The Biographical encyclopaedia of Kentucky of the dead and living men of the nineteenth century, Part 39

Author: Armstrong, J. M., & company, pub
Publication date: 1878
Publisher: Cincinnati, J. M. Armstrong
Number of Pages: 946

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AYCRAFT, JUDGE SAMUEL, Pioneer and Farmer, was born September II, 1752, in Vir- ginia, and was the son of James Haycraft, an English sailor, who belonged to the British navy. His father's ship touched some Amer- ican harbor, probably on the coast of Virginia, about 1740, and, for some cause, he remained in this country. He married in Virginia, and himself and wife. both died, leaving three sons-James, Samuel, and Joshua-who were raised by Col. John Nevill, a wealthy Virginian. Samuel Haycraft received a good common- school education, and remained with Col. Nevill until he was of age, when, with a letter of recommendation, he started out to shift for himself in the world. He en- tered the army as a common soldier, and served his time out, in the war of the Revolution. While in his sol- dier's uniform, he was married to Margaret Van Meter, at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania; in the Fall of 1779, emi- grated, with the whole Van Meter family, to Kentucky ; in the Spring of 1780, settled at Cave Spring, in what is now Hardin County; built a fort, in which he long resided with his family; shared in all the trials and dan- gers of the early settlement ; kept pace with the growth of the country ; served as. sheriff of his county ; was one of the Judges of the Court of Quarter Sessions; was one of the Assistant Judges of the first Circuit Court organ- ized at Elizabethtown; represented his county in the Legislature, in 1801 and 1809; was one of the first who built a house in Elizabethtown ; was characteristically hospitable, his house being one of the popular resorts during the sessions of the early courts; was a man of

great honor and probity of character, and was one of the most useful and highly esteemed of the old pioneer fariners of Kentucky. He died October 15, 1823. One of his children, at least, still survives him. (See sketch of Hon. Samuel Haycraft, Jr.)

COTT, ROBERT W., Lawyer, Politician, - Farmer, and Stock-breeder, was born Novem- ber 2, 1808, at the home of his grandfather, Col. Robert Wilmot, in Bourbon County, Ken- tucky. His parents were Joel and Rebecca Ridgley Scott. His father came from Madison County, Virginia, when a boy, with his parents, John and Hanna (Earle) Scott, and settled on a large tract of wild land of the best quality, on the waters of the North Elkhorn, in Scott County, in 1785. He was an ex- tensive farmer and manufacturer, and, after the war of 1812, was a merchant and manufacturer of George- town, Kentucky, for many years; and was one of the most upright, public-spirited, and influential citizens of his county. He was, for seven years, keeper of the State Penitentiary, and, doubtlessly, with greater and better moral and financial results to the State than has ever been attained under any other management. His last years were spent in the retirement of his farm, in Woodford County, where he died, several years ago, at the age of seventy-nine years. His father, John Scott, was of Scotch origin. Rebecca Ridgley Wilmot Scott, the mother of Robert W. Scott, died while he was a small boy; and she was the daughter of Col. Robert Wilmot, who was a lieutenant of artillery from Balti- more County, Maryland, throughout the Revolutionary War; came to Kentucky before the organization of the State; settled, with his family, on a large tract of land in Bourbon County, in 1786; was first elected to the Legislature in 1796, and was several times re-elected; and was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1799, that framed the second Constitution of Kentucky; and was one of the most worthy and valuable of the pioneer settlers of the State. Robert W. Scott received a regular collegiate education at Transylvania Univer- sity, in its palmy days under Dr. Horace Holley; and when that worthy and able educator retired from the presidency of Transylvania, he was selected by his fel- low-students to prepare an address of regret, sympathy, and respect to the departing president, which was duly performed; and the address was published, with the re- sponse, in the "Observer and Reporter," at Lexington, at the time. He studied law in the office of Haggin & Loughboro, at Frankfort, and afterwards under Judge John Boyle, in Mercer County; and was licensed to practice, by Judges Daniel Mayes and Thomas M. Hickey, in September, 1829, before reaching his twenty-

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first year. In the following Winter, he visited different parts of the country, and, while in Washington City, had the pleasure of hearing the famous debate between Webster and Hayne; attended the debates in the Second Constitutional Convention of Virginia, at Richmond, where he enjoyed the acquaintance of Ex-Presidents Madison and Monroe, Chief-Justice John Marshall, the famous John Randolph, of Roanoke, and others; and at Baltimore, was a passenger, with Charles Carroll and others, on the first trial trip on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, to Ellicott's Mills. In the Spring of 1830, he began the practice of the law, at Frankfort, in partner- ship with Judge Haggin, one of his law preceptors; but, after a successful practice of several years' duration, he was compelled, by failing health, to abandon his profession, and turn his attention to farming. He at once purchased the farm which had been owned by Hon. Martin D. Hardin, in Franklin County, five miles from Frankfort, and on the Louisville and Lexington Railroad and the turnpike to Versailles, where he has since resided. This farm at first contained two hundred and five acres, but, at various times afterwards, he pur- chased additions, increasing it to nearly a thousand acres; lately, however, reducing its size. The spacious dwelling on this estate was erected by him, and is one of the most elegant country houses in the rich Blue Grass region of the State. He soon turned his attention to stock-raising; and, in 1835, purchased, at the sale of the late James Haggin, several of his best cattle, of the Improved Short-horn Durham breed, of the importation of 1817; subsequently, made other purchases, and estab- lished one of the largest and finest herds then in the State; and was one of the first, if not the first, to sell a native-bred animal as high as sixteen hundred and ten dollars. He still has many of the silver premiums awarded to his stock; and his cattle register shows an unbroken record of herd-book pedigrees up to the present time. He soon began to direct his attention to the raising of sheep ; and, by careful selection of the best natives of the common breed, and by judicious crossing with the best of the various imported breeds, he has produced what is known as "The Improved Ken- tucky " sheep. Hc has widely circulated, and has long had an extensive sale for, these sheep throughout the country. In 1866, their history was published in the Government Agricultural Report; and premiums were awarded him, for them, at the Kentucky State Fair, in 1856; at the Fair of the United States Agricultural So- ciety, held at Louisville, in 1857; and at the great Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia, in 1876, as repre- sented by various samples of their wool, and their skins with the wool on them. In 1860, he was the first to introduce into this part of the State the Cashmere, or Angora goat, as a practical farm stock for wool-bearing. With these, too, he has been very successful, and

now has a large flock of them, and of his best sheep, on hand; and probably no man in the State of Kentucky has devoted more time, and with better results, to the improvement of the stock of the country. In 1837, he assisted in establishing the "Franklin Farmer," at Frankfort, the second agricultural paper ever established in the West; wrote the first article in its first number, and afterwards contributed largely to its columns, in favor of State aid to agricultural societies, agricultural education, geological surveys, and on other subjects then new and interesting in the State. He still contin- ues to contribute occasional articles to the agricultural journals of the country. In 1837, he, with others, was appointed by a public meeting to prepare the pedigrees of cattle for the "Kentucky Stock-book," which had been projected in a meeting of stock-raisers, at Lexing- ton ; and many of the prepared pedigrees for that work were published in the " Franklin Farmer" at the time, and, subsequently, in the American "Short-horn Herd- book." In 1834 or 1835, he was instrumental in organ- izing the Franklin County Agricultural Society, the second or third which had then been organized in the State, and was its first president. This Society was afterwards merged into one with Woodford and other counties. In 1838, he was prominently concerned in organizing the Kentucky State Agricultural Society ; and was its corresponding secretary, until after he had pub- lished the first large volume, containing full reports of all its proceedings, and of all the county agricultural and mechanical societies in the State, in 1857, when he declined to serve longer in that capacity ; and, on retiring from the office, received some flattering testimonials, and a silver pitcher from the Society, which was the second State organization of the kind which went into operation in the United States. In 1838, he received the appointment of School Commissioner for Franklin County, from Rev. Joseph J. Bullock, Superintendent of Public. Instruction of Kentucky ; and, in 1841, had his appointment continued, under the superintendence of Bishop B. B. Smith. He divided the county into school districts, and, as Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the Thirteenth District, in which he resided, memorial- ized the Legislature as to taking action in the organi- zation of the common-school system of education in the State, and asking for the enactment of a general law for raising, by taxation, a common-school fund for the whole State, and succeeded in removing the former impedi- ments to the law provided in general statute; built a a house, established and carried on, with great success, a school for ten months in the ycar, as carly as 1841; that being the first school put in operation in the State under the common-school law. He was appointed, by Gov. Magoffin, a commissioner of the State institution for training and educating feeble-minded children ; was also elected President of the Board of Commissioners, and for

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a long time took an active and leading interest in that institution. To him probably more than any other man in the State is due the credit of practically demonstrating and establishing the common-school system of education in Kentucky. Mr. Scott has been a successful and sys- tematic farmer; and was the first in his county to intro- duce the grain threshing-machine, the roller, and the revolving harrow; and was the first agent of the United States Government Agricultural Department for his county. In 1843, he became a member of the Baptist Church; and is now deacon, licentiate, and moderator of his Church, of the "Forks of Elkhorn;" was several times Moderator of the Franklin Association; in 1850, organized and superintended the first Sabbath-school of that Church; had been, in 1827, a teacher in the first Sab- bath-school established by the Baptists in Frankfort; was sometime elected a Trustee of Georgetown Col- lege, under the control of that denomination; and was for several years President of the Board of Trustees of the Western Baptist Theological Institute, while it was located at Georgetown. He was appointed to settle up the affairs, and to free from debt, the estate of the late Rev. John L. Waller, an able and worthy Baptist min- ister, who had become involved through the publication of "The Baptist Banner," a religious journal; and ful- filled the trust to the great satisfaction of the parties concerned, and had a cash balance for the benefit of the family. Mr. Scott was a candidate for election as a dele- gate to the last State Constitutional Convention, in 1849, but was defeated, owing to his opposition to making all office-holders elective by the people, and especially of the judiciary department of the State Government; and belonged to the Whig party until after the Presidential election of 1860, since which he has been identified with the Democratic party. He was President of the South- ern Rights Convention held in Frankfort, in 1861; united in the call, soon after the civil war, for a State Conven- tion at Louisville, to reorganize the Democratic party; was appointed, by that convention, a member of the State Central Democratic Committee, at Frankfort; was subsequently made chairman of that committee; was largely instrumental in the thorough organization of the

party throughout the State, resulting, finally, in passing all the affairs of the State Government into the control of the Democracy; and, when he declined re-election, received a vote of thanks from a State Convention. In

early life, he united with the temperance movement

of the day, then in its beginning; made many public speeches in favor of the cause; and has lived, through- out his long, active, and eventful career, in accordance with the principles espoused in the beginning, and so

trained his family; and has been one of the most ener- getic, upright, and useful men who have ever lived in Franklin County. His house has always been noted for its hospitality, and many noble acts of charity.

Mr. Scott was married, October 20, 1831, to Miss Elizabeth Watts Brown, daughter of Dr. Preston W. and Elizabeth Watts Brown, of Frankfort, Kentucky .. She is still living, at the age of sixty-five, and has been a pillar of intelligence and strength by his side, for nearly half a century. Her father was a son of Rev. John Brown and Margaret Preston (daughter of John Preston and Elizabeth Patton, of Virginia, from whom descended several of the distinguished families of Ken- tucky and Virginia), and the youngest brother of Hon. John Brown, Hon. James Brown, and Dr. Samuel Brown; and was himself one of the first physicians of Kentucky. He died at Louisville, in 1826. Mr. Scott has seven children now living. Dr. Preston B. Scott, now a prominent physician of Louisville, Kentucky, who successfully practiced his profession in Mississippi, before the civil war; was surgeon of the Fourth Ken- tucky Regiment of the celebrated First Kentucky Con- federate Brigade, and subsequently Medical Director of the Military District of Mississippi and Alabama, until the close of the war. He received a collegiate education, and is a man of taste and culture, and one of the most esteemed and useful members of his profession in Louisville. Dr. John O. Scott, their second son, was also liberally educated, graduating in letters at Centre College, and in medicine at Louisville, New York, and Dublin, Ireland; was surgeon of the Third Kentucky Confederate Regiment ; was, for a time, in charge of the hospital at Marion, Alabama; served under Breckin- ridge, and in other commands; was with Gen. Roger W. Hanson when that brave soldier received his death wound; and was present, and participated, at many of the great battles and scenes of the war. After the war,

he resumed the practice of medicine at Owensboro, but was finally compelled, by failing health, to retire to his farm in Franklin County, and has since resumed his profession in Texas, where he now resides with his fam-

ily. Mary Brown Scott is the wife of Col. S. I. M. Ma-

jor, of Frankfort, long a leader in the Democratic party ;

editor of the "Yeoman," and is State Printer; Mayor of Frankfort, and a man of rare literary ability and cul- ture. Rebecca E. Scott is the wife of Lafayette Green, member of the Legislature in 1859 and 1860, from Gray-

son County, and one of the most esteemed and valuable farmers and manufacturers at the Falls of Roagh, in

that county. Two of Mr. Scott's accomplished daugh- ters, Miss Elizabeth W. and Miss Henrietta R., are still unmarried ; and Mrs. Louisa R. is the widow of the late Hon. E. Rumsey Wing, of Owensboro, Kentucky, who settled, and practiced law, in Louisville, and was a young

man of the highest order of intellect, and a lawyer of

great brilliancy and promise. (See sketch of E. Rumsey Wing.) For many years Mr. Scott has been reluctantly compelled, by catarrh and by partial deafness, to abstain from public employments and occasions, but he still

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maintains, though under disadvantage, the favorite herds and flocks. He, with some members of his family, and for the benefit of his health, has spent the last seven Winters near the town of Fort Reed, in Orange County, Florida, and with great advantage. In that delightful and salubrious climate, and pleasant and refined society, he is establishing a pleasant and tasteful home, and has planted a valuable grove of orange and other semi-trop- ical trees, shrubs, and plants.

ONVERSE, REV. AMASA, D. D., Clergyman and Editor, was born August 21, 1795, in the township of Lyme, New Hampshire, and was the son of Joel Converse, native of Thompson, Connecticut, and grandson of Thomas Converse. The ancestors of the family went from Nor- mandy to England, during the Norman conquest ; the name, originally being Coigneurs, afterwards was spelled Conyers, and finally settled into its present orthography. His ancestors came with the Massachusetts Bay Colony, about 1630, and their name became prominent in the Indian wars, the affairs of the Church, and the early growth of the colony. His father died at the age of seventy-three. His mother was Elizabeth Bixby, a na- tive of Woodstock, Connecticut, and died in 1850, at the age of ninety. Three of her brothers were soldiers in the Revolutionary War. His parents were pious, up- right people, and used every means to impress upon their children the highest and best principles of life. Amasa Converse was sent to the common county school at the age of five, but spent a great part of his early life in working on his father's farm. He learned rapidly, and evinced a great taste for knowledge, but the circumstances of his parents greatly interfered with carrying out his purpose of obtaining a thorough col- legiate training. At the age of eighteen or nineteen, he taught a school at Bradford, Vermont, for a few months; afterwards studied Latin under a private tutor; then entered Kimball Academy, at Meriden, where he stud- ied with great determination for several months; subse- quently, spent some time at Phillips's Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, teaching at intervals, as his pressed cir- cumstances would not allow him to pursuc an unbroken course of study; his health also greatly impeded his progress; he entered Dartmouth College at the age of twenty-three, where, after much trying interruption, he graduated, at the age of twenty-seven. He then taught at Chelsea ; afterwards had charge of Sanderson Acad- emy, at Ashfield; then entered Princeton, to begin the study of theology, having determined to enter the min- istry. Ill health compelled him to return to his friends at Ashfield for a time, and while there was licensed to preach in the Congregational Church. He afterwards

returned to Princeton, but was soon induced to go to Virginia, where he labored as an evangelist in Nottaway and Amelia Counties, under the auspices of the Young Men's Missionary Society of Richmond. Laboring under impaired health, and believing that he could do more good with his pen than in the pulpit, in 1826, he accepted the editorship of the "Family Visitor," and the "Literary Evangelical Magazine," at Richmond; left Nottaway, and entered on his editorial career in Feb- ruary, 1827; in the Summer of 1828, he purchased these publications of their proprietor, Nathan Pollard, and merged the Magazine with the weekly paper, which was now called the "Visitor and Weekly Telegraph"-the "North Carolina Telegraph" having been united with the "Visitor" in the previous year. Within three years after the paper came into his hands, he had trebled the circulation, and placed himself in a comfort- able condition. In 1839, having accepted a proposition to unite the " Philadelphia Observer," a religious journal in Philadelphia, with his paper, and publish it there, he removed to that city, and his paper soon assumed the name of "Christian Observer." He had engaged, with great vigor and power, in the controversy of 1837, in the Presbyterian Church, which resulted in cutting off several hundred Churches from Presbyterian connection, and now settled down, as he thought, under favorable auspices, to the quiet of his profession; but the sla- very question soon began to agitate the Church, and he was forced to meet the issue before the people, and in the Church. The discussion of the subject continued for many years, and resulted in cutting off the Southern Church, and at the same time greatly circumscribing the circulation of the "Christian Observer." In the midst of the great Abolition controversy, his office was accidentally burned, in 1854; but the paper was pub- lished regularly, without interruption. He avoided the discussion of political questions in his paper, but, while the Kansas-Nebraska conflict agitated the country, the Church was shaken by the introduction of the ecclesias- tical and moral questions growing out of slavery, and his pen was vigorously wielded in opposing their intro- duction, and upholding the views entertained by the great conservative masses. When the war broke out, in 1861, his was almost the only paper in Philadelphia that remained firm in its adherence to those timc- honored principles. It raised its voice earnestly in opposition to the war, and, at last, in August, 1861, it was suspended by order of the Government. Two weeks after it was suppressed in Philadelphia, its publi- cation was resumed in Richmond, Virginia. And in that city he preached, cared for the suffering, and labored during the war, and at its close found him- self, like thousands of others, broken in fortune, and obliged to commence life anew. But, before the smoke of the conflict had hardly passed away, he recom-

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menced the publication of the "Christian Observer," the first weekly paper started in the South after the war. In August, 1869, the "Free Christian Common- wealth," of Louisville, Kentucky, was merged into the "Christian Observer," and its publication office re- moved to Louisville, Kentucky, where it is now pub- lished. Its success was at once apparent, and he not only was enabled, in a few years, to pay his war debts, but also to see himself at the head of the leading paper of the Southern States in the Presbyterian Church; and there is but one paper in Kentucky to-day, and no other . in the South, having as large a circulation. His old age was full of activity and vigor, and the number of his paper which announced his death contained several articles from his pen. He died of pneumonia, December 9, 1872, his last words uttered on earth being, "I shall not want." Thus ended the career of the oldest active editor, and one of the most able, useful, godly, and up- right ministers, of the Presbyterian Church, to which he remained firmly attached throughout his life. The "Observer" is still owned and carried on by his sons, and is the most influential, and doubtlessly the most widely circulated, religious paper in the South. Dr. Converse was married, December 16, 1828, to Miss Flavia Booth, in Brunswick, Virginia, who was a woman of noble character, and was, through all his trials, a pillar of strength by his side. The widow and six of their eight children survived him. Four of their sons became ministers of the Gospel, and the other son is a member of the bar.

ENNEY, MAJOR OTIS SETH, Lawyer and Soldier, was born December 4, 1822, in Wind- sor County, Hanover Township, New Hamp- shire. His father was of English parentage, his grandfather having emigrated to this country as early as 1700. His father was a farmer, and was a captain in the Continental army during the war of the Revolution ; he carried a very fine sword, which was brought to Kentucky by his son, from whom it was captured during the late civil war. He received his ed- ucation in the common-schools of New England, until the age of thirteen; then prepared for college at Nor- wich Institute, New Hampshire, and graduated at the Military University at Norwich, in 1845. After leaving college, he began teaching a military school at Wil- mington, Delaware, but removed to Kentucky shortly afterwards, and established a school of the same kind at Mt. Sterling, at what is now called Old Fort Mason. In 1847, he commenced the study of law with Col. Walter Chiles, of Mt. Sterling, Kentucky; and, in March, 1849, was admitted to the bar, and in that town began the practice of his profession, which he contin- ued, without interruption, until the Fall of 1862. In

October of that year, he enlisted as a private in the Confederate army, but was soon made Major of the Second Kentucky Cavalry, and served in that capacity until the close of the war, when he returned to Ken- tucky, and was paroled at Lexington. Soon after, he attempted to resume practice, but was not permitted to do so by the presiding judge, except by courtesy shown to· a non-resident lawyer, it being decided that he was not a citizen, according to the expatriation act passed by the Legislature, in 1861 and 1862. He appealed to the Court of Appeals, at Frankfort, and Judge Robertson rendered a decision (2 Duvall, Kentucky Reports, P. 351) by which not only he, but others also, were al- lowed to practice. He has since resided at Mt. Sterling, actively and successfully engaged in his profession. In 1868, he was candidate for circuit judge of his district, and again in 1874, but was defeated by small majori- ities. Religiously, he is connected with the Presby- terian Church. He is one of the first lawyers in his part of the State, and one of the most active and enter- prising men in his community. Major Tenney was married, May 18, 1848, to Miss J. M. Warner, daughter of James Warner, of Delaware, who is connected with some of the most distinguished families of the East.

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The Biographical encyclopaedia of Kentucky of the dead and living men of the nineteenth century, Part 39

Author: Armstrong, J. M., & company, pub Publication date: 1878 Publisher: Cincinnati, J. M. Armstrong Number of Pages: 946

Author: Armstrong, J. M., & company, pub
Publication date: 1878
Publisher: Cincinnati, J. M. Armstrong
Number of Pages: 946