Mississippi : comprising sketches of towns, events, institutions, and persons, arranged in cyclopedic form Vol. II, Part 3

Author: Rowland, Dunbar, 1864-1937, ed
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Atlanta, Southern Historical Publishing Association
Number of Pages: 1032

USA > Mississippi > Mississippi : comprising sketches of towns, events, institutions, and persons, arranged in cyclopedic form Vol. II > Part 3

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to consideration of the Army bill. Lamar, who had long expected some such encounter, replied that if the senator from New York meant anything inconsistent with good faith, "I pronounce his statement a falsehood, which I repel with all the unmitigated con- tempt that I feel for the author of it" Conkling rejoined that if the senator from Mississippi "did impute or intend to impute to me a falsehood, nothing except the fact that this is the Senate would prevent my denouncing him as a blackguard and a coward." Mr. Lamar then said: "Mr. President, I have only to say that the Senator from New York understood me correctly. I did mean to say just precisely the words, and all that they imported. I beg pardon of the senate for the unparliamentary language. It was very harsh; it was very severe; it was such as no good man would deserve, and no brave man would wear." The incident could not be understood except through the knowledge that Lamar habitu- ally avoided Conkling, and that he felt that Conkling was plotting to break his reserve and draw him into a discussion that he re- garded as "unwise and silly" on the part of his Democratic col- leagues. His rejoinder, therefore, was not an outburst of passion, but was carefully calculated for political as well as personal posi- tion. There was talk of a duel; but the day had passed for that mode of assuaging verbal discomfitures. In the fall of 1879 he took part in the State campaign, when the party was in danger of disorganization between the efforts of the Greenbackers and those called "Bourbons" or "the unreconstructed." In his speeches, the attacks upon him compelled him to combat with elaborate argu- ment the theory of State sovereignty as applied to the right of the legislature to control the action of national delegates. He showed remarkable power to win the popular approval in these campaign speeches, and worked a revolution in sentiment wher- ever he went. In the following January he exerted his influence toward the election of Gen. Walthall to the senate, but the Walthall and Barksdale men found it necessary to unite on Gen. George. After this he was for several weeks disabled by his illness, pre- viously mentioned, and though he returned to congress it was with a sensation of the imminence of death. An event of 1881 for which he was censured by some, hastily, was his brief speech in favor of putting Gen. Grant upon the retired list of the army. The session beginning in March, 1881, was one of the most acrimon- ious in the history of the senate, because of the equality of the parties, Gen. Mahone, of Virginia, holding the balance of power. Lamar found occasion again to say that though he had been a secessionist, and had devoted himself to the conception of two republics, he had returned to his first love, taught him by his father and mother-"that of one grand, mighty, indivisible repub- lic upon this continent, throwing its loving arms around all sec- tions ; omnipotent for protection, powerless for oppression, cursing none, blessing all." In the election of 1881, of a legislature to choose his successor or reëlect him, he was indirectly opposed by several powerful newspapers, and the matter was complicated by

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the contest for governor. His friends desired the nomination of John M. Stone for governor, and in this they were defeated. A Greenback-Republican fusion was effected, supporting the nom- ination of Benjamin King for governor. Lamar looked upon this as an attempt to revive "negro government," the domination of the negro vote, "just as it was before 1875, with not one feature of mitigation, and with many other elements of aggravation and degradation." On this theory he made a great campaign for the election of Gen. Lowry, the Democrtic nominee, while the nation looked upon it, with deep interest, as a fight largely for the justifi- cation of the broad and generous national policy of which he was himself the exponent. The result was that when the legislature met he was reelected senator without the formality of a caucus. In 1883 he made his first great speech on the tariff, supporting the Democratic position. In 1884 he made speeches in the State fav- oring the candidacy of Mr. Cleveland for president. His Holly Springs speech had this theme: "We white people ought to keep united," and attracted wide attention. When the news came of Cleveland's election he said, "It is a terrible responsibility," and fell into a prolonged reverie. His life for years had been given to rigid repression of every impulse but the conquest of a hostile majority by courtesy, tolerance, and appeal to the fundamental facts of social life and organization. He had lost the capacity for partisan jubilation. At the end of the year his wife died. George F. Edmunds wrote to him tender words, closing, "Come on then, my dear sir, and put your strong shoulder to the wheel of gov- ernment and to all the good things to be done, and all will be well." Toward the latter part of February he accepted an invitation from Mr. Cleveland to take a place in his cabinet, and on March 5 he was appointed Secretary of the Interior. In this position he dis- played an enormous capacity for hard work. His order to close the department and put the flag at half mast upon the death of Jacob Thompson, former secretary, was taken advantage of by the political opponents of the administration to create a greater storm of criticism of Mr. Lamar than he had theretofore known. Mr. Thompson's name was popularly associated in the north with disagreeable traditions. At the same time Secretary Lamar was accused of not favoring the South in appointments to department position, and he came in generally for his share of the partisan censure of Mr. Cleveland's methods, in regard to "spoils," which have since then become the settled policy of the government. In 1886 he received the degree of LL. D. from Harvard university, at its 250th anniversary. Jan. 5, 1887, he was married to the widow of Gen. W. S. Holt, a daughter of James Dean, of Georgia. In the following April he delivered the oration at the unveiling of the Calhoun monument at Charleston. This was probably his own most monumental work, and he spoke without more than a hour's special preparation, putting into words the fruit of his study and experience regarding the relations of the States and Federal gov- ernment. Later in the same year he was the guest of honor at the

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119th annual banquet of the New York chamber of commerce and responded to the toast, The President. In May, Justice Woods, of the supreme court, died, and some Southern man was in the line of succession. Cleveland looked to Lamar as "certainly the best of living men," saying "his mind and heart are right, and he can- not decide anything wrong."

His name was sent to the senate December 6. A presidential campaign was at hand, and partisan opposition was made, which delayed confirmation. He resigned his place in the cabinet Jan. 7, 1888, forcing the senate to consider his name as that of a private citizen. Gen. Walthall then proposed to resign from the senate, to which he had been elected to succeed Lamar, that the latter might be reelected, but Lamar refused to listen to it. The judiciary committee reported against his confirmation, on the grounds of age and legal qualifications, but the senate confirmed his appoint- ment Jan. 16, Riddleberger of Virginia and three Western sena- tors furnishing the majority. This was the greatest honor accorded any former Confederate, the highest recognition up to that time of the national fealty of the men who had been Confederate sol- diers a quarter century earlier. He was installed upon the bench of the supreme court of the United States Jan. 18, 1888, and his work there continued until his fatal illness, in 1892. Of this work, Chief Justice Fuller said, "He was invaluable in consultation. His was the most suggestive mind that I ever knew, and not one of us but has drawn from its inexhaustible store." He was also fully up to the average of the justices in the work of preparing opinions. Other activities occupied part of these final, years. He delivered an address before Emory college in 1890, and another before Cen- ter college, Ky., in 1891. In October of the latter year he was a delegate to the Ecumenical council of the Methodist church at Washington. In February, because of a great failure in strength, he visited Pass Christian. Subsequently he resumed his place on the bench. In December, 1892, he started again for the Mississippi coast, but was compelled to stop at Macon, Ga., the old home of his wife, where he died suddenly, Jan. 23, 1893. He was buried temporarily near that city, and about a year later the body was carried to Oxford, Miss., for final interment. (Abridged from "Life, Times and Speeches," by Edward Mayes, LL. D.)

Lamb, a postoffice of Bolivar county.

Lambert, a postoffice of Quitman county. 1148898

Lameta, a postoffice of Leake county.

Lamkin, a postoffice of Yazoo county.

Lamont, a post-hamlet in the southwestern part of Bolivar county, at the junction of two branches of the Yazoo & Missis- sippi Valley R. R., 25 miles by rail south of Rosedale. It has a money order postoffice. Population in 1900, 75.

Lampton, a postoffice of Marion county, on the Columbia branch of the Gulf & Ship Island R. R., 4 miles south of Columbia, the county seat.

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Land Claims, British. In 1815 the legislative council and house of representatives of the Mississippi territory petitioned congress for relief from the claims under British patents against lands held under Spanish patents and by donation or purchase from the United States.

"From January 1768 to September, 1779, numerous British grants were made by the governor of West Florida; those in the Natchez district being chiefly made to officers of the British army and navy, and in many instances were of large dimensions. The largest embraced 25,000 acres; two others, 20,000 each; several were for 10,000, and very few for less than 1,000 acres. These were so located as to embrace a large portion of the most valuable lands bordering on the Mississippi, for a breadth of six or eight miles from Fort Adams to the Yazoo, and extending along the al- luvial lands of the principal streams of the district."

"To each of these grants was appended, by a ribbon, a ponder- ous wax seal, some three inches in diameter, the British arms be- ing impressed on the obverse, surrounded by the inscription : "Sigillum provinciae nostra Florida occidentalis," with other in- scriptions and legends. The conditions of these grants as to occu- pancy cultivation and improvement were such, if not regarded as mere words of form, to render them utterly void. Few of the lands granted were occupied or improved to the extent required, proof of which was to have been made within a stated time. They were, therefore, inchoate, if strictly construed, and were never perfected. Many of them, however, were nevertheless recognized and con- firmed by the succeeding Spanish government, which, though ac- quiring the country by conquest, yet with great liberality guaran- teed these possessions to the holders, upon the performance of certain reasonable requirements, such as presentation and proof of title, accompanied with occupancy, allowing several years for this purpose." (Wailes, Report of 1854).

There is a distinction to be made between the grants to persons about to occupy the lands themselves, and those who obtained patents with the purpose of organizing speculations of colonies, and a third class who were given patents as a token of the royal appreciation The last class usually received a mandamus from the king, while the ordinary applicant presented a petition to the gov- ernor and council at Pensacola, and received a warrant of survey, directed to the surveyor-general. Upon the proper return from the surveyor a patent issued.

There were grants to William Walter, Alexander Moore and Alexander Boyd, on the Mississippi, in 1768; to Daniel Clark, near Natchez, in the same year; to Jacob Phillippi, James Watkins and Daniel McGillivray, on Cole's creek, to Alexander McIntosh, on Petit Gulf, 1770. After this there was a period when West Florida was without a governor, or lieutenant-governor, and Chester did not sign many grants until 1772 in the Mississippi region. Anthony Hutchins obtained a grant of 1,000 acres on Second creek in 1772, for 434 in 1773. Other grants in 1772-73 were to Amos Ogden

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(by royal mandamus) 14,115 acres on the Homochitto, Oct. 27, 1772, mostly conveyed to Samuel Swayze; Daniel Perry, on Cole's and Second creeks; William Ratcliff, on Second; John Campbell, on the Mississippi; Samuel Wells and Innis Hooper, on Second ; Sarah Holmes, William Alexander, Michael Hooter, Alexander McIntosh, John Campbell, Jacob Winfree, William Joiner. In 1775 Thaddeus Lyman, (See Lyman Colony.) by mandamus, was granted 20,000 acres on Bayou Pierre. Thomas Hutchins was granted 1,000 on the Homochitto in the same year, and John Hol- comb a tract on the same waters. In 1775-76 there were grants to Robert Robertson, Daniel Perry, John Caldwallader and the Wil- liamses (Grove Plantation), Samuel Lewis, Evan Cameron, Wil- liam Haves, John Blommert, Enoch Horton. In 1777-79, the period of greatest immigration and the last two years of British control on the Mississippi, there were grants to James Cole, James Robert- son, William Vousdan, Seth Doud, Thomas Comstock, John Bolls, Sara Mayes, Charles Percy, James S. Yarborough, William Hiern, Zaccheus Routh, William Case, John Hartley, John Smith, David Adams, Andrew Cypress, John Row, John Talley, John Collins, Nathan Sweazy, John Luck, Richard Ellis, Christian Bingaman, John Bentley, William Brown, Phillip Hannon, Alexander McIn- tosh, Samuel Gibson, Isaac Johnson, Alexander Ross, Jacob Paul, Christopher Guice, James Perry, Athanasius Martin. The Brit- ish royal instructions in 1765, entered at Pensacola, regarding those proposing to settle, were that 100 acres be granted to every head of family, and 50 for every other man, woman or child in the fam- ily, including negroes, and as much more as deemed advisable, not to exceed 1,000 acres, provided, "it shall appear to you they are in condition and intention to cultivate the same." The conditions were that the settler should pay to the receiver of quit rents, on day of grant, five shillings for every fifty acres, and a perpetual quit rent of a half penny per acre, payable at the feast of St. Michael annually. Further grants were to depend upon the cul- tivation of the original grant.

By the treaty of 1783, between Great Britain and Spain, the sub- jects of King George, including the loyalist colonies and refugees from the United States, were granted 18 months in which to sell their estates and remove their effects as well as their persons. On the expiration of that period the property was to be forfeited of all those who did not swear allegiance to the king of Spain. This allowance of time was afterward very liberally extended. But where the terms were not finally complied with, by actual occu- pation of the land and oath of allegiance, the lands were confiscated and regranted to any satisfactory applicant. There was also a con- siderable confiscation of British grants after the revolt of 1791, where the holders were concerned in that uprising against the Spanish. It was the custom of the Spanish government to make new grants of such lands as were not occupied by former grantees or were vacated after occupation. A title without occupation and cultivation was contrary to Spanish policy. Hence it followed

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that during the Spanish reoccupation of the region up to the Yazoo from 1780 to 1798, land grants were made which covered old English grants, the holders'of which made no remonstrance, evi- dently because their claims would not have been valid under a con- tinuance of Spanish government. They lacked the essential Span- ish conditions of occupation, cultivation and improvement.

When the United States took possession title was claimed by many non-resident holders of British grants, among them the fol- lowing, from the list made in 1809, the number of acres being ap- pended to the names: Elihu Hall Bay, 1,100, also as assignee of William Garnier 4,800; William Grant, 2,000; Dr. John Lorimer, 2,000 ; John Smith, James Barbour, 850; Amos Ogden, 3,075; Thad- deus Lyman, 2,100. Grant's and Lorimer's grants were at Wal- nut Hills, dated 1776. Alexander McCullagh, on the grants to various parties, for about 5,000 acres; Col. Augustine Prevost, for 9,000 acres mainly on Cole's creek, granted to himself; Robert Callender's heir's, 2,000 at Loftus cliffs, grantee of John Blom- mert, 2,000: Sir George Bridges Rodney, 5,000 on the river Mis- sissippi ; various representatives of Amos Ogden for several thou- sand acres on the Homochitto, representatives of David Hodge for several large tracts assigned to him. Altogether the commission- ers reported about 80,000 acres claimed by non-residents under British grants.

Some claimants had imperfect titles for other reasons, such as William Silkrigs, (Silkrag?) who claimed he got a British war- rant for survey of 200 acres on the Mississippi in 1777, which was surveyed by William Vousdan, after which he did work upon it, but was taken prisoner by the Americans in 1779 and carried down the river. After this he remained with the Americans until he ' was retaken by the British. By this time the Indians had plund- ered his place, and he remained in the settled parts of the country until the Americans took possession.

An interesting light upon these claims is found in the corres- pondence of Anthony Hutchins (Mississippi Archives). Writing Jan. 7, 1799, to Col. William Johnstone: "You have a tract or two below the White Cliffs adjacent to lands I bought of my brother, Capt. Thomas Hutchins. I don't know in whose name you claim it, whether in the name of Mrs. Johnstone or a Mr. Hughs, or in your own name. I cannot well remember, but as it adjoins my land and after I returned from England Mr. Isaac Johnson told me he was your attorney I cleared and cultivated a few acres in- tending to secure the possession of it for you, which improvement I still occupy and think that nothing can be wanting but your titles and your more fuller power of attorney to hold it for you, although a Mr. Daniel Clark has obtained a Spanish grant for it in the name of a Spaniard and hath sold it to a Mr. Farrar. Mr. Isaac Johnson has removed below the line and is now a Spanish subject." In September previous Col. Hutchins had served notice on Benjamin Farrar "as a neighbor, that Col. Johnstone claims that land and is the lawful and rightful owner of it."

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The Madison, Gallatin and Lincoln commission of 1803, which outlined the policy to be followed in acts of congress, said of these claims: "The West Florida patents were, with but few excep- tions, accompanied with a clause of forfeiture, unless the land should be improved within ten years; and the Spanish government seem to have considered all the unimproved lands as forfeited. It is, however, alleged on the part of the grantees, that, although a condition of settlement was commonly annexed to the grants in the British provinces under the royal governments, with a penalty of forfeiture in case of default, this has never been en- forced either by the British government, or, after the Revolution, by the States; and that the Indians at first, and the Spanish con- quest, afterwards, rendered in this case a fulfillment of the condi- tion impossible. Where the land has been regranted by Spain, the parties must be left to a judicial decision ; but where it remains unclaimed by any other person, the commissioners are of opinion that it would be improper for the United States to grant it again, until the amount and nature of the grants shall have been fully as- certained."

Under the first land law relating to the Territory, 1803, British claimants under British grants were required to register at Natchez, before the last day of March, 1804. There was a memo- rial by various claimants, nonresident, transmitted to the United States government, through Minister Erskine in that month, and a supplemental act was passed, extending the time for lands west of Pearl river to the last of November, 1804. Another and final extension, by act of March 2, 1805, was to December 1 of that year.

The question also arose, did Spain have any right to make grants of land north of 31°, which was the boundary of the United States agreed to by Great Britain in 1787 and acceded to by Spain in 1795, although she had occupied the disputed territory between those dates, and on to 1797. Spanish grants were recognized by the United States land office up to the date of the treaty of 1795, and many of these grants bore date in that year. Some were under suspicion of being antedated.

In the Georgia cession it was agreed, by article 2, "that all per- sons who, on the 27th day of October, 1795, were actual settlers within the territory thus ceded, shall be confirmed in all the grants legally and fully executed prior to that day by the former British government of West Florida, or by the government of Spain.

Then, by the act of congress of March 3, 1803, provision was made for issuing certificates to claimants under English and Span- ish grants, who were actual settlers at the date named, but it was also provided that British grants, valid in other respects but with- out actual settlement should be reported to congress, and the lands "contained in said grants shall not be otherwise disposed of until the end of one year after that date." By the Georgia cession 5,000,000 acres were reserved from sale to compensate claimants other than actual settlers; and Section 8 of the law of 1803 speci-

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fied claimants under "British grants for lands which have not been regranted by the Spanish government" is this class, to be compen- sated out of the reservation.

In case the Spanish government had regranted land covered by an old British grant, the land commissioners were required, by a proviso of the law of 1803, to state the fact in the certificate, "in which case the party shall not be entitled to a patent, unless he shall have obtained in his favor a judicial decision in a court having jurisdiction therein." This latter provision defeated the purpose of the actual settlers clause in the Georgia cession, and the first sections of the law of 1803, and permitted the paper titles of Brit- ish favorites to cloud the claims of actual settlers. This was in the face of the admitted disregard of these alleged British titles by the Spanish government, last in possession of the domain. In this con- nection the British claimants made a great show of that law of nations, laid down in Vattel, called jus postliminium, by virtue of which things taken from an enemy are restored to their former status on coming again under the former dominion. This would as- sume that British royalists came into their own as it was under British dominion, when Spain relinquished the Natchez district . to the United States. As pointed out by Col. John M. White in Florida, in passing on the same kind of claims, the doctrine would not apply unless the United States and Great Britain were allies in 1776-83.

In 1812 congress enacted that every person or legal representa- tive of such person, claiming lands in the Territory, by virtue of a British or Spanish warrant or order of survey, granted prior to Oct. 27, 1795, who was, on that day actually resident in the Territory, and whose claims had been regularly filed with the proper register of the land office, be confirmed in his rights to the land claimed. But this left out those who were reviving old Brit- ish warrants for speculative purposes. These sent agents into the country and there was considerable annoyance of those who were then occupying the land claimed on such warrants.

."In November, 1815, the general assembly of Mississippi terri- tory adopted an appeal to congress, setting out the condition. "The patents by which these British claims are held," they said, covered tracts of land for the most part of enormous size. In many cases the lines were never run, nor had they any other than nat- ural boundaries, and but few of the grantees, if any, were ever in possession. "One great ground upon which they assert their claims is the treaty commonly known as Jay's treaty (1794) ; but it appears to your memorialists that they could not have been in- cluded in the just meaning of that treaty, as the United States were not in possession of the territory at its date; but if these claimants were included therein, their claims were forfeited by their laches under proclamation of the Spanish government.

"The present holders, or persons from whom they have pur- chased for valuable consideration, under the full faith and credit of the Spanish government, received those grants, and wading

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Mississippi : comprising sketches of towns, events, institutions, and persons, arranged in cyclopedic form Vol. II, Part 3

Author: Rowland, Dunbar, 1864-1937, ed Publication date: 1907 Publisher: Atlanta, Southern Historical Publishing Association Number of Pages: 1032

Author: Rowland, Dunbar, 1864-1937, ed
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Atlanta, Southern Historical Publishing Association
Number of Pages: 1032