USA > South Carolina > Biographical sketches of the bench and bar of South Carolina, vol. II > Part 16
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47
Honor-" the noble mind's distinguishing perfection"-was the lamp of his life. He revolted at anything mean, and little, and base. He reverenced the man within his breast, and dreaded nothing so much as to lower and degrade himself in his own eyes. It was by "this sensibility of principle, this chastity of honor, which felt a stain as a wound,"* that he preserved a scrupulous regard to those moral distinctions, which the practice of the law is said to have a tendency to confound in the mind. I have understood that he resolutely refused, at the last session of the Legislature, to be considered as a candidate for the office of Judge, because an additional seat on the Bench had been appointed while he was a mem- ber of the House, and partly by his exertions; and such was his regard to his public station, that he declined being em- ployed in the Court of Appeals at Columbia, and rejected a large fee, lest it should interfere with his duties in the Legis- lature. The sentiments of a Sidney and a Bayard, however
* Burke.
203
MEMBERS OF THE BAR.
neglected in a calculating and an intriguing age, had found an asylum in his bosom.
In the domestic circle, he was a sincere and tender relative. Sacred be the sorrows of his house : the hearts of the commu- nity incline towards it; and would to Heaven that their sym- pathy could bring any relief to the agonized, widowed bosom !
Of the extent of their loss his unhappy children cannot now be sensible. His parental affection, his judicious superintend- ence, his careful discipline, cannot be supplied ; and it is only by recalling his virtues, when they begin to feel the privation of them, that his sons can be furnished with a faint image of that living model after which they might have formed them- selves, had it pleased the Divine Disposer of events to spare him to his family. However early his fate, he has lived long enough to leave them the patrimony of his high and endeared name; and it will be the delight of his friends to remember him, in their kindness to his offspring.
As a son, it was not in vain that he endeavored to pay a debt of gratitude, imposed by nature and strengthened by af- fection. His aged parent seemed to live again in the merit and hopes of his son. How happy and how miserable a fa- ther! That father had attained a state of felicity, rare in any country, and particularly in this inclement clime : that father found himself crowned with a double reverence, and felt in the respect of his fellow-citizens, not only the testimony to his virtues, but to those of his excellent son : that father who, in the prosperity of a numerous and virtuous progeny, and in the high reputation of his first-born, felt a satisfaction which would almost have authorized the prayer to depart in peace, now finds himself, to borrow the language of an eloquent orator,* on a like melancholy occasion, " stripped of his hon- ors, torn up by the roots, and laid prostrate on the earth."
Would it be an exaggeration for the father of such a son to say, as the Duke of Ormond did of the gallant Ossory, "I would not exchange my dead son for any living son in Chris- tendom."
* Burke.
204
MEMBERS OF THE BAR.
I have said nothing of the failings of the deceased, not be- cause I wished to exhibit a faultless monster, but because it is a subject of great delicacy-one which it is difficult to handle with propriety, and which would ill become me, or this occa- sion; and especially because, such as they were, his failings were open and known; whatever may have been his errors, there was nothing like dissimulation or hypocrisy in him. Perhaps, also, some apology may be due for the manner in which I have spoken of his virtues; if any thing, in my ac- count of him, may be thought to savor of exaggeration, I trust it will be ascribed to the warmth of friendship, and to the excitement of the occasion; for much as I reverence the deseased, I trust I reverence truth more. We are now draw- ing, my friends, towards the most painful part of this dis- course; but there is a sentiment which he uttered, not long before his death, which ought first to be especially noticed. A friend having spoken to him, on the prospect of his being invited by his fellow-citizens, to fill a judicial office, he spoke upon the subject in a manner which ought ever to endear him to the people. " I have (said he) endeavored, through life, to deserve the good opinion of my fellow-citizens, and if, as a mark of their favor, I should be elected to the bench, I shall with gratitude remember it as one of the happiest events of my life."
The last scene of his life harmonized with the rest of it. When he thought he must die, he communicated this opinion only to his friend, and having made up his mind to meet his fate, he lay without murmuring or complaint. Severe bodily pain did not restrain his kindness, or even his politeness. His thoughts appeared to be employed upon others rather than himself. The affliction of his father for his death he dreaded more than death itself. Under great sufferings, and the ex- pectation of approaching dissolution, his benevolence, even to his dependents, did not forsake him ; and some of his last ex- pressions of kindness were addressed to a servant-the nurse of his children. Would it be unreasonable to ascribe his com- posure of mind, and his affectionate regard to others, in his last hours, to the influence of that Christian philosophy which
205
MEMBERS OF THE BAR.
sustained the spirit of a Hamilton-that philosophy, whose Divine origin, I am authorized to say, Mr. Simons admitted, and whose moral precepts he reverenced ?
After making, with the utmost calmness, the most conside- rate arrangements for his family, he expired,* to use the ap- propriate description of a friend, with the fortitude of Cato and the serenity of Addison.
To the history of such a life, and such a death, may we not apply the philosophy of Solon ?-
" Futurity (says that sage) carries for every man many va- rious and uncertain events in its bosom. He, therefore, whom Heaven blesses with success to the last, is, in our estimation, the happy man. But the happiness of him who still lives, and has the dangers of life to encounter, appears to us no better than that of a champion before the combat is deter- mined, and while the crown is uncertain."-Plutarch's Life of Solon.
* On the 1st of September, 1819.
UNDERNEATH
THIS STONE WAS BURIED THE MORTAL BODY OF COLONEL KEATING LEWIS SIMONS,
WHO DIED IN CHARLESTON, ON THE
FIRST SEPTEMBER, 1819,
AGED 44 YEARS; "LAMENTED
"BY HIS COUNTRY, FOR HE WAS A PATRIOT : " BY HIS FRIENDS, FOR HIS ATTACHMENT TO THEM WAS BOUNDLESS : "BY HIS RELATIONS, FOR HE WAS AMIABLE AND AFFECTIONATE : "BY HIS DEPENDENTS, FOR HE WAS KIND, TENDER AND HUMANE.
THIS MEMORIAL OF A BELOVED SON,
IS ERECTED BY FATHER WHO HAS FOUND
SOLACE FOR HIS OWN SORROW IN THE
AFFECTIONATE SYMPATHY OF
A BEREAVED AND MOURNING
COUNTRY
207
MEMBERS OF THE BAR.
GEORGE BOWIE.
George Bowie was once an eminent and leading lawyer on the Western Circuit : he resided at Abbeville. His father, Maj. John Bowie, was "one of Abbeville's noblest sons, whose sword was unsheathed at the beginning, and returned not to the scabbard until the close of the Revolution." He was born about 1771, and was, therefore, literally cradled in the burst- ing storm of the Revolution. How, or when he was educated, does not appear. He studied law with Ramsay and Goodwyn, at Ninety-Six, was admitted to the Bar, as his brother, Chan- cellor Bowie says, about '97 or 'S-possibly a little earlier. The early admissions, even after the establishment of the Constitutional Court, were, most usually, in the Circuit Courts ; and, hence, in Columbia, we had no Rolls reaching back further than 1800. I suppose Mr. George Bowie was admit- ted in the Circuit Court for Ninety-Six.
His brother says he was the first lawyer who resided at Abbeville. The County Court for that district began in 1785, when Abbeville was established as one of the six counties laid off as Ninety-Six District, (P. L. 358,) and the Justices of the County Court were authorized to erect the Court House and gaol in the most convenient part of the county. Tradi- tion is, that the Court House, at Abbeville, was first estab- lished at General Pickens' Big Spring, and there it now is !
He married about the year 1800 Margaret, the third daugh- ter of Gen. Andrew Pickens, late of Pendleton.
He had a full share of practice, and I have often heard this anecdote: "In a case, before Judge Bay, of assault and bat- tery, Mr. Bowie was for the defence. He pleaded molliter manus imposuit. The proof turned out that his client knocked down the plaintiff with a fence-rail. The Judge, in his ex- citement said, in his stammering way, putting the accent on the first syllable of Mr. Bowie's name, "Mr. Bowie, Mr. Bowie, do you call that molliter manus imposuit, to knock a man down with a fence-rail, like a bullock ?"
208
MEMBERS OF THE BAR.
My acquaintance was slight and casual. In the spring of 1817, Judge Bay sustained some injury in one of his legs at Abbeville, which incapacited him from walking. Under the Circuit Court Act of '99, which provided, if a Judge be taken sick, &c., that the Governor might appoint and commission some proper person to sit as Judge in his place, Mr. George Bowie was appointed and commissioned, and rode the whole circuit for the afflicted Judge. I met the acting Judge and Bar, at Laurens. It seemed to me that Mr. Bowie discharged the duties very well. Perhaps he could not control the mem- bers of the Bar, for I remember to have heard it said, that my old friend B. H. Saxon, the Solicitor, interrupted Tyler Whitfield, Esq., in the midst of one of his speeches, by rising and saying, in one of his sternest tones, " sit down." Mr. Bowie said what is the matter? Mr. Saxon replied-" Why, may it please your Honor, the gentleman is ranting !" If that was a valid objection, how often might it not be urged now ?
The Act of which I have spoken, (2 Faust, 325,) was soon after adjudged to be unconstitutional, and no more such ap- pointments have since been made. Mr. Bowie, at that time, had retired from practice, which had made him not only com- fortable, but rich. In a few years after, he removed to Pen- sacola, Florida ; after a residence there of one year, he removed to Conecut County, Alabama, and thence to Dallas, where, in November, 1858, he was still living, in his 87th year.
He is the worthy son of a noble sire, and South Carolina mourns the withdrawal of many such from her soil.
209
MEMBERS OF THE BAR.
JOHN GEDDES.
Gov. Geddes, as Mr. Thomas, in his reminiscences of his "Life and Times," says, was the son of a merchant in Charles- ton, who, by "frugality, was enabled to educate his son at the college in that city."
He studied law and was admitted to the Bar on the 3d day of October, 1797, in the City of Charleston.
He came from the mercantile class, and was much encour- aged and pressed forward by the merchants and mechanics of the city. In addition to this his manners were popular, and his attention to business close and particular. He was, too, a Republican in politics, when many of the leading men of Charleston were Federalists. These incidents made him very popular.
He was soon elected to the House of Representatives of South Carolina, and, in 1810, he was chosen Speaker, and again in 1812. In the elections of 1814 and 1816, he was de- feated as Speaker by Thomas Bennett, afterwards Governor.
While Gov. Geddes was Speaker, it was his habit to address every member by some military title. This often led to ludi- crous mistakes. Capt. John Henderson, a member from New- berry, alluding to this, said, " the Speaker calls James Wil- liams, Colonel, when," said he, " he was never anything but major, and a sorry one at that! I am," said he, " Major Hen- derson, and never was anything but a poor captain ; brother Kenner," said he, "is called Captain Kenner; he never was anything but a sergeant, and he was broke at the first muster !"
This bad habit was corrected by a rule of the House, moved by Benjamin C. Yancey, in 1816, by which it was provided that a member should be addressed by the title Mr., and by none other.
Mr. Thomas says " the rapid rise of Gov. Geddes, was the cause of great mortification to the aristocracy, who hated him-he was in their way."
14
210
MEMBERS OF THE BAR.
I have often heard this assertion from various quarters. The existence of an aristocracy in South Carolina, at any time, is an absurd idea. The old families of Charleston are, I sup- pose, alluded to. I have had occasion to mingle much in their society-the kindest, most gentlemanly, most hospitable in the State, are to be found among them.
I was in college a part of the period while Gov. Geddes was Speaker; at that time the students were permitted to visit the State House, with a view to acquire information. Gov. Geddes seemed to me a good Speaker, a pleasant and courte- ous officer.
In 1818, he was elected Governor, and during his term President Monroe visited Charleston. He entertained him most magnificently at his splendid mansion on Broad-street, lately known as the "Carolina Hotel." Long after his death, the Legislature refunded to his heirs a large portion of the sum expended by him in the entertainment of the President. He was, at a time anterior to his election as Governor, the In- tendant of the city, the duties of which office he admirably performed.
About 1808, he was elected Major of cavalry ; and, after his service as Governor, he was, as I remember, Brigadier Gen- eral of what is now the Fourth Brigade. Mr. Thomas says he was afterwards a Major-General. He married Miss Chal- mers, (the daughter of a wealthy mechanic,) by whom he had two sons and a daughter, all of whom, I believe, are now deceased.
Gov. Geddes has been dead many years. His profuse hos- pitality very much injured his ample means.
" He was not," says Mr. Thomas, "a very talented man, but his close attention to business, and his great tact and sys- tem, rendered him an excellent executive officer, and fully supplied the want of literary culture. He was very public spirited and enterprising, a good husband, a good father, and a warm friend."
211
MEMBERS OF THE BAR.
ABRAHAM GILES DOZIER.
Abraham Giles Dozier lived at Cambridge, in Ninety-Six. He was a lawyer, much older than myself or Chancellor Bowie, having been admitted to the Bar, in Charleston, 6th February, 1798.
I first remember Mr. Dozier, at Edgefield, in the spring of 1815. He had then an immense practice in that Court, in which he seemed to me to be eminently successful. He in- dulged very much in being sworn as a witness in his cases. This bad custom, (malus usus abolendus est,) has very much ceased. It is, as it ought to be, discountenanced by the Bench, and frowned upon by the Bar. Mr. Dozier was so often sworn and so often gained his cases, that the lawyers spor- tively said : " the Jury think every word uttered by Dozier is on oath, and must be believed."
Chancellor Bowie, who also knew him, says of Mr. Dozier : " He was a good lawyer, more remarkable for patient and thor- ough investigation of his cases, than for profundity, as a law- yer. I remember," says Chancellor Bowie, " an instance of thorough investigation, evincing considerable acuteness and learning, which was highly creditable to him. It was in refer- ence to the celebrated 'Laurens land cases,' tried at Abbeville." A motion for non-suit was granted, on the ground that the use created by the will of Col. Laurens was executed, and there- fore the trustees could not maintain the action. The Consti- tutional Court sustained the ruling below .- 2d McC., 252. The action had been brought in conformity to the advice of the celebrated Mr. Hunter, of Rhode Island, distinguished counsel in England, and the ablest lawyers in Charleston, (ex- cept Robert J. Turnbull, who thought the action ought to be in the name of the cesturi que use.) The will had been sub- mitted by the defendants to Mr. Dozier, and he gave a written opinion to the same effect, as the judgment of the Constitu- tional Court. This was several years before the case was tried
212
MEMBERS OF THE BAR.
in 1822. For Mr. Dozier, I think, died in the great epidemic of 1815-'16, which, like the angel of the Lord, sent to punish the disobedience of King David, in undertaking to number the Children of Israel, whom God had declared should be innu- merable, went through the land, and smote off the people of the Districts of Newberry, Laurens, Edgefield and Abbeville, fully one-tenth, and like him, was only stayed by the mercy of God. He left a widow, who afterwards married John May- rick, of Ninety-Six, and a daughter, who is the wife of the Hon. John McGee, of Florida, and perhaps other children.
213
MEMBERS OF THE BAR.
WILLIAM HASELL GIBBES.
William Hasell Gibbes was born in Charleston, on 16th March, 1754. He was the great-grandson of Robert Gibbes, who was Chief Justice in 1708. His father, William Gibbes, was one of the Secret Committee of Five of the Council of Safety, when the Revolution commenced, in Charleston- (Charles C. Pinckney, William Henry Drayton, Arthur Mid- dleton, William Gibbes and Edward Wayman.) He studied law with John Rutledge, and went to London in 1774, in company with Thomas Pinckney, and other South Caro- linians, and with them, entered as students in the Inner Tem- ple. He was one of the signers of the petition to the King of " the native Americans residing in London," against the bills in Parliament, which were the last of the series of Acts which were the immediate cause of the Revolution. Garden, in his second volume of Anecdotes, gives the petition, and among the thirty signers, we notice Benjamin Franklin, Arthur Lee, and others, with sixteen South Carolinians. Mr. Gibbes had scarcely finished his law education at the Temple, when the contest began, and passports being denied, he, with other Carolinians, managed to escape to Bermuda, and there pro- cured a schooner, in which they reached Philadelphia. He hastened to Charleston and joined the Ancient Battalion of Artillery, of which he was Captain-Lieutenant-Thomas Lamball being Major, and Edward Rutledge, Captain. He was at the battle of Beaufort, under Gen. Moultrie, and at the siege of Savannah, under Lincoln, and was the last survivor but one of his corps. He was admitted to the Bar before 1783, and was appointed " Master in Chancery," by Governor Gue- rard, on the 22d May, 1783; and at the meeting of the Legis- lature, on the 13th August, 1784, he was elected to that office, which he held until December, 1825, when he resigned after serving a term of forty-two years. He lived several years after this. In the year 1831, he closed his long life of useful-
214
MEMBERS OF THE BAR.
ness. Of a large family which he left, Dr. R. W. Gibbes, of Columbia, and a sister residing at the North, are the only survivors.
Mr. Gibbes' position as Master in Equity, prevented him from practicing law. But his long service in that office, shows how important and valuable were his services in that depart- ment. He began with the three first Chancellors, John Rut- ledge, Richard Hutson and John Mathews. He witnessed all its changes for near forty-two years. In that time it grew from a little tribunal of few cases, to be one of great power, and many cases.
The first time I ever had the pleasure of hearing Colonels Drayton and Simons, was in December, 1811, on the trial of William Hasell Gibbes, Master in Equity, before the Senate, on Articles of Impeachment preferred by Thomas Lehre, Sen., and voted by two-thirds of the House of Representatives. He was acquitted.
215
MEMBERS OF THE BAR.
JOHN S. COGDELL.
The following sketch of this accomplished gentleman, law- yer and artist, is from the pen of his nephew, Robert C. Gil- christ, Esq. My acquaintance began with Mr. Cogdell in 1816, when I was first a Member of the House of Represen- tatives of South Carolina.
I knew him intimately, from that time to his death; and of him, it is no undue praise to say he was without spot or blem- ish. I never had occasion to know him, as a lawyer, but, as a Member of the Legislature and Comptroller-General, he was within my observation ; and I always thought he discharged his duties in these respects, admirably well.
Some of his works of art I have seen. His portraits of Governor Williams, in the South Carolina College Library, and of Judge William Johnson, in the Library of the Court of Appeals, and his bust of Chancellor DeSaussure, also in the same Library, are life-like, and are excellent memorials of three great men.
His brother, Richard S. Cogdell, speaking of his trip to Europe, on account of ill-health, mentioned in the memoir by his nephew, says, " he made a voyage up the Mediterranean; with old Captain Pratt. I accompanied him. We were some months in Italy, owing to the French invasion, which gave him the opportunity of visiting Florence, Rome, &c. On his return home, he pursued his profession for some years. His partner, Mr. McCrady, dying, he was alone in his profession for years. Mr. William Lowndes, (the great Member of Con- gress,) desired to join him in business-was received-the firm was Cogdell & Lowndes, and continued for a short time" until Mr. Lowndes was elected to Congress.
John Stephano Cogdell, the son of George and M. A. Eliza- beth Cogdell, was born in St. Michael's Alley, in the City of Charleston, on the 19th of September, 1778. Being at a period in our country's history, when it was exceedingly diffi-
216
MEMBERS OF THE BAR.
cult to get an education, his early opportunities were very limited, and he was indebted almost entirely to his mother- who was a woman of remarkably strong and vigorous intel- lect-for the groundwork of a thorough English education His father was a meritorious officer in the Continental army, and during his necessary absence from his family, and in the unsettled state of affairs, his wife and her three sons, had, at times, to contend even with want. He has frequently detailed to me, (his nephew,) his early struggles-how he made use of that taste for the fine arts-for which he was afterwards so distinguished-to help his mother in her efforts to maintain her family.
He completed his education at the Charleston College, then under the presidency of Bishop Smith. I believe they did not, at that time, teach the classics, and the institution was hardly more than a grammar school.
He studied law in Judge William Johnson's office, and was admitted to practice in the year 1799, being then just twenty- one years of age, and was almost immediately after appointed City Attorney. His health failing him, however, he was advised to visit Europe, and in the year 1800, he crossed the ocean for the first time. Traveling through the picturesque scenery of Switzerland, and viewing the immortal works of the old masters in the galleries of the Vattican and Louvre, kindled anew his passion for the fine arts, and he returned to his home to devote every spare moment to the cultivation of his taste. While in Rome, he made the acquaintance of Pope " Pio Septimo," and other high dignitaries of the Papal Church, and brought away with him, several marks of their favor. This, added to an almost filial affection and venera- tion for his early preceptor and friend, Dr. Gallagher, may somewhat account for the regard he always manifested for that church. The handsome colossal representation of the crucifixion, which he twice painted and presented to St. Mary's Church, of which the venerable Doctor was the pastor, was only one of the many marks of favor which he exhibited.
His first partner at the Bar, was John McCready, (the father of Edward McCready, Esq.,) and, after his death, he was, for
217
MEMBERS OF THE BAR.
a short time, connected in business, with Wm. Lowndes. I have frequently heard Mr. Cogdell say that, at that time, he had the largest attorney's business at the Bar, and that there was no lawyer whose practice was more lucrative than his. Mr. Lowndes, when he asked to be taken into partnership, said, that he wished none of the emoluments of the firm, but that his object was simply to be introduced into practice through the influence of my uncle's name-that he might make it a stepping-stone to politics. The firm of McCrady & Cogdell was formed in the year 1800, and dissolved by the death of the senior partner in the early part of the year 1804. I am unable to find the date of the second co-partnership, but be- lieve it was of short duration. In the year 1819, he took his brother-in-law, Robert B. Gilchrist, (afterwards United States District Judge,) into co-partnership.
In the year 1806, he married Maria, the only daughter of Adam Gilchrist, who was then a wealthy and influential merchant. He was, for several terms, a Member of our State Legislature. In 1819, he was elected Comptroller-General of the State, and, although re-elected to the office, he only served out half of the second term-leaving that office for the post of Naval Officer in the Custom-House, to which he was ap- pointed by President Monroe, in the year 1821.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.