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HISTORIC AND HEROIC LYNCHBURG
DON P. HALSEY
Gc 975.502 L99h 1129704
M. L.
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
m
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 00084 6706 E
GC 974.502 L99H
HISTORIC and HEROIC LYNCHBURG
By DON P. HALSEY
Press of J. P. BELL COMPANY, INC. LYNCHBURG, VIRGINIA
1935
COPYRIGHT 1935 BY DON P HALSEY
1129704
HISTORIC AND HEROIC LYNCHBURG
Imendoza 80
CONTENTS
PAGE
The Beginning of Lynchburg 1
Jefferson's Supreme Service 4
Heroes of the Battle of Lynchburg 15
Brigadier-General Thomas Taylor Munford . 29
Major-General Robert E. Rodes
31
The Second Virginia Cavalry .
39
Brigadier-General Samuel Garland, Jr.
41
Major-General James Dearing
44-53
Rev. T. M. Carson, D. D.
55
Colonel Rawley W. Martin
58
Mrs. Lucy Mina Otey
64
Robert Jordan Davis, Esq.
69
Miss Ruth Hairston Early
73
History of St. Paul's Church
76
"Our Soldier Dead"-Memorial Exercises .
96
Grace Memorial Church
. 105
Mary Virginia Ellet Cabell
.
111
Quaker Memorial Church-Dedicating Tablet 119 Appendix 124
Virginian Building Fire
125
Judge James Garland
.
134
Lynchburg-Past and Present
. 145
Index
. 161
IV
FOREWORD
The approaching celebration of Lynchburg's Sesqui-Centennial anniversary, which occurs in 1936, renders it timely for loyal Lynchburgers to turn their thoughts to the men and women of bygone days, and the events and places associated with them which have given renown and lustre to the city we all love so well.
With this end in view I have gathered together a number of the speeches I have been privileged to make on various occasions when we have assembled ourselves together to commemorate some of the people and deeds which have rendered Lynchburg historic and heroic. The list is by no means complete. There are many, many others deserving to have their memorials placed in permanent form. Those included in this little volume will suffice, however, to give a glimpse of at least some of the high spots of Lynchburg's history from its earliest times until today, and may, perhaps, sug- gest to others the perpetuation in written form of other historic happenings and characters associated with Lynchburg's develop- ment, accomplishments, and growth. For instance, may I not here make the suggestion that a brief volume dealing with the achieve- ments of Lynchburg in Literature would be appropriate, interesting, and inspiring at this time? Such a compilation could include selec- tions from the poetry and writings of such Lynchburgers as Mrs. Margaret Cabell, Bransford Vawter, Mrs. Cornelia J. M. Jordan, Mrs. May Randolph Fleming, Rev. Edward S. Gregory, Dr. H. Grey Latham, Duval Porter, Charles W. Button, Major Robert H. Glass, Colonel Lawrence S. Marye, Captain N. J. Floyd, and others of former years, and such of the present day as Mrs. Rosa F. Yancey, Edley Craighill, Miss Georgie Tillman Snead, Ben Belitt and the Edmunds brothers, Murrell and Abe. Who will undertake the task? Among those who could do it well are Mrs. Yancey, Miss Rosa Kent Gregory, Honorable H. C. Featherston and a number of others. I hope some one of them will do it.
V
It is not hoped that this little collection of addresses will deserve to be classed along with such valuable contributions to the history of Lynchburg as Mrs. Clifford Cabell's "Sketches and Recol- lections of Lynchburg," Rev. Asbury Christian's "Lynchburg and Its People," (now out of print, but richly deserving republication) Miss Ruth Early's "Campbell Chronicles," Mr. J. P. Bell's "Quaker Friends," or, last but not least, Mrs. Rosa F. Yancey's recently published "Lynchburg and Its Neighbors." It is hoped, however, that it will at least serve to recall to the people of the Lynchburg of the present time that our annals contain many heroic records deserving of the grateful and continued recollection of those who inhabit our old home town, and to inspire in them the deter- mination that these records shall be handed on to arouse in those who are to come after us the spirit of pride in our past and of emulation for the future.
While not comprehensive, it is at least representative of the prin- cipal periods, places, and persons in Lynchburg's history. John Lynch and Thomas Jefferson carry us back to the Revolutionary days when the city was founded. Of the Civil War period, to which the greater part of its space is devoted, we may find refer- ences to the Battle of Lynchburg; to the five generals Lynchburg gave to the Confederacy,-Early, Rodes, Garland, Dearing, and Munford, as well as to many other brave officers and men; to the noble women of the Confederacy so well typified by Lucy Mina Otey. Of representative women in civil life I mention Mary Vir- ginia Ellet Cabell and Ruth Hairston Early. Of members of the bar, I refer to such lawyers as Garlands, Blackford, Davis, and Lewis, and many others as mentioned in the appendix. The medical profes- sion is represented in the persons of Colonel and Doctor Rawley W. Martin and Doctor J. J. Terrell. The Christian ministry is nobly represented by Dr. Carson. Church history in the sketches of St. Paul's and Grace Memorial, and the World War period in the address delivered at the dedication of the tablet in St. Paul's Church to those gallant boys, Barger, Butler, Campbell, Glenn, and Stevens, who gave up their lives in that mighty conflict.
On account of their true reflection of the spirit of Lynchburg's noble past, as well as their eloquence of expression, and the his- torical material they contain, I have taken the liberty of including
VI
in an appendix Major John W. Daniel's oration at the Cen- tennial Celebration of 1886, and his speeches at the funeral of the five heroic firemen who lost their lives in the Virginian Building fire, and at the banquet to Judge James Garland on his 90th birth- day. I have included also Mr. Fred Harper's beautiful address at the unveiling of General Dearing's portrait in the Court House at Rustburg. For his permission to do so I hereby acknowledge my gratitude. I also wish to thank Mr. J. Dudley Holt for furnishing the copy I have used of the firemen's funeral oration of Maj. Daniel together with the newspaper account of the occasion, and Mr. Martin L. Brown for making the index.
DON P. HALSEY.
Lynchburg, Va., December, 1935.
VII
I
THE BEGINNING OF LYNCHBURG
ADDRESS AT THE DEDICATION OF THE BOULDER AT UNION DEPOT, MAY 8, 1913
Madam Regent, Daughters of the American Revolution, Ladies and Gentlemen:
We are assembled this lovely afternoon to witness a most inter- esting and important event. Today we unveil a tablet which marks the spot where our beautiful and thriving city had its humble beginning. For this tablet and imposing and picturesque boulder of native stone upon which it has been fastened we are indebted to the unselfish efforts of the ladies composing the Lynchburg Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and to them we make our grateful acknowledgments. The national organization of which they are members is well known for its labors along patriotic and educational lines. One branch of its work has been that of marking and preserving historic places identified with im- portant events in the early days our our country's existence. In carrying out this purpose by placing this stone and tablet the Lynchburg Daughters have performed a public service which deserves and will receive the sincere appreciation of all Lynch- burgers who feel a just pride in the development and growth of this city. Our thanks are also due to Dr. C. T. Hennig and Mr. Livingston Ireland, of the Piedmont Manganese Company, who gave the boulder which weighs over 40,000 pounds; to the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, which brought it here, and to the Norfolk and Western Railway Company, which provided the site on which it rests. It was placed here on August 9, 1912, but for various reasons the ceremony of its unveiling and dedication has been postponed until today
This boulder and tablet will remain here as a permanent memo- rial of the man who founded Lynchburg, and will serve as a constant reminder not only to our citizens, but to the thousands who daily pass along these great highways of steel, of the fact
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HISTORIC AND HEROIC LYNCHBURG
that here was laid the foundation of a city which has already accomplished a wonderful record and which is destined to go on to higher and still higher achievements. Over a century and a half ago, in 1755, John Lynch, the Quaker ancestor of many of those who still reside in Lynchburg (among them the charming little ladies, Misses Annie and Elizabeth Jennings, his daughters of the sixth generation, who will perform the service of unveiling here this afternoon), built near this spot the first house ever erected within the boundaries now comprising our corporate limits. Two years later, in 1757, he established a ferry across the river which had its southern landing just yonder at the point where the bridge now is, and on the Amherst side, built a warehouse which he called "Madison Warehouse," from which the town now over there takes its name.
What a contrast between then and now! Then as now the historic and lovely river flowed peacefully along between it green and shaded banks, then as now the surrounding mountains lifted their imperial heads as a barrier against the destructive cyclone and raging tempest, but there were no railways nor factories; no churches nor schools; no imposing office buildings nor palatial hotels; no beautiful residences nor busy streets; no hum of active enterprise nor shriek of industrial whistle. The only sounds that broke the primeval stillness were the songs of the birds in the forests that still clothed the hills whereon our city stands, the lowing of the pioneer's modest herd and the crack of the huntsman's rifle. Had you looked around for Lynchburg then, you would have found it only in the ferryman's boat as it plied across the bridgeless stream and his humble lodging on the bank. Since then what mighty events have transpired! The struggling colonies have fought the mother country and won their independence. A stupendous Repub- lic has grown from weak and scattered settlements and a fair fabric of free government has arisen out of the ruins of oppression and despotism. Less than three millions of people have grown to more than a hundred millions, and in the meantime have survived the ravages of destructive wars, fires and floods. Progress has leaped forward like the chariots of the sun. Steam and electricity have wrought their wondrous miracles. Art and science and education have brought their enlightening influence into operation until the
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HISTORIC AND HEROIC LYNCHBURG
mind of man is hardly able to grasp the extent of their advance. In all of these things Lynchburg has played her part and played it well. She stands today in the front rank of the cities of a Commonwealth which in all these matters has taken a leading part, and now faces the future with the same dauntless courage and integrity of purpose which have made her glorious in the past. As we look forward to that future, well may our hearts swell with pride and hope and exultation. What wonders the century now in its second decade is to bring forth no prophet can foretell, but we can at least rest secure in the confidence that whatever it may unfold, its close will find our Godly city still sitting serenely upon her majestic hills, with wider boundaries, greater industries, multi- plied population, and more splendid achievements along every line of civic progress and moral advancement. So mote it be; and as the traveler in the future pauses here to observe this stone and observe this tablet, may he be able to see around him a city to which the Lynchburg of today can be compared only as the hamlet of John Lynch's time can be compared to the city of the present day. When that time comes may he be truly inspired to believe that Lynchburg has been true to herself. As sang the gifted poetess of Lynchburg, Mrs. Cornelia J. M. Jordan, so well remembered by many here present:
"May friends or strangers gazing then On leafy spire and steeple Say of us, with ancestral pride, They were a noble people.
"The grew in knowledge, virtue, grace, They put forth strength together, As green trees by the water's edge, Whose leaf nor branch may wither."
II
JEFFERSON'S SUPREME SERVICE
ADDRESS AT THE DEDICATION OF THE TABLET AT POPLAR FOREST, VA., JULY 4, 1928
Madame Regent, Daughters of the American Revolution, Ladies and Gentlemen :
We commemorate today, not only the one hundred and fifty- second anniversary of American Independence, but in a very special sense, the life and character of that remarkable man whose pen wrote its Declaration, and whose services in the foundation and upbuilding of our republic were among the very greatest. Along with Henry, the orator, and Washington, the soldier, stands Jeffer- son, the statesman, and his contributions to our country's freedom and greatness deserve, equally with theirs, the gratitude of all Americans.
It is eminently fitting, therefore, that the patriotic members of Poplar Forest Chapter, D. A. R., should place this tablet here at this "other home" of Thomas Jefferson, where in his latter years he was wont to seek rest and seclusion, and find better opportunity for reflection and writing than could be found even at Monticello, where all the world came to pay its tribute to the great sage and philosopher, and where the demands of hospitality drained his vitality as well as his resources. Here, under these giant poplars and on this green sward he walked and talked and thought and wrote, and here, as well as at his well loved home near Charlottesville, or at the White House in Washington, or at In- dependence Hall in Philadelphia, we may commune with his great spirit and find the inspiration to nobler patriotism and better citizen- ship. Traveling over rough roads in that famous old "hard-going gig," which is still preserved and was exhibited at the Sesqui- Centennial,* he would come here for "tranquillity and retirement." In a letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, dated at Poplar Forest, August 17, 1811, he said: "I write to you from a place ninety miles from
* Philadelphia, 1926.
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HISTORIC AND HEROIC LYNCHBURG
Monticello, near the New London of this State, which I visit three or four times a year, and stay from a fortnight to a month at a time. I have fixed myself comfortably, keep some books here, bring others occasionally, am in the solitude of a hermit and quite at leisure to attend to my absent friends." During that same visit he wrote to his friend and neighbor, "Parson" Clay, that he had been amusing himself with "calculating the hour lines of an horizontal dial for the latitude of this place" which he found to be thirty-seven degrees, twenty-two minutes, twenty-six seconds.
The versatility of Thomas Jefferson was amazing. On his first meeting with Parson Clay, before the later knew who he was, he talked of mechanics in such a manner that the parson surmised he was an eminent engineer; then changing his discourse to agriculture he convinced Mr. Clay that he must be a farmer on a large scale, and finally when religion became the topic the clergyman felt sure that he was talking with a member of his own profession. As an architect, Mr. Jefferson not only designed his home at Poplar Forest and his larger home at Monticello, but he also drew the plans for the principal buildings at the University of Virginia, and for the Capitol and the State Penitentiary at Richmond, all of them masterpieces of taste and skill. He was a learned lawyer, an accomplished linguist, master of Greek, Latin, French and Italian, an expert mathematician, an authoritative historian, a talented musician, a successful farmer, an inventor of note, an astronomer, a naturalist, a geologist, a horseman, a connoisseur of art, a prodigious and prolific writer, as well as the foremost states- man and political philosopher of his age. It was Jefferson who prepared the ordinance by which Virginia gave to the Union the Northwest Territory, well described by Senator Vest as "the most princely gift in all 'the annals of recorded time'." It was he who negotiated the Louisiana Purchase from Napoleon, by which the United States acquired territory extending our limits from ocean to ocean and secured possession of the mouth of the Mississippi. While in Congress, as Chairman of the Committee on Coins and Currency, he gave his country the decimal system of money, the best that man has devised. During his public career he was a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses and of the Continental Congress, Governor of Virginia, Minister to France, Secretary of
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HISTORIC AND HEROIC LYNCHBURG
State, Vice President of the United States, and President for two terms. But none of all these great talents, accomplishments, offices, honors and titles is mentioned upon the stone which marks his grave. He himself wrote his epitaph, and, being above all an apostle of liberty, he chose as his three greatest claims to immortality, his services in behalf of civil liberty, religious liberty and intellectual liberty. "Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, Author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia." As has been nobly said, "Jefferson rightly measured his own work when he looked back over a long and eventful life, and ignoring the foothills of honor saw only the mountain peaks of service, ...
not the things he had received but the things he had given to the world; not the things that men had done for him, but the things he had done for mankind." If he laid stress upon any one of his three great achievements for human freedom, I believe that it was upon his service in behalf of religious freedom, the freedom of the soul. It is not, therefore, the Declaration of Independence, although this is the 4th of July, that I would speak especially today, nor yet the establishment of the Uni- versity of Virginia and Jefferson's work for universal education, but rather that other great monument of service which he erected, and which he placed second in order, in his epitaph, because second in time, although first in importance and in its far reaching benefits not only to America but to all the world. If Jefferson had done nothing else but write and establish as the law of the land the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, it would have been enough to insure him a place high among the immortals and to place his name among the very greatest of those who have lived to bless their fellow-men, and rendered the very fullest measure of service that man has ever given to man. If from his porticos at Monticello or Poplar Forest he dreamily looked across these bright Virginia meadows in the declining years of his life and saw through the summer haze the dream of years that had gone, or if, lifting up his eyes to the mountains in the distance he caught the brighter vision of the years to come, I doubt if he contemplated aught in either the past or the future that brought greater satisfaction to his inmost being than the fact that he had been largely instru-
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HISTORIC AND HEROIC LYNCHBURG
mental in striking the shackles from the conscience of mankind, and in establishing absolute freedom in the realm of religion. "Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God," was the motto on his seal, and "I have sworn on the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man," was the guiding principle of his life. "If," then, to quote his own words, "to the dead it be permitted to care for the things of this world," we cannot doubt that the spirit of Jefferson is with us here today, and pronounces his benediction upon us as we place this tablet to his memory and recall his victory in what, when nearly eighty years old, he spoke of as the most terrible contest in his long and stormy career.
In that contest, Mr. Jefferson was constantly held up by his opponents to scorn and ridicule and obloquy and execration as himself an atheist and an infidel. Never was man more unjustly defamed. So far from being an enemy of religion, he was one of its foremost defenders and worthiest exponents. As was said by Dr. E. N. Calisch, a prominent Jewish Rabbi, of Richmond, "Jefferson had far more religion than his detractors, I care not how orthodox their views or how frequent their church attendance." He was brought up in the Church of England, and one of his earliest recollections was of repeating the Lord's Prayer. He contributed liberally to churches and Bible societies, and went frequently to church, taking his prayer-book with him and joining in the prayers and responses. He wrote to Dr. Rush, "To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed, but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus Himself. I am a Christian in the sense in which He wished anyone to be, sincerely attached to His doctrines in preference to all others." Again, in a letter to his young grandson, written only a short time before he died, he used these noble words, a worthier guide to youth than the advice of Polonius to his son, "This letter will be to you as one from the dead. The writer will be in the grave before you can weigh its counsels. Your affectionate father has requested that I would address you something which might possibly have a favorable influence on the course of life you have to run, and I, too, as a namesake, feel an interest in that course. Few words will be necessary, with good disposition on your part. Adore God. Rever-
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HISTORIC AND HEROIC LYNCHBURG
ence and cherish your parents. Love your neighbour as yourself, and your country more than yourself. Be just. Be true. Murmur not at the ways of Providence, so that the life into which you have entered be the portal to one of eternal and ineffable bliss. And if to the dead it be permitted to care for the things of this world, every action of your life will be under my regard." Could this letter have been written by an infidel? The clear belief in immortality which it expresses, the reverent love and worship of God, are in full accord with his life and other writings. Both in his first and second inaugural address, in other public addresses and in many private conversations and writings, he humbly acknowledged the existence, the wisdom and power and mercy of God and prayer- fully sought His help and guidance for himself, his friends and his country. When the shades of death gathered around him, almost with his last breath he was heard to murmur in the words of the Nunc Dimittis, "Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace." If such a life and death as Jefferson's be not those of a Christian, to whose life and death may we look for a better example? His faith may not have been in accordance with dog- matic theology, but it was the fearless faith of an earnest, serious, honest man, a deeply reverent and religious spirit, a firm believer in God and in the supreme justice and infinite wisdom of His over- ruling Providence, utterly free from cant and hypocrisy. He was by nature averse to publishing his religious tenets, which were the result of profound study and reflection, and never engaged in religious controversy, preferring even to suffer in silence the attacks of his bitter and unrelenting foes and "leave them to the reproof of their own consciences," following the example of Jesus, of Whose teachings he said, "Precepts of philosophy and of the Hebrew Code laid hold of action only. He pushed His scrutinies into the heart of man, erected His tribunal in the region of his thoughts, and purified the waters at the fountain head." In a letter to Rev. Chas. Clay written from Poplar Forest in 1815 he spoke of the precepts of Jesus as "the most sublime edifice of morality ever exhibited to man." In the same letter he said, "I have probably said more to you 'on religion' than to any other person. We have had many hours of conversation in duetto in our meetings at the Forest." Mr. Clay himself testified that Jefferson was not
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HISTORIC AND HEROIC LYNCHBURG
an atheist nor an irreligious man, but "one of juster sentiments he never met." To charge him with atheism, therefore, or infidelity, or enmity to religion, could only be the fruit of folly, or the wicked vaporings of "envy, hatred and malice and all uncharitableness."
He was not only a true believer, but one who showed his faith by his works and in unselfish love and service to his fellow man, showing both by life and doctrine that "deed is better than dogma" and "to serve humanity is to serve humanity's God." Why, then, was Jefferson so bitterly hated and denounced in his lifetime, and so cruelly and malignantly reviled and slandered after his death, by many of those whose profession it was to teach the religion of love? It was because he forced the separation of Church and State and erected a "middle wall of partition" between them. When he began his fight for religious freedom it was a crime not to baptize a child into the Church of England, which was the established Church in Virginia ; by act of the General Assembly it was a penal offense to bring a Quaker into the Colony, and those already here "were to be imprisoned until they should abjure the country," with "milder punishment for their first or second return, but death for their third," and although it was never done in Virginia, by law a heretic could be punished by fire or stripes. To quote Jefferson's own words in describing the then existing conditions in Virginia, "By our own act of Assembly of 1705, if a person brought up in the Christian religion denies the existence of a God, or the Trinity, or asserts there are more Gods than one, or denies the Christian religion to be true, or the Scriptures to be of divine authority, he is punishable on the first offense by incapacity to hold any office or employment, ecclesiastical, civil or military ; on the second, by dis- ability to sue, to take any gift or legacy, to be guardian, executor or administrator, and by three years' imprisonment without bail. A father's right to the custody of his own children being founded in law on his right of guardianship, this being taken away, they may of course be severed from him and put by the authority of the Court into more orthodox hands." Think of that! A man's children taken away from him because of his belief or lack of belief in a religious doctrine! More than that, all persons of what- ever belief, were compelled by law to pay tithes to the established Church, and dissenters, like Baptists, Methodists and Presby-
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