Sketches of prominent Tennesseans. Containing biographies and records of many of the families who have attained prominence in Tennessee, Part 118

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

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He has, out of kindness, gone security for several friends, and has suffered heavily by it He owns val- uable lots in Washington City, a large farm in Hawkins

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PROMINENT TENNESSEANS.

county, real estate in Greene county, and an interest in a woolen factory, as before stated.

Mrs. Patterson's father, Andrew Johnson, was born at Raleigh, North Carolina, December 29, 1808; was bound as apprentice to the tailor's trade there; emi. grated in carly life, a very poor man, bringing his mother with him ; established himself in Greeneville, Tennes- see, and finally became president of the United States. Mrs. Patterson's mother, formerly Eliza MeCardell, was born at Leesburg, Tennessee, but married at Greene- ville. She left five children, all now deceased except Mrs. Patterson. The following record, copied from An- drew Johnson's family Bible, has a peculiar and most interesting historical value :

" Andrew Johnson and Eliza MeCardell were united in marriage by Mordecai Lincoln, esq., on the 17th day of May, 1827.

" Daniel Stover and Mary Johnson were married April 27, 1852.

" Andrew Johnson, born at Raleigh, North Carolina, December 29, 1808.

" Eliza MeCardell, born in Greeneville, Tennessee, October 4, 1810.

" Martha Johnson ( Mrs. Patterson), born October 25. 1828, at Greeneville.

"Charles Johnson, born February 19, 1830.

" Mary Johnson, born May 8, 1832.

' Robert Johnson, born February 22, 1834.

" Andrew Johnson, born August 5, 1852." -

Of the children of Andrew Johnson it may be said : Martha Johnson is now the wife of Judge Patterson. Charles Johnson was a physician and surgeon of the Tenth Tennessee Federal regiment, and was killed by a fall from his horse at Nashville, April 4, 1863. Mary Johnson married Col. Daniel Stover, of the Fourth Tennessee Federal infantry. He died in December, 1864, the day after the battle of Nashville, leaving three children, Lilly, wife of Thomas Maloney; Sarah, wife of Mr. Bachman, has two children, Johnson and Sam. Col. Robert Johnson, who served in the Ten- nessee Legislature, commanded the First Tennessee Federal cavalry, and was private secretary of his father while president. He died in April, 1869, unmarried. Andrew Johnson, jr., married Miss Bessie Rumbough, of Warm Springs, North Carolina, and died in 1879.

Mrs. Andrew Johnson, the mother of Mrs. Patterson, was an invalid for ten or fifteen years before her death. On that account Mrs. Patterson presided at the white- house from June, 1865, to March, 1869-her father's presidential term. The mother was a member of the Presbyterian church, modest and retiring in her habits,

universally esteemed, and regarded as a model woman by all who knew her.

In the volume entitled " Ladies of the White-house," by Mrs. Laura Carter Holloway, who, by the way, is herself a Tennessean, Mrs. Patterson is represented as "'a firm advocate of those less fortunate than herself;" "with manners free from ostentation ;" "an almost sleepless energy ;" "a slight, frail form knitted for en- durance;" " in her girlhood, never given to light amuse- ment: an earnest, silent working girl; a dutiful daugh- ter ;" "a lady of rich simplicity of taste in matters of the toilette ;" " of artless, unassuming manners ;" " like her father, knowing how to suffer and be strong ;" " true to principles; knowing how to wait ;" " devoted to her father, his counselor and friend, and from the age of fifteen, his cashier and business manager ;" "an early riser ; a model house-keeper; always a representative of the middle classes, whose interests her father made the objective point of his statesmanship;" "not discon- certed by her elevation to be, for a time, 'the first lady of the land,' she did the duties of her place with dig- nity and grace." (See the lengthy sketch of her in Laura Carter Holloway's " Ladies of the White-house," pages 606-650).

By permission of Mrs. Patterson, the editor copied the following autographic memorandum of her father, ex-President Andrew Johnson. The filial piety of the daughter had attached it to the first page of the family record in the family Bible. Its reading reminds one of St. Paul's famous review of his own life-" I have fought a good fight ; I have kept the faith ; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown." The memorandum is at once characteristic and suggestive, and will pass into history as one of the most remarkable of the crystal- lized experiences of the world's great men. It is as follows:

"GREENEVILLE, June 29, 1873.

" All seems gloom and despair. I have performed my duty to my God, my country and my family. Ihave nothing to fear. Approaching death to me is the mere shadow of God's protecting wing. Beneath it I almost feel sacred. Here I know can no evil come. Here 1 will rest in quiet and peace, beyond the reach of calum- ny's poisoned shaft. the influence of envy and jealous enemies: where treason and traitors in State and back- sliders in church can have no place; where the great fact will be realized that GOD IS TRUTH, and gratitude the highest attribute of man. Sie iter ad astra such,is the way to the stars or immortality. (Written before leaving on Sunday evening while the cholera was raging in its most violent form.) "

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GEN. WILLIAM CONNER.

RIPLEY.

G EN. CONNER, like Gen. 'R. P. Neely and Col. Robert 1. Chester, is a landmark in the history of West Tennessee. During his eighty-three years he has been associated with most of the great men of Ten- nessee, and having made it a rule to be courteous to- ward his political and religious opponents, men of all creeds and parties are his friends. He has seen twelve presidents, and among the distinguished men of Ten- nessee, with whom he has been on terms of intimacy and friendship. are the names of Col. John C. MeLe- more. Col. Robert 1. Chester, Charles D. MeLean, Gen. R. P. Neely, Gov. William Carroll, Gov. A. V. Brown, Gov. N. S. Brown, Dr. Samuel Oldham, Harrod 1. Au- derson, Howell Reed, Robert F. Maclin, Gov. Isham G. Harris, Hon. Ephraim II. Foster, Judge A. W. O. Totten, Judge Turley, Judge Archibald Wright. Gen. J. D. C. Atkins, Judge William Fitzgerald and Judge William C. Dunlap. He relates with great glee that he slept with Davy Crockett, knew him well, but never agreed with him in politics, Crockett being an anti- Jackson man.

The name Conner was originally O'Conner, and even a's late as the grandfather of our subject the name was so used in the family, but the O' was dropped about the end of the American Revolution, the great-grand- father, and seven or eight of his sons in the Revolution, began to be called Conner. The great-grandfather, of Ireland, was of kin to Arthur O'Connor, the old king of Ireland, but he refused to correspond with his family after leaving Ireland, because he was not a Catholic and refused to subscribe to the Catholic creed. The great-grandfather, John O'Conner, a native Irish- man, emigrated to Virginia in 1715, settled in Cul- pepper county, seven miles north of the court house, and raised eight sons and two daughters, William, John, Lewis, James, Philip, Charles, Timothy and one other. One of the daughters, Gen. Comner's great - aunt, married a Newport, who settled in East Ton- nessee at a town now called for him. The other daugh- ter married a Taylor, who settled in West Virginia. John O'Conner joined the Baptist church in Virginia, and most of his descendants, who belong to any church at all, are Baptists. He and all his sons were in the Revolutionary war. He died in Virginia, a very old man, about 1780. He was a raw-boned Irishman, out- measuring anybody, almost, from his chin to the top of his head, and a man of very fine sense. His wife was Sarah Kavanaugh, also a native of Ireland. It is doubtless to this Irish ancestry that Gen. Conner is indebted for his pluck, wit, humor, cheerful good na- ture and contented disposition. Of the children of John O'Conner, William and Sallie Newport settled

near Knoxville, East Tennessee ; John settled in Ken- tucky, and afterward moved to a place now known as Connersville, Indiana, and raised a large family there; James went to North Carolina ; Charles to Georgia, and his children went to Alabama; Timothy, the young- est, died in Fredericksburg, Virginia, without heirs; Lewis (Gen. Conner's grandfather), remained in Cul- pepper, afterward Rappahannock county, Virginia, and died there. Sallie Newport's grand children are William Boydston and Benjamin Boydston, of Lauder- dale county, Tennessee, Gen. Conner's second cousins, their mother being Sallie Newport's daughter. The grandfather, Lewis Comer, was a Baptist preacher of distinction in Virginia. He died in Rappahannock county, Virginia, in 1832, at the age of eighty-six years, leaving four children, John (Gen. Conner's father), Urial. Mildred, and Sallie. Urial Conner (Gen. Con- ner's uncle), married Nancy Nalle, in Virginia, and died about 1848, eighty-seven years old, leaving six children, namely : Lewis, John, Zephaniah, Annie, Susan and Ellen. Of these, Lewis settled in Gibson county, Tennessee, married a Miss Withers, and left a large family. Miss Withers' mother was an Ashby, of the celebrated family of Indian fighters, and an own cousin to Gen. Turner Ashby. John Conner married a Miss Terrill, sister of Dr. Urial Terrill, who died August 2, 1885, ninety-four years old, an eloquent orator, a great Whig, and member of the Virginia Legislature, ephaniah married in Norfolk, Virginia, and moved to Macon, Georgia, and married, a second time, Miss Good- win. Annie married Judge Henry Tutt, her cousin, now of St. Joseph, Missouri. Urial Conner's daugh- ter, Susan, married James Pendleton, in Culpepper county, Virginia. Ellen married a Tutt, but not of her kin. Gen. Conver's half'aunts, daughters of widow Da- vis, mee Susan Mallory, were three: Molly, wife of Thomas Hughes, of Rappahannock, Virginia; her chil- dren were, Berriman, whom Gen. Conner denomi- nates the Napoleon of the fox chase, died a bachelor ; Gabriel went to Kentucky, married a Miss Roberts, but had no children ; Matthew Hughes, who was said to be the handsomest man of his day, was a lieutenant in the northwestern army in the war of 1812, was at the battle of bundy's Lane, under Gen. Scott, and died of sickness at Ogdensburg, New York ; Thomas Hughes, the youngest child, married a Miss Waldren, of Caro- line, county, Virginia, and left a family of three; Lucy Hughes the only daughter, married Thomas Waldren and raised a large family in Rappahannock, Virginia. One of Gen. Conner's half aunts, Fanny, married James Ramey, of Virginia. He moved to Mount Sterling, Kentucky, and raised a large family there. Gen. Con-

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ner's half aunt, Sally, married John Lowins, in Cul- pepper, Virginia. The family mentioned above were mostly farmers; few of them were political aspirants. John and Zephaniah Turner and Henry Tutt were law- yers. Gen. Conner's grandfathers were both surveyors. Mildred (Gen. Conner's aunt), married Richard I. Tutt. Sallie, the other aunt, married Zephaniah Tur- ner, and had six children, John, Lewis, Zephaniah, Urial, Mallory and Henry. John never married; Lewis married Maj. Roberts' daughter, in Virginia; Zepha- niah died a bachelor.

During the reign of King George III .. before the Revolutionary war, Rev. Lewis Conner, while sick, was summoned to appear before a magistrate to tell by what authority he preached the Gospel. He told the con- stable who served the writ he would report as soon as he got well, but the constable returned with in- structions to bring him sick or well; whereupon the preacher rose from his bed, took the constable by the nape of the neck and the seat of his breeches and pitched him out of his cabin, and that was the last, he said, he ever heard of the writ. For a fuller account of this venerable preacher, see History of Virginia Bap- tist Ministers. He married a widow, Mrs. Susan Davis, whose maiden name was Mallory, of Irish stock. Her mother was a Street, also Irish. Urial M. Turner, son of Zephaniah and Sallie Turner, nce Sallie Conner, mar ried in Clarksburgh, West Virginia, and had three daughters, Susan, Mildred and Betty. Of these, Susan and Betty married Cumberland George's sons. Susan's husband, John W. George, was a Baptist preacher; Betty's husband was William George, Mildred mar- ried Maj. Edward B. Hill, a brother of Gen. A. P. Hill, and now lives in Culpepper county, Virginia.

The father of Gen. Conner, John Conner, was born in April, 1770, in Culpepper county, Virginia, had a lim- ited education, and possessed fine business capacity ; acted as sheriff several years in Culpepper, was a major in the war of 1812, and carried a battalion of infantry to Norfolk, and was stationed there nearly two years, until just before the war of 1812 terminated. He died in April, 1815, soon after he came out of the war. He was in command of three hundred infantry and sixty ma- rines stationed on Craney Island, in Hampton Roads, when he was attacked by one thousand five hundred British, in three barges. One of the barges was cut in two by one of his six pounder cannon, which emptied five hundred of the British troops out in Hampton Roads. Another barge got aground and surrendered; the other one retreated. This battle saved Norfolk froin capture. The British gaye as an excuse for sacking Hampton, that at the battle of Craney Island our men, under Maj. Conner, shot at their men while in the water drowning or struggling for life. He was a successful farmer, and the first man that ever had a cast-iron plow in Culpepper county, or that ever used gypsum or land plaster in that county. He was in politics a Jeffer-

sonian Republican, as was also his father, who was an intimate friend of Jefferson. He was for several years a magistrate, and when he died was State assessor. He belonged to no church, but was always a moral man, and had no use for a man that would not tell the truth and was dishonest. He died in Culpepper county, near Woodville, in April, 1815, aged forty-five years. He was about six feet one inch high, of fine form, active and strong. weighing about one hundred and fifty pounds, had black hair. blue eyes, and a striking coun- tenance; was very social in his disposition, a kind neighbor, a fast friend, full of native Irish wit, apt at story-telling that would set the table in a roar.

Gen. Conner's mother, are Nancy Wigginton, was born in Culpepper county, Virginia, daughter of John Wigginton, a surveyor, and an associate and intimate friend of Gen. Washington, with whom he surveyed and camped in the woods. Her cousins, Wiggintons, were members of congress, one from Missouri, one from Kentucky, and one from California.

Gen. Couner's maternal grandmother was Elizabeth Botts, a daughter of Seth Botts, an Englishman, who emigrated to Stafford county. Virginia. about the year 1745, and raised a large family. Seth Botts had a brother named Aaron, and from these two all the American Bottses sprang. Benjamin Botte, a grandson of Seth Botts, was a cousin of Gen. Conner's mother, and the celebrated John M. Botts and Gen. Thomas Botts, of Fredericksburg, Virginia, were his sons.

Gen. Conner's maternal aunt (name forgotten), mar- ried William Bell, a hotel-keeper at the Three Forks, near Mammoth Cave, Kentucky. He died over eighty years old, leaving four children : Dr. John Bell, who lived and died at Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Dr. Seth Bell, who lived and died at Huntingdon, Carroll county, Tennessee; Slaughter Bell, of Kentucky, and a daugh- ter, wife of United States Senator Gwynn, of California.

The maternal grandmother of Gen. Commer was Eliza- beth Botts, wife of John Wigginton. Their children were Seth, Richard Y., John, Benjamin, Jane, Susan, Nancy (Gen. Conner's. mother), and Sally. Of these, Seth Wigginton was captured by the French at sea, in 1802, on a vessel of his own, loaded with tobacco, and hg and his ship and cargo were taken to France. He remained a prisoner in France about twelve months, when he escaped to England, in company with an Eng- lish nobleman, and got back to New York in 1803 or 1804, and died of yellow fever. His papers were never recovered, or the family would have had an immense claim against the French government. He never mar- ried. Richard Y. was clerk of Culpepper county for a long time, and died in that office about the year 1809, leaving no children. John Wigginton removed to Ken- tucky, settled in Christian county, raised a large family, and died there. Benjamin Wiggonton married a Miss Scott, moved to near Lynchburg, Virginia, and died, leaving one son, Frank. Jane Wigginton married Ga-

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briel Jones, of Culpepper county, and after his death she moved to the neighborhood of Bowling Green, Ken- tueky, and died there, aged ninety-one years, leaving six children, William W., Seth, Gabriel S., John W., Emily and Martha. Emily married George Ronald, a gentleman of fine scholarship, and Martha married a Mr. Perkins. The Ronalds, of Louisville, Kentucky, and W. Ronald, superintendent of the Memphis and Louisville railroad. are descendants of this George Ron ald. Susan married William Pendleton, and died child- less. Sally married James W. Thornberry, of Louisville, Kentucky, and raised a family there. Her son, Warren Thornberry, recently died af Paducah, Kentucky.

Gen. Conner's mother was raised an Episcopalian, (the Wiggintons were all Episcopalians), but after her marriage she joined the Baptist. She was noted for being systematic and for her success in training her children to attend to business, telling them, at that early day, that slavery would be abolished and then they must necessarily work. She died in January, 1860, in her eighty-fourth year. in Madison county, Vir- ginia, near Locust Dale, She first married John Con- ner, and afterward Presley N. Smith. She had no chil- dren by her last husband, She raised five children of the first marriage, namely: Seth, William (subject of this sketch ), Charles, Elizabeth and Champ Carter, Of these, Seth died a bachelor, in Brownsville, Tennessee, aged fifty-two years. Charles married a Miss Cohnan, and died near Brownsville, Hay wood county, Tennessee, in 1863; his only surviving child is Anna W. Con- ner. Elizabeth married Edward Lightfoot, of Madison county, Virginia, and died in 1838, leaving two chil- dren, Anu Virginia, who married Dr. Robert Lake. of Baltimore, then living at White Sulphur Springs, and John Lightfoot, who married, first a Miss Turner, by whom he had two children, John and Elizabeth ; John Lightfoot died in 1879. Edward Lightfoot, their father, died in 1883, in Madison county, Virginia. Champ Carter Conner was named for Champ Carter, of Cul- pepper county, Virginia. He joined the Baptist church at the age of sixteen, and commenced preaching at the age of seventeen. He is said to have been one of the finest of Virginia pulpit orators When he got through his subjeet he quit, which is indeed a remarkable rec- ord for a speaker. He married Ann Eliza Slaughter, daughter of Col. John Slaughter, of Culpepper county, Virginia, by whom he had five children, Fanny Ball, John Long, Anna Maria, Champ C. and Lizzie. Of these, John Long died in his young manhood; Fanny Ball married E. G. Anderson, and died, leaving one child, Clifford, now at Ashport, Lauderdale county, Tennessee, a farmer; Anna M. is still single, now making her home with Gen. Conner; Champ Carter married Miss Tillie Stephenson, of St. Louis, Missouri, and is now living in Ripley, Lauderdale county, Ten- nessee. They have three children, Champ Carter, Philip Stephenson and Hallie, a daughter.

Rev. Champ C. Conner, Rev. Peter Gale, and a few others, organized the first Big Hatchie Association, about 1837, which, from a small body, grew so large and unwieldy that it had to be divided. Champ C. Conner, sr., died February 14, 1875, sixty four years old. He was a man of strong convictions, decided in his likes and dislikes: a man of exceptionally fine mind, highly educated, a captivating orator, a fine parliament- arian, presided with promptness and success, and his decisions as a moderator were almost universally sus- tained by the assemblies over which he presided. His wife died in August, 1882, sixty years old.

Gen. Conner, who has been a citizen of Lauderdale county, Tennessee, thirty-eight years, was born Decem- ber 27. 1803, in Culpepper, now Rappahannock county, Virginia, near Woodville, and there grew up. He left there, a married man, in 1828. He was raised to planta- tion work, but his father having died when the son was not quite twelve years old, he was, in his thirteenth year, put to winding up his father's estate, and so learned business habits very young. He was sickly till ten years old. but afterward was stout and strong, and has seldom been sick since. He went to excellent country schools, was taught English grannnar, geogra- phy and mathematies, for which latter branch he had a great fondness. He also read a few books in Latin, for which he had not much relish. He attended schools occasionally, till sixteen years of age, and then taught school five years.

He was made deputy county surveyor of Culpepper county at the age of eighteen, and has followed the business of a surveyor and engineer all his life. He has assisted in laying out a railroad, and is a fairly good civil engineer. He left Virginia, first, in 1826, and 'vis- ited Tennessee, Kentucky, and western Virginia, pros- pecting. In 1828, he moved to Haywood county, Ten- nessee, near Brownsville, and there- lived until 1817, when he moved to Ashport, Lauderdale county, Ten- nessee, where he remained till 1855, when he moved to the place he now lives at, under whose oaks this bio- graphical sketch was written. Surveying and farming and land agent have been the leading lines of his busi- ness. Shortly after coming to Tennessee, he was put into business by Col. John C. MeLemore, then the largest land-owner and richest man in the State. This gentleman was, to the day of his death, one of the stanchest friends the General ever had.

In 1873, Gen. Conner was chairman of the committee appointed by Gov. John C. Brown, to select a site for the lunatic asylum for West Tennessee. He was deputy county surveyor in Virginia from 1821 to 1828, and was appointed deputy surveyor by all the surveyors -general, in the different districts in West Tennessee, from 1830 to 1835, when the surveyor-general's districts were abol- ished and county surveyors established. He was chair- man of the county court of Haywood county from 1830 to 1836. He was elected county surveyor of Haywood

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county, the first surveyor elected in that county. This position he held four years, ending in 1839. He was elected brigadier-general of militia, in 1812, for Hay- wood, Tipton and Lauderdale counties, and held that position four years. He was well fitted for the briga dier-generalship, having studied military tactics under Maj. Chevis, who taught a military school, in 1813. He was a director of the Mississippi Valley railroad, now the Chesapeake and Ohio, from 1865 to 1868. He was, at one time, a director in the Tennessee Central rail- road, a line that has never been built. From 1855 to 1860, he was superintendent of public schools for Lau- derdale county, and has always been an ardent advocate of the cause of education. During the civil war the citizens of Lauderdale county, at the suggestion of both Gens. Washburne and Forrest, met together and elected officers for the preservation of the peace, and Gen. Con- ner was elected judge. As judge of that court of crimi- mal jurisdiction, he succeeded in restoring the reign of law and order in his county.

He was chosen a delegate to the Democratic national convention at Baltimore in 1836, but did not attend. In 1852, he was a member of the Democratie national convention at Baltimore, that nominated Gen. Pierce. In 1860, he represented the Ninth congressional district of Tennessee, in the Democratic national convention at Charleston, and again at New York, in 1868, when Sey- mour was nominated. He was a member of his con- gressional convention in 1855, at Trenton, and put Gen. J. D. C. Atkins in nomination. Gen. Atkins is in the habit of telling that it was through the influence and management of his friend, Gen. Conner, that he was 'first nominated and elected to congress over Hon. Em- erson Etheridge.

Gen. Conner was raised by Baptist parents and joined the Baptist church in 1860, in his fifty-sixth year. He was never a profane man, nor guilty of excesses, having led a temperate life from the first. He never gambled, and was never a fighter since his boyhood.

His powers of endurance are something extraordi- nary. Few young men can keep up with him in walk- ing, and he can ride horseback now all day long. Al- though eighty three years old, his natural vigor seems but little impaired.

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Sketches of prominent Tennesseans. Containing biographies and records of many of the families who have attained prominence in Tennessee, Part 118

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