History of Davidson County, Tennessee, with illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 27

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 27

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" I do not believe there is a man living who could give you any tolerable account of my early life except myself; and when the incidents were narrated they would only prove what Campbell says of Lord Mansfield,-that when he came up from Scotland to Westminster school on a High- land pony, the chances were a billion to one against his ever being chief justice; and I can safely say that quite as many chances stood in the way of my being a supreme judge when of the same age as was His Lordship at the time he wended his solitary way south, with his pony as his only companion. Your readers would only learn that I had been reared on a farm, and been flogged through the com- mon schools of Western Virginia and Kentucky, and then had had the advantages of such academies as the Western country afforded,-humble enough, in all conscience, and where little else than Latin and the lower mathematics was added to the common-school training; that, with this amount of acquired knowledge, I read history, novels, and poetry ; grounded myself well, as I thought, in Virginia poli- tics; that I read everything which came to hand as it came,- Fielding, Smollett, Sterne, Goldsmith, and up through Tom Paine, Hume, and Gibbon. Everything, or nearly so, then to be had in the country, of history, ancient and modern, was read, and much of it with a devouring appetite. Pres- ter John, Peter the Hermit, Richard and Saladin, Falstaff and Frederick, were all jumbled up together. It is due, however, to say that preparatory to taking up Blackstone

I carefully re-read Hume's 'History of England,' with Smollett's and Bisset's continuations; Robertson's ' Charles the Fifth,' and also Gibbon's ' Decline and Fall,' and made extensive notes on cach, which I thought exceeding valua- ble at the time. They were on large foolscap, bound in pasteboard, and, all told, were, when packed on each other, two-thirds as high as a table; nor did I doubt that my condensed Gibbon would go forth some day in print; nor do I now remember at what time it was used to kindle the office fire, but this was its fate. With my old friends, Pope, Shakspeare, and Sterne, I had to act as I have often done since with my snuff-box,-hide them from my- self.

"The Bible being the common reader of my carly schools, of course I knew almost by memory. Of geography I learned more than most men and know more now. With this confused mass of self-taught knowledge I commenced to read law in April, 1812, in the State of Tennessee. Up to this date I had never been sick a day or hour and had a frame rarely equaled ; one that could bear ardent and rigor- ous application for sixteen hours in the day, and which was well tried about four years at something like this rate. Late in 1815 I tried my chances at the bar and succeeded, certainly in the main chance of getting fees; but then I had a good deal of worldly experience and availed myself of the cases in court, throughout a heavy circuit, of a re- tiring brother-lawyer and friend who was elected to Con- gress. . . . The courts were full of indictments for crimes from murder down. Here I had to fight the battle single and alone and to work day and night. No man ever worked much harder, I think ; my circuit judge was an excellent criminal lawyer, and being partly Scotch always stood firmly by the State and leaned strongly against the culprit ; so that I got on very well, but often with an arro- gance that would have done credit to Castlereagh, for blundering in my law certainly, if not in my grammar. Like His Lordship, I was given to white waistcoats and small-clothes, and drew pretty largely on the adventitious aids furnished by the tailor.

" The lawyers then traveled the circuit from county to county usually of a Sunday. Each man that was well appointed carried pistols and holsters and a negro waiter with a large portmanteau behind him. All went on horse- back. The pistols were carried not to shoot thieves and robbers, but to fight each other, if by any chance a quarrel was hatched up furnishing an occasion for a duel, then a very favorite amusement and liberally indulged in, and the attorney-general for the circuit was expected to be, and always was, prepared for such a contingency. He managed to keep from fighting, however. His equipments were of the best, with a led third horse now and then for the sake of parade." .

We cannot quote further from Judge Catron, although his account of himself is very interesting to the end. He settled in Nashville at the close of the year 1818. In 1824 he was elected by the Legislature a judge of the Supreme Court, and continued on the bench till the change of the judicial system by the Constitution of 1834. On the 4th of March, 1837, he was nominated to the Senate by President Jackson as a judge of the Supreme Court of

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the United States and confirmed for that office, which he beld till his death.

PATRICK H. DARBY.

Patrick H. Darby was a native of Ireland. He came to Tennessee from Kentucky about 1814. He was a lawyer of considerable ability, a fluent speaker, but did not sustain himself as to character. He returned to Kentucky, where he died about 1830.

HON. HENRY CRABB.

Henry Crabb came to the bar about 1814. He was a dignified, somewhat haughty and polished gentleman of more than common talents, and a man of learning for his time. He was probably about forty years of age when he died. He occupied a position in the front rank at the bar, and was elevated to the bench of the Supreme Court in 1827. He was then in a state of rapid physical decline, and died a few years after. The opinions delivered by him during the brief period he occupied his seat upon the bench are found in Martin and Yerger's Reports, the most noted of which was upon the question, How far an attorney in the State of Tennessee was entitled to claim pecuniary re- muneration for professional services rendered by him, upon the basis of a quantum meruit, and the interesting case of Vaughn ts. Phebe.

Judge Crabb left one son, Henry A. Crabb, who be- came quite prominent as a lawyer and politician in Califor- nia, where he was a candidate for the United States Senate, and was one of the Fillmore and Donelson electors of that State in 1856.

THOMAS H. FLETCHER.

Thomas H. Fletcher, one of the early and well-known attorneys of Nashville, was a resident of the city upwards of thirty-five years, and held a high rank in the profession. He was born in the town of Warren, Albemarle Co., Va., on the 15th of September, 1792. He came to Nashville in 1808, at the age of sixteen, having walked all the way from Virginia. His first engagement in business was with Col. Andrew Hynes, as clerk in his store, with whom he subsequently became a partner. He afterwards largely en- gaged in mercantile pursuits, but was unfortunate, like hun- dreds of his fellow-citizens, in the financial disaster of 1818 -19. This led him to the study of law. He commenced prac- tice in Fayetteville, Tenn., in 1821, having been appointed by his life-long friend, Governor Carroll, district attorney or attorney general. His acquaintance with the politics of the country was very general, and few men could trace their progress from the early days of the Constitution to his own time with more accuracy.

He had a great taste for political pursuits, and his ready talents would have adorned any station to which he might have aspired, but his pecuniary disasters prevented him en- gaging in that field, and hung over him like a cloud the whole of his life. In 1825 he represented the county of Franklin for two terms in the State Legislature, and was chiefly instrumental in the removal of the seat of govern- ment from Murfreesboro' to Nashville, and at a later period served as Secretary of State under a pro tem. appointment from his intimate and valued friend, Governor Carroll.

With these exceptions, he contented himself with the ex- pression of his political sentiments in private circles.

Mr. Fletcher served his country in the Indian campaigns of 1813; was in the battles of Talladega and the Horseshoe as a member of Capt. Deaderick's company, which was Gen. Jackson's life-guard ; and in December, 1812, was appointed by Gen. Jackson his second aide-de-camp, but declined the position. During the Creek campaign at Camp Coffee, Gen. Jackson tendered him the appointment of military secre- tary, which he also declined.

He married, Jan. 10, 1814, Sarah G., a daughter of Thomas Talbot, an old resident of Davidson County. He died suddenly of apoplexy, Jan. 12, 1845, in the fifty- third year of his age. He was the father of twelve chil- dren, four of whom are yet living.

Mr. Fletcher became widely known in 1823-24 as the author of " The Political Horse race," in which he humor- ously and graphically portrayed the characteristics and con- jectured popularity of the Presidential candidates of that period, Messrs. Clay, Crawford, Adams, Jackson, and Cal- houn. It was one of the most popular effusions of the kind ever written, and has been several times republished. It appeared lately in the Nashville Banner, with some very excellent and appreciative introductory remarks respecting the article and its author by Hon. John M. Lea, which we quote, as containing the best summary of Mr. Fletcher's character and standing as a lawyer which we have seen. Judge Lca says,-

" The piece was copied with notices of commendation in the newspapers, and inquiry showed the author was an eminent lawyer of Nashville, the late Thomas H. Fletcher, a most eminent advocate, who stood in the front rank of his profession, the peer of Whiteside, Brown, Grundy, and Crabb. Mr. Fletcher, though he had a large and general practice, stood pre-eminently high as a criminal lawyer, and possessed all the requisites for success in that special foren- sic field. A good judge of human nature, knowing its strong and its weak side, he selected his jury with great discrimination, and having a heart as tender as a woman's, his feelings were naturally with his clients in their distress, and he always made their cause his own. There have been great criminal lawyers in Tennessee, but few his equals and none his superior. His voice was clear and strong ; manner earnest and excited, but never rude and boisterous ; pathetic or humorous as the occasion suggested, he always spoke with good taste and made, perhaps, fewer failures than almost any lawyer at the bar. He was very popular with the profession, especially among the younger lawyers, whom he always treated with the utmost kindness and courtesy. His reading was extensive and not confined to professional works, and often he beguiled his leisure hours in composi- tion for the newspapers on ephemeral subjects of the day. Those who have had the good fortune to listen to his inter- esting conversation will never forget the pleasant impression which he always made. There was in his manner no rude- ness, in his speech no coarseness or invective, and his sym- pathy for the misfortunes of his fellow-men was unbounded. His death was the subject of universal grief in Nashville. He had been engaged for a week on the trial of a murder case, -. of course, for the defense,-and became very much

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exhausted. On Saturday a verdict of acquittal was brought in, and Mr. Fletcher walked to his office, saying that he did not feel at all well. The next afternoon, about three o'clock, the unhappy news was circulated that this worthy man and distinguished advocate had instantly died from a stroke of apoplexy. The writer of this brief notice imme- diately hastened to his office and assisted in raising from the floor his manly form, his hand still grasping the book from which he had been reading when death summoned his presence to the higher court above."

Perhaps the character of Mr. Fletcher's legal mind may be best illustrated by one of his own anecdotes, which he was in the habit of telling with great glec. Owing to his reputation as a jury advocate, he was retained as counsel in a large ejectment suit pending in an adjoining county. Now, Mr. Fletcher would say, if there was any branch of the law about which he knew less than any other (and, he would add, he knew very little about any), it was land-law. He tried to read up for the occasion, but the more he read the less he knew about it. When he went to try the case he was in great tribulation. Luckily, however, it was de- veloped in the testimony of one of the first witnesses that the parties had gone upon the land for the purpose of try- ing to adjust the matters of difficulty amicably, the result of which was a free fight, participated in by the litigants and their friends in attendance. At once, Fletcher would say, " my foot was on my native heath and my name was Macgregor." He was at home in an assault-and-battery case. He set to work to bring out all the details of the fight, turned the whole case into the charge of an assault by the opposite party on his client, and won his case with flying colors .*

HON. THOMAS WASHINGTON.

Thomas Washington (not mentioned in the above list) came to the bar in 1813. Although making an unpromis- ing beginning, he attained a good degree of eminence in his profession. By perseverance and application he brought out what was latent within him, and became a very able and effective lawyer. His law-papers were drawn with great care and ability, and were perfect models of their kind. He was a slow, deliberate speaker, but always correct in his language. In manner he was courteous and dignified, firm and outspoken in his opinions, and "a gentleman to the core." He was fine and polished as a literary writer. The obituary notices of Chancellor Kent and Hon. W. G. Camp- bell (printed in the beginning of 8 Humphreys) and of Judge Turley (at the end of. 11 Humphreys) were written by him. Perhaps the ablest of his arguments was made in the great case of the Ohio Life Insurance and Transporta- tion Company vs. Merchants' Insurance and Transportation Company (11 Humph. 1). He died quite advanced in years during the civil war.

IION. JAMES RUCKS.

Hon. James Rucks was at one time a prominent attorney at Nashville, and afterwards circuit judge. He was born in North Carolina, and came to Tennessee with his parents when in his seventeenth year. He soon went back and

finished his classical education at the university of his native State. Returning to Tennessee, he read law dili- gently and successfully for two years, and commenced the practice of his profession in Carthage, where he soon ob- tained a profitable business, in competition with some of the ablest attorneys that Tennessee could then boast. He is said to have been singularly industrious in the preparation of his cases, and remarkably clear and forcible in his man- ner of discussing them in court. He subsequently located in the town of Lebanon, where he remained until 1828, when he removed to the city of Nashville, and was associ- ated in business with Felix Grundy and Gen. Gibbs. He afterwards became one of the circuit judges. He removed to Jackson, Miss., in 1829, where he became quite wealthy, and died in February, 1862.

HON. THOMAS CLAIBORNE.

Hon. Thomas Claiborne was admitted to the Nashville bar in 1807. He was distinguished more in politics than in law, being an intense Jeffersonian Democrat. He was an able and fluent speaker, and a man of honorable and up- right character. He left many descendants. He was mem- ber of Congress from 1817 to 1819. He was the first Grand Master of the Masonic Grand Lodge of Tennessee.

DAVID CRAIGHEAD.

David Craighead came to the bar about 1814, and would have acquired more distinction as a lawyer had he not when young married into wealth, and thus become relieved from the spur of necessity. He was a man of native wit, a good speaker, and possessed fine conversational powers. Occasionally he appeared with great effect at the bar in important cases. His son, Thomas B. Craighead, now re- sides in Nashville.

GEN. SAM HOUSTON.

Gen. Sam Houston deserves to be mentioned in connec- tion with the bar of Davidson County, not because he was great or very much noted as a lawyer, but because of his eminent distinction in other respects. His career was truly one of the most remarkable of modern times, and we have reserved a sketch of him to be placed by the side of Gen. Jackson's, whom he somewhat resembled in certain phases of his character. Probably his reverence and respect for Jackson, under whom he had fought and achieved his first distinction in the Southern Indian war, brought him to the home of that great hero to embark in his civil and political career. He read law for a short time with James Trimble, at Nashville, and was admitted to the bar in 1819. His personal qualities rather than his learning or legal attain- ments-of the latter of which he must have possessed very little at that time-gave him prestige and place, and in a very short time he was district attorney and member of Congress. He was elected to the former office by the Leg- islature in October, 1818, and to the latter in 1823, and again in 1825, serving two consecutive terms, which closed in 1827. In August, 1827, he was elected Governor of Tennessee by a majority of about twelve thousand over his worthy competitor, Hon. Newton Cannon. Such was his per- sonal popularity that upon his accession to the gubernato-

* Anecdote related by Judge Cooper.

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rial office he had not a single opponent in the Legislature. He was the nominee again for Governor in 1829, and un- doubtedly would have been elected had he not, in conse- quence of his unhappy domestic difficulty, renounced the canvass and the prospect not alone of immediate success, bat of a future brilliant and perhaps unrivaled career in Tennessee, and hid himself for several years in the heart of the Cherokee Nation, west of the Mississippi. He emerged, however, from the wilderness and from a life among sav- ages to be the herald of the "Lone Star" of the Texan republic, and the leader and founder of civilization upon the great south western frontier of the United States, carving out for himself a sphere of splendor which far outshone his earlier achievements in Tennessee. When he had, by his military genius, achieved the independence of Texas, he was chosen its civil president, then its representative in the hall of Congress from 1838 to 1840, then again president from 1841 to 1844, then, after its annexation, its senator in Congress from 1846 to 1859, and lastly Governor of Texas from 1859 to 1861.

Of his talents and rank as a lawyer little is to be said. What he might have been in this department would no doubt contrast very strikingly with what he actually was, had he not been early tempted to abandon his professional studies for the allurements of political life. But he was doubtless better adapted to the sphere of action into which he seemed to drift, almost without intention on his part, than to the forensic arena or the judicial seat.

A more complete sketch of his life will be found elsc- where in this work.

WILLIAM E. ANDERSON.

William E. Anderson was a native of Rockbridge Co., Va. Mr. Ewing says he came to Nashville about 1825. He is described by Governor Foote as " truly a Samson Agonistes, alike in his physical frame and in his gigantic mental proportions. He was considerably more than six feet in height. His shoulders were broad and massive. His limbs were huge and muscular, but of most harmonious proportions. His figure was perfectly erect, even when he was far past the meridian of life. His expansive chest gave shelter to one of the most generous and sympathizing hearts that ever yet palpitated in a human bosom. His physiognomy was most striking and expressive, and when kindled into excitement, as in his later days he rarely was, there flashed forth from his commanding visage the mingled light of reason and sentiment, the effulgent beamings of which no man ever beheld and afterwards forgot." He has been compared to a volcano ordinarily in a state of slumberous re- pose, but capable of being stirred into sublime and terrible commotion by some adequate cause. Although such was his great power, he has left behind him the reputation of having never been a very diligent student of the learning appertaining to his profession. He was self-indulgent and fond of conviviality. One who knew him well, writing of this peculiarity of his character, and how it sometimes be- trayed him into excesses, says, " But with all this he was a man of powerful intellect, and such were his acuteness, ingenuity, and analytic power that the truth seemed to be whatever he desired to make it. His mind was not of the

more subtle and hair-splitting order (rail-splitting, rather), but, like the trunk of the elephant, tore up trees while it could pick up pins. He stood high at the bar, and his services were eagerly sought, but he was too negligent in the preparation of his cases to be a truly successful lawyer. His resources and power, however, in the day of conflict frequently overcame his negligence in preparation. I was once smashed by him before a jury in this way where I had felt secure of a verdict.

" Anderson and Yerger in their encounters at the bar reminded me sometimes of a powerful bull and a stubborn bull-dog: sometimes the dog would be gored and tossed upon the horns, and sometimes the bull, bellowing with pain, would have his nose dragged to the ground and held there as in a vice. Anderson, for native intellectual power, had few superiors anywhere, so far as I have known men ; and I have known Webster, Clay, and Calhoun." He was at one time a judge of the Circuit Court, and removed to Mississippi about 1845.

ANDREW C. HAYES.

Andrew C. Hayes is yet well remembered by his sur- viving friends and old associates in Tennessee. He was a native of Rockbridge Co., Va., and was educated at what was formerly known as Washington College. During his practice in Nashville he held the office of district attorney for several years. He removed to Mississippi in 1837, and was there associated in practice with Volney E. Howard. He died quite suddenly a few years after his settlement in Mississippi.

GEORGE W. CAMPBELL.

George W. Campbell was an early member of the David- son bar, and a contemporary of Felix Grundy and Gen. Jackson during his early career. He enjoyed a large and lucrative practice, acquired national distinction, and accu- mulated a handsome fortune. He was a member of Congress prior to 1809, when he was appointed a judge of the Su- preme Court; he continued on the bench till 1811, and was then chosen United States senator, which office he filled. till Mr. Monroe made him Secretary of the Treasury, 1813 -14. He resigned his place in the Cabinet, and was ap- pointed minister to Russia.

Some interesting reminiscences might be related of Judge Campbell's family did space permit. His only daughter, a most accomplished lady and heiress, became the wife of Gen. Ewell at the close of the late war. In 1873 they both died at the same time with malignant fever. "The dying hero, on hearing of her decease, demanded a last sight of those beloved features which he had so long felt to be identified with his own being. Her yet life-like but inanimate form, dressed for the tomb, was borne to his bed- side; he gazed upon the face of his beloved for one single moment of heart-convulsing but tearless agony, and fell back upon his pillow as dead as the corpse upon which he had been tenderly gazing."

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CHAPTER XXII. BENCH AND BAR-Continued.

Members of Davidson Bench and Bar-Biographical Sketches.

HON. JOHN BELL.

THIS gentleman, whose talents and distinction shed a lustre upon the place of his birth, was a native of David- son County, born about 1795. He was educated at the University of Nashville, and began his career as a lawyer in Williamson County. He was sent to the Legislature from Williamson County before he was twenty-one years of age. He came to practice at Nashville, and entered into partnership with Judge Crabb prior to the elevation of the latter to the Supreme Bench in 1827. Before he entered politics as a life-business he had acquired a high standing at the bar as a lawyer of great acuteness, research, and ability, and as a speaker of no ordinary merits. He was about thirty-five when he entered the lower house of Congress, and from that till 1860 he was in public life most of his time. With the exception of appearing occasionally with his usual force and ability, he did little in the practice of liis profes- sion after he entered into public life.

He was a Representative in Congress from 1827 to 1841, and was elected Speaker of the House on entering upon his first term. He was Secretary of War under Gen. Taylor's administration, United States senator for two full terms,-from 1847 to 1859,-and Whig, or Conservative, candidate for the Presidency in 1860.

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History of Davidson County, Tennessee, with illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 27

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