Sketches of prominent Tennesseans. Containing biographies and records of many of the families who have attained prominence in Tennessee, Part 4

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

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in 1869 he moved to Nashville, and practiced law there in partnership with his brother, William F .; in 1869 and 1870 he represented Davidson county in the State Legislature, and during that session was elected United States Senator, and served as such for six years; in 1878 he settled at Columbia, returning to the practice of the law. He was killed by robbers near Culiacan, Mexico, on February 4, 1884, while returning from a silver mine in the mountains. (4). Mary Agnes, Judge Cooper's only full sister; graduated from the Columbia Female Institute, and married Richard S. Sansom, a lawyer, who died at Georgetown, Texas, where his sister still resides. He was for several years a member of the Texas Legislature ; he left five children : Edmund, who died at Columbia when twenty years old, Cevantha, Rich- ard, Mary and William. Judge Cooper's half brothersand sisters are : (1). Duncan B., who represented Maury and Williamson counties in the Legislature of 1881-82. (2). Addison, a lawyer, clerk in a government office at Washington. (3, 4, 5). Martha Ann, Alice and Emma all graduated at the Columbia Female Institute, and are living in that city unmarried. (6). Eloise gradu- ated at the same school, and married A. W. Stockell, a lawyer and editor at Columbia, but now connected with the American newspaper, and residing at Nashville. (7). Fannie, died the wife of George Milner, leaving three children.

Judge Cooper's remoter paternal ancestors migrated from Tyrone county, in the north of Ireland, considerably before the Revolutionary war. They were of Scotch- Irish derivation. Among them we find a great grand- father who died in South Carolina at the age of one hundred and nine years, originally an Irish weaver, but in this country a farmer. The Judge's grandfather, by trade a blacksmith, was a captain in Sumner's brigade during the Revolutionary war. He was a very handsome man, and made a runaway match with a Miss Hamilton, daughter of a rich Philadelphia merchant, who had a branch establishment at Mobile. She was a lady highly educated and of great energy of character. She edu- cated her own children, and in 1803. after her husband's death, conveyed them all in a carryall to Nashville, and settled in Davidson county, near the old town of Hays- borough, where she lived for several years. She died in Mississippi at the age of ninety-three. She gave birth to and raised twelve children, of whom Matthew 1., the Judge's father, was the youngest _ The great number of her distinguished descendants is a confirma- tion of the general belief that intellectual qualities generally descend in the female line. Judge Cooper's mother was also descended from Scotch-Irish ancestors who emigrated from the north of Ireland.

During the war the Judge spent several years travel- ing in Europe, chiefly in England, Scotland and Switzer- land, visiting also the cities of Rome, Naples, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Trieste and Venice. He has published three volumes of reports of cases decided in his own

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chancellor's court, and has edited the standard edition of Tennessee Reports from the earliest decisions up to the re- organization of the Supreme Court in 1865. In the winter of 1851-52 he edited temporarily the Nashville Union.

In 1849-50 he was made a director of the Nashville and Northwestern railroad, and served in this capacity from the commencement to the completion of the line, and was very active in advancing the road to a success- ful issue. He was also a director of the Bank of Tennessee in 1853-51-55.

Judge Cooper is of short stature, compactly built, weighing one hundred and thirty pounds; has brown eyes, and a large round head. . His motions are quick. Ile is easy of access, and a most entertaining conversa- tionalist.

His position on the Supreme bench and in society, and his great array of distinguished family connections, together with his undeniably exceptional talents, con- stitute him, beyond dispute, one among the most promi- nent men in Tennessee.

JUDGE THOMAS H. COLDWELL.

SHELBYVILLE.

T HOMAS II. COLDWELL was born in Shelby- ville, Bedford county, Tennessee, August 29, 1822. ITis father, John Campbell Coldwell, was born January 8, 1791, in Hawkins county, East Tennessee, and removed with his father, Ballard Coldwell, and family to Bedford county, January 1, 1808. . John Campbell Coldwell served two campaigns under Gen. Jackson-one against the Creek Indians, in which he participated in the battle at Horse Shoe; and the other against the British, in which he participated in the de- cisive battle at New Orleans, January 8, 1815. On his return from this campaign he settled in Shelbyville, and was a merchant there from 1818 to 1843, when he retired to his farm, where he died July 17, 1867.

Thomas II. Coldwell's mother was Jane Northcott, born in Fleming county, Kentucky, the daughter of Rev. Benjamin Northcott. Thomas was the eldest of four children, two boys and two girls. He was educated at Dixon Academy, Shelbyville, and studied law with Irwin J. Frierson, Esq. He was licensed to practice in January, 1844, remained in practice at Shelbyville, where he is still one of the leading and most active members of the bar.

He married first Mary J. Hodge, at Murfreesboro, November 24, 1814. After her death he married Sarah E. Gosling, in Cincinnati, May 6, 1851. After her death he married Mrs. Mary HI. Bosworth, in Shelby- ville, September 20, 1854, and after her death, he mar- ried his present wife, Carrie Hopkins, in Cincinnati, November 11, 1875.

For many years of his life Thomas II. Coldwell was an active and zealous worker in the Sons of Temperance organization, and was elected Grand Worthy Patriarch for the State of Tennessee in 1851. He was a decided and unflinching Union man throughout the late war and unwavering in his adherence to the government. In 1864 he was commissioned by Gov. Andrew Johnson chancellor of the Fourth Chancery Division of Tennes- see, but held the office only a short time, when he resigned. In October, 1865, he was commissioned

Attorney - General of the State and Reporter of the Supreme Court, and in May 1867, was elected by the people to the office without opposition. While serving in this capacity he reported seven volumes of the decisions of the Supreme Court of Tennessee, and considers this the most pleasant part of his professional career. . While attorney-general he entered a nolle prosequi in all cases that came to the Supreme Court where persons were indicted for treason against the State-a class of indictments which grew out of the late civil war, the disposal of which, in ths summary manner, brought about an era of good feeling, and won for Judge Coldwell the earnest gratitude of many of his fellow-citizens. In 1868 he was the Grant and Colfax elector for the Fifth Congressional District of Tennes- see.

From 1865 to 1871 he served as one of the directors of the Nashville and Chattanooga railroad. He was a lay member of the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal church at its session held at Brooklyn, New York, in 1873, and while there was the author of the resolution sending fraternal delegates from the Method- ist Episcopal church to the Methodist Episcopal church, South-he being one of the most earnest advo- cates of the measure. He has always been a zealous worker in his church, giving most liberally to all of its enterprises, and has always been an active Sunday-school man. Few things seem to give him more pleasure than to watch the young people as they develop into noble man and womanhood.

During 1871-72 he was president of Bedford county Agricultural Society, and his earnest efforts contributed much to the success which has attended the society, even up to the present time. In 1869 he induced the county court of Bedford county to rebuild the court- house, which had been destroyed during the occupation of the town by Gen. Bragg's army. The court appointed him chairman of the building committee, and Shelby- ville now has one of the most beautiful, durable and convenient court-houses in the State. He was president

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of the Shelbyville Savings Bank three years, and has been one of its directors from its organization up to the present time.

Judge Coldwell, from the organization of the Central Tennessee College at Nashville, has been a member of its board of directors a great deal of the time, also president of the board of trustees, and is at present its vice-president and acting president. This is one of the institutions for the education of the colored people, for which Nashville is so famous, and is under the patron- age of the Methodist Episcopal church. Judge Cold- well is a fearless advocate of the education and Chris- tianization of the negro, his theory being, "Give them a fair and even chance in life, and if there is anything in them, they will succeed; if not, they must seek the level of other inefficients."

Ile is now the president of the board of common school directors of the seventh civil district of Bedford county, which includes the town of Shelbyville. Ile had served almost twelve years as director, and proved himself one of the most enthusiastic friends of the common schools. His term of office having expired, ut an election held in his native town in August. 1854. it was found that of the three hundred and forty-two votes cast for school director, Judge Coldwell received every one-a fact which he regarded as one of the handsomest compliments of his life.

In 1871 Gov. De Witt C. Senter recommended Judge Coldwell to President Grant as a suitable person to be appoited commissioner for the State of Tennessee to the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia in 1876. He received his commission and served until 1877, was on many of the important committees and was elected first vice-president of the commission, being one of the most active participants in the measures that made the exhibition so great a success.

Judge Coldwell has two children, Gen, Ernest Cold- well, the child of his third wife, and who is now twenty- seven years of age, and his partner in the practice of the law ; and Carrie (" Sunshine ") Coldwell, now seven years of age, the child of his present wife.

Gen. Ernest Coldwell was born at Shelbyville, No- vember 12, 1858, and was educated at Shelbyville, at Athens, Tennessee, and at Carbondale, Illinois. After reading law in his father's office two years he was licensed by Judges Robert Cantrell and Peter Turney. In September, 1882, he was appointed special revenue collector under A. M. Hughes, jr. He was secretary of the Middle Tennessee and Bedford county Sunday- school Associations while a law student. In November, 1881, he waselected Representative from Bedford county to the Forty-fourth General Assembly of Tennessee, overcoming a Democratic majority of six hundred by two hundred and twenty-six majority. For a pronounced Republican, the son of ansoutspoken Republican, this was a handsome testimonial of public confidence. He is a director of the Bedford county Agricultural So- ciety, a director in the Bedford county Stock Breeders' Society, and register for a time, and was a director and treasurer of the Eakin Library Society, and is a mem- ber of the library committee. Ernest Coldwell was appointed May 21. 1881. on Goy Alvin Hawkins' Staff with the rank of brigadier general He is six foot three inches in height. and of handsome, graceful carriage. His mother, nee Mary Henderson, was a lady versatile in her accomplishments and of marked firmness of character. She was born in New York, raised in Ohio, and died in Tennessee in 1874, fifty-three years old, leaving, by her first marriage to a Mr. Bos- worth, two children : Helen, now wife of Rev. M. M. Callen, Saint Joseph, Michigan, and Frances, who married S. Tower, Greeneville, Michigan.

HENRY CRAFT.

MEMPHIS.

TN studying the careers of eminent men, it is some- times an instructive method to bring out their H distinctive characters into higher relief by the force of contrast, and it is proposed to apply this method to the sketches of two men, each successful in the path marked out for himself, but by opposite methods and in virtue of mental characteristics as sharply contrasted as if the two men belonged to different races of the human species.

Let the reader then study in connection with the . sketch now presented to him that given on another page of Col. Leonidas C. Houk. He will thus find, in abrupt contrast, one man always eager to match

himself against other men, the other pursuing his own course in self-chosen seclusion ; the one always secking a conspicuous position in the eyes of the world, the other instinctively shrinking from publicity; the one always aggressive, the other with scarcely combativeness enough in his nature to assume the defensive. Nor is the contrast made with the purpose of exalting the one type as superior to the other ; both have their place-in the economy of society, and it is a matter of thankful- ness that all men are not made according to the same type, but differently constituted so as to meet one or other of the varied requirements of the social system. It has been said of Henry Craft that he might have

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risen to the highest public honors of his profession but for his retiring disposition ; but let not this be read as if it pronounced his life a failure; the position he has attained without entering the arena of competition for public office is probably exactly that which he would have chosen for himself in preference to such as are attained by the promiscuous suffrages of the public, namely, the recognition of himself by those capable of judging as indisputably without a rival in legal attain- ments, while a still smaller circle are attracted by a personal knowledge of bis sterling moral qualities, and so consolidated into a circle of trusted and trusting friends. It is better, after all, to have it asked why one is not in high public office, than, being there, to hear men say, " How on earth came he, of all men, to be there?"

Henry Craft was born April 8, 1823, at Milledgeville, in Baldwin county, Georgia, at that time the capital of the State. Both his parents were true Christians, and it has been the characteristic of most of his relations on both sides that they were and are devont members of the Church. Whether from hereditary bias, or through early training, Judge Craft resembles the rest of the family in this respect.

When he was ten years old his family removed to Macon, Georgia, which was his home till he was sixteen years of age; but he received the chief part of his edu- cation at Oglethorpe University, Milledgeville, which he left in his senior year in 1839, when he settled in Holly Springs, Mississippi, where he devoted himself' to busi- ness pursuits.

In 1847-48 he attended the law school at Princeton, New Jersey, and was admitted to the bar in 1848, by Chancellor Henry Dickinson, at Holly Springs, at which place he forthwith commenced the practice of law ; here he practiced in partnership with Mr. J. W. C. Watson, who had been his preceptor, and took him into partnership before he had completed his studies or received his license.

In 1858 he finally removed to Memphis, where he has practiced ever since. While in practice there, he was offered a professorship in the law department of the Cumberland University at Lebanon, and a partnership with a law firm at New York, which was doing a very extensive practice; both of these offers, however, he declined, preferring the steady pursuit of his profession at Memphis. He has several times sat as judge in spe- ciał cases, but never either sought or accepted perma- nent official position.

The only case of much public interest in which he has been engaged was the celebrated 100-3 case, in which the constitutionality of the act of the Legisla- ture of 1881 was tried, by which the settlement of the State debt was intended. In this case a great array of legal talent was employed, comprising the names of Judge Campbell, Gov. Marks, Ed. Baxter, Thomas II. Malone, R. McPhail Smith, John J. Vertrees, A. S.

Champion, George Gantt, William M. Smith, N. N. Cox, Spl. Hill and D. M. Bright.

Much of his success in legal practice is attributable to his early business training, giving him a knowledge of accounts and book-keeping. His method in law cases is first to ascertain the exact point upon which a case hinges, and then to bring all the evidence and law to bear upon that point, comparatively disregarding side issues; aiming at an objective point rather than firing at random: a practice indeed applicable to all . pursuits in life where concentration insures success, while diffusion of efforts entails almost certain failure. Judge Craft never appeared in the criminal courts, his practice having been confined almost exclusively to chancery cases.

In 1862 he went with the Confederate army on the staff of Gen. James R. Chalmers, and was present at the battle of Shiloh, but retired from the service with an honorable discharge on account of broken health, caused by exposure in camp at Corinth.

In politics the Judge was a Whig down to the war, but since that has voted with the Democrats, but has little of the partisan in his nature; he has never taken an active part in politics, either by canvassing, making speeches or attending conventions; he has never held office, or been a candidate for it. He is a member of no secret society, all his interest and associations out- side of his profession being concentrated on religious and general literature. He is a member of the Cum- berland Presbyterian church, and an elder in the con- gregation at Memphis. His is a settled mind, not disposed to go off into new issues, but to live consistently in the practice of those principles which were implanted in his mind in early life. He has no ambition beyond that involved in his profession, and the welfare of his family. Finally, his aspirations are not confined to the present state of existence, but all that he does, and all that happens to him, is regarded by him mainly as bearing upon the higher existence beyond the grave; for that future he looks upon the present life as a pro- bation and a prepartory training.

He derives his title of judge, by which he is usually addressed, from his appointment in 1877 as commis- sioner of arbitration in aid of the Supreme Court.

The Crafts are by origin a Welsh family, who have lived for two hundred years as farmers on the castern shore of Maryland.

Hugh Craft, father of the Judge, was born in 1799, at Vienna, on the eastern shore . f Maryland, but moved, in 1814, to the State of Georgia. He was partially edu- cated at Athens, Georgia, looking to medicine as a pro- fession, but soon devoted himself to merchandise, re- receiving his training in that occupation from his uncle, David Stanford, at Augusta, Georgia. With that gen- tlemen 'as partner, he then entered into business at Milledgeville, and lived there a successful merchant for twelve years, when he went to Macon, where he also

J. D. Friends

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was a successful merchant till the panic of 1837, when Ne Giled, and removed to Holly Springs, Mississippi. - Here he was a land agent till 1860, and died in 1867. He was a strict Presbyterian of the old school, devoted to church work, and especially to that of the Sunday- w hool.

Judge Craft married in Nashville, November 5, 1856, Miss Ella D. Boddie, daughter of Elijah Boddie, of Nummer county, Tennessee, formerly a prominent Dem- peratie leader in that county, frequently in the Legisla- Aure, a soldier in Jackson's army at New Orleans. The Paldies are a well-known North Carolina family, well represented in Nashville and in Sumner county. Mrs. Craft's brother, Charles E. Boddie, is a farmer in Sum- ser county. Her sister, Elizabeth B., widow of William H. Elliston, resides in Nashville; her sister Maria is the wife of C'arrington Mason, once of Holly Springs, Mississippi, now an insurance agent at Memphis, and another sister, Mary, is the wife of Rufus K. Cage, Esq., of Houston, Texas. Her mother, Maria Elliott, was of an old Sumner county family, originally from North Carolina. Her uncle, Col. George Elliott, was with Gen. Jackson at New Orleans, and a noted stock raiser and turfinan of Summer county. Mrs. Craft was educated at the uld Nashville Female Academy, under Dr. Elliott, and is noted for her retiring disposition, her domestic tastes and habits, and her intense religious devotion.

By bis marriage with this lady, Judge Craft has had »ix children : (1). Alfred Douglas, born 1858, now de- ceased. (2), Mary F., born 1861. (3). Henry, born Iado; a young man who promises to honor the name which he inherits. (D). Charles Kortrecht, born in 18; now deceased. (5). Paul, born 1870. (6). Hugh, born 1874.

Judge Craft had one full sister, Martha C., widow of James Fort, now deceased. By his father's second marriage were born five others: (1). Carrie, wife of Dr. Richard Venable., now deceased. (2). Addison, now of Holly Springs, Mississippi. (3), Heber, now living in McComb, Mississippi. (4). Stella, widow of J. B. Ilill, now at Holly Springs, Mississippi. : (5). Helen, wife of Prof. Anderson, at Holly Springs, Miss- issippi.

Judge Craft's maternal grandfather, John Pitts, moved

to Hancock county, Georgia, in 1815. IIe and all his family were zealous Methodists. It was in Hancock that Hugh Craft married his daughter, Mary E. Pitts, of which marriage Judge Craft was the offspring, This lady was born in 1799, and educated at Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She was an eminently devoted Method- ist, and died in 1826. The Pitts family have all been farmers and Methodists, and Judge Craft himself was baptized by Mr., afterwards Bishop, Capers. None of them have been professional men except the Rev. Epam- inondas Pitts, a Methodist preacher of some distinction in Texas, nor any of them politicians except Peyton 'T. Pitts, brother of Mrs. Hugh Craft, who, at one time, represented Jones county in the Georgia Legislature.

The whole of Judge Craft's kindred, on both sides, have been religious people, not seeking conspicuous position, but making it their chief aim to keep their consciences void of offense before God and man, and to bring up their children in the fear and admonition of the Lord.

Judge Craft is an accomplished and elegant scholar ; his extensive reading has been so thoroughly digested and assimilated as to have become an intrinsic element in his intellect, manifested not by a pedantic frequency of quotation, but by a richness of thought which pours a flood of illustration upon any subject he undertakes to elucidate; thus his oratory derives light from his well-stored intellect, and warmth from his intense moral and religious instincts. It differs from the im- petuous declamation of the stump orator as a deep, clear, placid stream differs from the mountain torrent ; the latter bears down all opposing forces, carrying away trees and rocks before it; the former fertilizes the fields it visits, and bears the freighted fleets of com- merce on its bosom. His speech on the Sunday law is a case in point, wherein he contended that " whatever the origin of Sunday, whether divine or human, wise or unwise, it is, as to America, a law of the Anglo-Saxon people." Whatever the subject, he exhausts its capa- bilities while enchaining the attention of his hearers by the beauty and translucent clearness of his rhetoric. Ile will long be known in Tennessee as a good man, a lawyer of consummate ability, and a polished, Christian gentleman.

HION. SAMUEL DAVIES FRIERSON.

COLUMBIA.

P ERIIAPS no community contributed more to the ' honor and well-being of Tennessee during the first half of the present century than Maury county. She gave to the bench and bar a Frierson, a Wright, a Cooper and a Fleming; to the Church the two eminent 3

prelates, Bishops Otey and Polk ; to the navy and to science a Maury; to the arms of her country a Pillow, a Brown and a Polk; to the capital of the United States another Polk as President. Some of the men who gave lustre to this community will now be passed

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briefly in review, and as a central figure we will present the memoir of Chancellor Samuel Davies Frierson.

The father of this eminent jurist emigrated from the district of Williamsburgh, South Carolina, in 1805, with a colony of Friersons, Coopers, Flemings, Arm- strongs and Wilsons, settling first in Williamson county, and afterwards in Maury county in 1807. This colony was quite unlike the heterogeneous assemblies of rest- less adventurers who generally settle in new countries; on the contrary, it consisted of families who had asso- ciated together in their old Carolina homes, and wor- shipped together in the old Presbyterian church, whose minister accompanied them in their expedition to the western lands in which they proposed to establish new hearths and altars for themselves and their children.

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Sketches of prominent Tennesseans. Containing biographies and records of many of the families who have attained prominence in Tennessee, Part 4

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