History of Davidson County, Tennessee, with illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 30

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 30

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Mr. Peyton possessed no great legal learning, and as a lawyer was not ranked high by the profession generally ; but as an advocate and political speaker he had few equals. He possessed wit, fervor, strong common sense, a vehement and impressive delivery, fluency, imagination, and personal magnetism. His conversational powers were of a high order, and his friends were devotedly attached to him.

Throughout his life Mr. Peyton was noted for his fond- ness for the turf, and it is said that no man in the South did more to maintain its purity and tone. He got up the great Peytona stake of forty-three thousand dollars, which drew thousands of people to the Nashville race-course in 1843. He was a man of fine physical appearance, "and, taken all in all, was one of Tennessee's greatest sons." He died at his home near Gallatin, Aug. 18, 1878, aged seventy- five years.

HENRY HOLLINGSWORTH.

Henry Hollingsworth, admitted in 1835, was a self-made man ; he possessed little learning, no carly advantages, and

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forced his way up to a good position as a politician and lawyer by native strength and perseverance. He did not remain long at the bar, but acquiring considerable property by his marriage, he retired to the country, where he died many years ago.

RETURN J. MEIGS.

Return J. Meigs, who, with Judge William F. Cooper, compiled the " Code of Tennessee," practiced law for many years in Athens, E. Tenn., and afterwards removed to Nashville, where he ran as brilliant and useful a career as any lawyer or jurist in the State. He was concerned for nearly thirty years in the management of a large number of difficult and important causes. He was not only learned in the law, but in ancient and modern languages, and was a comparative philologist of no common attainments. He is the author of a voluminous digest of the judicial de- cisions of the State of Tennessee, a work which is regarded by many as the most skillfully compiled book of the kind to be found anywhere in the United States. Mr. Meigs, being an uncompromising Union man, and unable to concur in the measures which carried the State in favor of seces- sion in 1861, removed to Washington, and is now holding a very responsible official position under the government.

It has been remarked that when Mr. Meigs left the city of Nashville he left no equal behind him in general scholar- ship, and no superior in legal attainments. The only man then living who could risk a comparison with him was the ven- erable Francis B. Fogg, a gentleman who, for deep scholarly research and unstained purity of morals, had no superior . west of the Alleghany Mountains.

WILLIAM L. BROWN.

William L. Brown commenced his legal career in Clarks- ville, Tenn. He is reputed to have been a native of South Carolina. He was a man of fine natural endowments and a persevering and untiring student of books. Such was his tenacity of purpose that no difficulty could turn him aside. His energy verged upon combativeness. He had little claim to be recognized as an orator of the highest grade, but he always spoke with earnestness, precision, and force. His elaborate speeches were free from flowery rhet- oric, which he utterly despised, and were models of con- densed logic and argument. The great peculiarity of Judge Brown was that he sought neither argument, illustration, nor inspiration outside of his large and well-selected library of law-books, believing these to be the richest and best- supplied armory from which to draw his weapons for every encounter, great or small, in the legal arena. He was ap- pointed with Hon. Jacob Peck one of the judges of the Supreme Court in 1822, in the place of Judge Emmerson, resigned, and held the office two years, when he resigned.

JOHN M. BASS.

John M. Bass was admitted to the bar in 1830. He was a young man of fine estate; married a daughter of Hon. Felix Grundy, and having no taste for the law, never practiced it. He was a man of fine abilities, of liberal education, and in every respect a first-rate citizen. He was an active promoter of every scheme for the advancement of

the interests of Nashville; was mayor of the city several times, president of the Union Bank, and an extensive planter in Louisiana and Arkansas. Though decided in his party politics, he was entirely above the tricks and de- vices of the ordinary politician, and was universally re- spected for his good sense and probity. Few men have impressed themselves more powerfully upon the city of their residence. He died a few years since in New Orleans, having become much embarrassed by losses consequent upon the civil war, and by some unfortunate suretyships.

HENRY B. SHAW.

Henry B. Shaw, admitted in 1830, was a young man of fine talents, but did not practice long in Nashville. He died young,-it is believed, in St. Louis.

DAVID CAMPBELL.

David Campbell is still alive and a lawyer of high stand- ing in Franklin. He was admitted to the Davidson bar in 1831, and was chancellor of this district a short time after the late war.

WILLIAM T. BROWN.

William T. Brown was an able lawyer, and was for some time a circuit judge. He afterwards removed to Memphis, where he held a high rank at the bar. He has been dead quite a number of years.

MORGAN W. BROWN.

Morgan W. Brown came to the bar some time prior to 1830. He was for a number of years judge of the United States Court for the Middle District of Tennessee. He was a man of considerable reading and literary taste, a fine miscellaneous writer, for some time editor of one of the leading newspapers of Nashville, and a gentleman of pol- ished manners and high social qualities. He was a brother of Hon. William L. Brown, one of the judges of the Supreme Court.

HON. ANDREW EWING.

The subject of this memoir was the youngest of six brothers, sons of Nathan Ewing, and grandsons of Andrew Ewing, the first clerk of the County Court of Davidson County. He was born in Nashville in 1813; graduated at the University of Nashville in 1831; was admitted to the bar in 1835, and formed a partnership in law in 1837 with his brother, Hon. Edwin H. Ewing, now of Murfreesboro'. This business connection continued till 1851, when the latter relinquished practice for a time and made a tour in Europe. Andrew Ewing, though somewhat careless in his diction, was easy, fluent, and unembarrassed at the bar from the first, and was a speaker of great persuasiveness and force. He was also a diligent and laborious student, and strictly attentive to business. Those best acquainted with him at the outset of his career felt sure that he only needed time to make him deservedly prominent at the bar. And it so turned out. He was one of those men (not very common) who grow in knowledge, wisdom, and ability so long as they live. While giving diligent attention to pro- fessional business, he also mingled considerably in the pol- itics of the day as a speaker and counselor.

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He was an earnest, moderate, and liberal Democrat, while his brother was a Whig. While in business together they did not discuss their political differences, and, indeed, found in some of their more private interviews-that these differences were not so radical after all. In 1844, and ever after, he was much sought for, at home and in other parts of Tennessee, as a political speaker. In discussion and de- bate, whether at law or in politics, he feared no opponent, and had few equals. Especially were his speeches effective and powerful, for many years before his death, in the Cir- cuit and Criminal Courts, and in the argument of the cases which went up by appeal from these to the Supreme Court.

He was liberal, kindly, sympathetic, and very popular, not only with his own party, but also with the Whigs. In 1846-47, when his brother and partner was in Congress, he gave attention, not to the law branch of their business, which was his own, but also to the chancery branch, which was his partner's, and to the entire satisfaction of their clients. He was liberal in his purchase of law-books, and studied them well. He was an excellent case-lawyer, as well as one thoroughly imbued with a knowledge of elements and principles.

His party was largely in the minority in the Nashville Congressional District, and he did not therefore seek office at first, but in 1849 his friends thought proper to bring him forward as a candidate for Congress. He was elected against a vigorous, active, and energetic opponent, so much stronger was he than his party. He served two sessions in Congress with credit, having made two respectable speeches; but not having much taste for the House of Representa- tives, and not being willing to impose on his friends again an arduous struggle against a party majority, he declined a renomination by his party.

At the political convention which first nominated Andrew Johnson for Governor, Andrew Ewing was first nominated by acclamation after a number of efforts to nominate others, but he declined, and Johnson was finally the nominee. Andrew Ewing was a prominent candidate before the Legislature for United States senator when Senator Nichol- son was elected, in 1860.

Upon the erection of a statue to Gen. Jackson at Mem- phis, by public request Andrew Ewing delivered an address on Jackson's character and services, which was one of a high order of merit, and was received with general applause.

In 1851 he formed a partnership with Hon. W. F. Cooper. This continued with mutual satisfaction till the year 1861, when Mr. Cooper was elected a judge of the Supreme Court. A partnership was then formed between Mr. Ewing and John Marshall, of Franklin, but this was unfruitful of professional results, as the civil war came on immediately, and they both died before it ended.

Though a sincere Democrat, he was not a secessionist. On the contrary, he struggled with all his might to make the Union vote of February, 1861, as large as possible, thus offending many of his old associates and admirers. With many others, he yielded to the overwhelming current which set in against the North after Mr. Lincoln's procla- mation. He retired South with the Southern army in the spring of 1862, making every sort of sacrifice of business and property, and was appointed one of a permanent court-

martial of lawyers, which sat until towards the close of the war, under the commands of Bragg and Johnson. He was much beloved and admired in the army. He died in 1864 at Atlanta, Ga., worn out and overborne by a complication of diseases, the result of exposure, anxiety, and excessive labor. He left behind him a character without stain or re- proach. He was twice married, and his last wife survives him.

HON. EDWIN H. EWING, LL.D.

This gentleman is connected by his father, Nathan, and by his grandfather, Andrew Ewing, with the first settlers of Nashville. Both of his progenitors were men of prom- inence, and among the best educated of the pioneers of the Cumberland Valley, being descended from the intelligent and enterprising Scotch-Irish stock, an infusion of which constituted so large and influential an element in the early population of Middle Tennessee. The names of the Ewings, Andrew and Nathan, appear in the County Court records as clerks, successively, from 1783 to 1830, a period of forty- seven years. The former was the chief scribe, and did most of the public writing, as well as much for private individuals, under the temporary form of government which preceded Davidson County. Both Andrew and Nathan Ewing were well educated for men of their times, with that tendency to self-reliant study and mental discipline which has been prominently characteristic of their de- scendants.

Edwin H. Ewing was born in Nashville on the 2d of December, 1809, and, from the age of three years till his recent removal to Murfreesboro' resided in this city con- stantly, with the exception of temporary absences on offi- cial duties at Washington and in travels abroad. He graduated at the University of Nashville in 1827, received in due course the degree of A.M., and within a few years past the honorary title of LL.D. He studied law without a preceptor, using the books of an older brother who had studied but did not practice the profession, and appealing for aid in his difficulties to that truly learned and generous member of the Nashville bar, Hon. Francis B. Fogg, than whom no man could be found better qualified to correctly guide his inquiries or more ready to extend to him a help- ing hand. Mr. Ewing cherishes a grateful remembrance of the kindness of Mr, Fogg in those days of preparation for the profession, and for the sympathy shown him in his early difficulties and struggles, as well as the uniform courtesy re- ceived from him on all occasions. Mr. Ewing obtained a license to practice in 1830, and was regularly admitted to the bar in 1831. He then formed a partnership with James P. Grundy, which continued till 1837. During this time they did a large amount of business, and Mr. Ewing was growing in character as a lawyer. In January, 1837, he dissolved the partnership with Mr. Grundy, and formed a partnership with his younger brother, Andrew Ewing, who had shortly before come to the bar. In 1840 he took a very active part in Gen. Harrison's election, having become a Whig in the previous canvass of Van Buren, White, and Harrison. TLis involved him in some personal conflicts and quarrels, and made him so far a favorite of his own party that he was elected along with James Campbell, Esq.,

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without opposition, to the General Assembly of 1842. In that body he gained in reputation by several able speeches.

Meantime, he married in December, 1832. His wife died in 1844, and he has not since married.

In the canvass of 1844 he took an active part in favor of Mr. Clay's candidacy and against Mr. Polk ; and by re- quest delivered an oration at the laying-of the corner-stone of the capitol at Nashville, on the 4th of July, 1845. In the winter of that year he was elected to fill a vacancy in the Nashville district in Congress, Hon. I. H. Peyton (a brother of Bailie Peyton) having been elected and having died without taking his seat. He served two sessions in Congress, from December, 1845, to March 4, 1847, and might have been re-elected had he not declined on account of a " distaste to a seat in the house." While in the house he delivered several able speeches,-one on the Oregon question ; one on the tariff of 1846, which his room-mate, Hon. Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia, said was the best delivered on the Whig side of the question, or against the bill ; one on the river and harbor bill of 1846 (which, by the way, contained some doctrines he would hardly indorse now) ; and one on the Mexican war. He de- livered also some other speeches of minor importance. With characteristic modesty, Mr. Ewing has said, "I do not think I made much character in Congress." His friends think this an underestimate of his services and of the credit generally awarded him.

In the mean time his reputation as a lawyer increased. He sat frequently as a special judge on the supreme bench, delivered an opinion in the great Winchester case, which has been a good deal talked about, and has been as much cited as any case in the courts of Tennessee, together with several other opinions in important cases. His partnership with his brother continuing and their business enlarging, in 1850 he made a fortunate speculation in real estate, which rendered him independent of further practice; and this, together with impaired health, induced him to carry out a purpose which he had long cherished, of somewhat extensive travel. He dissolved his business relations with his brother, and in April, 1851, being forty-one years of age, he left for a tour in Europe. He was absent about eighteen months, visiting England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Egypt, Palestine, Western Asia, Constantinople, and Greece, making extensive notes of travel, and writing many long letters. Upon his return he was urgently solicited to write a book of travels, and had some idea of it, but has never put it into execution.

In 1852 he delivered, by request, at Nashville an oration on the death and services of Daniel Webster, then lately de- ceased. This oration compares favorably with Mr. Ewing's many able productions. He continued to practice law, taking fees only in important cases, till 1856, when he went to Rutherford County and lived with one of his daughters, then lately married. She removed to Nashville in 1860; he returned with her, and lived in the city again one year, or until the winter of 1860-61, when he went and lived with his son in Rutherford County till the war broke out. He still, however, kept his citizenship in Davidson County, and kept up constant communication by letters and visits,

He spoke and voted for the Union in the election of Feb- ruary, 1861. Mr. Lincoln's proclamation in April raised a storm in Tennessee which carried almost every one into opposition- to the North. Mr. Ewing's sympathies being with the Southern people, and no neutrality being possible, he naturally went with his State, and took a position against coercion with John Bell, John Marshall, Andrew Ewing, Neill S. Brown, and others. In the latter part of 1863, however, when he saw that Tennessee was irrecoverably lost to the South, he advised the people of the State who were staying at home to submit to the Federal government. The letter containing this advice was published, and sub- jected him to much obloquy, and being brought out again at the time of his candidacy for judge of the Supreme Court, probably defeated his election to that bench.

After the war Mr. Ewing formed a partnership and re- commenced the practice of the law at Murfreesboro', prac- ticing also in the courts at Nashville. He has appeared in a number of very important cases since that period ; notably he was one of the counsel for Judge Frazer when he was impeached before the Senate in 1868. He was also, in connection with Judge Cooper and William B. Reese, Esq., counsel for the State in the suit for the sale of all the delin- quent railroads in Tennessee under the act of 1870, and went with Judge Cooper to Washington to resist the ap- pointment of a receiver for the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad. They successfully accomplished the object of their mission.

Mr. Ewing is now seventy years of age; his health is good, and his mental faculties scarcely impaired. He has some important cases yet unfinished, but he has been aim- ing for some time to draw his legal business to a close. He has been a voluminous newspaper writer and an omnivor- ous reader of books, is fond of metaphysical studies, and has been much sought after as a public lecturer.

HON. W. F. COOPER.

William Frierson Cooper was born in Williamson Co., Tenn, on the 11th of March, 1820. He was reared in Maury County, and since early manhood has resided in Nashville, where his high reputation as a lawyer and jurist has been attained. By both parents Judge Cooper is de- scended from the Scotch-Irish race of the north of Ireland, which constitutes so large a portion of the population of the Southern States. Both families, the Coopers and the Friersons, settled in South Carolina, his paternal grand- father being a captain in Sumter's brigade during the Revolutionary war, and both moved to Middle Tennessee early in the present century.

Being sent early to school and having a ready memory, he was pushed forward beyond his years, and was always in classes of which he was the youngest member, and so con- tinued till he graduated at college when only eighteen years of age. The strain upon his mental faculties was, however, as he is in the habit of saying, moderated by the absence of emulation, which he was too young to feel in its full force, and by an uncontrollable appetite for general reading. At twelve years of age he spent a winter in New Orleans, where he learned the French language and acquired a taste for French literature. In the summer of 1834, Mr. Polk,

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then a member of Congress from Maury County, concluded to take his youngest brother and two of his nephews to Yale College to finish their education, and young Cooper was persuaded to join them. Under the charge of the future President of the United States, these young Tennes- seeans paid their respects to the then President, the vener- able chief from their own State, and bowed before the tomb of the first President. They entered the same class at Yale College, were joined by two other students from their State, making perhaps a larger number of Tennesseeans than were ever together there at one time before or since, and five of them graduated in the class of 1838.

Upon his return home one of the leading lawyers of Columbia, who needed a young man in whom he could have confidence to aid him in his heavy practice, offered to give him an equal partnership as soon as he could obtain a license. But the young graduate considered himself un- fitted for the contests of the forum, and declined the gener- ous offer. He had previously concluded to study medicine, and diligently applied himself accordingly for the next two years, taking during the time a course of lectures at the University of Pennsylvania. This period was sufficient to satisfy him that while the study of the profession chosen was profoundly interesting, its practice was not suited to his tastes. Having ascertained this fact, he made up his mind to change his profession, and immediately commenced the study of law. The lawyer already mentioned renewed his offer, and in the same month that he came of age the subject of our notice obtained a license to practice law, and went into partnership with the late chancellor, Samuel D. Frierson.

The next three years were spent in active business and diligent study, which so increased the self-confidence of the young lawyer that he determined to seek a wider field. He spent the fall and part of the winter in New Orleans, being inclined to remove to that city. On his return he remained a few days at Nashville to argue some of his cases in the Supreme Court, and was so much pleased that he concluded to spend at least the ensuing summer in that city. Understanding his intentions, the Hon. A. O. P. Nicholson, late the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Tennessee, who had then only recently removed from Columbia to Nashville, kindly took him into partnership.

Nashville thus became the home, and, as it proved, the permanent home, of the young lawyer. The comparative leisure of the next few years gave him the opportunity of decpening the foundations of his legal studies. He com- menced at the same time, as a mode of disciplining his faculties and increasing the accuracy of his knowledge of the State decisions, to report the opinions of the Supreme Court for one of the daily papers, preparing the head- notes, and, with occasional suggestions from the Hon. W. B. Turley, one of the judges of the court, condensing the opinions themselves when too long to be inserted in extenso. This he continued to do for several years. At the Decem- ber term, 1846, of the Supreme Court, his arguments were twice favorably noticed by the judge who delivered the opinion in the cases, one of these arguments receiving the unusual, if not unprecedented, honor of being expressly referred to and adopted by the court. (Brown vs. Vanlier,

7 Hum. 239.) All of the judges of that court treated them with the kindness which was their uniform charac- teristic towards young men, but he formed an intimate and cordial friendship with Judge Turley, who, to a lofty intel- lect and genial disposition, added a fondness for general literature, which was a powerful connecting-link between them.

In 1851, upon the death of Chancellor Cahal, the Nash- ville bar united in recommending Judge Cooper to fill the vacancy, but he declined to allow his name to be used when he understood that Judge Nicholson, who had returned to Columbia, was willing to accept the position. And after- wards, when Judge Nicholson resigned, he warmly sup- ported Judge Frierson for the office. In the latter part of the same year he entered into partnership in the practice of the law with the Hon. Andrew Ewing, which continued for ten years, and until he was elected one of the judges of the Supreme Court. By the terms of the partnership, Judge Cooper took exclusive charge of the chancery busi- ness, and Mr. Ewing of the business of the law-courts, each following his cases to the Supreme Court. The equity business, into which Judge Cooper thus stepped, had been built up by the Hon. Edwin H. Ewing, then and now one of the first lawyers and public men of the State, who had concluded to spend a few years in Europe. It taxed his powers to the utmost, and increasing as it did with the growth of the city, it kept him incessantly employed during this period. ·

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History of Davidson County, Tennessee, with illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 30

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