Sketches of prominent Tennesseans. Containing biographies and records of many of the families who have attained prominence in Tennessee, Part 16

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

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PROMINENT TENNESSEANS.

There was nothing in the boyhood of Judge MeFar- land to attract attention. Ile was regarded as a rather dreary, listless boy. An eccentric Irishman once made a remark about him that afforded infinite amusement to his brothers and sisters. Said the Irishman, " Robert, poor boy, will never be wise." He attended the com- mon schools of the county, where he acquired such knowledge and instruction as could not well be avoided; afterwards attended Tusculum College for a short time, and also a high school at Greeneville, but his school education was very incomplete. At the age of nineteen he began the study of law with his brother-in-law, Judge Barton, at Greeneville, making his house his home. He does not remember, however, that the se- lection of the law as his profession was ever determined upon by himself; his brother and brother-in-law merely determined to make a lawyer of him, nolens volens, and he simply acquiesced. He gratefully acknowledges his obligations to them, and in fact to the entire family, for their assistance and encouragement. He resided sev- eral years at Greeneville, at the home of Judge Barton, and to the assistance received from him and Mrs. Bar- ton he attributes the greater part of whatever success he met with in after life.

He was licensed in 1854 by Judge Mckinney, of the Supreme Court, and Chancellor Lucky, and began practice in the counties of Greene, Jefferson, and others adjoining, his partner in Greeneville being Col. Robert Johnson, son of the late President Andrew Johnson, and in the other counties he formed partnerships with his preceptor, Judge Barton, and the late Montgomery Thornburgh.

On May 17, 1859, he married Miss Jennie Baker, a daughter of HI. B. Baker, a merchant of Greeneville. They shortly after took up their residence at Dandridge, Jefferson county, but their home was soon broken up by the war, Judge MeFarland volunteering in the Con- federate army in the latter part of 1861. He became major of Col. Bradford's regiment, Thirty- first Tennessee infantry, afterwards mounted, and in that capacity served to the end of the war, participating in the Ken- tucky campaign, the defense of Vicksburg, with Gen. Jubal Early in his raid on Washington City in 1861, and in many cavalry engagements.

After the war he returned to his native, county, where, however, it was very difficult to remain, owing to prejudices engendered by the war, and the mob spirit prevailing against returned Confederate soldiers. He did remain, however, being countenanced and sustained by a few personal friends on the Union side, and he es- pecially acknowledges the generous and manly treat- ment he received from Col. J. M. Thornburgh, of the Federal army, who, though an antagonist in arms, was a warm personal friend. He also mentions others to whom he is under like obligations. He resumed the practice of the law in the same counties, in partnership with R. M. McKee, Esq., of Greeneville, and Col.

Thornburgh in the other counties. In 1869-70 he was on two or three occasions appointed special judge of the Supreme Court by Gov. Senter. On the resignation of Hon. Thos. A. R. Nelson, he was appointed by Gov. John C. Brown, December 11, 1871, to fill the vacancy on the Supreme bench. In August following he was elected to the office, defeating Col. J. B. Cooke, an able and popular lawyer of Chattanooga, At the general election in August, 1878, he was again elected for the term expiring September 1, 1886.

The elements of success in Judge McFarland's char- acter, or such as his friends attribute to him, are few and simple, but they have enabled him to overcome many obstacles. In the first place he has steady, well- formed moral habits, and is noted for his perfect hon- esty. . He has succeeded in impressing those with whom he has come in contact with his faultless candor and high sense of fairness. In the next place, the selection of the law as his profession was, in the light of after developments, very fortunate. He thinks it doubtful if he would have met with even moderate success in any other calling, but, as was said of him by the late Chief Justice Nicholson, "He is a born lawyer."

Hle possesses an almost intuitive perception of legal principles and the faculty of practically applying them. Hle is not a systematic student, nor very industrious, except when actively engaged in the management of causes, or on the beach, when he works with earnestness and vigor. At the bar he was not an orator or an advo- vocate, but was regarded as a close, zealous, intense, and logical legal debater. In social life he is rather diffident and retiring, but in the management of causes he has sufficient self-confidence to enable him to act with promptness and decision. He is not of a popular turn, and mixes poorly with the general public, but he is apt to make fast friends of the few with whom he is intimately associated. In all his conduct there is an absence of any effort at display, a contempt for sham and pretense. As a judge he is laborious and careful. llis mind is well-balanced and eminently judicial in its character. He has few, if any hobbies, and is as free from improper influences as a judge well can be. If his judgment is ever disturbed, it is by his sympathy for the poor and oppressed, for notwithstanding his calm and quiet exterior, he has the gentlest emotions and tenderest sympathies. The controlling motive of his actions is a sense of duty, a love of justice and the right.

Judge MeFarland has been most happy in his domes- tie relations. His wife is in every sense a congenial spirit-gentle, quiet, affectionate, and faithfully devoted to her husband and family. They have three children, Misses Anna and Emma, educated at Ward's Seminary, Nashville, and Henry, a youth of seventeen, who says he is destined for the law. Judge MeFarland and his wife are Presbyterians, and he is in politics a Democrat, and a Royal Arch Mason. He is five feet, ten inches

PROMINENT TENNESSEANS.

in height, and of very light, slender build. For the past two years he has been severely afflicted with theu- matism, but rarely misses his post of duty.

Judge Robert Mcfarland died at his home in Morris- town, on the morning of the 2d of October, 1881, sur- rounded by his wife and children, his brother and one of his sisters, and a few other friends, apparently in possession of his faculties almost to the moment of di .- solution. He had been laboring under an attack of rheumatism for nearly two years, and had visited flot Springs, Arkansas, and spent part of the previous winter in Florida, in the hope of obtaining relief, but without success. The remedies administered to arrest the disease seriously affected his stomach, and at last, his lungs becoming involved, death ensued. No man ever displayed more patience, or more resignation to his fate. Ile was long confined to his room, and saw but few persons, except such of his personal friends as called upon him; yet he was ever cheerful, and often, in his way, indulged in pleasantry with those who called to see him.

He was a quiet, unobtrusive, retiring man, distant and diffident in his intercourse with the world, and not formed for popularity with the masses; yet so well was he known and appreciated by the people, that he had the unbounded confidence and esteem of all parties. Dying in the midst of the people with whom he was born and reared, he died without an enemy. If there is a man in the limits of the State who ever doubted his honesty and integrity, we have never heard of him. His brethren of the bar throughout the State have testified as to their appreciation of his character as a man, and as to his ability as a lawyer and a judge.

From the tribute to his memory, adopted by the Supreme court bar of East Tennessee, shortly after his death, we copy the following just estimate of the character of Judge MeFarland :

Considered, as man ,or judge, the simplicity and purity of his character is a delightful object of contemplation. Ilis sentiments were lofty and noble, his demeanor modest and unassuming, even to diffidence. He was kind, liberal and generous, slow to promise, serupulously faithful in performance ; grateful for personal favors, and never forgetful of obligation. Though lacking in effusive affection, there was unswerving fidelity in his friendship, Strong in convictions of right, he was singularly free from bigotry and fanaticism. Courtoous and polite in his association, he had many friends ; but his confidence and intimacy were reserved for a few. Hle met cordially men of all classes, but commanded respect for his office from all by the quiet dignity of his character and unpre- tentious purity of his life. He was no politician, and no one ever

suspected him of favor or policy in his judicial office. Ho was religious without display or pretense, charitable without boast or ostentation, tenacious of truth and consecrated to duty. Free from arrogance, vanity or self-seeking, he devoted his life to the study and exposition of the law, and was ever strong to execute justice and maintain truth, For this he always possessed, in a remarkable degree, the trust of the people and the implicit confi- denee of the bar.

Ile was a born lawyer-a judge by nature. He had a logical mind, patient of investigation and trained by reflection rather than much reading. He was singularly free from bias or preju- dice, and if as a judge he was not fatned for eradition, ho fully compensated for its ab cence by an accurate diecrimination, cound judgment and rare practical wisdom. In elcarness of vision, and perspicuity of statement he was pre-eminent, unrivaled. None ever had occasion to distrust his knowledge of the case, or doubt the meaning of his opinion.

His disposition and habit was, if possible, to solve doubt and determine cases by the application of fundamental principles of law to the facts. In this ho resembled the great Chief Justice Marshall ; and like Marshall, too, his judicial style was dry and unadorned, void of simile and metaphor and rhetoric. No one will ever seek his opinions for beauty of style or wealth of illus- tration. But he never failed to be clear and convincing; and though his opinions may not abound in citation of cases to support them, one feels at the conclusion the same serene satisfaction ex- perienced in finishing a geometrical demonstration or a logical syllogistu.

His sense of justice was strong, his love of right profound; but above all towered his reverence for law. He could never consent to permit hard cases to make bad law.

In a marked degree, too, he had the judicial temperament, and a singular freedom from the pride of opinion. . He weighed and balanced all arguments with an eye single to the law and its re- quirements. If he had prejudice, he conquered it; if preconcep- tion of the law, he suspended it, and listened patiently to adverse views ; if he had erred, he was open to correction, and readily re- called an erroneous opinion.

No impertinent suggestion, no extraneous consideration, over seemed to divert his mind from the matter to be decided. So entirely judicial was ho, so devoted to the solution of the legal problems before him, that nothing over seemed to interrupt his steady and even progress to a conclusion ; this was reached only after a painstaking investigation and impartial consideration of all the material facts in the caso before him. His personality never obtrusive, was lost, or rather absorbed, in legal reflection ; so that when he announced his decision, it seemed to the bar not so much the opinion of the court, as the lo ical, solemn and inevitable judgment of the law.

In correctness of decision, the highest test of a supreme judge, he had no superior. lle was not as learned a lawyer as Reese, nor as exact and precise as Mckinney, but in clearness of perception, soundness of judgment and correctness of decision, he rivaled either. The country can boast of a Story, a Kent and a Mar- shall ; East Tennessee has had her Reese, her MeKinney and her McFarland.

The judicial record of Judge MeFarland's eleven years' continuous service on the Supreme bench of Tennessee is contained in the Reports from 3 Heiskell to 10 Lea, inclusive, and is as free from error as any in the annals of the judicial history of the State.

PROMINENT TENNESSEANS.

EDMUND W. COLE.

NASHVILLE.

T" HE distinguished subject of this biographical sketch was born in Giles county, Tennessee, July 19, 1827. His grandparents on both sides were promi- nent people of Virginia, and the male members of the family were participants and officers in the Revolution- ary war. His father and mother, Willis W. and Johanna J. Cole, were both Virginians, who went first from that State to Kentucky, and afterwards came to Tennessee. ITis father died when he was three months old, leaving his mother with six sons and three daughters, and extremely limited means. Four brothers and one sister have died, and of the survivors only one brother and one sister remain. The brother, Robert A. Cole, now in his seventy-fifth year, is living in Nashville. He was at one time marshal of Nashville, and held position in the inter- nal revenue office many years. One sister, Mrs. Rebecca W. Blow, of Giles county, died at the advanced age of seventy-five, and the surviving sister, Mrs. Martha Ann Elizabeth Simpson, widow of William F. Simpson, is still living in Giles county, Tennessee. Raised a farmer's boy, Edmund Cole worked on his mother's place until eighteen, and had only the ordinary country school facil- ities during that time, which consisted of a few months in each year "after the crop was laid by." In 1845, at the age of eighteen, he came to Nashville. Without any acquaintances in the city, he had to rely on his own re- sources. Hle commenced his career as clerk in a clothing store, at a small salary. Everybody secing that the young man was bent on success, he had tempting offers from other houses, but stood to the contract with his employer until the year wasout. The next year he went into a book store on an increased salary, followed by two more years as clerk in a boot and shoe house. By close application to business and the interest of his employers he advanced rapidly in position and salary, never being out of employment, and all the time utilizing every spare hour in educating himself for the important and respon- sible positions he was destined to fill in after life. His mother, who was a very pious, good Methodist woman, of remarkable mind and settled, solid habits, gave to Edmund the best moral culture, and particularly taught him that moral character is the basis of all true suc- cess. Hence, following the advice of his good old mother, he very soon after reaching Nashville joined the Methodist church, of which he has been a member thirty-nine years, and is now president of the board of trustees of MeKendree church. She advised him also to have decided opinions of his own on all subjects, but always to respect the opinions and rights of others. Once when an editor asked Mr. Cole the secret of his success in life, he replied, " By being faithful to my employers and studying their interests." In early life

he made up his mind that he would never have business difficulties and litigations, hence, in all his life he has never been sued individually. Making it a rule to always look ahead and have fair understandings with men at the beginning of transactions, he never went into a business engagement or enterprise without first asking himself, "Will this be just and fair to every- body? Will my action in the premises do more good than harm?" And believing that a man must have a moral idea in his head and reverence for a superintend- ing Providence, he has made it a rule of conduct to be remarkably particular and exact in everything he does. Instead of going out "sky-larking" of nights with the town boys, young Cole went to his room and read and studied to improve himself. The result was that he never danced a step, never was intoxicated, and never gambled.

In 1849 Edmund Cole was made book-keeper in the Nashville post-office, where he remained two years, and filled the place with such credit that in 1851 he was elected general book-keeper of the Nashville and Chattanooga railroad, which laborious position he filled with great satisfaction to the company until December, 1857, when he was elected superintendent of the road- a splendid advance in twelve years for a friendless but resolute boy! This latter office he held until the war between the States broke out. Fort Donelson fell, Nashville was evacuated, aud Mr. Cole, having identified himself with the fortunes of the Confederacy, sent his family south. After the war they returned to Tennes- see, but finding politics and society much changed, he went to Augusta, Georgia, in the summer of 1865. In the fall of that year he was elected general superin- tendent of the Georgia Railroad and Banking Company, which position he resigned in May, 1875. In August, 1868, he was elected president of the Nashville and Chattanooga railroad, which position he held without opposition for twelve consecutive years. His success in the management of the affairs of this company was something phenomenal ; he added millions to the value of its capital stock. During his administration the Nashville and Northwestern, MeMinnville and Man- chester, Winchester and Alabama, and Tennessee Pa- cific railroads were added to the main line.

Mr. Cole was the first to conceive the idea of a grand trunk line, under one management, from the West to the Atlantic seaboard, believing such a line with a trans-Atlantic line of steamers practicable. With this idea, he went to work in 1879, forming - his combinations by purchasing the. St. Louis and Southeastern railroad, from St. Louis to Evansville, Indiana, having previously purchased the Owens-

PROMINENT TENNESSEANS.

borough and Nashville, and putting under contract the unfinished portion between Evansville and Nash- . ville. Ile next, with the aid of his own and his friends' stock, bought for his company a controlling interest in the Western and Atlantic railroad, from Chattanooga to Atlanta; afterwards contracting for his company to lease the Central railroad of Georgia, together with all its branches and leased lines, about one thousand miles, with its splendid steamship line. He then had control of two thousand miles of road; but, having flanked his rival, the Louisville and Nashville railroad company, in the West and in the South, that company bought in New York city, in January, 1880, a majority of the stock in the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis railway, and Mr. Cole resigned.

IIe was for twelve years vice-president, and one of the lessees of the State road of Georgia since 1871, and still holds the latter relation to that road. On May 27, 1880, he was elected president of the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia railroad company, having control also of the Memphis and Charleston railroad. While president of the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia railroad, he formed in New York the syndicate with Mr. George I. Seney and others, by which he extended the line of his road to Meridian, Mississippi, and to Brunswick on the Atlantic, and by extending the Knoxville branch to the State line of Kentucky, and by contracts with the Kentucky Central and the Louisville and Nashville, secured connections from the West to the Atlantic, via Knoxville and Atlanta. Having large private interests requiring his personal attention, and desiring some recreation after many years of close attention to busi- ness, he resigned the presidency of the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia railroad in May, 1882.

Since then Mr. Cole has contributed largely to the prosperity of Nashville by the erection of several large business blocks. The one on the corner of Union and Cherry streets, the Cole building, is considered the · handsomest in the South. In the room at the corner of this building, fitted up with all modern improye- ments and almost without regard to cost, Mr. Cole inaugurated and opened to public favor, September 1, 1883, " The American National Bank," with a capital of six hundred thousand dollars. The rush to subscribe for stock in his bank was unprecedented in the history of banking in Nashville. He took the presidency himself, and after managing this financial institution for about six months, with the assistance of his able cashier, he established its credit so high that he was enabled to consolidate with it the Third National Bank of Nashville, an old and prosperous bank, well established in the confidence of the public. This per- mitted him to withdraw from the details of banking, which are not particularly tasteful to him. He was mainly instrumental in reorganizing the American National Bank after its consolidation, with a capital of one million dollars, and electing John Kirkman presi-

dent, John M. Lea and Edgar Jones vice-presidents, and A. W. Harris cashier, accepting himself the place of chairman of the executive committee. Under this strong organization this bank has become one of the most important financial institutions in the South.

In the basement story below the American National Bank, a story absolutely fire-proof, with tiled flooring, elegantly fitted up offices and coupon rooms, and an enormous burglar and fire-proof vandt for the public, containing eight hundred safes or apartments for private use, Mr. Cole inaugurated the Safe Deposit, Trust and Banking company, which is destined to be a blessing not only to Nashville but to the surrounding country. Nothing, however, seems too much for his indomitable will and energy to accomplish. His powers of combi- nation are wonderful, and while not neglecting the minutest detail, his mind seems to grasp readily and with ease and to put together aggregates in harmonious relations that would stagger and confuse most minds.

Mr. Cole's personnel is very striking. He is fifty-eight years old, of tall, commanding figure, weighs two hun- dred and twenty-five pounds, is remarkably well pre- served; his manner is grave and polished. He has almost magnetic influence over men, which is partly accounted for by the justness and liberality of his opinions and actions. As an illustration of this may be mentioned his opposition to extreme railroad legisla- tion by the Tennessee Legislature of 1882-83. Contrary to the advice of friends, he stood up against such legislation, and in a most elaborate and exhaustive speech, at the grand opera house in Nashville, on Feb- ruary 27, 1883, against the measures of the bill then pending in the Legislature, drew public attention to the matter; and what was known as the caucus railroad commission bill, with plenary powers, was superseded by one only advisory in terms.

Mr. Cole has been pecuniarily a very successful man. Ile is by long odds the largest owner of city property in Nashville, besides having extensive real estate interests elsewhere. At the same time he has been a liberal and public-spirited citizen; there is scarcely one public enterprise, educational, religious or charitable, in the city built in his time to which he has not been a con- tributor. In politics he is a Democrat, in religion, as before said, a Methodist, but he is broad-minded, and never finds fault with others about either their political . or religious views. He is an active and influential member of the State Board of Health and of the Tennessee Historical Society, is a Mason, and a patron of literature, music and the fine arts. His home, Terrace Place, in Nashville, is noted for its elegant hospitality, and fully illustrates within the motto, Salve, over its entrance. It has recently been remodeled and improved, and is now, beyond doubt, one of the hand- somest and most truly palatial places in the South.

Mr. Cole has been twice married. First, to Miss Louise MeGavock Lytle, daughter of Archibald Lytle,

PROMINENT TENNESSEANS.

Esq., one of the most prominent citizens of Williamson county, and of an old and distinguised Tennessee family. Mrs. Louise M. Cole died in 1869, leaving five children : (1). Elizabeth Johanna, born February 16, 1852, in Wil- liamson county, at her maternal grandfather's; graduated at Ward's Seminary, in 1872, and married S. Walker Edwards, a native of Davidson county, and stepson of Col. A. W. Putnam. His mother was a sister of Chief Justice A. O. P. Nicholson, of the Supreme court of Tennessee, Mr. Edwards bas for thirteen years been general agent at Nashville for the East Tennessee, Vir- ginia and Georgia Air Line railroad. They have one child, a daughter, Anna Walker. (2). Addie, born September 21, 1854, at Nashville; graduated from the Wesleyan Female College, at Macon, Georgia ; married L. F. Benson, a wholesale merchant at Nashville, and has one child, a son, Edmund. (3). Randall Anderson, born in Augusta, Georgia, February 4, 1866; educated at schools in Nashville and Mount St. Mary's College, and destined for a business man. By a most distressing railroad accident, this promising young man lost his life. As a memorial Mr. Cole bought and presented to the State of Tennessee the handsome property known as the Randall Cole Industrial School, situated near the Murfreesborough turnpike, about one and a half miles from Nashville. (4). Louise Lytle, born November 24, 1867, in Augusta, Georgia; attended Mrs. Sylvester Read's school, New York city ; graduated at the Acad- emy of the Visitation, Georgetown, District of Colum- bia. (5). Henry Lytle, born July 17, 1869.

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Sketches of prominent Tennesseans. Containing biographies and records of many of the families who have attained prominence in Tennessee, Part 16

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