USA > Texas > Indian wars and pioneers of Texas, Vol. 2 > Part 44
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baptized the heroine of the Alamo and the hero of San Jacinto; such eminent men as Judges A. S. Lipscomb, W. E. Donley, Gen. James Davis, Judge William E. Davis, Col. James W. Anderson, and scores of others, not only among the great and learned, but among the most humble of all classes. In addition to his great work as a teacher and preacher, Dr. Burleson has been a leading and influential advocate of railroads, prohibition, and everything looking to the material growth of Texas. He never forgets his duty as a citizen on the day of election. He votes invariably for every officer from Constable to Presi- dent.
Though an ardent Southerner and a former slave- holder, he is a devoted lover of the Union. In the stormiest days of secession he often said: "I would gladly wrap myself in the Stars and Stripes, and lay my head on the executioner's block and die to perpetuate the Union of the States as founded by Washington, Jefferson, Adams, and our Revolu- tionary fathers." Though an ardent Baptist, he is & sincere lover of all Christians. He has never used tobacco or intoxicating drinks, was never seen in a ball room, a theater, nor on a race track, knows nothing of cards, billiards or chess, and never swore but one oath in his life. Ilis habits of temperance have given him his remarkable health and vigor of mind and body. He toils daily from 7 o'clock in the morning to 12 at night, reserving only thirty minutes for each meal, interspersed with good jokes and hearty laughter, and another thirty minutes for an afternoon siesta, and he will keep on working to the end. He confidently hopes to live to see Texas the grandest State between the oceons, and the greatest Baptist State in the world. He will then be able to say, like old Simeon, " Now, Lord, let Thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation." His early thorough: preparation, and undying devotion for over fifty years to one great life purpose, presents a grand model for all young men who desire great and hon- orable success.
L. A. ABERCROMBIE,
HUNTSVILLE.
The late lamented L. A. Abercrombie was a native of Alabama, born in Montgomery County in December, 1832. His father, Milo B. Abercrom- bie, was a Georgian, descended from the Aber-
crombies of England. His mother, whose maiden name was Sarah I. Maden, was a daughter of Robert G. Haden, of North Carolina, and a niece of How. Albert Fisher. of Florida.
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The subject of this memoir completed his educa- tion in Alexandria, Va., and read law under Judge William P. Chilton (whose daughter he afterwards married) and Hon. David Clopton, in Tuskegee, Macon County, Ala. He was admitted to the bar before the Supreme Court of Alabama, in 1854, and moved immediately to Madison County, Texas. Here he formed a part- nership with Messrs. Yoakum (the historian) and Branch, with whom he practiced law about eightcen months. In the fall of 1856 he moved to Hunts- ville, where he afterwards resided until the time of his death. His practice grew upon him with the extension of his acquaintance and experience, until his business circuit embraced not only Walker, but the adjoining counties.
In 1860 he was elected Prosecuting Attorney for the district composed of Walker, Grimes, Harris, Montgomery and Galveston counties, and in the same year he was chosen a delegate to the seces- sion convention that met at Austin. In 1861 he resigned his office and entered the Confederate army, enlisting in Gillespie's company of Nichol's regiment, and served throughout the war. In 1862 be was made Lieutenant-Colonel of Elmore's regi- ment, and held that position until the close of the conflict. He commanded the regiment in the siege and reespture of Galveston, Col. Elmore being absent on farlongh, but the regiment, being infantry, was not actively engaged in the fight, which was conducted by the artillery.
He was a Master Mason. In politics he was a thorough-going Democrat, and several times repre- sented his county in the State conventions of his party. He conducted his business affairs with prudence. industry and economy, and acquired a large and valuable estate. His record as a lawyer and citizen is without a blemish. By his profes- sional brethren he was beloved and honored. One of them, his esteemed friend, Judge Norman G. Kiltrell, has furnished the writer with the following concerning him :
" Ile came to Texas in 1858, and entered upon the practice of law in 1855, and the year following moved to Huntsville. He was elected a member of the secession convention, and also District Attorney of the district, which then included Harris and Galveston counties, and resigned the latter office to enter the Confederate army, in which he served As Lieutenant-Colonel. After the war, poor, burdened with debt, and with only a local reputation as a lawyer, he set about overcoming the difficulties that surrounded him and emerged with a competency, his debts discharged and with a. reputation as a lawyer among the profession co-
extensive with the limits of the State. As a civil pleader, his work was as near proof against suc- cessful assault as that of any lawyer in Texas, and as an ' all around lawyer,' in large cases and small, civil and criminal, as they came in the course of a miscellaneous nisi prius practice, he had few, if any, superiors at the bar in the State.
" He had but little confidence in what men call genius, and never depended for success upon the inspiration of the moment. Work, work unceas- ing, was the touchstone of his success. He was a born fighter. He asked no favor for himself from either court or counsel, while his courtesy to both was uniform and unfailing.
" No development in the course of a trial, how- ever unexpected, or however much it militated against him, ever disconcerted him. No temporary defeat discouraged him. He prepared at every step for future battle, and fought on with dogged persistence, and, if he finally lost, which in pro- portion to the extent of his practice was an exceed- ingly rare occurrence, his adversary felt that he had indeed won at the ' very end of the law.'
" As a Senator from the Ninth District he was a statesman in wisdom and counsel. In sunshine and storm he was safe to trust. As a jurist he was learned and patient, a lover of justice, absolutely fearless in the discharge of duty, and without re- proach ; a patriot in whose heart a love of country reigned supreme, and who counted no sacrifice too great for the welfare of his State and country."
Col. Abercrombie was married at Tuskegee, Macon County, Ga., January ist, 1860, to Miss Lavinia Chilton, daughter of the Hon. Wm. P. Chilton, who for fourteen years served as a member of the Supreme Court of the State of Alabama, and as Chief Justice for a number of years. He was also a member of the Confederate Congress, first at Montgomery aud afterwards at Richmond. The Chilton family have furnished some of the most distinguished men known to our national history. She was the first graduate of the Bast Alabama College. In her education she received the most careful training. A most accomplished lady, she was a leader of the best society, ar l made a model wife and mother. The Abercrombie bome at Huntsville has been long famous for it- hospitality. The following children were born of the marriage, all born in Walker County, vit. : Mary, widow of Henry Finch, a prominent lawyer of Fort Worth ; Lavinia, wife of Robert S. Lovet. a leading railroad attorney at Houston ; Ella Hadet. wife of John H. Lewis, of North Texas; Fra .. A. ; William Chilton, who is now at Harvard l'in versity studying law ; Leonard A., also studying e
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INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.
Harvard University ; Corinne R., who is attending Wellesly College.
Col. Abercrombie died at Philadelphia, Decem- ber 23d, 1891, and is buried at Huntsville.
Col. Abercrombie died at the University Hospital, Philadelphia, on the 23d of December, 1891, and his remains were brought to Huntsville, where they now rest.
JOHN IRELAND,
SEGUIN.
The most distinguishing characteristic of Gover- ' nor John Ireland was his uncompromising devotion to duty, private or public. That was the guiding ,star of his life, and he steered his course in all the relations of life by that Polar Star. It gave him a most exalted appreciation of justice, and no man can complain that he was ever unjust in any of his transactions. This may not have been a difficult task for him, as his principles were fixed and of a high standard, and his temperament was serene. He had, therefore, a perfect control over himself, and when a man attains that power over self and be is conscientious, as he was, he will rarely err in his decisions of what is just.
Governor Ireland's mind was singularly free from the embarrassments of any kind of environ- ment; emergencies that always arise in the life of a professional or public man found him equal to them, and well may it be said of him that he had a mind and character equal to any emergency. Ile was by no means a brilliant man ; everything that be attained he worked for with unrelenting assidu- ity. There was no problem, either of law or states- manship, that appalled Inm. He knew his powers and he had them at his command. John Ireland was the arebitect of his own fortunes, or, according to the popular expression, he was a self-made man. He did not come from the poorer class of society that has furnished so many eminent men to this country, but his father was a Kentucky farmer of limited means, and educational facilities were not then what they are now in that part of the State of which he was a native and in which he was reared. He obtained at the old field schools of his native county the rudiments of an English education, and, early in life, appreciating the importance of an edu- cation, he made that more accurate than his fellows, with the same opportunities, for he was an earnest boy as he was an earnest man.
He went through the best, kind of training for the profession of law, which he early chose for a life
occupation, and the first office he held was that of Constable. While in this way he became, through the discharge of his duties in this inferior office, familiar with writs and court papers, at the same time he was at-night digging into the mine of legal wealth that any country lawyer's office then afforded of the most profound legal writers. He worked earnestly and hard, and while he was stor- ing away the great principles of the Common Law the mental exereise strengthened and enlarged his intellectual perceptions. It might have seemed from his practical association with statutory law that he would have become a " caso lawyer," but he was not; he was a broad-gauged lawyer, built upon the strictest logical reasoning; nothing was valuable to him that had no reason for it. He had no respect for a decision of a Supreme Court unless it was based upon reason and bolstered by the clear- est logical reasoning.
The life of John Ireland, however, was not des- tined to be confined to the practice of law. There was too much of that old Roman virtue of integrity and patriotism sbont him not to have been appre- ciated by his fellow-citizens and his services were demanded by them in the legislative balls, in the Judiciary, and the highest oxecutive office of the State of Texas.
Ile came to Texas while a young man. he was in fact a pioneer, and became intimately associated with those great men who mobled the organic law of the State, and who endured the hardships of an unequal warfare to establish and maintain a separate nationality as the " Lone Star State," and from them he caught the spirit of the institutions of the State and brought his strong mind to bear upon its development.
It would be impossible in such a brief sketch as this to follow John Ireland through the detail of his legislative, judicial and executive career. He first settled in Seguin and after that place had ad- vanced to the dignity of an incorporated town he
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was chosen Mayor, the duties of which he executed with all the care and conscientiousness that he brought to bear on the weightier offices that meet him later in life.
James D. Lynch, of the Bench and Bar of Teras, has given the following brief resume of Gov- ernor Ireland's career : ---
" At the approach of the foreboding clouds of the Civil War he ardently espoused the cause of his section and the State, and favored the prompt resumption of sovereignty by the latter, and its withdrawal from the Union. He was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1861, and as soon as the status of political affairs was settled in his State, he enlisted as a private in the volunteer army of the Confederacy. The same purpose and devotion to duty which characterized his profes- sional career marked him as an efficient sollier and invited promotion. He was made successively Captain, Major and Lieutenant-Colonel. His services extended through the campaigns in the Trans- Mississippi Department, and at the close of the war he returned to the practice of law at Seguin. In 1866 he was a member of the convention assembled to form a constitution for the State in conformity with the Johnson policy of reconstruction, and was soon after elected Judge of his judicial district, but was removed on the usurpation of military power in 1867. In 1873 he served as a member of the House in the Thirteenth Legislature, and in the Four- teenth he was a member of the Senate, and was elected and served as president pro tem of that body. In 1875 he was elected Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. He was retired by the new constitution of 1876, which required the court to consist of only three judges. His decisions are found in the forty-fourth and forty-fifth volumes of Texas Reports. His assiduous habits and fond- ness for close analytical investigation, bis natural inquisitiveness of mind, firm and well grounded convictions, thorough legal training, and ample resources of both principle and precedent made him an excellent Supreme Judge, and his d. cisions manifest a steady and profound search for truth and justice. So confirmed and jastly recognized was his character for jutegrity, executive ability and perfect devotion to the interests of his State, that in 1982 he was nominated by the Democracy and in November of that year cleeted Governor of Texas hy more than 100,000 majority of the popu- lar vote. Ilis advent to the executive office was at a period of comparative prosperity, when the spirit and pride of the people were ardently enlisted for the advancement of the various public institutions of the State, in which he also shared. The suc-
ceciling legislature made large appropriations for that purpose, which he indorsed and carried out.
" The so-called free grass system in the State, had resulted in the enclosure of large bodies of land by the leading stock men of the State, and in often surrounding and sbutting in the smaller herdsmen and excluding them from the use of water-courses. This produced an alarming system of " fence cutting," which was extended to lawful owners as well as to intruders upon the public lands, and so outrageous and universal had this. evil grown, that the Governor convened an extra session of the legislature in January, 1884, to devise a remedy for this species of lawlessness. Stringent and efficient laws were enacted for its suppression, which the Governor executed with his characteristic promptness and vigor. This was sought to be used to his prejudice and to impair his popularity, but the innate justice of the people ap- proved and appreciated alike his motives and his official acts, aud at the Houston Convention in August, 1884, he was unanimously renominated without call of the roll, and by acclamation. Later he was re-elected by a majority vote of more than 100,000. During his administration important measures were enacted for the promotion of the. cause of education. The office of State Superin- tendent of Public Instructions was created. The permanent school fund was safely invested in bonds at six per cent rate of interest, and the sale of school lauds at the exceedingly low rate of fifty cents per acre was prohibited. Ile was the first. Governor of Texas who attempted to make anything out of the wild lands of the State. Not one foot of university or any other public lands were sold except for good prices ; generally more than the law demanded. The sales notes are bringing good inter- est. The surplus proceeds wore well invested, instead of allowing them to remain in the treasury to boast of as a cash surplus. Taxes under his administration were reduced to the lowest possible point. All the State institutions were left in a splendid condition. The new Insane Asylum was erected and put in successful operation at Torre !l. The laws were well executed and the State left in a prosperous condition at the end of Goverpor Jre- land's administration.
" Governor Ireland never once swerved from his principles or the line of his conscientious rectitude to conciliate his enemies or soften opposition. Ile at all times boldly proclaimed his views and fear- lessly followed the dictates of his judgment. His career was characterized by incessant labor; at the bar he sedulously pursued the interests of his clients, giving all his cases thorough preparation.
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INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.
Ile had an abiding faith and a lofty pride in the great destiny of his State, and as Governor, he fought to harmonize the varied and often conflicting interests of the great commonwealth over which he presided. Governor Ireland was a life-long Dem- ocrat of the Jeffersonian school.
" He was a man who cared little for external ap- pearances, show, or ceremonious effect, and at his second_inauguration, his address, which he read from a small sheet of paper, was in dignified and modest contrast with the vain display which modern usage ¿has introduced into inaugural exercises. Texas had no statesman of sounder judgment, or of more approved fidelity in the promotion and pro- tection of its interests and rights.
"As a public speaker, Gov. Ireland was forcible and argumentative rather than fluent and eloquent. ITis illustrations were plain and practical, his figures of speech, apt and striking. In manner he was quiet and rather reserved, but genial to those who knew him intimately. As a citizen, he was over temper- ate in his babits of life, moral in his convictions, just in bis judgments and liberal in his views."
Governor Ireland's policy in the matter of the great railroad strike of 1887 and the manner of its prompt and vigorous suppression, was characteristic of the man, and at the time attracted wide attention and received the highest commendation and indorse- ment of the press and the people throughout the country. This great strike, owing to the heavy railroad interests at Fort Worth, seemed to have established its base of operations in this State at that point, and all lines running in and out of that city were tied up. The strikers were belligerent, business paralyzed, and life and property were in jeopardy. The status of affairs was wired to the Governor at Austin, soliciting the protection of the State government, and the dispatch found him tem- porarily at Seguin. He returned immediately to Austin, and with a detachment of State troops pro- ceeded forthwith to the scene of the diffonlty. In the Governor's arrival the strike leaders found cause for reflection, which speedily resulted in overtures to him for a settlement. They were, in umpistakable terms, advised that all disorderly strikers must promptly disperse, return to work, or praceably allow others to take their places, and that traffic must resume before any terms of settle-
ment could be discussed ; that unless they immedi- ately complied and ceased to unlawfully block the wheels of business and avenues of trade, he would open fire on them and that no blank cartridges would be used. The Governor's action had the desired effect; order was restored ; in three hours' time the strike was at an end and trains were run-
ning. It was but a short time later that Governor Rusk, of Wisconsin, emulated Governor Ireland's example in subduing the strikers and mobs, in Mil- waukee, in precisely the same way. In November, 1885, another difficulty of almost a precise nature arose at Galveston, and the Governor's interven- tion was solicited. He responded with a charac- teristic disapproval of the policy pursued, and a proposition to defend the laws and maintain the peace and dignity of the State even by foree of arms. The following communication in this con- nection is significant : ---
" GALVESTON, TEXAS, Nov. 8th, 1885.
" HON. JOHN IRELAND,
" Governor of Texas.
"DEAR SIR : Your telegram of last night received. I beg to state that the vessels with cargoes, wharves and other property of this company (Galveston Direct Navigation Co. ), were voluntarily abandoned at noon to-day, by those who had forcibly held them until that time. The result, I believe, is at- tributable to the prompt and emphatic assurances given by you, that the law should be vindicated and the rights of property maintained in this State. I respectfully tender you, in behalf of this Company, its thanks for the protection thus afforded it, and through it, the commerce of Texas.
" Respectfully yours, "J. J. ATKINSON, " Supt."
In other matters, notably that of the selection of stone for the exterior walls of the new State capitol, Governor Ireland's discriminating sense of justice, pride of State and excellent backbone did his peo- ple of the Commonwealth a lasting and invaluable service. It was in 1885 the foundation for the stinetare had been laid, according to terms of the contract, of Texas limestone. The contractors were under bond to furnish, at their own expense, the very best material for the entire structure. A sentiment had been created, in certain circles, strongly favor- ing granite in lieu of limestone as the best material. The Governor, hearing rumors of a change of the material decided upon, called a meeting of the capitol board. The contractors here atlirmed that the crying demand for granite would be gratified, if the commission desired it and the State would pay for it. This, the Governor saw, contemplated an extra appropriation of one million dollars, whereas if granite was the best material, the contractors were under bond to furnish it at their own expense. The controversy shaped itself into a demand for Indiana limestone, and in this the alert
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executive saw a job, and promptly put his stamp of disapproval upon it. After much con- tention, the contractors and jobbers on one side, the Governor on the defensive, Texas granite of a fine color was decided upon, and as an additional compensation, convict labor was supplied the con- tractors to work in the quarries. The Indiana limestone scheme fell that. The settlement of the much agitated question was received with great satisfaction throughout the State, and the following paragraphs from the San Antonio Times of July the 19th, 1885, voiced the sentiment of columns of comments that appeared in the leading journals of the State: " The action is a complete backdown on the part of the contractors. They 'bucked ' against Texas material long enough to learn that Governor Ireland would not submit to their arro- gance. They even stated that if Indiana limestone was rejected, they would throw up their contract. This the Governor had possibly anticipated, as in a previous interviews he had said: 'The State has a good contract, and all it has to do is to stand on it and let them build the house, or quit. Thus far it is well done, and would stand there fifty years and be in perfect order, and we can sell the lands, com- plete the building and have money left. There would then be & chance to break up the land monopoly created by this contract.' " The Times article further says : " But the Governor stood firm as a rock. Hle held them to their contract, and intimated that if they did not carry it out there was a legal means of getting even with them. Seeing that they could not be moved, that even a majority of the board could not change his wise and patri- otic determination, the millionaire syndicate was forced to take ' back water.' To Governor Ireland's patriotism and fidelity the trimaph is due, and the Times rejoices in knowing that when a question of State pride and State interests comes to be decided upon, we have a man in the executive chair who first, last and all the time stands up for the State's rights and can neither be coaxed, bulldozed or driven iuto any other line of policy."
Governor Ireland was at various thines solicited to become a candidate for the United States Senate. In 1886, when a successor to Hon. S. B. Maxey was to be elected, the demand for Governor Ireland to become a candidate seemed to be peremptory from all sections of the State. During the resulting campaign the following appeared in the St. Louis Post- Dispatch : -
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