USA > South Carolina > Biographical sketches of the bench and bar of South Carolina, vol. II > Part 13
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As a Legislator, he knew nothing save what he felt to be for the interest of his country. He was a Patriot of '76, and what more need be said ?
In all the relations of home, he was the kind husband, the devoted son and brother; and his niece, whom he raised, will say he was uncle and father ! His slaves miss the kind " massa," who cherished and protected them.
His neighbors and friends mourned after him with the feeling that they might not again be blessed with another such companion.
The people of Spartanburgh long mourned his death ; he was a son by adoption for more than sixty years-by the almost unanimous votes, with which she had always inducted him into office. His life's example may, and I hope will be, a beacon light to many of her young sons to guide them to honor and usefulness.
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JOHNSON HAGOOD.
William Hagood, the father of the subject of this sketch, was a native of Western Virginia, of English parentage. He married, early in life, Sarah Johnson, of that State, who, upon the maternal side, was of French descent; and, after the birth of several of his children, about the year 1776, removed to the neighborhood of Ninety-Six, in South Carolina. Johnson Hagood was then four years old. The neighborhood of Ninety-Six had already been the theatre of important events in the contest with the mother country, then pending, and was destined, at a later period, to witness some of the most stirring events of the war in the South. He often spoke of having a distinct recollection of such incidents of the war as would impress themselves upon a child's remembrance. Upon one occasion, being sent, after night, for medical assis- tance in his father's family, he passed the scene of one of those guerilla skirmishes, which so especially marked the later years of the war in that section of the State. Several corpses were lying unburied upon the field, and wolves were feeding upon them-a spectacle well calculated to try the nerves of a lad of six or seven years. At another time, he was present, with his father's family, in the piazza, after sup- per, together with some neighbors, who had called, when the group were fired upon by a skulking Tory, and one of the number wounded. His father embraced the popular cause, and bore his share in the trials of the times. He was a man of the pioneer type, with but little of education or refinement; but possessed of many of the simple and hardy virtues, which are the especial growth of the frontier.
The subject of our memoir acquired the knowledge of reading and writing from his parents, and early betrayed a fondness for books. When the war was over, and civil order restored, many distinguished lawyers, from various parts of the State, were accustomed to attend the Courts held at
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Ninety-Six; and, in the absence of sufficient public entertain- ment, were often thrown upon the private hospitality of the vicinity. Among these lawyers, was Robert Goodloe Harper, then rapidly rising into distinction in South Carolina. His attention, while staying with William Hagood, during one of the terms of the Court, was attracted by the avidity with which his son devoured everything in the shape of a book. Pleased with the boy's assiduity, he supplied him with a small collection of books. The perusal of these increased his desire for knowledge, and he importuned his father to afford him the opportunity of acquiring an education. Schools were rare in that region of the State, at that time; the inhabi- tants were impoverished by the recent war, and the father, encumbered with a family of ten children, (five of whom were daughters,) and, undervaluing a liberal education, thought himself unable to spare the services of his son from the farm. This difference of opinion appearing irreconcilable, the son eventually took his fortunes into his own hands, and privately left the parental roof. With but a change of clothing in a small bundle, and without a sixpence in his pocket, he pro- ceeded on foot to Granby, some sixty miles from Ninety-Six, where he was fortunate enough to obtain employment, as clerk in a country store. Thus, at fourteen years of age, he was fairly embarked upon the sea of life, " lord of himself," at a time when others, more happy, have scarcely slipped their leading-strings.
Our young clerk remained at Granby but a twelve-month, when he made his way to Charleston, with a view of expend- ing his small earnings of the past year in putting himself at school. There he again met with his early friend, Mr. Harper, who, pleased with his earnest exertions to better his fortunes, took them under his own charge, and ever remained his firm friend through life. An arrangement was effected between them, by which young Hagood was taken into Mr. Harper's office, at a salary, to perform such duties as he was qualified for. These duties were light; and he had access to an excel- lent library, his patron directing his reading. In addition, with the proceeds of his salary, he put himself at a night-school,
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where he acquired a fair acquaintance with the classics, and some knowledge of French. The ardent aspirations of his childhood were at length realized. The means of knowledge were within his reach, and he availed himself of them with a zeal corresponding with the difficulties he had had to over- come in obtaining them. His improvement was rapid, and, by the advice of his patron, he commenced the study of the law, and was admitted to the Bar, at Charleston, in 1793. In the same year, he commenced the practice, in partnership with Mr. Harper. This partnership continued until Mr. Harper entered Congress, a few years afterwards, when the latter abandoned the practice, and never resumed it again in South Carolina. When he retired from political life, and settled in Maryland, he resumed the practice there, and ob- tained a high position at the Bar of that State.
Mr. Hagood, upon the dissolution of their partnership, had purchased Mr. Harper's fine library, and, left in charge of a full practice, felt that now success depended upon himself alone. He applied himself closely to his business, attending, in addition to the City Courts, those of the circuit, embracing Beaufort, (Coosawhatchie,) Colleton, Orangeburgh, Barn well, and Lexington. By method and order, as well as assiduity in his business, and by devoting himself more to the acquisi- tion of a sound knowledge of the law, than to mere forensic display, he acquired the reputation of a safe and successful lawyer; and with it came the lucrative practice, which is apt to be its attendant.
In 1794, Mr. Hagood was married to Ann Gordon O'Hear, a young lady whose family had long been settled in Charles- ton. They were of Irish extraction, having first migrated to France, and subsequently from thence to Charleston, where the head of the family engaged in commercial pursuits. This alliance was, in every respect, a happy one.
Mr. Hagood continued the practice of the law, in Charles- ton, till 1806, when he removed to Barnwell, where he pur- chased lands, and made extensive improvements. He still, however, continued his attendance upon the country Courts, enjoying a fine business, until 1810, when he began to with-
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draw from the practice, and in 1812 or 1813, he abandoned it entirely.
During the remainder of his life, he devoted himself to planting, and the improvement of his property, with the same energy and success which had characterized him at the Bar. He lived, however, but a few years after his retirement from the profession. In 1816, while on a visit to Charleston, he died, in the prime of his life, being then in his forty-fifth year, and was buried at the Second Presbyterian Church of that city.
Mr. Hagood was a self-made man-the architect of his own fortunes-and had all the mental traits which characterize such men. Bold, self-reliant, and persevering, his mind was eminently practical. Though by no means devoid of a taste for literature, his leisure hours were more frequently amused with works of political and philosophical speculation, than with those which appealed rather to the taste and the imagi- nation. He was fond of the mathematics, and the study of the natural sciences. He was much interested in the studies of electricity and galvanism, which then possessed much of novelty, and procured from London an excellent and com- plete apparatus for re-producing the experiments of the philo- sophers of that day.
Mr. Hagood was a man of marked social traits. A bene- factor of the poor-no one, indeed, ever applied to him in vain. In employing private tutors for his children, he inva- riably stipulated for the privilege of adding two or three of the children of his poorer neighbors, free of charge, to them. He manifested the deepest interest in the welfare of his father's family, as he advanced in life-educating his younger brothers and sisters, and showing an affectionate interest in their settlement. Sanguine and unsuspicious in temper, with a strong relish for the pleasures of life, hospitality was almost a passion with him; and so well was this trait known, that few strangers visited his neighborhood without calling on him. At Term time, in Barnwell, his house was always the home of the Judge, and of as many of the Bar as it could contain. Such a man was well calculated to attract friends.
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In the profession, he had many. Among these, many especi- ally be mentioned Judge Bay and Judge Grimké-the latter of whom, upon his death, wrote a feeling letter of condolence to his widow, in which he spoke of him in the warmest lan- guage of friendship, both as a man and as a lawyer.
Mr. Hagood left seven children surviving him. The eldest son died in early manhood; the remaining three sons are re- sidents in Barnwell District. His eldest daughter married Mr. Frederick Witsell, of Colleton; the second married Mr. - Fraser, of Colleton, and, at his death, Mr. John F. Schmidt, of Barnwell; the youngest daughter married Mr. W. H. Oak- man, of Georgia.
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JOHN TAYLOR.
He was the son of that good and gallant old gentleman, Col. Thomas Taylor, the patriarch of Columbia and the soldier of '76, whose fire at Fishdam defeated Major Wemys in his night attack upon Sumter.
He was born in May, 1770. He, therefore, began life just before the Revolutionary struggle surrounded his father's fire- side. He caught, as a fine stirring boy, much of the enthu- siasm, which, after 1780, sent his father into active service.
In 1785, he was sent to school, at Camden, and began his Latin Grammar at the Academy kept by Capt. John Reid, late an officer in Col. Hampton's Regiment of State troops in the Revolutiary war.
When that school was given up, John Taylor, with his cousins, John and Simon Taylor, and William Tucker, were transferred to Mount Zion College, Winnsboro', which was then (1786) kept by the Rev. Mr. McCall.
Col. Chesnut, of Camden, says: "I followed the next year, and lodged in the house with John Taylor. The accommo- dations were very deficient. The scholars occupied lofts in different boarding-houses. There were eight of us in that part of the house we lived in. I recollect, well, that William C. Pinckney, who was Speaker of the House of Representatives, in 1804, with his friend, Benjamin Ferguson, occupied the loft of a recitation building, a log-house, about twenty-four by twenty feet."
This statement is worth an attentive perusal by our young men, who frequently find some fault with their College fare. It shows to what straitened circumstances the great men of South Carolina were forced to submit, to obtain that education which fitted them for their parts in the world open- ing before them.
In June, 1788, John Taylor, Jesse Taylor, and James Ches- nut, Sen., (since, for more than half a century, advantageously
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known as Col. Chesnut,) sailed from Charleston bound for Philadelphia, but ultimately destined for Princeton. John Taylor entered the sophomore class, in Princeton College, and graduated with that class in 1790. The first honor was divided between him and Judge William Johnson. "His conduct," says Col. Chesnut, " was correct at all the schools, and during his collegiate term he was uniformly studious, diligent, and lived without reproach." What a beautiful commendation of a youthful life, from the lips of a companion, now a venerable man, who has been spared, in health and unusual vigor, be- yond four score.
He entered as a student at law, the office of Gen. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, in Charleston, in January, 1791, and was admitted to the Bar, in Charleston, 1st June, 1793. He had been married, in 1792, to Miss Sallie Chesnut, the daugh- ter of Col. John Chesnut, of Camden, and the sister of Col. James Chesnut, Sen. He settled in Columbia, where his well-known residence, on Taylor's Hill, stands. He practiced law a few years, but was more particularly devoted to planting, in which he was very successful. He was early elected to the House of Representatives, in the General Assembly of this State, and was continued as a Member for several terms.
He was elected, in 1806, a Member of the Board of Trus- tees of the South Carolina College, and again in 1809. After a lapse of four years, from 1813 to 1817, he was again elected a member of the board, and in 1821 was re-elected.
In 1818, he was elected a Member of the House of Repre- sentatives, in Congress, from the united Districts of Beaufort, Colleton, Barnwell, Orangeburgh, Lexington, and Richland. At the succeeding election, William Lowndes, having received a greater number of votes, became his successor.
In December, 1810, he was elected to the Senate of the United States, but did not serve out the whole term. In 1822, he was elected to the Senate of the State of South Carolina. At the election of October, 1826, Col. Wade Hampton, Jr., was elected over him; but in December, 1826, he was elected Governor and Commander-in-chief.
At the Spring Term, of 1829, Governor Taylor presented
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the interesting example of waiving his privilege of exemption, as a lawyer, by serving as foreman of one of the juries of Richland District.
In the latter part of 1829, or the beginning of 1830, he joined the Presbyterian Church, of Columbia-the Church of his father. His mother was a member of the Baptist Church, Columbia.
In April, 1832, he died. His venerable father and mother, his widow, and seven children, four sons and three daughters, survived him. Of these, two sons and two daughters alone remain, to wit: Gen. Wm. J. Taylor, Major A. R. Taylor, Mrs. Harriet Elmore, and Mrs. Sallie Rhett.
Gov. Taylor was a good and useful man, in his time. His talents were very respectable. He spoke well, though with no pretensions to eloquence. In the various offices which he filled, he discharged the duties with diligence and fidelity. He was a Republican in the division of parties in South Caro- lina; and at a later day, he was a Radical-that is, in favor of a strict construction of the Constitution, and against the doctrines of Internal Improvements, &c., which were the doctrines then advocated by Mr. Calhoun, General Hayne, Mr. McDuffie, and Gen. Hamilton.
Gov. Taylor, from his union with the Presbyterian Church, was a pious, zealous, and active member. His life was char- acterized by love, mercy, and good fruits. All the duties of husband, father, son, neighbor and master, he scrupulously fulfilled. He died in the triumph of a Christian. For he could say with Job, "I know my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth : and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh I shall see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another: though my veins be consumed within me."
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MEMBERS OF THE BAR.
BENJAMIN JAMES.
This gentleman was the third son of John James, Esq., of Stafford County, Virginia, and was born 22d April, 1768. His education was finished under the Rev. Robert Buchan, who then had charge of the highest literary institution in Virginia. He studied law, in Charleston, with that excellent lawyer and courteous gentleman, Henry W. DeSaussure, Esq., and was admitted to the Bar, and commenced the practice of the law. He married Miss Jane Stobo, the daughter of Richard Park Stobo, a grandson of Archibald Stobo, who was a Presbyterian clergyman, and had charge of the Congregational (Circular) Church, Meeting street, Charleston, from 1700 to 1704 .- (2 Ramsay's History of South Carolina, 28, 29.) Mr. Stobo was a Scotchman; and it seems, he was either wrecked near Charleston, or was, on his arrival, robbed of all which he had, except the clothes which he had on him, his hymn-book, and a Bible, published in 1658, and which is still preserved by Mrs. Ballew, a daughter of Mr. James.
Mr. James remained in Charleston until the death of his father, in 1796, when he returned to the homestead, in Vir- ginia, and there continued the practice of the law until 1808, when he removed to Laurens District, South Carolina, and settled on a fine plantation, on Little River, now the property of Hon. James H. Irby.
He practiced law for a short time, with Capt. Robert Cun- ningham, perhaps until 1812, when he, (Capt. Cunningham,) was commissioned a captain in the United States Army, and entered upon active service.
My acquaintance began with Mr. James in November, 1814. The fall after my admission to the Bar, I was requested, by my friend, John G. Brown, to take his place, with Mr. James, in the defence of a man for stealing a sheep. Mr. James ex- amined the witnesses. I made a speech. He declined to address the Jury, by whose verdict our client was acquitted.
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He abandoned the practice of the law, and turned his atten- tion to farming. He was elected to the Senate, and served one or two terms. About this time he lost his wife, "from whose society," he said, (in his introduction to James' Digest,) he had never been separated " for five hours for twenty years." This domestic bereavement made it necessary that his time should be occupied. It led him to the preparation of his en- larged Digest of the Statute and Common Law of South Carolina, which he published in 1822. This work is, I think, worthy of much more attention than has been bestowed upon it. It is a very good hand-book for common use.
He died 15th November, 1825, aged fifty-seven years, six months and twenty-three days, leaving two sons, John Stobo, and Robert, and four daughters-Maria, now Mrs. Wade An- derson; Jane, now Mrs. Patillo Farrow; Louisa, now Mrs. Ballew; and Susan, now the wife of John Garlington, Esq.
Mr. James was a good lawyer, but his great modesty pre- vented him from taking and maintaining that stand which he ought to have done. He was an attentive legislator, and was of greater service to Laurens than any Senator who had pre- ceded him. As the head of a family, none better understood or performed its duties. He was a clear-headed, firm, con- sistent, just, and good man.
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ROBERT CRESWELL.
Robert Creswell was the son of the Rev. James Creswell, whose letter from Ninety-six of the 27th July, 1776, to the Hon. William Henry Drayton, may be found in the Appendix to 2d Drayton's Memoirs, 368, and which gives a graphic account of the state of things arising from the combination of the Tories and Indians, in the incursions of the latter on the settlements.
He studied law in Charleston, under Dominic Hall, Esq., who was subsequently appointed a Judge of the United States in Louisiana. He it was who, on General Jackson's suspen- sion of the Habeas Corpus, at the invasion near New Orleans, in December, 1814, by the British, undertook to counteract the General's policy by issuing a Habeas Corpus, which he refused to obey, and for this contempt he fined the hero, who saved the city, $1,000.
Mr. Creswell was admitted to the Bar in the City of Charles- ton, on the 1st of August, 1795.
He settled at Laurens, and practiced law until the abolition of the County Courts and the establishment of the Circuit Court system of 1799, when he became the Clerk of the Court at Laurens. In the meantime he had married Nancy, the daughter of Judge Hunter, of Laurens.
In a few years he became tired of the Clerk's office, re- signed it, and returned to the practice of law. When I first knew him, he had considerable practice in Newberry, and a much more extensive one in Laurens.
Before 1814, he had lost his wife, by whom he had no chil- dren. He subsequently married Miss Davis, the daughter of John Davis, Esq., of Laurens.
In 1816, Mr. Creswell was elected Comptroller General, and again in 1818. The duties of this office, he discharged with great fidelity. His annual reports will show his capacity for the office, though, following as he did, Mr. Lee, whose emi-
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nent services in that office, have never been surpassed, made him appear to greater disadvantage than he otherwise would have done.
After his retirement from that office, he did not again re- sume the practice of the law, but lived for several years at Huntsville, Laurens District, and, for a few years subse- quently, at McThee's Mills, on the Enoree River, in Spar- tansburgh District.
He then removed to Alabama, where he accumulated a large property by planting.
By his second wife, he was blest with a family of children. He died, as I have been informed, several years ago.
Mr. Creswell was a good lawyer. He argued his cases very well, yet he did not possess the oratorical powers of an advocate. Good sense and a knowledge of the principles of the law, with the great confidence of the people in his hon- esty, carried him, generally, successfully through his cases.
He was a kind, courteous gentleman, and, in all the rela- tions of life, discharged his duties faithfully.
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JOHN DUNLAP.
John Dunlap was admitted to the Bar, in Charleston, on the 26th of January, 1795.
He married, in Charleston, Miss Anne Geddes, the sister of Robert Geddes, a merchant, in King-street, and of Governor John Geddes. He lived at Ninety-Six, and had great repu- tation as an advocate.
He practiced in Abbeville, Edgefield, Newberry and Lau- rens, but his life was a short one. He died many years before my admission to the Bar, and left no children. His widow married the Rev. Benjamin R. Montgomery, a Presbyterian Minister, who was the Professor of Logic and Moral Philoso- phy in the South Carolina College, from 1811 to 1818, and who was also the Pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Co- lumbia.
Major William Dunlap, of Laurens, was a brother of John Dunlap. He was one of Col. Hay's party, who, at Edgehills, was captured by the Bloody Scout, in October, 1781.
He has told me, that he was seated in the circle of blood and death-that his right-hand man and left-hand man, were cut down. He was, however, spared, and next morning, at Odell's Mills, on the Beaver Dam, he was discharged, covered with the blood and brains of his slain companions ..
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ISAAC GRIGGS
This gentleman was a native of Connecticut, and was born in 1762. Having been educated at Yale College, where he acquitted himself with distinction, he removed to Charleston, S. C., with the view of a permanent residence. The Charles- ton Bar, at this period, was in its most flourishing condition, and was led by men of the first order of ability. Mr. Griggs, as we may well suppose, availed himself of all the advantages within his reach. He entered the office of Robert Goodloe Harper, studied under his guidance and supervision, and was admitted to the Bar in 1795.
Very little is known of his early struggles in the profession, and of the difficulties which he must necessarily have en- countered; he came to this State a stranger, nature had denied him those strong gifts of ready elocution, which, however shallow they may be in themselves, always attract the atten- tion and admiration of the crowd.
During the long period which elapsed between his gradua- tion and his admission to the Bar, it is probable that his means were very limited; but, with men of real merit, cir- cumstances, which to inferior natures, seem to present insur- mountable obstacles, rouse the spirit and insure success ; in spite of these disadvantages, indeed, strengthened and ani- mated by them, he won for himself a fair share of practice, and an enviable reputation for integrity of character.
Although Mr. Griggs took no part in the debates of the Forum, nor entered into the lists, in which mind struggles with mind, and where the highest and most conspicuous honors of the profession must be earned, and, therefore, never shone as an advocate : his proper sphere was the office. From the first, he devoted himself to the close study of the " Science of the Law," and prepared himself for the more responsible and important duties of the Counsellor.
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