USA > Tennessee > Sketches of prominent Tennesseans. Containing biographies and records of many of the families who have attained prominence in Tennessee > Part 32
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as a Christian gentleman ; a man of remarkable courage, physical and moral; a thinking man and honest in his convictions, fearless but not obtrusive in presentation of them. Besides his mathematical attainments, his acquaintance with general literature, and especially with theology and metaphysics, was quite extensive. He died March 27, 1872, aged sixty-four years.
The grandfather of Dr. Thomas J. Dodd was William Dodd, of Loudon county, Virginia, a quiet farmer, of good character, and of Welsh desceut. He died in 1837.
Dr. Dodd's mother; Delilah Bartleson Fox, was a daughter of Dr. Fox, of the District of Columbia, and
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came from a family of refinement and of comfortable circumstances. She was a woman of bright intellect, of fine education, and remarkably conversant with English literature in its highest ranges. She died in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1849, leaving four children of the ten born : (1). Martha Elizabeth Dodd, now wife of Wil- liam II. Ralston, a capitalist, near Leavenworth, Kansas, (2). James W. Dodd, LL. D., professor of Latin language and literature in Vanderbilt University, Nashville. (3). Thomas John Dodd, subject of this sketch. (4). Vir ginius W. Dodd, of Texas.
Dr. Dodd passed his boyhood as a student in Transyl- vania University, at Lexington, Kentucky, from which institution he graduated in 1857. After graduation he taught a few years. and then joined the Kentucky Con- ference of the Methodist Episcopal church, South, since which time, though he has taught a great deal, he has never severed his connection with that conference. In 1863 he was made principal of the academy at Millers- burg, Kentucky, which afterwards became the Ken- tucky Wesleyan College. After being there a while, he was invited to Paris, Kentucky, by leading citizens, to open a select school, and such advantages were offered that he felt it his duty, as did also his friends, to accept the proposition. After teaching at Paris six years, he was sent by Bishop Paine to take charge of the Methodist Episcopal church, South, at Frank fort, after which he held the pastorate of the Methodist churches in Coving- ton and Maysville, Kentucky. In 1875 he became president of the Kentucky Wesleyan College, at Mil- lersburg, a position which had been pressed upon him several times before. Yet he had only been there one year when he was invited to the professorship of Hebrew in Vanderbilt University, Nashville. For three or four years he was, in connection with his Hebrew professor- ship, pro tem, professor of English literature, and his classes were among the largest in the university. In March, 1885, dissatisfied with the management of the board of trust, and especially with the peculiar control exercised over the faculty by the president of the board, he resigned his professorship in this institution, and in the following September opened a select high school in Nashville, This institution is in many regards peculiar. In it young men are carried through the most advanced collegiate classes-but all studies are taught with a constant reference to their practical utility, either in business life or in the cultivation of intellectual and moral character. The high estimate in which this institution is held is shown in the fact that though the tuition is two hundred dollars per annum, a larger num- ber of candidates than could be admitted made applica- tion for scholarships before the first session was opened. . Though engaged for the greater part of his life chiefly in the educational work, Dr. Dodd has not been idle in
the ministry. His pulpit ministrations have been about as constant as those of most pastors, and have been ex- tended cheerfully among all the religious denominations. While a Methodist in heart and in membership, he has never been a sectarian-making a broad distinction be- tween the general Church of Christ and his own division of it, which he holds to be but a subordinate branch of the Church catholic. His readings and studies, like his sympathies in religion, have been varied. In litera- ture his attention has been devoted to the ancient classical and Semitic tongues, especially the Hebrew, with a few of the modern languages, so far as these have been necessary to the prosecution of enlightened scholarship.
Dr. Dodd has had fine literary advantages from the first. His -parents were cultivated people, and he has been a hard student from the age of ten, when, as he humorously relates, he received his first whipping from Rev. Wright Merrick, Lexington, Kentucky. In his methods as a teacher, he seeks to impress his students by oral communication rather than by text-book in- struction. As a theological professor, he aimed more to teach his students how to think than what to think. He never required them to accept any statement or view on his authority, or that of any man, living or dead, but upon great underlying principles of truth and reason, so far as they may be attained. Both as a theologian and as a scholar, these processes, while they have led him to the earnest advocacy of his own views, have caused him also to see the reasonableness of the views of others; hence, neither in literature nor in theology does he admit the least dogmatism, as the word is generally understood.
In 1873 Dr. Dodd married Miss Eva Baker, of Cov- ington, Kentucky, by whom he has had two children- one of whom, Mary Louise Dodd, born July 17, 1874, is now with him, educated partly by himself and partly at a select school in the neighborhood of the university. The other, Eva Virginia Dodd, sleeps in the most beau- tiful part of the cemetery at Lexington, Kentucky.
Mrs. Dodd is a woman of remarkably fine practical sense, in addition to a high order of literary culture and social refinement. She finished her education at Notre Dame Convent, Cincinnati, a school of eleven hundred students, from which she graduated as valedictorian. She is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, South. She is fully in sympathy with her husband in all his literary tastes as well as in his ministerial duties, and is an invaluable assistant to him in all that he un- dertakes, either in the way of private study or of pub- lic office. Few women unite in themselves more har- moniously the literary or artistic talent with the practi- cal or domestic : few are better qualified, in general, for the sphere which woman alone can fill.
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THOMAS MARTIN, DECEASED.
PULASKI.
FR ROM 1818 to 1869 no man filled so large a place in Giles county, or so impressed himself upon its history as Thomas Martin, merchant, planter and banker. Upon his death, January 13, 1870, the citizens of Pu- laski, where he had lived fifty-two years, held a meeting, at which it was resolved that, " we owe the memory of Thomas Martin a debt of gratitude for a large portion of the public spirit, enterprise and improvement in our county for the last thirty years. Our railroads, turn- pikes and public buildings have all grown up intimately connected with his name, and for these things, as well as for his friendship and kind social bearing with us all, we will keep his memory green in our minds as one whose example we would try to imitate."
The ancestry of Thomas Martin were of Welsh origin, and early emigrated to Virginia. His great grandfather's name was John Martin, and his grand- father was Thomas Martin, born in Virginia in 1714, and died in that State, aged seventy-eight years. All of his sons were in the war of 1812. Rev. Abram Martin, father of Thomas Martin, was born in October, 1774, in Albemarle county, Virginia; was a farmer, a minister of the Methodist church, and came to Tennes- see and settled in Sumner county in 1809, where he died August 4, 1846. He was a man of uprightness and charity, exceedingly conscientious and religious, and noted for his strong intellect .. His wife, nee Jane Oglesby Tribble, of a Virginia family, was notably in- tellectual, very witty, a fine conversationalist, and lived to be ninety-four years old .. Her mind was clear as a bell to the last. Within three or four days of her death she solved problems in mental arithmetic.
Of such parentage was Thomas Martin, born near Charlottesville, Virginia, Monday, December 16, 1799, the night George Washington died, or as Mr. Martin used humorously to say to his children, " that night one great man left the world and another entered it." At the age of ten he came with his father to Sumner county, Tennessee, where he lived on the farm, went to school, and clerked two years in Col. Desha's store at Gallatin, till the age of eighteen, when he went to Pu- laski, and soon became its most conspicuous citizen. After the age of fifteen he never cost his father a cent. As an example of his devotion as a son, his daughter mentions with pride, that she found among his bank papers, after his death, every letter his father had ever written to him.
A youth in his teens he went to Pulaski, then a new town, a mere village ; at twenty-five he had accumulated one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. He died worth more than a million. His marvelous success from the first is instructive, for it came of his fine judgment and
foresight, or, as another more happily expresses it, "by his thinking beforehand what he was going to do." That he was a strong man a study of the engraving accompanying this sketch amply shows. The head is at once broad, deep and long ; the firm mouth indicates self-assertiveness, and the will-power to say No. He had a fine physique, robust health, a large brain, a solid character, was a good merchant, a warm-hearted patriot, and above all, a good man-all of which justifies the partiality with which his friends still speak of him. Hle and his family have done much for the country, yet not one of them has ever asked an office of honor, trust or profit in return, or even in recognition for their val- uable services.
Thomas Martin set out in his career on the right foot, and won the admiration of the people of his county by a single decision which only a man of singular devotion to principles of honor could have made under the temptation to save money by taking a legal step which he deemed dishonorable; for what first gave him a bus- iness footing and high standing among merchants was this: At the age of eighteen, while absent on a visit to his father, and just after closing a business venture, his partner squandered the money (four thousand dol- lars) due the creditors of the firm. On his return he found the bills in the hands of lawyers for collection. HIe had had no hand in misappropriating the funds, but when his own lawyer advised him to plead the infant act, he replied with indignation, "Never! I would sooner die; and if I have two years' time every dollar shall be paid," and he at once pledged all that he had, including his riding horse and its equipments, to satisfy the debt. . When the New York creditors heard of his manly reply and upright conduct, they at once granted him extension of time and offered him unlimited credit, and he soon became the foremost merchant of Pulaski.
No investment yields so large a per cent. in the mer- cantile world as a good name, based on commercial honor. This he always kept so bright that President James K. Polk offered to Mr. Martin the secretaryship of the treasury, but this he declined. Believing that the post of honor is the private station, he replied that no public position could buy his time.
Ile did not, however, afterwards, refuse to act as mayor of his town as an act of good citizenship. The other positions he held grew out of business, social or religious relations. He was president of the Pulaski Savings Bank; president of the Nashville and Decatur railroad, and loaned that company eighty-seven thousand dollars, besides taking heavily of its stock. He was class-leader, steward, Sunday-school teacher and super- intendent in the Methodist church, of which he was a
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member fifty-three years, having professed religion in 1817, and it is said the church-bell never rang that he did not answer it. His daughter, with filial piety, has had placed in the Pulaski Methodist church, in which he worshipped so many years, a memorial window, a perfect gem of stained glass, in honor of him and his good wife, her mother. The window represents the four evangelists with their several emblems -- the eagle, the ox, the lion and the angel, These are expressed in four medallions, twined together with oak leaves and lilies, the whole representing the strength of the father and the purity of the mother.
For years Mr. Martin was a pillar in the church at Pulaski, and attended to its financial interest with the same system and punctuality with which he managed his own business. He was a man quick to decide, firm in his purpose and prompt to execute. It is believed that to his influence is due in great measure the spread of Methodism over Giles county.
The financial revulsion of 1837-38, a matter of no interest now, is recalled here only for the purpose of showing Mr. Martin's splendid abilities as a manager. During that crisis he became accommodation endorser for his neighbors to the amount of one hundred thous- and dollars, and the banks having given him entire con- trol of the paper, not a dollar was lost.
In 1840-41 he, in connection with Andrew M. Ballen- tine, built the turnpike road through Giles county, and at a later day he co operated with Thomas Buford in constructing the Southern Central railroad, and after the death of Mr. Buford, was president of that com- pany until after the war. The older citizens of Pulaski still have reminiscences to relate of his kindness to the poor and sick, and his efforts to reclaim the proffigate and dissipated. The first high school for girls in Giles county, organized in 18-, and to which he gave an en- dowment fund of thirty-five thousand dollars, still bears its maiden name of " Martin Female College," and is one of the cherished institutions of the Tennessee Con- ference.
The moral of his life-for there is much logic in a life like this-was the illustrated fact that integrity, sagacity and persevering industry will, in the end, reap a commensurate reward: Few young men start in life with slimmer advantages than he had, yet he became one of the most influential citizens of the State, and a standard man of the times.' As a financier, he had no superior in Tennessee. Academies, school-houses and churches received liberal subscriptions from him. He loved to aid industrious and moral young men who were struggling to rise in the world. His benefactions were, some public, some personal and private. He not only left his immediate descendants in comfortable sur- roundings, but, among other bequests, upon his elder sister and her sons, he settled a fine estate of five hundred acres of land in Summer county. The secret lay in his intense personality, energy, system,
tireless application, foresight, liberality and total abste- miousness from all sorts of spirituous drinks and from evil-speaking. lle was cheerful and buoyant almost to gayety, and a hearty laugher. Gambling he detested, and cards he called " the Devil's darning needles," for if used in sport they took up time, and if in play they led to serious consequences.
Mr. Martin married in Davidson county, Tennessee, October 12, 1824, Miss N. H. Topp, daughter of John S. Topp, an Indian fighter and pioneer from North Carolina, and a wealthy planter and mill owner. An anecdote is told of the old pioneer, occurring early in life. While descending the Holston river, the Indians fired on him from the ambush of the dense forest that, dark and still, grew even to the water's edge. He fell from the boat desperately wounded-staining the stream with his blood. His friends picked him up and supposed him dying, but he opened his eyes and said, with a brave smile and cheery accents, " Do not grieve; I shall not die-I am not ready to leave yet." His father, Col. Roger Topp, was a colonel in the Revolu- tionary war, and with his five brothers won great dis- tinction at the battle of King's Mountain. Col. Roger Topp was a fine civil engineer, and he and his five brothers were rewarded by the United States govern- ment with a large grant of land near Nashville. Col. Topp was subsequently killed by a Tory, whose father he had taken captive in battle. The Topp family are of English origin, and came to America from York- shire. Dr. W. W. Topp, brother to Mrs. Martin, was. on the staff of Gen. Jackson in his Indian wars. John S. Topp (the first-named), also served under Gen Jackson throughout the Seminole war. Another brother, Col. Robertson Topp, was a very successful lawyer and railroad president at Memphis. She had two other brothers who were lawyers -- John S. Topp and Dixon C. Topp. Mrs. Martin's mother, nee Comfort Everett, was a very remarkable lady, combining the finest attri- butes of a woman with the strong intellect of a man. Upon the first arrival of her family at the fort near "Nash's Lick,"-now Nashville-the little orphaned brother and sister, under charge of Mrs. Topp (then a staid matron of sixteen years), strolled from the pro- tection of the fort, being enticed by the birds and the beauty and bloom of the surrounding woods. They were missing but a short time when a party, headed by their fearless sister, went to seek and rescue them. They were seen approaching, presenting a dread appear- ance-" like two fountains of blood "-having been scalped and left for dead by the Indians. Mrs. Topp gathered them to her loving heart, and with untiring affection nursed them through long hours of pain and delirium, back to life. The young girl thus tortured became famous in after years for her beauty. Her rich bronze-brown hair fell as a mantle about her, and none dreamed that beneath the wavy tresses lurked the mark of the Indian tomahawk.
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By this marriage of Miss Topp and Mr. Martin, five children were born: (1). Laura E. Martin ; graduated in Nashville; died in 1864, the wife of Gen. Thomas G. Blewett, of Columbus, Mississippi, leaving one child, a son, Claude Blewett, now a planter in Mississippi and Louisiana, and living on the splendid estate given him by his grandfather Martin, (2). William Mar- cellus Martin; educated at Yale; married Lizzie Otis : died December 13, 1867, leaving one child, a daughter, Laura Marcella Martin, now the wife of Solon E. F. Rose, a planter at Columbus, Mississippi ; living on the splendid estate left her by her grandfather Martin. (3). Cornelia Ann Martin, born in December, 1830, died August 10, 1832. (4). Ophelia Jane Martin ; educated at Pulaski by Rev. Robert Caldwell, and at Nashville by private teachers; married Hon, Henry M. Spofford, of Louisiana, January 7, 1861, and has three children, Eleanor Spofford, Thomas Martin Spofford and Nina Spofford. (5). Victoria Martin; graduated at Nashville; died single in 1858, aged twenty years.
Judge Abram Martin, brother of the subject of this sketch, was circuit judge at Clarksville, Tennessee.
Hon. Henry M. Spofford, who married Miss Ophelia J. Martin, was born at Gilmanton, New Hampshire, September 8, 1821. He was a graduate, with highest honors, of Amherst College, Massachusetts, and located in Shreveport, Louisiana, in 1845, and at once entered upon the practice of law. He early gave promise of a brilliant future, and rose rapidly at the bar. In 1854 he was elected to the Supreme bench of Louisiana, and filled that exalted station with signal credit until he resigned in 1858, returning to the practice of his profession and to the achievement of those honors which cluster so thickly about his name and make his memory imperish- able. Possessing great wealth, and having risen to the highest attainable eminence in his profession, politics had little that could allure him; he nevertheless ac- cepted an election to the United States Senate, in 1877, by the almost unanimous vote of the Nicholls Legisla- ture, but in the complication of the politics of the times, he was cheated out of his seat, through no fault of his, however, for he pursued it with unwavering vigor from a sense of loyalty to the people and State who had conferred the trust upon him. After his death the Senate admitted his title to the senatorship by pay- ing to his widow the eighteen thousand dollars attach- ing to the office up to the date of his demise. He died at Red Sulphur Springs, Virginia, August 20, 1880.
Judge Spofford was one of the grand men of these later times; profound in the sciences; versed in history and literature ; eminent in law and politics; an eloquent speaker; a beautiful writer, and a lecturer character- ized not less by the penetration of his research and the close analysis of the subjects he handled-notably his lectures on Goethe, Dante and Milton --- than by the elegance of his diction. He was a fine Greek and Latin scholar, and often wrote his brief's entirely in French. 19
But the grandeur of the man was most conspicuous in his finely balanced character, in the refinement of his manners, his truthfulness, and a modesty that betrayed absolute purity of mind. He had the rare ability to veil the keenest sarcasm with a tenderness so delicate that it reminded one of a Persian scimiter tempered with perfume. With resolute firmness to carry his point, his manners were those of a French statesman- soft, dignified, pleasing, of exquisite tact and consum- mate address. Ilis was a representative character, both in its symmetry and solidity, whether he be viewed as a professor for two years in Amherst College, as a law- yer in successful practice, a jurist handing down his decisions from the Supreme bench, an author, a states- man, or a family man.
Rev. Dr. W. M. Leftwich, who pronounced Judge Spofford's funeral oration at Pulaski, gives as the factors of his noble character, self-reliance, decision of charac- ter, self-control, force of will; exclusive devotion to his profession, a sense of responsibility, and great learning. Ilis was a separate and distinct individuality, yet he was the product of centuries of English history. His genealogy dates back eight hundred years to Gambolier de Spofford, the Saxon thane, who built the Spofford castle, still standing in the West Riding of Yorkshire. John Spofford, a descendant of Gambolier de Spofford, and the ancestor of Judge Spofford, came over in the Mayflower, and became a factor in the religious and political history of New England. Judge Spotford's only brother, Ainsworth Spofford, is the well-known and popular librarian of Congress, author of a series of "American Almanacs," valuable as books of political reference, and is also co-editor, with Charles Gibbon, of the " Library of Choice Literature."
The Spofford mausoleum, in Metairie cemetery, New Orleans, is a Greek temple, cut of the purest Carrara marble, and situated on a gently graduated mound. The dome of the temple is supported by elaborately chiseled pillars and capitals, and beneath is a lovely angel of large proportions, with graceful wings and a wonderfully beautiful expression of up-turned face, while it records a favorite passage from the Holy Book with its marble pen. A large gilt cross crowns the mon- ument. This monument was designed and erected by Mrs. Spofford and executed by celebrated Italian artists in Massa-Carrara.
Injustice would be done the memory of Mr. Martin, if more particular mention were omitted here of his only surviving child, Mrs. Judge Spofford, and her family. Mrs. Spofford, more than the wealth he accu- mulated and the public enterprises he set on foot, is the monument to his worth as a man and wisdom as a father. Mrs. Spofford is among the most brilliant women of the South, remarkable for the reach of her learning, and her fine judgment as a business woman: She is an accomplished artist in oils and pastels; a fine musician and musical composer, and wields the pen of a ready
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now living with her brother, Dr. Atlee. (5). Marga- retta S. Atlee, died the wife of Thomas M. Coleman, Rockport, Texas. (6). Harriet Krauth Atlee, one of twins, died in infancy. (7). Letitia Smith Atlee, died the wife of P. C. Wilson, Chattanooga. (8). Mary P. Atlee, wife of N. T. Ayres, Houston, Texas: (9). Edwin Augustus Atlee, married Miss Bettie Foster, daughter of S. C. Foster, and is now a lawyer at Laredo, Texas. (10). Bernhardt Gilbert Atlee, D. D.S., married Miss Amanda J. De Ryce, and is now at Laredo, Texas.
Dr. Atlee went to Athens, Tennessee, in 1840, when eight years of age. He attended school there and at Hiawassee College until 1848, when he left Athens, horseback, and went to Philadelphia, and remained there reading medicine with his uncle, Dr. Washington L. Atlee, and attending the Pennsylvania Medical Col- lege uitil 1853, when he took his medical degree under Profs. Darrach, Grant, Patterson, Gilbert, Reid, Allen and Smith. After graduation he returned to Athens and began the practice of medicine there in April, 1853. He began with a small library and without money, but succeeded in building up a large and lucrative practice, and is now in easy circumstances. His rule has been to do unto others as he would have others do unto him, a a rule that makes men just and charitable, and oft- times leads to fame and fortune.
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