Sketches of prominent Tennesseans. Containing biographies and records of many of the families who have attained prominence in Tennessee, Part 71

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

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to his home and was sent to the State senate, taking the position that all men should be held equal before the law, and that no man, white or black, should be disfranchised. He was elected, in 1882, judge of the common law and chancery court of the Democratic county of Madison, which position he now occupies. Ilis term expires September, 1886.

Judge Muse, "the oldest of the nine Muses," is, in every sense, a self-made man, socially, professionally. politically and officially, having received little or no assistance from relatives or partial friends. He is one of the exceptions to the rule that Republicans are ostracised socially, as his last election as judge suffi- ciently evinces. All the family, from the father to the youngest son, were uncompromising Union men during the war, and are all Republicans since, a remarkable record for so large a family, and illustrative of that loy- alty to conviction that all men respect as one of the chief elements of genuine manhood. His decisions as chancellor and common law judge have been, almost without exception, sustained by the Supreme court. His reputation for impartiality on the bench has never been questioned. His first ambition in life was to ac- quire a good education, even while assisting as foreman on his father's farm. His motto has been to do cor- rectly whatever he had to do. He chose the profession of the law, and devoted himself assiduously to learn all the elementary principles of it, and was not ambitious to be other than a lawyer till after the war, when he went into polities in the interests of the country, as he understood and had them at heart. His father gave him one thousand one hundred dollars after he quit school, and though too kind to his friends by going their security, he is now in very comfortable circum- stances. He was never drunk in his life; his chief am- bition was to be an examplar for others. From the day he was twenty-one, till now, he has uniformly had some business in hand and plenty to do. He never broke a promise, never did injustice to a fellow man, and never knowingly told an untruth. The world is always full of work for men of this stamp, for such qualities win confidence, and surround a man with troops of friends from the best and most influential classes of society.

CAPT. BENJAMIN F. HALLER.

MEMPHIS.

B ENJAMIN F. HALLER was born in Marion, Smyth county, Virginia, March 1, 1836. He re mained at home until be reached his seventeenth year, attending school the greater portion of the time, ac. quiring the elements of a good education. He then. of 11

his own accord and at his own expense- the only way he has ever traveled went to Wilmington. North Car- olina, where he engaged a short time as reporter on the Wilmington Herald, and afterward, for two years, as salesman in a dry goods establishment. From Wilming.

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ton he went to Memphis, Tennessee, arriving there March 4, 1858, with only a few hundred dollars in hand. Having letters of introduction to Bishop Otey and other prominent citizens, he soon obtained the responsible. position of cashier in one of the largest mercantile houses in the city, which place he retained until May 15, 1861, when he went into the Confederate army, joining the "Shelby Grays," which afterward became company A of the Fourth Tennessee infantry regiment (Col. R. P. Neely), and remained with that command till August, when he was commissioned captain and au- thorized to raise a company for himself, which, after being partly formed, he merged into the "Sumpter Grays." This company became company A of the Thirty-eighth regiment Tennessee infantry, Col. R. F. Looney commanding. With this command he served till after the battle of Shiloh, when the company was detached and assigned to artillery service, in which ca- pacity it commanded the position on the lower Farm- ington road at Corinth until the evacuation of that place, when it was ordered to Columbus, and there Capt. Haller was appointed by Gen. Dick Taylor, provost marshal of the first military district, extending from Corinth to Meridian, Mississippi, and remained there till early in 1864, when the company was assigned. to duty with Gen. Forrest, and with him remained till May 15, 1865, when the forces were surrendered, at Gainesville, Alabama.

Capt. Haller returned to Memphis, June 23, 1865, and engaged in business in the ensuing fall, but after several business changes, in February, 1876, he engaged in cotton seed oil manufacturing, in which he has con- tinued ever since, and is at present secretary and treas- urer of a leading company in that line. After twenty- six years in Memphis, including four years in the army, he has risen from a stranger, with less than a thousand dollars, to a comfortable social and financial position ; and this, not by speculation, but by hard work, by tak - ing care of what he makes, by staying at one place and pursuing one line of business. In 1867, he lost some twelve thousand dollars by the operation of the bank- rupt law; but to-day he has the happiness of saying, "I don't owe a living soul a nickel," and besides that he is never five minutes behind with an engagement, unless something very serious detains him. His family before him were old line Whigs, and so was he until the war, but since then the only course left him was to vote with the Democrats. Ile is a stockholder in va- rious companies, but director in none. In religion, he is Presbyterian, as is also his wife.

Capt. Haller was made a Mason at Columbus, Miss- issippi, while on duty there during the war, in 1863, and has held the position of Worshipful Master four terms, at Memphis; High Priest of the Chapter two terms; thrice Illustrious Master of the Council; Emi- nent Commander of Knights Templar three terms; Venerable Master of the Lodge of Perfection Scottish

Rite ; Grand High Priest of the State of Tennessee; Most Illustrious Grand Master of the Grand Council of Royal and Select Masters of Tennessee ; Grand Pres- ident of the Order of High Priesthood of Tennessee; Grand Commander of Knights Templar of Tennessee; is a 32d° Mason of the Scottish Rite ; has had the hon orary title conferred on him, of Knight Commander; is elected to receive the 33do with the rank of Inspector General, and is General Grand Principal Sojourner of the General Grand Chapter of the United States; Gen- eral Grand Recorder of the General Grand Council of the United States; represents the Grand Commander, of Maine near the jurisdiction of Tennessee, and also represents the Grand Council of Maryland in the Grand Chapter, and the Grand Lodge of Texas, and is a member of the standing committee on Appeals and Grievances in the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of Tennessee.

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Capt. Haller iparried, in Memphis, October 10, 1868, Miss (Hemmie Fisher, daughter of Maj. G. W. Fisher, who represented Shelby and Fayette counties in the State senate two or three terms before the war. Ile was originally from Pennsylvania, and was a wealthy planter. Her mother is now living in Memphis at the age of sixty-eight. Mrs. Haller's brother, John HI. Fisher, a cotton buyer at Memphis, married Miss Bet- tie Matthews, and has four children, Cora, Henry, Thomas and George. Mrs. Haller's sister, Elizabeth Fisher, died in 1883, wife of J. C. Johnson, leaving seven children, Ida, Carrie, Edwin, Lily, Auna, Wil- liam and Cynus. This sister left a reputation, almost national, for her liberality to the poor, and for being an effective worker in benevolent enterprises. She was vice-president of the Woman's National Christian As- sociation at the time of her death. Mrs. Haller's sis- ter, Barbara Fisher, is now the widow of John R. Gar- rison, and has one child living, John R. Her sister, Georgia Fisher, is the wife of B. W. Capps, of Memphis.

By his marriage with Miss Fisher, Capt. Haller has one child, a son, Frank Elma Haller, born July 11, 1869; now being educated at Memphis.

Capt. Haller's father, Dr. George W. Haller, was born in Wytheville, Virginia, in 1800. After taking his literary degree, he graduated in medicine at Jeffer- son Medical College, Philadelphia, became distinguished as a physician and surgeon in Virginia; married at Lib- erty, Bedford county, Virginia ; settled at Marion, Vir- ginia, in 1836, and died in 1860, while on a visit to his son, Booker Calland Haller, in Texas. He left nine children, Richard J., Mary, Booker Calland, James F., George W., Jane .E. (wife of Robert HI. Woodson), Benjamin F., subject of this sketch, Sallie .A. (wife of L. G. Trent), and Sue J. (now Mrs. Williams, of North Carolina). Of these, Booker Calland Haller, was wounded and died in the war, in Gen. E. Kirby Smith's command; George W. Haller, was killed in battle, in Gen. William Walker's expedition to Central America,

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in 1857; Mary Haller, died in 1856, at Tazewell, Court house, Virginia, wife of Dr. J. R. Doak, leaving four children, Nannie, William, Reese and Rachel. Four of the brothers served in the Confederate army ; two with Stonewall Jackson, Richard J. and James F. Haller, the former a major.

Capt. Haller's mother. are Miss Ann Fullerton Webb Johnson, was the daughter of Richard Johnson, of Liberty, Virginia, and grand daughter of Maj. James, of the Revolutionary army, who died in February, 1827, and maternal grand-daughter of Maj. White, also of the Revolutionary army, from Virginia: Her brother, James F. Johnson, was a prominent lawyer and politician at Liberty, Virginia, and represented his

district in the Virginia Legislature a number of terms. She was related to the Edmondson's of Halifax county, to the Stones of Danville, and the Moormans of Pitt- sylvania, all of English descent, and among the carly settlers of the Old Dominion. Of Capt. Haller's pa- ternal uncles, five were physicians in Virginia.

The character of Capt. Haller may be readily inferred from the fact, that he has never yet tasted one drop of beer or ardent spirits of any kind, and this statement should be accepted as a factor in his success. It is not the province of a biographer to make predictions, but the editor feels safe in saying that a man who went through four years' service in the army without drinking, can not be induced to become intemperate hereafter.

REV. JOHN BUNYAN SHEARER, M. A., D. D.

CLARKSVILLE.

T HIS eminent theologian, educator and scholar, now professor of biblical instruction in the Southwest- ern Presbyterian University at Clarksville, Tennessee, author of " Bible Course Syllabus, a Formulated Course of Study in the English Bible," etc., properly takes rank among the foremost Christian educators of the South.

John Bunyan Shearer was born in Appomattox county, Virginia, July 19, 1832, and received his pri- mary education in Union Academy, in that county. Ile was taught by Henry F. Bocock (brother of Hon. Thomas F. Bocock, the distinguished congressman), on the principle of learning one thing at a time, For ex- ample, he was taught Latin, exclusively, from ten to thirteen, until pages of Latin classics were read with almost the case of English ; then Greek, direct, from thirteen to fifteen ; then mathematics from fifteen to seventeen, when he entered the junior class of Hamp- den Sidney College, graduating, with distinction, June, 1851, under the presidency of the distinguished Rev. Lowis W. Green, D. D., and Profs. Charles S. Venable and Charles Martin.

He next entered the University of Virginia, prose- cuting the academic course and taking the master's degree, in 1851, under Profs. MeGuffey, Gessner Harri- son, Courtenay, and other distinguished educators asso- ciated with them. After this he spent one year, 185 1-5, as principal of Kemper's boarding school for boys, at Gordonsville, Virginia, which position he left to study theology at Union Theological Seminary, Virginia. He remained there three years -- from 1855 to 1858 gradu ating the latter year, and was ordained to the gospel ministry in December, 1858. From 1858 to 1862, he was pastor of the Presbyterian church at Chapel Hill, North Carolina. While a student at the Theological

Seminary, he preached two years at Bethlehem and Concord churches, in Prince Edward county, Virginia, during which time the membership of those churches was more than doubled. From 1862 to 1870, he was pastor of Spring Hill church, Halifax county, Virginia, and at the same time principal and proprietor of the Cluster Springs boarding school for boys.

Dr. Shearer came to Tennessee in 1870, and located at Clarksville, as president of Stewart College, which position he held nine years-from 1870 to 1879 -- and until that institution was reorganized as the Southwest- ern Presbyterian University-being connected with the institution altogether some fifteen years. He was for three years, 1879-80-81. professor of history and En- glish literature in that institution, but has taught biblical science during the whole period of his connec- tion with the school, 1870 to 1885, at present filling the chair of biblical instruction.

Stewart College owes its origin to the Masons of Ten- nessee, who founded it about 1850. They erected build- ings and conducted a school for five years, Failing to meet with satisfactory success, they transferred the institution to certain gentlemen of Clarksville, who paid the debts of the college, and in turn transferred it to the Presbyterian synod of Nashville. The college was named in honor of Prof. William M. Stewart, who was its leading patron and benefactor, and who served the institution, gratuitously, as president, and then as professor of natural sciences. The college was achiev- ing a reasonable success when it was broken up by the war. Its libraries and cabinets and other appliances were destroyed and the buildings dismantled during the varying struggles of internecine strife No effort was made to resuscitate the institution until the arrival of Dr. Shearer, in 1870.

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At that time there was neither school, faculty, appa- ratus, libraries nor cabinets ; part of the buildings had not been repaired since the ruthless hands of the soldiery had been laid upon them, and the small nu- cleus of endowments had been saved from the wreck by the skill and fidelity of Hon. D. N. Kennedy, at ing for the board of trustees, The institution, being then under the care of the synod of Nashville, and its patrons necessarily few, Dr. Shearer immediately opened negotiations with the southwestern synods of the Pres- byterian church, with a view to founding a university common to them all and worthy of them all. These negotiations resulted in the agreement of the synods of Nashville, Memphis, Alabama, Mississippi (including Louisiana), Arkansas and Texas, to join in founding a school on the basis of a more distinctively Christian edu- cation. A plan of union was adopted, almost unani- mously, and a directory, consisting of two members from each of the six synods, was given charge of the enterprise. In the meantime, Stewart College was achieving a remarkable initial success, so that at the proper time it was adopted as the nucleusof the desired university, though many other places competed with Clarksville by generous offers for the location. The new institution -- the Southwestern Presbyterian University -was chartered by the State of Tennessee, in 1875, a new directory taking charge of Stewart College and continuing the old faculty and curriculum until the reorganization, in 1879.

On tendering Stewart College as the foundation for the university, Dr. Shearer insisted on vacating all the chairs in the institution, in order that the board of di- rectors might be wholly unembarrassed in reorganizing, himself being a member of the board of directors. A dangerous spell of sickness laid him on the shelf ahnost the whole of the year 1878-79. At the reorganization, in 1879, he nominated the distinguished educator. Rev. J. N. Waddel, D. D., LE. D., as the chancellor of the university, and was himself elected to the chair of his- tory and English literature, including, for the time, biblical instruction, as before mentioned, though his health was still so poorly re-established that he seri- ously doubted his ability to ever again do regular work. Happily, however, his health was regained, though slowly, and since that time in the judgment of his friends, he has been able to do the best teaching work of his life. With the the reorganization he very prop- erly retired from the directory, but the board saw fit to place in his hands the entire business interests of the institution, and also to make him ex officio a member of the executive committee of the board, who have the management of all matters ad interim.

For nine years the entire financial interests of the institution were laid upon Dr. Shearer, and its affairs were conducted on the principle of a clean balance sheet, and freedom from debt. Unusual difficulties beset the path of the institution, both by reason of the

narrowness of its means and the peculiar state of public credit in Tennessee. It became necesssary for him to labor for years in the interest of the literary and chari- table institutions of the State, which, like Stewart Col- lege, were largely interested in the condition of State finances, The endowments were steadily increased from about thirty thousand dollars, in 1870, to one hundred thousand dollars, in 1879, at which latter date the Southwestern Presbyterian University owned about seventy thousand dollars of State bonds. The necessity of constant watchfulness during the sessions of the Leg- islature, from year to year, in order to secure the rogu- lar payments of interest and the final safety of the principal, amid political wrangling, won for Dr. Shearer the reputation of being a most successful " lobbyist "- in the better sense of the term-and without drawing upon himself or his cause any of the odium usually thereunto attached. The schools of the State readily concede to him a Large share of the credit of the re- funding and safety of educational endowments, and their final removal from politics, even to the extent of making the State the custodian of such funds, so that they can neither be stolen. lost, or squandered by a reckless board of trustees.

During the period of his connection with the univer- sity, Dr. Shearer has been doing what may be called a pioneer work, in placing the Scriptures as the central fig- ure in a liberal education, and requiring all forms of human learning to make their obeisance to them. In all his teaching he has sought to make his school more distinctly a Christian school than the schools of the past. The Church, he maintains, has no mission to educate un- less she can make her schools more specifically Christian than can the State schools. Dr. Shearer places the Eng- lish Scriptures on the same basis as the severe studies- Latin, Greek and mathematics -- and holds that educa- tion is insufficient without a thorough mastery of revealed truth. He makes the Bible course the unity- ing course of all sound learning. He teaches that there is nothing good in human thought for which we cannot find the authority in the Scriptures, or at least the concrete illustration, and that there is no heresy for which we do not find the answer, either directly or by necessary implication, in God's word notably in history ; the historian who fails to recognize God in history gives but partial and inadequate views of the whole, because the " seed of the woman " -- the seed of Abraham -is " head over all things to the Church." This proposition, he maintains, runs like a red thread through all history.

In a notable sermon which Dr. Shearer delivered at Monteagle, 'in the summer of 1884. he illustrated these views, as a theologian, on the proposition that the evangelical Christianity of do-day is in approximate conformity with Scripture warra' ( -in its organization, government, franchises, forms and modes of worship. In that discourse, he treated the historie development

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of the Abrahamic covenant, through the Mosaic econ- omy, and through the later superadded synagogue sys- tem, into Christianity, this last being a continuation of the organic life of the church, set up in the family of Abraham, and now become universal

Teaching seems to have been a sort of second nature with Dr. Shearer from very early life. He was em- ployed, when sixteen years old, as assistant in the acad- emy where he was educated ; and at the University of Virginia he was employed two years of his course by the professors to teach their sons and daughters, besides having private classes among his fellow-students during the whole of the three years he remained there. This work was wholly unsolicited on his part, but most wel- come, on account of the necessity of relieving his father from the burden of a protracted attendance at school. This private teaching was kept up to the end of his theological course so successfully that by this means, and by preaching and colporteur work, he earned and spent two thousand five hundred dollars on his educa- tion, losing only one year from actual attendance at school.

In boyhood he had no bad habits-never using pro- fane language nor contracting any of the usual youthful vices. He was consecrated from birth to the gospel ministry by a devotedly pious mother, but never made up his mind to preach until his twentieth year. He joined the church at the age of ten. From fifteen to nineteen he had a varied religious experience, in which he encountered all the difficulties, doubts and battles of his life.

Since coming to Tennessee, Dr. Shearer has not had a regular pastorate, though, in 1871-72, he had charge of the Presbyterian church at Clarksville. . While he never misses an opportunity to preach a sermon, and in fact preaches nearly every Sunday, most of his work is missionary work.

Dr. Shearer is descended from Whig ancestry, but since the disastrous results of secession, has advocated Democratie doctrines and politics. He, however, draws his views of republican government largely from the model divinely given in the Hebrew commonwealth, and in which, he holds, is to be found all the safe guards of civil and social liberty, in perfect adjustment ; that apart from the theocratic features of the Hebrew com- monwealth, there is found the earliest and highest form of a confederated republic of sovereign States (the twelve tribes), with perfected constitution; and, that the exact adjustments of their executive, judicial and legislative bodies have been unequalled by any republic of mere human origin. A proper understanding of these things; he insists, furnishes a safe-guard against the Jacobite on the one hand and a licentious democ- racy on the other; and, besides, in that commonwealth was found the only perfect adjustment of civil and co- clesiastical law, which secured liberty of worship on the one hand and freedom from priesteraft on the other.

Dr. Shearer married, in Prince Edward county, Vir- ginia, September 5, 1854, Miss Lizzie Gessner, who was born at Munster, Westphalia, Germany, Novem- ber 19, 1832, the daughter of Johan Gessner, who em- igrated to Texas, where he died in 1839. Hier mother was Katrina Blumenthal, with no blood-kindred liv- ing. The same is true of Mrs. Shearer. A lady of indomitable energy and perseverance, her husband as- cribes to Mrs. Shearer no small part of his success in life, and he is frequently guided by her judicious counsel, and aided by her strong womanly help. She shares absolutely in every project he undertakes, and prosecutes it as her own. They have no . children, but their house has been filled with the children of others during ahost the entire period of their married life. The sick, the suffering and the poor bless her in every community in which she has ever lived.

The family name, Shearer, is Irish, but it came through William the Conquer to England, and the Irish ances- tors of the family in America are descended from mem- bers of Cromwell's famous Ironsides, whom he settled in Ireland. Wherever those descendants are found, either in this country or abroad, are found many of the best characteristics of that devoted band. No one who bears the name has ever been known to disgrace it by drunkenness or any other form of vicious indulgence.

The grandfather of Dr. Shearer, James Shearer, a sol- dier of the war of 1812, died in Appomattox county, Virginia, in 1872. aged ninety-six years. He was born in Pennsylvania, and married Miss Elizabeth Akers, daughter of Peter Akers, whose grandson, Rev. Dr. Peter Akers, now ninety-four years old, but with eye undimmed and force unabated, is the great apostle of Methodism and president of a college in the northwest.

Both of Dr. Shearer's grandmothers were sisters of the same family, and out of a family of eleven, who all lived to be over eighty years old.

Dr. Shearer's father, now living in Appomattox county, Virginia, at the age of seventy-seven, and in full vigor- ous health. is one among few men who has devoted his life wholly to the raising of his family and the service of his church and community, without ever seeking or accepting civil office, or ever engaging in any enter- prise for the increase of his fortune. He has always been considered free for any service that was needed by his fellow men.

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Sketches of prominent Tennesseans. Containing biographies and records of many of the families who have attained prominence in Tennessee, Part 71

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