USA > Virginia > Virginia Baptist ministers. 5th series, 1902-1914, with supplement > Part 4
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pleasure than to help poor, struggling boys. He sought more ways and found more opportunities to bless humanity in this way than any man I ever knew. There are ministers, physicians, lawyers, merchants, and almost every class of business men, who can rise up and call him blessed. I well remember twelve years ago when he took me from my father's home on the farm and put me in his academy. I had no money, but because of my willingness to do what I could in looking after the school buildings and going on errands about his home he per- mitted me to stay in his school three years. During all this time never did he permit me to want for one needed thing. When the time came for me to enter Richmond College he opened the way and took a father's interest in my welfare. More than once did I have him to come into my room, while on his visits to the city, and take from his pocket his book and write me a check sufficient to settle all of my indebtedness." Windsor Academy sent, as the years came and went, a large number of young men, and well prepared, too, to Richmond College.
The hour for his departure came suddenly. His wife was away from home, at the bedside of her sister, who was extremely ill. On Tuesday he was very busy and apparently perfectly well. Before retiring he complained of some pain, but was relieved by a physician. At two o'clock the next morning, February 4, 1903, he called his son, and in a little while he was dead. A special car attached to the train known as the "cannon ball" carried the body and a great company of friends to Bruce Sta- tion, on the Atlantic Coast Line, from which place Churchland was reached by private conveyances. Here the funeral and burial took place, the following ministers having part in the service: W. V. Savage, J. K. Goode, C. W. Duke, J. J. Taylor, A. B. Dunaway, W. F. Fisher, L. E. Barton, J. M. Pilcher, A. E. Owen, W. P. Hines,
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E. E. Dudley, and W. A. Snyder. He was survived by his wife, a daughter, Ethel, and a son, Parke.
Rev. Dr. J. M. Pilcher, who was for twenty years a close friend of Dr. Deans, says of him: "As pastor, teacher, and citizen he was preëminent, not only in church and school and community, but also in all the region around. When the people of Isle of Wight County offered him a seat in the Constitutional Conven- tion he was gratified by their high estimate of him and courteously declined. When they demanded the service of him he was embarrassed and came to my home to con- sult me. We took time to look at every phase of the question, and he left me with a firm purpose not to accept the honor, and publicly declared his decision.
On another occasion we consulted in regard to his giving up the academy in order to devote more time to his churches. I insisted that the work already done in the education, elevation, refinement, and culture of the young people of the adjoining counties, to say nothing of the conversion to Christ of so many of them while they were in his school, . . demanded that he should not throw away this great part of his ministerial work."
JABEZ LAMAR MONROE CURRY* 1825-1903
The State of Alabama has placed in one of the two niches assigned to her in the Statuary Hall of the Capitol at Washington, a marble statue of Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry. Yet not in Alabama, but in Georgia, did he first see the light. As the name suggests, "Dark Corner," that part of Lincoln County where he was born, on Sun- day, June 5, 1825, was rather famous for its lawlessness. His parents, who were Wm. Curry and Susan Winn, of Scotch and Welsh extraction respectively, gave their second child a name which oppressed him as he grew older and which he eventually modified, for at first his second name was Lafayette and not Lamar. His mother died when he was quite young, but his stepmother seems to have done a good part by him. The importance of education was fully realized by the father, for his chil- dren were started to school at a very tender age, and later he wanted Lamar to go to Germany to complete his preparation for life's work. At the age of four Lamar entered a school whose teacher, Mr. Josh Fleming, was respected by his pupils, even if they did duck him once in order to secure a desired holiday; in this function Lamar, though young and small, bore his part. His next teacher, named Vaughan, was from Maine, it being quite common in those days for pedagogues to come to the South from the New England States. In 1833 the stars fell, and young Curry left home to attend school at
*Much of the information used in this sketch is derived from "J. L. M. Curry: A Biography," by Edwin Anderson Alderman and Armistead Churchill Gordon. The Macmillan Co., New York, 1911. Price, $2.00. Grateful acknowledgment is made to this book to which the reader is referred for a fuller and charming record of Dr. Curry's interesting and inspiring life.
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Lincolnton, the county-seat, where he lived with his grandmother. His teacher at this place was Rev. Mr. McKerley, a Presbyterian minister. Here, at the wed- ding of a Miss Lamar, the iced cakes set in a row to dry made a great impression on the boy from "Dark Corner," and at this wedding, while sitting on the fence with some other boys and peeling a turnip, he cut his hand so severely that he carried the scar through life. The next year he was sent over to Willington, S. C., to a school conducted for many years, first by Rev. Moses Waddell and then by his sons. Here many famous men, among the number Jno. C. Calhoun, Augustus Baldwin Long- street (author of "Georgia Scenes"), James Bowie (inventor of the deadly knife that bears his name), George McDuffie, and James Lewis Petigru, received their early training. At sunrise the master blew a horn, the boys in the neighboring homes answering on their horns. After prayers the scholars dispersed to the woods to study, seeking shade if the weather was warm, building fires of faggots if it was cold. Next, young Curry and his brother were kept at home and sent to school at Double Branches not far away, the teacher, one Daniel W. Finn, being an Irishman and a Catholic. At Double Branches he heard his first "missionary" sermon, the preacher being Rev. Dr. C. D. Mallory, a distinguished Baptist minister.
His parents were not Christians; he never went to a Sunday school until he was married, and he seems to have had no deep early religious convictions. His father was a prosperous farmer and merchant, and, after the manner of country boys, Lamar, with negroes of his own age, spent many an hour at night hunting coons and 'possums. In 1838 his father moved to Kelly Springs, Talladega County, Alabama. This journey of some two hundred miles by private conveyance was a great event in the life
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of the growing boy. He never forgot his first sight of the mountains which this trip gave him, or the howling of the wolves around the camp from night to night. In his new home he helped his father in the post-office attached to the store, and sometimes went with the wagons to Wetumpka, a trip that took many days. Again the boy was at school, and from his own early edu- cational experiences two convictions that went with him through life seem to have arisen. He felt that in his own training the classics had been emphasized to the neglect of English branches. Years afterwards he inaugurated at Richmond College one of the first, if not the first, courses of English offered at any American college. In these early days boys and girls were together in school, and he was through life a strong advocate of coeduca- tion.
In 1839 he entered Franklin College (now the Uni- versity of Georgia) at Athens. He occupied Room No. 23. He was an enthusiastic member of the Phi Kappa Debating Society, where his training in public speaking was invaluable. During his life at Athens he began to visit young ladies. His first experience in this line, he afterwards declared, was a more severe ordeal than going into a battle. The blessing to him of such companionship was so great that when in later years he was a teacher of young men at Richmond College he urged them to visit the young ladies, and would even excuse a student who was "not prepared" if he had been to see one of the fair sex. His last years at college were characterized by very hard work. He feared that his trouble with mathematics would prevent his graduation, but deter- mined effort won the day. He next turned his steps toward Harvard, though afterward he was sorry that he had not followed his father's wishes and gone to Germany. In his law studies at Harvard he sat at the
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feet of Judge Story (then of the Supreme Court) and Simon Greenleaf, who was scarcely less famous. What intellectual stimulus young Curry found in Cambridge and Boston, since Longfellow was one of the professors, Lowell an editor, Webster to be heard at Faneuil Hall, Theodore Parker at his church, and Charlotte Cushman and other great actors at the theater! One of his fellow- students at Harvard was Rutherford B. Hayes, who, in 1876, became President of the United States. Mr. Curry received his B. L. in February, 1845. Upon his return home, he began to read law in the office of Mr. Samuel W. Rice, in Talladega, at the same time writing editorials for the Watchtower, visiting the ladies, attending a debating society, and going every Saturday night to his home only six miles away. But the sound of war gave pause to the study of the law, and Mr. Curry, with several others, set out for the scene of the war with Mexico, on their own account, in the Duane, a vessel so unseaworthy that shortly after they disembarked it sank in the harbor. In 1850 Mr. Curry undertook the management of a plantation, but soon found that he liked books better than directing farm labor. He was admitted to the bar, and so began an important period of his life.
Political life, however, rather than the practice of law, appealed to Mr. Curry. He was popular as a speaker, his youthful appearance and slight figure adding to this popularity. The burning question of the day was whether slavery should be allowed in the territories and its area extended. Mr. Curry took no uncertain stand. Perhaps his political convictions may be epitomized by saying that he was a disciple of John C. Calhoun. So deep were his convictions on the great doctrines of States' rights and local self-government that to the end of life they remained practically unchanged. In 1847 he was elected to the Alabama legislature. Again in 1853 and
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in 1855 this honor was conferred upon him. His farm- ing, alluded to above, seems to have filled in one of the intervals in his public career. In the legislature he always voted for measures that favored education, and he introduced a bill that led to a geological survey of the state. In 1855 he opposed with success the Know- Nothing Party, carrying his county by 255 votes. In 1857 he was a Presidential elector on the Buchanan ticket, and in 1857 and 1859 was elected to Congress. It is interesting to look upon this young man as he appeared in Congress for the first time. "He was of splendid physique, with a cast of features and an expression of countenance so marked by manly ingenuousness and honor, yet indicative of conscious strength and self- reliance, that even his political enemies were conciliated and disposed to hear him with favor." Nor was he unknown as an orator and statesman. He had "a voice full, clear, and of wonderful compass. Quick in percep- tion and accurate in discrimination; fluent, choice, and classic in his language; in manner, deliberate and self- possessed, yet fervid and impassioned in his feelings and impulses, trained in the severe methods of the schools and especially equipped for the great duties that lay before him; loving the whole country, but his State and section with a warmth not far short of Eastern idolatry, he was full ready, we may easily believe, to spring at a bound into the very front rank as a champion of the South." He delivered his first speech February 23, 1858. The New York Tribune recognized him as "a powerful addition to the proslavery side of the House." He made a speech in which he opposed the granting of pensions, as involving a dangerous principle. Years afterward he wrote for the Religious Herald an article in which he showed the danger of creating a pauper class by careless charity, and the evil of giving public money to religious
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denominations, but contended that the support of public schools was no violation of this law. In another speech he opposed the publication of the Congressional Globe as a wrong use of public money. He never lost an oppor- tunity "to impress his convictions concerning political or moral righteousness and truth upon the minds of those with whom he came in contact." While in Congress he was faithful in his life as a Christian and a Baptist. At the age of 21 he had been baptized into the fellowship of the Lebanon Baptist Church, Coosa River Association, by Rev. Dr. Samuel Henderson. In Washington he was a regular attendant of the E Street Baptist Church; in Congress "he was punctual in attendance and alert and painstaking in his attention to the public matters which came before the House." His correspondence was heavy, and in those days Congressmen had no clerks.
When, in 1861, the Southern States seceded, Mr. Curry promptly withdrew from Congress and cast his lot with his State and his section of the country. On Janu- ary 7, 1861, when the Alabama Convention met in Mont- gomery, he was on the platform. On January 11 the Convention adopted the ordinance of secession, and on January 21 he sent to the speaker of the House of Representatives the announcement of his withdrawal. He was a member of the provisional Confederate Con- gress that met in Montgomery, and of the first permanent Congress meeting in Richmond. His deep conviction that the War should go on led to his defeat at a subse- quent election, when his opponent, in still-hunt, advo- cated peace. His loyalty to his State never faltered, and now, although military life did not appeal to him, he entered the army. Here he displayed courage and under- went hardship for his country. Once he left his wife, who was sick, to go to the battlefield; he never saw her again; the rumor that he had been killed is said to have
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hastened her death. In various capacities, as cavalry officer, as aide to several leading generals, as commis- sioner under the Habeas Corpus Act, he served his country. He was brought into especially close touch with Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, whom, as a disciplinarian and tactician, he believed was without a superior in the Confederate Army.
With the close of the War a distinctly new period began in Curry's life. In November, 1865, he was elected President of Howard College. The following January he was ordained to the gospel ministry, and in June, 1867, he was married to Miss Mary Wortham Thomas, of Richmond, Virginia, a daughter of James Thomas, Jr. After a struggle for several years to set Howard Col- lege well on its feet, a struggle carried on in the face of all of the horrors of the Reconstruction Period in the far South, Mr. Curry decided, for the sake of his family, consisting of his wife and Sue and Manly (children of his first wife), to leave Alabama and move to Richmond, Va. A little before his ordination he had preached what he called his first regular sermon, and later had helped Dr. J. J. D. Renfroe, who was his pastor and his bosom friend, in a protracted meeting. He loved to preach at times, he declared, but did not feel impelled to become a regular pastor, though by 1877 he had been invited to pastorates in Selma, Montgomery, Mobile, Atlanta, Augusta, Wilmington, Raleigh, New Orleans, Memphis, St. Louis, San Francisco, Louisville, Norfolk, Richmond, Baltimore, New York, Boston, and Brooklyn. Upon the reorganization of Richmond College, in 1866, Mr. Curry was invited to become its president. This position he declined, but in 1868 he accepted the Chair of English in that institution. Before his connection with Richmond College ceased he had filled, for a season, and in con- nection with his other work, the Chair of Philosophy and
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that of Constitutional and International Law. It would be hard to speak too highly of Dr. Curry's work at Rich- mond College. He was most popular among the stu- dents, and his influence upon them as regards their study, their ideals, their lives, was inspirational, enlarging and uplifting in a most wonderful way. His college duties by no means completed the sphere of his service to his denomination, the State, and the country. He was a leader among Virginia Baptists, taking an active part in the Memorial Campaign for the endowment of Rich- mond College, in 1873, and proving himself the champion of the great causes of education and foreign missions by his eloquent addresses at district associations and other gatherings all over the State. Before a great throng of people, on the campus of Richmond College, in June, 1873, he delivered a memorable address on the struggles of Virginia Baptists for religious liberty. The same year an address on much the same subject before the Evangelical Alliance of the World offended many, but was clear evidence of his willingness to proclaim and advocate the truth anywhere. Work awaited him in every direction, and it is scarcely possible to chronicle here all the varied forms of his energetic and versatile service. He was the admirable moderator of the Vir- ginia Baptist General Association for five years, and for twelve years the President of the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. Upon all manner of public occasions he was in demand for sermons, addresses, and speeches, his matchless oratory always thrilling the crowds. During the "Readjuster" fight in the seventies he strongly championed the payment of the debt, and in defense of this proposition delivered, upon the request of many leading citizens of Richmond, an address at Mozart Hall entitled "Law and Morals," and later discussed the issue of the day in various parts
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of the State. Dr. Curry regarded this address at Mozart Hall as one of the best efforts of his life.
In 1881 Dr. Curry was elected Agent of the Peabody Fund. In 1866 Mr. George Peabody gave $3,000,000 to be used to promote education in the South. The administration of this Fund was committed to a self- perpetuating Board of sixteen. To read the names of the sixteen men originally composing the Board, and to remember that first and last four presidents of the United States were members of this Board, gives undoubted evidence of the dignity and ability of this body. The original sixteen members were: Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, Hon. Hamilton Fish, Bishop Chas. P. McIlwaine, General U. S. Grant, Admiral D. G. Farra- gut, Hon. John H. Clifford, Hon. William L. Evarts, Hon. Wm. C. Rives, Gen. William Aiken, Hon. William A. Graham, Charles Macalester, Esq., Geo. W. Riggs, Esq., Edward A. Bradford, Esq., George N. Eaton, Esq., George Peabody Russell, Samuel Witmore, Esq. Rev. Dr. Barnes Sears was the first agent of this Fund. Be- fore his death, which took place July 6, 1880, he had suggested Dr. Curry as the man of all others to take up the work. Dr. Sears had so stimulated State aid to public education that before his death "all of the eleven States composing the Confederate States had established public- school systems, at least on paper." Yet the work to be done was only fairly begun. Under Dr. Curry the plans of the work were somewhat modified and a large part of the appropriations made went for normal schools. Dr. Curry spent much of his time and energy traveling all over the South, seeking to quicken interest in education by his addresses and personal work. He addressed the legislature of every Southern State, appearing before some of these bodies again and again. He championed the cause of the negro as well as that of the white child,
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showing that to limit the funds for the negro to the reve- nue from their taxes would be most unwise. What has been already said about Dr. Curry must in a measure suggest how admirably qualified he was for this great work. As the years passed, the Board realized more and more how valuable his services were. A most warm friendship grew up between Mr. Winthrop and Dr. Curry; they were devoted to the work they had in hand and to each other. Greatly to his surprise, in 1885 Dr. Curry received, through Thomas F. Bayard, Secre- tary of State, the announcement that President Cleveland offered him the mission to Spain.
With no small degree of reluctance did Dr. Curry resign a work which appealed to the noblest emotions of his being and called into exercise his best powers. As for the Board, they so thoroughly believed that the mis- sion to Spain would prove a mere interlude in Dr. Curry's career, that they appointed one pro tempore to carry on the work. The sojourn of Dr. Curry and his wife at the court of Madrid was at once most delightful to them and of most valuable service to the United States. They established a new record for America in the brilliancy and charm of their social functions, and came to have a real and lasting friendship with the royal family; but this was not all. Dr. Curry was able to overcome the exasperating procrastination for which the Spanish Government is famous and to carry through measures of importance touching the commercial relations of the two countries that had hung fire for years. So acceptable was Dr. Curry both to Spain and the United States in the position of ambassador that years later, after his return to America, special request came to Washington that Dr. Curry should represent our country at the cere- monies connected with the coming of age of the Spanish King, and Spain's request was granted.
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After four years in Madrid, Dr. Curry, appointed a second time as its agent, took up once more the work of the Peabody Fund. This work he prosecuted, with won- derful enthusiasm and zeal, practically up to the time of his death. On October 30, 1890, Dr. Curry was called to be the executive officer of the Slater Fund. The pur- pose of the giver of this Fund was much the same as that which prompted Mr. Peabody's great gift, save that it was exclusively for the education of the negro race. For many reasons it was highly fitting that one man should represent both of these great benefactions. Space does not permit the detailed story of Dr. Curry's rela- tion to the General Education Board and to the Southern Education Board, bodies which perhaps had scarcely more than fairly entered upon their career of usefulness when his life closed, and yet it is very remarkable that one man should have been associated, as he was, with four such organizations. In 1905, after Dr. Curry's death, upon the gift by Mr. Rockefeller of $100,000, the Curry Memorial School of Education was established at the University of Virginia.
In 1902 Dr. Curry's health began to fail. Yet he went on with his work. His physical vigor and endurance had been wonderful all through his manhood years and one element in his success and far-reaching and varied service and usefulness. He was so full of vigor and so preserved his youthful spring and hopefulness, that it was hard to realize when the end came that he had almost reached the Psalmist's extreme limit of fourscore years. He passed away on Thursday, February 12, 1903, at the residence of his brother-in-law, Col. John A. Connally, near Asheville, N. C. The funeral took place in Rich- mond, Sunday, February 15, and, in accordance with Dr. Curry's wishes, was in the Richmond College Chapel. The funeral services were conducted by Rev. Dr. W. C. Bitting, of New York, assisted by Drs. C. H. Ryland,
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George Cooper, and Wm. E. Hatcher. The burial was in Hollywood. The grave is near that of Jefferson Davis, and not far away are the graves of J. B. Jeter and H. H. Harris. Mrs. Curry, who was ill at the time of his death, was laid beside him in Hollywood in the brief space of three months.
Dr. Curry, in addition to all his other activities, was an author. Not to speak of his contributions to maga- zines and papers, the list of his books is as follows : "Constitutional Government in Spain," "Life of William E. Gladstone," "The Southern States of the American Union," "Sketch of George Peabody and a History of the Peabody Education Fund Through Thirty Years," "Civil History of the Government of the Confederate States, With Some Personal Reminiscences."
Dr. Curry was an orator and a statesman, a man of strong convictions, a courteous gentleman, an humble Christian, an indefatigable worker, the enthusiastic champion of education, a citizen of the world, an ardent Southerner, and a most patriotic American. His sympa- thies were broad, his spirit at once humble yet ambitious. The range of his life-his friendships and his activities- was wide. In his day he undertook with great success work in many different fields of human endeavor, and came into personal touch with a very large number of the distinguished men in America and Europe. While accustomed to have, during a large part of his life, many comforts and even luxuries, still high thinking rather than high living always appealed to him. Though it was his lot to hold converse with kings and others high in authority and place, yet he was approachable, and made the youngest and humblest at ease in his presence. He was the friend and inspiration of young men, the pro- moter of education in all of its phases, the earnest, humble follower of Jesus. When shall we look upon his like again?
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