Sketches of prominent Tennesseans. Containing biographies and records of many of the families who have attained prominence in Tennessee, Part 64

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

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HON. JOHN C. FERRISS.

VANUVILLE.

JOHN C. FERRISS was born, May 21, 1837, in the ! county of Rutherford, Tennessee. He was the third of twelve children. His parents were of the highest respectability, esteemed by all who knew them for their fine neighborly qualities, Their circum- stances were not such, however, as to enable them to afford to any of their children more than a limited English education.

In 1853, John C. Ferriss removed with his parents to Gibson county, West Tennessee, where he remained with them about two years, assisting in working the farm. At this time (1855), having reached his eighteenth year, he became inspired with natural. youthful desire to " see the world for himself." So, without risking the parental refusal by applying for " leave of absence," in company with James Mediaw, of Columbia, Tennessee,

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he came to Nashville. Here he succeeded in obtaining a situation in the office of the Tennessee Baptist, pub- lished by Graves, Marks & Co., where he remained long enough to acquire a pretty fair knowledge of the print -. ing business. He then became publisher of the old Rutherford Telegraph, for Northcott & Ott, proprie- tors. In 1859, he went to Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and became publisher of the Jefferson Independent, a Dem- ocratie organ. For some years his heart had been set on the profession of law, and at odd times he had been availing himself of the opportunities afforded to read such elementary works as he could get hold of. In the fall of 1859, having made sufficient accumulation to justify him in the enterprise, he entered the law depart- ment of Cumberland University as a student. He had made sufficient advancement in his private study to render his collegiate course a brief one, so that, on the 27th of June, 1860, he was graduated from the univer- sity with the degree of Bachelor of Laws. On the 7th of September following he began the practice of law at Nashville.

The civil war between the States soon afterward be- gan, and among the earliest volunteers, Ferriss enlisted as a private in company C, Second Tennessee infantry, William B. Bate, colonel. Ferriss was promoted to a captainey for gallant conduct on the battlefield of Murfreesborough, or Stones River, as it is called by the Union army. For his gallantry on this occasion, his name was placed on the " Roll of Honor " by the Con- federate war department. After the war, penniless, he resumed the practice of his profession, and with great zeal and industry followed it a period of six years, when he was elected the first public administrator of David- son county. This office he filled for half the term, to the satisfaction of the public, when in a hotly contested

campaign, with highly popular and worthy competitors, he was elected to the office of county judge, in 1872. In 1878, he was re-elected judge, and holds the office until September, 1886.

By a life of rectitude and strict morality, Judge Fer -... riss has established a high character for integrity and as a just and righteous judge. . In the discharge of the du- ties of his station, following the dictates of duty and of a benevolent heart, he has gone out into the city and the country, and gathered in the neglected orphans, and provided for them homes, and in instances numberless,' had them adopted into reputable families. In this, he." has established for himself a monument more enduring than marble. Had he discharged no other of the va- rious functions of his office (all of which he has dis- charged with efficiency, ability and great fidelity), this one duty, performed so well, would crown him with laurels. Scattered through Tennessee, here and there, are bright eyed orphan girls and youths, who owe to this great-hearted man the first ray of sunshine that ever brightened the threshold of their existence.

Judge Ferriss is a consistent member of the Meth- odist Episcopal church, South. In politics, he is con- servative and liberal, a true Democrat.

He married, while a soldier in the Confederate army, Miss M. L. Nolen, of Triune, an excellent lady, of re- markable culture and intelligence. By this marriage they have nine children, all of them liberally endowed with pluck, energy and good promise.

If it be true that those are great whose lives benefit their fellow-men (and who shall gainsay it?), then is John C. Ferriss' title to greatness already well estab- lished. Better than warrior's wreath or monarch's crown will be such a title, when the grand final adjust- ment of human accounts shall come to be made.

IION. WILLIAM R. MOORE.

MEMPHIS.

T' HE subject of this sketch was born in Huntsville, Alabama, March 28, 1530, the son of Robert C. Moore, who died the same year, at the age of twenty- four, leaving two children, William R. Moore and Martha J. Moore, the latter of whom married Alney II. MeLean, of Middleton, Rutherford county, Ten- nessee, and died there in 1883. Her husband still re- sides at Middleton, on a farm which has been in his family for more than a hundred years.

Mr. Moore's grandfather was Charles Moore, a native of Virginia, born near Charlottesville. Mr. Moore is a man of pure southern blood, never having had a rel- ative born north of the Ohio river. His family on both sides came from the four Virginia towns -- Charlottes

ville, Petersburg, Fredericksburg, Lynchburg, and the country around them. Very few surviving relatives of his family name are now living. The family has been made up chiefly of farmers for the last one hundred and fifty years, who have never had much to do with public life, being content to live as quiet, unostenta- tious agricultural people ; well to do, but not wealthy ; land and slave-owners, belonging to the self-sustain- ing class; never pretentious, but modest and retiring men of business, who paid their debts, kept their pledges, and retained plenty of this world's goods about them. A principle which has pervaded the whole fam- ily, has been a great pride of integrity, and a firm adher- ence to their word.

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Jours Got aut,

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Mr. Moore's mother, yet living, was Miss Mary F. Lingow, daughter of Archibald Lingow, descendant of another old Virginia family. Her mother was Miss Martha Cleveland, daughter of Jeremiah Cleveland, de- seendant of Col. Ben Cleveland, a Revolutionary soldier, who bore a conspicuous part in the battle of King's Mountain. The characteristics of Mr. Moore's family on his mother's side, have been much the same as those of his paternal ancestry. They have always been a peace- ful, strifeless people, never mixing with troubles, per sonal or political, and peculiarly free from military or official ambition. The family on both sides have been re- ligionists-members of the Presbyterian and other Pro- testant churches, and always consistent in their faith.

After the death of his father, which occurred when William was six months old, Mr. Moore's mother moved to Tennessee and settled at Beech Grove, then in Bed- ford (now Coffee) county, and lived there, a widow, seven years, at the expiration of which time she mar- ried John M. Watkins, near Fosterville, Tennessee, where she has since lived in the same house for the past fifty years.

Mr. Moore was brought up on a farm, receiving only partially the advantages of the common schools, and in the log school houses of his day laid the foundation upon which he built his self-taught education. In early boyhood he had a strong desire to go out in the world and make his own way, and at fifteen his mother finally consented for him to go. Fortunately, he found employ- ment in the store of Mr. William R. McFadden, mer- chant and postmaster at Beech Grove, Coffee county ; fortunately, because Mr. McFadden was one of the kindest and most fatherly of men, of fine business ca- pacity and integrity, whose personal character was a fine model for the ambitious young business man. His salary, for the first year was only twenty-five dollars, but being quick, active and willing to work, he soon learned to manage the store and to keep the post-office. When he had been there about a year, he was sent by Mr. McFadden with a four-horse team to haul goods from Nashville to Beech Grove, and for the first time in his life saw a city. After this he was dissatisfied with his life in a country store, and desired to go to Nashville for business. His employer consented to his louving, proffering him letters of introduction to merchants in Nashville, which he declined, holding that a boy who could not get a situation himself, did not deserve one, and never once doubting his ability to succeed, a feel- ing which he has carried through life. Having saved enough money to pay his way, in 1817, he traveled by stage to Nashville, and arrived there knowing no one, and with no clearly defined purpose beyond seeking emt- ployment and connecting himself with some big house. With this view he visited the principal business firms. The first man who noticed him was Maj. R. C. MeNairy, then a leading retail dry goods merchant, who consented to employ him if he would bring a letter of recommen-

dation from his last employer. He wrote for the letter and secured the position at a salary of one hundred and fifty dollars for the first year. His strong point was his willingness to work, which soon gained for him the favor of his employer. He would rise before the other clerks were up, sweep the store, and go out among the marketers drumming for custom. At the end of the year, Maj. McNairy, unsolicited, raised his salary to three hundred dollars, which stimulated him to greater exertion, and the next year he received five hundred dollars. He remained with this firm three years. He was fond of reading, and invested his spare money in books, and in this profitable manuer, spent most of his evenings' leisure time. Having no one to direct him, he read promiscuously, thereby acquiring a fund of miscellaneous information, which proved of great ben- efit to him in later years.

In the meantime, gaining experience in business, he became reflective, and began to cast about for a permanent pursuit for himself. Noting that many of the rich men of Nashville were wholesale dry goods merchants, he resolved on that branch, and accord- ingly applied to Eakin & Co., then the largest house of the kind in Nashville, for a situation, which he ob- tained, as a salesman, and remained with them six years, with a salary beginning with six hundred dol- lars per year, which was gradually increased to two thousand dollars. It was here that his views of bus- iness began to widen. Twice a year, during this pe- riod, he was sent out by his employers as a drummer through Middle Tennessee. Often regretting his own meager opportunity for an education, when only twenty- one years of age he gave to Rev. W. D. Chadick, of the Cumberland University, at Lebanon, Tennessee, five hundred dollars from his earnings, to aid in the endowment of a professorship in that school, hoping that thereby some young man like himself might be benefitted.

Conceiving a desire to go into business for himself, in yet a wider field, he made up his mind in a single night to go to New York. Having learned the value of let- ters of introduction, he procured these from the Nash- ville merchants to several New York firms, and on pro- sending them was offered a situation by each house. Informing hinself of their respective characteristics, he found one firm, S. B. Chittenden & Co., a reputed anti-slavery house, which had no southern trade. To this house he offered his services, hoping to build up a custom from the South which would show for itself. the firm agreeing to give him five thousand dollars for the first two years, and a partnership thereafter, on condition that he realized his expectations. He re- mained in New York but one day, when he returned to canvass the southern States in the interest of this house. Succeeding beyond his expectations, at the end of two years he received his five thousand dollars and the partnership in the firm for three years, but after he

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had been there about two years he met Mr. Joseph II. Shepherd, of the firm of Shepherd, MeCreery & Co .; of Charleston, South Carolina, but originally of Nash- ville, who told him he had sold out at Charleston and was going to Memphis, and wanted him to go with him. which, after much persuasion, Mr. Moore reluctantly consented to do. Mr. Chittenden consented to his with- drawal from the firm, paying him sixteen thousand dol - lars for his interest.

The firm of Shepherd & Moore was established at Memphis, in December, 1859, and had a very prosperous year in 1860, but the war coming on in 1861, unex- pectedly to him, they lost every thing by their credits among country merchants. The partners also disagreed in their political views. Mr. Shepherd was almost re- ligiously wedded to secession, while Mr. Moore, who was a natural born Union man, was as religiously in- elined the other way. After the sequestration act was passed by the Southern Confederacy, Mr. Shepherd gave to the Confederate authorities, undr Mr. Moore's protest, an inventory of the firm's northern debts, but after the Federal occupation of Memphis, June 6, 1862, Mr. Moore went to New York to see his cred- itors, announcing his intention to pay dollar for dol lar, if they would give him additional time. His prop- osition was accepted, all the debts afterward paid, one hundred cents to the dollar, and his credit in New York established on a firm basis, and has so continued. Soon after this Mr. Shepherd died, and the firm of William R. Moore & Co. was established, and has con- tinued successful to this date, paying its liabilities dollar for dollar, with interest, through all the vicissi- tudes of war, panics and epidemics, during the last twenty-six years.

Mr. Moore was raised a Henry Clay Whig and an American policy man, as opposed to the doctrines of Calhoun, always strongly opposing the Democrats, He believes that while States have rights and counties have rights, the Nation is the only sovereignty, and that the Union is greater than any of its thirty-eight parts, and must be placed first in any controversy. His poli- ties are broad, taking in the whole country represented by the " old flag." In 1860, he voted the Whig ticket for president, headed by " Bell and Everett," upon the platform: "The Union, the Constitution, and the en. forcement of the laws," and when that party went out of existence he joined the Republicans, voting for Lincoln. He was an uncompromising Union man, but did not go into the army because his tastes were not military. He has never owned a weapon, and never has been in a difficulty, doing his own thinking and allow- ing others to do the same. Since the beginning of the war, he has written a great deal, doing his fighting with the pen, leaving the sword to those whose tastes ran in that line. He has never desired or sought office, the public and official positions he has held having been urged upon him without his solicitation

The following extract from a letter written by Mr. Moore to the Memphis Arges, in 1864, will show his position at that time :. " By love of country, I do not mean an attachment to some particular spot, because we may happen to have lived upon it, as for instance, Maine or Mississippi. but an abiding love of the ichole country."

In May, 1865, he introduced, in a mass meeting in Memphis, a set of resolutions, accepting the results of the war. During the war, he was made military alder- man in Memphis.

In 1868, he was a candidate for the Legislature on : the platform of " reduced taxes, Senter and suffrage," and was the fourth man on the list, but as there were three to be elected. and the third man had not taken the "iron-clad oath," Mr. Moore was, by law. entitled to the seat, but desiring to take no advantage of an infor- mality, he went to Nashville, was sworn in and then resigned, and compelled Gov. Brownlow to order an- other election, which, contrary to his wishes, he did.

In 1880, he was nominated for the Forty-seventh Con- gress, he knowing nothing of the nomination till it was published in the newspapers. He accepted with relue- tance, and was elected over Hon. Casey Young, the most popular Democrat in West Tennessee. He was renominated in 1882, but declined to run. While in Congress, he was prominently mentioned in connection with a place in President Arthur's cabinet, and a letter signed by a large number of the business men of Mem- phis and elsewhere, irrespective of party, was sent to the president, requesting his appointment. He took part in the discussions in Congress, and made speeches on all the great questions and issues which were before that body. His speeches, especially upon "Chinese Immig- ration," "Civil Service Reform," "Contested Election case of Lynch es. Chalmers," " American Shipping," "Common Schools," "Improvement of the Mississippi River,""etc .. are marked by that broad and forceful vigor which is the chief characteristic of his nature.

Mr. Moore, though fond of the society of ladies showed for a long time little inclination to marry, but finally did marry, February 14, 1878, Miss Lottie Hay- wood Blood, who was born in Hamilton, Canada, daugh- ter of' George H. Blood, a native of Massachusetts, late engaged in the manufacture of cotton-seed oil at Mem- phis. Her mother was Miss Margaret Thompson, form- erly of Edinburgh, Scotland. Mrs. Moore was educated at the State Female College, at Memphis, and after- ward under private tutors. She is distinguished for her personal beauty, her wit and grace, and art in dress, and during her husband's stay at the national capital, took rank in Washington society as one of its fairest ornaments, restoring. in a measure, the pristine glory of ante-bellum days. They have no children.

Mr. Moore was raised in the Presbyterian faith, but adheres to no seet, because he finds none broad enough. His decalogue is the Golden Rule: " Do unto others

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as you would have others do to you." His creed is best expressed in the couplet :

" For modes of faith, let graceless zealots fight, His can't be wrong, whose life is in the right."

Believing that every man should worship according to the dictates of his conscience, he entertains no preju dice, on account of religion, for Protestant, Jew or Catholic; and desires, after his death, no better epitaph than the six monosyllables, " He did the best he could."

He belongs to no society or secret organization, hold- ing the same views in regard to them as he does toward churches-not through prejudice, but because he does not desire to bind himself by any oath or obligation. His preference has always been for a business under his

personal control, so he has kept out of public corpora- tions and companies. He was at one time a member of the Chamber of Commerce, and took a prominent part in organizing and carrying it through, during its days just after the war. He is a quiet, carnest, capable bus- iness man, of unimpeachable integrity, of great force of character and striking individuality. He has, under all circumstances, maintained his financial and com- mercial standing. He is also a man of decided opin- ions and of outspoken convictions, frequently array- ing himself in opposition to current public sentiment, but never flinching from what he believes to be right. His patriotism takes in his whole country, and his re- ligion all mankind.

COL. EDWARD W. MUNFORD.

MCMINNVILLE.

T HLE Munford family sprang from English Welsh blood. Thomas Bowling Munford. grand- father of Col. Edward W. Munford, was a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses from Amelia county. He left four sons, William, Richard, Thomas and James, who settled in Hart and Green counties, Kentucky. Richard Munford built the town of Munfordville: was a farmer, a merchant, and several times a member of the Kentucky Legislature. James Munford settled in Green county, Kentucky.

William Munford, father of Col. Edward W. Mun- ford, was born in Amelia county, Virginia, went to Kon- tucky when a young man, was one of the early settlers, and died at Lebanon, Tennessee, in 1811, at the age of sixty-six. lle was a very successful farmer; a man who lived in his affections, greatly beloved by his family and friends, and was the peace maker of his neighborhood. Col. Munford says of his father, that he, Albert Sidney Johnston, and William B. Munford, of Clarksville, Tennessee, were morally the three purest men he ever met, combining all the sterner virtues with amiability and sweetness of character; true manhood, without double dealing or chicanery, and without a partiele of deceit in their natures or transactions.

William Munford, a cousin of Col. Munford's father, was a finished scholar, author of a very celebrated lite- ral translation of Homer's Hliad, which gave him a European reputation ; author of other able literary pro- ductions, and was associated with Henning as reporter of the decisions of the Supreme court of Virginia (see Munford's Reports, and Munford & Henning's Reports), a library of themselves. George Wythe Munford, son of William Munford, just mentioned, was, for many years, librarian and secretary of the State of Virginia, and was distinguished as a polished scholar and fine

orator; a man of intellect and culture, universally re- spected as one of the first gentlemen of Virginia, pure in principle and refined in manners and tastes.

Col. Munford's mother, not Miss Lettice Ball, was born in Lincoln county, Kentucky, daughter of Thomas Ball, originally from Virginia, but who early started out for himself, went to Kentucky, took up the carpen- ter's trade, at which he worked at Lexington, became a prominent farmer and owner of a large tammery. He married a Miss Reid, of a family distinguished in the legal profession in the early history of Kentucky, and through his maternal grandmother, Col. Munford is connected with the Marshalls. Reids and Greens of that State. Col. Munford's maternal grandfather, Thomas Ball, was a man of decided force and integrity of char- acter, very eccentric, a great humorist ; universally re- spected, and possessed of a contempt for worldly honors. Col. Munford's mother died at ber home on the farm, in Lincoln county, Kentucky, when he was only five years old. She was a most loveable woman, very devout, and her daily habit was to take her children with her into a room and pray for them. When on her death-bed, she pointed to heaven, and said to her husband, "meet me with the children there." She left eight children, one having died previously: (1). Matilda Munford, who

died the widow of Maj. Mooney, a United States officer in the Mexican war. Her first husband was Joseph N. Hudson. She was phenomenally gifted, brilliant with pen and tongue, of resplendent beauty, and had a mag- netism that drew people around her and made her the center of attraction. Her son, Samuel, was a soldier in the Mexican war, was prostrated with sickness in the city of Mexico, and the mother made her way to that city, nursed him to health and brought him home, which for those times was the act of a heroine. (2).

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Mary Jane Munford, married Albert G. Ward, in Da- vidson county, Tennessee, near the Hermitage. (3). Thomas J. Munford, married three times. Though weighing but one hundred and forty-five pounds, he was a remarkably athletic man, of almost superhuman activ- ity and strength. He was a fine classical scholar ; was a member of the Tennessee seuate from Wilson county ; was for a long time clerk and master of the chancery court at. Clarksville, Tennessee, and died on his planta tion in Kentucky. (1). William B. Munford, repre sented Montgomery county in the Tennessee Legislature. He was a very conscientious man, a good man through and through, like a pure diamond, without fleck or flaw. He was an elder in the Presbyterian church, a praying, devout member, without affectation, with a fine, manly, open face, with implicit faith in the Bible and tranquil confidence in the Christian religion. He literally walked with his God, and when he died those who knew

him said, " We shall never again see a man so pure, so grand, so splendid, so symmetrical." (5). Sarah Wat- kins Munford, who became the wife of Tennessee's fa- mous Whig orator, governor and United States senator, James C. Jones. This lady was famous for her fine humor, her fund of anecdotes, her charming manner of relating family histories, and her power of enter- taining company by her brilliant conversational powers, and yet was withal a superb business woman. (6). Robert Munford, died carly in life. (7). Kitty Aun Munford, wife of Dr. Miles MeCorkle, who formerly represented Wilson county in the Legislature, a very prominent physician, distinguished in his profession. (8). Richard Munford, died early in life. (9). Edward W. Munford, subject of this sketch.

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Sketches of prominent Tennesseans. Containing biographies and records of many of the families who have attained prominence in Tennessee, Part 64

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