USA > Kentucky > Biographical cyclopedia of the commonwealth of Kentucky > Part 25
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Judge Samuel McDowell was also president of the convention which, in 1792, framed the first state constitution for Kentucky. He was one of the first circuit court judges and one of the first district judges of the new state-appointed by old 'King Mountain' Shelby, by whose side he had fought at Point Pleasant, as well as the first United States judge-appointed by Washington, under whose eye he had served in the campaign on the Monongahela, in 1755, and who well knew his worth. In these positions, as in all others, he acquitted himself with credit and honor. He was a Federalist of the school of Washington. He lived to the good old age of eighty-two years, and died honored of all at the residence of his son, Colonel Joseph McDowell, near Danville, September 25, 1817."-Green's Historic Families of Kentucky.
T HOMAS S. PETTIT, a prominent business man and politician of Owensboro, and one of the best known and personally popular men in the state, was born in Frankfort, Kentucky, De- cember 21, 1843, and is a son of Duane and Elizabeth (Zook) Pettit. After his primary schooling in Frankfort, he attended Georgetown College and then learned the printing trade, for which he had a fancy and a remarkable aptitude. He became an adept in all of the mechanical work of the printing office while he was yet in his teens, but he was too ambitious to stick to the cases, and in 1864 he went to Owensboro, and pur- chased the "Monitor" newspaper from a Mr. Woodruff, and began at once to attract attention by publishing a lively local paper and advocating the principles of the Democratic party. Unlike his predecessor, he freely criticised the Repub- lican party and its war policy, and his articles on such topics brought down the wrath of the United States authorities upon his head; and, as a result, on the 17th of November, 1864, he was arrested by order of General Stephen G. Burbridge, im- prisoned and "banished to the Southern Confed- eracy," under the general charge of being "noto- riously disloyal;" and was sent under escort to Memphis and there transferred across the lines.
He spent the following months until May, 1865,
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traveling within the Confederate lines, and then, the war being over, he returned to Owensboro and resumed the publication of the Monitor, in which he published in several consecutive num- bers a detailed and interesting account of his trip through Dixie, giving his experiences and impressions and relating the hardships and pri- vations which he necessarily suffered during his enforced vacation. These articles attracted much attention and had a very wide circulation, bring- ing the young editor into prominent notice. The Monitor was one of the brightest papers in the state, and Mr. Pettit soon became widely known as one of the most enterprising newspaper men of Kentucky.
He was the first man to establish a successful newspaper in Owensboro-and he did this before he was twenty years of age-and brought the first Gordon and power presses to that section of Kentucky.
In 1868 he was elected assistant clerk of the House of Representatives, which position he held for six ycars, when he was appointed private sec- retary of Governor James B. McCreary, which he resigned to accept the position of reading clerk in the national House of Representatives at Wash- ington. During his service in the Legislature and in Congress, he had the distinction of being known as the best reader in the United States. His strong voice and clear and distinct enuncia- tion enabled him to read, not only so as to be heard from all parts of the house, but he had a ready conception and a quick understanding and could read intelligently documents which he had never seen before. His services in the house were cut short by the Republicans gaining the ascendancy.
To go back to the '60's again: On the death of John S. McFarland in 1869, through the in- fluence and personal popularity of Senator Thomas C. McCreery, President Johnson ap- pointed Mr. Pettit assessor of internal revenue for the Second District, the duties of which he performed with ability and fidelity until the close of Mr. Johnson's administration.
In the fall of 1882 Mr. Pettit was a candidate for Congress against J. B. Clay of Henderson and was defeated, after an exciting race, by less
than one hundred and fifty votes. In that con- test Union was the pivotal county, and the friends of Clay looked after it in such a way as to secure the majority for their candidate. Mr. Pettit has attended more State Conventions than any man in Kentucky and has been elected secretary of all of them, and in this capacity has rendered the Democratic party valuable services, which have been appreciated and highly complimented. He was one of the secretaries in the Democratic Na- tional Convention which nominated and elected Cleveland, and was called to serve in the same position four years thereafter and selected as one of the notification committee to inform Cleveland and Thurman of their selection for President and Vice-President.
Mr. Pettit's political views have not been strict- ly in harmony with the Democratic party for some years and he has been one of the ablest leaders of the People's party, having been a candidate of that party for governor in 1895.
He served with ability and distinction as a delegate to the last Constitutional Convention of Kentucky, and advocated such reforms as the secret official ballot, the taxing of corporations like individuals and the two-thirds verdict of juries in civil cases. He was afterwards chosen by a large majority as one of the representatives of Daviess County in the General Assembly, so as to put into practical operation the provisions of the new constitution, and his election in this in- stance followed one of the bitterest contests ever known in the state.
He is still actively interested in politics, not for revenue or for honor, but from principle. Having strong convictions upon topics of national import, he has the courage to stand up for them and does not wait to count the noses of those who are ready to stand by him before expressing his sentiments.
He has for many years been engaged in indus- trial or manufacturing enterprises in Owensboro -too numerous to mention in this brief sketch- and his success, which has been uniformly good, has brought him a fair share of this world's goods. Popular with all classes, industrious, enterprising, generous and philanthropic, he is easily one of the best citizens of Owensboro. He has always been ready to participate in public enterprises, and, in
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questions of public interest, has always been found on the right side and in the front.
He is Past Grand Master of the Masonic Fra- ternity, and deservedly holds a high social posi- tion.
Mr. Pettit was married in December, 1870, to Margaret Blair, daughter of J. H. Blair, who was a prominent merchant of Owensboro in his day. They have one son, Harvey Blair Pettit.
E PHRAIM M'DOWELL, surgeon, son of Judge Samuel McDowell and Mary Mc- Clung, was born in Rockbridge County, Virginia, in 1771, and died in Danville, Kentucky, in 1830.
"He attended classical schools in Georgetown and Bardstown, Kentucky, and studied medi- cine in Staunton, Virginia, completing his medi- cal education in Edinburgh in 1793 and 1794. He began to practice in Danville, Kentucky, in 1785, and for years was the foremost practitioner in the southwest. In 1817 he was made a mem- ber of the Medical Society of Philadelphia. He received the degree of M. D. from the University of Maryland in 1825. In 1809 he successfully performed the operation for extirpation of the ovary, the first on record, and acquired in conse- quence European celebrity. A description of this with other cases he published in the Philadelphia Eclectic Repertory and Analytic Review in 1817. He also acquired fame as a lithotomist. Dr. Mc- Dowell's account of his operations on the ovaries were received with incredulity in many places, especially abroad, but at this time his title to the name of 'the father of ovariotomy' is generally recognized. He was a man of culture and lib- eral views, and had he lived in a less primitive community might have obtained wealth and world-wide celebrity in his life-time. In person he was stout, nearly six feet in height, with a florid complexion and black eyes. He was one of the founders and an original trustee of Centre College, Danville, and a few months before his final illness began to build a large mansion near that town. On the 14th of May, 1879, a granite monument with a medallion of Dr. McDowell was erected to his memory, the memorial ad- dress being made by Dr. Samuel D. Gross of Philadelphia, before the Kentucky Medical
Society. This is located near the center of Dan- ville, in a public square known as 'McDowell Park.'"-Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography.
Dr. McDowell was thirty years old when he married Sarah, a daughter of Governor Shelby. Their only son, Wallace McDowell, is the father of Mrs. Florence Shelby, widow of the late Thomas H. Shelby, late collector of the Seventh District of Kentucky. One of his daughters married Major David C. Irvine of Madison Coun- ty, Kentucky. The other members of his fam- ily married and moved from the state.
C YRUS MENANDER BROWN of Hop- kinsville, ex-Sheriff and ex-Circuit Court Clerk of Christian County, and a prominent Re- publican politician, was born in Christian County February 26, 1850.
His father, Enoch A. Brown, was born in Georgia in 1805, came to Kentucky with his father in 1812 and settled on a farm twelve miles north of Hopkinsville. He was married in 1830 to Sallie Basher, who was born in South Carolina in 1809, and they lived together fifty-two years. He joined the Christian Church in 1831 under the preaching of Alexander Campbell, the founder of that denomination, and became a prominent local preacher. He distinguished himself particularly as the officiating minister at most of the mar- riages that occurred in the northern part of the county. He married one man twenty years after he had married his son, and twenty years later he married the son's son. It was a common saying that a wedding party was not complete without his presence. He was a man of very decided con- victions and took an interest in politics, being a prominent Democrat prior to the war, a Union man during the war and then drifted into the Re- publican party. He was elected to the Legisla- ture in 1863 and served with distinction until 1865. He died in 1882 and his wife died in 1884. They had ten children, five of whom survived their parents: Omar S. Brown, a farmer in the northern part of Christian County; Dr. M. D. Brown, a man of great ability and the only Demo- crat in the family, now residing in Anson, Jones County, Texas; Mrs, Onie J. Clark, wife of V. C.
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Clark of Crofton, Christian County; Cyrus M. Brown, the subject of this sketch, and Mrs. Medoria S. Linn, of Emporia, Lyon County, Kan- sas, whose husband, now deceased, was a lawyer of eminence, a graduate of the Boston Law School; a soldier in the Twenty-fifth Kentucky Regiment commanded by General Shackelford; was a law partner with the late Senator Plumb of Kansas and had a brilliant prospect, but died at the early age of forty years. Albert E. Brown (brother) was in the Union army as second lieu- tenant, Company A, Twenty-fifth Kentucky V. I., and was killed at Shiloh, April 6, 1862.
Cyrus M. Brown was reared on his father's plan- tation and received a partial education prior to the war, which interfered with his schooling; but he pursued his studies with diligence although with difficulty, and at the age of eighteen he began teaching school and for ten years he taught and studied, at the same time attending to his duties on the farm. In 1880 he was elected sheriff of Christian County by the Republican party, re- ceiving a majority of eight hundred and ten votes over his Democratic opponent; was re-elected in 1882, and in 1886, after an acrimonious con- test, was elected clerk of the Circuit Court. He held that office for six years and four months and could have been re-elected, but declined to be a candidate; remained in his successor's office as deputy for one year, and was elected to the Legislature in November, 1895, having no oppo- sition except the candidate of the Populists, Mr. R. C. Crushew, whom he beat 3,005 votes.
Mr. Brown has been a liberal contributor to the newspapers; is a fluent and forcible writer, an eloquent speaker and a man of great personal magnetism; has been a Mason since he was twenty-one years of age, frequently holding office in L. M. Cox Lodge, 527; has been a delegate to a number of Republican conventions, and is a wide-awake, enthusiastic politician and leader in his party.
D R. ROMULUS CULVER BIGGS of Ash- land, son of William Biggs and Lucy Davis Biggs, was born in Greenup County, Kentucky, August 27, 1843. His father, William Biggs, was born in Montgomery County, October 19, 1800,
and although ninety-five years of age, is now hale and hearty and in the possession of all his faculties. He removed to Greenup County when thirteen years of age, and at fourteen he was mail carrier from Greenupburg to Little Sandy Salt Works. When sixteen he was deputy sheriff of Greenup County. At that time the county embraced a very large area so that it was necessary for him to travel thousands of miles, mostly through an unsettled country, in the discharge of his duties, and this was accomplished on horseback. When eighteen he left home and went to boating on the Kanawha and Ohio Rivers, and for two years steered a keel boat on the river between Charles- ton and Louisville. He also worked in the salt works on the Kanawha and for a time traded in iron. He made his last trip to New Orleans, where he traded in flatboats in 1827 and quit the river. He returned to Greenup County and en- gaged in general merchandising, stock trading and farming. In everything in which he engaged he was successful, and he has accumulated a very large fortune. He owns the homestead in Green- up County, consisting of a tract of one thousand acres of land; the Waring farm of nine hundred acres in Greenup County, Kentucky ; a blue grass farm of five hundred and seventy-five acres in Greenbrier County, West Virginia; two thousand acres of farm and timber lands in Arkansas; the Biggs House in Portsmouth, Ohio, and is a large stockholder in the Lexington and Big Sandy Rail- road Company. When the Biggs House was opened in Portsmouth, Ohio, in 1872, the citi- zens of that city gave Mr. Biggs a handsome ova- tion and presented him with a gold-headed cane as an evidence of their appreciation of his enter- prise.
At the advanced age of ninety-five years he at- tends personally to the transaction of all of his business; is well preserved mentally and physical- ly and wears his years as lightly as most men of sixty. He spends most of his time with his son, G. N. Biggs, and his daughter, Mrs. Beardsley of Huntington, West Virginia, but continues to claim his residence in Greenup County, which is his voting place, and he never fails to go there to vote the Democratic ticket in all important elec- tions. He was married to Lucy Davis, daughter
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of George W. Davis, October 12, 1837, and is the father of twelve children.
Romulus Culver Biggs was educated in the Greenup County schools, in Wesleyan College at Delaware, Ohio, and at Danville, Kentucky; attended the Medical College of Ohio at Cincin- nati, and the Bellevue Hospital Medical College, New York, graduating in 1868. He began the practice of medicine at Coalton, Kentucky; was for some time in Greenup and Anderson Coun- ties and located in Ashland in August, 1889, and is now one of the leading physicians of that placc. He is a member of the Northeastern Kentucky Medical Association: is a Democratic voter, a highly respected citizen and a member of the Methodist Church.
He was united in marriage July 11, 1889, to Emma Frances Brown.
W TILLIAM ADAIR M'DOWELL, son of Colonel Samuel McDowell and Anne Irvine, born on Shawnee river, in Mercer County, Kentucky, in 1795, died in Evansville, Indiana, in 1853. "He was educated at Washington Col- lege, Virginia, which he left to serve in the war of 1812. He studied medicine with his uncle, Ephraim McDowell, with whom he practiced after receiving his degree from the medical depart- ment of the University of Pennsylvania in 1818. He devoted much time to the study of pulmonary consumption, and the result of his chemical ob- servations was published in a monograph enti- tled, 'A Demonstration of the Curability of Pul- monary Consumption' (Louisville, 1843)."-Ap- pleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography.
M ORRIS BALDAUF, a successful mer- chant of Henderson, was born in Bavaria, Germany, in 1836. He came to the United States, arriving in New York September 13, 1853. He came direct to Louisville and was a peddler of merchandise for three years, making his nead- quarters in the last named city. In 1856 he went to Hardinsburg, Breckinridge County, and formed a partnership with Louis Ichenhouser and engaged in general merchandising. He sold his interests there in 1860 and went to Cloverport and was a clerk in a store there until 1864, when he 10
went to New Albany and joined his brother in the clothing business. They quit New Albany in 1866 and returned to Cloverport, where he and his brother opened a general store, which they successfully operated until 1878, when they re- moved to Henderson, and were partners until January 1, 1895, when his brother retired from the firm, leaving Morris Baldauf sole proprietor. He is a director in the Planters State Bank, and was a member of the City Council for one year, but resigned.
He was married in 1864 to Lena Kahn, and has four children: Julius, Minnie, Levi and Cora. His eldest son, Julius, is a graduate in pharmacy and chemistry, and is proprietor of the leading wholesale and retail drug store in Henderson. Levi, his second son, is a student in the Phila- delphia College of Pharmacy.
Morris Baldauf is a son of Leopold and Ella Kahn Baldauf, natives of Bavaria. His father spent a good part of his life as a farmer, but was a merchant later in life, and was in modcrate cir- cumstances. Nathan H. Baldauf (grandfather) was a native of the same country, and a poor man, but honest and highly respected. Grandfather Kahn was an honest dairyman in Bavaria.
C OLONEL SAMUEL M'DOWELL, son of Judge Samuel McDowell and Mary Mc- Clung, was born in Rockbridge, Virginia, in 1764. His tender years prevented him from going in the patriot army at the beginning of the Revo- lution. Before its close, however, he disappeared from home at the age of seventeen years, joined Lafayette as a private soldier in the final cam- paign against Cornwallis, remained with that command to the end of the struggle, which he witnesscd at Yorktown, in the siege and fighting at which place he took a lively hand. He re- moved with his father's family to Mercer County, Kentucky, in 1784, there located and there con- tinued to reside during the remainder of his hon- ored life. In the defense of the district he saw frequent additional service as a soldier under General Charles Scott and General Hopkins. Washington gave another evidence of his confi- dence in and regard for the family by appointing him the first United States marshal for Kentucky
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when the state was organized in 1792. He was an ardent lover of his country, and his attachment to the Union, probably enhanced by the efforts of the Spanish clique to dissever Kentucky from the general government, was so inculcated in his family, that at the breaking out of the Civil war, of his eleven grandsons then living, nine were officers in the Union army, one being too infirm and the others too young to bear arms. This is the more remarkable where in Kentucky families were so divided.
JOHN LAWSON, familiarly known in Ken- tucky and along the western rivers as Cap- tain Jack Lawson, an honored citizen of Paducah, now in his ninety-first year, has had a career as full of adventure, excitement and interest as it has been full of years. He made the first loco- motive in England and ran it from Liverpool to Manchester, and after building a locomotive in the shops of the Stephenson Manufacturing Com- pany in Liverpool for the first railroad built in America, he brought it to this country and at- tracted world-wide attention at that time. His career since that time has been one of unusual interest, a full account of which would necessarily embody much of the history of the United States.
Captain Lawson was born in Liverpool, Eng- land, August 18, 1805, and is a son of James and Sarah (Travis) Lawson, natives of that city. After obtaining a fairly good education in the schools of Liverpool he learned the trade of machinist, and while employed in that capacity built the first steam locomotive that was ever run in the world; and was employed as its engineer, running be- tween Liverpool and Manchester.
After this he built an engine in the shops of the Stephenson Manufacturing Company in Liver- pool for the little railroad from Baltimore to Green Springs, and was sent to this country by the manufacturers in charge of the engine, which he set up and engineered until his successor had learned how to run it. Three separate delegations were sent by the managers of the World's Fair to induce Captain Lawson to go to Chicago as their guest, but he declined the honor.
He was twenty-one years of age when he brought his locomotive to Baltimore; and was in
that city about three years, when he went to Phil- adelphia and assisted in constructing the first locomotive built in the now celebrated Baldwin Locomotive Works, and rode it on its first trip to Germantown. After this he went to Peters- burg, Virginia, and was for a time employed as engineer on the Petersburg & Roanoke River Railroad. His next stop was in Alabama, where he lived for three years, and was married to Emily Speed.
He became interested in the great avenues of commerce on the western rivers and embarked in the business of steamboating, and for over fifty years he traveled the waters of the Mississippi from New Orleans to the head of navigation, as well as all of the great tributaries of the "Father of Waters." He began his career on the river as an engineer, but he soon left the boiler deck to take command of the vessel, and afterward built and owned many of the finest boats on the river.
When the first railroad was built connecting Paducah with the outside world Captain Jack's experience was again called into requisition, and for a time he was an engineer on the new road. He returned to the river, however, as that means of transportation had not then been superseded by the railroad.
When the war came on he was the owner of a number of fine boats which he tendered to the authorities for the use of the Confederacy. Seven of his boats, lying in the Yazoo River, before the siege of Vicksburg, were in danger of being cap- tured by the Union soldiers, and he burned them to prevent their falling into the hands of the enemy. He also built and fitted out the gunboat "General Polk," which met a similar fate. He then enlisted in the Third Kentucky Regiment and served as a private soldier in the Confederate army until the close of the war. He returned to steamboating after the war, and his operations were principally confined to the Cumberland River. He recuperated his fortune to some ex- tent, but he never fully recovered his heavy losses incident to the war.
During President Cleveland's first term Cap- tain Jack was appointed engineer of the govern- ment building in Paducah, the only office he ever held or sought, and is still holding this position,
CAPT. JOHN LAWSON.
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He has been a citizen of Paducah for fifty-six years and of the United States for nearly seventy years, in which time he has seen many changes and has witnessed and assisted in the introduc- tion of many improvements which have made a new world of the "new world" to which he came in his young manhood. He remembers with pride his first Presidential vote, which was for Andrew Jackson, and his adherence to the principles of "Old Hickory" has never been questioned. He is just as steadfast in his religious faith, being an honored member of the Presbyterian Church, and has been a Knight Templar.
He has entered the tenth decade of a most event- ful and useful life, solitary and alone, his compan- ion for sixty years having died October 16, 1891, and his three children having "gone before" in years long past. But aside from the tender fam- ily ties thus broken no man has more friends who wish him well, and these are ever ready to minis- ter to his comfort.
Captain Lawson's parents were natives of Eng- land, who also lived in Liverpool. His mother died soon after he came to America, and his father lived to a great age and died about ten years ago. His grandfather, Robert Lawson, was also a native of England, and a highly re- spected citizen of Liverpool.
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