Sketches of prominent Tennesseans. Containing biographies and records of many of the families who have attained prominence in Tennessee, Part 105

Author: Speer, William S
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Nashville, A. B. Tavel
Number of Pages: 1278

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That war over he returned home, obtained license to practice law from Chancellor Bramlett and Judge Stewart, and at once began practice in partnership with John W. Goode. He practiced steadily until the can- vass of 1811, when, being appointed county elector on the Democratic ticket, he stumped Giles county for Polk and Dallas.

In 1815, he was nominated and elected to the Tennessee house of representatives, and served in that body as act- ing chairman of the committee on the penitentiary and as a member of the judiciary committee. In 1817, he was elected State senator for the counties of Giles and Maury. In 1861, he was elected to the Confederate con- gress and served in that body with Messrs. Atkins, Ca- ruthers, Currin, De Witt, and House -- all of whose sketches appear elsewhere in this volume. He served till after the fall of Fort Donelson. Having three sons

(Calvin, Charles and Thomas) in the Confederate army, two of whom had been taken prisoners at the battle of Fort Donelson, he declined a re-election to Congress, preferring to be with the army. After the fall of Don- elson he returned home and remained until the Federal troops invaded Pulaski, took him prisoner and sent him to Nashville to Military Gov. Andrew Johnson, who paroled him on condition that he would not communi- cate with the Confederate Congress or the Confederate commanders while Pulaski was surrounded by the Federal forces. After their armies had been with- drawn, however, he went south, and, although not a soldier, remained with the army till the close of the war.

After the war he resumed his law practice at Pulaski, which he has steadily followed ever since. He has in the meanwhile held several judiciary appointments: First, as judge of the criminal court, composed of the counties of Giles, Maury, Williamson and Marshall, a position which he filled ten months in 1872-3; next, as judge of the court of commission, with Judges Hicker- son and Garner, which he held over twelve months.

He was then, by special appointment of Gov. Marks, made a judge of the Supreme court, was re-appointed by Gov. Hawkins, and again by Gov. Bate. While on the Supreme bench the celebrated case, involving mill- ions of dollars, called " the free territory case," the State of Tennessee er rel. James L. Gaines, es. George K. Whitworth, trustee, in which the State, county of Davidson, and city of Nashville claimed the right to tas the real estate granted by the State of North Caro- lina to the University of Nashville, and exempt from taxation for ninety-nine years, came before that tribu- nal. Judge Jones delivered the opinion of the court that the property was exempt. (See 8 Lea, p. 594). Under that decision the property rapidly improved and gave Nashville a new start in growth and prosperity.

From his earliest manhood Judge Jones has been a Democrat, true and tried. In all the local campaigns of his county, and district his voice was heard resound- ing from the hustings, rallying the hosts of Democracy in support of the deathless principles of the party of the people. In 1856, he was a delegate to the national Democratic convention at Cincinnati that nominated Buchanan. In 1860, he was a delegate to the national

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convention at Charleston, which adjourned to Baltimore and nominated Breckinridge, and in the Charleston convention he was a member of the committees on ere- dentials and on permanent organization. In 1880, he was a delegate to the national Democratic convention at Cincinnati, which nominated fien. Hancock, and he has been a delegate to every State convention held since the war.

In 1870, he was a delegate from Giles county to the State constitutional convention, of which his colleague, Gov. John C. Brown, was president. Judge Jones served on the judiciary committee and advocated the appoint- ment by the governor of the judges of the Supreme court and the chancellors, with a view of keeping the judiciary out of politics, but this the convention overruled. He also favored the insertion of a clause in the constitu- tion forbidding the charge of more than six per cent. interest per annum for money under any circumstances. This also was defeated.

Judge Jones has been a railroad director from 1855 to the present time; was a director in the old Planters Bank eighteen year's; director of the National Bank of Pulaski ten or twelve years, and a director of the Co- lumbia, Pulaski and Elkton turnpike company from 1842 to 1855. He has been repeatedly mayor of Pulaski; president of the board of trustees of Giles College from its incorporation till the building was destroyed, and has been for twenty years a vestryman of the Protestant Episcopal church at Pulaski, of which church he is a member.

In 1843, he became a Mason, since which time he has taken all the degrees up to and including that of Knight Templar. The splendid engraving of him accompany- ing this sketch represents him in his Knight Templar uniform.

Judge Jones first married, in Williamson county, Tennessee, December 25, 1838; Miss Marietta Perkins, a grand- daughter of Col. Nicholas Tate Perkins, and daughter of Dr. Charles Perkins. She was a niece of John Prior Perkins and Constantine Perkins, members of a large family in Williamson county. Her mother, nee Harriet Field, was the daughter of Judge Hume Field, of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, formerly judge of the superior court in Virginia. She was a cousin of C'ol Hume R. Field, of Confederate war fame, as colonel of the first Tennessee regiment.

By this marriage, Judge Jones had nine children : (1). Calvin Jones, born . November 1, 1839; graduated from Nashville University ; was adjutant of the Thirty- second regiment, Tennessee volunteers Col. Cook . was captured at Fort Donelson ; was taken sick at Fort Warren, but was nursed to health by the Federal Maj. Dimmick and his daughters ; returned home, remained a while and rejoined his regiment. but his health being too feeble for active service, after the battle of Chicka manga, in which he took part, he was assigned to post duty at Macon, Georgia. After the war he practiced

law at Pulaski, but quit law for farm life. He died in 1872. (2). Charles P. Jones, born November 20, 1842; graduated at the Nashville University ; served in the army from 1862 to the surrender, most of the time on the staff of Gen. Bushrod R. Johnson with the rank of lieutenant and captain. He was captured at Petersburg and held prisoner till the war closed. He is now law partner with his father, He married Miss Cora Reid, daughter of Rev. Carson P. Reid, a minister of the Cumberland Presbyterian church, and has one child, Cora. (3). Thomas W. Jones, born May 22, 1815; en- tered the army at sisteen in the Third Tennessee regi- ment, under Col. John C. Brown ; served till the sur- render; is now in Colorado in the cattle business, after having practiced law at Pulaski several years. (+). Hume Field Jones, born January 26, 1848; graduated from Giles College; now practicing law at Lewisburg, Tennessee. (5). Harriet Jones, born January 8, 1852; graduated from the Columbia Female Institute; mar- ried, in 1871, Hon. 7. W. Ewing, formerly State senator from Giles, Wayne and Lawrence counties; State as- sessor of railways ; visitor to the University of Tennes- see, and now chairman of board of education of Pulaski. They have one child, Marietta. (6). Edward S. Jones, born December 29, 1853; graduated at Norwalk, Con- necticut ; now a professional teacher. He married Miss Anna Bright, daughter of Hon. John M. Bright. They have one child, Mary. (See Judge Bright's sketch elsewhere in this volume). (7). Lucy Anne Jones, born December 25, 1855; graduated at Columbia Female Institute; now wife of James Polk Abernathy, a lawyer at Pulaski, and has two children, Robert Andrew and Thomas Marietta. (8). Lee Walthal Jones, born March, 1857 ; now connected with the Nashville and Florence railroad. (9). Nicholas Tate Jones, born March 8, 1863; graduated at the Knoxville University, and now a civil engineer on the Nashville and Florence railroad.

The first Mrs. Jones died July 18, 1872. She was a most exemplary Christian woman, a member of the Episcopal church. She was a lady of great firmness and strength of character, of rare intellectual endow- ments, highly cultured and refined. She shone as a bright light in society and around the fireside. During the war she remained at home and took care of her family, and managed affairs with excellent skill and judgment.

Judge Jones' second marriage occurred at Browns- ville, Tennessee, May 9, 1883, to Mrs. Anne G. Wood, an own cousin of his first wife, daughter of Nicholas T. Perkins. Her mother was Ley P. Turner, daughter of Simon P. Turner, of Raleigh, North Carolina. Mrs. Jones is a graduate of the old Nashville Female Acade- my. By her first husband, Mr. James Proudfit Wood, a merchant and railroad president, she has one child, Mary, who married J. W. E. Moore, a prominent lawyer of Brownsville, and has three children, Annebel, May and Wood. Mrs. Jones is a member of the Episcopal

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church, and is a great favorite in society, remarkably kind, gentle and affectionate in her nature, and beloved by the entire community.

Judge Jones' grandfather, Wilson Jones, was born in Brunswick county, Virginia, and was an American of- ficer in the Revolutionary war. The Judge's father, also named Wilson Jones, was likewise a native of Brunswick county, Virginia. He moved to North Carolina, where he married Miss Rebecca MeKissick, the Judge's mother, who died in 1826. She was the daughter of Thomas MeKissick, who had been a patriot soldier in the Revolution, and was wounded twice. One of his wounds was received at the battle of Brandywine, the ball passing through his chest, entering, under the left shoulder and coming out at the right. The old gentleman received a pension until his death, in 1826. The family meanwhile bad immigrated to Tennessee, and after the death of his father and mother, Judge Jones lived with his maternal grandparents. The Judge's grandmother, nee Lucy Hudson, was of an English family. She was a member of the Methodist church, and was very strict in raising her grandson. After the death of the grandparents he went to live with his oldest sister, Mrs. Lucy Clack, wife of Spencer Clack, an early settler in Giles county, son of John (lack, author of what is known as the " preference right bill " in the Tennessee Legislature. He lived with this family until he went off to school, as before stated. Judge Jones had three sisters, Lucy, who mar- ried Spencer Clack; Permelia, who married John

Walthal, and Susan, who married Gray H. Edwards. He has one brother, Hon. Calvin Jones, now of Som- erville, Tennessee, who was educated at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and was chancellor in West Tennessee for eight years. He married a Miss Williamson, of North Carolina.

Before the war Judge Jones' ambition was to be suc- cessful as a lawyer, and he was successful, accumulating a very handsome fortune, consisting of eighty odd negroes and nearly one thousand acres of splendid farming land. He never had any great fondness for poli- ties, and when nominated for office, it was for. positions wholly unsought and only accepted as a matter of duty. Hle was, however, strong and decided in his political views, and his friends pressed him forward, notably Thomas Martin, who was one of his stanchest and truest friends. The key to his success is his rule to do honest labor and to charge moderate and reasonable fees for it, hence his farge and lucrative practice. Moreover, he has made it a rule never to engage in speculation, but to invest in productive property. He never charged over six per cent. interest for the use of his money, and was never extravagant. He has lost by security debts fifteen thousand dollars since the war. He is noted for his charity to the poor and his liberality toward all men. The hospitality of the Jones family mansion re- minds one of the old times, when men kept open house for the stranger as well as their friends, for under that roof-tree there is an old-fashioned, ante bellum welcome for all.

GEN. MARCUS J. WRIGHT.

MEMPHIS.

T' HE scion of a sturdy, sterling, and intellectual ancestry, this gentleman has been briefly described as a man " gifted with sound judgment, great executive ability, and a correct literary taste:"

Marcus J. Wright was born June 1, 1831, in Me Nairy county, Tennessee. He was educated at the common schools and at the academy in his native county, and became a fine classical scholar, with a de- cided penchant for a literary life. He was a hard stu- dent, and from his early boyhood manifested the literary bent of his mind. Before the late war he was an able and valued contributor to southern literature, and his essays, sketches, etc., were highly prized in the South.

When he reached his majority he went to Memphis to live, engaged as clerk in a commission house, and afterward spent some time at New Orleans. Return- ing to Memphis, he studied law, was admitted to the bar, and commenced practice with Col. Leroy Pope. Soon afterward, however, he was elected, as an oldl line

Whig, clerk of the common law and criminal court of Memphis, which position he held up to the war.

When the war came, he espoused the cause of the South, was elected lieutenant-colonel of the One Hundred and Fifty-fourth (senior) Tennessee regiment of infantry, April 4, 1861, and went with that regiment into the Confederate service. His promotion was rapid and brill- iant for so young a man. On April 29, 1861, he com- manded a battalion of the One Hundred and Fifty- fourth regiment and the Steuben artillery at Randolph, Tennessee, where he built Fort Wright, named by the command in his honor. He commanded his regiment in the battle of Belmont. November 7, 1861; and was mili- tary governor of Columbus, Kentucky, from February 3, 1862, to March 8, 1862. He also commanded . lis regiment at the battle of Shiloh. From June 10 to September 1, 1862, he was a lieutenant colonel and as- sistant adjutant-general on the staff of Maj. Gen. B. F. Cheatham, and as such served with gallantry and dis-

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tinction at the battle of Perryville, He was commis- sioned brigadier-general December 13, 1862. He was assigned to the command of Hanson's Kentucky brigade, January 10, 1863, which he relinquished February 1, 1863, to assume command of Donelson's Tennessee brigade, Cheatham's division, to which he was perma- nently assigned. His brigade was composed of the Eighth, Sixteenth, Twenty-eighth, Thirty -eighth, Fifty- first, and Fifty-second regiments of Tennessee infantry, Murray's Tennessee battalion of infantry, and W. W. Carnes' battery of light artillery. He led this brigade into action at Chickamauga and Missionary Ridge, and was twice wounded. He commanded the district and post of Atlanta, Georgia, when it was evacuated by the Confederate armies ; also commanded the post at Macon, Georgia. From February 3, 1865, to the end of the war, he commanded the district of North Mississippi and West Tennessee, with headquarters at Grenada, Mississippi.

After the war he returned to Memphis, and shortly after was elected sheriff of Shelby county. At the expiration of his term, he removed to Jackson, Tennes- see, and went into the newspaper business, and from Jackson to Columbia, Tennessee, where he became the editor of the Columbia Journal. Leaving Columbia, he, located in St. Louis, but was only there a short while, when, on July 1, 1878, he was appointed by the secretary of war to collect for the use of the govern- ment such records of the late war (on the Confederate side) as could be obtained. This is his present occupa- tion, and the fidelity, zeal, and intelligence he has brought to bear upon his work has not only enriched the war annals of the nation, but added many invalu- able volumes to the archives of the government which otherwise might never have been secured.

It is said in Washington, where Gen. Wriglit now resides, that he is the best known man all over the United States now resident at Washington. His home is the Mecca, not only of Tennesseans and Southerners, but of literary people from the North, and especially those seeking information in regard to the, war. His wife, formerly Miss Pauline Womack, of Alabama. en- ters fully into all of his work, and enchants his visitors by her grace as a hostess.

tion. Wright is identified with the hardy pioneer set- thers of MeNairy county, whose efforts have not only made that section one of the most prosperous of our State, but whose lives and characters are ornaments of our common country. His mother was twice married, her first husband being Herbert Harwell, by whom she had five children : Richard S. Harwell, of Purdy, Ten- nessee ; Dr. Rufus S. Harwell, of Arkansas; Littleton Harwell, deceased ; Amanda, now widow of Burrell B. Adams, of Corinth, Mississippi ; and Julia Harwell, deceased. By her second marriage, with Maj. Benjamin Wright, she had three children : Hon. John V. Wright, of Nashville, Tennessee ; Mrs. Elizabeth Crump, now

dead; and Gen. Marcus J. Wright, subject of this sketch. Gen. Wright's mother was born in Dinwiddie county, Virginia, where she lived for more than thirty years. She was sixty-six years of age at the time of her death. She was one of the Old Dominion's most intel- ligent and cultured daughters, gifted beyond measure with colloquial powers and pleasantry. She always made her visitors feel the charm of her society. She was devotedly attached to her friends, but she had to feel that the persons numbered as such were worthy, and her discrimination was so clear that she was scarcely ever deceived. It is believed that but few mothers ever had more confidence in the integrity and uprightness of their children, or higher hopes of their eminence and prosperity, and it is pleasing to know she had just cause to be proud of them. In her last sickness she expressed her readiness and preparation for death. She was a queenly woman, whose grace, beauty, and intellectual gifts would have adorned any position, and made her the pride of the circle in which she moved.

Gen. Wright's father, Benjamin Wright, was born at or near Savannah, Georgia, on April 2, 1781. By a sec- ond marriage of his mother there were three other chil- dren, a son and two daughters. The son was appointed a lieutenant in the United States army by President Madison, soon after the declaration of war by the United States against Great Britain, in June, 1812, and was attached to the Thirty-ninth regiment of infantry, commanded by Col. Williams, of Knoxville. He was very soon thereafter detailed for the recruiting service, in which he was very successful, in the country around Nashville, Gallatin, and Lebanon. About this time he was married to Miss Lewis, of Summer county, Ten- nessee, a most amiable and accomplished lady, who died soon after the close of that war. Upon the breaking out of the Creek war, in the fall of 1818, the Thirty-ninth regiment was ordered to reinforce Gen. Jackson, who had fought the Indians in several engagements, with Coffee's brigade and other Tennesseans. They were brought into active service at the battle of the Horse- shoe, nearly the whole of Jackson's army at the time be- ing from Tennessee. Lisut. Wright here distinguished himself' for gallantry, and received several promotions, reaching eventually to that of a field officer. At the battle of the Horseshoe, Lieut .- Col. Samuel P. Mout- gomery, of the Thirty-ninth regiment, led the charge on the breastworks, and was killed on the ramparts. He was only a few paces in front of Lieut. Wright, who, seeing his leader fall, cried out, "Avenge your leader," and led the charge. The charge was made in gallant style. Gen. Samuel Houston was a lieutenant in the Thirty-ninth regiment, and was wounded in the arm at this battle by a musket ball.

In 1823, Lient. Wright, who had now been made a mejor, was married to Mrs. Martha Ann Harwell, at the residence of Col. Stokely Hays, in Jackson, Tennessee. and from that time until his death resided in Purdy, Me-

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Nairy county. Maj. Wright had two children by his first F overlooks the little stream whose sunny waves were marriage, Frances Wright, who married Elvis Bracken. never brighter than his golden traits of character. of Holly Springs, now deceased, and Charles L. B. Gen. Mareu- J. Wright's half-brother, Richard Har- well, was elegant in person and in dress, and had excel- lent judgment, He followed mercantile pursuits, and was a prosperous man until the ill fortunes of war ruined his business. Rufus Harwell was a physician, and very popular. He was a remarkably handsome man, and showed by his carriage and his conduct that good and true blood coursed his veins. Wright, who was drowned at Memphis. Maj. Wright volunteered as a private soldier for the Mexican war, and contracted a disease there from which he never recov- ered. He died in Purdy, January 30, 1860. He was a man of powerful frame, upward of six feet high, straight as an Indian, and as a business man had few equals and no superiors. In his day he was, perhaps, the most popular man in MeNairy county, and his popularity with all Hon. John V. Wright, brother of Gen. Wright, and the oldest son of Benjamin and Martha A. Wright, was boru' at Purdy, June 28, 1828. He was once a candidate for the lower house of the General Assembly of Tennes- see, from Me Nairy county, but was defeated by one vote -the vote of his opponent. He served three terms in the Congress of the United States, from the (then) Sev- enth district, in which MeNairy county is situated. In 1861, he raised the thirteenth regiment of Tennessee in- fantry for the Confederate army, and commanded it as colonel at the battle of Belmont, Missouri, where he was wounded. He was soon afterward elected to the Confederate Congress, where he served until the end of the war. He resided for a number of years at Columbia, Tennessee, but is now living at Nashville. He has held the offices of judge of the circuit, criminal, and chancery courts in his judicial district, and has been several times appointed by the governor as special judge of the Supreme court of the State. He was the candidate of the State-credit Democracy for governor at the election in 1880, but, by reason of the division in the party, was defeated by Gov. Hawkins. He has a leading practice at the bar of Nashville, and has, to a large extent, the confidence and regard of the people. A full sketch of Judge Wright's life appears elsewhere in this volume. classes and all parties was due to a personal geniality that never forsook him. It has been said that little children sought his society, and played in trusting fond- ness at his feet, or "climbed his knees the envied kiss to share." Strong men leaned upon him in hours of ad- versity, and found an "anchor both sure and stead- fast." When the storm came they gathered around his commanding form for protection, as do the beasts of the field 'neath the sheltering oak, when the tempest sweeps the forest and marks its pathway with havoe and destruction. Women, too, were his most ardent admir- ers, because they knew him to be gallant, truthful, and . the soul of honor. No impure word ever soiled his lips, or impure thought ever darkened his counsels. He was a Chesterfield in manners, and belonged to that old school of gentlemen that sprung up immediately subse- quent to the Revolutionary period, and of whom it may be truly said, " We shall not look upon their like again." Their devotion to the gentler sex was, perhaps, unsur- passed. He was the embodiment of what the poet calls "social eloquence," and in his conversation there sparkled ever the blaze of wit and flash of bright in- telligence. To young men he was especially kind, and they were always his warmest friends and most ardent supporters. Indeed, he exhibited in his daily life a ready sympathy with all classes, and both his right and left hand were devoted to charitable uses. He lived beyond the period allotted by the Psalmist to frail bu- manity, and at the very threshold of octogenarian man- hood, "death touched his tired heart." A polished shaft placed there by filial hands marks the spot where he lies, and on its base, in the chiseled tracery of the sculptor's art, is written in fadeless letters the story of his life. It rises in full view of the small village, and

Elizabeth Wright, the only sister of Gen. Wright, married Dr. Charles C. Crump. She was a lady of great elegance and refinement, who, after a few happy years, passed away. After her death her husband removed to Middle Tennessee. Dr. Crump died at his residence in Spring Hill, Tennessee, August 7, 1882. Ile left three children by his first marriage: Mrs. Alexander, of Spring Hill; Mareus V. Crump, of Brownsville, Ten- nessee, and Richard O. Crump, of Milan, Tennessee, and one daughter by his last marriage, Lula Crump.

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Sketches of prominent Tennesseans. Containing biographies and records of many of the families who have attained prominence in Tennessee, Part 105

Author: Speer, William S Publication date: 1888 Publisher: Nashville, A. B. Tavel Number of Pages: 1278

Author: Speer, William S
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Nashville, A. B. Tavel
Number of Pages: 1278