USA > Tennessee > Davidson County > Nashville > History of Nashville, Tenn. > Part 62
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In 1841 he became a candidate for the Legislature; but belonging to the Whig party, and the Whigs being greatly in the minority, he was de- feated. His contest for the place, however, attracted the attention of the Legislature, and it elected him Attorney-general for the judicial district including Maury, Marshall, Giles, and Hickman Counties. In 1842 he removed to Columbia, and resided there until the spring of 1847, when he removed to Nashville. In 1852 Governor William B. Campbell ten- dered him the Attorney-generalship for the judicial circuit including Williamson, Davidson, and Sumner Counties, and at about the same time Hon. Thomas J. Maney, Circuit Judge of the same circuit, resign- ing, a petition signed by nearly all the members of the Nashville bar was presented to Governor Campbell, requesting the appointment of Mr. Baxter to the vacant judgeship, and on reception of the petition Govern- or Campbell offered him his choice of the two positions. Mr. Baxter chose the latter position. At the end of the term of his office the Legis- lature elected him to the same place for the term of eight years, but as
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the State Constitution was at this time so amended as to provide for the election of judges by the people, Judge Baxter was elected by the people to the same position.
When his term of office expired the Federal army was in possession of the State, and although Judge Baxter had always been opposed to the dissolution of the Union, yet when the majority of the people of the State declared in favor of secession, he cast in his lot with them and spent most of his time in the States south of Tennessee until the war had closed. Four of his sons served in the Confederate army. The war having ended, Judge Baxter returned to Nashville and resumed the prac- tice of the law. He continued thus engaged until the close of 1868, and spent the next year upon his farm.
In 1870 he was re-elected Circuit Judge, serving during the eight years' term. At the end of that time he returned to the practice of the law, and so continued until 1885, when he was appointed Clerk of the Supreme Court at Nashville, which office he now holds.
Judge Baxter was married first to Miss Martha O. Hamilton, daughter of William Hamilton, Esq., of Nashville. She died in 1839, leaving an infant child. In 1842 he was married to Miss Mary L. Jones, daughter of Dr. John R. Jones, of Duck River, Tennessee. Judge Baxter has four children living, Edmund Baxter, at present attorney for the Louis- ville and Nashville Railroad Company; Nat Baxter, Jr., for years a practicing lawyer, but now President of the Southern Iron Company; Jere Baxter, candidate for the nomination for Governor on the Demo- cratic ticket, a sketch of whom appears also in this volume; and Miss Louisa Baxter, living at home with her parents.
JERE BAXTER, without fame, either in civil or military life, is the best known and the most prominent figure among all the young men of the South. His prominence comes alone from his aggressive nature and progressive spirit. A man whose mind, in its very nature, is as broad and liberal as it is progressive-a mind that has but little to do with the past, except as the past is valuable in lessons, but who scans the present and looks into the future with unerring aptitude. His achievements, un- aided by fortune or friends, are the trophies of his life. What he has accomplished, it can be truly said has been done within and of himself. By no means has it been the result of accident or exceptional environ- ment, nor has it been through trusts or combined capital, or legislative aids, or by legacies or advice from bigger men.
More than any young man the South has yet produced has Mr. Bax- ter done his own thinking, taken his own steps, and achieved his own victories-a man of rare endowments, of fine presence, of generous im-
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pulses, of sound judgment, and above all, with a manly pride in the South's recovery from the devastation of war, which has made him at times seem to the world reckless in aggressive strides which no man be- fore him had ever meditated.
Mr. Baxter has lately become a candidate for Governor-that is, ask- ing the nomination of his party. Up to this time he had no enemies-all bespoke his praises, all commended his activity, all admired his energy, all congratulated him on his successes, and all acknowledged his wonder- ful genius. That, as a boy, he should walk from city to city in Europe, teach English for money to travel on, come home while yet a boy and successfully publish a literary journal; then make law-books; then op- erate railroads; then build up industrial cities like Sheffield; then erect great buildings in his own city on a new style of architecture; then em- bark in trade, single-handed, and accumulate a fortune in open, fair deal- ing with men all of whom were able to take care of themselves; and then turn his attention to farming and stock raising on a larger scale than any man had ever done in the South-and everywhere succeed, of course attracted attention, and made him the subject of universal esteem and admiration among the people who had watched and known how com- pletely he was the architect of his own fortune.
Since his candidacy, for the first time, he finds himself, in the estima- tion of politicians, a very doubtful citizen: especially is he wanting in adhesiveness to party. They say he is national and not Southern; that he is a business man and not a Democrat. His development and growth in business life, his wonderful success in various ventures, in the estima- tion of some of his own party, particularly editors of newspapers, wholly unfit him for the office of Governor. That he was born in the South- not in the war because he was a mere child, but fully identified with the cause, his four older brothers being in to the close-and that he has al- ways voted the Democratic ticket with these gentlemen is not enough. It is a curious feature in Southern politics that a large element, the ele- ment that has usually controlled conventions, makes business qualifica- tions a bar to political preferment.
The candidacy of Mr. Baxter is being watched with great interest. It is a new style. Mr. Baxter is perhaps the first man that ever became a candidate for a high office in Tennessee who went at it without having his friends in front. He holds nobody responsible, but says that he wants the office. The novelty of his boldness is attracting wide attention and quite favorable comment.
His versatility is marvelous; his reading extensive; his manner pleas- ing; always cool, always courageous. Broad, catholic, he respects the
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rights and creeds of all, and accepts adverse criticism like a philosopher. In his canvass he is surprising his adversaries; not by his eloquence, ex- cept as intensity makes him eloquent, but by his logical arguments and extraordinary array of facts, on what is the burden of his heart: building up the South. A Southern man all over, yet he is national and honors the flag that is common to all the States.
WILLIAM T. BRIGGS, M.D., one of the most distinguished surgeons of Nashville, was born at Bowling Green, Ky., December 4, 1828, and re- ceived his literary education at the same place. Dr. Briggs's father, John M. Briggs, M.D., was a native of Nelson County, Ky., was born April 8, 1798, and died in 1882. He was the son of a farmer who was of Scotch descent, but a native of Nelson County, Ky. When twenty-four years old Dr. John M. Briggs married Miss Harriet Morehead, sister of Governor Charles S. Morehead, of Kentucky. Dr. Bowling, in his "Life of John M. Briggs," says of this lady: "This estimable lady, with much of the mental force and sweetness of manner that made her illus- trious brother the idol of his people, was the mother of W. T. Briggs, M.D., of the University of Nashville and Vanderbilt University, who has earned for himself a national and a European reputation; imperish- able, because it rests not upon what he has taught or said, but upon what he has actually done." Dr. John M. Briggs was a Baptist and a fine specimen of the Kentucky gentleman, of the suaviter in modo of the old regime.
Dr. W. T. Briggs, the subject of this sketch, graduated in medicine from Transylvania University before he had reached his twenty-first year, and practiced with his father three years at Bowling Green. He was elected to the position of Demonstrator of Anatomy in the Medical Depart- ment of the University of Nashville in 1852, and in 1854 removed to this city, where he has resided ever since. Soon after his settlement in Nashville he formed a partnership with Dr. John M. Watson, Professor of Obstetrics in the university. This partnership lasted until the death of Dr. Watson in 1866.
In 1856 Dr. Briggs was made Adjunct Professor of Anatomy with Dr. Thomas R. Jennings, Professor of Anatomy in the university. The oper- ations of the university were suspended during the war; and at its close, in 1865, Dr. Briggs took the chair of surgical anatomy and physiology, vacated by the death of Dr. A. H. Buchanan, which he held until 1866, when he was transferred to the chair made vacant by the death of Dr. Watson, the chair of obstetrics and diseases of women and children. In 1868, Dr. Paul F. Eve having resigned, Dr. Briggs succeeded him as Professor of Surgery in the university. This latter position he continues
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to hold in the consolidated departments of the two universities. He has been offered the chair of surgery in medical schools of several different cities, but has so far preferred to remain in Nashville.
Dr. Briggs is at the present time President of the American Medical Association, and has been its Vice-president. He was one of the dele- gates to the International Medical Congress at London, England. In September, 1887, he was chosen President of the section of general sur- gery in the International Medical Congress to be held in Washington in the same month; was President of the American Surgical Association in 1885; and was President of Tennessee State Medical Society in 1886. He has always been a patient and thorough student, and has the largest medical and surgical library in the South. Financially Dr. Briggs has been successful. Before the war he belonged to the Whig party, but when the war came he sympathized with the South. In 1850 he was made a Master Mason at Bowling Green, Ky. In religion he is ortho- dox, though not a member of any Church.
With regard to his success in surgery Dr. W. K. Bowling said: “Dr. Briggs ranks high among the first surgeons of the continent. He has had extraordinary success, and has performed operations that no other man ever did perform successfully. Endowed by nature with inflexi- ble determination of purpose and unflinching energy, he has from the beginning shown such celerity and dexterity in his operations, or what I might denominate deftness in manipulation, that he is simply unparal- leled."
Some of his most notable cases have been as follows: Ligation of the internal carotid artery for traumatic aneurism, 1871; removal of both en- tire upper jaws for gunshot injury, 1863; removal of lower jaw for gun- shot wound, 1863; removal of entire lower jaw for osteochondroma; hip- joint amputation for elephantiasis arabum, leg weighing eighty pounds, 1875.
Dr. Briggs has been a valuable contributor to medical literature. Some of his more important publications are as follows: "History of Surgery in Middle Tennessee;" "Tetanus Treated by Chloroform;" "En- chondromatous Tumors of the Hand, Fore-arm, and Arm;" "Successful Amputation at the Shoulder-joint;" " Traumatic Aneurism of the Inter- nal Carotid, the Result of a Puncture, Ligation of the Common Carotid, and then of the Internal at the Seat of Injury;" "Death from Chloro- form;" "Escape of Catheter into the Bladder During Its Use for the Relief of Retention;" "Unilocular Ovarian Tumor Operation, Recov- ery ;" "Dislocation of the Radius and Ulna Backward in a Patient Two and a Half Years Old;" "Multilocular Ovarian Tumor, Tapped More
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Than Fifty Times; Extensive Parietal, Intestinal, and Vesical Adhesion ; Incision Eight Inches Long, Weight of Tumor Eighty-five Pounds; Re- covery;" "Trephining in Epilepsy;" "The Antiseptic Treatment of Wounds after Operations and Injuries;" "The Surgical Treatment of Epilepsy." He has performed the operation of lithotomy over two hun- dred times by the media-bilateral method, with but six deaths; of tre- phining one hundred times, with but five deaths; has removed over two hundred ovarian tumors and ligated all the principal arteries.
Dr. Briggs was married in Bowling Green, Ky., May 25, 1850, to Miss Annie E. Stubbins, a native of that town and a daughter of Samuel Stub- bins. Her mother was a Miss Garrison. By this marriage there have been born four children: Charles S. Briggs, M.D., a prominent surgeon of Nashville, and Professor of Surgical Anatomy and Operative Surgery in the Medical Department of the University of Nashville ; Dr. Waldo Briggs, who graduated in medicine from the University of Nashville in 1876, and who settled in St. Louis in 1877; Virginia Lee Briggs, born in Nash- ville February II, 1862, and educated in Nashville and at Baltimore; and Samuel S. Briggs, born in Nashville, June 8, 1868, and now a stu- dent in Nashville.
JOHN CALVIN BROWN, Ex-governor of Tennessee, was born in Giles County, this State, January 6, 1827. His father was Duncan Brown, a native of Robertson County, N. C., who emigrated to Giles Coun- ty in 1809. By occupation Duncan Brown was a farmer, and in pol- itics a Whig from the date of the organization of that party to his death. The father of Duncan Brown was Angus Brown, a native of Scotland, who settled in Robertson County, N. C., about 1750, and who served a short campaign in the Revolutionary War, under Gen- eral Francis Marion. Duncan Brown had but two sons, each of whom became Governor of Tennessee: Neill S. Brown, born in 1810, and the subject of this sketch. John C. Brown grew to manhood in his native county. He was educated at the common schools of his neighborhood and at Jackson College, Columbia, an institution destroyed by the war. He became an accomplished scholar, speaking both Latin and French, the former with almost as much fluency as his native tongue. He studied law with his brother, Neill S. Brown, and was admitted to the bar at Pu- laski in September, 1848. He early established a fine reputation as a sound legal adviser, and continued to practice law with distinguished suc- cess until the breaking out of the war. But he did not permit his devo- tion to his profession to interrupt his private studies in general literature ; and having means and leisure he supplemented those private studies by a journey abroad in 1858 and 1859, visiting the country of his forefa-
moleBrown 1881
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thers and then making a tour of the continent, Egypt, and the Holy Land.
John C. Brown had always been a Whig, was a great admirer of John Bell, and was, during the presidential campaign of 1860, an elector on the Bell and Everett ticket. Like all of the old Whigs, he was an ar- dent lover of the Union and was devotedly attached to the system of government under which he lived. He was never a believer in the doc- trine of the secession, but when the State of Tennessee decided to cast her fortune with the other slave States, although it cost him much pain to do so, yet he promptly chose to go with his people and to draw his sword in their behalf. In that great conflict there was no truer, braver, and more self-sacrificing soldier than John C. Brown.
His first act in connection with that war was to raise a company of soldiers in Giles County, which, together with other companies, consti- tuted the Third Tennessee Regiment, of which he was himself elected colonel. The regiment was immediately mustered into service of the State of Tennessee, and went to Camp Cheatham, near Springfield, where it remained until July 26, 1861. It was then ordered to Camp Trousdale, Robertson County, where it was joined by the Eighteenth, Twenty-third, and Twenty-fourth Regiments of Infantry, and two bat- talions of cavalry, all of which were placed under his command as senior colonel. September 19, 1861, under orders from General Albert Sidney Johnston, his regiment joined the forces under General S. B. Buckner, near Bowling Green, Ky., and soon afterward was sent with a detach- ment of the army to Fort Donelson. When this fort surrendered to Gen- eral Grant, February 16, 1862, he was captured and sent to Fort Warren, Boston Harbor, as a prisoner of war. He remained in prison until Sep- tember 23, 1862, when he was exchanged and sent to Chattanooga, Tenn. Soon afterward he was made a Brigadier-general, and ordered to report to General Bragg, who was then preparing to move northward into Ken- tucky. At the battle of Perryville he was shot through the thigh, but as soon as possible afterward, and while still on crutches, he reported for duty to General Bragg at Murfreesboro. Not then being able to sit upon his horse, he was placed in command of the post at that place. At Tulla- homa he took command of the Tennessee Brigade of soldiers, which he continued to command in 1864. He was in command of this brigade in the retreat of General Bragg before Rosecrans in the summer of 1863 and throughout the campaign around Chattanooga which followed that retreat. He was in command of the same brigade at the great battle of Chickamauga and also at that of Missionary Ridge. During the battle of Chickamauga a canister-shot knocked him off his horse. On the re-
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treat from Missionary Ridge he commanded Stevenson's Division, bring- ing up the rear of the army as it fell back to Dalton, Ga. During the memorable campaign terminating in the loss of Atlanta to the Confeder- acy in the summer of 1864, as General Joseph E. Johnston fell back, fighting at nearly every step, General Brown was promoted to a Major- generalship at the request of General Johnston. In the campaign in Tennessee under General Hood in the fall and winter of 1864 he was in command of Cheatham's old division, and in the desperate attack of the Confederates upon the Federal forces at Franklin he was again shot through the thigh, very nearly through the same place made by the wound at Perryville. He retired from Tennessee with General Hood, and aft- erward joined the army which had again been placed under General Johnston in North Carolina, and he was with this army at its final sur- render. With reference to his soldierly qualities, Hon. James D. Rich- ardson, in his memorial address upon the life of General Brown, deliv- livered January 29, 1890, at the opening of the Grand Lodge of Masons of Tennessee, said: "No man surpassed him in his devotion to duty as a soldier. As a manager of men he had no superior. He knew all the instincts of his soldiers-what moved them, what inspired them, and what controlled them. He knew when to indulge and when to forbid. He enforced discipline, sometimes with a rigorous hand, but always in such manner as to command the approval of the true soldier. Thus he en- joyed the confidence and won the affection of his troops to an unparal- leled extent, and each private in the ranks felt that he had a friend in his general."
From 1865 to 1870 he applied himself diligently to the practice of the law. In the latter year he was a member of the Constitutional Conven- tion which framed the present Constitution of the State, and was chosen its President. In this position he met the demands upon him in a man- ner satisfactory to his friends and with great credit to himself. At the first election for Governor under this new Constitution he was elected Governor of the State over his Republican competitor, Hon. W. H. Wisener, the vote being for the successful candidate 76,666, and for the defeated one 41,278. He was re-elected in 1872 over Hon. A. A. Free- man by a vote of 97,689 to 87,100. During his second term as Governor he urged upon the Legislature the necessity of funding the State debt and the levying of a sufficient tax to pay the interest upon the debt and the current expenses of the State. The present public school system was inaugurated during his second term as Governor, and much credit is due to Governor Brown for its adoption and for its successful inauguration. The law authorizing the lease of the penitentiary was passed upon his
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recommendation, and the plan now in vogue was put in operation while he was Governor. He retired from the office of Governor at the end of his second term with the esteem and confidence of the entire people of the State.
Soon after retiring from political life he turned his attention to the sub- ject of railroads, in which he found more congenial occupation than in politics. He was selected by Jay Gould to assist him in the building of that grand system of railroads, the Texas Pacific, which was to connect the East with the Pacific Ocean. "As general adviser and counselor of the Gould system in the West, as Receiver, as Vice-president, and final- ly as President of the Texas Pacific Railway Company, he acquired new laurels, and won for himself the most gratifying reputation. While in Texas, engaged in the active work of this railway company, there appeared indications of failing health. He gave up business there, returned to Tennessee in the spring of last year, and located in Nashville. His friends at once saw a change in him. He was not the same man in appearance and vivacity he had once been to them, despite his efforts to so appear."
About this time a change occurred in the management of the Tennes- see Coal, Iron, and Railroad Company. He was tendered the presi- dency of the company, which position he accepted, resigning the presi- dency of the Texas Pacific Railway in order to do so. He at once began to master its details and to advance its interests, but time to ac- complish his designs in this relation was not allowed him, for his death occurred August 17, 1889, at Red Boiling Springs, Macon County, Tenn. The remains were at once brought to Nashville, and funeral services held in the Episcopal Church, conducted by Bishop C. T. Quintard, assisted by Rev. D. L. Wilson, pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Pulaski, Tenn. August 20 his remains were taken to Pulaski for interment, in charge of a special guard of honor from Cheatham Bivouac, consisting of Major H. C. Bate, Captain R. K. Polk, Captain W. T. Hardison, and Lieutenant A. Lindsley. Arriving at Pulaski, the remains, in the pres- ence of friends, comrades, and associates of other days, were committed to the earth, where they will gradually crumble away, while his record and good name live in the memories of the people he loved and served, an everlasting monument.
Governor Brown was made a Master Mason in Pulaski Lodge, No. IOI, in 1851; a Royal Arch Mason in Pulaski Chapter, No. 20, March 27, 1871 ; a Knight Templar in Pulaski Commandery, No. 12, April 26, 1871; and in 1870 was elected Most Worshipful Grand Master of Ten- nessee.
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Governor Brown was twice married: first to Miss Ann Pointer, of Pulaski, who died, leaving no children; and the second time to Miss Elizabeth Childress, daughter of Major John W. Childress, of Murfrees- boro, who always contributed her full share toward her husband's happi- ness and fortune. By this marriage there were born four children. One, a daughter, became the wife of the Hon. Benton McMillin, now serving the Fourth Congressional District of Tennessee in the United States Congress. Mrs. McMillin died in 1888. Another daughter, Miss Daisy, Brown, died in 1887. The two children living are Miss Birdie Brown and John Calvin Brown, Jr.
Before General Brown's death he had purchased a house on Spruce Street, where he meant to make his future home for himself and family, and where his widow and children now reside. It is not necessary to write any extended eulogy of General Brown. No man since the organ- ization of the State ever lived more respected by all. No man ever more ably filled so many and such distinguished positions in the State, and no man ever died more universally regretted by the community. He was about to enter upon most useful and important services to the whole South when he was, so unfortunately for all, forced to cease his earthly labors.
JOHN R. BUIST, M.D., was born in Charleston, S. C., February 13, 1834, and was the eldest child of Edward T. and Margaret R. Buist. In early life he moved with his parents to Greenville County, where he was daily inured to the labors of farm life and habits of industry. His father, a Presbyterian divine and a man of ripe scholarship, graduated from Princeton Seminary. He was pastor of several congregations in South Carolina, and President of Laurensville Female College. His predomi- nant traits of character were love for the truth and loyalty to his own con- victions. He died in 1878, at the age of sixty-eight.
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