Sketches of prominent Tennesseans. Containing biographies and records of many of the families who have attained prominence in Tennessee, Part 3

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

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In 1870 he was member for Davidson county of the most important constitutional convention ever sum- moned in Tennessee, thatsconvention whose duty it was to modify the institutions' of the State 'so as to adapt them to the vast organic changes which had been brought about by the abolition of slavery and the results of the recent civil war.

This was the last political position held by Gov. Brown ; but he has once since then come forward from the dignified and peaceful retirement which he had chosen. In 1880, when the last struggle of parties came on in relation to the State debt question, the venerable Governor was induced to step on the platform again and put in one more plea for the credit and honor of the State. He was at once recognized as the old man eloquent, pleading with impaired physical powers, but with undiminished fire, the cause of righteous dealing, and though that plea was unavailing, it will be remembered in the coming years, when the present gen- eration of politicians has passed away, and a future race of Tennesseans may haply be induced to reconsider cally a question decided in the heat of party ani- inosity.

In politics Gov. Brown has been a life-long Whig, at least so long as the Whig party had an organized existence, but since the war has acted with what is now styled the Democratic party. He has, however, ab- stained for some time from party conflicts, preferring to give his valuable support to those measures which are advocated not on party lines. Among these the foremost is that of popular education. Among self-educated men no better test of their magnanimity can be found than that of observing how they look upon education. One class delights in disparaging every better educated man than themselves as a pedant and dreamer; this is not the magnanimous class. Another, on remembering the disadvantages which clogged their own early career, are only inspired by it to vow that no meritorious young man of the future shall be shackled and impeded at the threshold of life as they have been; and to this class belongs Neill S. Brown, the most zealous and

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active promoter of public education in the Tennessee of the present.

The father of Gov. Brown was Duncan Brown, a native of Robertson county, North Carolina, who mar- ried and emigrated to Giles county, Tennessee, in 1809, where in 1810, he became father of the future Governor. It will be gathered from what has already been said, that he was a poor man. He was a farmer, aud, from the time when the Whig party was first organized a Whig, and to the day of his death. He was a man of strong intellect, but of moderate educational advantages. IIe seems to have been a man of poetical turn, as both his sons were, though none of the three are known to have published any poetry. It is the testimony of one who knew him that the old gentleman was better looking than either of his sons, which is saying much, for both of them have been very fine looking men. His father (grandfather to the Governor), was Angus Brown, born in Scotland and settled in Robertson county, North Carolina, about the middle of the last century. There he lived and died a farmer. He served a short campaign in the Revolutionary war under Gen. Marion. IIe lived to be about seventy years of age.

All these people have been plain farmers, in moderate circumstances, Presbyterians of the old school, and re- spected in their days as fair dealing, upright citizens.

Gov. Brown married at Nashville, December 26, 1839, Miss Mary Ann Trimble, daughter of Judge James Trimble, of that city, deceased, a man of posi- tion and influence, of a Virginia family. Her mother, Letitia Clark, was born in East Tennessee, daughter of Norris Clark, a merchant and farmer from Virginia. Mrs. Brown's brother, Hon. John Trimble, was several times a member of the Legislature, and once district attorney-general. He was a noted leader of the Union party in the days of secession. Her sister, Louisa, died wife of John Reid, a prominent lawyer at Nashville. Her sister, Eliza, married A. V. S. Lindsley, a lawyer at Nashville, son of Dr. Philip Lindsley. Her sister, Susan, married Col. W. B. A. Ramsey, of Knoxville, Secretary of State of Tennessee; both now dead. Mrs. Brown is a lady of taste and intellect, of pleasing, amiable manners, religious, and endowed with the fact and native politeness which are beautifully manifested in the practice of a genial and elegant hospitality.

By this marriage Gov. Brown has had eight children : (1). James Trimble, born at Pulaski, February 25, 1842, a lawyer; married Miss Jennie F. Nichol, sister of Dr. William L. Nichol, of Nashville; died May 31, 1878; he was a soldier in the Confederate service ; left three children, William Lytle, Elizabeth and Trimble. (2). George Tully, born at Pulaski, December, 1813; a lawyer at Nashville; married Miss Lou. Ezell, daughter of P. H. Ezell, of Pulaski. (3). Neill S., born at Pu- laski, February 1, 1846; now reading clerk in the House of Representatives at Washington ; married Miss Susan Walton, daughter of Col, W. B. Walton, of 2

Davidson county; has two children, Neill and Walton ; served in the Confederate army four years. (4). Dun- can, born at Nashville, August 4, 1818; died July 8, 1879; clerk of the Davidson County Court at the time of his death. (5.). Susan Louisa, born at Nashville, November 5, 1850; not married. (6). Henry A., born at Nashville, May 7, 1854; was express agent on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railroad, and was killed at Albuquerque, March 27, 1881; ummarried. (7). Mary Letitia, born at Nashville, June 27, 1856; wife of Capt. Vinet Donelson, a merchant at Nashville. (8). John C., born at Nashville, December 28, 1858; United States mail agent; unmarried.

The career of Gov. Brown is confidently offered as a most instructive lesson to such young men as, feeling themselves possessed of the ability to rise above the ordinary level of humanity, find themselves impeded and shackled by straitened circumstances. The ad- vantages of the Governow's youth were limited to a pure, simple and frugal home, with religious training and a necessity for constant industry ; its disadvantages were the absence of educational facilities, straitened finance, and distance from center of population, No young man who is now complaining of his obstacles to self-elevation will find, on reading the above sketch, that they were greater than those which stood in the way of Gov. Brown, who practiced no arts but those of self-denial, industry and perseverance; and yet, twenty years after he commenced his education on the slen- derest of means, he was Governor of the State, and three years after that was ambassador in one of the greatest courts in Europe.

How was it done? This question was put to the Governor by the editor, and his answer shall be given in his own words. He points out his first advantage as being " the manner in which I was raised by my parents, who were strict diciplinarians, instilling correct morals." Hle goes on to say of himself: " I had a native ambition to rise from obscurity and make myself useful in the world ; to shine and be distinguished. A pains-taking father and mother inculcated moral and religious prin- ciples, without which no success is worth anything. My poverty pushed me on. I started life on nothing, was as poor as any man in Tennessee who ever became at all known."

So after all there were no methods beyond taking hold of whatever there was to do and doing it with all his might, observing, the white, those principles of strict morality in which he had been trained. That is your method, young man; it never failed, and there is no other.

Gov. Brown is six feet two inches in height, a little bowed at seventy-five years of age; perfectly accessible, his manners those of a man who, being at ease himself, puts all who approach him at case and conciliates their confidence ; manners which have given him acceptance in the courts of great monarchs, and which make the

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plainest farmer feel at home with him. Such, and such only, are the manners of a finished gentleman.

In one respect Gov. Brown does not commend his own example to young men-that of rushing into poli- ties before establishing themselves in their profession or calling in life, so as to be independent of results. Party success is so fluctuating a thing, he says, that it is not sufficiently reliable for a man to make it his main dependence in life. He is far from being a rich man him-

self, and believes he would be much better off if he had given his undivided attention to his profession as a lawyer during those early years when he was on the stump. The truth is, there are only two results that can accrue from a premature entry into political life : an old age of honorable poverty, or an unscrupulous scramble for the spoils of office, regardless of polit- ical principle, which is now the curse of American politics,

HION. ARCHIBALD WRIGHT.

MEMPILLS.

A RCHIBALD WRIGHIT was born in Maury coun- ty, Tennessee, November 28, 1809, the son of JJohn Wright and Nancy Wright, nce MeIntyre, John Wright was son of Duncan Wright, of Scotland, of whom we learn nothing but his longevity ; he died a centenarian, HIe must have migrated some time in the eigtheenth century, as John was born in Cumberland county, North Carolina, and emigrated to Tennessee in 1809, where he settled first in Maury county and afterwards in Giles county, having purchased property on Big Creek. He inherited his father's privilege of longevity, having died recently at very little short of one hundred years of age.

Nancy MeIntyre was born in Chatham county, North Carolina, where she was married to John Wright above named. She was known as a lady of great stature, and remarkable energy of character, devoting herself to the laborious duties of a farmer's wife in the early days of Tennessee, and to the care and training of her children. She died at the age of fifty, and is buried at Mount Pleasant, Maury county, Tennessee.

A cousin of the Judge is mentioned, a lawyer in Mississippi named Daniel B. Wright, invincible as a pleader before a jury. Hle at one time represented Mississippi in Congress, and was severely wounded in the service of the Confederate States.

Judge Wright's early training was that which has produced the best men of our nation, that of a well- raised farmer's son, attending a good English country school part of the year and doing farm work the rest. Ilis teacher was a Mr. Chadduck, living first in the neighborhood of Big Creek, afterward at Mount Pleas- ant, Maury county, who seems to have acquired con- siderable reputation as a teacher, and his opinion of young Wright is evinced by his making him his assist- ant teacher. At what age we are not informed, he was sent to the academy at Pulaski, by the advice of Judge Bramlett. This institution was at the time in the hands of William W. Potter and G. W. Melihce, both prominent educators, the latter a graduate of West

Point. He here made some proficiency in Latin, alge- bra and geometry; but the basis of his intellectual character in after life is believed to have been the sound English education he received from Mr. Chad- duck. He became in youth a good practical surveyor under the instruction of Peter Swanson. He was much devoted to the manly sports favored by the country youth of those days, and being of a powerful frame and healthy constitution, must have been a prominent sportsman among his' comrades. Such was his boyhood, laying up for him a fund of health and strength, together with a practical acquaintance with the affairs of life.

In the years intermediate between his school days and his professional training, he became himself a school teacher, according to the primitive customs of those days. The first year he took a three months' school on the old condition of boarding around with the parents of his pupils. This was in Maury county, near his birthplace. The second year it was a nine months' school near Mount Pleasant, where he had himself been educated by Mr. Chadduck. He humorously summed up the profits of his teaching as follows : First year, one bridle, one pair of martingales and five dollars in cash; second year, forty-five dollars in cash.

At the age of nineteen, while looking around for a new location as teacher, he accidentally heard an emi- nent lawyer named Craighead deliver a masterly speech in a slander case at Columbia. This finally decided him to adopt the bar as his professional career, and he thenceforth lived and died in its practice. He studied in the office of Judge Bramlett at Pulaski, and after- wards obtained his license at Nashville from Judge Thomas Stewart, of Franklin, and Robert White, of Nashville, the latter being then on the Supreme bench of the State. He commenced practice in Pulaski, and we have it on his own statement that he made twenty- five hundred dollars by his first year's practice, a hand- some income in those days, even for a lawyer in estab- lished practice.

It cannot be said that Archibald Wright was a man

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1. might

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of extensive learning when he entered on the profession of law. His books had been few, but those thoroughly mastered. The chief elements of his success were a keen insight into character and motive, an impressive earnestness of manner, a great facility in the expression of his ideas, combined with a power of commending them to the judgment of other men. It has been re- marked that, while his judgments from the bench were characterized by an extreme terseness and concentra- tion of thought and language, his pleadings at the bar were diffusive and exhaustive, omitting nothing which could have any possible bearing upon the case in hand ; and it should be added that if he commenced with a moderate amount of book lore, his subsequent studies must have been extensive, as his legal opinions evince a very copious acquaintance with previous cases bearing upon the issues before him.

In 1835-36 he served as a volunteer in the Seminole war, under Gen. Armstrong, and in company with many other noted Tennesseans, among them Terry H. Cahal, Dr. Cheairs, Gen. William Trousdale and Gov. Neill S. Brown. Hle and Brown were at the same time presi- dential electors on opposite sides, Wright on the Van Buren ticket (Democrat), and Brown on that of Hugh 1 .. White ( Whig). They returned from the army to vote, just before the close of the war and, with it, of their military careers.

He married, in 1837, Miss Mary Elizabeth Eldridge, daughter of Dr. Elisha Eldridge, a physician of emi- nence and a Methodist preacher, a native of New Hampshire, of whom more will be stated at the close of this chapter.

In 1847 he was nominated and elected to the State Legislature from Giles county, and served his term therein, during which he held the important position of chairman of the judiciary committee. After this he never held political office, and indeed frequently ex- pressed himself averse to the routine of party polities with a great distaste for the machinery of partisan warfare, including caucuses and conventions, which he believed to act rather as an impediment than as an aid to the advancement of public interests.

Ilis professional practice continued to increase from the day he entered upon it, and he invested the profits of it in real estate, and ongaged in ISTE largely in cotton planting, his plantation being upon the Tombigbee river, in Lowndes county, Mississippi ; he also had property in Tunica county in the same State, and at one time worked as many as a hundred negroes. At the outbreak of the war, his whole property was valued at two hundred and eighty thousand dollars. While, however, he was at one time a wealthy man, his wealth had but two sources, industry intelligently directed and its proceeds judiciously invested. He never shaved notes or speculated, or resorted to even doubtful meth- ods of becoming suddenly rich.

In 1858 he was appointed to the Supreme bench of

Tennessee by Gov. Isham G. Harris to fill a vacancy, and was elected to the same position before taking his seat, which he did at Knoxville in September of the same year, his associates being Robert L. Caruthers and Robert J. Mckinney. All three occupied the Supreme bench until the war. Judge Wright's term legally expired in 1866, but he was arbitrarily displaced by Gov. Brownlow in 1865, and Alvin Hawkins ap- pointed in his place.

Towards the close of his life, Judge Wright once more entered the political arena to take part in the last desperate struggle of the State credit party, being dele- gate to the convention which nominated Mr. Fussell for Governor in 1882, and again as a candidate for the State Senate in the same year. In both he was defeated, as was anticipated from the first. His candidacy must be looked upon rather as a protest. than as a practical can- didature for office.

The wife of Judge Archibald Wright was, as has been already stated, the daughter of a New Hampshire gentleman, a physician and Methodist minister, named Elisha Eldridge, who died in 1833. On the mother's side she was descended from the noble Irish family of Dillon, a member of which emigrated towards the close of the last century, became a large landowner, and was grandfather of the lady in question. She was educated in Pulaski, Tennessee, and is a prominent and active member of the Methodist church. Four of the chil- dren of this lady by Judge Wright are living, as fol- lows: (1). Luke E. Wright, educated at the University of Mississippi; a fine scholar and accomplished gentle- man, whose reputation at the bar as a close reasoner, a well qualified lawyer, and an eloquent advocate already promises to raise him to the level of his father's high position. He married Miss Kate Semmes, daughter of the celebrated Admiral, and by her he is the father of four children, Eldridge, Anna, Luke E., junior, and Semmes. (2). Mary, educated by the widow of Gen. Leonidas Polk, at Columbia, Tennessee, and married to William C. Fowlkes, a law partner of Judge Wright, of high military and legal reputation. (3). Lizzie, educated at Memphis. (4). Kate, educated at Poughkeepsie, New York. . A second son of Judge Wright, named Elisha Eldridge, distinguished himself at the Univer- sity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, taking the first honors of his year, and receiving from the hands of President Buchanan a copy of' Hawkes' History of North Carolina, as a prize for composition. He was killed at the head of his company at the battle of Mur- freesborough.

Judge Wright was a director of the Planters Bank at Pulaski, and afterwards of the Planters Bank at Memphis, and throughout his career was always looked upon as a fit person for offices of trust and responsibil- ity. He was of commanding stature and powerful frame, distinguised for physical and moral courage, and both honored and feared for his unflinching condemna-

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tion of meanness and dishonesty. His manner was such as to repel indiscriminate familiarity but to attract the friendship of the noble and the good. He belonged to a past generation, the best of whose qualities are now at a discount, being eclipsed by the more superfi- cial element of popularity. It will be well for Tennes- see when her chosen leaders shall be men stamped with

the same high qualities that gave to Judge Wright the powerful and extensive influence he exercised when alive.

The opinions and decrees given from the Supreme bench of Tennessee by Judge Wright, can be found in the Reports of Suced and Head, and the two first vol- umes of Coldwell.

HION. WILLIAM F. COOPER.

NASHVILLE.

T' "ITE maternal ancestors of this gentleman were members of the same colony, originally Scotch- Irish, which migrated from South Carolina to Tennes- see quite at the commencement of the present century, and settled in Maury county in 1805, as is stated more in detail in the memoir of Chancellor S. D. Frierson, given in another part of this work. He and Chancellor W. S. Fleming are related to the late chancellor and to one another.

Franklin, in Williamson county, is the place of Judge Cooper's birth, which took place March 11, 1820, and in infancy he was carried to the permanent residence of the clan, as it may be called, in Maury county. His father was a man of education and literary tastes, and gave him the best education attainable in those days. He attended school until he was fourteen years old and then entered the class of 1834 at Yale College, graduating there in 1838: This class comprised the names of many men afterwards prominent in life ; among them are the following, the first three of whom were members of Congress : (1). Joseph B. Varnum, member of Congress from New York, many years in the New York Legislature. (2). Richard S. Donnel, member of Congress from North Carolina. (3). Wil- liam P. Lynde, of Milwaukee, member of Congress from Wisconsin. (4). William S. Fleming, chancellor of the Columbia district. (5). J. Knox Walker, pri- vate secretary to President Polk. (6). Benjamin S. Edwards, of Springfield, Ilinois, many years a judge in that State. (7). Francis P. Blair, a general in the Federal army during the late war, and candidate for vice-presi- dent on the ticket with Gov. Seymour, of New York.

After the completion of his academical course, law was not Mr. Cooper's first love, but a brief flirtation with medicine preceded his courtship of the profession to which he was finally wedded. Ile studied medicine two years at Columbia with Dr. Hayes of that city, and took one course of lectures in the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania, when he discovered that law rather than medicine was his true vocation. Ile then studied law with S. D. Frierson, afterwards the celebrated chancellor, and, on admission to the bar,

became his partner. His admission to the bar was in March, 1841, Judges Anderson and Dillahunty partici- pating in that ceremony.

His partnership with his preceptor, Mr. Frierson, lasted four years, and in 1815 he moved to Nashville, where he has since resided. Here he became a partner with A. O. P. Nicholson, afterwards Chief Justice of the State (elected to that office 1870, died 1876). This second partnership lasted only one year, and he practiced alone until 1851, when he became partner of the Hon. Andrew Ewing, and practiced with him ten years.

In 1861 he was elected one of the judges of the Supreme Court of the State, but the war causing the closing of the courts, and Judge Cooper being strongly southern in his sympathies, William G. Brownlow, as military governor, interdieted him from the exercise of his office.

Returning to the bar, he formed a partnership suc- cessively with Judge Robert L. Caruthers and with his brother, Henry Cooper. This latter gentleman was elected United States Senator in 1870. After two years practicing alone he was again removed from the bar by his appointment as chancellor of the Seventh, or Nash- ville, district, by Gov. John C. Brown. He was soon after elected to the same post by the people, and held it till 1878, when he was elected to the Supreme bench for eight years, defeating in this election Judge John L. T. Sneed, who had beaten him in 1853, when both of them were candidates for the office of attorney- general.

While nearly all his family connections were Whigs before the war, and have bee> and still are Presbyte- rians, he has always been a Democrat, and has never joined any religious organization. Neither is he a member of any secret society; he is eminently an inde- pendent thinker, and not willing to be bound in his thoughts by any organization, religious, political or social.

Judge Cooper has been successful in life in a financial point of view, his property before the war amounting to over one hundred thousand dollars in value. He attributes his success in this respect to constant and

PROMINENT TENNESSEANS.

close attention to business, and always living within his means. These two observances are in truth the condi- tion of all success in life, the exceptions being so rare and accidental that they form no guide for men's con- duct. The judge was never married.

In stating the ancestry and family connections of William F. Cooper, Samuel D. Frierson and W. S. Fleming separately, many repetitions must inevitably oceur, for the members of that Maury county colony, several times alluded to in this volume, intermarried so frequently with one another that the relations of one are the relations of all. His maternal grandfather was one of the original members of the colony, which owned sixteen sections of land (over ten thousand acres), with the Presbyterian church in the middle, the first building put up on it, and the school-house close by. [ See the memoir on another page of S. D. Frierson]. His father, Matthew D. Cooper, was born in 1793, in Chester district, South Carolina. He was one of the earliest graduates of Cumberland College, at Nashville, since known as the University of Nashville, in the same class with the Hon. John Bell, once United States Senator, and Judge W. B. Turley, of the Supreme Court. He married in Maury county, was cashier of the bank at Franklin, and afterwards engaged in mercantile business in that town in partnership with Dr. William G. Dickenson, In 1822 he moved to Columbia, engaged in the mercan- tile business till 1827, when he became a commission merchant in New Orleans. This business he kept up for thirty-five years, but continued to make his home in Maury county, where, until 1867, he was a successful farmer. He died December 18, 1878, at Columbia. He was a lieutenant and acting captain under Jackson in the Creek war. He was a man of energetic character, well educated and of literary tastes. His whole prop- erty at the commencement of the war vested in negroes, land and merchandise, was probably not worth less than one hundred thousand dollars, all the proceeds of his own exertions. His credit stood high as a business man. From 1840 to 1862 he was president of the Columbia branch of the Union Bank. . His wife, mother of Judge Cooper, was a daughter of William Frierson, the acknowledged head of the Frierson clan, repeatedly mentioned as settling in Maury county in 1805, and was first cousin to the mother of Chancellor S. D. Frierson. She died in 1833, at Columbia, leaving four children, viz. : (1). William F., the subject of this sketch. (2). Edmund, a graduate of Jackson College at Columbia, now a lawyer at Shelbyville. He was for several years a member of the State Legislature, both before and since the war, and assistant secretary of the treasury under President Johnson. (3), Henry, gradu- ated at Jackson College, Columbia; for many years practiced law in partnership with his brother Edmund, at Shelbyville; appointed circuit judge by Gov. Brown- low, and held the office three or four years, and after- wards became a professor in the law school 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 3

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