Sketches of prominent Tennesseans. Containing biographies and records of many of the families who have attained prominence in Tennessee, Part 110

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

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Bartlett is a gifted and accomplished lady, distinguished for her strong character and good sense, and was edu- cated in the institution her father taught, and at Co- lumbia, South Carolina. She received her superb mu- sical education in Georgia, New York, London and Dublin. She is a magnificent pianiste, probably with- out an equal in the South, certainly with few supe- riors. By his marriage with Miss Alden, Dr. Bartlett has two children: Mason Alden Bartlett, born Janu ary 20, 1873; William Thaw Bartlett, born September 20, 1876.

Dr. Bartlett's remote ancestor, Peter Bartlett, an offi- cer in the British army, died near London. His sons, Robert and William Bartlett, came over to Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1823. Robert Bartlett, the ancestor of Dr. Bartlett, was a prominent man and large prop- erty owner in Plymouth, where he died. Dr. Bartlett's grandfather, Sylvanus Bartlett, was a soldier in the Revolutionary war. The father, Isaiah Bartlett, was born in Plympton, Massachusetts, June 12, 1793, went to Connecticut, where he married, at Salisbury; was a wagon and carriage maker and farmer. He died July 17, 1867. He was a deacon of the church, of general reading, and some local prominence.

Dr. Bartlett's mother, Miriam Mason, was daughter of Peter Mason, of Salisbury, Connecticut, where she was born, July 8, 1795. She died September 6, 1879, in Ohio. Her father was a large property owner, and a soldier in the Revolution. Her mother was a Miss Farnham, of' a Vermont family.

One of the Bartletts was a signer'of the declaration of independence. Samuel Bartlett, president of Dart- mouth College, is a descendant of William Bartlett, who came over with Dr. Bartlett's ancestor in 1623. The family is spread over New England and the West, and numbers among its members many professional men, lawyers, clergymen and educators.

Dr. Bartlett was brought up on a farm, worked hard, lived poor while a student, and by his own manual labor and teaching, with the little assistance before alluded to, he got his education. As a teacher, he has his own way, works in his own harness, has always been pro- fessionally successful, and is intellectually, physically, religiously, and in business habits, a representative New England man; scholarly, industrious, benevolent, and devoted to the elevation and advancement of the human race. It would be well for Tennessee if she could adopt many more such men as he.

REV. THOMAS W. HUMES, S. T. D.

KNOXVILLE.

R EV. THOMAS W. HUMES, S.T.D., of Knox- ville, is fairly a representative Tennesssean. Hle was born in that city, April 22, 1815 , and has lived there all of his life. His grandfather, Humes, was an Irish- man. His father, Thomas Humes, was also born in Ar- magh, Ireland, enme when a boy to Pennsylvania, to his brother, Samuel, at Lancaster, whose descendants after- ward intermarried with the family of Gov. Porter, of Pennsylvania. Very soon thereafter, Thomas Humes came to Tennessee trading. He merchandised at Mor- ristown several years, moved to Knowville about 1795, where he lived and died a merchant, in September, 1816, at the age of forty-eight. He was an older in the Presbyterian church, and a man universally loved and trusted for his strict probity and kindly, benevolent disposition. He was one of the first trustees of Hamp- den-Sidney Academy, of Knoxville, appointed by the Legislature of Tennessee, in 1806. For that day he accumulated a respectable fortune by diligence in busi- ness.

Dr. Humes' mother was a woman of remarkable char- acter. Her maiden name was Margaret Russell, daugh- ter of John Russell, of Jefferson county, Tennessee. Her brother, Col. Gilbert Russell, of Mobile, distin guished himself in the war of 1812 ; was well known in

Washington circles, and left numerous children. Her brother, Andrew Russell, of Abingdon, Virginia, was widely known and highly esteemed in that State. His only child, Elizabeth. married Col. John G. Meem, of Lynchburg. Virginia. Another of her brothers, John Russell, was desperately wounded on the frontier of Canada, in the war of 1812, in the battles of Bridge- water and Chippewa.

Dr. Humes' maternal aunt, Sarah, married Mr. Hugh Martin, a merchant, of Dandridge. Tennessee. Dr. Hines' maternal aunt. Rebecca married James Craig. a farmer, near Knoxville, an elder in the Presbyterian church, of whom the Hon. Pleasant Miller (son-in- law of old Gov. Blount, territorial governor of Ten- essee), said : "James Craig is so honest a man I am willing to swear by him."

Dr. Humes' mother died at Knoxville, in 1854, in her seventy-seventh year, the mother of thirteen chil- dren. She was married three times, first to James Cowan, by whom she had four children, Margaret (wife of John C. Greenway, Abingdon, Virginia), Jane (mar- ried David Campbell), Mary ( who died young) and James Hervey. She next married Thomas Humes, by whom she had eight children: John N., of Abingdon, Vir- ginia, (father of Gen. W. Y: C. Humes, late of Mem-

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phis), Mary (died the widow of Hon. John White, of Kentucky, formerly speaker of the United States house of representatives), Elizabeth (married Hugh A. M. White, nephew of Hugh Lawson White), Thomas Wil- liam (subject of this sketch), Andrew Russell (who married the only daughter of John MeChce, was a noted Whig politician, but died at the age of thirty years. ) Three other children, Thomas Scott, Sarah and Leah, died in their immaturity. By her last husband, Col. Francis A. Ramsey, a gentleman prominent in public affairs in the early history of Tennessee, she had one child, Dr. Francis A. Ramsey, widely known to the medical profession of Tennessee, notably as med- ical director of the Confederate army in East Tennessee during the war.

Dr. Humes' mother was a woman of old-fashioned scriptural piety, of great native vigor of mind, strength of will, and of capacity for affairs.

Dr. Humes graduated in his sixteenth year, at East Tennessee College, at Knoxville, under Rev. Charles Coffin, in 1830. His mother having intended that he should be a minister of the gospel, he commenced the study of theology under the direction of Rev. Stephen Foster, of Knoxville, a professor in the college, and became a candidate for orders in the Presbyterian church, in 1833. He afterward went to the Princeton Theological Seminary, where he studied one term. He withdrew his application for orders in the Presbyterian church because he was not able to make the subserip- tion required of him, adopting the Westminister Con- fession of Faith as containing the system of doctrine taught in the word of God. He then gave his attention to mercantile pursuits.

In 1839, he became editor of the Knoxville Times, and afterward of the Knoxville Register, and was an active participant in the exciting canvass of 1810. After the successful canvass for Harrison and Tyler, his Whig friends nominated him in convention as a repre- sentative to the Legislature, but through their over- confidence of his success and consequent inactivity, he was defeated by a few votes.

This canvass satisfied Dr. Humes' political desires, and he turned his attention again to his relinquished purpose to become a Christian minister, but meeting with the same obstacle which he before encountered to his ordination as a Presbyterian minister, he was driven to sea, at a loss where to find a harbor. After various efforts to that end, he finally applied for orders to the Rt. Rev. James II. Otey, bishop of the Protestant Episcopal church in Tennessee, and was ordained by him a deacon of that church, at Columbia, Tennessee, on the 3d of March, 1815, and in the following August he was ordained a presbyter, by the same bishop, at Knox- ville. A year before he had become a lay reader of the Protestant Episcopal church, at Knoxville, and in Oc- tober, 1816, became the rector of St. John's church, Knoxville, and continued in that rectorship until 1861,

when, because of his sentiments in behalf of the Union of the States, and his unwillingness to offer prayers for the success of the Confederate government and arms, he was compelled to resign. The church, however, re- quested him to serve them until another minister could be had, which he accordingly did, till he met with the accident of having his leg broken by his horse running away with him, which forced him into inactivity. He remained without ministerial charge for two years, un- til the U'uited States army, under Gen. Burnside, occu- pied Knoxville, in September, 1863. At his special request Dr. Humes resumed ministration in the church, there- being no other minister at hand. The congrega- tion immediately recalled him to the rectorship, and he continued in that service until the spring of 1869.

In the summer of 1865, he was unanimously elected president of the then East Tennessee University, now University of Tennessee, accepted the office reluctantly, but by urgent persuasion. The grounds and buildings of the institution were almost in a ruined condition, hav- ing been occupied during the war by both armies. The United States general in command put Dr. Humes in possession of them, and he set about the work of rein- stating the university. With the help of F. D. Allen, now of Harvard University, and John K. Payne, now of' Knoxville, a school was begun with erude materials, and in 1871, the first class, numbering four, was gradu- ated. With the assistance of many and warm friends, the school became a success. In 1869, the Legislature of Tennessee was induced, chiefly by Mr. Edward J. Sanford, agent of the trustees, to appropriate the na- tional fund for a college in Tennessee, under the con- gressional law of July, 1862, to East Tennessee Univer- sity. Dr. Humes continued in the presidency of the institution until the summer of 1883, when he resigned, and the editor finds him in retirement.

His religion is of a catholic nature, he believing it more important to be a Christian than a Baptist, a Methodist, a Presbyterian; or anything else. He ab- jures all novel doctrines and usages, and holds that the world is to be regenerated and renewed by the preaching of the simple gospel of the Son of God, as it has been received and held by His universal church from the days of the Apostles, and by obeying His command- ments.

In politics he is a Republican, originally a Whig, and has never cast a Democratic vote. When scarcely of age he was made a director in the Great Cincinnati and Charleston railroad company, of which Gen, Robert Y. Hayne was president. He is a Son of Temperance, and is president of the Knoxville Bible Society. At the semi-centennial anniversary of the settlement of Knox- ville, held in February, 1812, he delivered the address ; also at the dedication of the city cemetery ; at the ded- ication of the State Deaf and Dumb Asylum, at Knox- ville ; addresses and lectures before various societies, temperance and literary. Some of these have been pub-

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lished in pamphlet form. His life has been one of al- most constant activity.

Dr. Humes married, first, at Knoxville, December 4, 1831, Cornelia Williams, daughter of Etheldred Wil- liams and Mary (nce Copeland), of' Rocky Springs, Grainger county, Tennessee. His first wife died in 1817, at the age of thirty years, leaving him three children, of whom one, Andrew Russell Humes, survives.

Dr. Humes next married, in Knoxville, April 12, 1819, Anna B. Williams, daughter of William Wil- liams, of New Hartford, Connecticut, a lawyer and member of the Connecticut Legislature, sister of Rev. Robert G. Williams, then principal of Knoxville Fe- male Seminary. She died May 30, 1879. By this mar- riage, Dr. Ilumes had five children, three of whom died in infancy. Two daughters survive.

Dr. Humes' usefulness in life has come from swiftness of purpose, trust in God's grace, and loving obedience to His Son, and doing good to his fellow men, without regard to their condition or their relations to himself personally, and by sustained earnestness or enthusiasm. He is largely indebted to his mother for her training of

him, and the helpfulness of his wives, both of whom were women of character, and help-meets in the true sense of the word. He has succeeded by sturdy reso- lution to reject the influence of evil or doubtful direc- tions of personal associates, and to stand aloof from such influences and associations, even if he had to stand alone. He is one of the few men who have been able, when necessary, to say " No," without which his biog- raphy might have read very differently. Without being a recluse, he has found companions in books, and pleas- ure in scientific research. He has always been a public- spirited man.

In 1861, he was president of the East Tennessee so- ciety for the relief of suffering people. In this posi- tion he was associated with Judge John Baxter, Judge T. A. R. Nelson, Hon. O. P. Temple, William Heiskell, esq., Judge S. R. Rodgers, and others, This society distributed one hundred and fifty thousand dollars among sufferers from the war.

Hle had a small patrimony to start life on, but has not had money making for his object ; yet lives respectably and is in independent circumstances,

HON. JOHN F. HOUSE.

CLAIRSVILLE.

A VOLUME purporting to be composed of bio- graphical sketches of prominent citizens of Tennessee, would be judged incomplete and unfaithful to its task, should it omit to give extended space to the career and character of the distinguished gentleman whose name appears as the title to this article. Though yet at a period of life happily described by Victor Hugo as " the youth of old age," he has been closely identified with the history of public affairs in his native State for the full term of a generation, and in various responsi- ble and exalted trusts has achieved a reputation, within and without her borders, ranking him among the worthiest of her sons whose fame she is proud to cherish. Not unambitious, for generous aspiration is an instinct with those endowed with uncommon talents, it may be truly said of him, that the popular judgment early discerned his intellectual endowments and sterl- ing character, and without effort on his part, dedicated them to the public service. In every sphere in which they have been called into action, he has amply re- deemed the auspicious promise of youth, and as the theater for the display of his powers enlarged, his ap- preciative friends have been more assured of the accu- racy of their estimate. Retiring in his nature and defer- ential to others, and always indisposed to jostle chariot wheels in the race for promotion, he is, without ques tion, accorded a first place-the peer of any man in the

State -- and adjudged worthy of the first honors her peo- ple can bestow.

The territory of Tennessee was ceded to the Federal government by North Carolina, and many of its early settlers were immigrants from that State, and among them were the ancestors of John Ford House. His father, a lad at the time, grew to manhood in William- son county, Tennessee, and married Margaret S. War- ren, a descendant of a prominent family of Virginia- the Dabneys-whose religious faith was Presbyterian, having furnished one or more noted ministers to that church. Mrs. House survives to an octogenarian age, in the immediate neighborhood where her life has been passed, and to the home of this venerable matron on whom, by the death of his father, when he was quite young, the rearing of the subject of this sketch was devolved, her devoted son takes time from his busy life to make frequent dutiful pilgrimages of esteem and affection. At the Williamson county homestead he was born, January 9, 1827. The basis of his educa- tion was acquired under the tuition of Edwin Paschall, a man of genuine culture and superior talents, with remarkable aptitude for his profession. He had many pupils who became successful men in various pursuits. He lived to witness such results, and spoke of them with pride, and not least of the success of this pupil, whose distinction entitles him to mention in this work.

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Leaving the academy of Paschall, young House en- tered Transylvania University, near Lexington, Ken- tucky, but did not complete its curriculum for gradua- tion, his preparatory education terminating at the close of the junior year.

The straitened circumstances which compelled him to leave his college course unfinished, required him also, before the attainment of his majority, to prepare him- self for a calling for support, and with this view, be entered the law office of Campbell & MeEwen, of Franklin, Tennessee. Here, for a few months, necessa- rily without much helpful instruction, he plodded his weary way through the intricate pages of Blackstone and Kent, at times quite discouraged. The Lebanon law school, afterward so famous a seat of legal learning, was, at that time, newly opened, and he betook himself thither, and soon, under the systematic and crudite teaching of Profs. Caruthers and Green, he was stimu- lated with increased zest in his chosen profession, and became a devoted and favorite student, especially of the former. The necessity for immediate exertion for a livelihood, forced him to leave that institution before its entire course of study was completed, but owing to his great proficiency, the faculty awarded him the full honors of a finished course, and conferred its diploma upon him in 1850. An oration, pronounced as a repre- sentative of one of the literary societies of that school, was regarded as an extraordinary effort, and laid the foundation of the reputation which has since been so fully sustained at the forum, on the hustings, and in congress. To have endured the critical acumen of Judges Caruthers and Green, by whom it was highly praised, it must have rated far above the pyrotechnic rhetoric customary with undergraduates. Indeed, it became a tradition of the school.

Immediately after leaving the law school, he opened a law office in Franklin, Tennessee, but remained only a few months. In January, 1851, he married Julia F. Beech, a native of the same county with himself -- a daughter of Mr. L. B. Beech, a prosperous farmer of that region, whose wife was a Miss Crenshaw, from Vir- ginia. Mrs. House was educated at the Nashville Female Academy, in the palmy days of that renowned school. Their union has been blessed with one child only, which died in infancy. At the time of his mar riage, he was newly settled at Clarksville, Tennessee, in the practice of law, and that has since been his home. Clarksville had been long distinguished for the high order of talents and learning possessed by its members of the legal profession, and the young barrister, fresh from his studies, was at once thrown into competition with formidable veterans. An almost immediate sue cess proved the temper of his ability and equipment, and the continued renown of the Clarksville bar is, in a great degree, due to the brilliant addition it then ac- quired in his person.

By instinct and conviction a Whig, as the country

was then politically divided, it was in the following year, memorable for the last national struggle of that party in an organized form, that Mr. House entered the field of political digladiation, as sub-elector for the county of Montgomery, in behalf of the candidacy of Gen. Scott. In the next year- - 1853 -- he was sent as the rep- resentative of that county in the General Assembly, the first which sat in the present capitol. His talents at- tracted attention in that body, containing, as it did, more than a usual number of men of ability. A speech in opposition to a measure aiming to institute a radical scheme of law reform, was a conspicuous effort, and illustrated the sound conservation he has always dis- played. The term reform was, in that instance, perhaps, as it nearly always is, in matters of public concern, an alluring title to some charlatanical project which usu- ally changes things for the worse. The speech elicited commendation from eminent lawyers of the State. Dur- ing the session, a brochure came from his pen in the form of a report from the committee on Buncombe, which was specially appointed on his motion to consider a proposition to alter the constitution by legislative en- netment, reducing the per diem of members of the Gen- eral Assembly, Retrenchment -- the twin besetting leg- islative folly with reform -- and its customary motive, was mercilessly caricatured in that humorous paper, which was published at the time. It finely exhibited the power of ridicule which Mr. House frequently uses when the occasion is pertinent.

In a few years, Mr. House had attained a command- ing position in his profession, both as counselor and advocate, and was retained in a large number of the important causes arising in the extensive circuit of which Clarksville is the center. . In every political contest, however, his eloquent voice was heard, and notably in that of 1856, when the conservatism of the South, under the lead of Fillmore, endeavored to stem the tide of the seetionally aggressive forces which had been set in motion by the repeal of the Missouri com- promise two years before. Some of his deliverances of that -year were equal to any of his best efforts subse- quently, and achieved for him wide fame as a powerful debater. In 1860, he reluctantly left his lucrative busi- ness at the call of his party, but the duty was one he would not avoid, and he became the district electoral candidate for Bell and Everett in that decisive contest in which the banner of "the Union, the constitution, and the enforcement of the laws" went down, not to rise again until it emerged, rent and disfigured, from the blood and fire of civil war. In that distempered hour, the utterances of no man in the State were more per- suasively eloquent and forcible in the attempt to allay the passions which precipitated that result.

Early in 1861, under the authority of the Legislature, an election was held for delegates to a sovereignty con- vention to consider the impending crisis in public affairs, and to deliberate on the attitude of the State

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thereto, and also an election submitting the question of the assembling of such a body. Mr. House was chosen as a delegate, but the popular majority was largely against its assembling, and the proceeding was nuga- tory. Had the convention been organized, it may well be conjectured that, in some aspects at least, the rela- tionship of Tennessee to subsequent events might have been different, and the fortunes of prominent actors in that era have had another history. A very decided majority of the delegates-elect were devoted to the maintenance of the Union, and representing the latest expression of the popular will, might have organized a preponderating sentiment adverse to an alliance with the Confederate cause, even against the fierce tempest of feeling which swept the State a few months later. Whatever might have happened in such a conjuncture is, however, foreign to this sketch. Mr. House main- tained his attachment to the cause of peace, fraternity and union, and would have upheld the Crittenden com- promise, or any satisfactory and practicable adjustment, and did not cease to labor and to hope in that behalf, until all efforts and hopes were silenced amid the thun- der of guns at Sumter, and the tramp of hosts march- ing South. Thereupon, he, as did many another true patriot, saw his line of duty in the quification of the people of the State in resistance to coercive measures, and in the rapid progress of events, firmly aligned him- self with the southern cause.

When, after the popular vote for "separation," the State formally acceded to the Confederate government, Mr. House was elected a member of the provisional congress, and served in that body until February, 1862, having declined to be a candidate for the permanent congress which superseded the former. He at once sought service in the field, and was assigned to the staff of Gen. George Maney, and participated in the battles of Murfreesborough, Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge and the frequent fierce engagements between the armies of Gens. Johnston and Sherman beyond Dalton, until New Hope Church was reached, in the spring of 1864. At that point he was ordered by the Richmond war office, to report for duty as judge advocate, with the rank of captain of cavalry, of the military court sitting in North Alabama, and was engaged in that service until the termination of hostilities, when he was pa- roled, at Columbus, Mississippi, in June, 1865. From that point he returned to his home, which, for more than three years, had been within the lines of Fed- eral occupation. Like most, if not all others, who cast. their fortunes on the hazard of the losing die in that desperate conflict, he was reduced to the necessity of rebuilding entirely his ruined estate, and to this he set about with characteristic energy, in the practice of the law. As soon as quiet was restored and business re- sumed, litigation became active, and he was thencefor- ward constantly engaged in the various courts.

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Sketches of prominent Tennesseans. Containing biographies and records of many of the families who have attained prominence in Tennessee, Part 110

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