Sketches of prominent Tennesseans. Containing biographies and records of many of the families who have attained prominence in Tennessee, Part 121

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

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In polities, Judge Temple was a Whig before the war, a Union man during the war, and has been a stead- fast Republican since. While on the bench he took no part in politics, except to exercise his right to vote. He constantly refused to make political speeches, or attend political conventions. No judge ever kept clearer of politics.

In 1865, he did all he could, by letter and otherwise, to defeat the plan of Gov. Johnson for reorganizing the State government. He believed that a constitutional convention, composed of delegates duly elected, should have been convened. He did not believe that a mass meeting, composed of everybody who chose to attend,

for the most part, if not entirely, self-appointed, with no constituency behind them, competent for the perform- ance of the grave and delicate duty of re-establishing a State and revising a constitution. His sense of pro- priety was shocked by this bold proceeding, and by the indecent haste with which the work was done. Ile ad- mitted that there was no absolutely regular mode of calling a convention, all government being broken down; but he insisted that it was competent for the people to again resume their sovereignty and restore the functions of government and that this should be done in the most solemn and regular way then open to them. The plan adopted he believed to be unprece- dented in practice, illegal in principle, and unwise and mischievous in consequences. He still believes that much of the ill feeling which followed might have been avoided, if a wisely chosen constitutional convention had been convened.

Judge Temple was always a busy and hard worker and a good liver. He and his wife have been greatly given to generous hospitality. They have traveled much on this continent. He is fond of books and lit- erature, and occasionally delivers lectures and ad- dresses. A lecture on the " Scotch - Irish of Tennessee" has, by request, been delivered a number of times, and received well. He has always made money, and though, in common with others, he suffered considera- bly by the disasters of 1873. he is now in reasonably in- depemlent circumstances, owning very valuable real estate in Knoxville. Though advanced in life, he is still active, and apparently in his prime, with his hands full of business of nearly all kinds. He and his wife and daughter are all members of the Presbyterian church.

HON. WILLIAM B. STALEY.

KNOXVILLE.

W ILLIAM B. STALEY was born at Troy, Obiou county, Tennessee, January 8, 1835, the son of Theodore Staley and his wife, nee Miss Nannie Brown, daughter of Peter and Nancy Brown, of that county. His mother died when he was only three years old, and his father moved to Summer county, Tennessee, where the son grew up, attending the male academy at Galla- tin until he was seventeen, when he was sent by his father to Irving College, at which institution he gradu - ated, in 1857. His father was a well-to-do business man of Sumner county, but at the time his son left college had removed to DeKalb county, making his home at Smithville, the county seat. To this village young Staley went after his graduation, and commenced the study of law there in the office of Hon, John II. Savage, who was at the time a member of congress, his brother. A. M.

Savage, being in charge of his law business, and it was under this latter gentleman young Staley pursued his legal studies. After reading some time and acquiring sufficient knowledge of the elementary principles of the profession to entitle him to practice, he applied for and olatained license from Judges Robert L. Caruthers and John L. Goodall. Soon after his admission to the bar, he married his excellent wife, who has, through all his years of struggle and success, proven a worthy helpmate in all things. . He has ever been a hard student, study- ing his books and studying his cases thoroughly, and has seldom been beaten in his contests at the bar. and his decisions from the chancery bench have been models of their kind, and have generally stood the severest. testy of the higher court when carried up.

In 1859. he left Smithville and settled at Kingston,

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in Roane county, where he set resolutely to labor at his chosen life work, and there and then laid the foundation for the brilliant success which he has since achieved. By unflagging industry, strict attention to all business entrusted to him, and loyalty to the interests of his clients, he soon won his way to the honors of his profess- · ion. Ilis sterling qualities as a man, no less than his talents and acquirements as a lawyer, made a deep and most favorable impression upon the people throughout the extensive circuit in which he practiced, and he soon built up a reputation for ability, faithfulness and integ rity that brought him patronage and fame, and gave him a standing and a name to which any man might be proud to attain.

In 1869, when the question of a convention to form a new constitution for the State, in order to more properly adjust the fundamental law to the changed condition of things brought about by the results of the civil war, was presented to the people of Tennessee, the public mind instinctively turned to the best and purest men in the several counties to represent then in this deeply important undertaking. The people of Roane county, one of the oldest and most intelligent communities in the State, appreciating the high qualifications, patriot - ism, purity and intelligence of William B. Staley, which so well fitted him toaid in the great work, accredited him as their representative in the convention. The body met in January, 1870, and was composed of the very best and wisest men in Tennessee. In the prosecution of their delicate labors, so full of import to the whole body of the people, no member discharged his duty to the . commonwealth more fully, more conscientiously or with more ability than the gentleman who is the subject of this biography. In the convention his course was marked by honesty of purpose, patriotic impulse, and studious, painstaking investigation of all measures presented for the action of the body, leaving it at its dissolution with the sincere respect and friendship of every one of his associates, no matter how widely divergent their views had been upon matters they had been called to pass upon.

So well pleased had been his constituents with the manner in which he had comported himself in the cus stitutional convention, that in the following year, IST1, they prevailed upon him to accept a seat in the State senate, from the district composed of the counties of Knox and Roane. In the Legislature he displayed the same high order of talent and intelligent apprecia- tion of the best interest of the people that had char- acterized his labors in the convention, At this ses- sion most important legislation was rendered necessary by the adoption of the new constitution, and Mr. Staley took a deep interest in all matters coming up for consider- ation, and made a fine reputation as a law-maker.

But his tastes did not lie in the line of politics, and he retired from the Legislature with the purpose to devote himself' wholly to his profession, which he did

with great success. Seeking a wider field for the display of his fine talents and the utilization of his rare acquire- ments, he left Kingston early in IS-0, and fixed himself at Knoxville, where he has since resided, adding to his fine practice and carning an enviable reputation as a tireless, hardworking and conscientious lawyer and jurist.

He was elected chancellor of the Second chancery division in 1878, his term expiring September, 1, 1886. Since his elevation to the bench. no jurist in the State has made a fairer record, and litigants and bar unite in ascribing to him the high qualities of impartiality, promptness, intelligence and courtesy. In all positions and relations, both public and private, he has done his duty in his own peculiarly indefatigable way, has torn his honors with becoming modesty, and deserves yet higher recognition at the hands of his fellow-citizens. A good judge of men, and one of the ablest members of the Tennessee bench, and, by the way, a political opponent of Judge Staley, says of him: "Judge Staley is rather unprepossessing in appearance to a stranger, but he is an eminent jurist, decidedly the clearest-headed chan- cellor in the State, and ought to be on the Supreme bench ; and he is, withal, emphatically what is termed a self-made man."

Judge Staley married, at Lebanon, Tennessee, Octo- ber 29, 1857, Miss Mary E. Seantland, who was born in Nashville, Tennessee, October 7, 1837, of English and German blood, daughter of Maj. James M. Scantland, who died when the daughter was only ten years old. lle was a native of Virginia, a relative of Chief Justice Marshall. He was the only child of his mother, a Rollins. He was a soldier in the Mexican war and car- ried the flag of his regiment, and was made a captain at Monterey for distinguished gallantry, and was afterward promoted to the rank of major. He received a wound that caused his death at the storming of the castle of Chapultepec. He was a tall man, six feet two inches high, celebrated in his fonily for being one of the bravest of the brave. President Polk appointed him to an impor- tant position, which he held six months, till his death, in July, 1817. from the effects of the wound received eighteen months before. ACone period of his life he was a steamboat captain. He was a member of the old school Presbyterian church, a stanch, aggressive Demo- erat, fiery, high-tempered, and outspoken. He was too liberal, open-handed and generous, especially in the matter of going security, to accumulate or retain a large fortune, but was in very independent circumstances. His father, James Scantland, of Virginia, was of Eng- lish blood. Mrs. Staley's mother, Eliza Margaret, nee Halstead, was born and raised in Lexington, Kentucky, daughter of Daniel Halstead, a very wealthy tobacco farmer and slave owner; a soldier in the war of 1812, in which he was captured and hold prisoner in England quite a long time. The great grandfather, Halstead, was a commissioned captain in the Revolutionary war,

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whose wife escaped from her burning house, set on fire by the tories, with the family Bible wider one arm and her first child, an infant. (Mrs. Staley's grandfather), under the other. That Bible is now in possession of his daughter, Mrs. Staley's mother, at Covington, Ken tucky. Mrs. Staley's maternal grandmother was a Jhans, of the famous German family that first settled Long Island. Her maternal aunt, Sarah Halstead, died the wife of Judge James HI. Birch, of Plattsburg, Mis- souri. Mrs. Staley was educated at the Nashville Fe- male Academy, under Dr. Elliott, and is noted for the energy of her character and her superior domestic man- agement. She is a member of the Protestant Episcopal church.

By his marriage with Miss Scantland, Judge Staley has had thirteen children, five of whom died in in- fancy. Two sons, Charles and William, studied for the

law, but died when about the age of twenty. These sons were the pride, the hope and love and source of much of the ambition in the hearts of their parents. They inherited the bravery of their grandfather, Maj. Scandland, and it is said of them,." They did not know what fear was."

The surviving children are: (1). Jesse B. Staley, born December 21, 1859; educated at the University of Tennessee; studied law with his father, was ad- mitted to the bar, at Chicago. in 1883, and is prac- ticing law there. He married, in St. Louis, Mrs. Mary Smith, net Dyer, of New Market, sister of Col. Dyer, of Knoxville. (2). Robert Staley, born May 25, 1867 ; now a printer. (3, 4). Paul and Guy Staley, twins, born April 19, 1872. (5). Max Staley, born Feb- ruary 21, 1874. (6). Lady Maude Staley, born May 19, 1876.

DANIEL F. WRIGHT, M.D.

CLARKSVILLE.

N the medical annals of Tennessee and otherwise, I the subject of this sketch is widely known in this State, and ranks deservedly high as a ripe and thorough medical scholar, lecturer and writer, and an accom- plished litteratur, political editor and devotee of the fine arts.

Dr. Daniel F. Wright was born in the county of Nor- folk, England, June 14, 1816, and is the son of Robert Wright, who was a land agent at Norwich. His mother was of the family of Robert Temple, of Weybourne, Nor- folk. The family of Robert Wright consisted of four sons and four daughters, and two of each are living. The eldest son succeeded to his father's land agency, and accumulated a large fortune. A daughter mar- ried the Marquis Ernesto Pareto of Genoa, Italy, and another was the wife of Rev. Robert Robertson, a mis- sionary of the English church to South Africa. A nephew of Dr. Wright, Dr. Robert Temple Wright. was a professor in a medical college at Lahore, India, and was appointed a government commissioner to re- port on required improvements in the ambulance sys- tem of the British army in India. An uncle, Dr. War- ner Wright, was an eminent physician in the east. of England, and was joint proprietor with a celebrated sur- geon, Mr. Dalrymple, of a private lunatic asylum, near Norwich. It has been customary to say that every generation of the Wright family of which he is a member, has furnished a physician of distinction.

He received the degree of Bachelor of Arts from the University of Cambridge, in 1839, and, for a year or two afterward, taught a few private pupils. In ISI1, he emigrated to this country and settled in th State of

Mississippi. At Natchez and Woodville he taught se- lect schools until 1846, when he was employed at St. Thomas' Hall, Holly Springs, where he remained until the autumn of 1849. He then removed to Memphis, Tennessee, and became a student of medicine in the Memphis Medical College, at that time an institution of recognized rank, and having an able faculty, the present Bishop Quintard. of Tennessee, being of the number. He was admitted to the doctorate in 1854, and in the same year he was appointed demonstrator of anatomy in his alma mater. Three years afterward, he succeeded Dr. Quintard as professor of physiology, and in the year following was appointed to the chair of physiology and pathology in the Shelby Medical Col- lege, of Nashville, Tennessee, which was the medical department of the Methodist Southern University, and subsequently, under the munificent endowment of Com- modore Vanderbilt, of New York, has received his name. He remained in connection with this institu- tion until the suspension of exercises at the outbreak of the civil war. While at. Memphis, he was for sey- eral years an editor of the Memphis Medical Recorder, and after his removal to Nashville, founded, in con- nection with Profs. Callender and Maddin, his col- leagues, the Nashville Medical Record, whose publi- cation was continued until he entered the Confederate army, in 1861:

In the summer of 1861, he was assigned to duty in charge of the troops at Forts Henry and Donelson; soon after he was, at his own request, transferred to the seat of war in Virginia where he became surgeon in charge of the great general hospital at Rockbridge

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Alum Springs, and on the withdrawal of the Confeder- ate army from that part of Virginia, he was assigned to duty in the Fourteenth Tennessee regiment, Archer's brigade ; he soon became brigade surgeon and remained in that capacity until the battle of Sharpsburg, when he was ordered to remain within the Federal lines in charge of the men wounded in that battle. On return- ing south, under a flag of truce, he proceeded west and was appointed surgeon in charge of the general hospital at Canton, Mississippi, and in the spring of 1863, took the field again as brigade surgeon, in Gregg's brigade, with which he passed through the campaign of Chicka- mauga and Missionary Ridge. His health being broken down by the rigors of that campaign, he now retired from active duty and spent four months on a trip to his native country. On his return, in July, 1861, he was appointed by the surgeon-general, to the charge of one of the divisions of Winder's Hospital, Rich- mond, Virginia, and toward the close of the war was relieved from hospital duty and appointed chairman of the examining committee for furloughs and discharges.

As a result of his experience as an army surgeon, shortly after the close of the war he published in the Richmond Journal of Medicine a paper on the effects of ligation of large arteries in the cure of gangrene, erysipelas, etc., which attracted marked attention from the profession in America and England. It was no- ticed with approbation by Mr. C. F. Maunder, of Lon- don, in his Lettsomian Lectures of 1875, and at greater length in his work on the Surgery of the Arteries, in which he quotes from Dr. Wright's original article, and in his comment on the cases there recorded, says the procedure was utterly unknown in England before.

In 1885, he was made a member of the State Board of Health, and in that capacity has made several valua- ble special reports, notably one on school hygiene, a subject which his experience as a practical educator, his. connection with school management, and his ex tensive professional learning rendered him remarkably competent to present in a strong light. He is now en- gaged in contributing a series of papers to the Monthly Bulletin, published by the board, on diet and its va- rious articles.

In the standard and current literature of the medical profession in all its branches, perhaps there is no man in Tennessee of superior acquirements and proficiency to Dr. Wright. Though never fond of, or fitted by dis- position and habits for, the detail and drudgery of a general practice, his profound knowledge of the great principles of the science and thorough and minute in formation in all its departments, give his views great weight in the consultation room and as an expert in cases under medico-legal investigation, and in the lat- ter respect his frequent service has given him dis tinetion. At the lecture desk he was always interest ing and instructive, and quite popular with his classes, Ilis teachings were weighty of matter, clear and accu-

rate in statement. not too copious in overloading the hearer's attention, and free of all frivolous ornament of style. His medical and other writings are in tasteful, lucid English, scholarly composed, and characteristic of the fill mind he brings to every subject treated. His attaimments in general literature are varied and extensive, and his scholarship is accurate and ready.

For a number of years since he has resided at Clarks- ville, and was engaged as editor of the Clarksville Chronicle, a weekly political and general newspaper of long standing and of excellent reputation. Dr. Wright's services with it greatly enhanced its character among similar publications. Its tone was able, and pitched in a region of higher political philosophy than is custom- ary in such journals, and inflexibly maintained sound economic views, especially during the period of agita- tion of the public mind in regard to the settlement of the State debt. The paper, under Dr. Wright's man- agement, never yielded a jot or tittle to the sentiment of repudiation. At his leisure he continues a con- tributor to that and other papers, chiefly as a critic in literary, theatrical and operatic matters. In choral and oratorial music he greatly delights, and is a learned and skillful judge of such performances.

He served for a long time as a member of the Clarks- ville Board of Education, and the schools of that city are largely indebted to his practical knowledge of the proper system of conduct of schools for their reputa- tion for efficiency. He was instrumental in extending their benefits to the colored race, and in successful op- position to the schemes of book publishers for burden- ing the patrons of schools with the cost of frequent changes in text books.

Dr. Wright preserves the features of his English na- tivity and education, and they give no little of the finish and force which mark his intellectual organization and individualize his character, yet he is a thoroughly Americanized citizen and identified in thought and sentiment with the country of his adoption. He is a Democrat in politics, and was a sympathizer with the Confederate movement, under firm convictions as to the State-rights theory of the scheme of the govern- ment, as given in the history and text of the constitu- tion. His sentiments were fully with the people of the section with whom he had east his lot, but it was the logic of the situation that chiefly impelled him to main- tain their cause in the sectional contest.

He is a baptized child of the Church of England, and a customary attendant on her services, but not a communicant. Though thoroughly imbued with the spirit of modern scientific research, and accepting many of its advanced theories, he does not discard the funda- mental doctrines of the Christian religion, nor shout in the train of its scoffers. He is a large-minded and lib- erally learned man, and that is to say, he can march with science to all its legitimate and tenable conclu- sions, and yet be an humble, reverent and religious be-

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ing, and live in awe and worship of the Creator and His precepts.

The record show; him to be verging on threescore and ten of years, and the crown of white hair which surmounts his intellectual head and countenance be tokens it, yet he is physically and mentally as alert and

vigorous as a man a score of years younger, and is still the methodical student and tireless laborer he bas al- ways been, and is in full possession of the faculties and acquiremente which have made him, in his profession and whatever field he has entered, the man of mark which entitles him to honorable mention in these pages.

HON. DAVID KING YOUNG.

CLINTON.

T' HTE home of this gentleman, known as " Eagle Bend," is one and one-half' miles northeast of Clinton, on the Clinch river, and there the Judge has been living twenty years, engaged in farming, in connec- tion with the practice of law. He was born in Ander- son county, five miles west of Clinton, January 1, 1826. His paternal ancestors came from the Highlands of Scotland, and settled in Pittsylvania county, Virginia, before the Revolutionary war. His great - grandfather. Samuel Young, a tobacconist, lived and died in that county. His grandfather, Wiley Young, was also a to- bacconist in Virginia, and came to Anderson county, Tennessee, and settled the farm on which the grandson was born. . He was a quiet farmer, made some estate, and died May 22, 1853, at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Clarkston, in Scott county, Illinois, at the age of' eighty-four. His wife was Miss Nancy Clarkston, whom he married in Virginia, August 3, 1796. He left an only son, Samuel Clarkston Young (who became the father of the subject of this sketch), and four daughters, viz. : Frankie Young, who married a Mr. Clarkston; Annie Young, who married Mr. Frost ; Permela Young, who married Mr. Neal. and became the mother of Ilon. John R. Neal, speaker of the Tennessee State senate in 1881. and now member of congress from the Third congressional district of Tennessee. The fourth dangh- ter, Elmina Young, married Mr. Hall. All of these daughters, except Mrs. Neal, now living a widow at Philadelphia, Tennessee, after their marriage, moved to Western States.

Judge Young's father, Sammel Clarkston Young, was born in Pittsylvania county, Virginia, in 1801. came with his father to Anderson county, Tennessee, in 1810, and there lived and died. In 1830, he was elected by the Tennessee Legislature, county surveyor of Anderson county, and held that office thirty years, He died April 2, 1864, at Clinton. He was an ardent friend and an in- tense enemy, of strongly marked Scotch character, res- olute, of immense will-power, and of strong native in- telleet, with only moderate scholastic attaiments, He was an intense Whig and an uncompromising Guion man during the late civil war -- a man who would fear- lessly proclaim his Union sentiments whenever and wherever they were called in question.

Judge Young's mother, Charlotte Hall, of an English family, was born in South Carolina, in 1797, daughter of David Hall, a Revolutionary soldier, a planter, who moved to Anderson county in the early settlement of the country, kept a- wayside tavern when the country was settling up, and died April 22, 1812, at the age of sev- enty-eiglit, leaving eleven children, John, Richard, Samuel, David and James, sons; and daughters, Nancy (Mrs. Hobbs), Charlotte (Judge Young's mother), El- mira (Mrs. Yarnell). Obedience (wife of John Young, but not otherwise related), Sarah (wife of Isaac Cow- ard), Matilda (wife of Rev. Sherwood Reese), and Serepta (wife of Edward Prince).

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Sketches of prominent Tennesseans. Containing biographies and records of many of the families who have attained prominence in Tennessee, Part 121

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