, elevated forehead, heavy eyebrows, prominent nose, a small, compressed mouth, large, vivid, sparkling eyes with long eyelashes, which, frequently opening and shutting, gave his countenance an expression as if under the influence of an electric battery, from which the beholder at first sight was almost sure to recoil. Ile was about the medium size, and his head always seemed too heavy for his body, his mind too active and strong for his frame. His peculiarity of voice, which was sharp and discordant, was well calculated of itself to get up attention from all within its reach. But there was a point, a spice, a felicity of expression, in all he said, marked with a conciseness which showed him at once to advantage, and which drew all other tongues into silence when he spoke. The learned and the ignorant, the old and the young, all felt his power to please, and did him honor. It was his wit and sarcasm which gave him such power to please and to hurt. I never knew his equal in either. Yet the very subject of his wit, from the happy manner in which it was played off upon him by the judge, was generally the first to join in the loud and hearty laugh which it pro- duced; and even the unfortunate object of his sarcasm soon recovered from the overwhelming blast, from a consciousness that it resulted not from any settled malice in the judge, but from a mere wanton exertion of that power to punish with which the God of nature had endowed him.
Hon. G. E. Thomas.
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If his adversary would give him a time of parlance, the difficulty was adjusted by a single stroke of good humor, which very often followed the most writhing and scathing thunderbolt.
A most remarkable anecdote is told, which grew out of the personal difficulty between himself and Judge Tait, and which shows the very tact he possessed of disarming his foe at a single blow. It is well known to everybody that was acquainted with Judge Dooly that he was a man of peace, not of war, and that he always considered " discretion the better part of valor." When challenged to the field of mortal combat by Judge Tait he replied that, in consequence of the misfortune of his rival foe in losing one of his legs, he did not think they could fight on equal terms; and, from all he had ever heard of his distinguished adversary, he was led to suppose he would not seck a fight except upon equal terms, and he hoped his refusal would be attributed to proper motives, and not to a dis- position to reflect on his misfortunes, for which he entertained the most sincere regret.
When his answer was received and read by Judge Tait, he became very much exasperated, and was determined to press the matter to a point and not suffer the judge to escape in that way. So he replied in a severe manner, casting insinuations on him, that he was apprehensive his relue- tance to fight sprung more from cowardice than from a tenderness of slied- ding the blood of an unfortunate cripple. Whereupon Judge Dooly came boldly out, and was explicit in stating to him his mistake in sup- posing he was not willing to fight upon terms of equality, and informed Judge Tait that he would certainly meet him on any day, at any place to be agreed upon, and exchange a shot with him, if he would let him put one of his legs in a bee-gum! Upon the reception of this note, Judge Tait became indignant, and replied to him, with much severity, that he should publish him as a coward ; to which Judge Dooly calmly responded that he might do so at his own expense in every gazette in the State, for he would rather fill a dozen newspapers than one coffin !
On one occasion he was most happy in giving a hint to a landlord in one of the upper counties, who had honored him by presenting the judge every day for dinner, during the court, with a half-grown hog in the shape of a stuffed baked pig. The elever, punctual gentleman had attended upon the table every day without injury : no fork had pierced him, no kuife had cut him. When first asked to take some of the pig, the judge replied that he was certainly a well-grown pig,-that he was much larger and in better order than any of his fattened hogs. At the close of the term, on finishing the dinner of the last day, he called the sheriff to him and ordered him to discharge the pig upon his own recog- nizance, to be and appear at the next term of the court, with the thanks of the court for his prompt and faithful attendance.
On another occasion, during the protracted trial of a criminal case in Hancock, his friend, T. II., Esq. was discovered by the judge to be always drinking out of a certain little pitcher which sat before him, and which, by-the-by, had plenty of apple-toddy in it. The judge at length became thirsty, as well he might, and called for water. The sheriff soon sprang down to the pail, which sat in the corner, and brought a tumbler of water for the judge. Ou its being presented to him he shook his head, and, with a significant manner which all understood, begged him to let him have some out of the pitcher which Mr. HI. drank out of. Having tasted it copiously, under the gaze of all present, the judge smacked his
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lips and returned it, saying it was decidedly the best water he had drunk since he came to the village, and enjoined it upon Mr. bailiff always to draw from the same spring Mr. H. drank out of, for him !
The writer was riding out with the judge for the purpose of viewing. as he termed it, the beautiful little village of Warrenton, which he always insisted was next to Wrightsboro, the loveliest in his circuit. It was in the afternoon of the day on which the citizens had met, during the recess of the court, to discuss the ruinous policy of the Tariff of 1828; when, seeing the village swarming with happy children just turned loose from school, he inquired if all those children belonged there. On being answered in the affirmative, and that he did not see half of them, he remarked, "To-be-sure ; you don't say so! Ah !" he exclaimed, readily, " this, I believe, is a species of domestic industry that needs no protecting duties to support it. The South is rich in children, tariff or no tariff !"
When canvassing for a re-election to the judgeship of the Northern circuit before the Legislature, during the stormy session of 1825, in con- sequence of the warlike message of Gov. Troup, his political adversaries. to which party the judge belonged, branded him with madness ; to which Judge Dooly most happily replied, in the midst of a large number of Gov. Troup's friends, " If he is mad, I wish the same mad dog that bit him would bite me." This saying so pleased his opponents that they voted for him almost to a man, and even put a stop to all opposition to him in the election.
The ladies at a certain dining-party were all speaking very highly of a new-married lady who had just come among them as a young bride, saying that she was a lady of such a fine, even temper, they knew the judge would be pleased to form her acquaintance ; when he replied that under different circumstances he should be highly gratified, but, as she was a lady of a fine, uniform temper, he must beg to be excused, for he never knew but one lady of that character, which was old George C.'s wife. He had known her intimately for forty years, during the whole of which time she had been of a uniform temper; that she had been mad one day with another-uniformly mad, without the least variation-ever since he first knew her, and he prayed God that he might never know another !
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