USA > North Carolina > Wake County > History of Wake County, North Carolina, with sketches of those who have most influenced its development > Part 7
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He was elected Governor of North Carolina by the Legislature, as was the constitutional provision at that time, and was re-elected for two succeeding years. During his term as Governor he represented Buncombe County in the Constitutional Convention of 1836. This Convention was to change the Con- stitution of North Carolina in many details, and among other matters to amend the laws governing the representation of the different sections of the State in the Assembly. Gover- nor Swain was full of detailed information re- garding the State's history and statistics, from the earliest Colonial times, and he led the re-
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form party which equalized differences between the east and the west-matters which had never been adjusted, and which had stirred up strife between the sections ever since the Revolution.
In this same year, Doctor Joseph Caldwell, President of the University, died, and Gover- nor Swain asked his friend Judge Nash whether he could recommend him for appoint- ment to the vacancy. Judge Nash thought, naturally enough, of formal academic educa- tion, and of the lack of such preparation which Governor Swain's exclusively political life must present. All that he would promise was to consult Judge Cameron about the request. The latter held a different opinion. He de- clared that Governor Swain had all nec- essary requisites for the position except formal scholarship; that he had always been able to manage men, and should know well how to manage boys, and that his education, while not conventional, was far broader than might be supposed.
At the next meeting of the Board of Trus- tees Swain was elected President of the Uni- versity and went to Chapel Hill to take up his
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HOME BUILT BY CAPTAIN WIATT, ABOUT 1815, HILLSBOROUGH ROAD, NEAR RALEIGH. THIS IS NOW NEAR THE HIGHWAY SHOPS.
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real crowning life-work. Hence some humorist has said that the State of North Carolina had given him every office in her power, and had at last sent him to college to get an edu- cation. This was an unjust taunt to a man so well self-taught, and whose cultivation was a progressive process lasting all his life. He himself was the Historical Society, and his collections of documents were very complete for that early time. The historian Bancroft used his collections and consulted his knowl- edge for the chapters in his History of the United States which concern North Carolina. Governor Swain's political strength had been aided greatly by his unerring memory for kinship, names and dates, and this gift also helped him in his knowledge and management of his boys. His legal power was founded on his grasp of detail, and by this also he was fitted to record the history of the State he loved.
Papers in the University Magazine, by his hand, and a few occasional addresses full of dry humor, are all that he left as formal writings of a historical nature, and these are all too few; but they give a presentment of
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the life that then was, on the far side of that bloody chasm which was to divide all our his- tory in twain.
Like Judge Gaston, Governor Swain was a Federalist in politics, and became later a Whig. He married Eleanor White of Raleigh, the daughter of William White, Secretary of State, and a grand-daughter of Governor Caswell. He died in 1868, some say of grief over the wreck of his beloved University, accomplished in the disheartening Recon- struction days. In person he was a tall, awkward man, one of those whose appearance lends point to some humorous nick-name. His students called Governor Swain "Old Bunk," referring to his native county.
It is only in Governor Swain's reminiscences of Raleigh that we gather the traits of the lesser folk, lesser only in not being conspicu- ous as State officials. He mentions and char- acterizes many, of whom we may mention Mr. Casso, the Italian tavern keeper whose descendants are many, Dugald McKeithan who married a Lane, the cousin of the Gover- nor, John Meares, James McKee, Benjamin King, Captain, afterwards Sheriff Wyatt, the
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first member of the Briggs family, the original David Royster, cabinet-maker (this last was in Raleigh by 1801), John Stewart who mar- ried Miss Margaret Casso and is the ancestor of the Binghams of Mebane, James Coman, a Frenchman, the Smiths, substantial mer- chants, whose heir, Miss Mary Smith, after- wards Mrs. Morehead, left her money to the University, Ruffin Tucker who has been men- tioned, who worked for twenty-five dollars a year and board during his first year in Raleigh.
John Rex, the tanner, will be mentioned more fully later. One John S. Raboteau, a French Huguenot, a saddler by trade, should be named here, for his grand-daughter married A. F. Page, and through her he is ancestor of the great Ambassador to England, and his brothers, builders of North Carolina. Sheriff Page, recently dead, was of kin to these.
Also there was a Captain Wiatt who built the houseon Hillsborough road where the High- way Commission's great shops stand today, and who was the Marshall of the Supreme Court for many years. He came from Vir- ginia, was a veteran of 1812, and built a country home almost like the one of about the
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same epoch belonging to General Calvin Jones, his comrade in arms. Captain Wiatt had a wayside well which was used by all the passers- by. He was also celebrated for the kindness of his heart and the great freedom of his com- mand of bad language. He was one of those who swore terribly, although this is all that was ever said in his dispraise. His home has been very long a landmark of the county.
CHAPTER VII More Biographies
N a previous chapter we sketched Colonel William Polk, the Rev- olutionary hero who was so much the leading citizen of Raleigh for so many years, and for the completion of the story of our best example of character transmitted from father to son and built up in the Raleigh of old time, we shall add a life of his son, Leonidas, who be- came the celebrated Bishop-Brigadier of the Confederate Army.
We are not able to claim possession of that great "Revolutionary Titan," as Gov- ernor Swain calls John Marshall, who rode his circuit as United States Justice, and was thus a regular visitor to Raleigh, riding alone from Richmond all those dreary miles in his gig. The trip took him a week. We may re- tell, however, the stories still remembered of him, of his simplicity, his kindly good nature, of how he loved to pitch horseshoes with the townsfolk, of afternoons when court had ad-
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journed; of how once he could get no tailor to make him a pair of new breeches, for love nor money, because he would not ask him to take away the turn already promised to a custo- mer to serve himself. As Justice Marshall would not insist upon any special consideration he had at that time to hold court in ragged breeches, which made no more difference than he thought it did, namely, no difference at all.
Swain says, "I shall never see nor hear his like again," and Judge Badger tells of Marshall's saying in his hearing, "The Constitution of the United States is to be con- strued not loosely, not strictly, but honestly." Here you see Judge Badger learning those lessons of moderation and of justice which he put to good use for himself in his later life.
State Treasurers are usually retained for many successive years; Secretaries of State for long terms, also being re-elected and passing their lives with us and becoming permanent residents. The Judges of the Supreme Court of North Carolina did not do this so invariably, while Governors, having short terms of office, were more often but transient sojourners. Men
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from other states often came to us. The mention of such solid and worthy qualities as those of Duncan Cameron and Kenneth Ray- ner, might be made as examples of the great gain which often came to this city and state when such men chose to cast in their lot among us.
It is said that you must have been a part of the city of Charleston for three generations before you can claim to belong to the place. Raleigh has been more hospitable from the first, and has added to herself many a good and worthy man by this virtue.
Certainly Judge Gaston should be charac- terized in any story of Wake County. His memory deserves honor among us for what he was enabled to accomplish for Raleigh as well as for his great service to the State.
He was born in New Berne, and when living in Raleigh inhabited a little office building in the yard of that house which stood, until a few years ago, at the south-west corner of Salisbury and West Hargett Streets. This was originally the home of Chief Justice Tay- lor, who married Judge Gaston's sister. The little office in question was on the very corner,
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and stood in an old fashioned garden, under a huge ginkgo tree, and with vines and flowers about its rear. Business houses have en- croached on this old residence, and brick and mortar entirely cover its site today.
Judge Gaston has no living relatives in the State. His portraits, both painted and chisel- ed in marble, are to be seen in the State Library building. That he was a very great lawyer those who know affirm enthusiastic- ally; that he was a greater man, a white-souled Galahad of his day, his contemporaries agree in testifying, while his letters bear it out. "His Sanctity" as one reverent admirer calls him. Judge Gaston's pictured face is intel- lectual, calm, regular in feature, but shows a sad expression of the mouth, a somewhat pathetic air. Gaston is said to have been a bit too fine-grained for the rough game of politics. He could not hate any one with his whole heart for a moment, not even one of another party! His high standards and per- sonal ideals joined with his judicial temper- ament, made some things unbearable to him which would scarce have provoked a shrug from a less sensitive man. When the Feder- alist Party went to pieces he felt a little home-
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less politically, and registers his disappoint- ment in his advice to Governor Swain never to be persuaded to re-enter public life after he had found useful retirement away from it.
Judge Gaston was first a Congressman, re- tiring to practice law but going to the State Senate from time to time. In 1833 he was appointed to the Supreme Court after the death of Judge Leonard Henderson.
In religion he was a Catholic, and used his influence in the Constitutional Convention of 1835 to do away with the restraints on re- ligious liberty and amend the Constitution to read "Christian," instead of "Protestant," when enumerating the qualifications for public office. His speeches on that theme are said to have carried his hearers deep into the realm of abstract justice, leaving mere expediency far behind.
In this connection let it be stated that in the Constitutional Convention of 1861 the last religious limitation was removed, when dis- abilities were removed from the Jews, by ordinance introduced by William Johnston of Mecklenburg, father to Mrs. A. B. Andrews, whose memorial volume this is intended to become.
E
THE BURKE HAYWOOD MANSION ON NEW BERNE AVENUE BUILT BY TREASURER JOHN HAYWOOD BEFORE 1800
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Judge Gaston's celebrated eloquence, like that of many another dead orator, is hard to estimate at this time. His speeches are dignified, sensible, patterned with metaphors like the figures on an old-fashioned brocade, and like it a bit stiff. Voice and intonation are gone. Great oratory is a fading flower. Gaston's signal service to us and to Raleigh was his determining influence in persuading the Legislature to retain the Capital of the State on the old site. In doing this he kept our heritage for us which might have been lost but for him. He was the author of the words of our State song, "Carolina, Carolina, Heaven's blessings attend her!" He was also permitted in that heated time to speak many wise words about slavery, to prophesy its downfall, and all this without offense, such was the universal respect for his purity and sincerity. His taking off was very sudden. His last words were a confession of faith in God and Christianity.
We have mentioned the name of John Hay- wood, State Treasurer for forty years, builder of the venerable mansion which stands un- changed on New Berne Avenue and shelters his descendants. He came to Raleigh in the
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year 1787, and about that same time three brothers of his also settled here: Henry, father of Senator William H. Haywood, Sherwood Haywood, and Stephen Haywood. By prom- inence of position and by services the Treas- urer was the best known of the four. His portrait shows a handsome, well marked face with dark eyes and a smiling expression, crowned with a mass of prematurely grey hair. He was an able man, but his greatest talent was the art of doing kind things kindly. He was a veritable genius at friendship.
Besides the duties of his office, he interested himself in the infant University, and he is said to have missed not more than two trustees' meetings in his whole career, a signal devotion when we consider the long muddy miles that had to be wallowed through on horseback for nearly a whole day, both going and coming, to the winter meetings. It is a persistent tradi- tion that he was the designer of the seal and motto of the University. This has not been established, but it is given for its intrinsic like- lihood.
He was responsible for calling to Raleigh that good and useful man Dr. William McPheeters who was a native of Virginia, and
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who became both schoolmaster and town pastor and was long a kind of Presbyterian Pope of Raleigh.
Each session of the Legislature, Mr. Hay- wood invited each member to eat at least one meal with him, and he knew more men well and pleasantly than did any other man in the State unless it may have been Gov- ernor Swain.
His funeral was a state affair, with full mili- tary honors, and though Mr. Haywood was an Episcopalian in denomination, his old friend Dr. McPheeters pronounced the funeral discourse, closing with these words: "Integrity and innocence were his guardian angels, and out of the furnace of suspicion he came unhurt." Haywood County, where Waynesville is situated, was named for our longest incumbent in the Treasurer's office.
Judge Badger was one of the ablest men ever produced in North Carolina. He was born in the eastern part of the State, and was a precocious genius, graduating from Yale University very young. By the time he was thirty years old, he had been a lawyer, a con- gressman, and a judge, and had left the bench to practice law in Raleigh.
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William Peace, the merchant, told of having sold him a suit of black broadcloth on credit, when he was just twenty years old and had, at that early age, obtained his law license. It was against his custom, he said, but he was so taken with the gallant youth, that he risked the money upon him without security, and was entirely justified in doing so.
Judge Badger had still a long and a brilliant career before him after he settled in Raleigh. When the Whig party rose out of the ruins of the Federalist, after the disputes with Jackson, Badger was appointed Secretary of the Navy under Harrison. When Tyler, after succeed- ing to the presidential chair on Harrison's death, split the party, Badger resigned his portfolio along with the rest of the cabinet. Soon after this he succeeded William H. Hay- wood as Senator, serving until 1855. Always a man of great brilliancy of mind he took hold of nothing by the rough handle. It was a criticism of him that he was too jocular, that he could make a joke of anything and laugh it out of court. He held well-defined opinions, however, and was a moderate man, a concilia- tor. In his opinions about slavery he follow- ed the ideas and the hopes of Henry Clay.
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In denomination he was Episcopalian, and was an active opponent of Bishop Ives, who was touched with a wave of that same belief which was troubling the Church of England at that time, and which carried Newman over into the Catholic Church. That was also the final development with Bishop Ives, and Badger early recognized whither this Roman- izing tendency was drifting, and opposed and exposed the change in the conventions of the Episcopal Church.
A staunch Union man, a moderate and a conservative, Judge Badger was nevertheless forced by the cruel turn of affairs in '61 to move the secession ordinance, as representing Wake County, in May of that year. He died in '66. His second wife was a sister of Leoni- das Polk, and his third wife was a Haywood.
Like the Polks and like the Haywoods, the Battles have given good men and faithful ones to Raleigh. Judge Battle, father of Doctor Kemp Battle, so long President of the Univer- sity and historian of it, father also of our late useful townsman Richard Battle, Esquire, lived for most of his active years in Raleigh. Dun- can Cameron moved here in 1829 and was
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chairman of the committee which had charge of the building of the second Capitol; he also had charge of the building of Christ Church, thus leaving his mark on Raleigh in these lovely buildings. He was also president of the the State Bank until succeeded later by his son-in-law, George Mordecai.
Leonidas Polk, the second son of Colonel William Polk, was born in Raleigh. In a former chapter he has been characterized as a live boy, a student at the old Academy un- der Dr. McPheeters. His distinctive ac- complishment as a youth was his gift of song. He could sing more old songs better than any- One else in town.
When prepared he went early to Chapel Hill, remaining two years. A part of that time Governor Swain was his room-mate. In 1822 he received his appointment to West Point.
Up to this time in his life he was a high- spirited and care-free but ambitious lad, hav- ing perhaps a keener pair of eyes in his head than most, and indeed he was scarcely more than twenty when he entered the Military Academy.
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There he encountered an atmosphere as de- void of any religious warmth as an institution could manifest without being absolutely atheistic or openly vicious in its influence. It is not known to the average person what a tendency to irreligion was shown in our country during the early part of the last cen- tury, before the great revivals began to sweep their converts into the churches, and before a true missionary spirit became active. The older folk of that time were of the generation of the French Revolution, and the most educated minds, like Jefferson's for example, were full of the ideas of Voltaire or of Tom Paine, and were often agnostic in refusing to fix any religious belief.
At West Point at that time it was consider- ed soft and silly to notice the subject of religion in any way. Not a single officer there was a professor of any religious faith at that time, although they had a chaplain for form's sake. About that time a new chaplain was appoint- ed and came to serve them. He records how chilling he found the apathy and the veiled scorn he met, but he was the kind of man whose conviction led him to strive to accom- plish something under any conditions. He
"WILLS FOREST," OLD DEVEREUX PLACE, BUILT IN 1830 AND TORN DOWN TO MAKE WAY FOR THE SUBURB OF GLENWOOD
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was able to influence Leonidas Polk, and made in him his first convert. The young man was deeply and genuinely touched and changed. After graduating at West Point, he told his father of his new outlook and of his recently taken decision to leave the army and study for the Church. While Colonel Polk's plans for his boy were cruelly frustrated, still there was no open breach between them, and the father became more reconciled as time passed. After studying at the seminary in Alexander, Virginia, Leonidas was ordained deacon in 1831.
Before that time he had married Miss Devereux, daughter of John Devereux of Raleigh, and when a few years later he was consecrated Missionary Bishop of the South- west, he moved to Tennessee to the generous tract his father allotted him of a thousand acres of good blue grass.
The diocese of the new bishop was enormous consisting of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Indian Territory of Oklahoma, and the great state of Texas. The whole of this wide extent of country was still sparsely set- tled, and its isolated inhabitants had very little religious instruction and did not wish
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for any. In emigrating, they had escaped re- straint, and unlike the more northern emi- grants they were mostly country people and did not come from communities well organized religiously. Their old homes had often been as isolated to all intents and purposes as the new ones so far on the frontier.
This made the problem of the missionary, and on one of his long journeys a Texan told Bishop Polk that he was wasting his time. "Go home; go home, young man," said this man earnestly, "we are not worth saving!"
An anecdote told of one of these border ruffians of this decade will illustrate the lawless undisciplined spirit of the South-west with which Bishop Polk had to deal in the begin- ning of his ministry. It was a man who had been jailed for manslaughter and was most indignant, considering it an outrage, and say- ing, "Now-a-days you can't put an inch or so of knife into a fellow, or lam him over the head with a stick of wood, but every little lackey must poke his nose in, and law, law, law is the word. Then after the witnesses swear to their pack o'lies, and the lawyers get their jaw in, that old cuss that sets up there
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high and grinds out the law to 'em, he must have his how-de-do! I tell you I won't stay in no such a country. I mean to go to Texas, where a man can have some peace and not be interfered with in his private concerns!"
This was the spirit that Bishop Polk met over and over again in his long journeys all over this great district. His life was threat- ened with violence in more than one frontier place, but he was a man who could not be daunted; and beside this he well understood the tempers and manners of his southern fel- low-countrymen. He did the work of an evangelist with much success. Later he help- ed to initiate and organize the University of the South at Sewanee, Tennessee.
The war came on in '61, and Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy, being in need of all the trained soldiers possible to lead and train his armies, asked his advisers if they supposed Bishop Polk would allow himself to be appointed Major-General. This appointment was offered to him, without his having any surmise of it beforehand. After some consideration, Bishop Polk accepted the commission, and served his country and chos- en cause as Major, afterwards Brigadier-Gen-
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eral all through the war. Quite late in the struggle he was killed during the fighting round Atlanta. He was buried in Augusta, Georgia.
His men called him Bishop more often than they called him General, and he was much loved. He kept his sacred calling well to the fore, while doing the difficult duty of a soldier and officer in command.
Such a sincere picturesque figure as he makes is a worthy subject for study and inter- est. We cannot claim many such distin- guished and unusual persons.
Many soldiers went out from Raleigh and of these many distinguished themselves. Their histories are part of that great book of golden deeds which should be read as long as books are made. But it would be too long to try to tell of them all; to tell of those who came home alive to work out a restoration of the piteous destruction of war, and of those who were mercifully spared the further sacrifice except the one of their lives given in a moment of time, rather than spent painfully day by day. These things will be better told by others. There is not room here for that long roll of heroic names.
CHAPTER VIII Improvements and Progress
OMETIMES improvement is de- finitely started by the stimula- tion of a great loss. The Raleigh that we know today only began to come into existence after the old town had been destroyed by a series of fires.
Of these the most serious and the most spectacular was the burning of the old State House in 1831. From Governor Swain's ac- count, given as an eye-witness, we can recall the despair and dismay of this loss.
The fire occurred in broad daylight, the middle of a summer day, June 21st, 1831, and caught from a solder pot which a careless workman took into the loft where he was re- pairing something about the roof, and there left it, while he went to dinner. During his absence the fire caught and spread unnoticed.
Once before, in 1799, there had been an alarm about fire, a warning given by Andrew Jackson, conveyed to his old friend and for-
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