Sketches of prominent Tennesseans. Containing biographies and records of many of the families who have attained prominence in Tennessee, Part 40

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

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JUDGE CARRICK W. HEISKELL

MEMPHIS.

O NE of the youngest colonels in the Confederate service, who won his title by his blood, was Col. (now Judge) Carrick White Heiskell, of Memphis. He was born in Knox county, Tennessee, July 25, 1836. He

lived there upon a farm and attended the common schools until he was thirteen years of age. He then entered East Tennessee University, now the University of Tennessee, at Knoxville, and remained one year.

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Wwaving there he entered Maryville College, at Mary- wille, Blount county, Tennessee, and graduated under Dr. Isaac Anderson in 1855. He was fond of books au had little taste for farm life. His favorite studies were mathematics and the languages, and when he left rullege he was a good Greek and Latin scholar, besides being well grounded in English, the natural sciences, mathematics and kindred branches. Shortly after grad- uating he went to Rogersville, Hawkins county, Ten- tessee, and taught for two years in MeMinn Academy, in the meantime studying law with his brother, J. B. Heiskell. At the expiration of the two years, he was admitted to the bar at. Rogersville, by Judge Patterson and Chancellor Luckey, and practiced there until the breaking out of hostilities between the States.

Young Carrick Heiskell was one of the earliest to enlist in his county, and became first-lieutenant of com- pany K, Nineteenth Tennessee infantry regiment, the first company that went from his county into the Con- federate service. When the regiment was organized he was elected captain of his company, and served with this rank through the Kentucky campaign with Gen. Zollicoffer, and was with him when he fell at Fishing Creek. After the battle of Murfreesborough he was made major of his regiment, and served as such till the battle of Chickamauga, where he was severely wounded in the foot, which compelled him to leave the service for twelve months. Rejoining the army before he was able to throw aside his crutches, he took command of his regiment on the retreat from Tennessee, after the Hood campaign in 1864. The colonel and lieutenant- colonel of his regiment both having been killed, he became colonel of the Nineteenth Tennessee infantry regiment. He was with Gen. Forrest and commanded the remnant of the brigade of Gen. Strahl, who fell at the battle of Franklin ; participated in all the skirm- ishes on that retreat ; remained with the army till the close of the war ; took part in the battle of Bentonville, North Carolina, and surrendered at High Point, North Carolina, April 26, 1865.

After the war Col. Heiskell located at Memphis and engaged in the practice of law in partnership with his brother, Hon. J. B. Heiskell, and Col. Moses White, of Knoxville, Tennessee. After this firm had existed for several years he and his brother went into partnership with Judge W. L. Scott, now of St. Louis, the style of the firm being Heiskell, Scott & Heiskell, and which lasted till May 28, 1870. He was then elected judge of the first circuit court of Shelby county, and held the position for eight years. That part of his history which illustrates his career as a judge has been written in the judicial records of the State, and will be found in leis. kell's Reports (volumes 1 to 12), edited by Hon. J. B. Heiskell.

Before leaving the bench Judge Heiskell was elected city attorney of Memphis, and as soon as his term as judge had expired he entered upon the duties of the office and served till the old city .government

was abolished in 1879. He was an earnest colaborer with those who had the old government abolished, and worked faithfully and ardently to have the present ad- mirable system of city government adopted. Ile con- tinued as city attorney under the new regime, brought the legal battles of the taxing district through its in- fancy, and served till March, 1881, when he returned to the practice of his profession.

Judge Heiskell was an old line Whig and a thorough Union man up to the firing on Fort Sumpter. He took up arms in defense of his State, and though he voted to call a convention to decide on the question of seces- sion, he also voted after he was in the army for Union delegates to the convention, being unwilling to go out of the Union till a majority of the people of Tennessee had decided that it was best. When the war went on he had no hesitaney in standing with his people. Since the war he has co-operated with the Democratic party, but has never been an ultra-partisan.

The Heiskell family is of German descent. Judge Heiskell's father, Frederick Heiskell, was born at Fred- crickstown, Maryland, in 1786, and moved to Knox county, Tennessee, in 1815. He was one of the pioneer printers of Tennessee, and established the Knoxville Register in 1816, and published it till 1836. All of the statutes of Tennessee from 1820 to 1836, were printed by him at Knoxville. In 1836 he gave up printing and retired to his farm. He served several terms in the Legislature of Tennessee, and died in 1882, at the ad- vanced age of ninety-six. . He was a man of strong, practical, common sense, and met with fine success in business. His brother, William Heiskell, was also a member of the Tennessee Legislature for several terms.

Hon. J. B. Heiskell, brother of the subject of this sketch, was a member of the Confederate States' Con- gress during the whole period of the existence of the Confederacy. He was also attorney-general for the State of Tennessee since the close of the war, and is regarded as one of the ablest lawyers in the State.

Judge Heiskell's mother, nee Miss Eliza Brown, Was of Scotch-Irish descent, and a daughter of Joseph Brown, one of the earliest sheriff's of Washington county, Tennessee, and resided at Jonesborough, She married Frederick Heiskell at that town in 1816, and died in 1851. Her brother, Hugh Brown, was a professor in East Tennessee University during its early years, and was also the partner of Frederick Heiskell in the print- ing business. Her father emigrated from Ireland to this country in his youth.

Judge Heiskell was married at. Rogersville, Tennes- see, October 21, 1861, to Miss Eliza Netherland, daugh- ter of Col. John Netherland, an eminent lawyer of Rogersville. He was a member of the Legislature for several terms prior to the war ; was several times elector on the Whig ticket, and ran against Hon. Isham G. Harris for governor in 1859. He is now living at Rog- ersville. His father was a native of Virginia.

Mrs. Heiskell's mother was Miss Susan MeKhmey,

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daughter of John A. Mckinney, a prominent lawyer in East Tennessee, during the early days of the State. Her cousin, Judge Robert McKinney, was on the Supreme bench of Tennessee for several years prior to the war, and was the colleague of Judge Archibald Wright, of Memphis, and Judge Robert L. Caruthers, of Leba- non.

By his marriage with Miss Netherland, Judge Heis- kell has seven children now living, four sous and four daughters. Mrs. Heiskell has been a member of the Presbyterian church for many years. She is a lady of a remarkably genial disposition and possesses all the elements of a good wife and a good mother. Judge Hleiskell has also been a member of the Presbyterian church for many years.

The secret of Judge Heiskell's success is energy. He believes that persistent hard work is the only talisman in life, and that we should unite with this morality, hon- esty and integrity of purpose, together with a Christian walk and conversation.

One of Judge Heiskell's brother-lawyers says of him : " The key-note of his character and his success is his

earnest, enthusiastic pursuit of what he believes to be right and a fearless discharge of what he feels to be his duty. If he has a fault it is over earnestness, but that earnestness is always directed towards the right side. Going upon the bench at a very early age, he made a careful, faithful and capable judge, and his decisions in many difficult and important cases were sustained by the Supreme court. Filling the office of city attorney in Memphis at a time when the difficulties of the posi- tion were greatest, he helped to engineer the affairs of the taxing district during the stormy period of its in- fancy, and fought and won for it many battles in the courts at a time when many were doubting the success of this new form of government, and were asking the question, 'Will the taxing district stand the ordeal of the courts?' His life has been but a fulfillment of the promises of his youth. Entering the Confederate army at a very early age, he was one of the youngest colonels in the service, andit was this same earnestness and en- thusiasm that made him a good soldier. United with these traits he has a positive, decided nature, habits of strict morality, and talents of a high order."

JAMES H. DICKENS, M.D.

READYVILLE.

D R. JAMES H. DICKENS was born in Ruth- erford county, Tennessee, June 11, 1823. His father was B. B. Dickens, a farmer, in moderate circum- stances, a justice of the peace and an elder in the Chris- tian church. He was a native of North Carolina, and came with his widowed mother from that State when in his fifteenth year ; lived in Warren and Bedford counties until grown, when he settled in Rutherford county. He was a man of firm character, of conscientious conduct and sterling integrity. lle married in Rutherford county, raised a family of eight children, and died in 1860, at the age of rixty-five. Of these children, only three sons are now living, James 11. Dickens, subject of this sketch, and J. F. and W. B. Dickens ; both of the latter farmers. Two of Dr. Dickens' paternal uncles, William and John Dickens, settled in Jackson county, Tennessee, as farmers. William Dickens, the grand- father of Dr. Dickens, was a farmer in North Caro- lina.

Dr. Dickens' mother, whose maiden name was Miss Nancy Holt, was the daughter of Fielding Holt, a far- mer in Rutherford (now Cannon) county, by birth a Virginian, and one of three brothers born and raised in Henry county, in the " Old Dominion," Dr. Dickens' mother was one of those kind, honest, unassuming, true- hearted ladies of the old school, so famous and so hon- ored in Tennessee pioneer history. She died in 1855, at the age of fifty-three.

James II. Dickens was raised on a farm and had a rough and tumble farmer boy's life. His early oppor- tunities were quite limited. Outside of the schooling he got in the county schools of his neighborhood, his education was obtained at Woodbury and at the Milton Academy, under Moses W. MeKnight, where he learned Latin and mathematics. Hle was a quiet and studious boy, and obediently did all he could at whatever he un- dertook, bringing all of his ability to bear upon his task-a trait that has characterized him through life. He was free from the vices common to boys, having been trained by his parents to control and keep himselt within bounds.

He began the study of medicine in 1844, in the office of Dr. M. W. Armstrong, at Milton, Rutherford county, and read with him a little over two years, meanwhile practicing a little. He attended two courses of lectures at the Memphis Medical College, in the years 1816-7-8, graduating as an M.D., in 1818, under Profs, Cross, Grant, Miller, Doyle, Donn, and Ramsey. He began practice without a dollar of capital, at Readyville, in March, 1818, remained there till January, 1849, when he went to Carollton, Mississippi, in March, 1849, and practiced there till November, 1850. He then returned to Readyville, settled permanently, and has been ac- tively engaged in practice in Rutherford county ever since-now about thirty-five years. His practice up to 1878 was very heavy, his attention being devoted exclu-

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sively to his profession, with the exception of running a farm, which at present consists of some eight hundred acres, of which about five hundred acres are in cultiva tion.

Dr. Dickens' success in life has come to him as a Batural sequence of his merit, and because he has first gained the approval of his own conscience and judg- ment, and has followed out his business on that line, with whatever energy and ability he possessed. He has never used money to bring money in, but invested it in property, mostly real estate, and before the war owned a few negroes.

During the year 1869 he was president of the Ruther- ford County Medical Society; and was one year vice- president of the Tennessee State Medical Society. In politics, he was an old line Whig, and gave his first vote for Henry Clay, but since reconstruction has been a Democrat, at least has acted with that party. In 1844 he joined the Christian church, of which he is still a member.

Dr. Dickens married in Rutherford county, Teunes- see, January 25, 1849, Miss Melissa MeKnight, daughter of Capt. James McKnight, a farmer, originally from Virginia. Her mother was Nancy Doran, also of Vir- ginia. Mrs. Dickens was educated at the MeKnight Academy, in Rutherford county, is a member of the Christian church, and is noted for her domestic virtues and especially for her industrious habits. It is said of her, she is a self-supporting woman, and has made more money than she has spent, which entitles her to the dis- tinetion of filling woman's divine mission, as expressed in the words of the Creator, "I will make an help-meet

for man." Her kindness and devotion to home duties and relations are her chief characteristics.

Dr. Dickens' has been a close student and a hard- worker all his life, doing an active and laborious prac- tice. Since early manhood he has lived at one place and filled all the conditions of success, and is an ex- ample of what a man can do for himself by the right kind of a life. It is all a mistake that success comes by chance. It follows a law. A man must be a good financier and a money saver, without being miserly ; must be energetic and industrious, and taking Di. Dickens as an illustration, must marry a woman of simi- lar qualities. " He has been wise enough to avoid going security. Ile has not been a close collector, his disposi- tion being to indulge debtors-resorting to persuasion and not to coercion for collecting debts, and the result. is that he has not lost more than one-third of his professional fees; before the war not more than one- fourth.

In personal appearance Dr. Dickens is a man to be noted. He is about six feet high, looks tall and slender, has blue eyes and plentiful gray hair, worn in a high roach. He has always been a temperate man, and though not totally abstemious has never been in the . habit of even taking toddies, and has not used tobacco for thirty years. He has never gambled, knows nothing practically about dissipation, and has never had a fight since boyhood. He is literally surrounded by troops of friends. He is the most successful physician in Ruth- erford county in point of property. His standing in every way is very high as a citizen, a gentleman and a physician.

THOMAS BLACK, M.D.

M. MINNVILLE.

T' HIE original family of Blacks came from Scotland. The great-great-grandfather of Dr. Thomas Black was a Scotch clergyman. The great-grandfather emi- grated to America and settled in Kentucky. The grandfather, Samuel Black, a Kentuckian, moved to Warren county, Tennessee, and there died. The father, Alexander Black, was born in Kentucky, in 1801, came with his father to Warren county, and after his father's death was bound to Alexander Shields, a merchant, and was raised in mercantile life, clerking for Shields, at MeMinnville. He also clerked, a year or two for Kirkman & Irwin, merchants in Nashville, then re- turned to MeMinnville, went into business with P. HI. Marbury, as a merchant, until the year 1856, after which he retired to his farm in the country, and died in 1859, At the age of fifty-five. He was an elder in the Cumber- land Presbyterian church, lived a very exemplary life, and left a name of which both his family and town . re justly proud. Henry Watterson, the distinguished

editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal, is a descend- ant of the same stock, his mother, ace Talitha Black, and Dr. Black's father being cousins.

Dr. Black's mother, ace Miss Mary .A. Smith, was the daughter of Meriwether Smith, of' Kingston, Tennessee, and, like her husband, left a reputation that is at once an honor and an incentive to her descendants. She died in Nashville, in 1873, at the age of sixty-five, leaving seven children-six sons and one daughter: (1). Samuel Black, now a farmer. (2). John Black, now a lawyer at Bentonville, Arkansas. (3). Thomas Black, subject of this sketch. (4). Mary L. Black. now wife of R. II. Mason, a merchant and farmer at MeMinnville. (5). Robert Black, a merchant and manufacturer of stone- ware at Smithville, Tennessee. (6). Alexander Black. a merchant at Leiper's Fork, Williamson county. (7). Meriwether Smith Black, now in the hotel business at Cincinnati.

Dr. Thomas Black was born at Me Minnville, Tennes-

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sce, June 13, 1837, and was educated there in the old Carroll Academy, occasionally clerking in his father's store, and had a fondness for general literature, and es- pecially for botany and chemistry, in which branches of science he has since made fine reputation.

He began the study of medicine in 1857, in the office of Drs. Hill & Smartt at MeMinnville. After reading with them one year he began practice and continued it until the war, when he went into the medical depart- ment of the Confederate army, and was detailed as a hospital steward, but sometimes acted as assistant-sur- geon. Having no diploma at that time, he could not be commissioned as surgeon or assistant-surgeon, though he practiced through the entire war and until the sur- render at Greensborough, North Carolina, May 10, 1865. Ile served the entire time in Col. John HI. Savage's Sixteenth Tennessee regiment, and his history in con- nection with that gallant command runs through Vir- ginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky and Tennessee, and includes the battles of Murfreesborough, Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, and the Georgia campaign from Dal- ton to Atlanta.

After the war he practiced two years in Warren county and then removed to Nashville. In 1868 he graduated as M.D. from the medical department of the University of Nashville, under Profs. Paul F. Eve, Thomas R. Jennings, W. T. Briggs, C. K. Winston, J. B. Lindsley and Joseph Jones. He lived in Nashville eight years, practicing medicine and teaching chemistry to private classes in the medical department of the Uni- versity of Nashville. Part of this time he was professor of analytical chemistry and materia medica in the Ten- nessee College of Pharmacy at Nashville.

Dr. Black passed through the cholera epidemic at Nashville in 1873, and in November, 1874, moved to Me Minnville, where he has been doing a general practice as physician and surgeon ever since, and occasionally has contributed articles on chemistry and kindred topics to the medical journals. He is now a member of the fac-

ulty of Cumberland Female College, at MeMinnville, and is highly esteemed as a clear and forcible lecturer on scientific subjects.

Dr. Black married at Me Minnville, February 13, 1867, Miss Emma J. Young, daughter of the late Dr. John S. 3 Young, of Nashville, formerly-for eight years, from 1840 to 1818-secretary of State, during which time he superintended the building of the Tennessee Hospital for the Insane and other noted public edifices. Mrs Black was born May 6, 1845, on the site where the State" capitol now stands. Her mother, nee Miss Jean L. Col- ville, was the daughter of Maj. Joseph Colville, one of the founders of the town of MeMinnville. Samue Colville, Esq., the banker at MeMinnville, is the son of Lusk Colville, brother of Mrs. Black's mother. Mrs. Black was educated at Cumberland Female College MeMinnville, and at the famous and dearly beloved old Nashville Female Academy, under Rev. Dr. C. D. Elliott. She is a Cumberland Presbyterian, and to the excellencies of an intelligent Christian lady she has added those domestic virtues that make home happy.

By his marriage with Miss Young Dr. Black has eight children : (1). Jean Young Black, born March 12, 1868. (2). Mary Alice Black. (3). John Young Black, born December 20, 1871. (4). Sallie Colville Black. (5). Susan Black. (6). Emma Black. (7). Clara Josephine Black and (8). Leah Black.

Dr. Black is an elder in the Cumberland Presbyterian church, which denomination he joined when a youth. In polities he is a Democrat. He is the mayor of the town of Me Minnville ; a Knight of Honor; a Master Mason, and medical examiner for several insurance com- panies. He is a man of handsome personnel, a gentle- man of most affable manners and social attainments-a good companion, a good citizen and a most excellent phy- sician. He has succeeded in life by always trying to do the right thing and to help along his fellow-man. It is a pleasure to write of one who possesses such sterling traits of a noble manhood.

CAPT. JAMES HARVEY MATHES.

MEMPHIS.

T HE Mathes family is of Scotch-Irish extraction. The remote ancestor of Capt. James Harvey Mathes, subject of this sketch, was Alexander Mathes (or Matthews, as he spelt the name), who came to America about 1720, first settling in Pennsylvania, and afterwards removing to Virginia. Some forty years after, four Matthews brothers, and their families, includ- ing Capt. Mathes' great- grandfather, George Mathes, removed to Washington county, East Tennessee, a period long anterior to the admission of the State of

Tennessee into the Union, and it is a tradition that even up to this time the family name was spelled Matthews. They settled near what is now known as Washington College, then known as Martin's Academy, an institu- tion in the establishment and support of which they and the Doak family, and other pioneers, took an active part.

The Mathes family has been very prolific in preachers and doctors, and as their history shows they have, from carly times, been the friends of education and the up-

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builders of society. During the late war, most of the | descendants were on the Union side. There was an Ebenezer Mathes, a very wealthy man for that country, ; years ago, who "set his negroes free" before the war, by sending some of them to Liberia and some to the - "free-soil States of the north." He also gave liberally - for the endowment of institutions of learning and char- ity, and to colonization societies. At his death, since the war, he left all his property to charitable causes, excepting some small legacies to relatives.

George Mathes, great-grandfather of Capt. Mathes, was a Virginian by birth, and, as stated, removed to Washington county when a young man, subsequently removed to Blount county, and was killed by a fa- mous Indian chief, John Watts, a few miles west of where Maryville now stands. His son, William Mathes (('apt. Mathes' grandfather), was born in Washington county, and is said to have been the first white child born in Jonesborough. He grew up to be a prosper- ous farmer and a man of fine character, noted for his high sense of honor and fair dealing. . He was an elder in the Presbyterian church at Dandridge ; was a mag- istrate and held the office of county trustee. He mar- ried in Jefferson county, Miss Rachel Patton Balch, of an old Revolutionary family, niece of one of the signers of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence. Hle reared a large family, but only one of his children now survives, Rev. William Alfred Mathes, father of Capt. J. Harvey Mathes.

Capt. Mathes' father inherited the old homestead, and the deed to it, by some means, was signed by James K. Polk. He still lives, aged seventy-one years, in the home which his father built when he was an infant. He is a Presbyterian minister and a farmer; has always been a strictly religious man, devoted to Sunday-school work and to the cause of temperance.

The mother of Capt. Mathes was Miss Margaret Ma- ri :: Hart, daughter of Edward and Elizabeth Hood Hart, the latter a relative of Lieut .- Gen. John B. Hood. She was born three miles east of Maryville, Blount county, Tennessee; married in 1837, and died in Decem- ber, 1881. She was a true, good wife and mother, and of a peculiarly sweet temperament. She was the mother of eight children : (1). James Harvey Mathes, subject of this sketch. (2). A daughter, who died in infancy. (3). Dr. George A. Mathes, who was a member of the Thirty-seventh Tennessee Confederate regiment ; died in Memphis, July 31, 1881. (4). Rachel Emma Mathes, now wife of J. S. Barton, a lawyer at Me Minnville, Ten- nessee. (5). Edward HI. Mathes, now a lawyer at Ozark, Arkansas. (6). John T. Mathes, now a lawyer in Uvalde county, Texas. (7). Nathaniel Beecher Mathes, now a theological student at the Southwestern University at Clarksville, Tennessee. (8). Cordele Mathes, now in- tructor in painting in a college at Pine Bluff, Ar- kansas.

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Sketches of prominent Tennesseans. Containing biographies and records of many of the families who have attained prominence in Tennessee, Part 40

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