USA > Mississippi > Mississippi : comprising sketches of towns, events, institutions, and persons, arranged in cyclopedic form Vol. III > Part 42
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Haralson, James Jordan, M. D., who is engaged in the practic . of medicine and surgery at Forest, the judicial center of Scott county, is here accorded recognition as one of the representative members of his profession in Mississippi. He was born in Harperville, Scott county, this State, on the last day of the year 1857, and his parents, James N. and Georgia A. (Thornton) Haralson, were both born in the State of Georgia, whence they came to Mississippi when young, here passing the remainder of their lives. The maternal grand- father of the doctor was a soldier in the War of 1812, and James N. Haralson was a valiant soldier of the Confederacy during the dark days of the Civil war, having been a member of a Mississippi regi- ment. Securing his fundamental education in the public schools, Dr. Haralson then entered Cooper institute. He later served as bookkeeper and then drug clerk and prescription clerk in Meridian and Jackson, and finally determined to prepare himself for the medi- cal profession, his knowledge of pharmacy being advanced and of marked value to him in further prosecuting his technical studies. In 1886 he was graduated in the Louisville medical college, with the degree of Doctor of Medicine, and he later took a post-graduate course in the New York Polyclinic. He began the practice of his
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profession in Conehatta, Newton county, Miss., where he remained ten years, at the expiration of which, he located in Forest, Scott county, which has since continued the base of his well directed and very successful labors as a physician and surgeon. From 1892 to 1896 the doctor served as State quarantine physician at Ship Island, while at the present time he is local health officer and county physician. He is identified with the American medical association and also with the State and Scott county medical societies. Dr. Haralson is recognized as one of the wheelhorses of the Democracy in his section and is chairman of the Democratic executive commit- tee of Scott county. He is affiliated with the Masonic fraternity, having passed the degrees of the lodge, chapter and commandery and also being identified with the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, as well as with the Knights of Pythias and Wood- men of the World. He is held in high regard by his professional associates, as is evident when we make mention of the fact that he is secretary of the Mississippi State medical society, in whose work he has long taken an active part. For nine years he was incumbent of the responsible position of surgeon for the Queen & Crescent rail- road. On Jan. 7, 1892, Dr. Haralson was married to Miss Fannie Jackson, who was born and reared in Newton county, Miss., being a daughter of Thomas J. and Olivia C. (Day) Jackson. Dr. and Mrs. Haralson have four children, namely: Flint M., Olivia, Fredna and Bertha.
Hardy, Judge William H., was born at Collirene, Lowndes county, Ala., Feb. 12, 1837, and is descended from English and Irish stock. A family of Hardys came from England to America with Lord Baltimore and settled in Maryland and from this family sprang a numerous progeny, one of whom, John Hardy, re- moved to the county of Mecklenburg, Va., where he accumulated a handsome estate, and raised a large family, among them being Robert, William, Covington, Daniel and John Jr. After the death of their father, these sons, who were farmers and mechanics, moved to Edgefield district, S. C., and settled on the road leading from Edgefield court house to Hamburg where they established a blacksmith and wagon or wheel- wright shop. They built a log church house where they worshipped according to the Baptist faith. There is, or was, at the beginning of the Civil war a brick church standing on or near the site of the little log church, and known as Hardy's church. Here in 1810 a son was born to Daniel and Mary (Williams) Hardy, who was named Robert Williams. In 1818 this little colony of Hardys moved to Alabama, and settled near the line of Lowndes and Dallas counties on Town creek. When Robert W. grew to manhood, he united in marriage with Temperance L. Toney, who came with her parents
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from Greenville, S. C., and who was the granddaughter of Thomas and Temperance (Arnold) Hamilton. Thomas Hamilton was born of Scotch-Irish parents in the north of Ireland and came, at the age of eleven years, with his parents to America and settled in South Carolina, and served in the War of the Revolution. The subject of this sketch was the second son of Robert W. and Temperance L. Hardy and was reared near where he was born. Between the inter- vals of making and gathering the crops he attended at odd times the schools of the neighborhood, as his father was a farmer, and the sons of farmers in those days were made to work with the negroes on the farm, when not attending school. At the age of seventeen years he was sent to Cumberland university at Lebanon, Tenn., where he remained but two years, owing to a malignant attack of pneumonia which necessitated his return South, on the advice of his physician. Emaciated and harassed by a hacking cough, the family physician advised out door exercise on horseback; so, in the spring of 1856 he planned a horseback trip to Jasper county, Miss., to visit some relatives near Montrose. As deer, turkeys, foxes and wild cats were abundant, he spent several months in the saddle hunting, and improved rapidly in health. Among the acquaint- ances formed here, were James Campbell, Gen. Joseph P. Gray and B. V. Gammage, all men of character and standing, and who induced him to accept and teach a school at Montrose, where Dr. John N. Waddle, chancellor of the State university had formerly taught. He made quite an enviable reputation as a teacher and was sought after by several committees the next year, the most favorable offer coming from Flowers Place in Smith county, which he accepted. There he began teaching in a log cabin, but soon had a two-story frame building erected, with capacity to accommodate fifty or sev- enty-five pupils, and named the place Sylviarena, thus founding the high school by that name, which continues to this day, and at which have been educated many hundreds of young men and women whose lives and achievements have adorned their many walks in life. Here, while teaching, he began the study of law, and at the close of the academic year he resigned as principal of Sylviarena academy and entered the law office of Shannon & Street at Paulding, then the leading law firm in east Mississippi. With this firm he remained about a year when he was licensed by the venerable Judge John Watts at Raleigh, Miss., in 1858, after an examination in open court, conducted by Richard Cooper, district attorney of Raleigh, William C. Harper of Brandon and S. A. D. Stub of Quitman, and en- tered at once upon the practice at Raleigh and in the adjoining counties, achieving success from the beginning. On Oct. 10, 1860, he was united in marriage with Miss Sallie Johnson, daughter of Thomas H. Johnson, who had recently moved there from Gallatin, Tenn., and who was noted for her great beauty of face and figure, and her amiability and sweetness of character. On the following year the State of Mississippi seceded from the Union and became one of the Confederate States, and upon a call for volunteers he raised a com- pany composed of the sturdy young men of Smith county, the first
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to volunteer in the county; was mustered into service, and in June, 1861, went into camp of instruction at Corinth, Miss. His company, "The Defenders," on the organization of the Sixteenth Mississippi infantry became Company H of that famous regiment, which was sent to Virginia and became a part of the immortal Army of North- ern Virginia. He shared in all the campaigns and battles in which his regiment participated up to the battle of Sharpsburg but to describe the part which he took in these battles would be to extend this sketch beyond the limit of its scope and purpose. On account of ill health, on the recommendation of the regimental and brigade surgeons, he resigned from the army, returned home and by careful nursing and proper dietory regimen he recovered sufficiently to re- enter the army, and was appointed by the secretary of war, aide-de- camp to Gen. James Argyle Smith, then commanding a brigade in Cleburne's division of the Army of Tennessee, with which he remained to the end. After the death of General Cleburne at the battle of Franklin, General Smith took command of the division, and Captain Hardy acted as adjutant general until the re-organization of the army just before the capitulation at Greensboro, N. C. After the surrender he returned to his home at Raleigh and in November fol- lowing moved to Paulding and resumed the practice of law. Cap- tain Hardy's first wife died Sept. 16, 1872, leaving six children, four daughters and two sons, the youngest being only five months old. Having lost all by the results of the war, and dependent solely upon his practice, the problem that confronted him was enough to crush the hope and paralyze the energies of the stoutest heart and the strongest arm, but looking into the faces of his little ones, his heart was stirred, his energies aroused, and he girded himself anew for the conflict of life. While on a professional visit to Mobile, Ala., in April, 1873, in company with a friend he visited Odd Fellows hall where the ladies were holding a fair for the benefit of the Prot- estant orphan asylum. His heart was greatly touched thereby as he thought of his motherless children, and what might be their con- dition in the event that he should be taken from them by the mes- senger death. In the course of the evening he was casually intro- duced to a lady whose kindness of heart and solicitude for the orphans very much impressed him. He cultivated the acquaintance and it resulted in their marriage Dec. 1, 1873. This lady was Miss Hattie Lott of Mobile. They moved to Meridian, and the union proved a most fortuitous and happy one. There were born to them three children-two sons and a daughter. The mother made no distinc- tion between her step-children and her own, and the home was a happy and prosperous one, until May, 1895, when the loved wife and devoted mother was suddenly stricken with an acute attack of Bright's disease and died, all the children at this time being grown and married except the last three, the youngest being seven years of age. Captain Hardy is a devout member of the Baptist church and for six years was annually elected president of the Mississippi Baptist State convention, and was also elected vice-president of the Southern Baptist convention for one year. He is a Mason and was
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grand master of the grand lodge of Mississippi in 1872. The follow- ing sketch by Gaines S. Dobbins appeared in the Hattiesburg Satur- day Evening Eye of December, 1905:
"CAPT. W. H. HARDY, FOUNDER OF HATTIESBURG. .
"In dealing with a subject of so vast importance in a work of this character as a biography of the founder of our city, of the life and deeds of a man who not only made possible the existence of Hatties- burg, but has devoted the greater portion of his best years to its upbuilding; who has labored incessantly and wisely in the industrial upbuilding of our entire State, and who is justly called, 'The father of South Mississippi;' of a man, who, as a statesman, a legislator and jurist, deserves rank with such of Mississippi's brilliant sons as Prentiss, Lamar, George, Lowry, Stone; of a financier of great ability and foresight, who, nevertheless, turned his great talents not to the enlargement of his own fortunes, nor to self-aggrandize- ment, but who turned his back upon opportunities to acquire great wealth at the sacrifice of high principle and the good of his fellows, in undertaking such a task the writer is more and more appalled as he proceeds, and is forced at last to compromise by giving a brief outline-a mere sketch, which is far from doing even meager justice to the subject. Capt. William Harris Hardy, the founder of Hatties- burg, was born at Collirene, Lowndes county, Ala. His parents were descended from English and Irish ancestors who served in the Revolutionary war under Greene and Marion. In 1818 they emigrated from South Carolina and settled in Lowndes county, Ala., where Captain Hardy was born and reared. He attended the common schools of his neighborhood until he was sixteen years of age, when he entered Cumberland university at Lebanon, Tenn., where he remained three years. * As has been stated, with the return of peace he removed from Raleigh to Paulding, where he resumed the practice of his profession. In 1868 he conceived the project of building a railroad from Meridian to New Orleans. The preliminary survey of the road having been completed in 1872, he removed to Meridian a few months later, in order the better to promote this great scheme. Negotiations for money to build the road were in progress when the financial crisis of 1873 occurred and paralyzed, for a time, every enterprise. He then devoted himself to his pro- fession until 1880 when, prosperity having returned to the country, he again took up the project of building the road. He reorganized the company with Mr. Fred Wolfe of New York as president, and he was made vice-president and had active supervision of the work of surveys and construction. During one of his trips over the line of survey from Meridian, he visited the camp of the engineers, then near Black creek, in the month of August, 1880, and in returning he stopped at noon to lunch, on the north side of Gordon creek where a large oak and several hickory trees were growing, near the present site of the city hall in this city; they formed a cool and shady resting place. Lounging there, with the map of Mississippi spread upon the ground, on which the line of the New Orleans & North
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Eastern railroad was platted he studied the probable future railroad map of the State. Being familiar with the history of the great har- bor at Ship Island, and the vast forests of virgin pine growing upon the public domain, and subject to entry at $1.25 per acre, he reached the conclusion that the building of the Gulf & Ship Island railroad was a possibility of the near future. The question in his mind was where it would cross the North Eastern railroad. The old survey, made before the war, ran up the valley of Black creek, crossing near the present station of Okahola. Being familiar with the topogra- phy of the country, he decided a better line could be had by crossing Black creek lower down, running thence over into the valley of Leaf river, and up Bouie and Okatoma. He took his pencil and traced this line on the map, crossing the North Eastern railroad where the city of Hattiesburg now stands. He then and there decided to lo- cate a station here and name it Hattiesburg, in honor of his wife, Hattie Hardy. The old oak still stands on the south side of the city hall, and is a historic monument to the conception and founding of this great city, and the municipal authorities should see, and will no doubt do so, that it is preserved. Captain Hardy entered a large amount of public lands at this point and laid out here a little city. Being vice-president of the North Eastern Railroad Company, he thought it was not morally right to take advantage of his knowledge of the location of stations on the line of the road to speculate in lands to better his private fortune; he therefore wrote to Mr. Wolfe, president of the company, offering to convey them all to the com- pany. Mr. Wolfe replied that the company would only want rights of way, depot grounds, and ample sidings, but that he would refer the matter to Mr. John Scott, who was the general manager for the London syndicate who were building the road. Mr. Scott decided that after conveying the rights of way, depot grounds, etc., that Captain Hardy should convey to him an undivided half interest in all the lands which he had acquired along the entire line of the road, for the benefit of the company. This he did. People who wonder why Captain Hardy did not make a great fortune out of the build- ing of the North Eastern road, can now see that it was not a lack of foresight, or financial ability, but because of his high sense of honor and integrity. He was the vice-president of the company, drawing a salary, and he thought it morally wrong to build up his his own private fortune through knowledge acquired by his official position, without offering it to the company whom he served. In this day of graft, and moral obliquity in official life, this conduct of his shines forth with a brilliancy that illumes the splendid char- acter of the founder of this city. When the North Eastern railroad was completed and turned over to the London syndicate who built it, Captain Hardy's connection with it ceased, and in 1886 he was elected president of the Gulf & Ship Island Railroad Company, which had been revived and reorganized. He had a new survey made, and went East and organized a construction company in the city of New York, and in January, 1887, began the work of construction at this place, grading south for about three miles, when the work
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ceased at this point, and all the force concentrated at Gulfport and north of that place. He founded and laid out the city of Gulfport, planned the ship canal that connects the harbor with the shore; graded the road to Hattiesburg and laid twenty miles of rail north from Gulfport, when the construction company became financially embarrassed and the work ceased and the road went into the hands of a receiver at the instance of the bond holders in 1889. Mr. Noble, secretary of the interior, under Harrison's administration, on the last day of his term of office, refused the application made by Captain Hardy, president of the Gulf & Ship Island railroad, to confirm the company's title to the land grant made by Congress, holding that it had been forfeited. Captain Hardy then made application to Sec. Hoke Smith for a re-hearing of the case, which was granted, and about 130,000 acres of land were confirmed to the road. This enabled the receiver to make a contract with the Bradford Construction Company of Pennsylvania to complete the road to Hattiesburg, which was done in 1896; and it was then sold to the construction company, which was composed of J. T. Jones, S. S. Bullis and three or four other persons, who extended the road on to Jackson, Miss. In 1900 Captain Jones purchased the interest of his associates and became, and is still, the sole owner of that splendid property. Mrs. Hattie Hardy, for whom this city was named, died at her home in Meridian in 1895. In December, 1899, Captain Hardy removed to this city and built an elegant home in the western suburbs of the city, among the pines, and named it 'Pinehurst,' which means 'pine thicket,' 'hurst' being the German word for thicket. On May 14, 1900, he was united in marriage with Miss Ida V. May, in the Lindell Street Christian church, in the city of Memphis. Miss May was at that time pro- prietor and editor, as well as the founder, of the Southern Home Journal, then being published in Memphis, but she sold the Journal upon her marriage. She is descended on both sides from the best blood of the Revolution, the paternal line from the Lee family of Virginia and the maternal from Sir John Hutchins who came to America in the seventeenth century. She possesses a marked indi- viduality and strong intellect. Pinehurst is an ideal home, with its fruits and flowers, and its splendid library of two thousand vol- umes, and the abode of refinement and hospitality. Captain Hardy is in splendid health, is an omniverous reader, a man of profound thought, and is a constructive statesman who reads the future through the horoscope of the present. His public utterances as to the future of this State, and especially of this section, have not infrequently been regarded as visionary and impractical, and yet they have been fulfilled with exactness, and realized with pride, and many thousands of people have been blessed by the results of forces set in motion by him, demonstrating that he is a safe leader. He has shown himself to be a wise legislator, a good lawyer, and a splendid citizen, always loyal to his State, his church, his neighbors and his friends. His latest public service was rendered to the State in assisting in re- codifying its laws, and in this as in everything else which he under- takes, he gave to it his time and his talents to the practical exclusion
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of his private affairs, and time will demonstrate the thoroughness and the wisdom of his work. To Captain Hardy not only Hatties- burg, but the entire State, owes an immeasurable debt of gratitude, which it can hope ever to pay only in sincere admiration, respect and reverence, and, when he shall have left us, in the perpetuation of the memory of his life and deeds. We fain would believe that, presaging the future greatness of our already magnificent little city, the very fact that its founder will go down in its history's pages as one of Mississippi's most worthy and most honored sons, lends added brilliance to the bright promise of the years that are yet to come."
In 1895 Captain Hardy was elected State senator from Lauder- dale county for the term beginning 1896-1900. During this term there were three sessions of the legislature, the regular long session beginning January, 1896, a call session in 1897, and the regular short session of 1898. His training as a lawyer, his forensic powers, and his scholarly attainments, soon gave him rank among the ablest members of that splendid body of legislators. He was chairman of the committee on railroads, the committee on finance, and was a member of several other committees. In June, 1895, he published an article in the Clarion Ledger urging the necessity for the building of a new capitol. He maintained, as a reason for a new capitol that the old one was in such dilapidated condition, it could not be re- paired, and furthermore it was too small and out of date; that the State was on the verge of an unprecedented era of prosperity, and that it should issue and sell $1,000,000 of 5% bonds and build a new capitol on the penitentiary site. When the legislature convened, senate bill No. 2 was introduced by him providing for the erection of a new capitol to cost not less than a million dollars, on the peni- tentiary site. The bill was prepared with great care, after a, thor- ough investigation of the whole subject. This bill passed the senate but it failed to receive the constitutional majority in the house, as it carried an appropriation. It was re-introduced at the call session of 1897, and was finally passed with amendments, but was vetoed by Governor McLaurin. The bill finally passed by the legis- lature of 1900 was practically the bill introduced by Captain Hardy in January, 1896. He was also the author of the Textile School bill, which passed the senate in 1898 but was defeated in the house, but subsequently passed in 1900. Likewise he secured the passage through the senate in 1898 the bill for a geological survey of the State, which was defeated in the house, but subsequently passed in 1905. He was in advance of the public thought of the times, but his in- fluence along all lines of progress went forth from the senate chamber to all parts of the State, and was a potential factor in arousing a healthy public sentiment, which culminated in the unprecedented degree of prosperity which today blesses the people of the State. In 1896 he announced himself as a candidate for congress, in the Fifth district, then represented by Hon. John S. Williams, who was a candidate for re-election. S. A. Witherspoon of Meridian, Thomas Keith of Decatur, W. J. Gibbs of Yazoo, and Dr. Kiern of Holmes, were also candidates. Captain Hardy made a thorough and digni-
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fied canvass of the district, often meeting his opponents in debate. His addresses were models to be followed by those who speak from the hustings. He discussed the latent or undeveloped resources and possibilities of the State; the discrimination in federal legisla- tion against the South, and especially Mississippi; that every State bordering on the Gulf of Mexico had its seaport except Mississippi, although she had a better harbor than any of them, referring to Ship Island harbor. He stated that he had vainly endeavored for ten years, to make the improvement of Ship Island harbor a question in federal politics and that he resolved to make it the chief issue in this campaign. He had appealed in vain to politicians, he now carried the appeal to the people, the source of all political power. His opponents treated the subject lightly at first, as one of little importance, saying the scheme was impractical, except in the poetic imagination of its advocate. But he caught the ear of the people, and before the campaign closed all his opponents favored the im- provement of Ship Island harbor by the general government. Cap- tain Hardy was defeated but he had accomplished his purpose. Federal aid was obtained subsequently and a ship canal has been dredged from the harbor to the shore at Gulfport, and a city of 10,000 inhabitants built there, and ships from every country come into this port and anchor alongside the cars, discharge and receive their car- goes at less expense than is done at any seaport in the United States, and at no far distant day, Gulfport will rival many of the great com- mercial cities of this country. Judge W. T. McDonald resigned as judge of the circuit court district Jan. 1, 1906. Governor Varda- man promptly tendered the vacancy to Captain Hardy. He accepted the appointment and began his official career by holding the winter term of court at Waynesboro, beginning on the first day of January, 1906. His career on the bench has been eminently satisfactory to the bar of the district, and no less so to the people. His temper and methods of business are judicial in an eminent degree and always characterized by judicial fairness, impartiality, and learning. On the first round of his circuit nearly every bar association passed complimentary resolutions in his honor. As a fair specimen of these, the resolutions of the Gulf Coast bar association adopted at Gulf- . port at the close of his first court held there, and those adopted at Purvis, Lamar county, are hereto appended: "WHEREAS, the Bar of Harrison county desire to place upon record some testimonial of their esteem of Judge Hardy. THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, First : That the action of the governor of the State of Mississippi in appointing Judge W. H. Hardy circuit judge of the Second ju- dicial district of Mississippi, meets with our cordial approval, as it was a fitting recognition of his distinguished ability and splendid services to the State of Mississippi for a period of more than forty years. Second: That in Judge Hardy we recognize that the dis- trict has an able, upright, just and fearless jurist, one whose every aim seems to be to ascertain the right of every case tried before him and to see that justice is done between litigants in this court. Third: That Judge Hardy's manner and services during the present term,
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