Sketches of prominent Tennesseans. Containing biographies and records of many of the families who have attained prominence in Tennessee, Part 86

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

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Judge Gardenhire's paternal uncles, William, Thomp- son, George and John, were all distinguished for fine courage, and were prosperous business men. His pater- nal aunt, Margaret, married John Carmichael, and lived and died in Roane county, Tennessee.

Judge Gardenhire's mother, nee Miss Ailsey Tippet, born June, 1792, in Rowan county, North Carolina, was the daughter of Erasmus Tippet, a farmer, who served for two and a half years, in the latter part of the Revo- lutionary war. He was a man of good estate, owned some forty negroes, but never owned land. Her mother, Lucy Bierling, was a daughter of John Bierling, of Rowan county, North Carolina, where Judge Garden- hire's mother was born. Judge Gardenhire's mother died in Overton county, April 17, 1873. She was a woman uniformly kind to her children, and to her ne- groes, whom she treated with genuine humanity; was a member of the Methodist church for sixty years before her death, and died as she had lived, thoroughly honest in her convictions. She had more courage than ordi- nary women, but was gentle, rather than demonstrative.

Faithful and candid are the two words that distin- guish the character of Judge Gardenhire. In his law practice he has always hesitated in broaching bad news or discouraging views to his clients, but never takes ad- vantage of his client's ignorance to make money unpro- fessionally or to his client's detriment, and never takes an exhorbitant fee. His reputation is that he deals justly with all men, and this reputation is sustained by an upright record in the community in which he has lived and practiced law for forty years.

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HON. THOMAS MENEES, M. D.

NASHVILLE.

D ISTINGUISHED for his eminent rank in the medical profession, for the high political honors he has won, and for being the oldest living representa- tive of a family that assisted in laying the foundations of the civil and social fabric of Middle Tennessee, Thomas Menees first saw the light in a cabin on Mansker's creek, in Davidson county, Tennessee, June 26, 1823, under circumstances little prognostic of the distin- guished career he was to run.

The family is of sterling Scotch origin, and the origi- nal way of spelling the name was MeNees, but of the history of the clan there now remains no accurate tra- dition .. Benjamin Menees, great-grandfather of Dr. Menees, was a native of Amherst county, Virginia, served with credit as a patriot soldier in the American Revolution ; emigrated as a pioneer and settled on Sul- phur fork of Red river, in what is now Robertson county, Tennessee, of which county he was county court judge in 1791. "Ile died in his block house in 1811." A fuller account of his life and services, as well as of the Menees family, may be found in Putnam's " History of Middle Tennessee," and Clayton's " History of Da- vidson County."

Dr. Menees' grandfather, James Menees, was a noted Indian fighter and Tennessee pioneer. He was a mem- ber of Capt. John Donelson's party of hardy emigrants, who started from the settlements of East Tennessee, in the spring of 1780, and steered the first kecl-boat from Knoxville to Nashville. The adventure was by a long, hazardous and unexplored route by water-with hostile Indians continually harrassing them, but they made the voyage successfully, down the Holston, down the Tennessee to its junction with the Ohio, then up the Ohio, and up the Cumberland to the French salt spring, where the city of Nashville now stands. The buoyant, cheerful spirit of the women on that memorable voyage seemed never to fail, and they permitted not the men to do all the hard labor in the navigation, often would not be denied the privilege of lending a helping hand, for, as it is told :

" They worked with paddle, pole, and oar ; They worked when every hand was sore ; They worked with cheerful heart and more- They worked with paddle, pole and oar, Until they need to work no more, Now landed at the wished for shore."

Such were the pioneer mothers and fathers who laid the foundations of a city so beautiful and so beloved. May their noble examples stimulate the present generation, and be not lost to posterity! James Menees, one of the boldest and bravest of this daring party, became a suc- cessful farmer, and for many years was sheriff of Rob- ertson county. His wife, nee Miss Rebecca Williams, was a most excellent woman, well educated, and a grad-

uate of the Moravian Female College, at Salem, North Carolina. She died when her only child, Benjamin W. Menees (Dr. Menees' father), was an infant.

Dr. Menees' father, Benjamin W. Mences, was born and raised in Tennessee, and died in Robertson county, in 1863, at the age of seventy-four years. He served with his father and several uneles under Jackson, in the war of 1812-15. He was a thrifty, hard-work'ng, pushing farmer and stock-raiser, and left, besides a comfortable estate, the more valuable heirloom of a character for integrity and broad common sense. Fam- ily pride, founded on an inheritance of this kind, is a potent factor in the formation of the manhood of chil- dren and of their success and high standing in life.

Dr. Menees' mother, ner Miss Elizabeth Harrison, was the daughter of Thomas Harrison, a successful Summer county farmer, and sister of the late Judge Orville Harrison, of Panola county, Mississippi. She was a broad brained, intellectual woman, highly edu- cated, of deep and earnest piety, devoted to her husband and children, and earnest in teaching and training them in religion, in morality, integrity and energy. It is to her good influence the son mainly owes what he is and has been, and to his father those habits of industry and probity by which he became systematic and business- like, even when a boy.

Dr. George W. Menees, brother of the subject of this sketch, is now one of the leading practitioners of medi- cine at Springfield, Tennessee. Their only living sister, Emily Elizabeth Menees, is now the wife of Dr. J. W. Dunn, of Turnersville, Tennessee, and has but one child, Dr. J. W. Dunn, engaged in practice with his father. Dr. Menees lost two sisters and one brother, all dying in childhood, within ten days of each other. His sister, Rebecca W. Menees, lived to be a young lady, was remarkably brilliant and gifted, the most in- tellectual member of the family. She died, in 1852, just as she was blooming into a lovely womanhood.

Although born in Davidson county, Dr. Mences was raised in Robertson county, and lived there until Feb- ruary, 1862. He was brought up on his father's farm to habits of systematic industry, received a country school education, and taught school himself one term, when a young man. In 1841, he commenced the study of medicine in the office of Dr. Robert K. Hicks, at Springfield, Tennessee ; next took a course of lectures in the medical department of Transylvania University, Lexington, Kentucky, and from 1812 to 1845, practiced in his father's neighborhood with exceptionally good success. In 1815, he returned to Transylvania Univer- sity and there received the degree of M. D., March 6, 1846. From that date his professional career was satis- factorily successful ; from 1815 to 1855, in partnership

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with Dr. Hicks, and from 1855 to 1871, with his younger and only living brother, Dr. George W. Menees. In October, 1865, having meanwhile been a member of the Confederate Congress, and a refugee from his native State four years, he commenced practice in Nashville, where he still resides. In 1873, he was elected professor of materia medica and therapeutics in the medical de- partment of the University of Nashville. In 1871, he was elected professor of obstetries and dean of the fac- ulty in the combined medical departments of the Uni- versity of Nashville and Vanderbilt University, positions he has held uninterruptedly from that time until now. He is a member of the American Medical Association, of the Tennessee Medical Society, and of the Nashville Medical Society, and for many years represented the institutions in which he is a professor in the association of the American Medical Colleges; besides, has given much of his time, talent and influence to the elevation of the standard of medical education. Among the papers contributed by him to the Tennessee Medical Society may be mentioned, " A Paper upon Placenta Prævia," "Use of Obstetric Forceps in Delivery." " Hour glass Construction, ' and other subjects.

Not less brilliant is his political record, for from the date of his medical graduation in 1816, his name is prominently connected with the political history of the State. He has always been a stanch, unswerving Demo- erat; was born and raised that way. He took an active part in all the presidential contests from that of Polk and Clay to that of Lincoln and Breekinridge. In 1819, he was the party nomince for the General Assembly, but was defeated by his Whig competitor, Col. Wiley Woodard, the latter having a political majority of five hundred in the county to begin with, but which Dr. Mences reduced to thirty-eight. In 1857, he was elected State senator for the counties of Robertson, Montgom- ery, Stewart and Cheatham, and served one term, being chairman of several committees, among them a special bank committee. In 1859. he was the candidate of his party to represent the Hermitage district in the United States Congress, but was defeated by Judge James M. Quarles, who had the advantage of an overwhelming political majority in the district. In 1860, he was a del- egate to the national Democratic convention at Charles- ton, and advocated the nomination of Breckinridge, as also at the subsequent Baltimore convention, In 1861, and again in 1863, he represented his congressional dis- strict in the Confederate Congress, to which he was elected over strong opposition, by a majority of five to one. He served in that body, with zeal and activity and marked ability, a cause which he had espoused as the only logical and honorable solution of the political problems of those dark and stormy days.

Dr. Mences married, first in Davidson county, Ten- nessee, April 21, 1853. Miss Elizabeth Hooper, who was born in that county, daughter of Claiborne Y. Hooper, a native of the same county, and a large and prosperous

farmer. Her mother was originally a Miss Keeling, a native also of Davidson county. Mrs. Mences gradu. ated at the Columbia Institute, under Rector Smith; was a member of the Methodist church; much es- teemed for her culture and intelligence, and especially for her amiability and benevolence. In social circles she was unusually gifted .. She died, April 24, 1861, at the age of' about twenty- five years.

By his marriage with Miss Hooper, Dr. Menees had four children. The eldest, a daughter, Mary Rebecca Menees, died in infancy, in 1854. The eldest son, Thomas Williams. Mences, M. D., was born at Spring- field, Tennessee, January 15, 1855; graduated from the medical department of Vanderbilt University in 1876 ;. practiced with his father from the time of taking his degree; was made associate demonstrator of anatomy in Vanderbilt University; died, September 15, 1878, while in the service of the Howard Association, during the yellow fever epidemic at Memphis. He had mar- ried Miss Mollie Loftin, of Nashville, and by her had one child, a son, Thomas Williams Mences. The second son, Young Hooper Menees, M. D., was born at Spring- field, August 15, 1857 ; graduated in medicine from Van- derbilt University ; married Miss Alma W. Bunch, of Springfield, by whom he had one child, a daughter, Elizabeth Menees. He practiced at Springfield with his unele, Dr. George W. Mences, with remarkable profes- sional success for one of his age, when suddenly he was cut down by death, December 12, 1883. The following obituary notice of this brilliant and promising young physician appeared in the Nashville American : "Young Hooper Mences, M.D., died at his residence, in Spring- field, Tennessee, December 12, 1883, in the twenty-sev- enth year of his age. In his premature removal from the scenes of life, a career whose opening was auspicious and presaged great success, has been closed, and the insidi- ous disease which out him down has scored another illustration of the saying of the ancients : 'Whom the gods love die young.' The subject of this notice was the second son of Prof. Thomas Menees, M. D., of the medical department of the University of Nashville and Vanderbilt University, and an elder brother of Prof. O. H. Mences, of the same institution, and a junior brother of the late Thomas W. Mences, M. D., one of the noble sacrifices to professional duty, who fell in the epidemic at Memphis in 1878, and in all respects was worthy of such a record of professional lineage and connection. . Though reared in great part in this city, since 1880 he had been engaged in the practice of medicine with his uncle, George W. Menees, M. D., of Robertson county. After a studious course, evincing great aptitude for the profess- ion, he acquired his degree in the medical department of Vanderbilt University, and at once entered upon its exacting duties The comparatively brief period of his service sufficed to display a proficiency of knowledge and skill unusual in one of his age, and was laying the foundation for an honorable and prosperous sphere of

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usefulness. His deportment was amiable and attrac- tive, and the list of his devoted friends widened with the circuit of his professional labors. His assidu- ous attention to those who came beneath his care, and his warm, genial nature .inspired confidence, and won their esteem and affection in a remarkable manner. The quality of his intellectual gifts was superior, and he was an independent and original thinker, tenacious of his convictions, and firm and manly in their assertion. While duly deferential to the judgment and views of elders and those in whom he confided, he possessed the elements of a strong individuality which impressed his associates., Such endowments and traits were carning for him an enviable position in the ranks of his calling, and in the community, when the symptoms of a fatal disease appeared, which was gradually sapping his phys- ical constitution. With still buoyant and unflagging spirit, he was reluctant so soon to yield up a life so bright and promising, and to which he had added the endearing responsibilities of a fond wife and child ; yet, when the summons was felt to be inevitable, he cahnly confronted the issue, and surrendered in entire resigna- tion to the inexorable fiat. The last days of his young life, so inscrutably clouded, were sustained and soothed in the consolations of a firm religious faith, and so he passed away amid the tears of his family, and the sin- cere regret of the community in whose midst his labors gave promise of a benefaction. The death of such a son is a peculiarly poignant sorrow to his distinguished father, who has twice been smitten with such a blow, and is a loss to the ranks of the younger members of the profession. His brief life was an honor to both, and the remembrance of his worth is a proud consola- tion that may temper the keenness of the grief at his untimely taking off." The youngest son of Dr. Menees, Orville Harrison Menees, M. D., was born at Springfield, April 15, 1859; graduated M. D. from Vanderbilt Uni- versity in 1879, and succeeded his deceased brother, Dr. Thomas W. Menees, as associate demonstrator of anatomy ; in 1880 was elected demonstrator of anatomy ; soon after made a medical tour of Europe, visiting the hospitals and colleges of Edinburgh, London, Paris, Bertin and other noted places ; continued to hold the position of' demonstrator until the spring of ISS3, when he was elected to the chair of anatomy and histology in the medical department of the University of Nash- ville and Vanderbilt University, a professorship which he is filling with complete satisfaction to his colleagues and classes. A separate sketch of this gentleman will be found elsewhere in this volume.

Dr. Menees' second marriage, which occurred at Nashville, August 14. 1868, was with Mrs. Mary Jane Walker, widow of Hiram K. Walker, editor of the Nashville True Whig and Republican Banner. This lady was born in Nashville, daughter of John Austin, a leading and prosperous builder, a native of Maryland. She was educated at Dr. Elliott's Nashville Female

Academy. She is a Methodist; a vivacious, sprightly lady, distinguished for her charities and especially for her domestic qualities -- being a devoted home-maker. By this marriage, Dr. Mences has one child, a daugh- ter, Mary Elizabeth Mences, born December 11, 1873; a bright, joyous universal favorite in church, school and wherever she goes. She has carried from her infancy a life membership in the Methodist Missionary Society.

For forty-three years Dr. Menees has been a member of the Methodist church, and for a long time was a steward. In 1858, he was made a Royal Arch Mason at Springfield, and has repeatedly represented Western Star Lodge, No. 9, Springfield, in the Grand Lodge of Tennessee. As a doctor, he makes it a point to stand strictly upon the ethics of the profession. In forty years' practice he has not deviated from them, though, at times, he has lost friends by this course. Financially he is in very comfortable circumstances. Before the war he had accumulated a fortune of sixty thousand dollars, and at one time was a director in the Edgefield and Kentucky railroad, though he began his professional life without capital and in debt.

Dr. Menees has a commanding presence and manner whether before an audience discussing the politics of his country, or in the classroom demonstrating the great truths of medical science to students. As a polit- ical stump speaker, he is reckoned as one of the most eloquent and effective in Temesse, while, as a lecturer, he is at once the delight and the instructor of his pupils. With a voice ranging through all the tones of the diatonie seale, his mouth is as full of eloquence as is the throat of a mocking-bird with song. But his power over men in the class-room is based on the prin- ciple that treating medical students as gentlemen, they being gentlemen, will reciprocate the courtesy. This suuciter in modo makes him a charming companion so- cially. As a lecturer, he makes the impression that his objective point is the elevation of medical practice to the highest plane of science. Faultlessly clean in his dress, he speaks in the proud tone of authority, but with the air of a whole-souled, warm-hearted and im- pulsive gentleman to gentlemen, His style is by turns didactic, familiar, humorous, and with frequent out- bursts of impassioned declamation that awaken the enthusiasm of his spell bound class, who respond with hearty applause. Running through the entire lecture, which he delivers with the flueney of a master of his subject, is a feeling of responsibility which he attempts to impress upon his class. Here is a man born in a log cabin lecturing the seions of aristocracy and inculcating. along with his instruction, the great princi- ples of personal dignity and professional honor and pride, of which he is himself a fine type. He is what he teaches his students to be, prompt, and decisive in action, practicing with the provision of science, and moved by honor, integrity and purity. His painting of a scene to impress the paramount importance of a

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physician being equal to the emergencies, when the life of a mother depends upon the decision and action of a moment, was a master-piece of eloquence, and would have done honor to the Roman forum, or the senate hall of the United States. Dr. Mences, both in and out of the lecture-room, is in manner and bearing a typical southern gentleman of the old regime, whose ideal is that personal honor that comes of seeking to ennoble and exalt a profession which is at once "a service and a sacrifice to save a human life."

As a specimen of the fervid eloquence and rich im- agery of the oratorical style that characterizes Dr. Menees, the following address, delivered by him on behalf of the faculty, to the graduating classes of the medical departments of the University of Nashville and Vanderbilt University, in the Masonic theater, Nash- ville, February 22, 1877, is reproduced here entire:

"Gentlemen of the Universities, of the Classes, Ladies and Gentlemen : I appear before you this evening, by appointment of my colleagues, to represent the faculties of the medical departments of the University of Nash- ville and of Vandervilt University, upon this com- mencement occasion ; a time-honored custom, requiring that there shall be a valedictory address upon the part of the faculty, now commonly called a ' charge to the class.'

"The themes common to such occasions have been so hackneyed and worn as to raise the question, perhaps, in the minds of some, whether the custom would not be more honored in the breach than in the observance. If, however, you scrutinize the objectors, it may be that you would find that their locks have already been whit- ened by the frosts of age, and thinned by the winds of time.

"Then, to the audience generally, and to these young gentlemen particularly, such occasions have not yet become so common as to divest them of interest. I say to these young gentlemen especially, who are just enter. ing upon the threshhold of professional life, with all the ardor of youthful ambition, inspired by a noble emulation and animated by sanguine hopes and fond anticipations, are eager for the responsibilities which are pressing so closely upon them-to them the occa- sion is one of no ordinary interest.

" All this, however, is no answer to the objection, that the subjects common to such occasions have been so rehashed as to render it difficult to present anything having the freshness of originality. Indeed, it was said by Hippocrates, twenty-three centuries ago: 'He that, rejecting all that is already known, should pursue an- other plan for his researches, and boasts of having found out something that is new, deceives alike himself' and others.'

" The difficulties involved in selecting a subject are thus apparent. A. didactic lecture would be out of order; what we may have failed to teach you of the sci- ence and art of medicine, during the five months of

arduous labor just closing, would scarcely be supplied in this parting hour ; and clinics, we presume, you have had ad nauseam.

"Then we will away with all these, and talk to-night of the medical departments of the University of Nash- ville and of Vanderbilt University.

" More than a quarter of a century ago, the idea of establishing a medical department in connection with the University of Nashville was conceived by some. great minds, in order to furnish the medical students of the South and West an opportunity to prosecute their professional studies without necessarily being driven, at great expense and inconveniences, North and East to do so.

"The university was a part of the heritage which that noble old historic State, one of the original thir- teen, North Carolina, bequeathed to us. Munificent as was the benefaction, and glorious as its results, I say it was but a part of our heritage from her. She gave us the iron-willed, lion-hearted, incorruptible, immortal Jackson ; the pure patriot and eloquent, gifted states- man Polk; in unbending will, matured and enlarged statesmanship, and incorruptible integrity, a second Jackson in the person of the lamented Johnson- characters alike above the blandishments of wealth or the menaces of power-three names which are house- hold words in a nation's vocabulary, gems in fame's immortal chaplet.

"Then should we honor North Carolina as our terri- torial, political and literary mother. She gave us this university, upon the achievements of the literary department of which, if we had time to do so, it would be pleasing to dwell, and to recount some of the great names which it gave to history (while under the chan- cellorship of that profound scholar and distinguished educator, Philip Lindsley), as well as many of its living alumni, who are benefactors of their race and orna- ments to mankind.

" We can not dismiss this part of the subject without paying tribute to one name associated with this depart- ment, which deserves to be handed down to coming ages, with the blessings of each succeeding generation. Need I say that I allude to Montgomery Bell? and cherished and embalmed with it should be the name of George Peabody.

"Successful and brilliant, as has been the past his- tory of the literary department of this institution, we cherish the fond hope that in the new field to which its energies' have been directed, that of a Tennessee State Normal College, under its present wise and able man- agement, its future may be, if possible, even more so.

" What a grand purpose, to prepare teachers properly trained and qualified to teach the young idea how to shoot. A great scientific nursery from which the des- titution of teachers of the proper culture, training and competency is to be supplied throughout the South and West, by transplanting from this central point material

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Sketches of prominent Tennesseans. Containing biographies and records of many of the families who have attained prominence in Tennessee, Part 86

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