USA > Tennessee > Bedford County > History of Tennessee, from the earliest time to the present; together with an historical and a biographical sketch of Maury, Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson, Bedford and Marshall counties, besides a valuable fund of notes, reminiscences, observations, etc., etc, Vol.2 > Part 14
USA > Tennessee > Marshall County > History of Tennessee, from the earliest time to the present; together with an historical and a biographical sketch of Maury, Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson, Bedford and Marshall counties, besides a valuable fund of notes, reminiscences, observations, etc., etc, Vol.2 > Part 14
USA > Tennessee > Wilson County > History of Tennessee, from the earliest time to the present; together with an historical and a biographical sketch of Maury, Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson, Bedford and Marshall counties, besides a valuable fund of notes, reminiscences, observations, etc., etc, Vol.2 > Part 14
USA > Tennessee > Maury County > History of Tennessee, from the earliest time to the present; together with an historical and a biographical sketch of Maury, Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson, Bedford and Marshall counties, besides a valuable fund of notes, reminiscences, observations, etc., etc, Vol.2 > Part 14
USA > Tennessee > Williamson County > History of Tennessee, from the earliest time to the present; together with an historical and a biographical sketch of Maury, Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson, Bedford and Marshall counties, besides a valuable fund of notes, reminiscences, observations, etc., etc, Vol.2 > Part 14
USA > Tennessee > Rutherford County > History of Tennessee, from the earliest time to the present; together with an historical and a biographical sketch of Maury, Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson, Bedford and Marshall counties, besides a valuable fund of notes, reminiscences, observations, etc., etc, Vol.2 > Part 14
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In his domestic life he met with much affliction. In 1798 he married Miss Elizabeth M. Carrick, the daughter of Rev. Samuel Carrick, his former instructor. To their union were born four sons and eight daugli- ters, two of whom died in infancy. Of the remainder eight died just at the threshold of adult life, and all within the short space of six years. His wife also died of the same desease, consumption, March 25, 1831. , In November, 1832, Judge White was again married to Mrs. Ann E. Peyton, of Washington City, at whose house he had boarded for several years.
John Bell was born about six miles from Nashville, Tenn., on Febru- ary 18, 1797. He was the son of a farmer, Samuel Bell, a man of mod- erate means, who gave him a good education at Cumberland College, then under the presidency of Dr. Priestly. His mother's maiden name was Margaret Edmiston, a native of Virginia. At the age of nineteen
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he was admitted to the bar, and located at Franklin. The next year he was elected to the State Senate, in which body he served during that session, but declined a re-election. The next nine years he devoted ex- clusively to his profession. In 1826 he became the candidate for Con- gress against Felix Grundy, then in the zenith of his brilliant career. and . was elected over his distinguished competitor by a majority of 1,000 votes. He continued in Congress by re-election for fourteen years. At. first he was an ardent advocate of free trade, but afterward changed his. views and favored protection. He was made chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary when the " Force Bill" and the question of nullifica- tion were before the courts. Upon the question of the removal of the deposits of the United States Bank he took issue with President Jack- son, and in this breach great results were involved. Henceforth, Mr. Bell ceased to act with the Democratic party, and in 1834 he defeated James K. Polk for the speakership of the House. In 1836 he strongly advocated the election of Hugh L. White in opposition to Van Buren, and succeeded in carrying Tennessee for his candidate. In 1838 he voted . against the resolution excluding anti-slavery petitions from Congress. For ten years he was chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs, dur- ing which time the Cherokees were removed from Georgia.
In 1841 he became Secretary of War under Harrison, but resigned in the fall of the same year upon the separation of Tyler from the Whig party. He was soon after offered a seat in the Senate by the Whig majority of the Tennessee General Assembly, but he declined an election in favor of Ephraim H. Foster. He remained in retirement until 1847, when he was elected to the State Senate, and during the same year was chosen to the United States Senate. He was re-elected in 1853. Dur- ing his service in the Senate he delivered some of the most able and ex- haustive speeches ever listened to by that body. His speech on the war with Mexico was pronounced by Calhoun the ablest delivered upon the subject. In 1860 he was nominated by the Constitutional Union party for the Presidency, with Edward Everett occupying the second place upon the ticket. They received the electoral vote of Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. When secession was proposed as the result of the election ~ of Lincoln to the Presidency, Mr. Bell threw his whole influence for the preservation of the Union, but after the call for troops by President Lin- coln. he took strong grounds for secession. He assumed the position that no ordinance of any kind was necessary to sever the connection of the State with the Federal Government, and that the Legislature was alone competent to declare the Union dissolved and Tennessee an inde- pendent sovereignty: During the war he took no active part in either
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political or military affairs. After its close he was engaged in business until his death, which occurred at Cumberland Iron Works September 18, 1869.
In December, 1818, Mr. Bell was married to Miss Sally Dickinson, a daughter of David Dickinson, of Rutherford, and a granddaughter of Col. Hardy Murfree, of Revolutionary distinction. She was a woman of refinement and superior education. During her youth she attended one of the famous educational institutions of the Carolinas, making the jour- ney from her home, a distance of about 406 miles, on horseback. Among her schoolmates was Mrs. James K. Polk, who probably accomplished the journey in the same manner. Mrs. Bell died leaving four children, who yet survive. Mr. Bell was married a second time, about 1835, to Mrs. Jane Yeatman, a daughter of Mr. Ervin, of Bedford County, who survived her husband until 1876. She was an accomplished lady of re- markable intellectual vigor, of fascinating powers of conversation and possessing an energy of character quite phenomenal. For more than a quarter of a century she was a conspicuous and charming member of Washington society. She left two daughters, both of whom reside in Philadelphia. The home life of Mr. Bell was of the most pleasing char- acter. Whatever were the cares of the day, all were banished when he entered the sacred precincts of home. There his hours were passed in the kindly and sympathetic interchange of conversation upon domestic topics and the news of the day, varied at times with instructive discus- sions upon more important themes. There was no affectation of supe- rior wisdom; no claim made or even suggested for deference to him or his opinions. He was natural and simple as a child, and affectionate as a woman. A pure, chaste man, no scandal ever smirched his reputation. Late in life he became a member of the Presbyterian Church, and while residing in Georgia, during the civil war, he spent much time in reading the Bible.
As a statesman it is doubtful if Tennessee has produced another man his equal. "He resembled Halifax, as described by Macauley, as one who always saw passing events, not in the point of view in which they commonly appear to one who bears a part in them, but in the point of view in which after the lapse of many years they appear to the philosophic historian." His love and devotion to his native State was one of his leading traits. and he loved to be called "John Bell of Tennessee," sometimes using the phrase himself in his popular addresses.
Cave Johnson was one of the most distinguished men of Ten- nessee. He was the second son of Thomas and Mary (Noel) Johnson, and was born January 11, 1793. Thomas Johnson's father was Henry
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Johnson, who removed from Pennsylvania to North Carolina during the war of the Revolution, in which he served as a private soldier. Arriv- ing in North Carolina he settled near Salisbury where he resided until 1796, when he removed to Robertson County, Tenn., and located two and a half miles east of Springfield. Some time afterward he moved three miles south of Springfield to Karr's Creek, where he died in 1815. He married Miss Rachel Holman, who died about the same time as her hus- band. They were the parents of nine children: William, Thomas. Henry, Isaac, Joseph, Jacob V., Rebecca, Mary and Rachel. Thomas Johnson was born July 4, 1766, and settled in Robertson County in 1789 as a surveyor. The next year he was married to Mary Noel, at Craig's Station, Ky., and took her to Robertson County in 1790. Cave Johnson, their second son, was named after Rev. Richard Cave, a Baptist minister in Kentucky, who is believed to have been a brother of Mrs. Thomas Johnson's mother. Their other children were Cave, who died in infancy in 1791; Henry Minor, born in 1795; Taylor Noel, born in 1797; Nancy, born in 1799; Willic Blount, born in 1801, and Joseph Nool, born in 1803. Cave Johnson was born three miles east of Springfield, January 11, 1793. He was sent to the academy about two miles east of Nashville, then under the control of George Martin. In 1807 he was sent to Mount Pleasant Academy on Station Camp Creek, in Sumner County, then under the control of John Hall, where he remained a year, when he was sent to Cumberland College, now the University of Naslı- ville. Here he remained until the troops of the State were called to Mississippi in 1811. With his college mates he formed a volunteer com- pany of which he was elected captain, and whose services he tendered to Gen. Jackson, to accompany him to Mississippi. The General declined their services on account of their youth and advised them to continue their studies, which from necessity they did, though not without deep mortification on their part and severe denunciation of Gen. Jackson on the part of some of them. In the summer of 1812 he commenced the study of law with William M. Cooke, a profound lawyer, a most estimable gen- tleman and then one of the judges of the supreme court. He continued with Mr. Cooke until the fall of 1813, when his father's brigade was called upon to join Gen. Jackson in the Creek Nation. He accompanied his father in the capacity of deputy brigade quartermaster during the campaigns of 1813 and 1814, and in May, 1814, returned home, the In- dians having been subdued and peace restored. He continued his study of the law with P. W. Humphreys, on Yellow Creek, and toward the lat- ter part of the year obtained his license to practice law, and commenced the practice full of hope and confident of success.
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He was at that time strongly impressed with the belief that his first duty was to get him a wife, fully satisfied that his success in his chosen profession would enable him to support a family. He therefore paid his addresses to Miss Elizabeth Dortch, who was then in her fifteenth year, and was by her, as he says, "very properly rejected." By this rejection he was deeply mortified and caused to resolve that he would never ad- dress another lady. He then devoted himself to his profession. In the fall of 1817, he was elected attorney-general by the Legislature sitting at Knoxville upon the nomination of W. C. Conrad, but without any effort of his own. From this time he devoted himself with great assiduity to his profession until 1828 when he was elected to Congress, succeeding Dr. J. Marable, who had been the member for some years. He was re- elected to Congress without opposition in 1831. In 1833 he was again the candidate and was elected over both his competitors, Gen. Richard Cheatham and Dr. John H. Marable, notwithstanding strenuous efforts were made for his defeat. In 1835 he was again elected over William K. Turner by a very large majority. In 1837 he was defeated by Gen. Cheatham by a majority of ninety votes. After this defeat he resumed the practice of the law, and beginning to think seriously of the folly of his youthful resolution against matrimony. Miss Elizabeth Dortch had married a Mr. Brunson in 1817, and in 1826 became a widow with three children. Mr. Johnson's early attachment for this lady revived and they were married February 20, 1838. The election of August, 1839, resulted in returning Mr. Johnson to Congress by a majority of 1,496. In 1841 he was again elected to Congress without opposition. In 1843 he was opposed by but elected over G. A. Henry by nearly 300 votes. In 1844 James K. Polk was elected President of the United States, and at the close of Mr. Johnson's term in Congress invited him to take charge of the Postoffice Department, which he did and served as Postmaster-General four years. Soon after this Mrs. Johnson died of cancer in the breast. During the canvass prior to the elections of 1853, Judge Mortimer A. Martin, of the circuit court died, and.Mr. Johnson was appointed judge pro tem., and served until Judge Pepper was selected to fill the vacancy. Mr. Johnson was then appointed president of the Bank of Tennessee, en- tered upon the duties of that office in January, 1854, and served six years. In January, 1860, he removed from Nashville to his home and remained there most of the summer. On the 8th of June, 1860, he was appointed by President Buchanan commissioner on the part of the United States under the convention with Paraguay for the adjustment of the claims of the United States and Paraguay Navigation Company. On this commission he was engaged nearly three months.
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HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
In 1861, when the question of secession first came up to be acted upon, Mr. Johnson urged the people to stand by the Union. During the war he remained quietly at his home taking no part in the troubles be- tween the two sections of the country, except to express his opinions on public men and public measures, his opinions, however, after the break- ing out of the war, being uniformly in favor of the Southern Confederacy. In 1865 he was required to give reasons why he should not be sent within the Confederate lines, which reasons being satisfactory to Gen. Thomas he was allowed to remain quietly at his home. On the 19th of August, 1865, he was pardoned by Andrew Johnson, President of the United States. In the spring of 1866 he was elected by the counties of Robert- son, Montgomery and Stewart their senator in the General Assembly of the State, but by that body refused admission as such senator. His death occurred November 23, 1866. By his marriage with Mrs. Eliza- beth Brunson he had three children: Hickman Johnson, T. D. Johnson. and Polk G. Johnson, all of whom served the Confederacy in the great civil war.
James Knox Polk was born in Mecklenburg County, N. C., Novem- ber 2, 1795. He was the eldest of a family of ten children-six sons and four daughters-born to the marriage of Samuel Polk and Jane Knox. His paternal ancestors were emigrants from Ireland in the early part of the eighteenth century. They settled upon the eastern shores of Mary- land. The branch from which James K. descended removed first to Pennsylvania, and about 1735 to North Carolina. There his great-uncle, Col. Thomas Polk, and his grandfather, Ezekiel Polk, took a prominent part in the convention which adopted the Mecklenburg Declaration in 1775. In 1806 Samuel Polk with his family immigrated to Maury County, and was soon after followed by nearly all of the Polk family. He located up on Duck River, where he obtained possession of a large body of land, which gradually increasing in value, made him one of the wealthiest men of the county.
His wife was a superior woman of fine practical sense, who trained her children to habits of punctuality and industry, and inspired in them a love of morality. Young James early evinced a great desire and capacity for learning, and having secured the elements of an education at home and in the neighborhood school, in 1813 entered the Murfrees- boro Academy, from which, in 1815, he entered the sophomore class of the University of North Carolina, at Chapel Hill. From this institution, after three more years of diligent application, he graduated with the highest honors. He then entered upon the study of law in the office of Felix Grundy, of Nashville, with whom he remained until he had com-
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pleted his legal education. After his admittance to the bar he returned to Columbia and opened an office; as he was'thoroughly equipped for the profession and well prepared to meet all of its responsibilities, it was but a short time until he was recognized as a leader both at the bar and on the stump.
In 1823 he was chosen to represent his county in the lower house of the General Assembly, and in the fall of 1825, after a vigorous cam- paign, was elected a member of Congress. During the next four years he was an active opponent of the measures proposed by President Adams. He hetil long been a close friend of Gen. Jackson, and when the latter was elected President he became the leader of the administra- tive party. He opposed the Federal system of internal improvements, the rechartering of the United States Bank and the protective tariff law. Indeed, he was in such perfect accord with Jackson and carried out his plans so faithfully that he was accused of being servilely dependent upon the President. While such a charge was entirely without foundation, it is not improbable that his relations with Gen. Jackson had much influ- ence upon his career. He continued in Congress for fourteen consecu- tive years, during the last four years of which he filled the speaker's chair. He withdrew March 4, 1839, and soon after began a vigorous campaign for the office of governor. He was elected, but before he had completed his first term the great Whig victory was gained, and at the next two gubernatorial elections he was defeated. In 1844 the annexa- tion of Texas was the most important question before the public, and Mr. Polk's position, as an advocate of the measure, had much to do with his nomination for the presidency in that year. After a campaign, based mainly upon that question, he was chosen over Henry Clay by a majority of sixty-five electoral votes. Before his inauguration the great ques- tion of annexation had been settled, but the difficulty with Mexico was thereby begun, and the greater part of his administration was occupied in considering questions connected with the war with that country. Other important measures of his term of office were the admission of Iowa and Wisconsin into the Union, the passage of the low tariff law of 1846, the establishment of the department of the interior, and the settlement of the northwestern boundary question. Having retired from the presidency in March, 1849, he returned to Nashville, where he had previously purchased the property since known as Polk Place. There his death occurred June 15, 1849.
Mr. Polk was not a man of great brilliancy of intellect, and possessed little imagination, yet he was lively and sociable in his disposition, and had the rare power of communicating his own enthusiasm to those with
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HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
whom he came in contact. He was well versed in human nature, and possessed a memory of remarkable retentiveness; while he did not pos- sess the force of character of Jackson, the rugged native ability of Andrew Johnson, nor the far-seeing statesmanship of John Bell, he was distinguished for shrewdness, quickness of perception, firmness of pur- pose and untiring energy.
In his selection of a companion for life he was peculiarly fortunate. In January, 1824, he married Miss Sarah Childress, a daughter of Capt. Joel Childress, of Rutherford County, Tenn. She was only fifteen years of age at that time, a lady of rare beauty and culture. The accompanied her husband to Washington when he entered Congress in 1825, and was with him, with the exception of one winter, during his entire eighteen years' residence in that city. Since the death of Mr. Polk she has resided at Polk Place, but has seldom appeared in society.
William Gannaway Brownlow was the eldest son of Joseph A. Brown-' low, who was born and raised in Rockbridge County, Va., and died in Sullivan County, Tenn., in 1816. The father was a man of good sense and sterling integrity, and served in a Tennessee company during the war of 1812. Two of his brothers were at the battle of the Horseshoe, and two others died in the naval service. His wife was Catharine Gunnaway, also a native of Virginia, who was left at her husband's death with five helpless children. She survived him, however, less than three months.
William was born in Wythe County, Va., August 29, 1805, and con- sequently was only about eleven years of age when his parents died. He was taken by his mother's relatives, by whom he was reared to hard labor until he was eighteen years old, when he removed to Abingdon, Va., and apprenticed himself to a house carpenter. He early education had been imperfect and irregular, and after completing his apprenticeship he labored until he acquired the means of again going to school. He after- ward entered the traveling ministry of the Methodist Church, and trav- eled for ten years without intermission, all the time studying and improv- ing his limited education.
In 1828 he began to take an active part in the politics of Tennessee, advocating the re-election of John Quincy Adams to the Presidency. He seemed to have a natural love for controversy, and while the vigorous sectarian discussions of that day were congenial to him, he found a bet- ter field for his peculiar talents in politics than in the ministry. In either position he was fearless in the expression of his opinion, and in 1832, while traveling a circuit in South Carolina in which John C. Cal- houn lived, he publicly denounced nullification. In 1837 he began the publication of the Whig at Jonesboro, but in a short time removed to
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Knoxville, where he soon secured for it a very large circulation. In 1843 he became a candidate for Congress against Andrew Johnson, but was defeated. In 1850 he was appointed by Fillmore one of the several commissioners to carry out the congressional provisions for the improve- ment of the navigation of the Tennessee River.
For thirty years preceding the civil war he participated in nearly every political and religious controversy which occurred, and became widely known as the "Fighting Parson." In 1856 he wrote a book en- titled "The Great Iron Wheel Examined and its False Spokes Ex- tracted," it being a vindication of the Methodist Church against the attacks of Rev. J. R. Graves, in a work called "The Great Iron Wheel." Two years later he was engaged in a debate upon the slavery question in Philadelphia with Rev. Abram Pryne, of New York, in which he de- fended the institution of slavery as it existed in the South. Although a strong pro-slavery man, his love for the Union was intense, and when the secession movement of 1860 began he severely denounced it. Even after troops began to pass through Knoxville he did not in the least abate his denunciations, and kept a Federal flag floating over his house. In October, 1861, his influence had become so dangerous to the cause of the Confederacy in East Tennessee that the publication of his paper was suspended and the office outfit destroyed. He was forced to leave the town and seek safety in the mountains. After remaining in seclusion for three or four weeks he was induced to return upon the promise of the Confederate authorities, that he should be sent within the Union line. This promise was violated, however, and on December 6, upon a warrant issued by J. C. Ramsay, Confederate States District Attorney, he was arrested and placed in jail where he remained until January 1, when he became seriously ill. On the order of his physician he was then moved to his home, where he remained under a strong guard until March 2. He was then sent with an escort to Nashville, then in posses- sion of the Federal forces. After remaining a short time he went on a tour through the Northern States, visiting several of the large cities and delivering addresses to large audiences. In April, 1862, his wife and family were also sent out of the Confederacy, and remained in the North until after the occupation of East Tennessee by Gen. Burnside in the fall of 1863. Mr. Brownlow then returned to Knoxville, and in November of that year resumed the publication of his paper. On March 4, 1865, he was elected governor, and in August, 1867, re-elected, defeating Em- erson Etheridge. Before the expiration of his second term he was elected to a seat in the United States Senate, in which body he served from March 4, 1869, to March 3, 1875. During the greater part of that time
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he was a confirmed invalid, and had to be carried to and from his seat in the Senate chamber. At the close of his term, he returned to Knoxville where after an illness of only a few hours he died April 29, 1877.
Gov. Brownlow was a unique character. He can be compared with no other man. He was made up of antagonistic qualities, yet no one was ever more consistent in his course of action. In his political animosities and religious controversies he was bitter and unrelenting. He was a master of epithets and a reservoir of sarcasm. In his choice of a word he cared nothing except that it should reach its mark, and it rarely failed. In private life to his friends and neighbors he was ever polite, kind and charitable. A friend said of him: "The heart of the fearless politician, who in excitement hurled the thunderbolts of burning invective at his antagonists, and was willing even in his zeal temporarily to lay aside his religious creed and enforce arguments with something stronger than words, could bleed in the presence of a child's grief. Nothing in his career seemed to alienate him from the affections of his neighbors and friends. They overlooked and forgave the faults springing from his impetuous nature, for they knew something of the heart which beat within."
Shadrack Forrest, the great-grandfather of Gen. Forrest, was of English extraction, and moved from West Virginia, about 1730, to Orange County, N. C. Nathan Forrest, grandfather of N. B. Forrest, left North Carolina about 1806, and settled with his large family for a time in Sumner County, but soon after moved to Bedford County. Nathan Forrest married a Miss Baugh, a lady of Irish descent. The eldest son of this marriage was William Forrest, the father of the subject of this sketch. William Forrest married Mariam Beck in 1800. Mr. and Mrs. Forrest were the parents of seven sons and three daughters. The young- est son, J. Forrest, was born after the death of the father. In 1835 William Forrest moved with his family to near Salem, Tippah County, in the northern part of Mississippi. This country had been recently opened to immigrants by a treaty with the Chickasaw Indians. Here William Forrest died in 1837, and left N. B. the care of his widowed mother and her large family of little children. By that diligence and energy that characterized his whole life he soon succeeded in placing the family above want. His opportunities for an education were very limited, barely cov- ering the rudiments of the elementary branches. In 1840 he lost two of his brothers and his sisters of disease, and came near dying himself. In 1841 he joined Capt. Wallace Wilson's company to go to Texas to assist in the cause of freedom there. The expedition was badly managed, and the majority of the men returned from New Orleans. A few of the num-
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