History of Davidson County, Tennessee, with illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 112

Author: Clayton, W. W. (W. Woodford)
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Philadelphia, J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1013

USA > Tennessee > Davidson County > History of Davidson County, Tennessee, with illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 112

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).

One point of pleasure and interest to the visitor to Belle Meade is the park of four hundred acres, containing about two hundred and forty to two hundred and fifty deer. The park has a beautiful sod of blue-grass. It contains a great

variety of timber. There is attached to the park, only separated by a low fence, a plat of about thirty acres, left in its primeval state, kept as a browsing and hiding-place for the deer ; they can go there and be undisturbed by any other stock.

Gen. Harding has held peculiar views on the subject of immigration, and we cannot do justice to those views in a better way than to here insert his essay on the subject :

IMMIGRATION AND ITS EFFECTS.

Gen. Harding replies to his assailants-a vigorous defens of his position-his views tersely stated.

" TO THE EDITORS OF THE UNION AND AMERICAN :

." Many friends advise me to let this subject drop and run no further against the popular current. But I re- member an excellent motto promulgated by that odd but worthy man, Davy Crockett. When dying he said, 'I leave this motto for other men when I am dead,-Be sure you are right, then go ahead.' I do not profess more of acumen or foresight than others, but I honestly entertain opinions upon a subject, engaging at present much of the public mind, directly in opposition to the views generaily entertained. I claim the right to express them and throw them out to the public for what they are worth. I earnestly desire that they be considered and closely scrutinized by all classes of the community, both foreign and native. This question (immigration) is an extensive subject, and, like all others of magnitude, has two sides, which I hope to show before I am done. I will deal fairly with it, and endeavor to show in my crude way its advantages and disadvantages, its blessings and discomforts, who are to be its beneficiaries and who will be the sufferers.

" To present some of the strongest points usually claimed by its advocates :

" 1. It will make our nation strong. Now, my friends, I ask whether you have a personal interest in strengthening the great American nation, already strong enough to pro- tect itself against the encroachments of the greatest powers or all the powers of Europe ?

" 2. It will enrich this great nation by increasing its rev- enues and fill its treasury with untold wealth. Let me ask, How are you to obtain a personal benefit by increase of gov- ernment revenue unless you are so fortunate as to get your fingers into the public crib ? Do you expect your taxes to be decreased by enriching the treasury (national or State) ? Let me assure you, paradoxical as it may appear, the re- verse is true. Increase of national wealth, I believe, uni- versally increases national taxes; the older and more populous a country, the greater the burdens of taxation. If increase of national wealth has the effect of decreasing taxes, then the citizens of the old and wealthy governments of Europe should not feel, as they do now, the burdens of taxation. Then, if I am right, you have no personal interest in this matter.

" 3. Immigration will help to occupy and cultivate our wild and unoccupied lands, greatly beautify our country, and thereby add to the pleasure and interest of the passing traveler : but, my friends, let me ask again, How is all this to contribute to the individual interest (financially) of those who have no lands ? It will certainly add to the value of

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RESIDENCE . PARK.

SAW AND GRIST MILL. VIEWS AT BELL MEADE GENERAL VIEW F

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SALE STABLES.

IR NASHVILLE TENN. PIKE.

GEN. HARDING'S BIRTHPLACE . FORMER RACE STABLES .

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BIOGRAPHIES.

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the land, and in the same ratio increase the difficulty of you and your descendants to possess it.

"4. It will make the rich man richer by enhancing the value of his houses and lands. Among all the classes of so- ciety, if the landholder consults his own individual interest, he will be the strongest and loudest advocate for foreign immigration, for he will be most assuredly the greatest bene- ficiary (financially). The true prosperity of governments cannot be measured by their wealth or power, but by the prosperity, comfort, and moral condition of their citizens. Now, my foreign friends, let me ask, do you not number among your foreign friends some of these lordly aristocrats who can boast of their acres by the thousands and herds without number ? If so, you will find them the ardent ad- vocates of immigration societies, and aiding them with their ample means, thereby adding to the value of their vast pos- sessions as well as.to their flocks and herds. These wealthy gentlemen, like yourselves, have left their native land, the graves of their ancestors, their homes with all their dear sur- roundings, to cast their lot and that of their descendants with the citizens of the United States. All classes and conditions have come to our shores for a like object,-the rich to grow richer ; the artisan hoping to find greater demand for his skill; the laborer, more remunerative reward for his labor, hoping thereby to procure a home for himself and family. Now, my friends (foreign and native), have I not fairly presented the strong points of your side of this great na- tional question. Do I ask too much when I request you for the moment to lay aside your prejudices, unduly excited, perhaps, by recent occurrences, and examine fairly and critically the other side ? I have said that the tendency of the increase of population is to make the rich richer ; therefore the arguments which I shall advance are not ad- dressed to that class, but to all other men, foreign and native, who live by the sweat of the brow. I include all those, also, who live by their wits. The policy of the gov- ernment should not be directed to advance the particular interests of the wealthy,-they already possess an abund- ance of the world's goods and do not need help,-but to assist the poor and needy. Now, my foreign friends, you know much better than I that a great and powerful government, with its millions of treasure and of population, did not supply your wants. Ay, population, this great blessing from which many imagine all human comfort, prosperity, and happiness are to flow, is the very thing from which you fled. True, it has enriched your country ; it felled the forest, it cut up the possessions of lordly landlords (to their pecuniary guin), beautified the land and built magnificent cities; but, my friends, did all this wealth and beauty sup- ply your daily needs ? If so, you have not acted wisely to leave your native land to cast your destiny in this sparsely populated country. I have sometimes thought my native friends, many of whom are the warm advocates of immigra- tion, ought to meet that human current that is daily flow- ing from the old world and tell them of their mistake,- teach them the blessings of a dense population and the curse of a sparse one. Tell them we in America are too thin to thrive, and thus turn them back to enjoy the blessings of the dense population from which they are flecing, and that they themselves might sooner reach the object of their

hopes by going with them. I fear they would fail in their mission of love. Perhaps the emigrants would reply : ' We have experimental knowledge of all those blessings of which you speak. We found our country too thick to thrive. Every avenue to wealth is closed to us; every place of honor and profit is already occupied, and legions of disappointed applicants are waiting in the hope that something may turn up; and even we, who live by the energetic application of our own strong muscles, fail, on account of competition, to find employment sufficient to feed ourselves and the dear ones for whom we live. No, my friends, we will not turn back ; we are seeking a more sparsely populated country, where we expect to find more room and less competition, where we hope to meet greater demand for our skill and better rewarded labor.' They wisely persevere in their course, and I hope that all who are worthy may attain the realization of their hopes. Now, my friends, these people leave their country for their country's good, and millions more might follow to the great relief of their friends whom they have left. Well, my friends, who live by labor, and who have experienced the inconvenience of a dense popula- tion, if similar causes produce like results, tell me what are the benefits you, who have cast your destiny here, and with your descendants design in all the distant future to remain citizens of this your adopted country, expect to accrue to you from immigration ? I have stated it will increase the strength and wealth of this great nation, fell the forest, build great cities, beautify the country. All this you left behind you, but failed to realize therefrom the means of support for yourselves and families. Why, then, are you impatient to bring about the same troubles upon the coun- try of your adoption ? Many will say, 'It will be long years before we can experience any great inconvenience from density of population ; that we have still a vast unoc- cupied domain, neither benefiting the government nor its citizens.' Truc, nor is it doing harm, or costing anybody a cent to keep it. In the distant future, how far distant I know not, but I do know, so sure as time continues we will arrive at the same crowded condition that now troubles the governments of the old world and so inconveniences their people. Then our descendants (I mean foreign and native) will have no unoccupied domain ; no wild lands upon which to locate. They will already be preoccupied by former citi- zens of the old world, greatly to the relief of their respec- tive governments and peoples. This condition has been greatly facilitated by that famous Homestead bill, which gave popularity, influence, and position to Andrew Johnson, while depriving our citizens, native and foreign, and their descendants, of property justly theirs, and which at some future period they will need. I think, my friends, you are advocating a policy against your best interests. You should seek to increase the rewards of labor. Did competition ever do this anywhere or at any time in the history of the world ? Will it increase the wages of any human being who lives by the sweat of the brow (cither physical or men- tal) ? There is one very intelligent class who lead society and control the public policy of the country (I, of course, mean lawyers), who, as far as I know, are universally the advocates of immigration, expecting thereby to increase the number of their clients; doctors, too, advocate it, ex-

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HISTORY OF DAVIDSON COUNTY, TENNESSEE.

pecting to increase the number of their patients. But, my friends, immigration will import lawyers and doctors too, increase competition, and as certainly, I think, decrease your fees. If I am mistaken in all this, why do you not pull up stakes and go to population, and not exhaust your patience waiting here for it ? I do not know but the above arguments will apply with equal force to our moneyed capi- talists. My reading teaches me that the value of money, like labor, is decreased by competition ; hence it is cheaper in the old world than in the new,-cheaper in New York than in the sparsely settled country of the South.

" I have thus far presented this subject solely in a finan- cial point of view. I will now endeavor to show the effect of crowded population in a moral point. Here the aristo- cratic landlord is equally interested with all other classes and conditions of society. More than threescore years ago I was born upon the spot where I now live,-the country then new and sparsely peopled. Hospitality, gen- erosity, charity, sociability, and integrity were common virtues, and per consequence confidence almost universal. These I esteem great human virtues, which contribute largely to the enjoyments and well-being of society. At that period every one esteemed it a duty to help his neigh- bor when called on; to build his cabin, his crib, and if need be to shuck his corn,-when his neighbor's word was as good as his bond. Then penitentiaries nor jails were hardly thought of. True a small log pen, called a jail, was sometimes used, but so rarely that the incarceration of a single criminal produced quite an excitement in the public mind. All this has changed even here. Now no man is expected to assist his neighbor to build his house or even to shuck his corn ; no man's word is taken,-the bond always demanded. Why this change, and what has produced it if not increase of population ? I leave my readers to decide the case for themselves. In New York, the great metrop- olis of the United States, I think I witnessed a scarcity of the virtues spoken of; more wealth, yet more selfishness; more want and greater degradation than could be found in any ten sparsely populated States of the Union. Popula- tion increases competition ; competition reduces wages ; re- duction of wuges generates want ; want leads to degrada- tion and crime.

" I am not accustomed to public speaking, nor in the habit of writing for newspaper publication, but at a meeting of the Farmers' Club of this county, held in the city of Naslı- ville on the 14th inst., the labor question being under dis- cussion, I made some remarks, which, it appears, greatly excited the indignation of a portion of the foreigu popula- tion of Nashville. An indignation meeting was held in the Capitol of the State. In that meeting my views were misunderstood or willfully misrepresented. I was advocating negro in preference to foreign labor for the following rea- sons : First, The negroes were already here and citizens of the country. We had raised them. They had been our slaves. We had enjoyed the fruits of their labor in the past. That humanity, even common justice demanded that we, their former owners, should give them a fair and patient trial. That if we cast them off, they must, necessarily, become paupers, and as a consequence thieves and robbers, and a most dangerous clement in society. Further, without

experience in regard to the value of foreign labor, except as artisans, I stated, as my opinion, after many years of ex- perience, that the negro from his organization, physical and mental, was better adapted to the drudgery of farm wort than any other race of people; that we could board them cheaper, that they were the most patient, contented, and happy race in their humble position, resulting from an ot- ganization that did not belong to any other people. Besides. they possess the capacity of enduring labor under a sun that would be distressing, if not insupportable, to any other race. For these reasons, and many others, I did not think we would gain by exchanging the negro for the SCUM of the old world who were daily landing on our shores. 'Scum,'-this is the little word that raised the tempest. I hope it did not apply to any in that indignation meeting. But, my foreign friends, what country has no scum? You must answer, not one under the canopy of heaven. Un- fortunately for our race, too many here and everywhere else. Where there are most people, there you will find most scum. Chiefly from this class we must select laborers to do the farm work. Among other things a fling was made at my Virginia ancestry. My friends, I have spent much more time in learning the pedigrees of my horses than iny own. As far as I know, my paternal great-great-grand- father was from England,-a gentleman of good position. My maternal great-great-grandfather from Germany; of his history I know nothing. He might, for aught I know, have been a SCUM. A word in reply to the slur and mis- representation of my remarks on the subject of educating the negro race. I said that they should have the rudiments of education, enough to protect themselves against the im- positions of bad men ; further than this I did not deem necessary. (I mean the laborers of this class, those who live by use of muscle and not of brains.)

" I do believe, ' Where ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise,' that the class of people whose lot it is to do the drudgery of the world (be they white or black) would be made discontented and unhappy by a high order of educa- tion. No intelligent and highly educated man would be content to spend his life with the shovel and hoe, or the axe and the plow. This drudgery must be left to feed the SCUM. Another of the arguments used by a newspaper writer or editor, I suppose to help to swell the indignation of the foreign population, was that I was a large slaveholder and an aristocratic landlord, who counted his acres by the thousand. To those I plead guilty in part. I was what is termed, in this locality, a large slave-owner, every one of whom under sixty years of age had been raised on the plantation. Their rapid increase forced me to add to my landed possession, often to give them room, rather than mortify them and myself also by selling them to strangers. I always treated them well and cared for them, as I now do, in sickness as in health. Now I have no slaves, but : large surplus of land, which is dead capital and which I am anxious to sell. If my ideas were based upon and con- trolled by selfishness, I would be an advocate of immigration. No, my friends, they are not selfish, and whether right or wrong, true or false, they are the deliberate and honest con- victions of my mind for the past thirty years, and if there is 'any vitality in them they will live after I shall be no more.

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BIOGRAPHIES.

" In conclusion, permit me to request the leaders of my foreign friends at their next indignation meeting, that they will read, for the benefit of their audiences, this, my first and, I hope, my last essay on immigration. " W. G. HARDING."

It will be seen from the extracts given that Gen. Hard- ing is a strong thinker, and not afraid to give expression to his thoughts; at the same time he has great liberality towards those who differ, conceding to others the same independence in thought and action he claims for himself. Always bowing to the mandate of the laws of the land, subscribing to the Calhoun doctrine that the general gov- ernment should be seen and felt as little as possible, and ought not to perform anything that could be done by a State or States.

Gen. Harding enjoys the reputation of being a man of spotless honor and the highest integrity. He is given to large charities, and prefers to be his own dispenser.

His military title was given him by election of the people as brigadier-general of the State militia in his early life. He has never known active service in the field.

Gen. Harding is a living witness to the growth of Davidson County. He has seen Nashville with a total population of only four thousand. No steamboat plied the waters of the Cum- berland. It was an eventful day when a keel-boat laden with groceries and other supplies arrived from New Orleans. It had been from four to six months on the voyage, and the high prices necessarily attendant on such expensive transportation made the purchase of a pound of coffee an event in the family. The boldness of Jackson, his wealth and power, can be appreciated, when he was known to buy a whole sack of coffee at once. It was the talk of the town. The only road south of Nashville, known as the old Natchez Trace, was laid directly past " Belle Meade." Over this road Gen. Harding saw Gen. Jackson move his troops to the defense of New Orleans, large numbers of his cavalry stopping at his father's noted blacksmith's shed to have their horses shod. The Choctaw, Cherokee, and Chickasaw Indians made their trading visits to Nashville by this same road. They brought in ponies, furs, and peltries; they were always well treated at Mr. Harding's plantation. One of W. G. Harding's early presents from his father was an Indian pony, bought from a passing company.

Gen. Harding remarks with regret the decline in the simplicity and honor and kindliness of manner which has transpired in his day. In those early days a man's word was as good as his bond,-written contracts regarded as impertinent, mutual help the rule. Was there a neighbor's barn to be built, his corn to be shucked, or any other assistance needed, all cheerfully rendered the service. Great personal bravery was developed by the isolation of settlers. Self-dependence also was naturally the characteristic of pio- neers. But while comforts and conveniences have multi- plied, so have crime and fraud and pauperism. Gen. Hard- ing recalls the character of the past society, and regards it preferable in manhood and honor to the later days.

In this connection it is due to Gen. Harding to say that in his advocacy of the improvement of the horse, including the necessary arena of the race-track, he does not disregard

or overlook the incompatibility which many good people seem to see in the influence of the race-track as an oppo- nent of religion.

Gen. Harding regards religion as a help to man of ines- timable value. He would go further and advise every man who has the requisite faith to identify himself with the church ; but, instead of holding aloof from the race-track, if religious men would recognize its usefulness and neces- sity as in England, they would help to eliminate all objec- tionable features from it. Further, Gen. Harding is clearly of the opinion, from his own experience as a turfman and from extended observation, that vice and immorality is not a necessary concomitant of the race-course.

DAVID MCGAVOCK.

David McGavock was one of the early settlers of Nash- ville. He was a son of James McGavock, Sr., of Rock- bridge Co., Va., where he was born on the 6th of February, 1763. When it became known in Southwestern Virginia that the new and desirable lands in the Cumberland Valley were open for settlement, and that Robertson, Donelson, Rains, and their associates had established their little col- ony at Nashborough, the young men of that region who were ambitious and had their fortunes to make hastencd away over the mountains and joined the colonists at their new settlement.

David McGavock, who had just become of age, made his appearance in Nashville in 1785-86, and located and purchased for his father and himself two thousand two hundred and forty acres of land, situated on both sides of the Cumberland River north of the bluff. All that part of the city known as North Nashville stands on one of their tracts, and that known as North Edgefield stands on another. The lands selected by him show that he was an excellent judge of them, and the plats and charts executed by his own hand, which are still extant, show that he was an accurate and experienced surveyor.

After he had purchased his lands, the next thing neces- sary was to bring them under cultivation, for he had come to establish for himself a home in the new country, and not as a mere adventurer or speculator. At Freeland's Station, now known as McGavock's Spring, in the middle of his father's nine hundred and forty acre tract, he built him a cabin, and, with all the laboring force he could com- mand, proceeded to make arrangements for putting in a crop. He took the lead of all the settlers in agriculture, so that, as the historian of Nashville says in 1792, a large crop of corn was raised by him, which sold at a very high price. He had joined the colony to work, and had brought with him from Virginia not only the means of purchasing the choicest lands, but he had brought his axe, his hoe, and his mattock, with which to make the wilderness blos- som as the rose.

He made annual visits to his Virginia home between the scasons of harvest and planting, and it was on one of these occasions, in 1789, that he married Elizabeth McDowell, a lady belonging to a prominent and influential family of his native town. They had been neighbors and friends

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from childhood, and their married life was prosperous and happy. He had not yet fully prepared his new home in the Cumberland Valley for her reception, nor was it yet considered a safe or comfortable residence for women and children on the defenseless frontier. It was therefore the better part of wisdom for him to leave his wife at home with their parents, while he spent nearly the whole of every year at Nashville, cutting away the cane and clearing up his fields. It was not till 1795, after the birth of his sons James, John, and Francis, that he moved his family from the old home at Max Meadows, where the ancestral hamlet still stands near the railway station, off over the Cumber- land Mountains to their new and well-arranged abiding- place in the Far West.

He had erected what was considered a palatial residence on the frontier,-a frame house with glass windows, with iron trimmings for the doors, and with wide, spacious porches on either side,-within a few yards of an unfailing spring of water. And there the little family began their home- life on the frontier. It was but a few years, however, be- fore he was enabled to build a nice brick house near the spot. the largest and most convenient in the settlement at that time, and which is still standing near the cotton-fac- tory in North Nashville. There he reared a large and re- spectable family, becoming identified with the city, county, and State in all their interests for more than half a century, and there he died on the 7th of August, 1838.

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History of Davidson County, Tennessee, with illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 112

Author: Clayton, W. W. (W. Woodford) Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Philadelphia, J.W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1013

Author: Clayton, W. W. (W. Woodford)
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Philadelphia, J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1013