Biographical and historical memoirs of Mississippi, embracing an authentic and comprehensive account of the chief events in the history of the state and a record of the lives of many of the most worthy and illustrious families and individuals, Vol. II, Part 22

Author: Goodspeed Brothers
Publication date: 1891
Publisher: Chicago, Goodspeed
Number of Pages: 1314

USA > Mississippi > Biographical and historical memoirs of Mississippi, embracing an authentic and comprehensive account of the chief events in the history of the state and a record of the lives of many of the most worthy and illustrious families and individuals, Vol. II > Part 22

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Section 244 was in the following language: "On and after the first day of January A. D. 1892, every elector shall, in addition to the foregoing qualifications, be able to read any section of the constitution of this state; or he shall be able to understand the same when read to him, or give a reasonable interpretation thereof. A new registration shall be made before the next ensuing election, after January 1, A. D. 1892."

Section 244 gave rise to animated discussion, not only in the convention, but by the people and press all over the state, and there developed decided opposition to its adoption in some quarters.

It was contended that it was a contradiction in terms, and not in the frank spirit in which the convention was called and had set out upon its labors; that it would not operate impartially for the reason that the judges of the qualifications there enumerated were not provided for, this having been left to the registrars of election. It was even by an extreme expression of individual democratic opinion called a fraud.

But as a frank interchange of views and a more calm, dispassionate and analytical reflec- tion succeeded to the impulsive impressions first taken, it was finally assented to as a fair and rational solution of the problem involved in the provision thus made from the peculiar situation of the state of Mississippi.

An amendment was offered, also proposing female suffrage. It was treated seriously and ludicrously by turns, and then dismissed rather summarily when the curious novelty of the suggestion was shorn by the robust sense of the convention of its sentimental attraction.

A scheme after the type of the Australian ballot-system was provided for, the voters re- ceiving an official ballot containing all the names of candidates and going alone, one at a time, into compartments arranged as a voting-place, and marking, with the exercise of his own choice and discretion, the person, or persons for whom he desires to vote.

The legislature was given power to alter, annul or repeal any charter of incorporation now existing and revocable, and any that may hereafter be created whenever iu its opinion it might be in the public interest to do so. This constitution finally put a quietus on the question of the Planters' and Union bank bonds which the decision of the supreme court had still left open, saying they never should be paid.

Decided restrictions were laid upon the rather liberal corporate legislation which had heretofore obtained, this action being taken responsive to the demands of the people upon this subject.

The constitution is a rather full and comprehensive one. As was facetiously remarked by a distinguished member of the convention, "They hardly left the legislature room to turn around in."

An ordinance was proposed looking to cutting up the liquor traffic, root and branch, in Mississippi, but the convention declined to go that far, the subject not having entered into the canvass for election of delegates to the convention.

The constitution was adopted November 1, 1890, the convention having been in session nearly three months,

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MEMOIRS OF MISSISSIPPI.

Practically, since 1875, there has been but one organized party in the state, the demo- cratic party.

This party has always been strong and controlling in the state from its early history. Prior to the Civil war, Mississippi voted at each election for the democratic candidates for the presidency and vice-presidency, the sole exception being in 1840, when it went for Har- rison. After the war, when Mr. Greeley was a candidate for the presidency, the state sup- ported him.

A few years ago a diverging effort was made to popularize a greenback theory of finance and form a party upon this basis, but it soon became apparent that the hope was as unsubstantial as a dream.

In some localities now upon the temperance question, prohibition and anti-prohibition proclivities enter as a factor in elections, but have made no impression upon the general politics of the state. A recent state prohibition convention which assembled at the capital declared in the platform adopted the positive determination of the temperance organization of the state to place no ticket in the field at any general election, or take any part in politics.

With but one political party in the state, therefore, the methods of executive commit- tees are simply confined to declaring the manner of making nominations, supervising the agencies and providing and directing the instrumentalities in the conduct of campaign, and settling questions which grow out of this action, and disputed points of elections, such as may be properly cognizable under their management in the premises. In 1873-5, when the republican party was defeated in the state, to 1880, when a greater degree of generalship was needed, the three chairmen of the state democratic executive committee were James Z. George, John D. Freeman and Capt. Frank Johnston, a distinguished lawyer of the state.

Generally, a nomination is equivalent to an election.

The negroes, as a rule, take no interest in politics. In what are known as the black counties, in accordance with the fusion movement, which took place some years ago as be- tween the negroes and the democrats, there is still a division made of the offices, negroes in many counties being sent to the senate and house of representatives, and elected circuit and chancery clerks and magistrates, and appointed teachers in the public schools. They serve on juries throughout the state.

There is a strong sense of the blessing derivable from the prevalence of law and order, and peace and harmony now existing between the races, and a wise and economical govern- ment in the state, which pervades every class and condition of the people. All morbid public feeling and any step taken to bring about unrest or prejudice and hurtful agitation, is rep- robated by common consent. The people are willing to trust both the state and national government for protection, and the best advancement of their public interests and security, while they pursue the even tenor of their private vocations and industries.

At the juncture at which this chapter is written, the absorbing question of political interest in the state, and which has become a vital subject of controversy within the demo- cratie party, is the subtreasury scheme, as proposed and defined in the bill of Mr. Pickler, introduced in the national house of representatives at the last session of congress, and familiar to the people of the United States since its object and purpose has been incorporated in the platform of the National Farmers' Alliance at Ocala, Fla.

This question was first presented distinctly in the politics of the state in the congress- ional election of the year 1890. In the seventh congressional district, now and then represented in congress by Charles E. Hooker, it was made a pregnant and controlling issue

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by Maj. Ethel Barksdale, who became a candidate for the nomination against Colonel Hooker, Major Barksdale then being a member of the state alliance.

It was at first thought by reason of the alacrity with which the agricultural interest, somewhat depressed in the state for several years, seized the new and facile idea of borrow- ing money from the government on the products enumerated in the bill, including cotton, that Major Barksdale would have, in political phraseology, a "walkover."

However, Colonel Hooker was renominated, Major Barksdale having withdraw from the canvass when the county of Madison pronounced against him in the primaries held there. In this county the question has been thoroughly ventilated by discussion pro and con in the various precincts. Many intelligent and influential farmers reside in this county.

Hooker's consistent political record, fervid oratory and great popularity, together with a masterly sounding of the issues of the campaign, turned what at one time seemed inevita- ble defeat into a brilliant victory.

Since that time, however, the adoption by the Ocala convention of the subtreasury scheme in its platform, the question has been freshly stimulated in Mississippi. Major Barksdale this year again entered the field as candidate for the United States senate upon this issue, against Senator J. Z. George, who had become a candidate for re-election, his colleague, Senator Edward Walthal, not entering the canvass in contemplation of retirement from the senate.

That campaign is still pending. Most of the leading men of the state are upon the hustings with the political slogan-" straightout democracy and George." General George having been always closely identified with the people through a sympathy from early struggles extending to every stratum of the social organization, and steadfastly devoted to the prin- ciples of the democratic party, believing that by it the well being of the people of Mississippi can best be subserved, it was not thought that there was any necessity for substituting another in his place, professing the same party ethics, but differing with him simply upon the expediency of the general government's adopting the economical policy proposed. John M. Allen, now in congress, the inimitable humorist and gifted politician, and a great favorite with the people, is actively engaged in the canvass in behalf of George, and Col. Charles E. Hooker is on the scene again fighting over the same battle with the same combatant of the year 1890.

Several prominent and very able alliance men of other states have taken some part in the campaign. The latest reliable intelligence of the action of the counties in choosing senators and representatives to the next legislature is, that General George's re-election is assured, the result being finally determinable by the legislature, which assembles in January, 1892.

It is obvious that the financial policy as proposed to be adopted by the national govern- ment has gained some ground in the state under the influence of the alliance organization, but still its members are democrats for the most part, and they have not tolerated any sugges- tion of the formation of a third party, believing that their condition can best be ameliorated within the ranks of the political party to which they have always adbered, and under a Federal policy of low taxation. The preponderating public sentiment of the state is, that while as a matter of course a logical and essential ratio should be made to exist between the expanded interstate commercial operations and increased business of the country and the volume of circulating medium, still they are not disposed, they reason, to substitute a self- evident proposition (always urged by the democracy in its advocacy of the bimetallic system of gold and silver) for the subject matter-the tariff-which has constituted the definite issue between the two great political parties of the country for an unbroken space of thirty years.

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CHAPTER VIII.

CITIES, TOWNS AND VILLAGES .*

ICKSBURG is situated on the plateau overlooking the Mississippi in north latitude thirty-two degrees, twenty-one minutes, thirty-three seconds and west longitude thirteen degrees, fifteen minutes. A series of terraces mark the approach to the Hill city from the Mississippi bottom and from the bayous, giving it natural drainage in four general courses. The delta country stretching northward and the rich agricultural regions to the east and south are tributary to the city, while her railroad and steamboat facil- ities place her on a plane with the prosperous city of Memphis further north, bringing her within six hours' distance of the Red river country of Louisiana, Shreveport, one hundred and seventy-two miles; within seven hours' distance of the Texan cotton-fields, Marshall, two hundred and eleven miles; within twenty-four hours of Chicago, Ill., seven hundred and forty-eight miles; and Cincinnati, Ohio, seven hundred and nineteen miles; thirty hours of Washington, D. C., one thousand and fifty-four miles, and forty hours of New York city, one thousand, two hundred and eighty-two miles. The population in 1850 was twothousand six hundred and seventy-eight, in 1860, four thousand five hundred and ninety-one, in 1870, twelve thousand four hundred and forty-three, in 1880, eleven thousand and in 1890, thir- teen thousand two hundred and ninety-eight.

In the matter of the sanitary condition of the city, Dr. Brisbane's report, made a few years ago, contained important points, among which are the following:

"Second to no other attraction or element of importance is the health of a town and the advantages or otherwise of its sanitary features and condition. The prospective citizen, with children to educate, is particular to estimate the educational advantages; the manufacturer and investor inquire as to taxes, encouragement offered and water or other facilities; the artisan and mechanic are specially interested in the number of factories and industries; but all alike, with one voice, demand the proof of health and sanitary guarantees of any com- munity that invites his presence. The health of cities and growing towns, competing for attention and development, is the constant theme with their respective editors and public- spirited citizens. The sanitary condition and advantages of a community are prominent bases on which its merits and attractions are pushed and heralded with all the energy of modern booms. With any of them, in this respect particularly, Vicksburg eagerly invites comparison. The sanitary committee is one of the most important and active committees of the board of mayor and aldermen. There is a health officer, a salaried official, who acts in conjunction with the sanitary committee, and also a board of health, composed of prominent local

*For additional matter concerning cities, towns and villages, see Chapters VIII to XII inclusive, Vol. I.

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physicians. During the summer months, sanitary inspectors are employed, and as a rule a special sanitary officer is regularly appointed by the city council. In addition, the regular police are also required to make sanitary reports, and even the fire department is not exempt when called upon to do sanitary duty. The whole is governed by a series of carefully drawn ordinances and regulations, which show to what a high degree this important part of careful municipal government has received attention. Vicksburg, like every center, has a large floating population, attracted by the construction of railroads, levees and other works of like character, and the sick and dying from this large class find an asylum in the state hospital, located at Vicksburg. The causes of death given in the records show to the discerning mind certain facts worthy of notice. For instance, there is a notable absence of the malig- nant forms of malaria so generally attributed to this section of country as a canse of death. There is also a comparative absence of deaths caused by typhoid fever, and likewise a very limited number of deaths under the head of contagious and infectious diseases."

The temperature of winter seldom descends to seven degrees, and that of summer seldom exceeds seventy degrees. The change of seasons is so gradually accomplished that there is a spring and a fall distinct in character from such imaginative seasons in the North.

Vicksburg may be said to date its beginning to 1783, when the Spaniards completed Fort Nogales, garrisoned the post and armed the redoubts known as Fort Mount Virgie, Fort Gayoso and Fort St. Ignatius. For almost a century before, the site was known to Canadian and French travelers and prior to 1729 to the first colonists of the Natchez district, whose farms spread out to the Yazoo and to Walnut hills.

On March 23, 1798, the commander received orders from the governor at New Orleans to evacuate the position and return to Natchez. A few days later a company of United States troops, under Major Kersey, took possession of the works and changed the name to Fort McHenry. Its occupation was continued for a short time, when it was allowed to be used for civil purposes and became the home of Anthony Glass, Sr. Its location, ten thou- sand feet above the courthouse of Warren county, is to-day known as Fort Hill. The national government recognized the historic character of the place and there located the national cemetery.

The open woods, six miles east of Vicksburg, beyond the great canebrake, were selected by Newet Vick about 1811 as a homestead farm; but preferring to cultivate the land on the river front, he built a cabin for his negroes at the intersection of Washington and Belmont streets of the present city, and opened a plantation there that year. Foster Cook came before him in his interest, but can not be said to have preceded him as a settler. It was Mr. Vick who conceived the idea of planting a town on Walnut hills; but dying in 1819, his plans were not carried out until 1821, when his son-in-law, Rev. John Lane, a Methodist preacher, like the pioneer himself, had a plat of the village made. Immediately after the land was sur- veyed and the United States land office opened at Washington, Miss., in January, 1816, the Vicks entered the site of Vicksburg in regular form, and twenty years after the place was chosen as the seat of justice for Warren county. The first store was started at Vicksburg by Hartwell Vick, a son of Newet Vick, the proprietor of the place, in about 1820. He con- tinued about four years, and was then succeeded by Foster Cook and partner, George Wyche, under the firm name of Cook & Wychie. They did a large business and supplied planters in many adjoining counties.

Several years ago a number of prominent citizens and capitalists of Vicksburg obtained a charter from the legislature of the state of Mississippi and organized under it the Vicks- burg Wharf and Land company, This company acquired by purchase for cash all the lands

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south of Vicksburg, covering a river front of over a mile and a half and controlling what is known as the lower landing. This property consists of several hundred acres of land and covers as large an area as that at present occupied by the city of Vicksburg. As the growth of the city has been for years in a southerly direction, and has already reached the estate of the company, it naturally follows that in the event of Vicksburg increasing to double its pres- ent size and population-and there are strong indications of such a happening-then the property of the Wharf and Land company would become the site of a city as populous as Vicksburg now is. In 1880 Vicksburg had a population of twelve thousand, and in 1886 of eighteen thousand, thus showing a healthy and steady growth. The building of the Louisville, New Orleans & Texas railroad has given new impetus to the city, and that road is now erecting immense construction and repair shops immediately adjoining the lands of the Vicksburg Wharf and Land company, which must materially increase the demand for the company's lots. The transfer across the Mississippi river of the cars of the Cin- cinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific system is also made over the property of the company, and at this landing the various boats plying on the Mississippi and Yazoo and their tributaries connect with the Vicksburg & Meridian, Vicksburg, Shreveport & Pacific, and Louisville, New Orleans & Texas railroads.

The Vicksburg Wharf and Land company have laid out their property as an addition to the city of Vicksburg, and are at work having an electric street railroad built to it. In the meantime little or no effort is being made to dispose of the lots, the company realizing that at an early day these lots will command very liberal prices, owing to the various advan- tages possessed by their location both for business and residential purposes. A few lots have been sold at prices ranging from $1,500 to $2,000 each, and residences are now being erected on them. The stock of the company is not on the market. The secure position of the company, the cash value of its lands, and the stolidity with which the stockholders have held on to their shares from its earliest inception have obviated the necessity of running the capital into the millions. This amounts to $300,000 only. It is understood that this stock has never changed hands from the original holders, who have been so satisfied with the investment that they have never cared to part with it. The exceptional sitnation of this property, its numerous advantages for residential purposes, commanding as it does a mag- nificent view of the river and the surrounding country for miles, while it has in addition to the landing every railroad centering in Vicksburg immediately at its base, must make it at an early day the most sought-for and the best tract of land in and around Vicksburg. The stochkolders of the company are all subtantial business men. Among them are: Thomas Rigby, ex-president of the Vicksburg and Meridian railroad; A. D. Mattingly, coal mer- chant; J. B. Mattingly, mill owner; Thomas M. Smedes, and Eugene Martin, all of Vicks- burg; Colonel Wooldridge, Lexington, Ky .; the German Security bank of Louisville, Ky. The late Col. A. B. Pittman, of Vicksburg, was also a stockholder.

The surrender of Vicksburg, July 3, 1863, to the troops under Grant, and the defeat of Lee's army at Gettysburg on the same date, by the troops under Meade, abolished doubt in the minds of impartial observers, North and South, and pointed to the fact that, were the Federal authorities inclined to end the war, every division of the Confederacy could be garrisoned by their troops before the close of that summer. Early in the struggle the importance of Vicksburg as a strategic point was recognized by both sides. The fall of New Orleans, in 1862, gave the Federals virtual possession of the Mississippi river up to Vicksburg, down to which operations had also cleared the way from above. On the 18th of May a portion of Farragut's fleet, under Capt. S. P. Lee, appeared before the city and demanded its surren.

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der, which was promptly refused. Every effort was made by the Confederacy to retain a strong force here. Ten thousand troops garrisoned Vicksburg at this period. On the 28th of May, General Williams, who had occupied the opposite side of the river, attempted, by means of a dug canal, to leave the city high and dry, but the uncertain stream declined to desert the city, and the scheme was a failure.

After a vain bombardment, on the 28th of June Farragut's fleet was compelled, by fall- ing water, to descend to New Orleans. General Sherman's operations from the Yazoo quarter were equally fruitless. Grant's attack, on the 19th of May, 1863, was gallantly repulsed, but he invested the city with an overwhelming force of seventy thousand men, while the fleet co-operated from the river.

On July 3, 1863, after enduring for forty-seven days and nights the horrors of bom- bardment, and menaced by the pangs of hunger, Vicksburg, through General Pemberton, in command of the town, was allowed honorable terms of capitulation, and the brave struggle of the inhabitants against the inevitable was at an end. Rather less than seventeen years later, on April 12, 1880, Grant again entered Vicksburg-not this time at the head of a victorious army, but amid the plaudits of the citizens, as their invited guest, they having chivalrously forgotten the bitterness of the past and joined the whole South in welcoming the great Federal captain.

After the siege, Vicksburg struggled manfully to regain its prosperity. The recon- struction period was successfully passed through, but a disastrous fire in 1866 caused great loss of property. In 1876 the Mississippi river, most fickle and inconstant of its kind, vol- untarily accomplished the task in which the Federal engineers had failed. It reached across the narrow isthmus opposite, which has ever since remained an island, while Vicksburg now stands on the borders of a lake, two miles from the main current and only reached directly by navigation during the four or five months of high water each year. Two years later, in common with other Southern cities, Vicksburg had a terrible visitation of yellow fever. Another great fire in 1883 laid a portion of the town in ruins, and as a fitting climax to this series of misfortunes, the collapse of the Mississippi bank the same year took from luckless depositors a million dollars of hard-earned money. However strange it may seem, there is a gleam of satisfaction in recalling these unhappy incidents, for they serve to set forth more eloquently than volumes of argument the strength and elasticity of the town and the uncon- querable will of the people. Vicksburg has been tried in the crucible and has come out of the dread ordeal better in every way.

With the possible exception of Arlington Heights at Washington, no national cemetery in the United States can compare with that of Vicksburg, situated about two miles north of town. All that nature and art could do has been here accomplished to afford a noble resting place for over sixteen thousand Federal soldiers. Until the building of the Valley road there was a splendid wide drive from the city to the cemetery. The railroad somewhat affected ed the drainage and caused a slight caving in of the sides. Congress appropriated $10,000 for restoring this road in 1880 and it was made a beantiful boulevard with shade trees on each side.

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Biographical and historical memoirs of Mississippi, embracing an authentic and comprehensive account of the chief events in the history of the state and a record of the lives of many of the most worthy and illustrious families and individuals, Vol. II, Part 22

Author: Goodspeed Brothers Publication date: 1891 Publisher: Chicago, Goodspeed Number of Pages: 1314

Author: Goodspeed Brothers
Publication date: 1891
Publisher: Chicago, Goodspeed
Number of Pages: 1314