Sketches of prominent Tennesseans. Containing biographies and records of many of the families who have attained prominence in Tennessee, Part 35

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

USA > Tennessee > Sketches of prominent Tennesseans. Containing biographies and records of many of the families who have attained prominence in Tennessee > Part 35

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Dr. Bibb's maternal grandmother, Sophia L. A. Gil- mer, was a daughter of Thomas Meriwether Gilmer, of Oglethorpe county, Georgia, a sister of Gov. Rocking- ham Gihaer, of Georgia, and a first cousin of Secretary of the navy Gilmer, who was killed by the explosion of a gun on board a vessel on the Potomac river during an inspection by the president's cabinet many years ago. She was also a great niece, on her mother's side, of Gen. Andrew Lewis of the Revolutionary army.

Dr. Bibb was married at Nashville, June 25, 1878, to Miss Susie Dunlap Porter, who was born at Paris, Ten- nessee, September 17, 1858. She is the grand-daughter of Dr. Thomas Kennedy Porter, of Paris, Tennessee, and the only daughter of Hon. James D. Porter, ex- governor of Tennessee, ex-president of the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis railway, and at present first assistant secretary of State in President Cleveland's cabinet. Her mother, originally Miss Sue Dunlap, is a daughter of Gen. John Dunlap, of Paris, Tennessee, and

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piece of Gen. Richard Dunlap, a distinguished Tennes- san-the confidential friend of Gen. Andrew Jackson. Mrs. Bibb was educated at Nashville, and is a lady of very fine presence, remarkable for her womanly virtues, her love of home and devotion to her family, and in all that constitutes true womanhood, she is as true as the needle to the pole. By this marriage there are two chil- dren : (1). James Porter, born December 4, 1879. (2). Mattie Gilmer, born June 26, 1882.

Dr. Bibb is at present junior member of the medical

firm of Cain & Bibb. Dr. Cain is from Okolona, Miss- issippi, where he had a very lucrative practice. He is a graduate from the medical department of the Univer- sity of Nashville, and served with credit and ability as surgeon of Tucker's Mississippi brigade during the War.

P. S .- Since this sketch was written, Dr. Bibb has returned to his old home in Montgomery, Alabama, important private business requiring his personal atten- tion there.

F. S. NICHOLS.

MEMPHIS.

THE subject of this sketch is, in many respects, a remarkable person-a true type of the self-made The family from which he came was of English origin. His great-grandfather, William Nichols, came from England and settled in Connecticut. His father, William Nichols, removed from Litchfield, Connecticut, to Michigan and thence to Iowa, where he engaged in farming and died in 1840. His mother, originally Miss Sammons, was a native of Duchess county, New York. Her father, Frederic Sammons, was a man of promi- nenee in Revolutionary times, and was an officer in the American army. He was made a prisoner when New York was invaded by Sir William Johnson, who had been a neighbor of the family on the Mohawk river, and he was confined three years at Quebec, after which he made his escape. His brother, Thomas Sammons, was a member of Congress from New York for several terms during the administrations of Jefferson and Mad- ison.

F. S. Nichols was born in MeCombe county, Michigan, February 27, 1828, and lived there until 1838, when he went, with his father's family, to Davenport, Lowa, and grew up there, working on a farm till he was twenty years of age. Reared in a new country, he was deprived of early school privileges, but from his boyhood he had a great fondness for reading, and read everything that fell into his hands. Through this desire, which in -. creased as he grew, he was led to choose the printer's trade, and his education was received in a printing office. In 1818 he entered the office of the Rock Island (Il1.) Advertiser, a Whig journal, and there remained till 1851, when he established a Democratic paper in the same town, and continued as its editorand publisher till 1853. He then took the gold fever and went to Australia, where he experienced the ups and downs of a miner's life for six years. Returning to the United States, he settled in lowa and engaged in farming for three years, at the end of which time he went into the office of the Chicago Times, where he remained till 1864.

Hearing that there was a great demand for printers in Memphis, he decided to go to that city. Upon arrival there he purchased an interest in the Memphis Bulletin, owned by J. B. Bingham, editor, assuming the position of foreman, and continued with that paper till it sus- pended publication in 1870. He then became foreman of the Memphis Icalanche. In 1877 he became one of its proprietors, and in 1879, became chief proprie- tor and editor-his present position. Since he has had control of the Avalanche, it has improved in every way ; in character as a journal, in circulation and in value as a newspaper property.

He has always been a Democrat, but has taken no part in politics except through his journal. He is in- clined towards independence, and the expressions of opinion through his paper are not controlled by party machinery. He supports a measure not because it is Democratic, but because it is in itself good. To express it briefly, the Avalanche is not a " party organ," but wields a free lance on all subjects, bristling at all times with original, unique and pungent paragraphs.

Mr. Nichols became a Master Mason at Rock Island, Illinois, in 1851, and a Knight of Honor at Memphis, in 1881.

He was married, August 20, 1860, to Miss Josephine Hughes, daughter of Harvey Hughes, a descendant of a Virginia family, one branch of which settled in Ohio and another in Tennessee, where the family is still rep- resented. He is an architect by trade, and still living in Missouri.

One of Mrs. Nichols' uncles is the oldest banker in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the president of Hughes' Bank. Another unele is judge of the circuit court in Ohio.

To Mr. Nichols and wife there was born one child, a daughter, now wife of William H. Forrest, of Memphis.

Mr. Nichols belongs to a class of men who are rarely appreciated at their full worth by their fellow-citizens, who pass through life quietly, often in a subordinate capacity, and never displaying their real power unless

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some unlooked for occasion develops it. It was the terrible visitation of yellow fever to Memphis, in 1879, that developed the hidden forces in the character of F. S. Nichols. No reader of the Memphis papers during the prevalence of the fearful scourge, can have forgot- ten the " old man" of the Aculanche and his biting paragraphs. Though the city was nearly depopulated, by flight and death, he remained bravely at his post and daily bulletined to the outside world the ravages of the epidemic. While manfully doing his own duty to his stricken fellow-men and women, he seemed to be in- spired with a profound disgust at the conduct of those who had left the city as a matter of safety, but whom he daily lampooned through the columns of the Avalanche as " cowards," " skulkers," etc. This persistent line of

invective made him many personal enemies, of course, but it served to bring him into general notice as a brave man, a strong writer and a journalist, who dared to think and speak for himself. From an obscure foreman, he became, at once, an editor of recognized ability and in- fluence. In the recent controversies in Tennessee over the State debt, Mr. Nichols was a pronounced " sky- blue" Democrat, and the honor of the State had no firmer or more aggressive champion than the Avalanche, under Mr. Nichols' editorial guidance.

P. S .- Since the foregoing sketch was prepared, Mr. F. S. Nichols was stricken with paralysis, has died, and . the Avalanche has passed into other hands, though it still maintains much of that independent Democratic character it acquired under his management.

REV. STANFORD G. BURNEY, D.D., L.L.D.

LEBANON.

T IIIS eminent clergyman and scholar, celebrated for his splendid abilities, his high character, and his modesty, presents a fine study as a student, teacher and pastor, yet, while his history is connected with some of the most important educational and religious enterprises of the day, he is also to be looked upon as an intellect shining with. light for others to work by as well as being a worker himself. He is regarded by learned men, who have known him for thirty years, as one of the best thinkers in the State, advanced beyond his time, and a metaphysician of the highest class.

When Dr. Burney, as a young man, entered upon his active ministry, he made a profound impression on the public mind, as an eloquent speaker, of gentle and pleasant address, and remarkable earnestness. He was even then recognized by thoughtful men as an abstract and philosophical thinker, and a general conviction was then formed that he would reach, as he has done, the front rank among his brother ministers. Although he was fitted for the pulpit in a pre-eminent degree, and capable of gaining great popularity by his cultivated oratory, yet his intense application to the study of the Bible as the great book of Human Philosophy, nec- essarily carried him at an early day to the school-room and to literary pursuits. From these two callings he had access to the intelligence of the church, and has controlled that intelligence, next to the learned Dr. Richard Beard, more than any other man of his day. These pursuits made somewhat a change in his outward character. His manners became unobtrusive and quiet, and he now impresses one as a reserved student, but gentle and kind in all his relations with men. If' he had been as aggressive in his efforts to gain distinction and the plaudits of the world as he has been in his pro .

found study of man and his relations to his Creator, he could have gone to the highest place in that direction, But his ability was well recognized by active leaders in his church, and he was in due time called to the most important position in the leading theological school of his denomination, where to-day he stands among the first and ablest of her teachers. Ile has been not only a student of the Bible, but also a student of the great secular thinkers. This has freed him from these idio- syncracies usual with men who study only one side of a question, and has given to him a balanced character both in thought and expression. He combines the practical, philosophical character of a Solomon, with the poetic zeal and fire of an Isaiah. To splendid pow- ers of statement as a writer, and of expression as a speaker, he has added wide powers of investigation of philosophy, human and divine, and is regarded as a capable critic of every phase of thought in the field of theology or of agnosticism. With a voice musical and soft, and a nature tender and gentle, he yet has under- neath evidences of the fire and zeal of his early man- hood. Every one can see and appreciate the actors on the field of great publie matters, both in church and state, but only a few know that quiet and thoughtful men like Dr. Burney are at last in real control, and it is the unseen hand that keeps any system together.

Stanford G. Burney was born in Robertson county, Tennessee, April 16, 1814. He is the son of William Burney, a native of North Carolina, born in 1788, moved to Robertson county when twelve years old, became a successful farmer, and died in 1856. Twice married, he raised eleven sons, six by his first wife and five by his last. He first married Miss Annie Guthrie, daughter of Rev. Robert Guthrie, a native of North Carolina,

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who settled in Tennessee about 1800, and finally moved to Missouri, and died there. His wife was a Miss Smith. Hev. Robert Guthrie was one of the earliest preachers of the Cumberland Presbyterian church-one of the Bien excommunicated from the old church. He was of a distinguished Scotch-Irish family.

Of the six sons by the first wife, Dr. Burney, subject of this sketch; is the eldest. HI. L. Burney is a preacher in the Cumberland Presbyterian church, and resides near Clarksville, Tennessee. J. HE. Burney died a farmer. John F. Burney was a professional teacher, «Jucated at Princeton College, Kentucky, and died twenty-six years old. Wesley Monroe Burney was a Confederate soldier, captured at Fort Donelson, and died at St. Louis. Eli Gunn Burney graduated from the Mississippi University ; is now teaching at Oakland, Mississippi, and was for a time professor of languages in Cumberland University, Lebanon, Tennessee.

Dr. Burney's father's second wife was Miss Frances Donelson. Of the five sons by her, William Burney was a soldier among the first Confederate troops raised in Robertson county, and is now living on the old home- stead. Hatcher Burney joined the army and was killed at Dalton during Gen. Johnston's retreat. Hatton Bur- ney is now living on the old homestead in Robertson county. Marshall Burney died in 1872. Ewin Burney is now a lawyer at Nashville.

Dr. Burney's grandfather was John Burney, of a large family in the North and South Carolinas, of Scotch- Irish descent. He married Miss Mary Parks, daughter of George Parks, who was a colonel in the Revolution- ary war from North Carolina.

Dr. Burney was raised a country boy, born feeble, always dyspeptic. He early evinced a marked taste for study and learning, and stood in advance in that time of the boys of his neighborhood, being particularly fond of the natural sciences. After receiving an exceptionally good comnon school and academic education, he at- tended, two and a half years, Princeton College. Ken- tucky, and graduated in 1841. On the 12th of August following, he married Miss Susan Gray, of Princeton, Kentucky, daughter of William and Lydia Gray, form- erly from South Carolina, Mr. Gray was a wealthy farmer, trader and shipper. Mrs. Burney was educated at Elkton, Kentucky, and is a highly cultured lady, noted for fine practical sense, prudence and discreetness in her intercourse with society.

By this marriage Dr. Burney has had nine children : (1). Addison G. Burney, joined the Eleventh Missis- sippi Confederate regiment, and was killed at Spottsyl. vania Court-house, May 12, 1864, at the age of twenty- two. It was said of him " no better soldier ever shouldered a musket for the Confederate cause." He belonged to Col. Joe Davis's regiment, Early's division. (2). Theodore C. Burney, born January 1, 1815, left college with his brother, Addison, to join the army. Both were wounded in the battle of Seven Pines; both

were furloughed home, both returned and rejoined the army. Ile was in the battle of Gettysburg, and on the retreat was killed in the battle of Falling Water. (3). Mary B. V. Burney, born June 6, 1847; was an excep- tionally fine scholar, even when young; is highly edu- cated ; now the wife of James H. Howry, oldest son of Hon. J. M. Howry, of Mississippi, a distinguished member of the Masonic order in that State. They have five children, Mary Alice, Burney, Erle C., Eugene II., and Addison Theodore. (4). Herschel P. Burney, born December 25, 1850; educated at the University of Miss- issippi; spent several years managing his father's farm in Lafayette county, Mississippi; now engaged in teach- ing at Atkins, Pope county, Arkansas. He married Miss Naunie McKee, daughter of William S. MeKee, for many years sheriff of Lafayette county, Mississippi. She is a graduate of the Oxford ( Miss. ) Female College, and is finely educated. They have three children, Nannie Clyde, Maggie Sue, and William Stanford. (5). Louella Clarissa Burney, graduated from Union Female College, Oxford, Mississippi ; married S. S. Scales, graduate of the University of Mississippi, son of Dr. Nathan F. Scales, of Noxubee county, Mississippi; is now a successful merchant. They have two children, Lucie Anna and Nathaniel Fields. (6). Anna Z. Burney, graduated at Union Female College, Oxford , married Rev. W. R. Binkley, pastor of the Cumberland Presby- terian church at Oxford, Mississippi. (7). Susie F. Burney, graduated at. Union Female College, Oxford, and is now living at Lebanon, Tennessee, with her father. (8). Geary D. Burney, now a student in Cum- berland University, Lebanon. (9). Stanford Corinne Burney, now in school at Lebanon.

Dr. Burney was ordained in March, 1836, in Wilson county, Tennessee, a minister of the Cumberland Pres- byterian church, in which he has preached. hardly miss- ing a Sunday, every since. He first located in Nashville, August, 1841, and preached there eighteen months. In January, ISI3, he took charge of the Female Academy at Franklin, Tennessee, and taught one year. He then became the first agent for the Cumberland University, and spent one year collecting money for the endowment of that institution. In December, ISHI, he settled on a farm near Memphis, and preached several months for the First Cumberland Presbyterian church in Memphis, while the first church-house was building. He remained there three years preaching to a country church, and associated with Robert Fraiser as editor and publisher of the Religious Ark, a Cumberland Presbyterian paper. In 1818 he accepted the presidency of Mount Sylvan Academy, in Lafayette county, Mississippi, and con- dueted that institution two years, In January, 1850, heac- cepted the pastorate of the Cumberland Presbyterian church in Oxford, Mississippi, and filled the position twenty-five years, with the exception of the year 1860, when Dr. C. H. Bell was pastor. After the war Dr. Bell and Dr. Burney filled the pulpit, alternately, until 1873.

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Dr. Burney has always held high position in his church, and has been connected with almost every im- portant committee. He was once appointed on a com- mittee to revise the discipline of the church; twice' appointed to revise the theology of the church ; was chairman of a committee on organic union with the Southern Presbyterian church ; was twice a delegate to represent the Cumberland Presbyterians in the Evan- gelical Union conference in Scotland, and also a delegate to represent the Cumberland Presbyterian church in the Pan-Presbyterian council at Belfast, Ireland.

In 1852 Dr. Barney established the Union Female College at Oxford, Mississippi, and continued its presi- dent until 1860, when he resigned, and became president of the board of trustees of the college, which position he held until 1878. In October, 1866, he was elected professor of English literature in the University of Mississippi, a chair which he filled seven years, mean- time performing the duties of the chair of metaphysics in that institution a part of the time, making in these positions a high reputation in the world of letters. In 1878 he resigned this position, and from January, 1874, to September, 1877, he preached at Jackson, Newbern, Dyersburg and other points, besides running his farm in Mississippi.

In September, 1876, he was elected to the chair of biblical literature in the theological department of Cumberland University, Lebanon, Tennessee; in Sep- tember, 1877, he accepted that position, moved to Lebanon, and entered upon the duties of that chair. In December, 1880, he was elected to the chair of system- atie theology in the same institution, Dr Richard Beard, who had filled the chair twenty-seven years, having died. This position he now holds.

Dr. Burney was made a Mason at Nashville, in Jan- uary, 1814, and has taken all the York masonry degrees except Knight Templar, and has taken twenty-nine degrees in the Scotch rite. He has filled all the offices in the lodge, chapter and council.

Being a relative of the distinguished statesman, Hon. Hugh L. White, Dr. Burney gave his first vote to that eminent Whig for president, and may be regarded as a life-long Whig, though since the war has been voting with the Democrats. He has never held political office, though for two years accepted the postmastership at Mount Sylvan, Mississippi.

When a boy, Dr. Burney, although of delicate health, was full of vivacity, loving fun and pleasure, but avoided the extremes of dissipation. He loved wine, loved parties, attended balls, and on one occasion was present at a bran-dance, where liquor was drank pretty freely, and men got to fighting. That night he reflected that, if this is the best a life of pleasure can do for a man, it is a poor thing ; and he then and there resolved on a line of virtue and right living, and now, on the principle that a man's highest interest lies in the line of duty, his proud satisfaction is that his life has smoothly run ever since. Hes has not selected his fields of labor, but has been urged into them by friends and force of circumstances. His father, who was a man of some fortune, gave him two thousand dollars for a start; by his wife he got as much more, and during life he has made a good deal of money, but like most of students, has made money a secondary consideration. He pro- fessed religion at eighteen years of age, commenced preaching at twenty, was ordained at twenty-two, and has preached fifty years, mostly in Mississippi, from 1847 to 1874, preaching at Oxford, alone, some twenty- seven years. The Union Female College founded by him, is the oldest institution of its class in Mississippi.

Dr. Burney's writings have been mostly review ar- ticles, which have made him quite famous. The late Dr. Thomas O. Summers, of the Methodist church, . regarded him, as a polemic, among the first men of the age. His published disquisitions on subjects connected with psychology, metaphysics and theology, and his reviews of books have given him a place distinctively his own in the world of letters.

MAJ. E. P. MONEAL.

BOLIVAR.

E. P. MeNEAL, the subject of this sketch, was one among the earliest of West Tennessee pio- neers, and is, perhaps, as thoroughly a representative man of the farmers of West Tennessee, from its first settlement to the present time, as any one now living within its boundaries. He is the son of Thomas Me- Neal, and of Clarissa, daughter of Ezekiel Polk, of Mecklenburg county, North Carolina, and was born in York District, South Carolina, on September 6, 1801.

In 1806, his parents removed to Maury county, Ten-

nessee, in which county he grew into manhood, alternat- ing work on the farm with going to school, until his father and family moved to Hardeman county, West Tennessee, in 1822. His family were among the first to take possession of the country west of the Tennessee river.

Ezekiel Polk, his grandfather, and also William Polk, Thomas J. Hardeman, and Thomas Me Neal (his father), made crops in Hardeman county in the year 1822, by sending out hands to work, in advance of their arrival,

Es 11: Mal

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on lands near the present site of the town of Bolivar. This was the first year of the settlement of Hardeman rounty. The county was organized in 1823, and on the place of Capt. Thomas MeNeal, one mile north of the present site of Bolivar, a log court-house was built, and the county seat established and kept there until. re- moved to Bolivar, in 1825.

In 1823 E. P. MeNeal, then nineteen years of age, made a crop of his own near where Bolivar is now situ- ated. In 1824-25-26, he was occupied as a surveyor in West Tennessee district. In 1827 and 1828, he was in the service of the United States goverment as deputy- marshal under Gen. Purdy, marshal for the district. In 1829 he was employed in a dry goods store in Bolivar, which had then grown into a town. In the same year (1:29) he was placed in charge, as receiver, of the inter- ets of a mercantile concern in connection with Col. Johu Preston, of Virginia, and in the winter of 1830-31, in connection with J. II. Bills, he built and carried from Bolivar to New Orleans two flat-boats loaded with cotton, to sell for themselves and neighbors.

Upon his return home in 1831, E. P. MeNeal formed a mercantile partnership with his brother-in-law, Maj. John H. Bills, and in April of that year Maj. Me Neal went to New York and Philadelphia by river and stage to buy goods, which in those days was a tedious under- taking. The firm of Bills & MeNeal, merchants, con- tinued in prosperous business from 1831 to 1846, when it dissolved, each partner going into separate mercantile business on his own account, E. P. MeNeal continuing therein in Bolivar up to 1856. In the meanwhile Maj.

MeNeal dealt extensively in lands in Tennessee, Miss- issippi and Arkansas, and as early as 1810 began farming on a large scale in Hardeman county, giving to his farm- ing interests. the greater part of his time and attention. He closed out all of his mercantil business in 1856, and since that date hasdevoted his attention exclusively to his plantations, having acquired a large landed estate in Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas. In this pur- suit he has been very successful. And even after the immense losses resultant from the war in slaves, one hundred and fifty in number, and other property, he has kept his farms and stock to a high standard, which but few farmers in the South have been able to do.

E. P. MeNeal, in January, 1835, was married to Miss Ah Williams, daughter of J. J. Williams, esq., of Hardeman county. They had one child, Priscilla; who died just on arrival at womanhood-at the age of eighteen. His beloved wife, who had made home happy for forty years, died in 1875. 4

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Sketches of prominent Tennesseans. Containing biographies and records of many of the families who have attained prominence in Tennessee, Part 35

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