USA > Tennessee > Sketches of prominent Tennesseans. Containing biographies and records of many of the families who have attained prominence in Tennessee > Part 53
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. Eloise Cooper, daughter of Matthew D. Cooper, and sister of Judge William F. and Ex-United States Sen- ator Henry Cooper ; has four children, Marian, Patty, Albert and Henry. (5). George W. Stockell, born at Nashville, April 2, 1852; now head of the firm of George W. Stockell & Co., in the wholesale agricultural implement business at Nashville. (6), Orville Ewing Stockell, born September 14, 1855; now a partner in the house with his brother, George W .; married Novem- ber 8, 1877, Miss Ida F. Gower ; has one child, Rachel.
Capt. Stockell began married life with ninety-six dollars, and by hard work and honesty of purpose has made a fortune and a name among the most honored citizens of Nashville. Still happier, no man can say Capt. Stockell ever wronged him out of a cent, or that he came to his office Saturday nights and went away without the money due for his week's work. Happiest of all, he and his companionable wife have lived to raise their sons in a city and see them every one doing well and standing high in good society. This result is largely due to the mother, who, naturally of a sunny and benig- nant temper, very early adopted the policy of making her home happy and attractive to her children. For this purpose she herself, when thirty years old, took music lessons with her daughter, that she might amuse and entertain her sons and then visiting friends. She encouraged her sons to have a club room at home, and their principal evening amusements there, she making herself one of the company, and by her presence both enlivening and adding dignity and grace to their enter- tainments. The results justify one in commending her example to young mothers desirous of seeing their boys succcessful and honored. In declining years it is a gratifying reflection that' no one can call up wrong things about him ; more pleasant still, to have, as Capt. Stockell has, a serap-book full of the most friendly and flattering notices-the result of a busy life conducted on manly, benevolent and Christian principles.
His old friend, Anson Nelson, Esq., who has known him intimately for many years, gives this estimate of Capt. Stockell's character: "Capt. William Stockell came to Nashville in 1846, and soon showed himself a good, steady mechanic. His industry and faithfulness were developed to such an extent that he soon obtained as much work as he could do, even with the skilled workmen he employed. He acquired, as a natural result, a fine property of his own, and a competency to live on. He was happily married, and reared a family of chil- dren, of which any man might be proud. His children are all married and well settled in life.
"Capt. Stockell was a natural fireman, and his services
as captain of the old volunteer company, Broad street, No. 2, were relied upon in all cases of fire, in any part of the city. After the organization of the paid steam fire department, he was not, for several years, actively engaged in this arm of public service. Upon the going out of the notorious Alden administration, in 1869, the Hon. John M. Bass was appointed receiver for the city, and he at once selected Capt. Stockell to take charge of the fire department of Nashville. He was elected chief by the incoming Morris administration, and re-elected year after year, during different administrations of the city government, for fourteen consecutive years. This . was a wonderful compliment, considering the fact that there were always so many applicants for every office in the gift of the municipal government. He was selected solely on account of his superior qualifications for the position ; for it was well known that, as a matter of pe- cuniary consideration, he did not need the office. While fire chief, he made many advantageous improvements, among the most notable being the introduction of the fire alarm telegraph, which has worked successfully since its introduction. The management of the department, under his wise and careful supervision, was a source of gratification to his fellow-citizens. He retired from this service in the autumn of 1883. As a member of the Association of Fire Chiefs of the United States, Capt. Stockell has been for several years one of the most prominent and useful. His papers, read before that body, have attracted more than ordinary attention.
" In all the public offices of the city, in every impor- tant movement for the public good, Capt. Stockell has always been a prominent factor. He never failed to do his whole duty, and never shirked any labor or pecu- niary demand to aid his poople. His services as a di- rector in many mechanical and other associations, were invaluable. He wasone of the working directors of the Centennial Exposition of Nashville, in 1880, and no one did more to insure the successful accomplishment of that grand enterprise. As an active member of the Tennessee Historical Society, and in the Robertson As- sociation, his services are well-known and duly ap- preciated.
"Capt. Stockell's reputation as a man of progressive ideas, as a stirring, active member of society, as a good citizen, ready always to discharge his whole duty, is universally acknowledged. Numerous testimonials of respect, by different organized bodies, and by individu- als, have been presented to him; all testifying to his active labors and to his worth as a man. His services will probably be more appreciated after his death, than they will be while he is alive."
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G. B. THORNTON, M. D.
MEMPHIS.
D R. G. B. THORNTON, of Memphis, one of the ablest and most widely known physicians and sur- grons in Tennessee, is a Virginian by birth, though his whole life, since 1817, has been identified with the city of Memphis, his longest periods of absence therefrom being during his academic and collegiate years, and the four years of military service he gave to the cause of the Confederacy.
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He received a liberal literary education, and medicine being chosen as a life profession, he commenced its study in the office of Dr. II. R. Roberts, professor of surgery in the Memphis Medical College, from which institution Dr. Thornton graduated in March, 1858. He next graduated from the medical department of the University of New York, in March, 1860, and commenced the practice of medicine in Memphis in the spring of the same year.
On the breaking out of the war in 1861, he identified himself with the Confederate cause, and in July or Au- gust of that year passed a satisfactory examination be- fore the state board of medical examiners at Nash- ville, and was commissioned assistant surgeon for the Tennessee State troops, by Gov. Isham G. Harris, and assigned to duty with the artillery arm of the service, stationed above Memphis, on the Mississippi river. In November, 1861, he was present at the battle of Bel- mont, Missouri. In March, 1862, he was with his com- mand at the engagements at Island No. 10, and New Madrid, Missouri. In May, 1862, he was commissioned surgeon by the war department at Richmond, and was made surgeon of division on the staff of Major-Gen. J. P. McCown, who commanded a division of Gen. Earl Van Dorn's corps, then at Corinth, Mississippi. This was rapid promotion for so young a man, but subsequent events proved that Surgeon Thornton well merited such distinguished recognition. He was on Gen. MeCown's staff at the battles of Perryville, October 8, 1862, and Murfreesborough, December 31, 1862, and January 1, 1863
In the summer of 1863, he was assigned to duty as chief surgeon of division on the staff of Major Gen. A. P. Stewart, at Chattanooga; was with this division at the battle of Chickamauga, September 19 and 20, 1863, and at Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge in No- vember, 1863; was with this division at Dalton, Georgia, in the winter of 1863-1, and in all the engagements of the Army of Tennessee, throughout the bloody summer of 1864.
He was on the staff of Major-Gen. H. D. Clayton, of Alabama, as chief surgeon of division, at the battle of Franklin, and in front of Nashville, in the fall of 1864. At the re-organization of the army in North Carolina, in the spring of 1865, he was assigned to duty on the 31
staff of Major-Gen. E. C. Walthall, of Mississippi, with whom his military career terminated. He was with the Army of Tennessee from its organization in Tennessee, in 1861, to its capitulation in North Carolina, in 1865; with the exception of Shiloh ; was present at every great battle it fought; was with his command on all its marches and campaigns; was present at its organization and at its dissolution-in other words, saw its Alpha and its Omega.
It is but just to note that Dr. Thornton was the youngest division surgeon in the Confederate army. Being fond of operative surgery, and having acquired a good theoretical knowledge of its principles prior to the war, his position afforded him the amplest opportunity for practicing the art in his field hospitals. This large and valuable experience rendered him an fait subse- quently, when in charge of the City Hospital at Mem- phis, or as occasion offered, in private practice. The knowledge gathered and the experience acquired in these four years of active military life were likewise beneficial to him in the administration of the civil of- fices he held.
Ile returned to Memphis in August, 1865, and re- sumed practice. In September, 1866, he was elected assistant physician for the City Hospital of Memphis, then under the charge of Dr. J. M. Keller, now of Hot Springs, Arkansas, the office of assistant resident phy- sician, being made necessary to meet the demands caused by an epidemic of cholera which occurred in Memphis that year. He resigned this position in 1867, and was elected physician in charge, October, 1868, by the city council, which position he held until February, 1879, when he resigned. This was a general hospital for the treatment of all kinds of medical and surgical cases. The official reports show an average of about two thou- sand patients treated annually. During Dr. Thornton's administration, Memphis was visited by four epidemics of infectious diseases: One of smallpox, in the winter of 1872-3; a limited epidemic of cholera in the spring of 1873; an epidemic of yellow fever in the latter part of the summer and early fall of 1873, and the great epi- demic of yellow fever in 1878, commencing in August and ending in November, in which Memphis lost not less than three thousand of its population by death.
Dr. Thornton's professional experience during the years of his official connection with this institution was certainly varied and extensive, and his abilities as a professional man and administrative officer are fully at- tested by his being retained for nearly eleven consecu- tive years, through all the changes incident to munici- pal government, and that, too, when its local political affairs were very unstable. In February, 1879, he re- signed his office as physician to the City Hospital, his
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health being much impaired by his duties during the last named epidemic, with the determination to devote himself exclusively to private practice.
Under the newly organized city government he was offered and accepted the position of president of the C'ity Board of Health. The sanitary condition of the city at this time was dreadful. The following extract from the first annual report of the Board of Health, published in 1880, for the year 1879, but partially ex presses its condition : "On the subsidence of the epi- demie of 1878, the city seemed literally paralyzed, be- sides being in a worse sanitary condition in every re- spect than ever before ; and the winter passed without an effort being made worthy of mention toward general sanitary work. Consequently, on the organization of this Board of Health, in February, 1879, the task of perfect- ing a system of sanitation to an extent at all commensu- rate with the necessities of the occasion, with the facili- ties at its command, was more than could be reasonably expected of the new board," etc. In July of 1879, yel- low fever again appeared and lasted until frost-late in October. This office Dr. Thornton has held to the pres- ent time. The same earnestness of purpose and fidelity to duty has characterized him in this, as in the preced- ing office. Within the period of five years, from being one of the most unsanitary places in the country, Mem- phis is now one of the most cleanly, and is fully abreast with the most advanced in all things pertaining to pub- lic hygiene. As president of the Board of Health, he has enjoyed the full support of the city government and the confidence of the people.
Aside from his official life, Dr. Thornton has devoted his time to private practice, and taken active part in the medical organizations of the day. He was a member of the Memphis Medical Society during its existence before and after the war ; is a member of the Shelby County Medical Society from its organization ; one year was its vice-president; is a member of the Medical Society of the State of Tennessee, since May, 1878, and was made vice-president from West Tennessee in April, 1879, and was its president in 1881-82; is a member of the Ameri- can Medical Association since 1877; a member of the American Public Health Association since 1879; was a member of the advisory council of this association in 1883-84; of its executive committee for 1881-5, and one of its vice-presidents for 1885-86. In the fall of 1879 he was appointed a member of the Tennessee State Board
of Health, by Gov. A. S. Marks, to fill a vacancy occa- sioned by the resignation of Dr. R. B. Maury, and on the expiration of his term, was re-commissioned by Gov. W. B. Bate, April 4, 1883.
Dr. Thornton is the author of several essays which have attracted favorable comment from the medical and sanitary journals, and were received with great favor by those interested in these subjects -- one on yellow fever, its pathology and treatment, with clinical notes on one hundred and forty cases treated in City Hospital in 1878, which he read before the State Medical Society at its annual meeting in Nashville, April, 1879, and which .. was published in the transactions of that year ; offe on "open treatment for amputations, pyamia and septi- camia," with notes on a number of cases illustrating this method, treated in the same hospital; read before . the society at Knoxville, and published in its transac- tions-for 1880; an address as president of the society, delivered at the annual meeting in Memphis, May, 1882, and published in transactions of that year; an essay on the yellow fever epidemic of 1879, as it occurred in Memphis that year, and read before the Public Health Association at its seventh annual meeting in Nashville, November, 1879, and published in vol. 5 of "Reports and Papers" of that society; one on "Memphis sani- tation and qurantine, 1879 and 1880," read before the same body at its meeting in New Orleans, December, 1880, and published in vol. 6; one on "negro mor- tality of Memphis," read before the same society at In- dianapolis, October, 1882, and published in vol. 8; also five annual reports to the Legislative Council of the city of Memphis, as president of the Board of Health ; a report to the State Board of Health on the epidemics in Tennessee in 1881 and 1882 .. He has also contributed several other papers to medical journals on professional subjects.
Dr. Thornton married Miss Louisa Hullum, of Mem- phis, in December, 1869, a lady of culture and retine- ment ; a true type of a Southern gentlewoman, and a member of the Protestant Episcopal church. She died in June, 1875, leaving him two young children-a daugh- ter, Anna May Thornton, and a son, Gustavus B. Thorn- ton, jr., both at present at school in Virginia.
In polities Dr. Thornton has been a Democrat all his life, as were his ancestors before him, since the organi- zation of the party. He was never a member of any church; has been a Master Mason about twenty years.
JUDGE SAMUEL A. RODGERS.
LOUDON.
T' PILIS prominent jurist, whose time off the beuch is pleasantly occupied in farming on a large scale. - raising wheat, corn and cattle, and in rearing his family in the happy simplicity of old fashioned country style
presents a fine type of a judge who has attained a com- potency by methods of strict integrity, knows the value of success and how to enjoy it. He was born in Knox county, Tennessee, March 5,
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1830. He was brought up on a farm at hard labor -- his father being a solid, well-to-do farmer; a man of unu- sual energy and firmness of character, who taught his children to work and to avoid idleness as one of the direst evils. In this way young Rodgers' earliest strug ples began in driving wagons and following the plow, in hauling logs and assisting about his father's mills, By these means he built up a good constitution, grew to manhood a strong, hearty, robust specimen of the young mountaineer. He was fond of the chase and riffe, but. his early prevailing tastes were for literary pursuits and the practice of law. His early school opportuni- ties were limited until he was sixteen years old, when he was sent to the private county schools of the neigh- borhood some three or four years. Afterward becoming tired of school, in the winter of 1851-2, he went to Cal- ifornia, where he stayed until 1853, spending a year in the gold mines. In the fall of 1853 he returned, and remained through the year 1854 on his father's farm as general manager.
In September, 1855, he entered the literary depart- ment of Cumberland University, Lebanon, remained there three years, graduated in 1858, completing a course of Latin, Greek, French and Spanish, besides the regu- lar curriculum. While at college he was president of his society-The Amasagassian, and passed through the course with honor, He returned to Knox county, studied law about a year under Hon. John Baxter, present United States circuit judge; in the fall of 1859, ob- tained license to practice from Chancellor T. Nixon Van- Dyke, and Judge George Brown, and entered into part- nership with Hon. O. P. Temple (whose sketch see elsewhere), and with him practiced until the courts were closed, in 1862, by the presence of the armies and the disturbing influences of the war, During the war he remained in East Tennessee, taking no part in the con- test, believing that course his duty as a private citizen. Ilis attachment to the government of the United States was firm and unwavering during the entire struggle; he not believing in the doctrine of secession, cither upon legal principles or principles of sound policy. Upon the return of order and the re-opening of the courts; he again went into the practice of his profession in part- nership with Judge Temple. After a few months' prac- tice, the firm found it necessary to take in another part- ner, which they did in the person of Judge Andrews, since one of the supreme judges of the State. After a still further continuance of the business until the be- ginning of the winter of 1867-8, he withdrew from the firm, sold out his interest in the partnership to his part- ners, and took his wife and her grandmother to Califor- nia, via New York and Panama-for the wife's health. After spending something over a year in Santa Cruz county, California, his wife's health being restored, he returned to Tennessee and opened a law office at Lon don, where he remained till 1878, when he was elected to the office of judge of the Third judicial circuit, em
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bracing the counties of Knox, Blount, Loudon, Monroe and Roane, term expiring September 1, 1886.
Before the war Judge Rodgers voted the Whig ticket, but since the war he has been a Republican, though never actively engaged in politics. He is a Master Ma - son, a Cumberland Presbyterian and an older in his church. He states with commendable pride that he has been for some fifteen years a Sunday school superin- tendent.
A distinctive characteristic of Judge Rodgers in the ethics of a practitioner of law, is to compromise snits and thus remove or soften the asperities of life between fellow-citizens. This he has often done from a sense of loyalty to duty, and oftentimes, too, at his own pecuni- ary sacrifice.
It is said he has kept hundreds of people out of law suits by advice of this kind. He himself refers to his course in this part of his history as the most pleasant of his life. The Master of us aff, in his wonderful sermon on the mount, said: " Blessed are the peace makers."
Judge Rodgers' father, William Rodgers, was born and raised, lived and died in Knox county, Tennessee. He accumulated considerable property as a farmer and mill owner. His integrity was beyond question, and he was a leading, strong-minded man, who forced his way and left his impression on the world. He was a soldier in the war of 1812; for twenty-five years was a justice of the peace, and was an elder in the Concord church, the first Cumberland Presbyterian church planted east of Cumberland mountains, Judge Rodgers' grandfather, Joseph Rodgers, was an Irishman, who early immi- grated to this country, and lived and died a farmer in Knox county. His wife was formerly Miss Elizabeth Donelson, an immediate relative of the well-known family of that name living in Jefferson county, Tennessee.
Judge Rodgers' mother, nce Miss Mahala Lowe, was born in Knox county, daughter of Abram and Elizabeth Lowe, and lived from an early day at what is now known as Lowe's Ferry, on the Tennessee river-in a block house built at that place, and which was a general ren- dezvous for the white settlers, who had often to defend themselves from the incursions of the Choctaw Indians. Abram Lowe came over to this country from Germany. His wife was the daughter of an Englishman named Martin.
(en. S. D. W. Lowe, of Knox county, is Judge Rodgers' maternal uncle. He is a large farmer and stock raiser, and now owns and occupies the old homestead described above. He is distinguished for his elevated bearing as a militia man and for his splendid character.
Judge Rodgers' ouly sister, Ann Amanda Rodgers, is now the wife of S. L. Russell, a merchant and far- mer at Concord, Knox county. Judge Rodgers had live brothers, viz .: James M., Joseph N., Abram W., George D. and William D. Rodgers, all of whom es cept Joseph N. Rodgers, went to California to reside at. various dates since the war. Abram W. Rodgers died
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at Mazatlan, Mexico, September 5, 1883, of yellow fever. The other three brothers-James, George and William-are farmers, fruit growers and stock raisers in ('alifornia. Joseph N. Rodgers still lives a farmer in Knox county, Tennessee. One of AJudge Rodgers' nephews, Arthur Rodgers, son of James M. Rodgers, has risen to distinction as a lawyer at San Francisco, and is one of the regents of the University of Califor- nia. He spent some two or three years in traveling around the world. He is a fine speaker and writer, and a man of broad culture. Onear Rodgers, another son of James M. Rodgers, is a prominent physician at San Francisco-a graduate of Bellevue Medical College, New York.
Judge Rodgers married in what is now Loudon, (then Roane) county, Tennessee, May 10, 1863, Miss Sarah E. Rhea, who was born in that county, November 15, 1813, daughter of John W. Rhea, a native of Sullivan county, Tennessee. He has a first-class character and belonged to one of the most prominent families of East Tennes- see. Mrs. Rodgers' great uncle, Hon. John Rhea, was a congressman from Tennessee two or three terms, and a large land owner. Her second cousin, Rev. Samuel Rhea, a minister in the Presbyterian church, went as a missionary to Persia, and died there. There are upward of twenty ministers in the various branches of the fam- ily, among them Rev. John Bachman, (whose sketch see elsewhere in this volume), Rev. Nathan Bachman, the well-known evangelist, and Rev. Lynn Bachman. Chancellor Seth J. W. Lucky married a Miss Rhea, a second cousin of Mrs. Rodgers. The county of Rhea was named for the Rhea family. This family settled years ago in Sullivan county, and is one of the strongest and best families in the State. They are connected with the Prestons, of Virginia. Mrs. Rodgers' cousin, Dr. Rhea, of the firm of Cowan, MeClung & Co., Knoxville, mar- ried Miss Bella Cowan, daughter of the late James Cowan, of that city. . Mrs. Rodgers' mother was Miss Adaline Dodson, daughter and only child of Alexander Dodson, a farmer and stock raiser in Tennessee, origin- ally from North Carolina, where he married Elizabeth Roberts, a lady famous in her family for strong natural talent and individuality of character. . Alexander Dod- son died January 27, 1862. . Mrs. Rodgers' unele, Jesse Roberts, was a prominent Methodist minister in North Carolina. Mrs. Rodgers' only brother, Alexander D. Rhea, now of Tehuacana, Texas, a farmer and stock raiser, married Mary F. Hatchett, of Monroe county, Tennessee. They have eight children : John, Addic, Robert, Joseph, Bettie, Louise, Rodgers, and Cleaves. Mrs. Rodgers was educated at Athens Female Col- lege; is a member of the Cumberland Presbyterian church; is a lady of bright, sunny disposition, and is eminently utilitarian in her views.
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