Sketches of prominent Tennesseans. Containing biographies and records of many of the families who have attained prominence in Tennessee, Part 91

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

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Judge Gaut was the oldest of nine children, namely, John C., Mahala S., George W., Nancy, Mary, Jesse HI., Minerva, James C. and Robert D. For a fuller history of the family, see sketch of Hon. Jesse H. Gaut else- where in this volume.

Judge Gaut was first married in McMinn county, September 26, 1839, to Miss Sarah Ann MeReynolds, a grand-daughter of Isaac Lane, of that county, who was in the battle of King's Mountain. Her grandmother was a daughter of Major Russell, of Virginia. Mrs. Gaut was a member of the Cumberland Presbyterian church, a gentlewoman in all her ways, very affable and popular, and the possessor of the very first order of dis- cretion and good sense. She died, June 9, 1873, of cholera, in Nashville, aged fifty-four. By this mar- riage were born seven children : (1). Mary L. Gaut, born July 11, 1840; graduated at Mary Sharp College, in 1860; died June 12, 1865. (2). John M. Gaut, born October 1, 1841 ; graduated from Rutgers' College, New Jersey, 1866, and is now a law partner with his father, Ile married, May 5, 1870, Miss "Michel M. Harris, a very accomplished lady. She died in the fall of 1871. Ile married the second time, October 25, 1876, Miss Sallie Crutchfield, the only daughter of Thomas and Amanda Crutchfield, of Hamilton county, Tennessee. Thomas Crutchfield was a distinguished farmer and stock-raiser, near Chattanooga, and a prominent and leading man of his county. He died at the residence of his son-in-law, John M. Gaut, near Nashville, March 29, 1886. Mrs. Sallie C. Gaut is a graduate of Mary Sharp College. John M. Gaut has had four children, Thomas C., Sarah M., Amanda K., and Mary Ann. The oldest son, Thomas C., died of diphtheria, July 24, 1885. MIr. Gaut is an elder in the Cumberland Presbyterian church, and president of the publication board of that church. (3). Ann E. Gaut, born October 15, 1813, and graduated at Mary Sharp College, in June, 1861. She was married May 5, 1870, to Patrick 11. Manlove, a Nashville mer- . chant, and has had two children, Joseph E. and Horace C., the last named dying of diphtheria, March 30, 1886. Her husband is an elder in the Cumberland Presbyte- rian church, and is also a member of the publication board. (4). Hugh Lawson Gaut, born November 22. 1845, and died, May 28, 1854, of scarlet fever. (5). Al- bert Coleman Gaut, born August 23, 1851, and died, May 24, 1851, of scarlet fever. (6). An infant, unnamed. (7). Horace C. Gaut, born December 19, 1856, died of scarlet fever, July 17, 1863.

Judge Gaut married the second time, in Franklin, Tennessee, Mrs. Sallie A. Carter, who, at the age of

sixteen, in May, 1843, married Boyd M. Sims, a lawyer, and by him had two children: Annie A. Sims, who married, in 1875, John W. MeFadden, who is now with the firm of Thompson & Kelly, merchants, in Nash- ville, and has one child, Sarah H., born January 5, 1879; Marienne H. Sims, who married, in 1871, R. N. Richardson, a lawyer, at Franklin, Tennessee, who lives on a farm, a portion of his wife's grandfather's old estate. Boyd M. Sims died, in 1818, and in May, 1853, his widow married Joseph W. Carter, a prominent law- yer and politician of Winchester, Tennessee, a Knight Templar Mason, a Democrat, who represented Frank- lin and Lincoln counties in the Tennessee State senate three consecutive terms. To Col. Carter were born two sous, William E., now in mercantile life at Nashville, and Joseph W., now a railroad officer; married Miss Katie R. French, and has one child, Joseph W., jr. Col. Carter died, July 16, 1856, from which time. Mrs. Carter lived a widow till hermarriage with Judge Gaut. in 1875. The present Mrs. Gaut is a cultivated lady, of fine taste, great vivacity and beauty, a high sense of honor, liberal and charitable to a fault. She is a de- scendant of Revolutionary stock, was born in Frank- lin, Tennessee, daughter of Alexander Ewing, a large stock-farmer of wealth and prominence in Williamson county, Tennessee. Her grandfather, Alexander Ew- ing, a raiser of fine stock, was one of the pioneers of Davidson county, where he settled after his service in the Revolutionary war. He built and owned the first brick house in Davidson county. He married Miss Sarah Smith, also of a Virginia Revolutionary family, a sister of Mrs. R. R. Hightower, one of the first set- tlers of Williamson county. Mrs. Gaut's mother, Chloe Saunders, daughter of Herbert S. Saunders, was also of a Virginia family of Revolutionary fame. Mrs. Gaut's father died in 1835, and her mother, in 1839, leaving five children : Sallie Ann (Mrs. Gaut); Alex- ander C., who died at twenty years old ; Herbert S., now a farmer, in Williamson county, on a part of the old homestead; Melvina, who died the wife of HI. B. Tit- comb, a druggist and capitalist at Columbia, Ten- nessee, leaving one child, Alexander Titcomb, now a farmer, near Columbia ; William R., who married Miss Johnnie Brown, of Franklin, Tennessee, died of heart disease, 1880, at Franklin, leaving one child, William Wheless, born November 22, 1869, and who, with his mother, still resides in Franklin.

Mrs. Gaut's most marked trait of character is her living up to the Golden Rule, her abounding charity, and devotion to principle. She has been president of several benevolent societies in Williamson county, and is a pronounced prohibitionist. During the war she was truly Southern, and kind to soldiers on both sides, and after the war was one of the most prominent mem- bers and ruling spirits of the Ladies' Tennessee Me- morial Association, which had for its object the care of maimed soldiers, and supplied artificial limbs to many

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of the disabled and impoverished heroes of the "lost cause."

Judge Gaut's success in life, and his eminence in the legal world, are due to industry, economy and integrity. He has made it a rule to live up to his contracts, to be punctual in his engagements, making his word his bond. Hle early learned that it was easier to say " no" than to say "yes," and pay security debts. He has always

dealt with high and low, rich and poor, with strict honor. He never had a dollar given to him, and what he has and what he has earned, are the legitimate fruits of his own toil. As a judge, he was conscientious and impartial, and noted for hard work. These character- isties he preserves in private life, and no man in T'en- nessee stands higher for honesty of purpose and strict integrity.

WILLIAM PALMER JONES, M. D.

NASHVILLE.

T' HIIS gentleman, distinguished for his versatility of talent and executive ability, was born in Adair county, Kentucky, on the 17th day of October, 1819. His father, William Jones, a native of Lincoln county, that State, was a plain farmer, in moderate circum- stances, and of Welsh descent. When a young man he took part in the battle of New Orleans, under Jackson. He died in Adair county, in his forty-second year. He was a man of much will force, a good manager of affairs, and was in polities a Democrat. Dr. Jones' great- grandfather, David Jones, was from Wales, and his wife, Polly McCann, from Ireland. Dr. Jones' grand- father, John Jones, was a native of Maryland, came West and lived as a farmer in Lincoln county, Ken- tucky, where he died about the year 1827. Two of his sons were farmers, and one, Rev. John Jones, was a Christian preacher. The father of Dr. Jones' grand- mother Jones was Robert Elrod, from Germany, and his wife was Sarah Wilson, from England. The Doc- tor's mother, whose maiden name was Mary B. Powell, was born in Virginia, daughter of Robert Powell, a farmer, who was a major in the Revolutionary war. Her mother was a Miss West, a relative of the family of the renowned English painter, Benjamin West. This family has also other representatives in America. Capt. John West Jacobs, of the United States quartermaster's department, now superintending the building of a hos pital at Little Rock, Arkansas, for disabled soldiers, is the Doctor's maternal cousin.

Dr. Jones' mother, left a widow early in life, with nine children, devoted herself with singular assiduity to their interests till her death, at Bowling Green, Ken- tucky, in 1851, at the age of forty five. She was a zeal ous member of the Methodist church, and noted for the two chiefest of all womanly virtues, modesty and piety. Doubtless the son is as much indebted to her for his religious impressions and inclinations, as to his father for administrative and managing talent, for the Doctor has been a member of the Baptist church ever since 1836; is now, and has repeatedly been elected, president of the Tennessee Baptist convention, and is

the only layman who has ever enjoyed such distinction at the hands of the State convention.

Of the early fife of this prominent Tennessean, the editor has but scanty trace. His literary education was limited to some eighteen months' attendance at school in Kentucky. But when a mere boy, having elected to be a physician, he read medicine two years under the special instruction of Dr. T. Q. Walker, and in 1839-40 attended lectures in the Louisville Medical College, and subsequently took the degree of M. D. from the Medical College of Ohio, at Cincinnati, and also from the Mem- phis Medical College.

He engaged in practice before he was twenty-one years old, first at Edmonton, Kentucky, in 1840, then at Bowling Green, Kentucky, from the fall of 1840 to 1819, when he settled at Nashville, where he has resided ever since. His life in Tennessee has been crowded with events. Indeed, the Doctor is of that type of men that make history in their several specialties. His name figures conspicuously in the reports of the trans- actions of the American Medical Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Tennessee Medical Society, and the Medical So- ciety of Davidson county. For several years, from 1853, he was an associate editor of the Southern Journal of Medical and Physical Sciences, published at Nash- ville. Among the most noted of his contributions to medical literature, are his hospital reports and articles entitled " Necessities of the Insane in Tennessee," and " Adequate and Impartial Provision for the Insane of the State."

In 1852, he established the Parlor Visitor, and, in 1871, became associate editor of the Dunessee School Journal. In 1858, he, with a number of other physi- cians, founded the Shelby Medical College, of which he filled the chair of professor of materia medica. On the arrival of the Federal troops in Tennessee, and the es. tablishment of the Academy hospital at Nashville, he was placed in charge of it -- the first Federal hospital established in Nashville after the beginning of the war. In 1862, he was made superintendent of the Tennes-

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see Hospital for the Insane, at Nashville, Tennessee, by Gov. Andrew Johnson, for a period of eight years, and while there built a separate and suitable hospital for the colored insane ; perhaps, the first in the United States, and was unanimously re-elected to the same position, but in 1870 resigned, on account of an injury which he had received from an insane patient, resulting in tem- porary paralysis. The responsible position of superin- tendent he filled with commendable fidelity to the interest of the patients and the State, until January 1, 1870, the date of the acceptance of his resignation. While in charge of this institution, Dr. Jones (as State papers show) received from time to time the highest commendation of the trustees and legislative commit- tees. Indeed, during all this critical period, he suc- ceeded in giving entire satisfaction to financial officers and political parties.

In 1873, he was elected president of Nashville Med. ical College, now the medical department of the Uni- versity of Tennessee, and made professor of psycholog- ical medicine and mental hygiene in that institution, a position which he still holds, though he does not lee- ture regularly.

Though never a professional politician, yet from per- sonal acquaintance with Mr. Clay and admiration of his statesmanship, together with earnest convictions of the nobility of purpose which characterized the Whig party, it was his pleasure to co-operate with that party until its disorganization, when he joined the ranks of the Republican party, with which he has sympathized and co-operated ever since. Though interested in slave property, by inheritance and marriage, he never in any manner encouraged the rebellion, but throughout the war was a stanch Union man-yet liberal and tolerant to those who differed from him politically. In 1862, he was chosen president of the Nashville city council.

In 1873, he was nominated by the Republicans and elected State senator in the Tennessee Legislature from the Nashville district, by a large majority. The Nash- ville Union and American, a Democratic journal, said of Dr. Jones at that time: "Although he declined making a race, on account of bad health, after a like nomination two years ago, on this occasion, however, accepting the nomination, he was elected by a large majority. Though under existing circumstances, with present political divisions, decidedly a Republican, as indicated by his voting that ticket, he is, nevertheless, believed to have the conscientious independence to

' Dare do all that may become a man,'

and therefore to vote for just such men and measures, and only such, as, in his judgment, will most likely bring the greatest good to the greatest number of peo- ple. He is already thoroughly committed to the use of his influence in favor of free public schools, such as shall pervade every county, town and civil district, and permeate every department of society in Tennessee ; to the re-establishing of the State credit by funding the

State debt, and thereafter providing for the payment of the interest ; to the protection of wool growers, the ele- vation of the laboring classes, and the consideration of the merchant's tax. The senator from Davidson has been favorably mentioned in each of the divisions of the State as one suitable to be made speaker of the senate."

While senator he proved a most useful member. He was designated by the speaker of the senate as chair- man of the committee on public charities, but declined to serve because for many years he had charge of the largest public charity in the State, and did not choose to supervise his successor. He was then made chair- man of the public school committee, and introduced, and with others, procured the passage of the present public school law-then so far in advance of legislation in other southern States-which provides for " equal educational advantages for all the children of the State without regard to race, color or condition," though in separate buildings. He also introduced and obtained the passage of the law establishing two additional hos- pitals for the insane-one for the eastern, the other for the western division of the State. Under this law, Lyons' View was purchased, and the hospital near Knoxville located.

In May, 1877, he was appointed by President Hayes, and confirmed by the United State senate, postmaster at Nashville, and was reappointed by President Arthur, October 28. 1881. This position he held eight years five months and thirteen days, until the incoming of the Democratic administration, and the appointment by President Cleveland, of Gen. B. Frank Cheatham. Under Dr. Jones' management the net earnings of the postoffice at Nashville increased from twenty-nine thou- sand eight hundred and twenty-eight dollars, in 1877, to seventy-three thousand seven hundred and four dol- lars, in 1882, a fact in itself of no importance in this volume, except as showing the splendid talent of the Doctor for marshalling affairs, controlling large forces of men, and reducing the complicated machinery of the office to the regularity of clock work. It is only a well balanced mind, and the steady eye aud hand of a master, that can achieve results so universally satis- factory to the business men of so large a city. Ques- tioned as to the methods by which he has made his career successful, he replied : " My motto has been, ' In all things to acknowledge God and beg His direction.""

The Doctor has been frequently and favorably men- tioned in connection with gubernatorial honors. He could once or twice undoubtedly have had the nomina- tion of the Republican party, had he consented to make the race. He has been a director in the First National Bank, director of the State prison, and trustee of three universities, and is a member of the State Board of Education, and since this article was written, has been offered the superintendency of the West Tennessee hospital for the insane, but declined to accept.

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One of the wisest and best acts of his life, he thinks, was to marry Miss Jane Elizabeth Currey, which he did, in Nashville, October 28, 1851. She is a native of Nashville, and was born in April, 1834. Her father was Robert B. Currey, esq., a native of North Carolina, who, in 1801, was appointed postmaster at: Nashville, by President Thomas Jefferson, and served through Mr. Jefferson's administration of eight years. He was re- tained by President Madison as postmaster through his two terms of the presidency, and also by President Monroe for eight years more-making in all twenty-four consecutive years-a compliment rarely bestowed in an office of such labor and responsibility; and it is grati- fying to know it was worthily bestowed. During the time he was postmaster he entertained Gen. Lafayette at his house, in Nashville, in May, 1825. Mr. Currey died in 1848. Mrs. Jones' mother was Miss Jane G. Owen. Mrs. Jones graduated from the time-honored, thrice-illustrious old Nashville Female Academy, under Dr. C. D. Elliott, and was ever remarkable for personal beauty, equanimity of temper, kindliness of heart and womanly graces. She joined the Baptist church in early life, and all her children, except one, are Baptists.

By his marriage with Miss Currey, Dr. Jones has had nine children, six of whom are living: (1). Jennie Ermine Jones, graduated from Ward's seminary ; mar- ried, in 1870, Prof. S. Y. Caldwell, who has been for fifteen years superintendent of the Nashville public schools. They have four children, Robert, Samuel. Lucien and Albert. (2). Quintard L. Jones, educated in the East Tennessee University ; married, in 1882, Miss Elizabeth Porter, daughter of William Porter, a merchant, of Nashville. This son was for a time book - keeper in the American National Bank, Nashville, but is now in the gents' furnishing business, senior member of the firm of Quintard & Arthur Jones. He is also a

member of the Nashville city council, and has one son, William Porter. (3). Mary Bell Jones, educated at Ward's seminary; now wife of A. J. Wheeler, senior member of the book and publishing firm, the Wheeler, Osborne & Duckworth company, Nashville. They have four children, William, Edward, Jennie and Melville (4). Arthur Jones, educated at Nashville; was for a while stamp clerk in the Nashville post-office; now of the firm of Quintard & Arthur Jones. (5). Medora Jones, now a student at Ward's seminary. (6). Roberta Jones, also at Ward's seminary.

Three of the nine children " are not"-William Pal- mer, Lucien Gaither and Algernon Earle Jones.

Dr. Jones became a Mason in 1840, at Bowling Green Kentucky, and the same year delivered the address on the anniversary of St. John, and represented his lodge in the Grand Lodge at Lexington, Kentucky.

The life of this useful citizen has not been without pecuniary rewards Beginning on a capital stock con- sisting of a borrowed horse, one-half dollar, the blessing of his mother, and a confident determination to be a success, he is known to own lands in the country, and city real estate, and is understood to be in easy cir- cumstances. In business transactions he is a. good listener, systematic, careful, prompt ; in all things col- lected and dignified, with no appearance of ostentation, In early life he was raised a plain farmer's boy-his father owning a few negroes and about one thousand acres of land. After his father's death he continued at farm work, and walked two miles to town twice a week at night for examination in the studies he was privately pursuing. This indomitable energy, this born resolu- tion to succeed honorably in life, has characterized this man's career and brought him the respect and rever- ence of his fellow-citizens of all classes and of all par- ties. No man in Tennessee more deservedly enjoys the confidence and esteem of the public.

ROBERT A. YOUNG, A. M., M. D., D. D.

NASHVILLE.

N () name is better known in the church circles of Tennessee, and of a greater portion of the South, than that of the distinguished Methodist divine which heads this biographical sketch. He is distinctively and peculiarly a Tennessean and a southerner, having been born, January 23, 1821, in Knox county, Tennessee, of a southern family, without a relative north of Mason and Dixon's line.

His grandfather, Henry Young, was an Englishman, a ship-carpenter by occupation, who came to America and landed at Baltimore. He was in affluent circum- stances, sufficient to educate all of his children up to

the high-water mark of that day. He left a very hand- some fortune to each of his three children, all sous.

The father of our subject was Capt. John C. Young, born in 1796, in Orange county, North Carolina, and educated at the famous University of North Carolina, at Chapel Hill, in that county. He became a captain in the United States army, and served with credit and distinction under Gen. Jackson. Emigrating to Knox county, Tennessee, he was a large farmer and slave- holder there up to his death, in 1831, which occurred when Robert A. Young was only six years old.

Dr. Young's mother, nee Miss Lucinda Hyder, was

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a native of Carter county, Tennessee, daughter of John Hyder, a large farmer, formerly of Pennsylvania, and of German extraction. The Hyders are an "end- less generation" in East Tennessee. Hon. Michael Hyder, at one time a member of the Legislature from Carter county, was a maternal uncle of Dr. Young. Dr. Young's mother was born in 1800, and died in 1875, leaving four children, namely: Eveline Deca tur Young, who died the wife of W. F. Medearis, of Washington county, Arkansas; Thirza And Young, who died the wife of Capt. J. R. Smith, of Sharpe county, Arkansas; Rev. John Henry Young, who was finely educated by a private tutor, Jeremiah R. Moore, a famous East Tennessee teacher, and died in Marion, Kentucky, in 1858, a preacher in the Methodist Epis- copal church, South. The fourth, and last child, was Robert A. Young, the subject of this sketch. Of his childhood the biographer has little information beyond the fact that he spent his time at home, ou the farm, and in a first-class district school, near Campbell's Station, Tennessee. His schoolmates there were the Bells, the Mabrys, the Martins, the Leas, all members of prominent families of that section. When not at school, or engaged in farm work, he had his room at home, and lived among his books, reveling in them, and taking most delight in history and biography. On his sixteenth birthday, his mother " set him free," say- ing, at the time, she never expected to have one un- pleasant care or concern for him, so great was her con- fidence in him, and so pleased was she with the habits he had formed. Fifty years later, and shortly before the good mother died, she said: " I have never had an anxious care about you, Robert, since the day I set you free."

On that memorable day in the young man's life, he determined to finish his education at some good college and be a physician. . In August, 1812, he made a pro- fession of religion and joined the Methodist church, an event which was the turning point and epoch of his life, for he had been seeking religion regularly from his fifth year up to that date. The following December, he entered Washington College, near Jonesborough, for, having been reared under the influence of the old school Presbyterian church, it was natural that he should thus select an old school Presbyterian college, an institution in which every professor was a graduate, either of Princeton or Edinborough. Here he grad- uated in 1844, having among his classmates Judge O. P. Temple, of Knoxville, and Hon. Zeb. Vance, the cele- brated United States senator from North Carolina.

After graduation, he went into the office of Dr. Brab- son, of Rheatown, and with him read medicine, for a few months. But, in the meanwhile, his heart was turned toward the ministry. Therefore, in September, 1815, he was admitted on trial in the Holston confer- enee of the Methodist Episcopal church, South, and traveled Dandridge circuit one year. He had the im-

pression all his rational life, when seeking religion, when at college, when reading medicine, that he must abandon his own plans and preach. When fully con- vinced that he was called of God to preach, he gave up everything else and turned all his thoughts and studies to the work. It was a complete surrender, and from that day to this he has been in the regular work, with - out a day's intermission. He has had no other vocation.

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Sketches of prominent Tennesseans. Containing biographies and records of many of the families who have attained prominence in Tennessee, Part 91

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