Sketches of prominent Tennesseans. Containing biographies and records of many of the families who have attained prominence in Tennessee, Part 24

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

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He had always intended to follow the law as a profes- sion, and so after remaining at home with his mother two years to repair the ravages of war on her splendid farm, he entered the law department of Cumberland University, at Lebanon, in 1868. Having read law privately prior to his college course, he was enabled to graduate in June, 1868, taking the degree of L. B. under Profs. Nathan Green, Robert L. Caruthers and Henry Cooper. He commenced practice at Murfreesborough, in July, 1868, in partnership with his uncle, Hon. Charles Ready, a partnership which lasted until Col. Ready's death, in June, 1879. In September following he associated with him in practice Mr. Andrew J. Woods, the firm continuing to this day, Burrus & Woods.

During 1880-81 he was appointed by Gov. Marks to preside as special chancellor in the fourth chancery division of the State.

In polities Judge Burrus is a life-long Democrat, hereditarily and by conviction, and has generally taken a comparatively active part in the various campaigns, making speeches in Rutherford and adjoining counties.

In 1882 he was elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives from his county, and served dur- ing the session of 1883. He was chairman of the com- mittee on rules, and was tendered the chairmanship of the judiciary committee, but declined it. He was chairman of the legislative caucus that agreed upon the bill for the settlement of the bonded indebtedness of the State.

Ile has filled the office of president of the board of aldermen of Murfreesborough for several consecutive terms. He was a commissioner to the Southern Cotton Planters' convention at Vicksburg, in 1883, having

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himself a planting interest in Phillips county, Arkansas, where he owns, with other parties, a plantation of seven or eight hundred acres.

Judge Burrus is a Mason and a Knight Templar ; has taken the thirty-second degree, Scottish Rite, and has filled the offices of Master, Master of the different vails and Royal Arch Captain. He is also a Knight of Pythias, and a member of the Knights of Honor, and of the Ancient Order of United Workmen. In religion he is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, South, and has the honor of being a teacher in the Sunday-school of his own church. He has been the attorney and a director in the Stones River National Bank from its organization, in 1871.

Judge Burrus married in Pulaski, Tennessee, May 30,,1871, Miss Hattie E. Pointer, a native of that place, daughter of John H. and Martha A. Pointer. Her father was a planter in Giles county, in which he at- tained very considerable success. The Pointers are of Virginia descent, and are numerous in Giles and Maury counties, standing socially and financially prominent, and noted for their public spirit. Mrs. Burrus is noted for her beauty and accomplishments. She was educated under Mrs. Nathan Adams, a celebrated private teacher at Pulaski, and subsequently went to St. Cecilia's

Academy, at Nashville, and leaving, completed her edu- cation at the Columbia Female Institute, Maury county, where she graduated in 1868. She is a lady of culture and intellect, of graceful manners, but utterly unostentatious. Her charities are numerous, and the purity of her Christian character has caused her to be universally respected and beloved.

Judge Burrus is one among the few men of financial success who began life on an inheritance. From his father's estate he received about five thousand dollars, and he has been fortunate in his business enterprises, devoting the greater part of his time and energies to the law, a work in which he takes great pleasure, without inclination to change the channel of his aspirations. He also inherited habits of industry, and since he came to years of discretion and chose his course of action, his fundamental idea and controlling principle has been that of integrity, and that no man is really entitled to success who has any other motive and method as a prompter and a guide. Judge Burrus states that he never told a mischievous lie or made a willful misrep- resentatation of facts in his life. His family has always held that a man who will lie will steal. In their esti- mate of human character veracity is the chiefest element,

WILLIAM T. BRIGGS, M.D.

NASHVILLE.

O F the distinguished surgeon whose name heads this biography, the late Dr. William K. Bowling, than whom there is no more competent authority, said: " Dr. Briggs ranks high among the first surgeons of the continent. He has had extraordinary success in all the capital operations of surgery, and has performed opera- . tions that no other man ever did perform success- fully. Endowed by nature with inflexible determination of purpose aud unflinching energy, he has from the be. ginning shown such celerity and dexterity in his opera- tions, or what I may denominate defitness in manipula- tions, that he is simply unparalleled."

From other sources, chiefly " Physicians and Surgeons of the United States," edition of 1878, is gathered mention of some of Dr. Briggs' most notable successful cases, to-wit: Ligation of the internal carotid artery for traumatic aneurism, 1871 ; removal of both entire up- per jaws for gunshot-shot injury, 1863; removal of lower jww for gun shot wound, 1863; hip-joint amputation for elephantiasis arabum, leg weighing eighty pounds, 1875.

Some of Dr. Briggs' more important publications are as follows: " History of Surgery in Middle Tennessee ;" 14

"Tetanus treated by Chloroform," Nashville Journal of Medicine and Surgery, 1851; "Enchondromatous Tumors of the Hand, Forearm and Arm ;" "Successful Amputation at the Shoulder Joint," Ibid, 1871 ; " Trau- matic Aneurism of the Internal Carotid, the Result of a Puncture, Ligation of the Common Carotid and then of the Internal at the Seat of Injury," Ibid, 1871; " Death from Chloroform," Ibid ; " Escape of Cathater into the Bladder during its use for the Relief of Reten- tion," Ibid, 1871 ; " Unilocular Ovarian Tumor -- Ope- ration-Recovery," Ibid, October, 1871; " Dislocation of the Radius and Ulna backwards in a patient two and a half years old," I bid, 1871 ; " Multilocular Ovarian Tumor -Tapped more than fifty times; Extensive Parietal, Intestinal and Vesical Adhesion; Incision eight inches long ; weight of tumor eighty-five pounds, Recovery," I bid, May, 1872; "Trephining in Epilepsy," / bid, 1869; " Dugas' Pathognomonie Symptom in Dis- location at Shoulder Joint," Ibid, 1875 ; " The Trephine, its Uses in Injuries of the Head," I bid, 1876. The Antiseptic Treatment of Wounds after Operations and Injuries, a paper read before the Surgical Association in 1881-pamphlet. The Surgical Treatment of Epilepsy,

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read before the American Surgical Association, June 1, 1881-pamphlet.

From Dr. Briggs himself the writer learned that he has performed the operation of lithotomy one hundred and fifty-two times by the media-bilateral method, with but six deaths; of trephining seventy-three times with only five deaths; removed over one hundred ovarian tumors and ligated all the principal arteries. One knows not whether to admire more the dexterity of his operations or the audacious celerity with which they are performed.

One of his published addresses, delivered before the McDowell Medical Society of Kentucky, November 4, 1874, is a masterpiece of occasional oratory, rich with gems from almost every field of science and literature, and showing a breadth of culture belonging only to a finished scholar.

In early life his inclinations were to medicine, and he chose the profession because he liked it, and to it he has devoted his energies, day and night, ever since. His work is at once a labor of love and a professional, and personal pride. On the subject of honorable, high- toned, regular medical practice, he is enthusiastic, per- haps "fanatical" is the more appropriate term, and this not more for the honor of the profession than from pure benevolence and love of relieving human suffer- ing. He commenced the study at the age of seventeen, and has ignored all things else from that day to this, refusing alike civil office and medical commissions during the war, though attending the hospitals -- Fed- cral and Confederate alike, for humanity's sake.

Dr. Briggs is of large physique, has blue eyes, corru- gated forehead, and is the picture of roseate health. When standing, he has the appearance of inclining forward, as if giving attention; when walking, of stretching forward in pursuit. The rapidity of his mental combinations are marvelous. At a glance he comprehends the situation, and in a moment his measures are determined upon. In their execution he is in a perpetual hurry. He is a medical storm. He talks .and goes and works in a hurry ; but his is the practiced eye and unerring hand of a surgeon absolute master of his business. He seems to love the activities of his calling more as a mode of self assertion than for the inflow of revenue to his office. It is not vanity, nor self-importance in the man, but an anxiety to do the work assigned him, to act well his part as a member of the human family. No man does it with more alacrity, as if labor were its own reward. One duty done and he is eager for the next. In these respects he and his partner, the celebrated Dr. John M. Watson, were as much alike as twin brothers. No two men were ever more fitted for a medical partnership. When Dr. Watson in his last illness was informed by Dr. Briggs that his case was hopeless, he replied, " I am not afraid to die, but I would rather live in order to work." In that single utterance is the characteristic sentiment of

both men. With them the value of life is measured by its opportunities for work in the most benevolent, self' sacrificing and noble of all callings. No more inviting field for surgical operations can be found in all the south than Nashville-a great geographical, rail - road, commercial and educational center, and it is from this field that Fame has gathered up the name of Briggs and sent it back to Europe, whence the family originated, with an undimmed and added luster.

Dr. Briggs was born at Bowling Green, Kentucky, December 4, 1828, received his literary education at the same place; graduated in medicine from the Tran sylvania University, at Lexington, Kentucky, when not yet twenty-one; practiced with his father three years at Bowling Green ; married in 1850, and upon his election to the position of Demonstrator of Anatomy in ... the medical department of the University of Nashville, removed to that city in 1852, where he has resided ever since. Soon after his settlement at Nashville, he formed a partnership in the practice of medicine with the illustrious Dr. John M. Watson, professor of obstetrics in the university ; an Old Baptist divine; author of a volume entitled " The Old Baptist Test," the pro- foundest theological treatise Tennessee has ever pro- duced. This partnership, with slight interruptions, lasted, under the name of Watson & Briggs, up to Dr. Watson's death in 1866.

In 1856 Dr. Briggs was made adjunct professor of anatomy with Dr. Thomas R. JJennings, professor of anatomy in the University of Nashville. The war sus- pended the operations of the university until 1865, when he took the chair of surgical anatomy and physi- ology, vacated by the death of Prof. A. II. Buchanan, which he held until he was transferred in 1866 to the chair made vacant by the death of Dr. Watson-the chair of obstetrics and diseases of women and children. In 1868 he succeeded Dr. Paul F. Eve, sr., as professor of surgery in the same university, which Dr. Eve had resigned. This latter position Dr. Briggs continues to hold in the consolidated medical departments of the University of Nashville and Vanderbilt University. The chair of surgery in medical schools of four different' cites have been tendered to him. He has so far, how- ever, refused to sever his connection with his first love, the medical department of the University of Nashville.

Dr. Briggs is a member and ex-vice-president of the American Medical Association, and in 1881, was one of its delegates to the International Medical Congress at London, England. He was one of the founders of the American Surgical Association, and its president in 1885. In September, 1885, he was chosen president of the section of general surgery in the International Medical Congress to be held in Washington in Septem- ber, 1887. In his younger days he made the tour of Europe, visiting its most celebrated hospitals. Dr. Briggs has always been a patient student. He has to- day probably the largest medical and surgical library

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in the South, comprising more than four thousand volumes, and is a man of careful and profound research, following the best methods, and improving upon them as necessity and occasion suggest.

In his youth Dr. Briggs imbibed the Whig political principles, and it will go without saying that he still retains the proclivities and antipathies of the grand old Henry Clay party, and that during the war he was, of course, a southern man.

His financial success has been highly satisfactory, though out of the impulsive generosity of his nature he at times stood security, and had to " smart for it."

In 1850 he became a Master Mason at Bowling Green, Kentucky. In religion he is orthodox, though not a communicant. His wife is a Presbyterian, an excellent mother, and to her his two oldest sons, Drs. Charles and Waldo Briggs, owe their success in life. She had the management of them.

Dr. Briggs married in Bowling Green, Kentucky, May 25, 1850, Miss Annie E. Stubbins, a native of that town, the daughter of Mr. Samuel Stubbins. Her mother was a Miss Garrison. By this marriage four children have been born : (1). Dr. Charles S. Briggs, the prominent young surgeon, who is now professor of surgical anatomy and operative surgery in medical de- partment of the University of Nashville and Vanderbilt University, a full biography of whom appears elsewhere in this volume. (2). Dr. Waldo Briggs, born in Bowling Green, Kentucky, July 2, 1854; graduated in medicine from the University of Nashville and Vanderbilt Uni- versity in 1876; settled in St. Louis in 1877 as a practi- tioner of surgery. He was professor of surgical anatomy and operative surgery in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, in St. Louis, and is largely engaged in the practice of surgery. (3). Virginia Lee ("Dovie") Briggs, born in Nashville, February 11, 1862; educated in Nash- ville and at Baltimore, and is highly accomplished in every sense of the word, (4). Samuel S. Briggs, born in Nashville, June 8, 1868; now a student in Nashville, and probably destined for medical life.

Dr. Briggs' father, John M. Briggs, M.D., was a native of Nelson county, Kentucky, born April 9, 1798, and died April , 182. He was the son of a farmer, native of the same county, of Scotch descent. With his father's family he moved to Bowling Green, Ken- tucky, and there worked on a farm in summer, going to school in winter, until twenty-one years of age, when he studied medicine under Dr. Beauchamp, and graduated from the medical department of the Transylvania University, and returned to Bowling Green, where he practiced medicine and surgery sixty years. Such were the father and grandfather of three generations of learned physicians. When twenty-four years of age, Dr. John M. Briggs married Miss Harriet Morehead, the beautiful sister of Gov. Charles S. Morehead, of Kentucky. " This estimable lady," says Dr. Bowling in his " Life of John M. Briges," " with

much of the mental force and sweetness of manner that made her illustrious brother the idol of his people, was the mother of W. T. Briggs, M. D., of the Univer- sity of Nashville and Vanderbilt University, who has earned for himself a national and European reputation, imperishable, because it rests upon not what he has taught or said, but upon what he has actually done." Dr. Briggs' father was a Baptist; dressed elegantly, and was a fine specimen of the suaciter in modo of the old regime. His wife died in 1881, after sixty years of happy wedded life.

The eldest son of Dr. John M. Briggs, Charles M. Briggs, graduated at the University of Nashville, and settled as a lawyer at Louisville, Kentucky, and died there in 1875.

The writer has before him a volume of three hundred and sixty-five pages, giving gencological tables of " The Briggs Family," from A.D., 1273, with nine ways of spelling the name, originally " Bridge," the coats of arms of the various branches of the family, etc. But the subject of this sketch, his father and his sons, are con- structing a span of the " Bridge " at the Tennessee end of the line more immediately interesting. There is much in blood, in race, in family, but these are second- ary matters in the presence of a grand character which a descendant has built up for himself, and which reflects more luster upon the family name than it derives from it.

Dr. Briggs is an extraordinary man, viewed from any light, but perhaps appears to best advantage as a lec- - turer before his auditory of medical students. In twenty years he has never lost an hour, but has been on hand at the first tap of the bell, and he is very severe in reprimanding students who come late. Himself a strict temperance man, both as regards whisky and tobacco-as physicians, of all men, ought to be-he lectures his classes at least once every winter on the subject of temperance.

The writer attended one of his eleven o'clock lectures - the subject was treatment of hemorrhage from wounds -- and understood the entire discourse, so plain does he make everything. The Doctor afterwards remarked that when his youngest son was but fourteen years old, he sometimes made him attend a lecture and afterwards asked him if he comprehended it. This is but one of his means of making himself lucid, and a good way of ascertaining whether he was properly handling the momentous subjects, on a correct knowledge of which by his classes the lives of thousands must depend. As a lecturer he never lacks for words, nor recalls a word to substitute a better, nor uses synonyms, nor repeats himself. When on general principles his delivery is rapid, his gesticulations forcible and aptly illustrative. Ile uses no notes, changes his position as if restless to hurry on to the nicer points of the topic, and what the young gentlemen most appreciate as the most delicate of all compliments, he looks a little absorbed, as if speaking to an audience of erities and handling a sub-

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ject that only a master may dare to touch. Ilis style is intensely earnest, as if to arouse the students to the fearful importance of the subject. His familiar allu- sions to the names of medical men of the past, their methods, inventions and modes of treatment, impress one with a sort of feeling that he is in the presence of a man who has lived and conversed with the illustrious surgeons of all ages, and made himself an expert in all their proceedings. IFe is familiar with the minuta of every subject, and his language and gesture and practi- cal illustration are a steady stream of pellucid thought, language necessarily technical, but otherwise clear to a common mind. He lectures as if he had never prac- ticed, he practices as if he never talks. Fastening his eye upon a single individual in the center of the class, he never diverts his look in any other direction. This is a grave fault in a public speaker, but it is character- istic of the man. It is the necessity of his nature to concentrate all the parts and faculties of soul and body on one subject at a time. He is all concentration, and this unquestionably is the key to the mystery of his marvelous learning and unexampled success. As a

lecturer, as a practical surgeon, he is a man of exhaust- less resources and quick at invention to illustrate or apply at the urgent moment. He speaks with a face radiant with gladness, because he knows that he knows what he is talking about, and that through his students he is distributing his knowledge over the whole South, and transmitting himself to distant ages as a benefactor. A most honorable feature of his lectures is that he gives due honor to the men to whom he refers, and credit to those from whom he quotes. All the lines of his face come to a point. He is power focalized, con- densed and solidified. Yet he is not hostile to innova- tion. On the nicer work of a surgeon his speech is slow and measured, to enable his class to comprehend the dangerous intricacies of the operation and deserip- tion, reminding one of a great steamer going slow over shoals. The writer listened delighted and with bewil- dered interest to the learned Doctor, and could detect but one mistake in the lecture-the reference to Dr. Gross as " the greatest surgeon in the world." The compliment would be just with the added words- "outside of Nashville."

JOSEPH MOTTLEY ANDERSON, M.D.

LEBANON.

T' HIS gentleman, "native here, and to the manner born," appears in these pages not only as a repre- sentative Tennessean, but as one of the best represent- atives of Wilson county, where he has lived from his birth, now seventy years, distinguished as a physician and as a Mason. He has served twice, 1866 and 1867, as Grand Master of Tennessee; has taken all the de- grees of the York, and eighteen degrees of the Scottish Rite, and conferred more degrees in Masonry than any other man in Tennessee. He served one year as Grand High Priest, one year as Thrice Illustrious Grand Master of the Grand Council, one year as Deputy Grand Commander, and served as Eminent Commander the same year ; has held the offices of Junior and Senior Grand Warden, Deputy Grand Master, Deputy Grand Commander, and also served as Grand Commander the same year. He was made a Mason in Lebanon Lodge No. 98, in 1842, and has presided in all the offices of the Lodge, Chapter, Council and Commandery at Leb- anon, and is also Grand Representative of the Grand Lodges of New Brunswick and New Hampshire near the Grand Lodge of Tennessee.

He commenced studying medicine in 1833, in the office of Doctors John Ray and Miles MeCorkle; at- tended medical lectures in 1835-36-37, at Pennsylvania University, Philadelphia, and graduated in 1837, under Profs. Gibson, Horner, Chapman, Hare, Dewees, Sam-

uel Jackson and Wood, and has been doing a fine practice at Lebanon ever since. Dr. Anderson is eminent as an obstetrician. He has made that branch of his profession a specialty, and has done a larger obstetrical practice than any physician in the State-in one instance including three generations of the same family. Before the war he had accumulated a hand- some fortune, aggregating seventy-five thousand dollars, all of which he lost but ten thousand dollars by the war, but has since grown independent and is now in easy circumstances.

Prior to the war Dr. Anderson was a Whig, but since the close of hostilities has been a Democrat. Though not in the service himself, he had fourteen representa- tives in the Confederate army-two sons and twelve cousins.

Dr. Anderson married in Wilson county, Tennessee, September 24, 1835, Miss Mary D. Sypert, a native of that county, daughter of Lawrence Sypert, a farmer, living near Lebanon, originally from North Carolina. Her mother was Miss Mary Lambeth, also from the "Old North State." Mrs. Anderson was educated at Lebanon, and is remarkable for her fine common sense, her talents and her culture. She is a member of the Christian church, while the Doctor, himself, belongs to the Baptist church, of which he is a deacon.

By his marriage with Miss Sypert, Dr. Anderson has 1

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had twelve children, only three of whom are now living: (1). Joseph B. Anderson; educated at Lebanon ; served in the Confederate army four years, in Col. Starnes' cavalry regiment; was with Gen. Forrest in the seven days' and nights' pursuit and capture of Streight; was at the battle of Chickamauga and other noted engage- ments, and was wounded by the loss of a forefinger. After the war he married Miss Annie Betty, of Smith county, and now has eight children: Joseph, Mary, Kay, Edwin, Annie, Eugene, Samuel and James, He is now a large farmer in Smith county, near Gordons- ville. (2). Samuel M. Anderson, now a druggist at Lebanon ; educated at Lebanon and Knoxville; married Miss Clara Alexander, daughter of Dr. Alexander of Dixon Springs, Smith county, Tennessee. (3). Kate Anderson, graduated with the highest distinction at Cumberland University in 1882.

Four of Dr. Anderson's children died in infancy. His daughter, Emma, died the wife of William David Lumpkin, of Memphis, leaving three children, daugh- ters, Emma, Mary and Anna Lumpkin, all of whom are living with Dr. Anderson at Lebanon. Misses Emma and Mary Lumpkin are graduates of Cumberland Uni- versity, and Miss Anna Lumpkin is now a student in that institution.

Dr. Anderson's daughter, Eugenia, died May 20, 1876, the wife of Henry Clay Brown, leaving two chil- dren, Eugenia and Marie Brown, both now living with their grandfather at Lebanon.

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Sketches of prominent Tennesseans. Containing biographies and records of many of the families who have attained prominence in Tennessee, Part 24

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