t i i NONNULLA 4 | 4 ; ; 3 | The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, N. C.; ae Baker and Taylor Company, New York; Ozford ee y Press, London; Maruzen-Kabushiki-K aisha, Tokyo; war Evans & Sons, Ltd., Shanghai. MEMORIES, STORIES, TRADITIONS, MORE OR LESS AUTHENTIC BY JOSEPH BLOUNT CHESHIRE CHAPEL HILL THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS 1930 COPYRIGHT, 1930, BY THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS COMPOSE: ND NT) a4 E EDWARDS & BROUGHTON COMPANY, TH. 'D iS MP 'D A! PRINTED B RALEIGH, N. C. BOUND BY L. H. JENKINS, INC., RICHMOND, VA. 2 FOREWORD Wien, in reading an ancient author, I have come upon &@ gap in an interesting passage, and have read the words Desuni N onnulla, “Some Things are Wanting,” I have often felt that those “Some Things” or, more literally, “Not Nothings,” might to the reader of the present day, if he had them, prove not less interesting and important than that which has been preserved. Many circumstances and details, perhaps trifling in them- selves, are preserved in popular memory and tradition about our North Carolina people and their life, which do not ap- pear in our biographies and histories, The following pages are mostly devoted to such unrecorded incidents, characters, and phases of our past. And so I have called this book Nonnulla, “Not Nothings,” matters for the most part want- ing in our serious writers, but perhaps not wholly unworthy of being remembered as illustrating, in an informal and familiar way, the life of our State and our people—A Cross- Section or Norra Caroma Lire, “So too how indelible, and magically bright, does many a little Reality dwell in our remembrance. There ts no need that the personages on the scene be a King and a Clown: that the scene be the Forest of the Royal Oak, ‘on the borders of Staffordshire’; need only that the scene be on this old firm Earth of ours, where we also have so surprisingly arrived; that the personages be men, and seen with the eyes of a man. Foolish enough how some slight, perhaps mean and even ugly incident (if real and well presented), will fix itself in a susceptive memory, and lie ennobled there; siloered over with the pale cast of thought.” Carlyle’s Essay on Biography. INTRODUCTION I have often been asked to write down narratives of men and things which I have given in familiar conversation, from memory of what I have heard, read, picked up hake and there, I cannot always remember where, how, or from whom oe this March 27, 1925, my seventy-fifth birthday, I cave this beginning. How far I shall have the mind or the time to persevere in what is now begun, I do not know. At an rate I make a beginning. z As what I shall write will be largely personal memories or local and family traditions, I wish to say, first of all, that so far as my experience goes, local and family traditions ak always maccurate, I may say false, in details. At the same time they are usually true in some sense, if we can find Gt Just how. I will illustrate this by a trifling incident. In the Blount Family Burying Ground in Edenton, used as a buryin ground, I believe, before the establishment of St. oie Churchyard, the earliest gravestone was a white marble slab wath an inscription to this effect: “Mary, the Wife of Christian Reed, died Dec. 10, 1746, age 28 years and 8 days.” I asked my father why “Mary, the wife of Christian Reed” had been buried in the Blount Family Burying Ground. He replied that he had an impression that his mother had told him that Mary Reed was her grandfather’s sister. The Blount Family Bible mentions no such sister of the first Joseph Blount, and I could not understand why her name and marriage should have been omitted, especially as Chris- tian Reed was a man of some eminence in his day, a resident ini ih x INTRODUCTION of one of the counties below Edenton, Perquimans, I be- lieve, a member of the Council, etc. My father could not understand why the Family Bible should have omitted to record such a daughter of the family; but he had a strong impression that his mother had spoken of her as her grand- father’s sister. Subsequently I found an entry in the Family Bible of George Durant, second of that name in the Province of North Carolina, giving, among the children of George Durant and Hannah Crisp, his wife, the names of Mary and Sarah, twins, born Dec. 2, 1718. Further on are the entries of their marriages—Mary, to Christian Reed; Sarah, to Joseph Blount. Reckoning back from the date of the death of Mary, the wife of Christian Reed, the years and days of her life as recorded on her gravestone, brings us to the date given in the Bible as the date of the birth of George Durant’s twins, Mary and Sarah. So Mary, the wife of Christian Reed, was not the sister of Joseph Blount, but she was his sister-in-law! The tradition was inaccurate, but it was yet in a way true. Mention of the Family Bible of George Durant suggests another illustration of this same thing. My kinswoman, Mrs. Fred Nash of Charlotte, early in 1884 mentioned to me that her father, Mr. James Littlejohn of Oxford, had the Family Bible of George Durant, who settled on Durant’s Neck in Perquimans in 1662; that it was printed in the reign of Queen Elizabeth and contained the record of his birth, mar- riage, etc. I was much interested and said I should like very much to see it and examine it, to see if it was really so old. She replied that her father, who had been a lawyer of some repute, was quite competent to form a judgment on the INTRODUCTION a question. I acquiesced, of course, but ventured to say I had observed that many very intelligent persons are disposed to accept their family traditions without much discrimination. She reiterated her confidence in her father’s judgment, and there the matter rested. It happened that the following May I was in Oxford and was very courteously entertained by Mr. Littlejohn. I had been in his house hardly a quarter of an hour, when he said to me: “I understand you have some doubts about my old Durant Bible.” I replied that I had not meant to express any doubt, but that I had said I would like to see it and examine it. He at once produced it and said, “I shall be happy to have you examine it and pass your judgment on it.” I took it and looked it over for a few moments. I saw at once that it was the Authorized Version, commonly called “King James’s Version,” put out in 1611; so it could not have been printed in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. That, however, would prove nothing as to whether or not it had belonged to the first George Durant, who settled Durant’s Neck in 1662. Other features and entries, however, satisfied ae on that point; so I said: “Well, Sir, I have examined this book, and I am quite satisfied that it was not printed a the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and that George Durant, its owner, whose marriage, children, etc., are recorded in it, was not the George Durant of the 1662 settlement.” “What are your reasons?” he asked. “As you maintain the affirmative of the proposition,” I replied, “it is for you to show why you claim that it was printed as you assert, and not for me to disprove it. Why, oe example, do you say it was printed in the reign of Queen Elizabeth?” The title-page was lacking, and on the first page xii INTRODUCTION was printed an act passed in the twelfth year of Elizabeth, about “Reading the Bible in the Churches.” He pointed to this and claimed that the act indicated the time when the book was printed. I replied that if he should take an English Bible printed in the current year, 1884, and tear off the title-page, the first thing to be seen would be the Letter of the Translators to King James, dated 1611! I then said that I would show him why I felt sure that the George Durant of his book was a grandson or a nephew of the first settler. I called his attention to the record of the marriage of George Durant and Hannah Crisp, in the year 1712, and to the entries of the birth of their six children, all born in the years 1714 to 1723 inclusive. I said, further, that when George Durant made the settle- ment in 1662, he was not an infant, nor a mere youth. The leader in an enterprise of that kind must have been of mature years, I should say thirty years old, at least. Now, if he was thirty years of age in 1662, then fifty years later, in 1712, he would have been eighty years old. And it is un- reasonable to suppose that he did not marry until that age, and that all his children were born between his eightieth and his ninety-first years. I thought this quite conclusive, but Mr. Littlejohn merely remarked that we could not know certainly what might be possible. Next I stated that early documents gave the name of George Durant’s wife (i.e., the George Durant of 1662) as Ann. To this he replied that the Family Bible gave her name as Hannah; though, of course, Hannah Crisp may have been his second wife. Seine INTRODUCTION xiii I then quoted an old court record, copied in Dr. Hawks’s History, Volume II, of a case tried in the year 1696, between John and Thomas Durant “heirs-at-law of George Durant,” and other parties, concerning the land on which George Durant had made his settlement in 1662, and reminded him that in legal proceedings no man could be described as an heir, until the death of the ancestor; so that Thomas’s and John’s father must have been dead in 1696. To this he replied that he had no copy of Dr. Hawks’s ET istory, and that my memory might not be accurate. This, I confess, quite knocked me out. Then it came across my mind that the title-page of a Bible is usually re- peated at the beginning of the New Testament. I turned to the Place; and there, at the bottom of the page, stood the date, 1723! And I believe I understand why Mr. Littlejohn was thus mistaken. I had read somewhere, and doubtless he had also, a statement, I think by Governor Swain, President of the University, that George Durant’s Bible had been discovered mt the possession of his descendants, that it was printed In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, etc. As he was a descendant of George Durant, Mr. Littlejohn probably supposed that Some one had told Governor Swain of his “George Durant Bible,” and that this was the Bible referred to. Subsequently I came upon the Bible which Governor Swain had in mind. It was printed in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; 1599, I think was the date; and it had various entries of Births, Deaths, etc. And it gave the date of that first George Durant’s birth as 1632; so that in 1662 he was exactly thirty years of age, as I had conjectured! George a eae - — ———— xiv INTRODUCTION Durant, who in 1712 married Hannah Crisp, was his grand- son. After his marriage, I suppose, he bought a new Bible, printed in 1723. Eventually the new Bible went to his daughter, Sarah, who married Joseph Blount; then to Sarah Blount, who married William Littlejohn; then to their son, Thomas Littlejohn; then to his son, James Littlejohn, who showed it to me. It is now in the possession of the children of his daughter, the late Mrs. Fred Nash of Charlotte. The older Durant Bible, we must suppose, went to Mary, who married Christian Reed; for about the middle of the nineteenth century it was discovered by the Rev. Chas. F. Deems, a Methodist preacher, in the possession of the descendants of Christian Reed in Perquimans County. Dr. Deems got it from them, that he might present it to the North Carolina Historical Society at the University. TI am tempted to add an illustration of the inaccuracy of tradition relating to much more eminent characters. Sir Walter Raleigh, while prisoner in the Tower of London, published in 1614 the first volume of his History of the World. He published no more. I have read the following explanation of his failure to continue his great work. It is said that looking from the window of his apartment in the Tower he saw an affray in the courtyard below between two of the servants, or guards. He saw it all—beginning, middle, and end. The participants were arrested and tried. Two totally different accounts were given by two sets of witnesses, friends of the accused. And both accounts dif- fered widely from what Raleigh had plainly seen from his window. Thereupon, so the story ran, he burned up all his MSS. and declared he would not undertake to tell what INTRODUCTION XV happened in distant lands two thousand years ago, since the truth could not be told of what happened under his own eyes. Another account which I have read, says that when Walter Burre, Raleigh’s publisher, visited him in the Tower shortly after the first volume had been put on the market, Sir Walter asked him how the book was selling. The publisher had to Confess that it was selling very slowly. “Well,” said Sir Walter, “you shall not lose any more money by me”; and thereupon he burned the MSS. of the second volume. Thus the traditional accounts. Now for the truth. The closing paragraph of the first volume reads thus: “Lastly, where as this Booke, by the title it hath, calls itself, The first part of the Generall Historie of the World, implying @ Second, and Third Volume; which I also intended, and have hewen out; besides many other discouragements, persuading my silence; it hath pleased God to take the glorious Prince out of the world, to whom they were directed; whose un- Speakable and never enough lamented loss, hath taught me to Say with Job, ‘Versa est in Luctum Cithara mea, Et Organum meum in vocem flentium.’ ” Such being my opinion as to the accuracy of traditions, anyone is at liberty to find as many faults and inaccuracies as he can in the following pages. All I can claim is that I desire and purpose to say the truth, so far as I know it. But to tell the truth is really a more difficult task than one would suppose who has not tried it. [ —-— Sa ij TABLE OF CONTENTS | Horeword sucntee 10s whee ne ey ee ix Introduction 27 eu ee ee ee xi Hlome and Home Folks. <....0. 0.000000. e000 e5 es 1 Tarborough be EMS LCP AN SI a (OOM A DL Cap a 12 | Edgecombe Couint yc eprint ym won Om aura ae 14 | ConetoeySwampia yee coer nce scans 23 } Tarborough’s One Newspaper... ..-¢..2..).2..... 28 Judge George sHoward=: 2g sn ere ee 30 Lawyers and fits Fegan an PRN tenia 40 || i Our State Sono Carolina yews tc yen erase 48 i An. Epitaph’ ae re ee 52 a AC Cheerful witness) 2. ee eae 55 | i Halifax Mowe (0) omens, ee ey 60 | Robert Pottereag 2 be. eae rere 64 The Solicitor General) 88 i | James Glas ow erie ste ee ae a 95 ; Judge John Ela ywood (a7 tek cern Net ea 102 i | Judge Romulus M. Saunders..................05: 115 A A Great awyeris sae enot Gin One ion el trea ne eae 121 William Kirkland Ruffin. ..7......0.5.0.0-0-0 0s 130 i Governor William A. Graham.................... 134 it Answer a Fool According to His Folly... 138 Hi General: RobertsE. Hoke) 00 he .. 148 a General Rufus Barringer.) Sine ao. anne anata: 158 ii Chief: Justice Hoke) 0 tea 160 i Scene ina gCourthousec 1 vw ee hy ne nee 165 li Little: Jimmie Dickson 1) 168 | Mrs. Gid. Alston and John Randolph of Roanoke.... 177 | A Nash County Celebrity.............0.0000000 0 179 t | | 1 | 1} | | Li Fr Pee Pe, | | i Xvili TABLE OF CONTENTS : | General Louis D. Wilson’s Will.................-. 185 eiwoslWedicalle Marnbyrs tes r nese ere eR wide 188 i) Doctors and: Medicines rsse eae ae rere 191 | H | Negro: Lore s 2c sate ns ae sa eee eee 193 H PAS Hhishermangs Wicca aes texte corer ccm eer ee ae 195 | aN Chancess hota, tae = VALU i eae ener eee er 202 | HAMiad=S tome titres terrae gh reine at niece te 204 WV The North American Wild Turkey................ Q1i ii INO Carvandaclitle ten) cee ate nen eh eae cee ae 221 i | | A Bear Hunter and a Bear Trap..........:....... 224 | | At Jo Shocco Jones and His Duels................... 230 | i Maother Duel: ee ee 234 ) i ‘ The Good Faith of a Great Corporation............ 243 | NONNULLA i i) Post: Sernp tum. ne toon eines eres ees eres aa 248 } Tri exer ses era sear pine fee re aren Petter 249 | | ii 1s HOME AND HOME FOLKS I must make a beginning; whether I shall have any middle or end remains to be seen. The life of the old South, it seems to me, has usually been idealized and sentimentalized out of recognition. There were some very rich people, but relatively few. And as a rule they were simple and unostentatious, plain in their dwellings and in their style of living, and also in their man- ners. When I speak of them I shall endeavor to represent them as they were in my knowledge and recollection. I was born and brought up in Tarborough, Edgecombe County, North Carolina, in a house built by my maternal grandfather, Theophilus Parker, in the year 1810, and now (1925) owned and occupied by my sister Kate. It is a plain framed house with four rooms downstairs, and four in a second story. It is, I think, the oldest house now standing in Tarborough. Mr. David Pender, a merchant in Tarborough, told me that when he was a small boy, living Some ten or twelve miles in the country, his father once brought him to town and went several blocks out of his way, that he might drive by and see “Mr. Parker’s fine house.” I was a good deal amused and laughed at it to my mother’s maiden sister, my “Aunt Bella.” She did not seem at all to understand my mirth. “Why,” she said, “It was a fine house in those days. My father and General Thomas Blount drew the plan for it.” “And what is it about the house that required two wise men to put their heads together to contrive?” I asked. She said that it was the first house in that part of the country which had an entrance hall and the staircase going eee SSS + ~~ = eee ne = a } ee 2 HOME AND HOME FOLKS up from this hall. Up to that time it was customary to have the staircase go up from the parlor or “best room,” where company were entertained. The family in this part of the i old South usually made the Mother’s chamber their sitting © room. Consequently, when young men called on the ladies, and the ladies did not have on their company attire, a servant would often have to be sent through the room where the | company were waiting, to go upstairs for the ladies’ best | dresses; and these would be thrown from the back windows, so that the young ladies might be able to attire themselves properly before going in to see their beaux! This General Blount! and his wife, Mrs. Jackie Blount, | daughter of General Jethro Sumner, were the leading people | of Tarborough, very wealthy; and he was for many years the member of Congress from the district. Mrs. Blount was some- what stout. She once said to my grandmother: “Mrs. Parker, there is a beautiful piece of goods at Mr. Richards’ store. I want you to go down and get it. It will make you such a handsome dress. I would get it myself, but there is not quite _ enough. You are smaller than I, and it is just right for you. It is double width, but there are only two yards and three- eighths, I cannot make a dress with less than two yards and a half!” I used to think that a very incredible story. I am not j sure that the present fashions in the year 1925 have not i | taken all of the point out of it. My grandfather’s place occupied a whole square. His large *Dr. Archibald Henderson, in his handsome and interesting book op Washington's Southern Tour, says that an entertainment was given to Washington in Tarborough at the residence of Major “Reading Blount.” Major Reading Blount never lived in Tarborough, whereas Major Thomas Blount, afterwards known as General Blount, was at this time the wealthiest and most prominent citizen of the town. It must have been at Major Thomas Blount’s that Washington was entertained. AN OLD-FASHIONED PLANTATION 3 « Plantation, now called “Panola,” lay just across the street running along the east side of the town, half a block from his residence. The “Quarters,” therefore, were near at hand the whole being as closely associated as if he had lived én a plantation in the country. Many of the buildings ordinarily confined to the plantation, were on his town lot. There were barns, stables, a carriage house, houses for curing meat and for smoking bacon, a spinning-house, ete. My grandmother and her daughters must have led a busy life. In those days the mistress of the family, besides the affairs of her immediate household, felt a responsibility for the Negro families. She felt a concern for their health, and she kept an oversight of the work of the women in spinning, weaving, and te the clothes of the Negroes. There was some kind of an te mentary spinning-machine, called a “spinning-jenny,” set up in the spinning-house. Flax was cultivated on the lade ‘ation, as well as cotton, and I remember seeing in the spinning-house and in other places, hackles, a flax wheel, and implements for dressing and spinning flax; and also old homemade linen sheets of flax raised, dressed, spun, and woven on the plantation. I do not know whether this was common at that time, or only an experiment of my grand- father’s; but I think it must have been not unusual. All kinds of handicrafts were practiced, on the old- fashioned plantations. Each plantation was largely a self- Supporting institution, with its homemade clothing, shoes, c arts, wagons, harness, etc.? I do not remember my grand- isyuces Gee most valued friends, from the time of my residence in tae eek Ieee: and still are, the members of the McCoy family, of ae ae ownship, Mecklenburg County, and their very extensive family aan ms, Whitleys, Blythes, Gluyases, et al. Old Mrs. Rebecca McCoy, ughter of William Bain Alexander, and granddaughter of two notable 4 HOME AND HOME FOLKS father’s plantation. It was sold after his death, just about the time I was born. I am only mentioning my memory of the remnants and remainders of its old industries. I remember the old plantation shoemaker “Uncle blind Lewis.” In his old age my grandmother gave my uncle, Colonel Frank Parker, a valuable young Negro, Stanly, in consideration of his agree- ing to take “Uncle blind Lewis,” to his plantation and care for him the rest of his life. And I remember my grandfather’s carpenter, “Uncle Charles,” a very skilful and valuable mechanic, the husband of our old cook, “Aunt Lettice”—Letitia was, I suppose, the proper form of her name. My grandfather bought Uncle Charles from old Mr. Frederick Philips, father of the eminent physician, Dr. James J. Philips. Mr. Frederick Philips was an intelligent, well educated man, a school teacher. But he was an improvident man and had lost most of his estate. Having this one valuable servant left, he sold him to my grandfather to obtain the money with which he might send his son on to Philadelphia to attend lectures in the Medical School of the University of Pennsylvania. My grandfather had an overseer for the work on his farm, and was for years a merchant. When he gave up that business he became president of the local branch of the State Bank.? In his hours at home he would naturally seem to his ante-Revolutionary characters, Jno. McKnitt Alexander and John Davidson, told me that her father kept a flock of one hundred merino sheep, and that her mother had woven on their plantation broadcloth which sold for six dollars a yard, single width. She said it was spun and woven on the planta- tion, but they had to send it to Salem, to the fulling mills, established by the Moravians, to have it fulled and dyed. I was surprised to learn that cloth of stich quality had ever been made on our North Carolina planta- tions. The existence of fulling mills at Salem seems to show that there must have been a good deal of this kind of cloth made locally. *The first president of the Tarborough Branch of the State Bank was “SNAP-DRAGON” PRIZES 5 daughters to have nothing to do, by comparison with the busy life of the women of the family. My Aunt Kate, his eldest daughter, returning from a visit to the family of her mother’s uncle, Sherwood Haywood, of Raleigh, informed the family that “In Raleigh the women sit around and do noth- Ing, just like men.” There lay about the woodhouse and yard of my grand- father’s place a number of old axes, such as I have never seen elsewhere. They had a very light blade, much like the blade of a grubbing-hoe. They had a round eye for the helve, not oblong, as is the eye of the grubbing-hoe., They excited no interest at the time, because they were as familiar to me as the ordinary heavy axe. But after I grew up and never saw any others like them, though in old illustrated books I have seen pictures of the same kind of axe, I happened to ask my father if he remembered those curious old axes. He said he remembered them; that they were English axes. These particular ones had come from the cargoes of prizes taken by the privateer “Snap-Dragon” in the War of 1812. The “Snap-Dragon” (Captain Otway Burns), of which my grandfather Parker was part owner, sailed out of New- bern in the War of 1812. Upon its making port with a num- ber of prizes, my grandfather was notified, and went down to look after his interests. When the cargoes were sold under the proceedings in the Court of Admiralty, these axes proved to be unsalable, and he took them at some nominal price and brought them to Tarborough, where they were used in pence! Thomas Blount, who died in 1812. He was succeeded by Mr. a soe D. MacNair. He was succeeded by my grandfather Theophilus arker, and he by Mr. Robert R. Bridgers, who remained president until bank ent out of exi i we stence in 1865, , f the ‘ as one. of the results of the. Con- a 6 HOME AND HOME FOLKS ditching, splitting lightwood, and such light work. Our ordinary axe my father said he considered the great- est of American inventions, since it would seem hardly pos- sible to have felled the forests of the new world with the light and ineffective English axe. That reminds me that old Mrs. Hamilton C. Jones of Salisbury, daughter of Major Pleasant Henderson, and mother of Colonel Hamilton C. Jones, my Junior Warden in St. Peter’s Church, Charlotte, used to say, as Colonel Jones told me, that the greatest invention of the nineteenth century was the friction match. Whatever might be said about railway trains, steamboats, the electric telegraph, and the like, any woman, Mrs. Jones said, who had waked up in the middle of the night with a sick baby, to find that the fire had gone out; and then had been obliged to wait until a Negro servant could be sent a mile or two to a neighbor’s house, to borrow a chunk of fire, before a light could be kindled to see what ailed the baby, would agree with her in preferring the friction match above all other modern in- ventions. In the parlor of our old house hung a small oil portrait of a nephew of my grandfather, John Hill Parker, called in the family “Cousin red-head John Parker,” to distinguish him from another John Parker with black hair. This red- headed cousin removed to Florida. He was in bad health, and traveled about a good deal—to the Hot Springs of Arkansas’ and to other places. With the poor accommodations and the ill-cooked food of the steamboats and wayside taverns, he fared badly, and but for an excellent Negro servant, Henry, could hardly have endured these discomforts. He became much attached to Henry on account of his faithful service A DOMESTIC TRAGEDY 7 and attention to his wants, and declared that upon his death Henry should have his freedom. He did not seem to have an Promise of a long life, but even so, Henry became im ae to be free. He therefore hired a Negro who kept tae Sometimes used by Mr. Parker, to put his master out of the way. When Mr. Parker was crossing the ferry shortly after- wards, the ferryman, watching his opportunity, struck him a heavy blow on the back of the head with an axe. crushin, the skull and killing him instantly. He then thie, the beds into the river. When some week or ten days later the body was found, its condition was such that it was buried Z s00n as possible, and there was no suspicion whatever of an : foul play. It was not known that Mr. Parker had crossed h the ferry, and it was supposed that he had accidental fallen into the river and been drowned. if But, strange to say, partially insane, and it was thought that his story was the figment of a diseased brain. However, as he persisted in repeating the story, at last the body was exhumed and ex- amined. The skull was found to be crushed, evidently the result of such a blow as was described by the fae though the hair on the back of the head prevented the 8» except upon close inspection. Wee convicted and hanged, but the crazy ie eae with some less penalty—I never heard what. It was found that Mr. Parker had died intestate, so that Henry had not &ned even a temporary reward for his crime. 6 HOME AND HOME FOLKS ditching, splitting lightwood, and such light work. Our ordinary axe my father said he considered the great- est of American inventions, since it would seem hardly pos- sible to have felled the forests of the new world with the light and ineffective English axe. That reminds me that old Mrs. Hamilton C. Jones of Salisbury, daughter of Major Pleasant Henderson, and mother of Colonel Hamilton C. Jones, my Junior Warden in St. Peter’s Church, Charlotte, used to say, as Colonel Jones told me, that the greatest invention of the nineteenth century was the friction match. Whatever might be said about railway trains, steamboats, the electric telegraph, and the like, any woman, Mrs. Jones said, who had waked up in the middle of the night with a sick baby, to find that the fire had gone out; and then had been obliged to wait until a Negro servant could be sent a mile or two to a neighbor’s house, to borrow a chunk of fire, before a light could be kindled to see what ailed the baby, would agree with her in preferring the friction match above all other modern in- ventions. In the parlor of our old house hung a small oil portrait of a nephew of my grandfather, John Hill Parker, called in the family “Cousin red-head John Parker,” to distinguish him from another John Parker with black hair. This red- headed cousin removed to Florida. He was in bad health, and traveled about a good deal—to the Hot Springs of Arkansas’ and to other places. With the poor accommodations and the ill-cooked food of the steamboats and wayside taverns, he fared badly, and but for an excellent Negro servant, Henry, could hardly have endured these discomforts. He became much attached to Henry on account of his faithful service stn mer A DOMESTIC TRAGEDY 7 and attention to his wants, and declared that upon his death Henry, should have his freedom. He did not seem to have any promise of a long life, but even so, Henry became impatient to be free. He therefore hired a Negro who kept a ferry. sometimes used by Mr. Parker, to put his master out of the way. When Mr. Parker was crossing the ferry shortly after- wards, the ferryman, watching his opportunity, struck him a heavy blow on the back of the head with an axe, crushing the skull and killing him instantly. He then threw the body into the river. When some week or ten days later the body was found, its condition was such that it was buried as soon as possible, and there was no suspicion whatever of any foul play. It was not known that Mr. Parker had crossed by the ferry, and it was supposed that he had accidentally fallen into the river and been drowned. But, strange to say, the Negro ferryman had a sensitive conscience. He brooded over his crime until it produced & condition of mental disorder. He began to talk about Mr. Parker’s death, and to say that he had killed him at Henry’s instigation. At first he was not believed. He was evidently partially insane, and it was thought that his story was the figment of a diseased brain. However, as he persisted in repeating the story, at last the body was exhumed and ex- amined. The skull was found to be crushed, evidently the result of such a blow as was described by the ferryman though the hair on the back of the head prevented the wound’s appearing, except upon close inspection. Henry was convicted and hanged, but the crazy ferryman escaped with some less penalty—I never heard what. It was found that Mr. Parker had died intestate, so that Henry had not gained even a temporary reward for his crime. I et re be 8 HOME AND HOME’ FOLKS A journey to the Hot Springs of Arkansas in 1835, when this John Parker was there, must have been a very serious undertaking even for a man in good health. Dr. Bryan W. Whitfield of Demopolis, Alabama, whom I met some years ago, told me that he went from Chapel Hill to Demopolis some years before the Confederate War. It was before the day of railroads in the South, or at least when they were only beginning. It was in December, and he paid fifty dollars for a ticket on the old stage lines from Chapel Hill to Mont- gomery. He said the roads were so bad and the red-clay mud so deep that he walked the greater part of the way; and much of the way not only walked but had to carry a fence- rail on his shoulder, to prize the stage out of the mud when it stuck fast. But even then, traveling in one’s own conveyance through a familiar region had its pleasures. The taverns were poor, wretchedly uncomfortable for the most part; but no one was expected to stop at a tavern if he had friends or acquaint- ances on the road. The expenses of living were small, servants were numerous, and good company was appreciated and wel- comed. Even in towns which had good taverns, a man was not suffered by his friends to go to a place of public en- tertainment, if they knew of his coming. And in projecting a journey it was often possible to let your friends know beforehand of your coming, that they might enjoy the an- ticipation of your visit. Professor Roulhac Hamilton, of the University of North Carolina, has in his possession a letter written from Raleigh by his great-grandfather, Chief Justice Ruffin, to Mrs. Ruffin at their home at “Hawfields,” — Alamance County. The Judge writes to inform his wife that his friend Mr. would be passing the following HOSPITALITY ON THE ROAD 9 re ee NO ae week, and had promised to stop with them for a few days. Mrs. Ruffin is therefore requested to instruct the overseer to butcher a beef and a mutton, that they may be prepared for the expected guest. Judge Ruffin was famed for his hospitality and his fine table, and made a boast that nothine came upon his table which was not produced on his eldntes tion, except sugar, tea, coffee, spices, and other things which cannot be raised in this country. That hospitable home was one often visited by my ma- ternal grandparents. Two of their daughters, Kate and Mary, had married in Lexington two brothers, John and Frank Hargrave. Every summer, therefore, while these daughters resided in Lexington, my grandparents liked to make them a visit. From Tarborough it was a journey of some one hundred and sixty or seventy miles. They would leave Tarborough Monday morning, my grandmother with the younger children and a maid in the old-fashioned, high- Swung carriage, with the long-tailed black horses, Black Hawk and Jim Crow, driven by “Uncle” Isaac in the “boot”: my grandfather driving himself in his gig, with a boy on his saddle horse, that he might rest himself by riding on horse- back when wearied of the gig. The first night they might stop at Nashville; the second day would bring them to Raleigh, to spend the night with my grandmother’s uncle, Mr. Sher- wood Haywood, or one of his brothers. A good long drive the third day would take them to “Hawfields.” My Aunt Bella, then a young girl, used to say that she could never forget how, after a tedious, hot, summer afternoon, crawling up and down the long red-clay hills of Orange County, she would get out at “Hawfields” and go through the cool hall to the back porch, where, on a shelf in an angle of the walls, ee ov ia 10 HOME AND HOME FOLKS stood the bucket of water, with a big lump of ice floating in it !* Two days’ journey from “Hawfields” would bring them very comfortably to Lexington by Friday evening, though sometimes the journey was not completed before Saturday noon. Such was the way of traveling eighty-five years ago. My father used to say that during the first half of the nineteenth century it was a depressing experience to travel from the western part of North Carolina to the east, on any of the principal highways. In the course of one day the traveler going east would meet thirty, fifty, perhaps a hundred families, with their Negroes and household possess- ions, removing to Tennessee, Alabama, or more distant States. As New England and the Middle States during that period sent thousands of their people to settle in the west- ern and northwestern States and Territories, so Virginia and the Carolinas were depleted to fill up the new lands in the South and Southwest. This movement had long been going on as to Tennessee, which until 1790 had been part of North Carolina, and in which North Carolinians owned a great deal of land received by them as grants for military service in the Revolution. But now Alabama, Mississippi, and also Texas drew multitudes by the lure of their fertile and abun- dant farming lands. It almost seemed that this State would be depopulated. Major Alexander H. Galloway of Reidsville, told me that “Ice was a rare, almost unknown, luxury in the lower counties of North Carolina in those days. The winters were seldom cold enough to produce ice of sufficient thickness for keeping well; so that to build an ice-house, with so little prospect of filling it, seemed a useless expense. Few persons, therefore, made any attempt to put up ice. There was no rapid transporta- tion by which ice could be brought from a distance; and so, for the most part, it was as rare as the “snow of Lebanon in the time of harvest.” “MOREHEAD’S PRIVILEGE” ll Governor Morehead’s father acquired large landed property in Rockingham County by supplying wagons to such emi- grants. Large numbers of small farmers would sell their lands, pack their household goods in wagons, and with their livestock, and their few N. egroes, if they owned any, take the Toad for the new settlements. Mr. Morehead was a wheelwright and made wagons and other vehicles. A man would bargain for a wagon, and in Payment would convey his small farm to Mr. Morehead, re- ceiving the balance of the price of the land jn money. Mrs. Morehead expostulated with him for acquiring so much land, more than he could use himself or profitably dispose of, and would ask what he wanted with it. His reply was that he “wanted the privilege.” Major Galloway said there was a considerable amount of land in Rockingham County known as “Morehead’s Privilege.” Major Galloway told me this story of an old Rockingham worthy. He was an excellent man, able, upright, high- minded, respected and liked by all. Indeed he was some- thing of a preacher and sometimes conducted the Sunday devotions of the Country Church of which he was a member, whiskey and brandy was universal, and the best men were rather free in this respect. But his wife, a woman of strong mand and character, was very intolerant toward this easy- going habit of the time; and when her husband had “had a little too much,” he knew that it was not safe to approach her, So he would go to the door of her room, and throw his hat in. If she kicked the hat out, he would go away until the next day, and then return, and try again. And he Would not himself enter, until his hat had been allowed to remain. TARBOROUGH Ack was incorporated in 1760, and I believe that under the original act of incorporation it was made what was called a “Borough town,” and given the right to elect a member of the “House of Commons,” as the lower house of the General Assembly of the State was then called.1 But this privilege was never actually exercised. I believe there was some irregularity in the grant of such power. Most of its streets received ecclesiastical designations. The real name of Main Street is “St. George’s.” Then there were St. David’s, St. John’s, St. Patrick’s, St. James’s, and even *From the adoption of the Constitution of 1776 until the Constitution of 1868, passed by the Convention called under the Reconstruction Acts of Congress, the lower House of the General Assembly of the state of North Carolina was called “The House of Commons.” When I came to reside in Raleigh at the end of 1894, that name, “House of Commons,” remained over the entrance of the Chamber of the House of Representatives in the Capitol. I do not know that this name was so used in any other of the United States. . Every freeman, of proper age, could vote for a member of the House of Commons, under the Constitution of 1776; but a freehold of at least fifty acres was required as a qualification to vote for a member of the State Senate. And free Negroes voted on these terms as well as white men. The Amendments of 1835 deprived the Negroes of this privilege but the freehold qualification, as to the votes for the State Senators, was not re- moved until 1854. David Reid was elected Governor in 1850 on a platform of “Manhood Suffrage,” pledged to abolish this limitation. The Con-, stitution was then, in due course of time, amended, so that no additional qualification was required to vote for a State Senator. There had also been required a certain freehold qualification of those elected as Senators; that, too, was abolished. I have an impression that my uncle, Governor Clark, told me that de Tocqueville, author of that excellent work, Democracy in America, was struck with the incongruity of a freehold qualification for the suffrage in a democratic country; and that some one, to whom he had spoken of it, suggested it to Governor Reid as an issue in his campaign. TAR, TAW, TAU, OR TOR 13 ee OO LY Soe ee, a St. Joshua! Old Parson Moir, the rector of the Colonial Parish of St, Mary’s, was one of the original commissioners ; and I suppose he must have been responsible for these names. The town took its name, of course, from the river. There has been a good deal of discussion at times as to the name of the river, its proper spelling, and its original significance —whether it should be “Tar,” “Taw,” “Tau,” or “Tor,” after some forgotten Indian original. I first remember the name of the town as “Tawborough,” stamped on the backs of envelopes in cancelling the postage stamps—or at least I seem to myself to have a clear recollection of this among my early impressions. My uncle, Governor Henry T. Clark, used this spelling, and I used it myself for a good many years. It was thus given on some of the maps during that period. I have also seen it spelled “Tau.” Dr. Hawks sug- gested that perhaps it should be “Tor,” as the name “Torpeo” is given to a river apparently in this part of the State by some of the early explorers. It has been claimed that in many of the early deeds it is spelled “Taw.” I think, however, that this statement arose out of a mistake. In many old deeds in Edgecombe County the name of the river is written “Tarr,” the double r having considerable resemblance to w. I have never seen any old deeds which have the name in any other form than either “Tar” or “Tarr.” Those who contend for the Indian origin of the name say that the name signified “the River of Health.” It does seem to me that the name was very likely of Indian origin, and Dr. Hawks’s conjecture as to Torpeo’s having been its early form is not at all improbable. At the same time, it also seems to me that the popular meaning of the word Tar is that which made the name stick! SET EDGECOMBE COUNTY | prema aie County is said to have been named after an English nobleman, Lord Mont Edgecombe. I do not re- member ever to have heard anything else about him.) It was created by an act of the General Assembly passed soon after the beginning of the administration of Governor Gabriel Johnston, the first royal governor, and was very large, Halifax, Wilson, Nash, Franklin, Warren, and Gran- ville having all been embraced in it. It constituted at first a single parish, Edgecombe Parish. Afterwards it was divided, and the southern half was made St. Mary’s Parish. When, about 1756, Halifax County was erected, it was the north- ern portion which was set off for the new county, so that Edgecombe Parish became Halifax County, and Edgecombe County was St. Mary’s Parish. When Judge Howard went to Chapel Hill to study Law about 1850, Governor Swain, the President of the University, said to him, “Well, Sir, you are from a county where it takes two men to make a speech.” He explained this by saying that many years before, in preparing for a celebration of Wash- ington’s birthday, the committee of arrangements appointed Henry I. Toole and James W. Clark to make an oration on the occasion. Henry I. Toole was my grandmother’s only brother, and James W. Clark had married her sister Arabella. They were rather brilliant young men. The former was one of the earliest students at the University of North Carolina ;? There is a character mentioned in Walpole’s Letters, of this name, but of too late a day to have been the person after whom the North Carolina county was named in 1741. It was probably named after the locality, Mount Edgecombe, in Cornwall. ? At that time he bore the name Lawrence Toole, and it is so given in the records of the University. “TWO MEN TO MAKE ONE SPEECH” 15 ONE SER ECH Aa ano the latter was a graduate of Princeton, and later the repre- sentative of the district in Congress, and subsequently first assistant to the Secretary of the Navy (Governor John Branch), in Jackson’s first administration. I could never find that there was any tyvadition in the community of the “two men to make one speech.” I asked my Aunt Bella Parker, who was a great repository of. family lore, about it, but she had never heard of it; nor did I ever come upon any trace of the story, except as told by Judge Howard upon the authority of Governor Swain. It was in 1871, when I was studying Law in Judge Howard’s office, that he told me about it. In March, 1925, at the home of John L. Bridgers in Tarborough, his wife, a daughter of Governor Clark, and granddaughter of James W. Clark, said to me: “Cousin Jo, I have found among my father’s papers an oration de- livered by my grandfather, February 22, 1800, the first birthday of Washington after his death in December, 1799.” “Get it out,” I said, “and let me see it. Perhaps it is the oration he and uncle Henry Toole were appointed to make.” She produced the brown MS., with its faded ink and worn paper; and I read with much surprise and interest its open- ing words: “Fellow Citizens: “Being nominated in conjunction with Mr. Toole by the Com- mittee of Arrangements to prepare an Oration commemorative of the event which has this day called us together, we accepted the appointment, and on myself has the honor of delivering the Oration by lot devolved.” This is a remarkable illustration of the extent and ac- curacy of Governor Swain’s knowledge of North Carolina men and matters. There have been three men named Henry Irwin Toole in he ol cea So ~— ays 16 EDGECOMBE COUNTY Edgecombe, rather notable men in their day. Only the first of them originally bore the name. The first Henry I. Toole named his only son Lawrence, after his own father. After his death his widow changed the son’s name to that of his father, and this second Henry I. Toole was one of the most prominent men of the county until his early death, represent- ing the county first in the House of Commons and then in the Senate for a number of years. He had several sons, who died in early infancy. Some one suggested that if he should name the next son Methuselah, he would live. So the next son, the last, was named Methuse- lah; and he lived to be an able and prominent man, though never a successful one. When he went, off to boarding school he gave his name as Henry Irwin Toole, and from that time he went by that name. He was an ardent politician, an extreme Democrat, and a Secessionist at the time when the admission of California stirred up such violent con- troversy. He was long remembered in Edgecombe as a very able public speaker. He was very deaf and used a large ear- trumpet. About 1850, in the preliminary flurry of secession sentiment above referred to, he edited in Wilmington a weekly newspaper, the Aurora, in the promulgation of his political opinions. It was very extreme in its sectionalism and violent in tone, but was conducted with a good deal of ability, and with an ardor of enthusiasm which attracted at- tention and enlisted in its support many of the younger men of the Cape Fear section. He soon had quite a following, and seemed to promise to become a force to be reckoned with in the politics of the State. His influence and reputation culminated and ended in a convention, called by him to meet in Wilmington to formulate a platform embodying the most HENRY IRWIN TOOLE 17 extreme views of the Southern secession element, and calling “pon the North Carolina Democratic party to follow its lead. Quite 9 number of ardent young men of the lower Cape Fear Section therefore met in Wilmington, prepared to fol- low the lead of this able but rash editor of the Aurora. Be- fore the actual assembling of the convention, however, some Of the older and wiser heads of Wilmington got hold of the Most influential of these delegates and succeeded in convincing them that Mr. Toole was a rash and injudicious leader, and that to commit themselves to such a platform as he yas Prepared to impose upon the convention, would be to commit Political suicide and ruin their political prospects for years to come. The trouble with them, however, was that they were all so thoroughly committed to Mr. Toole that they felt themselves unable to make any effectual opposition to any- thing which he might present to the convention. After much discussion, it was finally concluded that the only way of “Scape was to exclude him from the convention. To this end t was agreed that, upon the assembling of the convention, a Tesolution should be adopted limiting membership to those who should present written testimonials of their appointment to represent some county or town, or a written proxy from Some member who was thus accredited. Mr. Toole had issued the call for the convention, and it was known that he had Rot sought to be appointed a delegate, since he considered the Convention in a manner his own creation and peculiar Possession. The convention met and was called to order, and the usual preliminary steps were taken, Mr. Toole being Present. The arranged program was carried out, and the “ommittee on credentials reported a list of delegates who ad presented proper testimonials. Thereupon the ruling 2 IN i | a it ae bel | | li iy 19 he 18 EDGECOMBE COUNTY a THE EDGECOMBE PLANTER ly PPS ae eS RL sf | 2 spirit and presiding genius, as he supposed himself to be, This story was related to me many years ago, by Governor i rose to address the convention. The newly elected chairman Henry T. Clark. : A ents iy informed him that, not being a member of the convention, c Edgecombe County for tees - Hea leading if he could not be recognized as entitled to the floor. With some eS i had ee ae i Slee a oe ee ly i i i i cultural county in the . ‘ difficulty they ee aes ieee balsas at Serer echiundred ant ioheelle GEA | ruling of the chair. His deafness made it exceedingly har eae file GE Gisece. 9 coulbuo nae ea hy is i i i Top o ie Unite B ’ ih to convey this information. thes aoe ee net ok = = light a Lape ‘ Sle ae ad Gene | extraordinary situation, he manifested muc indignation bu dotnet ‘y perce a Fey Se te/eilsecet Guana? t \ i i i i aturally more fertile WW i yielded and withdrew. The proceedings a the convention The oe he ee oe eae i then made but slow Progress, as no one knew exactly what cig Ay ee ee ee ii} to do. But presently there was a revival of interest, when ieee ee ae ee light Bi wapetasete iy ; : ; an i iy Mr. Toole was seen returning, with an air of purposeful hae - oe gn thee Gane OF he Gountrge eed i | * _. determination which promised to enliven the meeting. He bees earlier 4G S, ae Be haw te wptave teal i ascended the platform, or stage, and presenting a proxy, Be ae ce ae ee pliee aaa anaes i 3 . e 1 a } duly written out and signed by one of the accredited dele avenge anindcd Hi inteligerte: an heicdltivatinesoe tne bi i gates, who had not been able to refuse it when demanded, he on re ee Industry an ie ae Der sinie Dera Vee iy | claimed to be recognized as a member of the convention, a he a HINY uncle, Bs es as i Fishing Crock aa it and so entitled to address the meeting. The chairman, how- vs & see in Hali ire i On Re Conky and wens i ever, rose to the crisis. He declared that the Chair refused ae ee & sridge on the bor ee epee es had eae 1 | to recognize the proxy or to allow the gentlemen to speak. Ea ae = ao ae Bt 2 ee Saei te pies i Confident in his rights, as now a member of the convention & = ee 1s ae oe bi ‘Ys i Hi} : oe 5 S elg ays In the week. : af | by its own rules, and indignant ab the attempt which 4 But hee ee dl oefering the soll waste ioy aelccd I Hk been made to exclude him, he persisted for some time an thee tithe Bagéoombe planter (The antuwal ad: could not be made to understand the chairman’s extra- vend ee ae y es Ga Pee ce Wien Cee a ced apa : | ordinary ruling. Much shouting into his ear-trumpet and all eee ; eae! es ashe iat eaves aca hee) ik reiteration of the refusal to allow him to speak, finally re- ee : e see y ee eee hee vealed to him the true situation. Glaring around at his em- havin: ey Ne is ics dit this bog-mud was cor- iit barrassed and conscience-stricken followers, who had so sud- cup ieee foe Ze ‘ithe einetane anmidauee i denly deceived and betrayed him, he roared out his rage and of ee 4 - ae ies B45 Fee d 4 gradual improvement ii contempt: “By Heavens! I disown you! I despise you! I in thej : Th ] found in the coutity is i i am like Acteon! I am devoured by my own dogs !”” “xr productiveness. es t Hy | } | ag . eel hf 20 EDGECOMBE COUNTY not sufficiently rich in elements of plant food to make it marketable. But with slave labor it cost practically nothing. The farm hands were employed in digging the marl when there was no other work to be done. Then, early in the year it was hauled into the fields and composted in large piles, with cottonseed, mud from the swamps, the scrapings of the fence corners, the bodies of any domestic animals that had died on the farm, and whatever else came to hand. Commercial fertilizers were but little known when this im- provement began. After their introduction they were often used in the compost heaps. Such was the enthusiasm for compost, that sometimes an old and useless animal was killed for the purpose of making compost; and no horse, ox, hog, or other animal that died, was left for the turkey buzzards on a well regulated plantation. Old Dr. James J. Philips once inquired of his Negro foreman, “Luke, what has become of my old jinny [local name for a female donkey]? I have not seen her for some time.” “Lord, master,” replied Luke, “she wa’n’t no ’count. She done been wore out long ago. I knocked her in the head and put her in a compost pile.” Mr. Edmund Ruffin, of Petersburg, who for many years published an agricultural journal in that city, came down to Edgecombe’ about 1858 or 1859 to see for himself what was the method of farming in the county. As a small boy of nine or ten years of age, I remember seeing Mr. John S. Dancy of Tarborough, and a venerable, white-bearded old man talking to my father, as I was with him in the “Old Church” yard, where he was working at some improvements. My father has since told me that the old gentleman was Mr. Edmund Ruffin. It was in the spring of the year, and EDGECOMBE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY 21 Mr. Ruffin went about the county and saw the methods in use of making and applying compost. He was not very favor- ably impressed, as the compost did not seem to him very Tich in plant food. But the next fall he came and saw the mature crops. He found that the yield far exceeded his anticipation. He said there was more in Edgecombe methods than he had thought there was in the spring. The truth is that the best planters applied from one hundred to two hundred cartloads of compost per acre; and, even assuming the addition in one year not to have very great value as Plant food, yet such a course, continued from year to year, had a cumulative effect and tended to the constant building Up and improvement of the soil. _ One of the earliest agricultural societies in the state was zp Edgecombe. In an article about this county, written in io by Dr. Jeremiah Battle and published in the University ae azine, April, 1861, is some account of this society as it oe - in 1811, the time when the article was written. I once we e MS journal of this society, a considerable volume, Ae be the papers of Governor Clark. It was after his death, As Re son, Haywood Clark, had given me permission to ae or myself any books or papers I cared to have. I have "Ys regretted that I did not take that journal of the old gueeeees Agricultural Society, as rats afterward got eae the papers and destroyed it, with many other in- ee documents. My uncle had also two silver medals sacs Seem to have been the badges of membership in the ee ye After his death his widow, my aunt, gave me one of tes It is a flat, oblong disk, not properly a medal, about Ale Mches across its greater dimension and an inch and a Across the lesser, with a silver loop attached so that it 92 EDGECOMBE COUNTY might be worn on a ribbon. On the obverse is engraved a sheaf of wheat, with a sickle hooked through the band of the sheaf, and the words, “Edgecombe Agricultural Society, 1811,” engraved around the border.’ In Dr. Jeremiah Battle’s article he enumerates the varieties of grass found in the county. Among these he mentions “crop grass,” so called because it grows most luxuriantly in the cultivated fields, especially in the cornfields, after the crop has been “laid by”; that is, has had its last work- ing. I had never before known the derivation of the name “crab grass.” On reading Dr. Battle’s article, in which it is called “crop grass,” I saw at once that “crop grass,” in the mouth of the uneducated countryman, would be “crap grass”; and then, by the natural operation of the laws of speech, “crap grass” becomes “crab grass”; the smooth mute p is changed to its corresponding middle mute b, before the following word beginning with the middle mute g, in exact accordance with the Greek rules of euphony, laid down in the grammars. This seems to me a beautiful illustra- tion of the fact that the Greek rules of euphony are simply the laws of natural human speech. The uneducated country- man made this change, without the help of a schoolmaster or a grammar. ‘The reverse of this medal, or disk, has only a border of olive leaves. 7” ; CONETOE SWAMP* dhe Swamp originally extended across the lower border of the County, and by a sluggish stream emptied its super- fluous waters into Tar River from the left bank, some distance below the town of Tarborough, near the line between Pitt and Edgecombe counties. There was but a slight “fall” from its most distant point to the river, and the adjacent lands on both sides, being of the same general level, partook of its Swampy nature and were too wet for profitable Cultivation. “Conetoe Swamp” on the lower side of the County, and the “Fells of Tar River,” twenty-five miles away, on the “PPer side, were the most notable geographical features of Edgecombe; and they figure largely in the traditions of the People, My mother told me that in her childhood the story Went, that the Edgecombe militia, who ran away from the Battle of Guilford Court House, “did not stop until they Set to Conetoe Swamp.” I told this to Colonel William L. Sa unders, who seemed much amused; and said it reminded him that his mother had told him that, down in Halifax County » the people said that Major Whitmel Hill, after the Same battle, did not “draw rein” until he got to his big gate at Palmyra. Thus do we respect our elders and betters! or many years past, this Conetoe Swamp section, still wn as Conetoe, and giving its name to a prosperous and Progressive town in its centre, has been the most fertile and = Port sen old Map of North Carolina by “Captain John Collet, Governor of No. 25 piss published by Act of Parliament May 1st, 1770, by S. Hooper, Swamp as ‘ate Hill, London,” this swamp is put down as “Great Coneghta cree ther local Edgecombe names on this map are: “Tosenot Oreek, ook, Creek,” and “Contecktney Creek.” kno ee a 24 : CONETOE SWAMP productive part of the County. Drained by a large central canal and numerous lateral smaller dykes and ditches, its deep and rich soil, under the diligent cultivation of its in- dustrious and enterprising occupants and owners, presents on every side level and luxuriant fields of cotton, corn, pea- nuts, and other profitable crops. The story of its reclama- tion and development is one of the most creditable pages in the agricultural history of the County. For many years Edgecombe had the reputation of bemg a community in which it was very hard to carry on any codperative enter- prise. The independent and self-reliant character of its people, their feeling that “every tub should stand on its own bottom,” made them slow to enter into combinations, in which the many must submit each his own interest and judgment to a common purpose and to one central guidance and authority. Individualism was their strong and prevail- ing characteristic. But by the second quarter of the nine- teenth century they had begun to be intelligent and enter- prising farmers, and the owners of the swampy lands of Conetoe soon realized the folly of allowing its broad acres of deep rich soil to lie idle and valueless, when they might be brought, under proper treatment and cultivation, to yield abundant and profitable crops. A scheme of codperation was therefore proposed, whereby labor and money should be con- tributed by the proprietors of these lands for the purpose of cutting a large central canal from the head of the Swamp throughout its whole extent to its entrance into Tar River. Each landowner, whose land would drain into this central canal, was to subscribe so much money, and so many days’ labor of his slaves, as should be considered equivalent to the benefits coming to him; and then each should cut such ‘a MRS. GREGORY AND HER MILL 25 lateral smaller canals and ditches emptying into the great canal, as might be needed for the proper draining of his Own fields. Suitable persons were appointed among those Most interested, who should secure from individual owners the required contributions in money and in labor, and who Should see to the carrying out of this great and profitable Scheme. Elder John Daniel, a prominent Baptist preacher, a Member of the Kehukee Association, the father of my old friendand schoolmate, Tom Daniel, was a leader in this enter- Prise, and chiefly active in securing the codperation of the landowners, and their written engagements for furnishing the labor and the money required. One of those whom he had to interest was the keeper of the old Tarborough Tavern, Mrs. Gregory, a picturesque character, prominent in the life of the community, a woman of strength and intelligence, among the best known and most forceful of the inhabitants of the town. She owned the land where Conetoe Swamp €mptied into Tar River; and across the mouth of its sluggish Stream she had erected a dam, and had thus created a small Water-power, and had a grist mill to grind the corn of the Neighborhood. Receiving its supply of water from so exten- Sive an area, this stream usually supplied a good head of Water for the limited operations of the country mill. In very extended summer droughts, however, the great swamp took Up so much water in its spongy depths, that the stream Would sometimes fall so low that the mill would be idle for days, and perhaps for weeks.. Th representing the great benefits to be derived from the Proposed canal, Elder Daniel impressed upon Mrs. Gregory the special advantage of having always an abundant supply ~~ ee ee 26 CONETOE SWAMP of water in her mill-pond. In the most prolonged drought, when the mill-pond would be for weeks at its lowest point, there was abundance of water held up in the swamp. The lack of water in the mill-pond was caused by the fact that all this water had no free and proper outlet. An adequate canal being provided, there would be an abundance of water flowing out, filling the mill-pond and keeping the mill run- ning during the most prolonged summer heats. Mrs. Gregory was so much impressed by this presentation of the case that she put down a money contribution of one hundred dollars, the largest cash subscription received by Elder Daniel. A dry spell in mid-summer was fixed on for beginning the work. The gangs of Negro laborers from all the farms assembled promptly along the whole course of the central canal. Other laborers were engaged on all the farms in cutting side ditches. The plans had been well matured, the opera- tions well organized; the Edgecombe farmer and planter, when in earnest, knows how to work and to make others work. In a few weeks the central canal had been finished and a multitude of smaller subsidiary drains leading into it; and the happy owners saw already in their mind’s eye the waving corn and the snowy cotton, taking the place of the cypress and reeds, the vines and the thorns, which for ages had covered these lands. And into Mrs. Gregory’s mill-pond poured the abundant waters released from the spongy soil of the wide swamp. The great over-shot wheel of the mill turned steadily; the mill-stones hummed a low monotonous song; over the dam the superfluous water poured into the river. All that good brother Daniel had promised had been performed. At the end of one of the longest of summer droughts there was sia “AND THE WATERS PREVAILED” 27 abundant water to keep the mill steadily at work. The drought continued for some while after the com- Pletion of the main work on the Canal. There was some Subsidence of the water in the mill-pond, but the night’s intermission in the grinding allowed full time to repair the day’s waste. It was now getting to be late in September. There were signs of rain. It began gently in the forenoon, hardly more than a light drizzle. In the afternoon it in- creased; soon after nightfall it was raining heavily. The miller looked out. The dam was pouring an increasing stream into the river. But he felt no anxiety. Never within memory had the dam failed to hold against all the water coming out of Conetoe Swamp. He went to bed in his house on the rising round back of the mill; and he fell asleep hearing the in- ‘reasing rain pounding on his roof. But in the morning the miller looked out upon a changed Scene. Dam, mill, and all connected with them, had disap- Peared. The rain had ceased before daylight, and a full and Tapid stream of dark water poured through the remains of the broken dam into the swollen river. It is said that for many years after this, Elder John Daniel did not venture up the Main Street of Tarborough —which has for its real name on the old maps of the town, St. George’s Street,—as far as Mrs. Gregory’s Hever When business made it imperative that he should visit the Parts beyond, he prudently made a detour, and by a back Street reached his destination. Few cared to face Mrs. Gregory when she thought she had a grievance. TARBOROUGH’S ONE NEWSPAPER 4 ties has been practically but one newspaper in Tar- borough. I seem to remember, when I was a boy, a paper called the Mercury, but it continued only a few years, and T have but a faint recollection of it. The one paper was known first as the Free Press. It was begun in Halifax about 1824 by George Howard, Editor, Proprietor, and Publisher, also Printer. He came, I believe, from Baltimore, and was a printer by trade. He was a man of intelligence, industry, and high character, and commanded general confidence and respect. About the middle of the year 1826 Mr. Howard removed to Tarborough and issued the first number of the Tarborough Free Press, August 22, 1826. Mr. Howard’s paper was a strong supporter of Andrew Jackson and his policies; and, as political parties developed during succeeding years, it became a strong Democratic journal. The latter part of 1834, Mr. Bartholomew F. Moore, an eminent lawyer and a vigorous Whig, came into Mr. Howard’s office with a political article or contribution which he wished to have published. Mr. Howard looked it over, and not liking its political quality, declined to receive it. Irritated by his refusal, Mr. Moore demanded to know why he called his paper, the Free Press, if he refused to give any hearing to those who differed with him. “J will not call it the Free Press,” replied Mr. Howard; and in January 1835, the paper became the T'arboro’ Press. About the year 1850 Mr. Howard’s son, George Howard, Jr., afterwards an eminent lawyer and judge, became editor, and the name of the paper seems to have gotten back to its old form—the Tarboro’ Free Press. But the youthful editor THE TARBORO’ SOUTHERNER 29 Very soon changed its name to the Tarboro’ Southerner, and the Tarboro’? Southerner it remains to this current year, 1925—the oldest paper, by continuous uninterrupted issue, in the State, so far as I know, being at this date one hundred and one years old, counting from its beginning in Halifax. —— I have been told that I am mistaken in this, Paper or papers in the state are older. but I do not know what JUDGE GEORGE HOWARD i acquainted with Judge Howard from my child- hood, and after I grew up I studied law in his office for some months. He declined to receive any compensation or to assume any responsibility as my instructor, but said I was welcome to use his office and his books. I think he never once asked me any question, gave me any directions as to my reading, or any instruction of a formal character. But I learned a great deal from him; and he has always seemed to me to have been one of the wisest and most sagacious men I have ever known. He was most interesting in conversation, and he loved to talk in intelligent and congenial company. In politics he was a strong Democrat, but party feeling never blinded his eyes to personal merit in his opponents or to the faults in his own party. As a boy of ten years, and quite ignorant of the political situation, I remember distinctly hearing him discuss with Mr. Robert R. Bridgers the action of the Charleston Democratic Convention of 1860, from which Mr. Bridgers had just returned. He spoke very strongly in condemnation of the attitude of the Southern members of that Convention in refusing to unite on a candi- date acceptable to the Northern delegates, and stated that he could not help feeling that it had been their intention not to agree, but to force the issue of secession upon the country. Mr. Bridgers seemed to defend the position of the Southern delegates, so far as I understood him; but, without at all understanding the matter, I was impressed by Judge How- ard’s strong condemnation of the course of the Southern Democrats in that Convention. He was ready and willing to STAUNCH AND IMMOVABLE 31 Tecognize a good motive, even when men might totally vary from what he himself felt to be the right course of action. Though, as appears by the foregoing incident, he had not Sympathized with those who desired to bring on secession and the resulting conflict, he was staunch and immovable mm his loyalty to the State and to the position it had taken in that conflict. When, in the Convention of the State after the close of the War, it was proposed to declare that the Ordinance of Secession had been null and void, he opposed Such action, taking the ground that the Ordinance had been More potent and effective than any other measure ever en- acted by the State. He was willing to vote to repeal the Ordinance of Secession but said he had signed that Ordinance, and would not stultify himself and reflect upon the Many great men with whom he had acted in 1861, by Voting that the Ordinance was null and void. The few who Stood with him were told that they dared not vote against the resolution, and were threatened with political (and per- haps Personal) destruction if they should persist. But he, With five or six other brave and honest men, voted as they had Spoken, against the resolution that the Ordinance of Secession had been null and void.' And in all the Reconstruc- tion period he was fixed and immovable against the uncon- Stitutional methods of the Republican party in its dealing with the Southern States, and against the representatives * Governor William W. Holden, the intolerant leader of the Union men ; 2 the latter part of the Confederate War and of the Republican party in A orth Carolina after the War, who in this Convention denounced and pirestened these brave and honest men who refused to stultify themselves, tt q himself signed the Ordinance of Secession in the Convention of a is said that after writing his name in signing the Ordinance, he hele he pen he had used above his head and declared his intention to hand it Wn as an heirloom to his children! 82 JUDGE GEORGE HOWARD and agents of that party in the South and in his own State. Yet he could do justice to the motives of those who, in some cases, pursued the other course. The late Judge William B. Rodman had been a Democrat and a Secessionist in the days before the Confederate War. I do not know what his particular position was in all aspects of the politics of those days; but he was a Southern Democrat of the same type, generally speaking, as Judge Howard himself. After the close of the War he became a Republican; he sat as ‘a Republican in the Reconstruction Convention of 1868; he was high in the counsels of the party; and he was finally put upon the Supreme Court Bench by the Republicans. In those fierce days he received but scanty consideration at the hands of the opposite party and especially of his old political assocates. I was therefore much interested in what Judge Howard said to me in regard to Judge Rodman’s becoming a Republi- can, and the more so because Judge Rodman was a distant kinsman of my own, though I had never more than the slightest opportunity of personal acquaintance with him. Some time after the close of the Confederate War, while the Southern States were reorganizing their State govern- ments and endeavoring to readjust themselves under the scheme of reunion favored by President Andrew Johnson, and before the passage of the Reconstruction Acts of Con- gress, Mr. Rodman had spent some time in New York and perhaps also in Washington City. Returning to his home in Washington, N. C., he stopped in Tarborough to see Judge Howard. They had been of the same political views and upon terms of personal friendship. He told Judge —__JUDGE WILLIAM B. RODMAN __38 Howard, as I remember Judge Howard’s account of the con- Yersation, that he had been endeavoring, while in the North, to ascertain the plans and purposes of the leaders of the dominant party, with respect to the Southern States. He Said he found their purpose and plans settled and determined °n one point, namely, that the Republican party should re- Main in power, and that the Southern States should not Be allowed to return to the exercise of their function as States oe the Union, except on such terms as would secure the con- tinued predominance of the Republican party in the country ay large and in the Southern States. That there was no Possibility of any alliance between the Southern Democrats and the Northern Democrats, by which the Democrats might have a chance of electing the next president or keeping con- Fel of affairs in the South, he had become thoroughly con- Yinced. The control of the Southern States, he felt sure, Would pass into the hands of the Negroes and of irresponsible White men, if the natural leaders of the Southern people, the old Tuling class, should persist in holding aloof from the Republicans, and should adhere to their old alliance with the orthern Democrats. Under these circumstances Mr. Rod- man said he thought it would be the part of wisdom and of Patriotism for men in the South like himself and Judge _ ward and all who were really concerned for the preserva- tion of what was left of our state institutions and traditions, xe acquiesce in the Republican control of national affairs; to come into the Republican party on questions of general Policy; and thus to maintain their hold upon the affairs of their own State. He felt sure that they could control State “sislation by this course and preserve it from disaster. He ad therefore made up his mind to become a Republican, 3 34 JUDGE GEORGE HOWARD and he urged upon Judge Howard the wisdom of taking the same course. This is what I remember as Judge Howard’s account of how William B. Rodman became a Republican. Judge How- ard said he had not agreed with this reasoning, and did not believe that the South could thus avoid the logical results of the measures which it was plain the Republicans con- templated—the universal enfranchisement of the Negroes, and the disfranchisement of the best elements in the white population. But he said he believed that Mr. Rodman was persuaded at the time that he was doing what was the wise and patriotic thing to do. I have spoken of Judge Howard’s sagacity. This was manifest in small things as well as great. He said to me once: “A debt against a woman is much more apt to be paid than the debt of a man. A woman knows nothing to do with a debt but to pay it; and she is unhappy until it is paid. A man knows a hundred things to do about a debt; and the last thing he wants to do is to pay it.” He spoke of the legislation then recently enacted for securing to married women their own property, allowing them greater freedom in contracting debts, entering into contracts, and the like. All this, he said, was right and proper, in a way. The old ‘Common Law sometimes bore very hard on married women in the matter of their property. But, after all, the Common Law went on the theory that *I am told by some persons that, under the operation of recent legislation putting women in much the same position as men in regard lo all business relations, women are losing this characteristic, as well as some other of their old qualities, and that they are in many cases, quite as ready to evade their pecuniary engagements as the men are. I hope, however that this is not true. A MAN OF WISDOM AND SAGACITY 35 man and wife were one, and one for life in an inseparable union. This new legislation goes upon the theory that man and wife are not one, but that they continue to be two Persons, with separate and possibly conflicting interests. These changes, putting women into a different relation in all the important material aspects of their domestic life, were bound in the long run, he thought, to have results in chang- ing their domestic and social character. “If you live to be an old man,” he said to me, “you will see divorce as common n North Carolina as it is now in Indiana.” I have lived to see his Words come true. He told me that an Ordinance was passed by the Secession Convention, of which he was a member, allowing guardians and other Trustees to change their trust funds, invested in old North Carolina six per cent bonds, for new eight per Cent bonds, issued by the State for war purposes. The old bonds commanded a higher price in the foreign market. The State was therefore desirous of obtaining possession of the old bonds that they might sell them abroad, and use the Proceeds in purchasing war material and supplies. Hence the Ordinance was passed releasing Trustees from liability for losses incurred by making such a change in the investment of their trust funds. He said that he very strongly objected to allowing trust funds to be subjected to such risks, and that he expressed his objection on the floor of the Convention. He did not, how- ‘ver, persist in any strenuous opposition because he saw that ©maj ority strongly favored the Ordinance, and his opposi- ©n would be futile. A few days after the Ordinance had gone into effect, he Was walking to the Capitol in company with Chief-Justice ti en 36 JUDGE GEORGE HOWARD Ruffin, also a member of the Convention. He spoke of his opposition to the action of the Convention, but added that he supposed it was not a matter of practical importance, since no prudent man would be disposed to make the pro- posed exchange. “You are mistaken, Sir,” replied Judge Ruffin. “I have just exchanged one hundred thousand dollars in the old bonds, which I held for my wards, for the new bonds at eight per cent.” In reply to Judge Howard’s expression of astonishment, he said: “Why, Sir, I look at it this way. If we succeed in this war, all the bonds will be good. If we fail, none of them will be good. In the meantime I get two per cent additional income for my wards.” Judge Ruffin was thought to be one of the wisest men in the State, and one of the soundest financiers. But practical af- fairs cannot be reduced to a syllogism. A wise man once answered what in my youthful ardor I thought to be a con- clusive argument in favor of the right of a State to secede, —and I still think that logically it was conclusive,—by say- ing to me: “Mr. Cheshire, as you grow older, you will find that practical questions cannot be settled by logic.” During the Confederate War a near kinsman of my father died and left him eight thousand dollars. The legacy was paid in eight one-thousand-dollar North Carolina bonds, two being of the new eight per cent war issue, and six being the old six per cent bonds. At the close of the war the two new bonds were worthless. My father sold the six old bonds for sixty- nine cents on the dollar, or something like that—I speak from memory. And the proceeds of those six old bonds en- abled him to educate his four children. Judge Howard was one of the few of the older lawyers of THE CODE OF CIVIL PROCEDURE 37 my acquaintance who admitted the great merits of the “New York Code of Civil Procedure,” as it was called, enacted by our Legislature of 1868, by which the Common Law system of pleadings and its distinction between Courts of Laws and Courts of Equity, had been abolished, and it had been pro- vided that all rights were to be ascertained in one action, under a simplified method of pleading. Most of the older members of the Bar deprecated this change, and preferred the old method, to which they had been accustomed, with its artificial and technical rules sanctioned by hundreds of years of tradition and precedent. Judge Howard felt that the old method had become too artificial and antiquated, and that the adoption of the Code of Civil Procedure was an effort to simplify legal proceedings and to get more directly at the Matters at issue between the parties. He did not fail, however, to realize that the old system had some great merits. He said that its technicalities were understood and had become familiar by long use, so that they often simplified and facilitated the conduct of a case and really lessened the expenses of litigation. This he illustrated by the method of collecting debts by actions brought in the old County Court, the “Court of Pleas and Quarter Ses- sions,” as it was called. According to his account, in the days before the Confederate War, the usual way of collecting Notes, even where no question was made as to the debt, or 8s to the ability or willingness of the maker to pay, was by an action in the County Court. The note was placed in the hands of a lawyer for collection—perhaps before it was due. The lawyer, at the maturity of the note, had a writ issued by the clerk of the County Court. He filed no plead- ings but simply entered a memorandum upon the court ke Le 38 JUDGE GEORGE HOWARD docket :—Debt. ass., cov., or any other form of action. If any contest was made, the defendant could require him to file his pleadings, and then he would file his declaration in an action for Debt, Assumpsit, Covenant—or whatever the facts of the case might require. But if no defense was in- tended, the counsel for the defendant, who had until the following term to file his plea, would then enter short upon the docket, Payment, Non Asst., Performance, or any and all defenses proper to the action entered by the plaintiff. At the beginning of the third term, if no defense was intended, the plaintiff would take his judgment for the amount of the note with interest, which would be paid by the defendant to the sheriff, with the plaintiff’s costs. The costs taxed were an appearance fee of four dollars for the plaintiff’s attorney, and the clerk’s fee and the sheriff’s for issuing and serving the writ, only a dollar or two. The plaintifi’s attorney was usually satisfied with his four dollars taxed fee, as he had filed no pleadings, and the defendant’s attorney usually charged his client, whose business he regularly attended to, no fee for so trifling a service. The net result was that the creditor received his debt with interest, without any expense for the collection, and the defendant had secured an extension of six months—two terms—for sir per cent, interest, and a bonus of five or six dollars (the amount of the costs taxed against him); and both parties were content. This method of collecting ordinary notes had become so much the custom that in this non-commercial country it seemed generally satisfactory and caused no ill feeling between the parties nor any impairment of credit. The Code of Civil Procedure changed all this and greatly increased the expense of litigation in small cases, so that the secre “THE SECULAR AND THE SPIRITUAL” 39 People said: “Before the war, if you gave a lawyer any- thing when he collected a debt for you, he was grateful fo it. Now, if he gives you anything, you may he thankful. Judge Howard told me that one year, while he lived in Wilson, his “taxed fees” amounted to sixteen hundred dol- lars; which meant that he had recovered judgment in four hundred cases, most of which, he said, had been such cases as I have described. ; The punishment under our old law for perjury was cutting off the ears. Judge Howard was once holding court in Pitts- boro. A little Negro girl, not more than ten or twelve years of age, was tendered as a witness. It seemed doubltulryhether she sufficiently understood the nature of an oath. Gentle- men,” said the Judge to the counsel in the case, i: ae ex- amine the child myself.” Then he spoke to the sane Little girl, do you understand the obligation of an oath? “Oh yes, Sir,” she replied in a very bright and confident Manner. “What is it?” asked the Judge. , “Ears off, Sir, and no sheer [share] in the Kingdom. “Gentlemen,” said Judge Howard, “I think the witness has zh Big, qualified herself on both the secular and the spiritual sides. LAWYERS AND JUDGES The great respect in which our judges have been held, both by the profession and by the people generally, gives empha- sis to the occasional clashes, when lawyer or judge has felt it necessary to maintain his point against some aggression from the other side. Thus, when Mr. Mark Lanier of Oxford, an able but somewhat eccentric lawyer, had stated with minuteness and deliberation some very rudimentary principle of the Com- mon Law, in arguing a case before the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Pearson said to him, “Mr. Lanier, you may assume that the Court knows some law.” “Yes, your Honor,” replied Mr. Lanier, “I argued a case at the last term on that assumption, and I lost my case. I prefer to argue my case my own way.” Per contra a judge sometimes has to assert himself against a member of the Bar. Colonel George N. Folk, of Caldwell County, stood very high in reputation as an able, active, and learned lawyer and a very astute practitioner. He was urging a legal point, with great force and ingenuity, be- fore Judge Gilmer, a much younger man, who had a great respect for Colonel Folk’s ability and legal attainments. He interrupted the argument to ask with some expression of perplexity, “Colonel Folk, do you think the law is as you are stating it?” Colonel Folk paused for a moment and then replied, “Your Honor, I cannot say that I do think that is the law. But I did not know what view your Honor might take of it.” “Colonel Folk,” said the Judge, “I am not sure that that “EARLY TO RISE” 41 is not ‘Contempt of Court.’ I am not sure. But, Sir, you had it again.” negra and judges were more social and lived more together than members of the Bar do now. The country was more thinly settled; there were Bowes, people and fewer lawyers, less office business, and relatively more litigation and more of forensic controversy. Each lawyer, as a rule, at- tended all the courts in his district, or at least most of the terms of the Superior Court. And they usually, hefore the days of railroads, drove in company in their ees gigs or rode horseback from one county town oi anol er with much sociability and joviality as they went “jogging along,” or as they lodged together in the old taverns by the roadsi in the county towns. a of Judge Redaes that going from Raleigh to attend a court in Nash County he stopped for the night at Mrs. Vick’s modest country home, where travelers were en- tertained “for a consideration.” Before retiring for the night he asked his landlady the hour at which she served breakfast. “Well, Judge,” replied Mrs. Vick, “I am not one of them that wants to get up so early.” “You are quite right, my dear Madam. You are a very sensible woman,” remarked the Judge. “Yes,” said Mrs. Vick, “I don’t believe in breaking my neck to get such a soon start. Just so I get breakfast Bae and everything cleaned up and the day’s work started by sun-up, I think that is soon enough.” ds “Madam,” said the Judge, “I never eat breakfast. I wi take an early dinner with you.” Mr. John F. Poindexter of Stokes County, was for many Years the solicitor in his district, a man of quaint humor 43 42 LAWYERS AND JUDGES EPIGRAMS AND EPITAPHS _ and, like Falstaff, not only witty himself but the cause of wit in others. His kindly nature and lively manners, in inter- course with the younger members of the bar, encouraged their familiarity; and his imperturbable temper and ready resource in all emergencies tempted them to make him the object of good-humored practical jokes, in which they seldom succeeded in getting the better of him. He traveled in an old-fashioned gig, and, in a box im- mediately behind the seat, always carried a sheaf of oats or a bundle of fodder for the noontide bait of his horse, Upon one occasion in company of a number of his legal : brethren traveling in the same way from one county town to another, the road lay for half a mile or more through a flat and swampy woodland, where recent rains had left the Ost aleaawe hords for-sport, road a foot or more deep in water. As they splashed along i Jock, rich in wit and Latin too, through the rough and rutted road, crowded close together ) Cried, SR neaen tacornan and making but poor progress, one of the younger men, them that, after all, he had been mistaken, and that there was no powder in the box. ; The Romans had a rustic proverb: Fenwm habet in cornu, “He has hay upon his horn,” implying that the man was in a dangerous mood. The following epigram I found written on the flyleaf of an old copy of Horace which had been used by my father, when he was a schoolboy under the eminent scholar and teacher, Mr. Joseph G. Cogshall, in the old Episcopal Academy in Raleigh. George Hay and J ohn heer ham were eminent lawyers of Richmond, Virginia, in the firs Part of the nineteenth century. “Aw Evicram, By Wituiam Wirt When Wickham once tossed Hay in Court, who had taken his companions into his confidence and pre- One of the most familiar examples of ready wit is the well pared them to enjoy his joke, dropped a lighted match into known story of James Dodge, Clerk of the euprae oa the box behind Mr. Poindexter’s gig; and as the light con- at Morganton, when that Court sat periodically in t a tents blazed up he called: “Look out, Mr. Poindexter! There | town. Mr. Dodge was a nephew of Washington Irving, is fire in your feed box!” and the grandfather of Governor Robert Glenn. bs Looking behind him Mr. Poindexter began hastily to Governor Swain, Mr. Dewes, and a Mr. Hillman, sitting reach down and throw the burning fodder out into the road. near the clerk’s desk, put their heads together and wrote | “Look to yourselves, gentlemen,” he cried, “Look to your- the following humorous epitaph for their friend, James Nat | selves! There is ten pounds of powder in my feed box!” Dodge: In a moment their merriment was hushed. From buggy and “Here lies James Dodge, gig, and from the backs of riding horses, men sprang into Who dodged all good, the water. Splash, splash, splash, they landed in the road, But never dodged the evil; and each sought a safe refuge behind a friendly tree; while And, after dodging all he cold Mr. Poindexter threw out the burning fodder and informed He couldn’t dodge the Devil. | | = DO ies OANA SUNS Senetpoupranemninenrentinneneensiccocoeaeresonaeneee nen a ET _ Si Oa : 44 LAWYERS AND JUDGES They passed the paper over the table to Mr. Dodge, who read it and then wrote upon the back of the note and returned it. His friends read what he had written: “Here lie a Hill-man and a Swain, Their lot let no man choose: They lived in sin, and died in pain, And the Devil got his Dewes.” Another even better specimen of the play upon names is by the late Judge Robert Strange of Fayetteville, grand- father of Bishop Strange. It is given by Mr. Joseph Seawell in his recently published book, Law Tales for Laymen. But Mr. Seawell omits the first line, which is necessary both for the rhyme and for the setting of the scene. Also, as it seems to me, he mistakes the person named Moore, for the late Bartholomew F. Moore of Halifax and later of Raleigh. I will not go into my reasons for differing with Mr. Seawell, but I feel quite satisfied that the Moore thus associated with Strange and Wright, both Cape Fear characters, was another Cape Fear lawyer, Mr. Alfred Moore, the younger. The lines are as follows: “In a Tavern one night Messrs. Moore, Strange, and Wright Met to drink, and good cheer to exchange. Said Moore, ‘Of us three The whole town will agree There is only one knave, and that’s Strange.’ Said Strange, rather sore, ‘I am sure there’s one Moore, A terrible knave and a bite; Who cheated his mother His sister and brother.’ ‘Oh yes,’ replied Moore, ‘that is Wright! ” THE MISSING POINT: 45 Another story of Judge Strange is well remembered. At a term of the Superior Court in Fayetteville, Judge John M. Dick presiding, a witness by the name of Sarah Money was called out and failed to appear. poets Robert Strange, of counsel in the case, remarked : Well, your Honor, we must proceed in this case without Sarah Money [ceremony].” This elicited some gentle applause and very greatly amused the Judge on the Bench. Returning to his Guilford County home, after the conclusion of his circuit, the Judge undertook to narrate the humorous incident to his wife: “That lawyer Strange in Fayetteville is a very bright man. In the Courthouse one day he made a see witty speech. The Bar were laughing about it for several days.” “What was it, Mr. Dick?” asked his wife. “Why, you know,” replied the Judge, “we had a case to try, and one of the witnesses was named Sally Money. When she was called, she did not answer; and when the sheriff called her out, she still did not appear. So Strange rose and said, ‘Well, your Honor, we shall have to proceed in a case without Sally Money.’” And then the Judge laughe heartily at the witty speech of Mr. Strange. “But,” said Mrs. Dick, “where is the joke? I do not see the poi our story.” yee ie Judge, “we had to proceed without Sally Money.” : aan sae Mrs. Dick, “I do not see the joke. What is it?” hee The Judge looked puzzled and cast about in his pind to recover the point of the joke, which he had forgotten. istin my dear,” he said, “I do not quite see it now BE Bu I tell you it was very funny the way Strange said it. 46 LAWYERS AND JUDGES My old friend: and kinsman, Dossey Battle, at one time a judge in one of the criminal courts of the State, practised Law for a number of years in Tarborough, where I was also 4 young lawyer. He was a man of considerable ability and had a fine vein of humor. He was applied to by a Negro to defend him in an in- dictment for stealing a sheep. The Negro had a foolish, idiotic manner and appeared to be but half-witted. As a matter of fact he was not at all a fool, and perhaps he purposely exaggerated his peculiar manner. He had belonged before 1865 to a member of the Battle family, and he was well known to Dossey Batile. There seemed to be a plain case against the Negro, and Mr. Battle told him that a lawyer could do nothing for him. “But,” said he, “if you will pay me a fee of ten dollars, I will advise you how you may get off when you are tried.” The fellow said he had not so much money, but that if Mr. Battle would give him such advice as would enable him to escape conviction, he would certainly raise the money some- how and pay him. This he affirmed with great protestations of good faith. Thereupon he received the following advice and instructions. “When they call you up in court,” said the lawyer, “they will tell you to stand up and hold up your right hand. Then they will read something to you and ask you, if you are ‘Guilty or not Guilty.” When they do this and tell you to answer, you must bleat like a sheep—‘Baa-Baa.’ Just stick to that. Don’t say anything but ‘Baa-Baa.” They will threaten you. Perhaps they may put you in gaol for a few days. But do not say another word, but ‘Baa-Baa. Stick to that, and I believe it will get you off.” With this plan of defense he dismissed his sable client and left him to conduct his own case. “BAA, BAA” 47 The Negro took the sage advice of his counsel learned in the law. When arraigned, and called on to plead, his only reply was “Baa! Baa!” The courthouse was crowded with spectators, who laughed and could hardly be restrained, as the combined efforts of the solicitor and the judge failed to elicit any other reply than “Baa! Baa ty Finally the judge ordered the sheriff to remove the prisoner and turn him loose. “This Court has no time to waste upon fools and idiots, who have not enough sense to answer « question.” As the Negro passed by Mr. Battle’s office after the sheriff had released him, Mr. Battle called him in and congratulated him on the success of his defense. “Now,” he asked, “where is my ten dollars? Remember your promise.” ‘The Negro looked stupidly at him and remained silent. “Where is my ten dollars?” demanded the lawyer. “Baa, Baa,” replied his very sensible client! In justice to Dossey Battle I must say he enjoyed so greatly telling this story that he did not regret the loss of the ten dollars! OUR STATE SONG, “CAROLINA” I n the years 1834 and 1835 my father was studying Law in the office of Mr. Thomas P. Devereux, in Raleigh. He boarded in the family of Mrs. Eliza Taylor, widow of James F. Taylor, Attorney General of North Carolina in 1825. Mrs. Taylor’s daughters on one occasion attended a musical entertainment given by a traveling company of Swiss Bell- Ringers. They were much taken with a tune which they heard, and returning home Miss Lou Taylor played the tune by ear on the piano. It was a very pleasing air, and she so often played it that all the family soon became quite familiar with the melody; and my father, who was very fond of music and had naturally a good voice, came to like it as well as the young ladies. Judge William Gaston, Mrs. Taylor’s uncle by marriage, was an inmate of the family during the months of his resi- dence in Raleigh, as one of the judges of the Supreme Court. He occupied a small house in the corner of Mrs. Taylor’s front yard. Mrs. Taylor said to him one day, as her daughter was playing the melody which she had caught from the Swiss Bell-Ringers, “Uncle Gaston, you ought to write some words for Lou’s tune.” A few days after this, when J udge Gaston came in from his office to dinner, he produced a sheet of MS and said, “Lou, here are the words for your song.” The paper con- tained the words of the song now so familiar all over the State: “Carolina, the Good Old North State.” Miss Lou Taylor went to the piano, and her two sisters, Miss Annie and Miss Julia, and my father, joined in singing the words from Judge Gaston’s MS. IN RAVENSCROFT GROVE 49 The song, we must suppose, gained some local popularity and became familiar to many persons in Raleigh. But its general circulation throughout the State is associated with one of the greatest political campaigns which ever stirred the popular heart of the United States. In 1840 the Whig candidates for president and vice president were William H. Harrison, the hero of the great Victory over the Indians at Tippecanoe, and John Tyler. That campaign was long remembered for the great popular enthusiasm developed in support of these candidates, and was spoken of as, “The Tippecanoe and tye too cam- Paign; also as the “Log Cabin and Hard Cider” campaign, as it was supposed to represent the interests of the poorer and plainer people of the country, who lived a rude houses and drank hard cider instead of more expensive liquors. In their great popular processions and gatherings a small log cabin, with a barrel of cider standing by it and a coonskin nailed against the wall—the whole mounted upon a wagon and hauled about the country, was a favorite emblem of the Harrison and Tyler supporters. A great mass ae of the party was held as ee during this campaign, with people and speakers in attend- ance from distant sections of the State. The place of yo meeting was “Ravenscroft Grove,” now known as St. Mary’s Grove. The school for which the property had been bought and the buildings erected had been closed, and it was a year and a half later that young Mr. Smedes came to establish St. Mary’s School. The large grove with its spreading Caks made a convenient and suitable place for such an assemblage. Mrs. ae Jourde Lucas, many years afterwards my ri re 50 OUR STATE SONG, “CAROLINA” parishioner in St. Peter’s Church, Charlotte, then resided in Raleigh, and was the organist at Christ Church. She was a well instructed musician, and she wrote out the music and harmonized the tune which Miss Lou Taylor had caught by ear. It was thought that this patriotic song, composed by one of the State’s foremost citizens, would be appropriate for the gathering in the School Grove. Mrs. Lucas there- fore trained a choir of fifty young ladies to sing this song. At the time of the great mass meeting they had places on the platform erected for the speakers, presiding officers, and distinguished guests; and at an appropriate time in the proceedings they sang “Carolina, The Good Old North State,” accompanying their voices with the instrumental music of their guitars.‘ This was calculated, in the high- wrought condition of sentiment on the occasion, to make a great impression on the popular mind; and thus the song went forth to all parts of the State and became, by the spontaneous action of the people, the State song of North Carolina. An interesting and striking incident of this, meeting is remembered in connection with the speech of Mr. Nathaniel Boyden of Salisbury, afterwards a judge of our Supreme Court. He was an able man, eloquent and dramatic, perhaps I might say somewhat histrionic, in his delivery. At the close of an eloquent and animated passage, he invoked the Spirit of America and apostrophised the emblem of Freedom, the American Eagle. Calling upon his auditors to look ever upward at the proud symbol of their country, he pointed to the sky; and there above them soared a great bald eagle! +] had this account from the granddaughters of Mrs. Lucas, who were my parishioners in St. Peter’s Church, Charlotte. THE AMERICAN EAGLE 51 The effect upon his audience of this astonishing coincidence may be imagined. I once ventured to say to my father, who was an ardent Whig in his youth, that some incredulous Democrats de- clared that it was not an eagle, but a turkey buzzard. He resented it with some indignation; “It is not so,” he said. “Tt was a bald eagle”. “How can you be sure?” I persisted. “T was there myself. I saw it. It was a bald eagle.” T had to admit then that the story was true! ae i EZEKIEL POLK 53 ly of the epitaph so carefully that I am not able to find them. i I give it, however, from memory and, I am sure, with sub- M a ives stantial accuracy. This, then, is what Ezekiel Polk left for He. Yat any common memories and associations connect the . z his epitaph: Ih Dp people of North Carolina and Tennessee, and many North Pry } Carolina families have branches in the daughter state. “Here lie the ashes of old E. P. fe A kinsman of mine, John Blount Daniel, came back from One instance of mortality. Tennessee for a North Carolina wife. A year or two later, Pennsylvania born, Carolina bred, in the early summer of 1861, he returned with his wife and Died in Tennessee upon his bed, a AN EPITAPH child to visit the baby’s grandmother. Here the War caught Hiss ety Oa ee ee ee them, and they were here for the rest of their lives. He spent many months in my father’s family and was very kind to me. He “told my marvelling boyhood legends store,” of his early experiences in Tennessee and in Arkansas and gave me one of the famous Tennessee rifles, such as Jackson’s men at New Orleans used with such deadly effect against the best of Wellington’s Peninsular veterans. His later years in getting treasure, From superstition lived quite free, But practised strict morality. To pious cheats was never willing To give one solitary shilling. He could foresee, and foreseeing He equaled any man in being; That Church and State would join their power Misfortunes on this land to shower, \ Among other scraps of his narratives which stuck in my ih memory was a couplet which he said Ezekiel Polk had left to be put upon his gravestone. The Methodists, with their camp-bawling, ih Will be the cause of this down-falling: ti A fate he’s not reserved to see, But leaves to poor posterity. First-fruits and tithes are odious things, : And so are Bishops, Priests, and Kings.” { Many years after that time I became acquainted with Hy the Honorable Albert T. McNeal, an eminent lawyer and He also left the following directions: citizen of Tennessee and Chancellor of that diocese. Finding that he was a descendant of Ezekiel Polk, I told him the story of the epitaph. He said it was true, as far as it went, but that there was much more of it than one couplet. He did not remember it, but he said he thought he had it at home, and he promised to send me a copy. A few weeks later he fulfilled that promise. I put away his letter and the copy “Pennsylvania born, North Carolina bred, Died in Tennessee upon my bed.” “As there in no rock in this country, let it be on hard wood Painted white, and placed at the head of my grave, and a Weeping-willow planted at the foot.” And so it was done, and so remained, until the year 1844, When his grandson, James K. Polk, was a candidate for the Presidency. During the campaign, fearing that the Method- i i } jt ; Pate! 54 AN EPITAPH | ists, then in their bitter contentions over slavery, might A CHEERFUL WITNESS LA \4 make capital against Polk by using the couplet: O,. of the best friends and one of the most delightful “The Methodists, with their camp-bawling, : i i Colonel Hamilton i 5 F i companions of my years in Charlotte was Ny Will be the cause of this down-falling,” * a Toneatan ese a rectorship of St. Peter’s Church my | Junior Warden. He was an able and well learned lawyer in yi the highest sense of the term, had taken a prominent part in t Public life without becoming a politician, except as every Hi 800d citizen is a politician, and was an exceedingly interest- || ing coaversationalist. I am indebted to him for a good many 1 Stories and reminiscences contained in these desultory pages. 1) One of his stories, while highly humorous, even comic, is at it the same time illustrative of the times at a very critical Hh Period in the history of our people. Colonel Jones was a bADY member of the State Senate from Mecklenburg County, wes the Senate sat as a Court of Impeachment for the trial of Governor Holden in 1871. / The charges against the Governor were that he had sus- i Pended the Writ of Habeas Corpus in Alamance and Cas- 1 Well counties; that he had levied a small army to terrorize the People and the officers of the law; that he had arrested Peaceable citizens without due process of law, even in counties other than those which he had put under military rule; and | that he had resisted the officers of the law in the performance hii of their duty. The Governor defended himself by represent- ing that in the counties mentioned the members of the Ku Klux were so numerous, influential, and violent that the Courts and the civil authorities were entirely unable to enforce the law and to secure the safety and rights of the People; that Negroes and white members of the ee Hi) ; Party were threatened, assaulted, beaten, and even killed, ay some zealous Democrat pulled up the headstone, or rather, headboard, and hid it in the garret of a house in Bolivar, Tennessee; “and there it is still, I suppose,” wrote my friend, the Honorable Albert T. McNeal. 56 A CHEERFUL WITNESS and kept in a condition of fear and uncertainty as to their life and their property; and that the acts charged against the Governor had been necessary to enforce law and order and to protect the life and liberty of the citizens. Speaking generally, such was the position taken by Governor Holden and his distinguished counsel in his trial before the State Senate sitting as a High Court of Impeachment under the presidency of Chief Justice Pearson. One of the ablest and most distinguished of the Governor’s counsel was Mr. Nathaniel Boyden, afterwards one of the justices of the Supreme Court. Mr. Boyden had long been eminent as an eloquent speaker and a most acute, able, and adroit advocate; he was emotional, dramatic, and persuasive, by his own eager enthusiasm creating, as it were, for his audience the atmosphere most favorable to that aspect of the case which he would impress upon their mental vision. In setting forth the defense of his distinguished client, he brought before the Court the situation of the people of the counties in which the Governor’s unlawful proceedings were alleged to have taken place; the prevailing terror among the people, especially among the ignorant and helpless Negroes; the nightly “ridings” of the white-hooded Ku Klux; the dreadful apprehensions which over-shadowed each humble cabin; and the universal fears which depressed the spirits of those who went about their daily tasks in trembling silence, forgetting all their accustomed chatter and songs. With such suggestions of the gloomy and desperate situation, Mr. Boyden called to the stand one of his star witnesses to set forth the particulars of this scene whose general features have been suggested. “James Jones, take the stand.” “AS *TWAS TOLD TO ME” 57 S| SAB TWAS OUpmOMIny (277 10h James Jones, a small, black, brisk, and dapper young Negro comes promptly forward, having already been es Tt is the great day of his life. He has been called on beha of the Governor of the State to give his testimony before its highest tribunal, composed of the State Senators and presided over by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. And, besides all this exaltation and glory, he is being paid liberally all his expenses to and from his home in yaa and also a per diem in excess of any sum he has gyer receiv for his hardest day’s work. No wonder James Jones is happy, is radiant with irrepressible joy. Mr. Boyden speaks in solemn and portentous tones: “What is your name?” i “Jeems Jones, Sir. Yes Sir, that is my name! “Where do you live?” 4 “Up in ahaa Sir, by Mr. Bynum’s Mills, Sir. Yes, Sir. That’s whar’ I lives,” with smiles and bows. “Were there any Ku Klux in your neighborhood j “Ku Klux? Oh yes, Sir. Thar’ was lots of Ku Kluxes. “Did the Ku Klux ever come to your house?” : “Yes, Sir. They comed to my house on one occasion, Sir.” ea) “You say that they came to your house on one occasion! “Yes, Sir: on one occasion, Sir.” “Well: on that occasion how did they behave?” 3 “Most gentleman-like, Sir; most gentleman-like, beam- ing on his questioner. nes “You say they behaved most gentleman-like? “Yes, Sir, most gentleman-like.” “Why, did they not whip you?” “Whup me, a To be Abbe Sir,” smiling and bowing. “That’s what they come for, Sir.” 2? 58 A CHEERFUL WITNESS “Did they not beat you in the most cruel and barbarous manner?” demanded Mr. Boyden in solemn and tragical tones. “Well, Sir,” replied the witness, bowing, smiling, look- ing around at Court and counsel, and concluding with an audible giggle of happy embarrassment, “they put it on pretty cheerful, Sir, pretty cheerful.” Neither court nor counsel could resist the infectious good- humor of the witness, who saw in the laughing faces all around that he had made a most pleasing impression; and Jeems Jones left the stand, the proudest and happiest Negro in the State at that moment. But Mr. Boyden’s atmosphere of gloom had been greatly lightened and all but dissipated by his very cheerful witness. - Colonel Jones had another interesting experience—this with our Negro barber in Charlotte, Gray Toole. Like most Negro barbers in the South, who served exclusively white patrons, Gray professed to be a very ardent Democrat. Just after the general election of 1884 Colonel Jones went into the barber shop to be shaved. Gray was exultant over the election. “The Dimocrats have got it this time, Colonel. Mr. Cleveland is elected. I am shore proud of it. And now they ought to turn out all the Republicans. When the Republi- cans had the president, they had all the offices. Now the *It distresses me greatly to have to say that in the official report of the impeachment of Governor Holden, I ean find no, record of this interesting witness and his testimony. Of course, the name I have used is probably not the right name. I do not remember the name; and I used James Jones—because I had to give the witness a name. But I find no witness in the printed record, whose testimony is capable of being given such a turn as will support this story. Yet I have a very clear and distinct memory of the story as I heard it from Colonel Jones, and as I have here given it. “I say not how the truth may be: I tell the tale as ’twas told to me.” THE SPOILS SYSTEM 59 Dimocrats have got the president, they ought to have all the offices. That is the right way. I always heerd from my old master [Gray Toole had belonged to a rather violent Democrat down on Tar River, Henry I. Toole] that that Was the true Dimocratic doctrine: To the Spoilers belong the Ruins.” It would be hard to give a better description of the “Spoils System” in politics. And in telling the story Colonel Jones added rather sadly: “And Gray Toole is so stupid that he Cannot understand what a bright speech he made.” Savy ETE at ES HALIFAX TOWN H alifax Town during the Revolutionary period, and for some years later, was one of the most notable places in the State on account of the men who lived in and near it. It was, by the Constitution of 17'76, one of the borough towns, with the privilege of sending a member to the House of Com- mons. It was never a place of much trade or of a numerous population. The famous State Congress of 1'7'76, which drew up our first constitution, held its sessions in Halifax. Willie Jones, the leading politician, when Thomas Jefferson’s in- fluence dominated the State, lived here, and for a time at least, General William R. Davie, Abner Nash, J oseph Mont- ford, John B. Ashe, Judge Joseph J. Daniel, Peter Browne, and others. By the end of the first quarter of the nineteenth century the place had much fallen off in the general character of its people and had become notable for its bitter personal and political contentions. Perhaps it is not accurate to say political, for, although the strife found expression in the disorder and violence of political campaigns and elections, there was seldom any question of political principle or policy involved. Jeffersonian Democracy had so utterly routed Federalism that there did not remain two parties in this State. The great controversies over the tariff, the national bank, internal improvements, and questions of constitutional construction arising out of these, on which political parties were soon after aligned, had not then come up. In Halifax the strife and contention were on purely personal issues. Until the adoption of the Constitution of 1835 free NEGROES VOTED IN NORTH CAROLINA 61 Negroes in North Carolina voted on the same terms as the whites. There was no distinction against them on account of “Race, Color, or previous condition of Servitude.” Slaves did not vote because they were not free; just as a white man in prison could not vote. The Negro vote in the State was so small that it was negligible. But in very small constituencies even a few votes might make an important difference, especially if voters Were ignorant and vicious. The white voters in the town of Halifax were very few. In the election of 1826 the successful candidate received twenty-eight votes and his opponent, eight. It was said in explanation that the friends of the defeated candidate saw that his opponent had an overwhelming majority, and there- fore did not take the trouble to go to the polls. The voters must have been few indeed where twenty-eight was an over- whelming majority. In such a constituency the Negro vote was a source of corruption and strife. Unprincipled men would ply the Negroes with rum and thus seek to control their vote. On One side and on the other, in dealing with so helpless and ignorant a class, schemes and counter-schemes would be prac- tised to secure their suffrage. There was, therefore, a very Seneral approval, I believe, of the amendment to the con- stitution in 1835 which deprived the free Negroes of this right; though, perhaps, if this privilege had been Pian: all along until 1868, it might have been of some use in mee ; ing the situation and making the transition to universe: and unqualified Negro suffrage a less violent wrench in our Political experience. ; ee Even in 1835 some eloquent and persuasive voices ! 62 HALIFAX TOWN Bn heard contending for the perpetuation of this privilege, though they were few and unheeded. Here in Halifax it is said that Mr. Bartholomew F. Moore, afterwards to become the head of the legal profession in the State, but then a rising young lawyer beginning to be known for his ability beyond the bounds of his own county, in debating this ques- tion with Colonel Andrew Joyner, one of the most dis- tinguished and aristocratic of the older citizens of Halifax, thus appealed to him: “I would ask my friend, Colonel Joyner, what quality in the Negro enables him to exercise this high privilege to his own real advantage or for the wel- fare of the State. What single qualification does he possess to fit him for the proper performance of this high duty of citizenship?” “Sir,” replied Colonel Joyner, rising and assuming his most dignified and impressive manner, “Sir, the Negro always has the instinct to vote for a gentleman.” The Negroes, when left to their own choice, were disposed to vote for the men of highest social position; and they always voted for Colonel Joyner. Crimes of violence were sadly common in those days, and Halifax County early acquired the reputation of being a hard county in which to convict a man of murder.? It is said that the eminent lawyer and orator, George E. Badger, perhaps the most eloquent advocate our State Bar has known, was once employed to come down from Raleigh to *General William R. Cox, who was solicitor of the district in the years 1870-76, told me that his experience in prosecuting men indicted for homi- cides in Halifax County was such that, upon the acquittal of the prisoner in a case peculiarly aggravated, and, as he believed, clearly established by the evidence adduced on the part of the State, he stated in open court that he was a native of the county, but he would never try another case of the kind in Halifax, as he was satisfied that the State could not get justice at the hands of the juries. A GOOD JURY FOR HALIFAX 63 assist Mr. Bartholomew F. Moore in the defense of a man charged with murder, when there seemed little possibility of resisting the evidence of his guilt. Mr. Badger timed his journey so as to reach Halifax late in the day set for the trial, assuming that the whole of that day would be con- sumed in the tedious process of securing a jury. Walking to the courthouse the next morning in company with Mr. Moore he asked, “Brother Moore, did you get your jury selected yesterday?” “Yes,” replied Mr. Moore, “We got our jury, and we go to trial this morning.” “I hope it is a good jury,” said Mr. Badger. “Yes,” replied Mr. Moore, “It is a pretty good jury, a pretty good jury.” “A pretty good jury, Brother Moore!” exclaimed Mr. Badger, “a pretty good jury! That will never do! We must have a first-rate jury, or our client will hang. This is a des- perately bad case.” “Well,” returned Mr. Moore, “It is what I call a pretty good jury for Halifax. Six of them have been tried for their lives themselves !’”” *It is interesting to find that this same reputation as to the character of “Halifax juries” seems to have prevailed hundreds of years ago in the case of Halifax in England, from which our North Carolina Halifax im- mediately or remotely derived its name. In the Satires of Bishop Joseph -Hall, published in 1599, Book IV, Satire i, are these lines: “Or some more strait-laced juror of the rest, Impannel’d of an Holy-Fax inquest.” Holy-Fax is the original form of Halifax. I have seen an old English proverb, which joins together as places of common characteristics, “Hell, Hull, and Halifax.” In Robert Potter’s The Head of Medusa: The Devil “_hrandishes his battle-axe, At home alike in Hell or H’I’f’x.” f ROBERT POTTER* ©). of the most remarkable characters who ever appeared in this State began his tempestuous career in the town of Halifax. Robert Potter was born and grew up until his fifteenth year in Granville County. He then served for six years in the United States Navy. In a speech made in the House of Commons in March, 1827, he says; “While a boy, of the age of fifteen years, I left the humble home of my youth, and went forth to do whatever my humble arm could in behalf of my country. . . . During six years, in the very Spring time of my life, from the age of fifteen to twenty-one, I bore the arms of my Country in the Navy of the United States.” Feeling an obligation towards dependent members of his family and seeing no prospect of being able to help them by continuing in that service, he resigned or in some way left the Navy, and settled in Halifax, studying Law in the office of Thomas Burges, an eminent lawyer of that day.? * About thirty-five years ago I wrote out as well as I could the story of Robert Potter, and gave it to Professor Collier Cobb to be published in the University Magazine. I then destroyed the memoranda from which I had written. Professor Cobb gave the MS to the student editor of the magazine and somehow it was lost. Much of what I have now written is from memory, without access to my original materials. *I have this day, March 31, 1927, received a copy of a portrait of Robert Potter painted, it is said, when he was a “Midshipman in the United States Navy.” If so, it must have been, from the maturity of his appearance, about the date of his retiring from the Navy in 1821, at the age of twenty-one. The original is in oil on a board and is evidently a good likeness, as well as a very good painting. The copy is an admirable and faithful reproduction of the original, also in oil, but on canvas. I have presented it to the State Historical Commission. The original portrait is owned by Miss Sarah Frances Knott, of Stovall, whose father was a first cousin of Robert Potter. My copy was painted by Mrs. Outlaw Hunt of Oxford, for me. = —$———— REPRESENTING HALIFAX TOWN 65 He first came into notice in the personal contentions of that borough. It was a day of deadness in party politics. The divisions and struggles in the borough elections seem to have been wholly personal. The local paper reveals no question of political principle or of economic policy as at issue between opposing parties. There was the “Burges party” and the “Bynum party” at one time; and perhaps other personally designated divisions at other times. Robert Potter belonged to the Burges party and had a bitter enmity against Jesse Bynum, leader of the other faction. The late Thomas B. Hill of Hillsboro, in those days residing in Halifax County, told me that the feud between the two men took its origin at a public ball where Jesse Bynum refused to introduce Potter to Miss Lavinia Barnes, quite a belle and beauty, of Northampton County, and a relative of Bynum. This Miss Barnes afterwards married Whitmel Hill of Scotland Neck, a brother of Thomas B. Hill. However begun, the controversy was bitter and violent. In 1823 and 1824 Bynum represented Halifax Town in the House of Commons, defeating Potter in 1824, as Potter claimed, by a fraudulent count. In 1825 they were again the opposing candidates in the borough election; and the con- test culminated in a row at the polls, in which a man is said to have been killed. There was no election, and the borough went unrepresented. In the next election, August, 1826, Robert Potter, spoken of as of the “Burges party,” was elected over his opponent, Dixie C. Fenner, by a vote of twenty-eight to eight; which shows poorly for the “Bynum party”— though Fenner claimed that his supporters had been kept from the polls by a false report circulated by the “Burges party,” to the effect that he had withdrawn from the contest. 5 ee 68 ROBERT POTTER tended for those whom they fitted. He made another speech in the nature of a personal vindication, and there the matter seems to have ended. Nothing came of it. Potter’s success in the election of 1826 must have been in some way accidental. It did not mean that he had any real strength with the community as a whole, or with any part of it. In 1827 and in 1828 Jesse Bynum was elected, as he had been in 1823 and in 1824. And Robert Potter must have encountered some kind of cataclysm* immediately upon his return from his sensational career in the House of Com- mons of 1826-7; for by the middle of the year 1827 he had left Halifax and returned to Granville, his native county. What were the causes or the circumstances of this sudden removal we do not certainly know; but he left Halifax in a heat of anger, even rage, which included in its range of resentment and malice the community at large and the mem- bers of the community in particular, not omitting his old Law preceptor, Thomas Burges. He had studied Law, it is said, in Mr. Burges’s office; and in the Tarboro’ Free Press of August 22, 1826, or thereabouts, his supporters are spoken of as “the Burges party.” Though the conditions under which he took his departure are unknown, he has left a record of his feelings and temper. From some obscure quarter there appeared in July, 1827, a dingy, ill-printed pamphlet entitled, “The Head of Medusa, a Mock Heroic Poem, by Rienzi.” It bears also on its title page, “Halifax, *I cannot help thinking that the violent personalities and abuse in his speeches in the House of Commons, were the cause of his sudden downfall. Barringer, Alston, and Sawyer doubtless had friends, and they and their friends may have had friends or connections in Halifax. Indeed Willis Alston was a Halifax man, and that family has always been an influential one in that section. Doubtless it was their resentment, and the codperation of those influenced by them, which procured Potter’s downfall in Halifax. “THE HEAD OF MEDUSA” 69 North Carolina, July 14, 182'7.” It is a scurrilous, libelous, malicious, and mendacious performance, and a scandalous attack on Halifax and Halifax people in the mass and in- dividually, designating some by at least part of their proper names, and in other ways plainly identifying to the people of that day the cbjects of his abuse. Except a few extracts copied from it, I have not seen this poem in fifty years. So far as I remember, only one family in Halifax is exempted from its stream of indiscriminate abuse, namely, the family of the deceased party leader, Willie Jones, spoken of as the family of “the Grove,” the name of the Jones residence on the edge of the town. I have seen but one copy of Potter’s poem, nor have I ever heard of any other.® This unique copy was, when I saw it, in the possession of Judge Howard of Tarborough, hound up in a volume of miscellaneous pamphlets, most of them printed in his father’s printing office in Halifax or in Tarborough in 1824-40. Judge Howard told me that his father had re- fused to print the poem on account of its scurrilous and libelous character, and that Potter had it surreptitiously set up at night and printed by apprentices in the printing office. The tone and character of this poem are base, vulgar, in the highest degree offensive to decency and good taste, and abusive beyond all limits. But like most of Potter’s efforts, it ®*The volume of miscellaneous pamphlets including Potter’s poem is now in the University of North Carolina Library at Chapel Hill. It has been put there by W. Stamps Howard of Tarborough, Judge Howard’s son, who has also deposited in the same place files of the Free Press of Halifax, 1824-1826, and the Tarboro’ Free Press—and the Tarboro’ Press—1826, et seq. Since writing this passage I have had some extracts from Potter’s Satire sent me by my kinsman, Professor Roulhac Hamilton of the University of North Carolina. 1S SRLS ee aa i % i % > ROBERT POTTER shows power and virility and no mean facility in composition, indicating also some acquaintance with good literature, as well as familiarity with the bitter political libels of the years immediately preceding. The opening lines are good, though unfortunately their promise is not fulfilled by any subsequent passages.® “Sad village! As along the winding shore Of thy bold river I revolve thy fate: Recall the splendors of thy days of yore, And view thee now so low and desolate; I muse in sorrow o’er the work of Time, Whose scythe on thee so cruelly hath dealt; Thy Eden once is now a land of crime, And swindlers rule, where Chiefs and Sages dwelt, ° Below is part of the title-page of Potter’s poem: The Head of Medusa, A Mock Heroic Poem. Founded on fact in which “The word is suited to the phrase, and the phrase to the action by Rienzi With Baked and Broiled, and Stewed and Toasted, And Fried and Boiled, and Smoked and Roasted. Then where’s the wrong to gibbet high the name Of fools and knaves, already dead to Shame. Halifax, N. Carolina, 14 July, 1827.” The following is the Dedication of Potter’s poem: To The Village, Once distinguished for “Wit and Wisdom, Gaiety and Grace,” but notorious now, as the Haunt of Swindlers, Liers, and Assassins, this Poem Descriptive of their Manners, Practices, Sentiments and Principles, is dedicated, with all imaginable contempt, By Rienzi. A HEATED CAMPAIGN 71 No longer in thy hospitable halls Wit, Grace, and Gallantry sustain their Court, But low-bred, stupid churls make up the balls, And pass the night in idiotic sport, Here Faction broods, in dark and fiendish state, Enthroned amidst her most devoted fools ;7 The only object of their lives to hate, Their only knowledge petty, party rules.” ' He concludes, after complimenting himself for enduring them with a patience which we know only from his own as- sertion, in a lighter strain! “But ’tis passed: the struggle is o’er ;— The war in my bosom subsides ; And passion’s strong current no more Impels its impetuous tides. I now can look back with a smile, As I quit your pestiferous den; Amused, that I once thought the while It was peopled with hon’rable men. And, as I would not be uncivil In taking my leave of Hell, And shaking the paw of the Devil, T’ll bid you a gentle farewell.” Upon Potter’s return to Granville, his native county, having shot the Parthian arrow of his satire at his foes in Halifax, he plunged at once into a heated campaign as a candidate for the House of Commons from Granville, at.the election of August, 1828. Mr. Thomas B. Hill was attending a preparatory school in Oxford during this campaign, and he described to me the popular enthusiasm created by Potter’s * Qu: Whether we should not read “tools” for “fools.” pS LE SCENE 72 ROBERT POTTER speaking.* He remembered seeing him making a speech to a crowd who were so violently excited by his impassioned oratory that at the close of his speech they took him on their shoulders and carried him around the streets. The particular question at issue in this campaign, and stressed by Potter, was very proper for public consideration, namely, the financial condition of the country, and the re- sponsibility of the banks therefor. But, as has so often been the case, the banks were blamed for conditions for which the people at large were quite as responsible as the banks. There was great financial distress, and the banks had been forced to suspend specie payments. Endeavoring to call in their loans, in order to meet their own obligations, the banks were accused of doing it to aggravate the popular dis- tress, and to possess themselves of the property of their debtors. On this issue Potter was triumphantly elected and took his seat as a popular leader. He had made himself con- spicuous in the preceding House of Commons by his bill to create the “Political College” and the controversies over it, and he now introduced a still more radical measure, one calculated to excite popular enthusiasm. There were in 1828 only three banking corporations in the State—the State Bank, the Bank of Cape Fear, and the Bank of Newbern. These had many branches; and, for a number of years before the financial stringency began, there had been widespread popular demand for the multiplication of these branches and for increased issues of bank bills. Now, the tide of popular feeling had turned, and the general finan- cial distress was laid at the doors of the banks. ®T cannot be quite certain whether it was in this election of 1828, or in one of his later campaigns, that Mr. Hill witnessed the scene described. ATTACK ON THE BANKS 73 The bill introduced into the House by Robert Potter instructed the Attorney General to bring an action of Quo Warranto against the banks, whereby their charters should be forfeited for having suspended specie payments; and, their charters being thus forfeited, their assets were to be vested in a committee of the Legislature, to be disposed of as might be further provided. There were many able men in the House of Commons, and there was an earnest and protracted debate by some of the strongest men in the State. Potter maintained his cause undismayed, and was assisted by some able and prominent men, Mr. Charles Fisher of Salisbury, Mr. Men- denhall of Guilford County, and his old enemy, Jesse Bynum, among others. But by far the greater number of the really first-rate men in the House naturally opposed so dangerous a proposition. Judge Gaston, Judge Nash, Mr. Hamilton C. Jones of Rowan, and Governor Swain, then representing Buncombe County, all spoke strongly against it. And among all these able speeches, that by Governor Swain is at this day by far the most interesting and valuable; for in it he gave a history of the banks in North Carolina, as bearing on the attack upon them by those who claimed in a special manner to represent the feelings and the interests of the great body of the people and above all the agricultural classes, against the moneyed interests. These popular leaders denounced the banks as having first flooded the country with paper money and stimulated expansion of enterprise by generous loans, and as then contracting their operations, calling in their loans, and creating an artificial stringency, that they might get possession of the property of their debtors. This was, in brief the argument against the banks. Governor Swain undertook to show, by a history of bank- eS pantie tia 7 \ 4 | i j 4 ROBERT POTTER ing in the State for the preceding quarter of a century, that the banks had vigorously resisted the large issues of paper money, and that they had been driven to it, against their protest, by the popular demand and by the representatives of the people in the General Assembly. He said that about twenty years before that date the charters of the banks had all about the same time expired by limitation. Upon their application for the renewal of their charters, they were met by a demand that they should greatly increase their capital stock, in order that they might increase their issues of bank bills. The banks all opposed this and were met by a refusal on the part of the General Assembly to renew their charters, except with greatly increased capital stock. The banks re- plied that all stock subscribed had to be paid for in specie, as upon their gold and silver reserves the banks had to base their issues of paper money; and they asserted that there was not enough gold and silver in the State to pay for the amounts of stock which they were required to have under their proposed new charters. This position does not seem to have been controverted; but the General Assembly pro- posed to allow a certain proportion of the stock to be paid for in paper money. The banks claimed that to issue bank bills upon a basis of stock paid for in paper money was to violate all sound financial principles. They were, however, helpless to resist the popular demand, as voiced in the General Assembly; and the increase of stock on this ruinous system, was forced upon them. Their charters were renewed on the express terms of increased capital stock, paid for in part in paper money, and the increased issue of bank bills, with the consequent temporary inflation of business, and then the inevitable reaction, the contraction of currency, and widespread bankruptcy and distress. IN THE HILLSBORO GAOL 15 Potter’s bill was fought out in the House of Commons with great earnestness and ability. On the third reading it had a majority of one vote in its favor. But, before declar- ing the result, Thomas Settle, the elder, Speaker of the House and member from Rockingham County, cast his vote against the bill; and then declared it to be lost for want of a majority vote, so near did Potter come to carrying through what would certainly have proved a ruinous and destructive measure. To have struck down every bank in the State would have been a financial disaster, with results that cannot be estimated. Although he had failed to carry his bill through the House, Potter had established his position as a Tribune of the People; and in August, 1828, he was easily elected to Congress from his district, and served in the Congress of 1829-31. Wheeler, in his History of North Carolina, says that he was reélected in 1830, “without opposition.” But in the summer of 1831 he committed the atrocious crime which has ever since been associated with his name in this State. On. Sunday, August 28, he mutilated two Granville County preachers, against whom, in the opinion of the leading people of the county, he had no just ground of complaint. For these offenses he was indicted and convicted in the Superior Court of Granville, and was sentenced, in one case to two years’ imprisonment, and in the other case to a fine of one thousand dollars. So great was his popularity and influence among the county people, that it was not thought safe to confine him in the gaol in Oxford. He was therefore sentenced to serve his term in the gaol at Hillsboro, in the adjoining county of Orange.° °In August, 1831, the offense of which Potter was convicted was only a misdemeanor, punishable with fine and imprisonment in the discretion of the Snr nee e reece ee ees Ae a pp Se LE A 16 ROBERT POTTER Potter complained bitterly of what he considered the in- justice of his treatment by the Court and by the more in- fluential class of citizens. From the Hillsboro gaol he sent out an “Address etc. To the People of Granville County.” It is a pamphlet of eighty-six pages, in fine print, seven by five inches in size, written, naturally, with great bitterness of feeling, justifying his conduct under a provocation, of which he claimed to have positive evidence, and alleging that both the committing magistrate and the Superior Court judge had denied him his constitutional and legal rights and had procured his conviction by the most scandalous abuse of their power. The presiding judge was the Honorable Robert Strange, a man of high personal character as well as of eminent attainments in his profession. But in the jaundiced eyes of Potter all were leagued against him to put him down by any available method of perverting justice. “Mr. Justice Strange who is certainly a Strange Mr. Justice,” is one of Potter’s references to the Judge. One of the most curious passages in this Address is a strong and con- vincing protest against the divisions among Christians and Court. That same year the Legislature made it a capital felony, punish- able with death. This continued until 1868, when the penalty was reduced to imprisonment, for not less than five years, nor more than sixty years. It is believed that only one man suffered the penalty prescribed in the Act of 1831. In Cumberland County a man was indicted for this offense, committed on a young lad, a feeble and poorly developed boy. The perpe- trator of the assault intended to commit the crime as specified in the Act, and believed that he had accomplished his purpose. An ignorant country doctor, who treated the boy, testified that the criminal purpose had been effected. The man accused was therefore convicted by the jury, was sen- tenced, and was hanged. But as the boy grew up and developed, it became evident that the man had failed in his attempt, and the boy had not been seriously injured. My authority for the foregoing account is a written statement by the late John D. Cameron, son of Judge John E. Cameron, of Fayetteville. LETTER TO POSTMASTER GENERAL ay the prevalence of the sectarian spirit, enforced by apt and striking quotations from the Gospel. With the violence and rancor which seem to have been characteristic of Potter’s style, the Address is yet an able and effective presentation of his case. If one could feel reliance upon his word, it would go far towards enlisting our sympathy and justifying his act, upon his own principles. With the more ignorant people of the county it must have reéstablished him in their confidence; and this soon became apparent in the election of August, 1834; for at that election he was chosen a mem- ber of the House of Commons of 1834-35. The common tradition is that he was still in prison when thus elected. I have, however, in my possession a MS. letter dated Sept. 4, 1834, and addressed to the “Hon. William T. Barry, Postmaster General,” which seems to imply that he had been released shortly before the election. The opening sentences of this letter are interesting: “Sir: The political connection existing between us will, I trust, be a sufficient apology for this communication. Fame must already have acquainted you with my misfortunes, yet on returning to the bosom of my old constituents, after nearly three years’ imprisonment,” they have generously sustained me, in their late election, for a seat in our next General Assembly.” This would seem to imply that his return to his con- stituents was before their action in electing him; though 9a This statement bears out, or, at least, agrees with, the complaint made in his “Address to the people of Granville” that he was denied bail by the committing magistrate and kept in prison from his original apprehension until his trial. As his sentence was for only two years, the time he was confined before his trial must have been for some months. He would hardly have stated in a letter to the Postmaster General that he had been for nearly three years in prison, if it had been notoriously false. Soren 0 } 78 ROBERT POTTER this implication may not seem to some sufficient to discredit the common tradition. It is said that the Grand Jury of Orange County in- dicted Potter for a libel, after the publication of his Address, but, if so, it does not seem to have been pressed to a trial, possibly because Potter so soon left the State. There is also a tradition that while imprisoned in Hills- boro he would talk from the window to the people gathered outside to see so extraordinary a criminal, and that he aroused much popular sympathy among them. Some years ago, in looking through old papers in the courthouse in Hillsboro, I came upon a bundle of “Presentments” by the Grand Jury. Looking through them I found one in which the Grand Jury had presented the sheriff of the county, for that he had removed Robert Potter, a criminal convict, from the criminal side of the prison to the civil side. The sheriff is in closer touch with the people than any other county official; and this action of the sheriff seems to give some color to the tradition that during his imprisonment in Hillsboro Potter had contrived to make favor with the people of the county. After he had served his term of imprisonment, there re- mained the fine of one thousand dollars imposed as penalty in the other case. Being unable to pay it he was desirous of taking the insolvent debtor’s oath and thus freeing him- self from further confinement. This plea of insolvency was required to be made in open court, and in propria persona, and not by attorney. But in Potter’s case the Solicitor General, John Scott, of Hillsboro, moved for a special rule to allow the plea to be made by attorney, alleging that he feared to bring Potter into open court, as it might cause popular tumult and violence. This might be understood to FROM GAOL TO HOUSE OF COMMONS 79 mean attempts against Potter, except for the fact that he had been elected again by the people of Granville to represent that county in the House of Commons. This was in 1834, In that year Judge William H. Battle, then a young man, represented Franklin County in the House of Commons. During the last year of his life, 1878- 79, Judge Battle was my parishioner in Chapel Hill. He remembered the discussions in the House when Potter, fresh from the Hillsboro gaol, appeared to take his seat. He said the general feeling was of indignation that a man stained with so horrid a crime should presume to appear among them, and it was argued that the House, being judge of the fitness of its members, should refuse to allow him to take his seat. To this it was replied that, had the act been com- mitted after his election, the House might well exclude him upon the presumption that the people of Granville would not have chosen such a representative, had they understood his true character. It was further argued that had the election been held before his conviction and sentence, in that case the House might have refused him his seat, upon the theory that the people believed him to be innocent and had elected him in that belief. But the act had been committed before the election, it had been judicially ascertained, and a sentence had been imposed. Yet, after all this, the people of Granville had seen fit to choose him as their representative. To exclude him would be to require a qualification which the Constitution did not require, and to deprive the people of the right to elect the man of their choice. These arguments seemed good, and Robert Potter took his seat as one of the members for Granville County. But his career was brief. On Christmas night about nine 80 .\) ROBERT. POTTER or ten o’clock he and a man named Cotten (I think it was R. C. Cotten; and I have heard of him as “Carney Cotten,” a member of the House from Chatham County), sat down to a game of cards, a gambling game called “Thirteen the Odd.” Stakes were high, and after.a few hours Cotten had won all Potter’s money. Potter said he would get more, and went off and returned with a new supply. After some hours Cotten had again stripped him. A new supply was again ob- tained. The hour was now very late—or rather, very early. The struggle was protracted until eight or nine o’clock the following morning, when Potter had been completely ex- hausted of funds. The money lay piled high on the table between them. Swearing a great oath that no rascal should cheat him, Potter suddenly seized the money and crammed it into his pockets. Cotten sprang upon him, the table was overturned, and there was a desperate struggle. Finally Potter drew a pistol and held Cotten off with it; and thus got off with his booty. The matter was brought to the attention of the House, and a committee of investigation was appointed, of which Edward B. Dudley, afterwards Governor, was the leading member. This committee reported the facts as above stated, and brought in a resolution that Potter be expelled. This was opposed by some on the ground that, if the House should undertake to investigate the private character of its mem- bers, it would be hard to say just where such an investigation should stop. Finally, however, a vote was taken, the roll was called, and sixty-two members voted for expulsion, and forty-two against; so the resolution was adopted by a ma- jority of twenty, January 2, 1835. This matter was mentioned very briefly in the Raleigh DI eS, DWN EXPELLED FROM LEGISLATURE 81 newspapers of the day; it was necessarily included in their reports of the daily proceedings of the House and is noticed. as news, but with no details. These can be obtained only from the official Journals of the House. One of the newspapers, however, does say that the resolution would probably not have been adopted “but for other matters,” alluding doubt- less to the offenses for which Potter had been imprisoned and fined. It is also mentioned that Potter had expressed his purpose of leaving the State. It is not impossible that Potter had already been con- sidering some scheme of emigration. In a letter to a friend, James M. Wiggins, postmaster at Oxford, dated September 2, 1834, he writes: “Wiggins, that part of your letter which related to myself was a treasure: when I read that part where you proposed for me to seek out some new and peaceful situation, and that you would all rally around me and con- tribute as far as in you lay to my happiness, it warmed up my whole heart and thrilled through every nerve. I know, my dear Wiggins, that in a new and unprejudiced com- munity, I could do much for myself, and much for you and our other connections who should settle, or in your phrase rally around me. I feel too, nay I know, I could be happy in such a situation, but duty, duty, and honor imperiously forbid it. I have not time to unfold myself to you just now, but I have in contemplation a plan which, if the spirit of liberty is not entirely dead among the people of poor old North Carolina, will enable me yet to rouse them.” We should like to know what that new plan was by which Potter proposed “to rouse” the people of North Carolina. If his career in the Legislature of 1834-35 had not been prematurely cut short by his expulsion, he might have 6 ine Tod - $2 ROBERT POTTER startled the State with another original and radical scheme, as he had twice done before. : Potter next appears upon the scene in the stormy days of the young republic of Texas, as a leading spirit in the birth struggles of the new commonwealth. Within fifteen months of his expulsion from the Legislature of North Caro- lina, for conduct disgraceful and unpardonable even among professional gamblers and profligates, Robert Potter was a member of the Texas Congress from the district of Nacogdoches; signed the Declaration of Independence of March 2, 1836,’° was one of the signers of the Constitu- tion,!! March 1'7; and on March 18, upon the formation of the “Government ad interim,” Robert Potter, “formerly Member of Congress from North Carolina,” was made Secre- tary of the Navy.” This position he held but a short time. Within a few weeks another appointment was made during Potter’s ab- sence, and his name does not again appear in this connection. At a Cabinet meeting, shortly after the Battle of San Jacinto, during Potter’s brief term of service, he and Lamar, the Secretary of War, strenuously opposed making any treaty with Santa Anna. They asserted that he was utterly perfidious and, by his conduct in connection with the mas- sacre of Fannin’s whole command in cold blood after they had #1. T. Pease, p. 303. Tbid., p. 319. 7 have seen it stated that Potter was in the Battle of San Jacinto. For some year during the latter part of his life I knew Governor Peter Bell, one of the early governors of Texas. He had himself fought in the Battle of San Jacinto. He assured me that Robert Potter was not present in that fight. In fact, though a man of violent temper, turbulent and vindictive, _ Robert Potter did not have, either in North Carolina or in Texas, the reputation of being a man of cool and clean courage. Se LIFE IN TEXAS 83 surrendered as prisoners of war, as well as in other matters, he had shown himself unworthy of being treated with. They also held that Santa Anna, being a prisoner in the hands of the Texans, could make no treaty which would bind the Mexican Government. When the treaty was finally con- cluded, Potter and Lamar refused to sign it. In a letter ex- plaining his position Potter wrote, “It is my clear conviction, therefore, that Santa Anna and his officers should be hanged, and the privates condemned to servitude for life.” Among my parishioners in St. Peter’s Church, Charlotte, was Colonel William R. Myers. When a young man he had lived for some years in Texas and had a plantation on Lake Caddo, adjoining the plantation which had belonged to Robert Potter. Potter had been dead but a few years when Colonel Myers settled there, and his character and the circumstances of his later years and of his death were matters of common knowledge in that section. Colonel Myers Was an intelligent and well educated man. He seemed to have full knowledge and a clear memory of the matters of which he spoke; and I am sure that I remember accurately what I learned from him. According to Colonel Myers, there was a man in the Texan army by the name of Page, who with his wife had come from One of the States north of the Ohio River. Mrs. Page was anxious to return to her former home. Learning that Mr. Potter, Secretary of the Navy, was going on a government vessel from Galveston to New Orleans, Page obtained per- mission for his wife to go on the same vessel to New Orleans, that she might find passage up the river to her home. Before reaching New Orleans Potter had induced her to “John Henry Brown, History of Texas, II, 65. tn AF i —— ag REE » 84 ROBERT POTTER leave her husband and to go with him. He took her to his plantation on Lake Caddo, where she remained with him and had several children by him. After a time Potter had some difficulty with a man by the name of Rose, living in the same section. The feeling be- came quite bitter between them. One day as Rose was with his Negroes in his low-grounds some distance from his house, engaged in clearing the land and burning brush, he saw Potter with a band of his friends ride up to the house, which, being on a slight elevation, was visible for a considerable distance. Feeling sure that Potter sought his life, Rose hid under a brushheap, of which there were a great number all through the low-grounds, and told the Negroes that if Mr. Potter came and inquired for him, they should say that Mr. Rose was quite near by—that they had seen him but a few minutes before. Rose feared that, if the Negroes should say that they did not know where Mr. Rose was, Potter would threaten to shoot them and thus terrify them into revealing %In the Marshall Standard, published in Marshall, Texas, of date Oct. 8, 1910, is an article by J. W. Lively, which gives an entirely different ac- count of Potter’s connection with the woman, who is called in that article Potter’s “common law wife.” But that writer shows himself to be entirely ignorant of the facts of Potter’s life, except such general circumstances of his political career as appear in the published histories of Texas. He says, for example, that Potter had served four terms in Congress from North Carolina; that he “fought by Houston’s side in the Battle of San Jacinto,” etc. It appears in the Reports of the Texas Supreme Court that Potter did not even call the woman his wife, but always spoke of her as “Mrs. Page,” and left her property by his will under that name. % The Rey. George L. Crockett of San Augustine, Texas, writes me, June 16, 1925, that: “Rose, his [ie., Potter’s] opponent, once lived in San Augustine County and was instrumental in planting the first Baptist Church in East Texas. He then lived in Nacogdoches County, adjoining this, and ‘ afterwards moved to Caddo Lake region.” A FRIGHTFUL DEATH 85 his hiding place. But if the Negroes should meet his questions with the frank admission that their master was near by, and should appear to make no effort to evade his inquiries, he hoped that Potter might believe them and think that he had managed to slip off unseen into the neighboring thickets. The scheme was successful, and Potter and his party, not finding the man whom they sought, went off. Rose knew that the matter had come to the pass that Potter would kill him, or he must kill Potter. The following night, therefore, Rose got his friends together and pro- ceeded to Potter’s house. Though the house was made secure against such attacks so far as was possible, they succeeded in breaking in. They seized Potter and took him some distance from the house. They told him they would give him fifty yards’ start, and if he could escape he might go; but if they caught him, they would kill him. They were not far from Lake Caddo. Potter succeeded in reaching the lake ahead of his pursuers. He sprang from a low bluff into the lake and dived. Rose and his party were close behind. As Potter rose to the surface of the lake, they fired upon him and killed him in the water! Thus Colonel Myers. In his American Notes, Charles Dickens, illustrating his comments on lawlessness in.the United States, gives, among others, this item, which he had clipped from a newspaper: “From the Caddo Gazette, of the 12 inst., we learn the frightful death of Colonel Robert Potter. . . . He was beset in his house by an enemy, named Rose. He sprang from his couch, seized his gun, and, in his night-clothes, rushed from the house. For about two hundred yards his speed seemed to defy his pursuers; but, getting entangled in a thicket, he was captured, Rose told him that he intended to act a eee = ces ERE, 86 ROBERT POTTER generous part, and give him a chance for his life. He then told Potter he might run, and he should not be interrupted till he reached a certain distance. Potter started at the word of command, and before a gun was fired he had reached the lake. His first impulse was to jump in the water and dive for it, which he did. Rose was close behind him, and formed his men on the bank ready to shoot him as he rose. In a few seconds he came up to breathe; and scarce had his head reached the surface of the water, when it was completely riddled with the shot of their guns, and he sank, to rise ne more.” The Congressional Dictionary, in a brief biographical note, gives as the date of his death April 1, 1842.*° It also says that he served in the United States Navy from 1815 to 1821. As he says in his speech in 1827, quoted on a preced- ing page, that he was in the Navy from his fifteenth to his twenty-first year, this would show that he was born in the year 1800. This is the only note of his age that I have seen. I cannot help suspecting, however, that the writer of the biographical sketch confounded the years of his age in his statement of the term of his service, with the years of the century.1” If he was only forty-two years old at the time “3 Tn the case of Lewis and McGinnis vs. Ames, Texas Reports 44, p. 319, the date of Potter’s death is given as March 2, 1842. The name of the husband of the woman whom Potter lived with on his Red River plantation, is given as Solomon Page. It is said that he was in the Texan Army with Houston, and that Potter “took her [Mrs. Page] on his boat.” This is mentioned as occurring after March 2, 1836. The facts stated judicially in this case fully confirm the account given me by Colonel William R. Myers, as far as they go; and they entirely refute the story of the “common-law wife” of Potter, given by J. W. Lively—in the Marshall Standard, quoted in a former note. 17 Since writing this page I have read again, or rather, have carefully read through for the first time, Potter’s Address to the people of Gran- A REMARKABLE CAREER 87 of his death he had indeed crowded a wonderful series of achievements and catastrophes into his few years. He was unquestionably a man of genius, but apparently subject to the sway of malignant passions, which impaired his judg- ment and amounted to a kind of insanity. He could go, but he was not able to stand. ville County, published in the latter part of 1832, when he was serving his term of imprisonment in the gaol at Hillsboro. In this he says that when barely 4ifteen years old he entered into the service of the Government but was too late to take any part in the war. So he must have entered the Navy not earlier than 1814—which would put his birth about 1800. This seems to confirm the dates in the Congressional Dictionary. yal THE SOLICITOR GENERAL KE. of our people remember that there was formerly a Solicitor General of North Carolina, as well as an Attorney General. A good many years ago I read an article by the late Colonel Burr of Wilmington, giving some account of the life and character of Edward Jones of Rock Rest, Chatham County, in which it was stated that Mr. Jones had been the only Solicitor General of this State; that the office had been created for him; and that it had ceased with him. I did not think such a statement could be true. I did not believe that such an office would have been created for any man; and as Mr. Jones, when he became Solicitor General, probably about the middle of the year 1791, was a comparatively young man, a recent arrival in this State, and with only about three years’ experience at the Bar, I could not believe that so im- portant a public office could have been created for him. Inquiries directed to the most eminent members of the Bar in Charlotte, where I then resided, revealed an absolute ignorance that such an office had ever existed in this State. Surprised at this I became more interested in my endeavors to find out something about it. It seemed strange that such a law officer of the State should have been entirely forgotten. My first clue I found in the “List of Subscribers,” to Judge Iredell’s great folio of The Laws of the State of North Carolina, published in 1791. In this interesting list of North Carolina people, I found the names of “Alfred Moore, At- torney General,” and immediately following, “John Hay- wood, Solicitor General.” No one could suppose that Judge Iredell would not know the law officers of the State; so my STATE DIVIDED INTO RIDINGS 89 first discovery showed that Mr. Edward Jones had not been the only Solicitor General nor the first who had held that office. But it took time and some trouble to unravel the question and to arrive at a full understanding of the matter; and I had to spend a good deal of labor in looking over the old statutes and examining the proceedings of the General Assembly. : The Constitution of 1776 provided that three judges sitting together should hold two terms of the Superior Court each year in the district towns of Wilmington, New- bern, Edenton, Halifax, Hillsboro and Salisbury. It also provided that an Attorney General should be appointed to represent the State in these courts. In 1782 the increasing population of the West necessitated some court nearer to them than Salisbury ; so a new district was created, the “Dis- trict of Morgan,” and two terms of the court were to be held in Morganton every year. In 1787 the increasing population and business of the Upper Cape Fear section required the erection of the new district of Fayetteville, making eight districts in all. Upon the creation of this eighth district it of court each year in so many places so separated, and with the poor facilities for communication and travel of that day. The Act of 1790 C. 3, therefore, divided the State into “Ridings,” the East Riding including the towns of Wil- mington, Newbern, Edenton, and Halifax; and ‘the West Riding taking in the towns of Hillsboro, Fayetteville, Salis- bury, and Morganton. The act further provided that a Solicitor General should be appointed by the General As- sembly, “a man of abilities, integrity, and learned in the law,” SS [gi I CE RAL SEN = = agen . = FP OO — 5 i en 90 THE SOLICITOR GENERAL who should “have the same power, and be under the same restrictions, and have the same allowances and fees as the Attorney General of this State.” In addition to the three judges already in office, a fourth was elected, Spruce McKay (pronounced McKoy) of Salis- bury. They were directed to arrange matters among them- selves, so that two judges should be assigned to hold the courts in each Riding, and that such a rotation should be observed as would send each one of their number regularly around the whole State. The Attorney General and the Solicitor General were also to arrange between themselves which Riding each should take, but they were not required to change. Alfred Moore was then the Attorney General. On Decem- ber 11, 1790, John Haywood was elected Solicitor General, being at that time clerk of the House of Commons. This new “Court Law” caused much discussion and some dissatisfaction. General William R. Davie and Alfred Moore seem to have been strongly opposed to it and spoke of mak- ing an effort to secure its repeal by the General Assembly of the following year. What General Davie’s objection was I do not know. Alfred Moore considered the election of a Solicitor General an invasion of his rights. He was an officer of the State under the Constitution, entitled to represent the ‘State in the Superior Courts of the State. He claimed that the election of a Solicitor General, to represent the State in the Superior Courts, was an infringement of his constitutional rights. How he could represent the State in two different courts in places far apart, it is hard to understand, unless he proposed to be represented by a deputy. However, he soon settled the difficulty by resigning; and some time about the MR. EDWARD JONES 91 middle of the year 1791 John Haywood was appointed At- torney General in his place, and Edward Jones, then of Wilmington, was appointed Solicitor General, being thus the second person to hold the office. The judges and law officers of the state were at that time appointed by the General Assembly, to continue in office dum bene gesserint; and Mr. Jones continued Solicitor General for nearly forty years. He was a man of culture and ability, of a distinguished Irish family, numbering among his direct ancestors Bishop Jeremy Taylor, and he was the younger brother of Willam Todd Jones, a noted Irish politician of the last part of the eighteenth century. But, like most emi- nent Irishmen of those days, he was of pure Anglo-Saxon lineage and a member of the Episcopal Church.* For some years there was nothing in our laws which gave the Attorney General any superiority of distinction above the Solicitor General, except the fact that the former was a constitutional official, and also the tradition of the Bar, derived from the English system, which made the Attorney General the higher officer. But the gradual development of our judicial system in a few years brought about the same condition, assigning the Solicitor General to a distinctly lower position and event- ually eliminating the office altogether. The year 1799 brought the first real improvement in our judicial system. Frauds, discovered or suspected, in the office of the Secretary of State, called for special measures of 1It is an interesting fact that of all the great Irish leaders of the eighteenth and early part of the nineteenth centuries, not one, until we come to Daniel O'Connell, was of Irish blood or a Roman Catholic in religion. Even Parnell was of English blood and of the Church of Eng- land, in our own day. i ee Se Pat ee mete pea A 92 THE SOLICITOR GENERAL investigation; and doubtless both the Bench and the Bar had been feeling the inconvenience of having no provision for reviewing the decisions of the Superior Court, upon the many perplexing questions which must necessarily have arisen in passing through such political and economic changes as marked the close of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth. The act of 1799 C. 4, therefore, directed the judges of the Superior Court of both Ridings to meet in Raleigh, “to settle questions of Law and Equity arising on the Circuit, and to provide for the trial of all persons con- cerned in certain frauds.” This act was to continue in force for two years, but so far as concerned the “Court of Con- ference,” it was continued in force, by legislative enactment, until the creation of the Supreme Court. This act provided that both the Attorney General and the Solicitor General should represent the State in this “Court of Conference,” as it was called. Probably each of them followed his own cases to this court, as other lawyers would do. Thus matters continued until, by a gradual evolution, the Court of Conference became the Supreme Court in 1805. In 1806 the old district town system was abandoned, and the State was divided into six judicial districts. Two additional judges were elected, and it was provided that one judge should hold two terms of the Superior Court in each county each year, riding the several districts in regular rotation. Also four additional solicitors were appointed for the first, second, fifth, and sixth districts; and it was provided that the Attorney General should represent the State in the third district, and the Solicitor General in the fourth.? This seemed *Some years before this time Mr. Jones had removed from Wilmington to Chatham County, where he spent the rest of his life; so that he now resided in the fourth district. THE OFFICE DISCONTINUED 93°: to leave the Attorney General and the Solicitor General in the same position as the solicitors representing the State in the other districts. But in 1810 the Supreme Court was author- ized to elect one of their number to preside over the Court, with the title of Chief Justice; and it was further enacted that, “it shall be the duty of the Attorney General to attend the said Court at their several sittings, for the purpose of managing the business on the part of the State,” and he is allowed a compensation of twenty pounds for this additional duty. This provision in the act of 1810 put the Attorney General distinctly above the Solicitor General and rescued the former officer from the fate which now befell the latter, of being merely the solicitor for the State in his district, with no distinction above the solicitors of the other districts, except in name.® : It was within the power of the General Assembly, in thus rearranging our system of courts, to have abolished the office of Solicitor General. But Mr. Jones’s high personal charac- ter, his professional reputation, and his universal popularity probably made the members of the General Assembly re- luctant to do so. Mr. Jones continued to hold the office until failing powers brought about his resignation in 1827. Decem- ber 19, 1827, John Scott, of Hillsboro, was elected to suc- ceed him and held the office until the year 1835. In the Revised Statutes of 1835, no mention is made of such an of- fice. It seems to have been silently dropped out. ; - But the solicitor in the district and in the counties which had been served by the Solicitor General, continued to be called the “Solicitor General” for many years; in fact, down * The Attorney General at this time was, I think, Henry Seawell of Wake, in the third district. i \ ete pee t i 94 THE SOLICITOR GENERAL to the year 1868, when “all things were made new,” by our wonderful Reconstruction Convention, under the leadership of Tourgée and other unselfish patriots from the North;! and now few lawyers remember that there was ever such a law officer of North Carolina as a Solicitor General. The Attorney General, being the solicitor of the Raleigh district, as well as representing the State in his higher capacity as Attorney General, was usually elected from the Raleigh district, in which he acted as solicitor; and the office did not have that state-wide prominence now accorded to it in our political life. It was not usually sought by men of other districts. Hence many young men of talent obtained the position at an age when they would probably not have been able to do so had it been considered, as at present, one of the great offices of the State, to be sought by eminent mem- bers of the Bar from all sections. *Mr. Poindexter of Stokes County, was for many years solicitor in the district, part of which had formerly been in the fourth district, and was commonly called “General Poindexter,” as being still considered to be the Solicitor General. He held the office so long that some of the more ignorant of the people confounded his name with the name of his office and upon hear- ing of his death inquired anxiously, “Who will be Pinedexter now?” JAMES GLASGOW O.: first Secretary of State, James Glasgow, held the of- fice from the formation of the state government, in 1776, until the year 1798, when he was turned out of office for fraudulent practices in connection with the issuing of land grants, under an act of our General Assembly giving land bounties to our Revolutionary soldiers. When North Carolina ceded all her western territory to the general government, from the Alleghany Mountains to the Mississippi River, she retained the property right in a considerable part of the ceded territory, for bounty lands for her Revolutionary veterans. A certain number of acres was allowed to each man according to his rank and term of service. Land offices were established for issuing warrants and having surveys made of such lands—one in North Carolina under John Armstrong, and one in Tennessee under Martin Armstrong. a) The method of taking advantage of this provision was for the person entitled to the bounty, or his representative or assignee, to obtain a warrant for the number of acres to which he was entitled and to have his claim surveyed and laid off for him in the unoccupied, lands appropriated for such bounty. The warrant and survey being then returned to the office of the Secretary of State, a deed, called a grant, when made by the State, was issued, signed by the Governor, and countersigned by the Secretary of State. , Glasgow was charged with participating in the issue of fraudulent warrants and grants for these military bounty lands. nt a Se Aaa = lg 5 3 et ee 96 JAMES GLASGOW Two methods were employed in these cases. One was, to forge an assignment of a bounty right in the name of some obscure person on the muster-rolls, who had disappeared or had died without known representatives ; to obtain a warrant on this forged assignment; and then in regular course to have a grant issued from the Secretary’s office, where no care was exercised to expose the fraudulent transaction. Another method was, to obtain a genuine and proper warrant for a small number of acres; and by a fraudulent survey to ob- tain a tract much larger than the warrant called for. This was easily managed by an unprincipled surveyor. The lines of the survey might follow the “calls” of the warrant, and yet, by running the lines from one fixed and definite point to another, “fifty poles more or less” could easily be made seventy-five or a hundred poles; as, when a definite terminus is called for, the line must go to that point, whatever be the measured length. By these methods—forgery and false sur- veys—great frauds had been perpetrated to the dishonor and loss of the State. In 1797 these frauds were discussed in the General As- sembly. The next year Glasgow was turned out of office. In November, 17799, an act was passed authorizing the judges of the Superior Court to meet in Raleigh for certain purposes mentioned; and the same act empowered the governor to issue his commission to the judges, requiring them to in- vestigate alleged fraudulent practices in the office of the Secretary of State; and also in the land offices of John Arm- strong and of Martin Armstrong. In the meantime the Attorney General, Blake Baker, had begun to bestir himself. Glasgow’s home was in Glasgow County, a county named in his honor. In 1799, the year THE LAND GRANT FRAUDS 97 after his dismissal from office, the name of the county was changed to Greene. Before the act of 1799 was passed, au- thorizing the governor to issue his commission for a Court of Oyer and Terminer to be held in Raleigh to investigate these frauds, the Attorney General had prepared bills of indictment against Glasgow in the Newbern district, at the September term 1799. Whether the Grand Jury went into the investigation and returned true bills, I do not know; but T have in my possession MS. copies of two bills prepared by Blake Baker, Attorney General, of the same general char- acter as the indictment on which Glasgow was afterward tried, June, 1800, in Raleigh, though perhaps not altogether so full and elaborate in setting forth the facts charged. Blake Baker had succeeded Judge Haywood in the office of Attorney General. The tradition of the Bar, as I heard it from my elders when I was a young man in Tarborough, is that, being anxious to avoid any possible error in drawing the bill of indictment in this important case, and Judge Hay- wood being recognized as the greatest Common Law Judge on the Bench at that time, the Attorney General conferred with Judge Haywood and prepared the bill of indictment, with the advantage of that great lawyer’s advice and co- Operation. Glasgow had been one of the most highly esteemed men in the State. It was a dreadful shock to his friends, and to the people generally, when it began to seem impossible to think him ignorant of the frauds which had been traced to his office. In this time of excitement on the subject, a confidential messenger, sent to the governor all the way from Nashville by two of the Tennessee judges, gave secret information that 1 oil a eS eae ee Se 4“ i fh A ih | \ HM LAN all i ray a { pr pa gee 98 JAMES GLASGOW an attempt would be made to burn the records in the Secre- tary of State’s office. A watch was accordingly ‘set, and a few nights later a Negro was caught breaking into the room where the records were kept. The Negro belonged to one Terrell, a clerk in Glasgow’s office and himself the chief sub- ordinate implicated in the frauds. Shortly after this Terrell escaped and disappeared. Finding himself thus involved in the toils of the law, Glasgow turned to the law to save him. The governor’s commission had named McKay, Johnston, Taylor (after- wards Chief Justice), and Haywood, as the judges to hold the court, or any two of them. Of the four, Haywood was accounted the ablest and most astute in all the learning and intricacies of the Common Law, and especially in its criminal procedure. To him Glasgow turned, as to his only hope. Eleven days before the trial he sought him, perhaps in his summer home in Franklin County, about five or six miles north of Louisburg. He went to him secretly at night and poured out on the table before him a thousand Spanish milled dollars! This he offered as a fee if Haywood would resign his seat on the Bench, and appear as his counsel in the trial. I suppose such a fee had seldom up to that time been paid to any lawyer in North Carolina. Haywood accepted the proposition, resigned his seat on the Bench, and appeared before the court as counsel for the prisoner at the bar. But nothing could save Glasgow. He was convicted on two counts in the bill of indictment. After the verdict Judge Haywood moved in Arrest of Judgment and assigned fifteen errors in the bill of indict- ment, which, according to the tradition, he had helped the Attorney General to draw. But he had made his work too BLAKE BAKER 99 good to be overthrown. The judgment stood. Many years ago I read in Governor Swain’s “Tucker Hall Address” his very interesting account of this famous Glasgow trial. How much of what I have been saying I got from Governor Swain, I do not know—perhaps most of it. I think I remember that he seemed to speak rather slight- ingly of the Attorney General and said that Mr. Edward Jones, the Solicitor General, was more relied on in the prosecution of Glasgow than the Attorney General. He is a rash man who will differ with Governor Swain in a matter of North Carolina traditions; yet I venture to do so in this case. In the first place, Governor Swain does not speak confidently, as from a clear conviction or positive informa- tion. As I remember, he throws out the remark as a sort of suggestion, a mere impression. Now Blake Baker, the At- torney General, held the superior official position, by all the traditions of the profession; and, though at that time our laws made no distinction between them, yet only a few years later, upon the establishment of the Supreme Court, this superiority was recognized. Moreover, Blake Baker was a lawyer of ability and experience, who for years had been in daily contact with the ablest lawyers of that day in the State. In the Eastern Riding, where he represented the State, Iredell, Johnston, Davie, Moore and Haywood had been his associates and his antagonists in forensic struggles. A man who had maintained himself with credit among such associates, in succeeding to the office which Haywood, Avery, Moore, and Iredell had held before him, was not likely to take a second place in such a case as this, especially as by all the traditions of the Bar he was the leader. Further, we are to consider, what Governor Swain did not - 100 JAMES GLASGOW know, namely, that before the Act of the Assembly had provided for the investigation and trial of the parties con- cerned in these frauds, Blake Baker, as Attorney General, had been preparing to prosecute Glasgow in the courts of his own district. All these things taken together make it im- possible for me to follow Governor Swain’s slight suggestion. Edward Jones was an Irishman of culture and genius. It is quite probable that his brilliant qualities made a popular impression and left a memory which seemed to make him the leading and most effective man in the prosecution. But, as Attorney General, Blake Baker, it seems to me, is entitled to the honor of being the chief agent in the prosecution and conviction of our unfortunate first Secretary of State. I have not seen the rare tract by Judge Duncan Cameron, the Clerk of the Court, in which he gives a history of the trial. But I have a strong impression that I have somewhere seen the statement, that it was the Attorney General, and the Attorney General alone, who argued the case for the State, when, after the verdict of guilty had been rendered, Judge Haywood made his last tremendous onslaught, with his motion in Arrest of Judgment, based on fifteen alleged errors in the bill of indictment, in the drawing of which he himself had been consulted. I have heard, or read somewhere, perhaps in Governor Swain’s “Tucker Hall Address,” that John Armstrong, who had the office of State Land Agent in North Carolina, when the prosecution for these frauds had been begun, or perhaps during the preceding investigations, one morning mounted his horse, summoned his pack of foxhounds with the blast of his hunting horn, and rode off from home, as if upon a fox hunt, as he was in the habit of doing. But TO eh ee nem ett tt ae JOHN ARMSTRONG 101 this time he did not return; and nothing was ever certainly known of him afterwards. A year or two later his wife removed also, without ac- quainting anyone with her purpose or her destination. ee ee een os JUDGE JOHN HAYWOOD B, the members of the Bar in the first part of the nineteenth century Judge John Haywood was commonly regarded as among the greatest lawyers of North Carolina. This estimate of him has been recorded in more than one of the decisions of our Supreme Court, if I am not mistaken. Judge William H. Battle of the Supreme Court, told me that when he was studying law at Williamsboro with Chief Justice Leonard Henderson, that eminent authority used to say that in the sub-Revolutionary period, covering the last years of the eighteenth century and the opening years of the nineteenth, the three greatest Common Lawyers of America were Theophilus Parsons of Massachusetts, Luther Martin of Maryland, and John Haywood of North Caro- lina. My first law preceptor, the late William K. Ruffin of Hillsboro, eldest son of Chief Justice Ruffin, and himself a lawyer every way worthy of his name, recommended to me the study of Coke on Littleton, by the example of Judge Haywood, who, he would say, knew very little but Coke on Littleton and yet was the greatest lawyer North Carolina had ever produced. By the greatest lawyer he meant not merely great in the exposition and application of legal principles and in the conduct of legal and judicial business, but greatest by reason of the position which he held and the influence he exerted in the development of our jurisprudence. In the opinion of Mr. Ruffin, Judge Haywood had had a greater share than any other man in influencing, directing, and developing judicial decisions, during that critical period when it had to be considered and determined in what manner, doe ee “FIRST HAYWOOD” 103 and in what degree, the principles and methods of the Common Law should be modified or changed, in order that they might be incorporated into the fabric of our civil and political life. One of the most interesting and valuable of our North Carolina Law Reports is the small volume known as First Haywood. In looking over it one is struck with the contrast between its reports of cases and those of later volumes. In. this difference may be seen how a lawyer at the Bar in that day might influence the development of legal opinion in the profession and thereby the course of judicial decisions. It is no disparagement of the judges who presided in our highest Courts when Judge Haywood began practise before them, to say that, as lawyers, they were by no means the equals of the leaders of the Bar. Ashe, Spencer, and Williams were doubtless better lawyers than Archibald Maclaine thought them, but they were far from being such as Iredell, Hooper, Johnston, Avery, Moore, Davie, Maclaine and Haywood. And this superiority of the Bar is curiously re- flected in the earliest volumes of our Law Reports. In First Haywood, for example, it is interesting and significant to observe, that in cases where the decision of the Court is summed up in less than a dozen lines, the arguments of counsel, their discussions and elucidations of the principles of law involved in the case, from their opposite points of view, often run to double that number of pages. It is plain, therefore, that in these reports it was the arguments of counsel which were the means of educating and influencing succeeding generations of lawyers, and so of directing the course of judicial decisions, rather than the opinion of the Court. In these early cases the Court usually did little more ae a | ie = ae en Saale apa a —<— “104 JUDGE JOHN HAYWOOD than decide the particular point raised, one way or the other. The reasons upon which the decision rested and the grounds upon which a contrary decision had been urged and might be defended, are to be found, not in the opinion given by the judges, but in the argument of counsel. This peculiar condition, manifest in the very form of our early reports, helps us to understand how a man, only about six years on the Bench, could exert so great an influence and retain so great a place in the judicial history of the State. Why did Judge Haywood leave North Carolina and remove to Tennessee, when he was fifty years old, or possibly older, and when he had attained such a position of pro- fessional eminence? The answer usually has been that he left North Carolina on account of the popular odium in- curred by his resignation from the Bench that he might ap- pear as counsel for James Glasgow, whom he had been ap- pointed to try. It cannot be denied, I suppose, that his action in that matter deserved popular reprobation, and received it. The professional mind may be able to view the act dispassionately and to minimize its evil, but the popular mind, excited and resentful on account of the faithless and venal conduct of one of its most trusted and honored servants, could make no allowance and would accept no excuse for such conduct in one appointed to detect and punish frauds, who had thus lent his professional skill to shield and deliver the perpetrator. Undoubtedly popular odium was incurred by Judge Haywood. But did he leave North Carolina on that account? The Glasgow trial was in 1800. It was some eight years after this that Judge Haywood removed to Tennessee. Judge Haywood’s qualities were too substantial and genuine to REMOVAL TO TENNESSEE 105 remain permanently oppressed and obscured by popular odium or prejudice. His conduct had shown a want of delicate appreciation of professional propriety, but it had been frank and straightforward. There had been no duplicity or concealment. In eight years a man of his power and es- sential integrity must have emerged from any cloud of popular obloquy, unless there had been deeper stain upon his character than that which resulted from his course in the Glasgow case. If the facts stood simply thus: Glasgow’s trial in 1800; Judge Haywood removed to Tennessee in 1808, it must be confessed that, even so, there would be reason to doubt whether the two facts stood to each other in the relation of cause and effect. But the facts do not stand thus naked and alone. There is evidence that Judge Haywood’s removal was due to causes subsequent to the Glasgow trial, and entirely unconnected therewith. In the spring of 1874 I happened to be shut up for a rainy day in the same house with Governor Graham about a year before his death. I remember that day as one of the most interesting I have known. Among the many entertain- ing subjects which I was glad to hear discussed, the name of Judge Haywood came up, and I mentioned the tradition I had received connecting his removal to Tennessee with the Glasgow trial. Governor Graham at once asserted, with great appearance of confidence, that the tradition was wholly erroneous. He said that Judge Duncan Cameron knew Judge Haywood well and had assured him that the Glasgow trial had nothing to do with Judge Haywood’s removal to Tennessee. Judge Cameron met Judge Haywood in Raleigh in 1808 on his way to the West, and had a conversation med Hh i h H I i Hy 4 5} - 106 JUDGE JOHN HAYWOOD with him on the subject. Judge Cameron expressed surprise that at his age he should be removing to a new country. Judge Haywood replied, that the recent act of the General Assembly (Potter’s Revisal, 1806, sec. 693) providing for two terms a year of the Superior Court in each county and abolishing the old district towns, had broken up his practice. He had been accustomed to attend one or two of the district courts most convenient to him; but now his clients were scattered about, and their cases would be tried in perhaps twenty or thirty counties. He would have, as it were, to begin over again; and so he had concluded to begin In a new country, especially as some of his friends and kins- men had removed to Tennessee. Such was Judge Cameron’s account to Governor Graham. He said that the removal to Tennessee was wholly on account of the new legislation in regard to the Superior Courts in North Carolina. Judge Cameron knew all about the Glasgow trial and its results. He was the Clerk of the Special Court and published an account of the trial in a pamphlet now exceedingly rare. No man was more capable of detecting the true motives actuating men, or of forming a sound judg- ment upon any practical matter, than Judge Duncan Cameron. He felt a special interest in Judge Haywood and stood in a peculiarly close professional relation to him. It was to Judge Haywood that he had applied for admission to the Bar when he came from Virginia in 1797 to seek his pro- fessional fortunes in North Carolina. He was the son of the Rev. John Cameron, rector of the old Blandford Church A Asn *I am inclined to doubt whether there is, or ever was, such an account published. I have seen it stated that there wa: s, but I have who had ever seen it. i De xe eae A BAR EXAMINATION IN 1797 107 at Petersburg, and in that older and richer community had enjoyed advantages of intellectual and social culture not so commonly found in his new home. Upon coming to North Carolina he was advised that it would be an advantage to him, in the beginning of his professional career, to seek ad- mission to the Bar from the most eminent of the judges; and to that end he proceeded to visit Judge Haywood at his residence in Halifax County. Saturday night, however, found him a few miles short of his destination; and he spent the night at a wayside house of entertainment. After break- fast Sunday morning he mounted his horse and rode on to Judge Haywood’s house. The Judge was not in, but Mrs. Haywood asked him to take a seat while she sent a little Negro girl to call her husband. When the eminent jurist made his appearance, Mr. Cameron was surprised to see him in his shirt-sleeves, and with a gun on his shoulder. He expained to his young visitor that he had been taking a walk along the banks of the creek which was near his house and had taken his gun in case he should see any of the wild ducks which frequented the creek. The shirt-sleeves he prob-: ably thought needed no explanation to a sensible man with any true notion of comfort. Upon learning the business which had brought Mr. Cameron to his house, he proposed that he join him in his interrupted walk; and they spent the morning sauntering along the banks of the creek. The impecunious Judge in his shirt-sleeves, with the gun on his shoulder, on that pleasant Sunday forenoon examined the young student and future eminent jurist and financier, in the science and practice of the Common Law, and satisfied himself of his fitness to be admitted to the Bar of North Carolina. This scene left an unfading impression upon the young = — a a Serre === - 108 JUDGE JOHN HAYWOOD son of the Virginia clergyman, who was not more impressed by the power and intellect of Judge Haywood than by the simplicity and unconventionality of his character and the plainness, not to say coarseness, of his personal appearance and habits. Their walk and converse were prolonged until Mrs. Hay- wood had to send the same little black girl to tell them that dinner was waiting for them. Absorbed in the interest of his subject and his company, Judge Haywood seemed at first not to hear the summons. When her persistence had forced him to notice her, he turned, with violent expressions of anger and pretended that he would shoot her, threaten- ing her with his gun, if she did not cease calling him. The child, however, seemed unmoved by his threats, which she had probably learned the true value of. She continued re- peating her mistress’s message, until her master, turning to his guest, sorrowfully admitted that the only way to get rid of her was to return to the house for their dinner. Thus far Judge Cameron, as reported by Governor Graham. The traditional accounts of Judge Haywood, in that part of the state where the Haywood family first settled and where Judge Haywood lived, are in perfect accord with Judge Cameron’s account of his visit to him. He is said to have been very large and fat, and of careless and slovenly habits. His talents early commanded for him a place among the very foremost members of the Bar. The men reckoned as his equals, when his true value came to be known, Iredell, Hooper, Davie, Moore, J ohnston, and the rest, were mostly men of refined tastes who affected no little elegance in personal manners and attire. They were much scandalized HABITUALLY “HARD UP” 109 that their associate, whose intellect and professional attain- ments they could not refuse to admire, disregarded all their standards of propriety and insisted on keeping the bosom of his shirt wide open, in order the more conveniently to scratch his hairy expanse of chest; and they were equally troubled at his primitive custom of holding the leg of a barbecued pig in his fingers, while he bit the meat from the bone. He was habitually “hard up” as to money. There is a story to the effect that for the sake of keeping his pecuniary affairs straight he adopted the somewhat original method of refusing to pay any money upon a debt except to the sheriff.? Judge Lea of Nashville, Tennessee, told me an amusing story of one of the old treasurers of that State, who received at the same time a letter from a kinsman requesting a small pecuniary accommodation and another from Judge Hay- wood asking for an advance on his next quarter’s salary. He answered both by the same mail, and by one of those strange mistakes which will sometimes happen, he backed Judge Haywood’s letter to his kinsman, excusing himself from making the desired advance upon the ground that he was cursed with a pack of idle, worthless relations, who thought that they had nothing to do but to run to him when *In justice to Judge Haywood it should be said that formerly the sheriff and the county court were much in request for the collection of debts where there was no real thought of litigation. The process was simple, the costs inconsiderable, and the lawyer charged no fee—being satisfied with the four dollar tax-fee in the bill of costs paid by the de- fendant. And such suits did not affect the credit or the friendly relations of the parties. It is needless to add that all this was in an agricultural, and not a commercial community. Sa 110 JUDGE JOHN HAYWOOD they wanted money instead of working for it themselves; and the letter to his cousin he sent to Judge Haywood, say- ing that he would gladly accommodate him with the sum he asked for, but that that shiftess old Haywood, instead of waiting until he had earned his salary, was always plaguing him to pay it in advance; and so he was out of funds. During the latter part of his residence in North Carolina, Judge Haywood had a house, perhaps only a summer house, in Franklin County, on a public road now long disused about six miles north of Louisburg in a very out-of-the-way corner. The house was standing when my father with his family used to spend the summer in that vicinity. The only thing specially noticeable about the place, was a pair of tall stone gateposts of hewn granite with circular ornaments cut upon the top, rendered conspicuous and rather absurd by the rail fence, without stakes or riders, which wandered up feebly on each side and rested wearily against the large stone columns. About a mile from the house, on the road to Kittrell, stood, and still stands, I suppose, a church belonging to a local Baptist congregation, on a piece of land given by Judge Haywood and on that account called “Haywood’s Meeting House.” Judge Haywood was essentially a student, and, with better opportunities and facilities for study* and investigation, would doubtless have distinguished himself beyond the limits *T have mentioned Mr. William K. Ruffin’s statement that Judge Haywood seemed to know very little except, “Coke on Littleton.” I remember that in one of his important arguments, as reported in (I think) First Haywood, he refers to some critical event in English history connected with the de- velopment of the legal principle under consideration, and it appears quite plainly that the only authority he had on the general history of England was Goldsmith’s History! ee INTEREST IN PSYCHIC PHENOMENA 111 of his profession. It has been common to speak lightly or his belief in ghosts and apparitions; and the instances alleged by him do not carry much weight to our mind. Judge Battle, with a touch of humor, which is sometimes the best wisdom, points out that Judge Haywood’s witnesses are too often country gentlemen, returning home after having tar- ried rather too long at the tavern in the county town. I passed many summers in my father’s house, Monreith, on the road leading from Louisburg to Judge Haywood’s residence, and I recall vividly the sound of trampling horses and bibulous voices of country gentlemen late in the night hurrying home; and certainly spirits, good or bad, were not absent upon the road. But it seems to me that his serious discussion of a subject, in his time treated with contempt by the educated, whatever might be the thought of the igno- rant, is evidence of independence and sagacity. It is now recognized by the most enlightened minds that, whether or not there be any supernatural element in such phenomena, they at least manifest the working of psychical forces deserv- ing attention and investigation. He also wrote upon religious subjects and discussed questions as to the “prophetical numbers,” with perhaps as much satisfaction to himself and as little benefit to others as have attended the efforts of more eminent writers. I am not able to give any account of Judge Haywood’s re- ligious opinions or practice. He belonged to a family prominently connected with the Church, by its own tradi- tions, both in the Province and in the State of North Carolina. It is presumed that he was a Churchman him- self, so far as he had the opportunity, of enjoying its serv- ices and ministrations; though he lived during a period Sa nN hn a Pa 112 JUDGE JOHN HAYWOOD when the Church of his fathers had little or no organized or visible existence in those parts of the country where his lines were cast. As it has been thought by some that Judge Haywood exerted perhaps a greater influence than any of his con- temporaries in guiding the development of judicial de- cisions in North Carolina, so he seems to have been the same dominating influence in Tennessee. The late Colonel Hamil- ton C. Jones of Charlotte, said to me that some of Judge Haywood’s decisions in that State were of so radical a character that they created widespread uneasiness in the profession and among the people, and he excited thereby much popular resentment and ill will. I once came across, in the library of Judge Willam P. Bynum, Sr., a mutilated pamphlet, a fragment, without the name of the author, or any title. I could not fully make out the subject or the merits of the argument. But its purpose was to oppose some judicial decision of Judge Haywood, and it attacked him personally and officially with great bitterness. There was no charge of personal corruption, but rather of personal ar- rogance and self-confidence and of posing as a great and sufficient authority—in short, it fell in very well with what Colonel Jones had told me of the resentment aroused by some of his decisions. I was much surprised and interested to find that the name of one of the parties to the suit dis- cussed in this pamphlet was James Glasgow! It did not ap- pear whether this James Glasgow had been favorably or unfavorably affected by the decision in the case. But I could not help wondering if this was the same James Glas- gow whom Judge Haywood had defended back in North Carolina in 1800. If so, it would seem a strange fate which ee BAR EXAMINATION IN TENNESSEE 113 had again brought them together in this new land and had thus involved in popular odium the same distinguished name. : In his old age he became very fat and unwieldy, though his intellectual vigor and enterprise seem to have continued to the end. Considering the conditions of Western life in his day and the engrossing character of his official and pro- fessional duties, the publishing in one year, 1823, of two such books as his Civil and Political History of Tennessee, and the Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee, when he was certainly sixty-four years old—or by other accounts seventy, was a marvel of intellectual industry and enter- prise. These books are very rare, especially the latter, and command exceedingly high prices when by chance some old copy comes upon the market. Governor Graham’s story of young Mr. Cameron’s visit to Judge Haywood in Halifax County, North Carolina, gave us our earliest view of this remarkable man: the story of a Tennessee law student shall give us our last. In a book of reminiscences published some years ago by a Tennessee lawyer, a Mr. Gill, the author gives an account of his admission to the Bar. He too sought Judge Haywood, because he desired to receive his license from the greatest lawyer in the State, as well as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He found him at his home in the country and made known the purpose of his visit. The old Judge made great complaint at being thus troubled by those who ought to go to younger men; but he consented to examine the applicant and proceeded to do so at once. The simplicity of his early days in Halifax had not essentially changed with age. His great size and weight made it difficult for 8 ene, ERE i 114 JUDGE JOHN HAYWOOD him to move about. He was therefore seated, with his books around him, upon an untanned bull’s hide, spread upon the ground under the trees. When the progress of the sun brought its rays to bear upon him, he would call a stout Negro man (perhaps the son of the little black girl whom Mrs. Haywood had sent to call him and young Mr. Cameron to dinner), who, taking hold of the tail of the bull’s hide, would draw the old man and his books to another spot better protected from the sun. And.so during the day he would travel around with the moving. shade of his mighty oaks and pursue his studies and meditations in primitive simplicity and comfort. raves He died in December, 1826. The Tarboro’ Free Press of January 27, 1827, contains a notice of his death “in his sixty-ninth year,” which would put his birth in 1758. But other authorities say that he was born in 1753. I am inclined to take 1758 as the correct date. ope JUDGE ROMULUS M. SAUNDERS Aaa to our North Carolina tradition the National Democratic Party is still “ridden by the ghost” of Judge Saunders; some think for its good, others think to its great damage; for to him we attribute the “T'wo-thirds Rule,” which allows no presidential candidate to be named by the National Democratic Convention, until he has received two- thirds of the votes cast. As our story goes,‘ Judge Saunders was the author of this Two-thirds Rule, and by him it was imposed upon the Convention of 1844; and all subsequent efforts for its repeal have failed. The Whigs under General William H. Harrison had carried the election of 1840 with a whoop. “Tippecanoe and Tyler too” had swept the country like a tidal wave. But the tidal wave had receded. Tyler’s defec- tion—as the Whigs considered it—had demoralized the party. The National Democratic Convention met to nomi- nate a candidate in 1844, with good prospects of success. But there were elements of discord. The Southern delegates were bitterly opposed to the nomination of Van Buren, or of any man representing his wing of the party which yet had a majority of the delegates. To prevent the natural result of this superior strength, the “Two-thirds Rule” was imposed upon the Convention, by a stratagem of Judge *Judge Saunders was certainly the author of the “Two-thirds Rule.” ‘Whether the account here given be entirely accurate, I do not know. It is in this form that it has been handed down and received in North Carolina. The “popular mind” somewhat resembles Josh Billings’s goat, which “had rather steal a rotten apple out of a garbage barrel than to come by a peck of sound apples honestly.” I don’t think any of us would like to give up the story of Judge Saunders’ stratagem. ——> ee re ee ae Soa paar 116 JUDGE ROMULUS M. SAUNDERS Saunders, as all good North Carolina Democrats believe. They say that Judge Saunders passed the word around quietly to all delegates upon his side of the question, re- quiring them to be in their places the next morning promptly at the hour named for the morning’s session. Some say that he named a time half an hour earlier than that appointed and moved up the hands of the clock the next morning, so that the Convention was called to order half an hour earlier than the hour which had been set. It is not necessary to suppose that this was the case. Such great meetings never assemble promptly. At any rate, Judge Saunders secured the attendance of all his wing of the party; and a sufficient number of the Northern members were present to constitute a quorum under the rules, but not enough to make up their majority of the Convention. Immediately upon being ready for business. Judge Saunders introduced a resolution that no one should be declared the nominee of the Convention unless he had received two-thirds of the total vote of the Convention. In the absence of many of the Northern mem- bers this resolution was adopted. In consequence of this rule James K, Polk, of Tennessee, was declared the nominee of the Convention, and no subsequent National Democratic Convention has been able to shake off Judge Saunders’ collar. So we tell the tale! Though an able man and a great popular leader, edu- cated at the University, and a very effective public speaker, Judge Saunders is perhaps chiefly remembered today for his very careless and inaccurate use of words. It is said that in making a speech on the Capitol Square in Raleigh, he called the statue of Washington a “statute,” and referred. to the State House, a beautiful specimen of pure Greek tt ttt TIN oh x AN ARDENT SOUTHERNER vay: architecture, as “that Gothic pile.” Judge Howard told me that about 1859 he attended a great Democratic mass- meeting in Goldsboro, where there were eminent speakers from this and other States, Mr. James C. Dobbin, of Fay- etteville, Mr. Clement C. Clay, of Alabama, and others. Judge Saunders made the opening speech, and began by alluding to a nickname of “Old Roan,” popularly applied to him. He said, “I facilitate myself on being called ‘Old Roan.’ Was not General Jackson called ‘Old Hickory?’ Yes, fellow citizens, I facilitate myself,” etc., “facilitating” himself half a dozen times before entering upon his sub- ject. “And then,” said Judge Howard, “he went on and made the ablest and most effective speech of all which were made that day.” Judge Saunders was appointed minister to the Court of Spain. Some one expressed to Judge Badger surprise that Judge Saunders had been selected for that position, since he could not speak Spanish. Judge Badger was noted for his eloquent speech and for his exact and careful use of words. He was also a rather extreme Whig and not averse to getting in a good lick at an able and popular political foe. “Well,” he said, “I am not so sure about that. Judge Saunders certainly does not speak English. Perhaps what he speaks is Spanish.” Judge Saunders was on our Superior Court Bench for many years and was a vigorous administrator of justice, as he understood it. He did not always feel himself bound by technicalities and artificial rules and precedents, where his ideas of substantial right and wrong came into play. He was a very ardent Southerner, and during the Con- federate War would charge the grand juries eloquently Garam TESS oon 118 JUDGE ROMULUS M. SAUNDERS upon their duty, and the duty of all good citizens, to sup- port loyally the Confederate cause; referring to the dangers and sufferings borne by his own family in the war, and shedding tears of indignation as he denounced the enormity of refusing to receive Confederate money (which was not legal tender) in payment of debts. The keeper of a small country store in Wayne County was tried before him upon a charge of trading with Negroes at night. On account of the facility which such trading af- forded Negroes for disposing of stolen articles, it was made a misdemeanor, punishable by imprisonment for six months, to trade with a Negro by night. The statute further pro- vided that if a Negro was seen coming out of a store at night, that fact would create a presumption that the keeper of the store had been so trading and would throw the burden of proof on him to show himself innocent. In this case the defendant was a man of bad character, who had frequently been indicted for this offense and for other petty crimes, but had always been able to escape punishment by some cunning management or legal technicality. Judge Saunders knew this and determined that he should not evade justice this time. The Solicitor relied for a conviction upon the statutory presumption above mentioned. But, when his wit- nesses had been carefully cross-examined it appeared that they had not seen the Negro actually coming out of the de- fendant’s store. They could only testify that they had seen him near by, and coming from the direction of the store, under circumstances which made it quite certain, in their minds, that he had in fact come out of the store. Everyone was fully satisfied of the guilt of the accused, and the Judge intimated that he would leave it to the jury to say whether the Negro had come out of the store and whether the defend- PRESUMPTION UPON PRESUMPTION 119 ant was guilty. The prisoner’s counsel asked the Judge to charge the jury that in order to take advantage of the presumption of guilt created by the statute, the State must show by positive testimony that the Negro was seen actually coming out of the store; that the State could not introduce testimony showing merely that the Negro was seen under circumstances which raised a presumption that he had come out of the store, and on that presumption base another presumption of the prisoner’s guilt. This was clearly good law, but it would have acquitted the accused. The Judge declined to give the instruction asked for, and said he would leave it to the jury. Of course the prisoner’s counsel could have appealed to the Supreme Court; but his client’s character was such that he could not have given bond so as to be released from gaol pending the appeal; and the six months’ term would be entirely served, in effect, before the case could by any possibility be determined by the action of the Supreme Court. So his counsel made a passionate appeal to the Judge: “If your Honor please, I have a right to‘ask your Honor to instruct the jury that they must acquit my client, since the State does not pretend to have intro- duced any testimony to show that the Negro was seen com- ing out of my client’s store. I have in my hand, your Honor, a ‘volume of our Supreme Court Reports, containing a de- cision directly in point, construing this very statute and deciding in so many words, that the true construction is just as I have asked your Honor to charge. Chief Justice Pearson himself delivered the opinion of the Court.” “Mr. Strong,” said Judge Saunders, “Chief Justice Pearson has no respect for my opinion; and, Sir, I have no respect for his.” The prisoner was convicted, to the great and just in- = ne a ae Pn 3 nirmnines 120 JUDGE ROMULUS M. SAUNDERS dignation of Mr. Strong, who could with difficulty restrain his anger when Judge Saunders afterwards jocularly re- minded him that his client had at last gotten justice! . In the canvass of 1840, when Governor Morehead was elected, Judge Saunders was the candidate of the Democratic party, and there were joint debates between the two. Governor Morehead, one of the ablest and most useful governors the State has ever had, is reported to have said that when he first met Judge Saunders “on the stump,” he was quite unable to compete with him in his political argu- ment. But Governor Morehead was a very able man, and during the earlier part of the campaign he interested and pleased the people with his sensible and practical speeches, without undertaking to meet Judge Saunders on his own ground. In the meantime he was studying the questions discussed by his opponent; and, as the campaign progressed, he gradually took up, now one and now another, of the points he had been avoiding, and in the end was able to “hold his own” upon the subjects he had at first feared to discuss, being unprepared upon them and but little accus- tomed to public political speaking. Governor Morehead was eminently a man of affairs rather than a politician; and he had no hesitation in admitting that Judge Saunders had taught him the art of political speaking “on the Stump.” a = ——————— ee A GREAT LAWYER Sac Ruffin—There have been several eminent lawyers in the Ruffin family, but “Judge Ruffin” usually means Chief Justice Thomas Ruffin. His son of the same name, though he too became a judge, first of the Superior Court, and then of the Supreme Court, is usually spoken of as “Colonel Ruffin,” having been a Colonel in the Confederate War. It has always seemed to me that, taken in all aspects, Chief Justice Ruffin was on the whole the greatest lawyer ever developed in North Carolina; he was born in Virginia. He looked great. He bore himself with an air of power and of elevation. He did not look like an ordinary man. I never saw him but once; and then I did not know who he was. It was in the summer of 1867. I was in Hillsboro for a few days. Coming out of St. Matthew’s Church after the Sunday morning service, in company with my cousin, Joe Webb, a year or so my senior, I saw a group of perhaps half a dozen gentlemen standing near the church door. They had come out before us, and were evidently waiting for the ladies of their party, who were standing about in groups talking. I was much struck with the distinguished appearance of one of the gentlemen, evidently quite an old man, over eighty years of age, but spare, erect, of rugged and strong features, with snow-white hair, dressed in an old-fashioned black “swallow-tail” coat, with a high collar and a white stock or cravat. I was looking at him with involuntary admiration when to my very great surprise he stepped for- ward and greeted me most cordially, taking my hand and ask- ing courteously and kindly after my father and mother, and desiring me to present his very kind regards to them = - oo SS Se SS i 122 A GREAT LAWYER on my return home. The combined grace and dignity of his manner, coupled with his courteous greeting, made a great impression on me, and as soon as we were well out of earshot, T asked my companion, “Who is the old gentleman who spoke to me?” “Why, don’t you know him? That was Judge Ruffin.” I was at that time only seventeen years of age and had very seldom been beyond my place of residence, except to Hartford, Connecticut, where I was then a student in Trin- ity College entering my Junior year. But Judge Ruffin had been a friend of my father and of my maternal grand- parents, and there have been a good many social and do- mestic relationships between his family and my own. I wish that I might have seen more of so eminent a man; but the one brief interview gave me a very pleasing impression of him. I believe he was a man of a rather strict and severe judg- ment and habit of mind, qualified by great courtesy and urbanity of manners, gracious and hospitable in social life, but exact and rigid in business, thrifty and economical, and therefore effective in all practical affairs. Though his almost constant service on the Bench during the greater part of his mature life, as well as his naturally judicial quality of mind, repressed any development of narrow partisanship, whether in politics or in religion, he had very strong con- victions on both subjects and was uncompromising in his loyalty to his convictions. Chief Justice Nash, his successor in that office and his neighbor in Hillsboro, is reported to have said to him humorously: “There are three things, Judge Ruffin, that you hate: a poor man, a Whig, and a man ‘who is not an Episcopalian, but especially a Presbyterian.” A TAVERN BILL 123 As Judge Nash combined in his own person these three “disqualifications” and yet lived in most cordial and friendly relations with Judge Ruffin, he could say this; and such a saying illustrates the character of the man of whom it was said. : His eldest son, William K. Ruffin, inherited a very great portion of his father’s intellect; but he seemed to me to have more of the softer qualities of his mother’s family, the Kirklands. He told me that his father once sent him with a large sum of money to take up a note which was held by old Mr. Maxwell Chambers of Salisbury. Banks were not numer- ous in those days and were less used than now. In this case Mr. Ruffin carried the money in his saddlebags, and rode horseback from his father’s house, Hawfields, in Alamance County, to Salisbury, some eighty miles. Reaching Salis- bury late in the afternoon he put up at a tavern. First he went to the stable and saw that his horse was properly rubbed down after the hard day’s ride and then watered and fed and put into a good comfortable stall. By this time supper was ready. After supper, being quite tired out, he went to bed early. The next morning after breakfast he went to Mr. Chambers to pay the note. Mr. Chambers got out the note, and on the back of it made a calculation of the interest due to that date. Mr. Ruffin then paid the note in full and took it up. On reaching home he went into his father’s room and gave him the note. His father looked at the calculation on the back of the note and saw that the amount had been correctly reckoned up. He then asked: his son at what time he had reached Salisbury. He told him the day and hour. The Judge then said, “I observe that the note was not paid until the day following.” ——— = an EEE 124 A GREAT LAWYER “Yes,” replied William, “It was late in the afternoon when I got to Salisbury. My horse and I were both fatigued from a hard day’s journey, and I went at once to the tavern: When I had seen that my horse was well attended to, it had come to be supper time; and after I had eaten, I was tired and sleepy myself; and so I went to bed. The next morning immediately after breakfast I went to see Mr. Chambers, and paid the note; and then started on my return.” “That was all well, William,” said the Judge, “but if you had paid the note on the evening of your arrival, you would have saved one day’s interest, and that would have paid your tavern bill!” This same son, William, during the earlier part of his life was somewhat wild and dissipated, though a lawyer of great ability and sound learning. Judge Ruffin, in the intervals of his service on the Bench, was chairman of the County Court of Alamance, after his removal from Hills- boro to his plantation, Hawfields. Upon one occasion his son William, in arguing a case before the Court, laid down a certain proposition of law. “That is not:the law Mr. Ruffin,” said his father. “Tl be damned if it isn’t the law,” replied the son, who was somewhat “in liquor.” “Mr. Sheriff, take Mr. Ruffin into custody. He is com- mitted for contempt of Court.” So the Sheriff took him into custody. In contemplation of law he was committed to gaol, though, as a matter of fact, the Sheriff merely kept him in some convenient room near by. Soon after this in- cident the Court took the regular noon recess, during which Judge Ruffin turned the matter over in his mind and per- haps also turned over the leaves of his law books. At any “HEADS OR TAILS” 125 rate he came to the conclusion that William had stated the law correctly. : : Upon the reassembling of the Court the Sheriff was ordered to bring his prisoner into Court. “Mr. Ruffin” said the Presiding Justice, “Upon further consideration the Court is of opinion that you stated the law correctly. But the Court committed you, Sir, for the very improper manner in which you expressed yourself. Mr. Sheriff, your prisoner is discharged from custody.” Mr. William Ruffin told me that when, upon the death of Chief Justice Henderson, Judge Gaston was appointed to succeed him on the Supreme Court, Judge Ruffin pro- posed to elect Judge Gaston Chief J ustice, as this appoint- ment at that time was in the power of the Court itself. To this Judge Gaston objected, saying that J udge Ruffin should be the Chief Justice. The third member of the Court, Judge Daniel, declined to decide this very creditable contention, saying that he would be quite content with either. So in the end they had to leave it to chance. They threw up a coin— “Heads or Tails’—and thus by lot Judge Ruffin became Chief Justice. I told this story in the fall of 1871 to Judge Howard, but he was incredulous. He said that old Mr. Edmund B. Freeman, for many years Clerk of the Supreme Court, was the repository of all of the traditions of the Court. Judge Howard remembered quite distinctly to have heard that upon Judge Ruflin’s return to the Court, after the death of Chief Justice Frederick Nash (Judge Ruffin had resigned in 1852 but was persuaded to return upon the death of his successor), it was the general expectation that he would, as a matter of course, be again the Chief Justice, 2 ee RE en EES —— 126 A GREAT LAWYER with Judge Pearson and Judge Battle as Associate Justices. But Judge Pearson claimed that as a matter of right he, having at that time the oldest. commission, was entitled to be Chief Justice. Judge Ruffin was not a man to claim personal distinction for himself and did not dispute J udge Pearson’s position. It seems that. when the first Supreme Court selected one of their number to preside as Chief Justice, their choice fell upon Judge John Louis Taylor, wha was the senior by commission. Upon his death Leonard Henderson was chosen, he being then the oldest by com- mission. In both cases, however, it was the recognized ‘pre- éminence of the individual which determined the choice; not the date of his commission. Judge Ruffin became Chief Justice under the peculiar circumstances above related. But Judge Howard’s memory was very clear that Mr. Freeman had stated, that, upon the appointment, of Judge ‘Gaston, Judge Ruffin had claimed the position by virtue of -his prior commission. So.in 1860 Mr. Freeman said that Judge Ruffin was being “paid in his own coin,” when Judge Pear- son claimed the position upon the same ground. Judge Howard therefore discredited the story told me by Judge Ruffin’s eldest son. - Idid not like to believe Mr. Freeman’s version of the matter. My estimate of Judge Ruffin was such that I could not think of him as making such a claim; though it was hard to discredit a tradition of the Supreme Court, rest- ing on the authority of the man who had been for so many years identified with it as its Clerk. I stated my difficulty to Judge Henry Groves Connor, my almost lifelong friend, one of the most eminent and justly venerated characters who have ever occupied and JUDGE CONNOR’S TESTIMONY 127 adorned the judicial office in this state. He sympathized with my feeling, but recognized the difficulty raised by Judge Howard’s memory of Mr. Freeman’s story. One day some years after I had been living in Raleigh, I saw Judge Connor at a distance, as we were both walking in the Capitol Square. He beckoned to me to wait for him and I paused until he overtook me. “I have something to tell you,” he said, “which will please you. I have been pre- paring a biographical sketch of Judge Gaston, and mem- bers of his family have kindly lent me many of his letters. Among them is a letter from Judge Story to Judge Gaston, informing Judge Gaston that he had seen in the newspapers an announcement of Chief Justice Henderson’s death, and of Judge Gaston’s appointment as his successor- He thereupon tendered his congratulations to Judge Gaston as Chief Justice. There is also a copy of Judge Gaston’s reply, in which he explains to Judge Story that, while he had been appointed to the Supreme Court as Judge Henderson’s successor, he had not thereby become the Chief Justice; since the Chief Justice was appointed by the Court itself. He added that Judge Ruffin had very earnestly and very generously insisted that he should be the Chief Justice, to which he had declined to assent, as in his judgment that Position ought to be occupied by Judge Ruffin himself. As their colleague, Judge Daniel, refused to decide between them, he said they had been reduced to the expedient of tossing up a coin and thus leaving it to chance. So,” said Judge Connor, “the story told you by Mr. William Ruffin is confirmed by Judge Gaston: himself.” Judge Howard’s tradition of Mr. Freeman’s story is thus shown to be er- roneous; i.e., Mr. Freeman’s story is erroneous: I have no 128 _A GREAT LAWYER doubt whatever that Judge Howard had heard the story. He was an exceedingly accurate man in remembering what he heard and in repeating what he remembered. My old friend, Colonel John L. Bridgers, the elder, used to say that Judge Ruffin would have been a great lawyer, even with only ordinary intellectual ability, because of his immense capacity for work. “Work,” he said, “is the chief element in greatness.” Judge Ruffin, early in his career, became very heavily encumbered with debt, by the failure of his kinsman, Judge Archibald Murphey. I have under- stood that he had become surety for Judge Murphey in the sum of sixty thousand dollars. He took Judge Murphey’s plantation by way of saving what he could, removed his family from Hillsboro, and made this plantation, Haw- fields, Alamance County, his home from that time until after the close of the Confederate War. Being now a farmer, as well as lawyer, he soon became as successful in agriculture as at the Bar. In recognition of this practical ability he was, some years later, made president of the State Agricultural Society. But this did not mean any diminution of his professional activities. Being burdened with this load of debt so unexpectedly, and having a family of twelve sons and daughters, he probably had a view to economy in removing to Hawfields. But economy could not pay a debt of sixty thousand dollars; and it was now that he showed his extraordinary capacity for labor. Colonel Bridgers understood that he habitually attended the courts in two districts the same week, arranging with his brother lawyers to have all his cases in the Court in one district set for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of Court ' week; and by a similar arrangement in the County where Pt THE STATE’S GREATEST CHANCELLOR 129 the Court of the next district was in session the same week, having his cases there set for Thursday, Friday, and Satur- day. Having finished up his business in the first Court by Wednesday afternoon, he would then drive all the evening, and if necessary all night, to reach the county town where Court was in session in the neighboring district, and so attend to his business there also. This was the account that Colonel Bridgers gave me, as he had heard it. He said that a man of such capacity for work, and of such untiring energy and industry, must needs have developed into. a great lawyer, with only moderate intellectual gifts. But Judge Ruffin’s extraordinary natural endowments, together with the stimulus and the discipline of such strenuous labor, readily account for his great eminence and the reputation he enjoyed of being the greatest Judge in our state history. I have heard that Judge Pearson considered himself quite equal to Judge Rufiin, if not his superior, in the old Common Law learning; but that he admitted Judge Ruffin’s pre- eminence as an Equity Judge; saying of him that, “He was the greatest Chancellor who ever sat on the Bench in North Carolina.” In St. Matthew’s Church Yard, Hillsboro’, on the monu- ment standing at the head of Judge Ruffin’s grave, is a just and striking epitome of his mind and character, in a couplet from Addison’s translation of one of the Odes of Horace: “4A man resolved, and steady to his trust; Inflexible to ill, and obstinately just.” a a IRE A ENON ETE ———————— WILLIAM KIRKLAND RUFFIN I have hard it said more than once that Judge Ruffin’s eldest son, William Ruffin, was the greatest lawyer the Ruffin family has produced. Such an opinion and such a statement must refer rather to what seemed to be the po- tentialities of the man, than to any actual achievement, or attainments. It is true that for a great part of his life his physical disability made any great success impossible, as he was confined not only to his room, or to a very narrow space beyond his room, but actually to his chair. He had lost one of his legs, the whole leg, quite up to his body; and his great size and weight made it impracticable for him to attempt to walk, even with the aid of crutches. With a crutch and the help of a large and strong man, he could get from his room to the porch just outside the door, where he sat in pleasant weather; and in the same way he could return to his room. This was the extent of his locomotion during the time that I knew him. And a man in this condition is abso- lutely debarred from any practical achievement as a lawyer. But he had not always been thus helpless. He had been a man of robust health and of powerful physique until the accident by which he lost his leg. And though he had the char- acter and reputation of an able lawyer, he had at that time made no great place for himself at the Bar; while at that same age his father was recognized as one of the first lawyers of the State and of the country. I cannot therefore put the son on an equality with the father as a lawyer, though he was certainly a man of a mas- sive mind like his massive body. Indeed, with an older man’s more mature judgment, I seem now to see that Mr. William “COKE ON LITTLETON” 181 Ruffin, with great natural strength and breadth of under- standing, had so devoted himself to the study of the Common Law, that he admired even its defects and its excrescences. When I left him, he wrote out a deed and gave it to me, that it might serve as a form by which I should draw similar conveyances. It was expressed with all the formality and exuberance characteristic of the ancient Common Law con- veyancing. I remember the Covenant of Warranty: “That the said A.B. party hereto of the first part, Grantor, doth hereby covenant and agree for himself, his Heirs and personal representatives, with the said C.D. party, hereto of the second part, Grantee, his Heirs and assigns, that he is seized in his demesne as of fee of an indefeasible estate of fee simple in possession, of and in the said tract and parcel of ground,” etc. with the same redundancy of ancient phrase- ology throughout the whole deed. He seemed to me excessive- ly attached to the past. This, however, may have been because his lameness had forced him out of the current of life and out of contact with his fellows. He was strong in his praise of, “the man of one book”; and the ‘one book” for him was “Coke on Littleton.” He used to say that the greatest lawyer North Carolina had ever produced was John Haywood of Halifax. He said that Haywood had had but little education and had no great knowledge of books; but “he knew Coke on Littleton. He had studied it and digested it; and with a naturally powerful mind he applied its principles to the new questions arising in our new country; and in that way he had more to do with adapting the Common Law to our American life than any other lawyer of this State.” And so he considered him the greatest lawyer North Carolina had known. ee ve ae ee ee 0 9 OO a Seeetngae Se ee i i i 132 WILLIAM KIRKLAND RUFFIN That was the substance of his conversations with me on more than one occasion. I read with him only two or three months, and our attention was confined wholly to Second Blackstone and Cruise on “Real Property.” When I left him he exacted a promise of me that I would read Coke on Littleton, and that I would read it all! “Not Thomas’s Coke,” he said, “nor Hargrave and Butler’s Coke, but Coke on Littleton in an old edition, just as Coke pub- lished it. Get an old folio black-letter edition, and read the original, and not some other man’s arrangement of it.” So I made the promise, and a few months later in old De- Forge’s second-hand bookstore in Baltimore I found such a copy as he had described; and it had pasted on the inside of the front cover a plain bookplate containing these words, “KE Bibliotheca Gabrielis Dwoall anno 1778.” It was in the spring of 1872 that I bought the book. I do not remember when I began to read it, but I find a pencil mark at the end, showing that I finished it October 3, 1874. It contains 789 folio pages, and is followed by an Index or “Table,” as it is called, of sixty pages. The text of Littleton, in Law-French, stands at the top of each page, with a parallel column giving the English translation. The two occupy usually hardly a fourth of the page. All the rest of the page is filled with Coke’s commentary on Littleton’s text, with abundance of Latin quotations from ancient authorities. The parallel English of Littleton is printed in ordinary Roman letters. The text of Littleton and all Coke’s comments, are in black- letter, the latter in very small type, and they make an im- mense mass of commentary in those '789 large folio pages, difficult to read in the small black-letter characters, and very trying on the eyes. .I waded conscientiously through DEDIT DEUS HIS QUOQUE FINEM 133 it all, Law-French, Latin, and black-letter. I believe I am the last lawyer in North Carolina who thus read Coke on Littleton from beginning to end. I have asked many, both younger and older men than I, and have found not one who said that he had ever read even any very considerable part of the book. At the end of the “Table,” or Index, was this quotation; could anything be more apt? “Dedit Deus his quoque finem.” There may remain in my mind some unconscious legal erudition from the months devoted to this wearisome task, though it did not make me a great lawyer. All I remember distinctly, in addition to the very happy quotation above given, are two passages whose ecclesiastical flavor has prob- ably preserved them in my mind. They are as follows: “If a man be baptized by the name of Thomas, and after at his Confirmation by the Bishop he is named John, he may purchase by the name of his Confirmation . . . a matter not much in use, nor requisite to be put in ure, but yet necessary to be known.” And this: “A City is a Borough incorporate, which hath, or hath had, a Bishop.” em Nae ape Salon Soe GOVERNOR WILLIAM A. GRAHAM I have always regretted that I had not enjoyed the op- portunity of seeing more of Governor Graham and know- ing him better. I once passed a rainy day in his company in the Spring of the year 1874, little more than a year before his death. It was at the home of his son, Captain James A. Graham, in the town of Graham. I had arrived the night before, with the purpose of devoting my time to a much younger person, one of the opposite sex. I was no little disappointed, when I found myself the next morning prac- tically obliged to spend the whole day with this aged gentle- man as my only companion. But I now recall it as one of my most interesting memories of the past. I learned much, which I was glad to learn, and am glad still to remember, though some curious and interesting narratives I can recall only sufficiently to make me regret that I have forgotten much of what I then heard. Governor Graham was one of the greatest men our State has produced. Personally I am disposed to regard him as our most eminent public character. He was large in body and in intellect and in the impression he made; deliberate and massive; profound and wise rather than brilliant. Few who really knew him failed to feel this, though some smaller souls attempted to depreciate his qualities and to fancy themselves his equals, perhaps his superiors. By the State at large his abilities and high character were always recog- nized. Judge Pearson is reported to have applied to him what Sugden said of Brougham as Lord Chancellor; that if the Lord Chancellor knew a little law, he would know a WHEN DELIBERATION WAS PAINFUL 135 little of everything. Governor Graham’s mind did not con- cern itself with small things, either of the law, or of politics. He was a statesman and a philosopher, rather than a Politician or a practitioner. He was earnest and elevated in thought and in character. Perhaps he was somewhat lacking in an adequate sense of humor. He was once employed to defend a prominent and wealthy citizen of Caswell County, under indictment for murder. The younger Judge Thomas Ruffin appeared with him, as junior counsel. After a long conference in the county gaol between the prisoner and his counsel, as to the proper line of defense to be adopted, the prisoner inquired of Governor Graham as to the fee to be paid. Governor Graham spoke for both himself and Mr. Ruffin: “This is an important and difficult case, and you are a wealthy man. We shall charge you a thousand dollars for our joint services.” “I think that quite reasonable,” replied their client, “I am quite content to pay it. But I have not a thousand dollars in hand. How can I arrange the matter?” “Why, Sir,” said Governor Graham, “you can give us your note for that amount. If you shall be acquitted, you can pay the note at your convenience; if otherwise, we will settle with your personal representatives.” They did settle with his personal representatives! The punishment for manslaughter, inherited from the cruel code of the Common Law, was to brand the letter M upon the fleshy part of the hand at the base of the thumb. It was inflicted by the Sheriff coram judice. The hot iron was held upon the flesh, while the counsel of the prisoner repeated as rapidly as possible, without regard to accuracy of articulation, the words, “God save the State,” three 4} = 5 Pius = 3) | | i i i 136 GOVERNOR WILLIAM A. GRAHAM times. Governor Graham was of such immovable dignity and deliberation, that, in performing this painful duty for an unfortunate client, he found it impossible to speed up his utterance. “God save the State! God Save the State! God save the State!” in his solemn and deliberate tones, gave almost as much distress to the officiating Sheriff and the spectators as to the unhappy culprit. I had a very interesting conversation with Governor Graham on the subject of slavery, when I passed the day with him in the Spring of 1874, as has been mentioned. I told him that I had recently seen the commencement oration of my uncle, the Rev. John Haywood Parker, de- livered at his graduation in 1832; and that it was an argu- ment in favor of the abolition of slavery in North Carolina. He replied that it was at that same commencement of 1832 that Judge Gaston, in his address to the Literary Societies, had made his famous plea to the young men of the State, that they should realize their duty of taking up that great problem and removing the burden of slavery which was depressing the influence, the development, and the best interests of the State. Governor Graham said that in 1832 the abolition of slavery was freely discussed in the State and was favored by many of our best and wisest men. I asked him how it came about that there was such a sudden and total change in public opinion within the next twenty years. He replied that there were several concurrent causes of this. In the first place Nat Turner’s Insurrection, in Southampton County, Virginia, in 1831, had much to do with it. That short but bloody outbreak excited such _ horror and alarm that people feared to talk of freeing the Negroes, lest it might tend to suggest the idea of freedom ABOLITION SENTIMENT IN NORTH CAROLINA 1387 to their minds and lead them to similar attempts at free- ing themselves by force. Also it was just about this period that the Quakers and others in the North began to send to Congress petitions for the abolition of slavery; and the struggles in Congress and the resentment of the people of the South at what they considered an interference in their domestic affairs caused a great revulsion of feeling. The Southern people were willing to consider the subject them- selves, but they would not be dictated to. I afterwards mentioned this conversation to Judge Howard, who agreed with Governor Graham; but he added that another element in the problem of the abolition of slavery, was the acquisition of immense territory by the Mexican war and then the discovery of gold in California immediately afterwards. This opened so much additional territory for the extension of slavery in Texas and the Southwest, and so greatly stimulated all values, that slave Property was more than doubled in value. When a Negro man was worth three or four hundred dollars, as he was be- fore 1832, the abolition of slavery was one question. When the same Negro came to be worth one thousand dollars, as he came to be before many years had passed, the question of abolition had become quite a different one. This does not seem to be a very exalted view of the question, but it has to be considered. a = | t i) | ANSWER A FOOL ACCORDING TO HIS FOLLY (Cpe Hamilton C. Jones of Charlotte, told me that he never knew Governor Graham to use a humorous anecdote in a public speech except upon one occasion; and that one humorous story he considered to be one of the best he had ever heard. In the spring of 1861, when the country was on the verge of war, a great Peace Convention was held in Salisbury. Eminent men from all parts of the State at- tended it, one of the most eminent and influential being Governor Graham. In a noble and eloquent speech he pic- tured the horrible nature of such a conflict between friends and brethren as seemed to be impending. He deeply de- plored the levity with which the matter was treated by certain eager and inconsiderate speakers both North and South, who had said that the country would, “be better for a little blood-letting” and who ridiculed the warnings of more serious and judicious men. He said some of his friends among the Secessionists, who thus belittled the horrors of war, re- minded him of a story told him by General Kossuth, the great Hungarian patriot. Kossuth was in America after the failure of the attempted revolution in Hungary and was making a speech to a great public gathering somewhere in the state of New York. He was urging upon his audience their duty as American citizens to give their sympathy and aid to all who strove for freedom in all countries however distant: “Wherever an arm is raised in the cause of liberty, it should be upheld and strengthened by the sympathy and aid of the great free Republic of the West,” or words to _ that effect. “You may say,” he went on, “that this might in- volve your country in war. But what of that? Why should “HELL AIN’T GOT BUT FOUR” 139 you fear the thought of war? What is war? It is but a little word—W-A-R; it has but three letters.” Here he was interrupted by a drunken man on the out- skirts of his great audience, “Mr. Kossuth, Mr. Kossuth,” cried the drunken man. “Well, Sir,” said Kossuth, pausing in his speech, “What is it, Sir?” “Mr. Kossuth, you say that war ain’t got but three letters?” “Yes, Sir,” replied Kossuth. “Well, Mr. Kossuth, Hell ain’t got but four!” Kossuth said that he was completely floored; and Governor Graham counselled his friends among the Secessionists to meditate upon the drunken man’s answer. Another example of answering a fool according to his folly: Senator Thomas L. Clingman, during his long term of service in Congress, was accustomed to return to Ashe- ville when Congress had adjourned and to spend much of the summer in exploring the mountains on horseback. I believe he claimed to have determined which particular peak of the Black Mountain was the highest; and one of them bears his name—Mount Clingman, or Clingman’s Dome. On one occasion at a sales stable in Asheville he was buy- ing a horse for his summer excursion, and a group of idlers standing by were offering their opinions, unasked, as to the qualities of the animal Mr. Clingman was purchasing. He bore their remarks with ill-concealed impatience, but without reply, until one man stepped up and asked, “Don’t you think, sir, that his neck is too short?” “It reaches to his head. I think that is quite long enough,” replied Clingman. The Rev. Thomas R. Owen of Tarborough, was a Presby- Ped —- t { } } tf 1 ; +) Se | SS it i th pai i ar | 140 ANSWERING A FOOL Ati) terian minister who for many years preached to a Baptist congregation, before becoming a Baptist himself. He was of high social antecedents and culture, a man of ability and a scholar. He had an acute mind, with perhaps something of a satirical, not to say cynical, turn, and a quick wit and dry humor. There worked at odd jobs in the community a rather weak and sorry character by the name of Enos Womble. Enos was a Kehukee Baptist and had once set up, or tried to set up, as a preacher. He said he had had a divine call; that he was in the woods at night coon-hunting, and he saw a shooting star and heard a voice speaking to him, say- ing, “Go, preach the Gospel.” His brethren, of the Baptist denomination, did not believe that Enos was in any way qualified to be a preacher, but upon their own principles they did not know how to oppose the authority of such a divine call. But “Sister King,” a member of the same church and a very shrewd woman, was determined that her church should not be discredited by having such a preacher. She had great influence, and she sent for Enos to come and see her. Enos came, and gave her a very clear account of his experience, and of the divine call he had heard, at the same moment in which he beheld the flaming meteor. Sister King could not deny either the star or the voice. But she was equal to the occasion. “Enos,” she said, “I do not doubt that you saw the shooting star and that you heard the Lord’s voice. But He was not calling you, Enos. He was calling another man, and you just happened to overhear Him.” Sister King’s explanation commanded general approval, and Enos was not numbered among the preachers. But he considered himself, in a manner, one of the cham- ENOS AND THE DEVIL 141 Pions of the Faith, and by this attitude perhaps invited the assaults of the sceptic. He was employed in painting a house about two miles from town. One day Dr. Jos. J. Lawrence, son of the famous Kehukee Baptist preacher, Elder J oshua Lawrence,! but himself a professed sceptic, was passing by and he attacked Enos upon the subject of the Bible: “Enos, do you believe that everything in the Bible is true?” ss octor, I surely do.” ee es the Bible say that God made all things?” “Yes, doctor, and I believe it.” “Doesn’t the Bible say, Enos, that after the Lord had made everything, He beheld all that He had made, and it was very good? Do you believe that, Enos?” “Yes, doctor, I surely believe it.” “Well, Enos, didn’t the Lord make the Devil?” “Yes, doctor, the Lord made the Devil.” “Well, Enos, is the Devil very good?” This was too much for Enos, and the doctor went off laughing at him. : eee sore troubled. He painted a while, and he stopped a while and pondered. He could not quiet his mind So as to go on with his work. Finally he put his brush into the paint bucket hanging on the rung of his ladder, climbed *Mr. Thomas B. Hill of Hillsboro, a native of Halifax County, hee Me that in his youth he heard Joshua Dayrence eee in old ye ‘i Church (originally a chapel of ease of the colonial Parish of Edgecomy i ’ in the lower part of Halifax. It was a hot day, and before ae bss the preacher, pulled off his coat, and laid it across the esa : brethren,” he said, “I am going to preach you a sermon so plain it” Women and Negroes can understand it. steet aan T Se eae 142 ANSWERING A FOOL down, took off his overalls, and struck off by a path through the swamp for town. He would go and see brother Owen. Brother Owen was an educated man. He was not a Baptist, but he was a good sound and bitter Calvinist; and he preached for that town Missionary Baptist Church. He must know all about the Devil. So Enos made straight for his house and knocked impatiently at the door. Mr. Owen answered the knock himself, and without entering, Enos pro- pounded his problem: “Mr. Owen, ain’t the Bible true?” “Yes, Enos,” said Mr. Owen. “Mr. Owen, don’t the Bible say that God made all things?” “Yes, Enos.” “Mr. Owen, don’t the Bible say that after the Lord had made all things, he looked upon what he had made, and it was very good?” “Yes, Enos.” “Mr. Owen, didn’t the Lord make the Devil?” “Yes, Enos, the Lord made the Devil.” “Well, Mr. Owen, is the Devil very good?” Mr. Owen looked at Enos and took his measure; and then he said, “Enos, isn’t he a very good Devil?” “Mr. Owen,” cried Enos, with almost a shout of joy, “He surely is. He is a good Devil.” And Enos went back, climbed up his ladder, and painted away in perfect peace of mind, with all his philosophy of evil clear and satisfactory. And who could have given Enos a better answer? GENERAL ROBERT F. HOKE Ga Hoke was another man whom I knew for a good many years, though I had never much opportunity of being in his company. I wish I might have known him better. On one occasion only did I ever have any extended conversa- tion with him. I think it was in the latter part of the year 1885. We were the only occupants of a sleeping car which left Raleigh at eight o’clock in the evening, attached to a freight train on the S. A. L. Railroad, and after a very leisurely journey reached Charlotte about the same hour the next morning. There were several hours to be passed before we cared to retire to our berths, and I was glad of the opportunity of talking with one, whom as a soldier and a man I greatly admired. My special interest in General Hoke had begun in 1864, when I was a boy of fourteen years. The capture of Ply- mouth in the spring of that year was the only event of the Confederate War which had come very close to me. During General Hoke’s attack on that town I could hear the booming of the cannon in the early morning, when I went out to the stable to feed my father’s horse. I had heard the cheering of the regiments as they marched by night through the streets of Tarborough on their way to Ply- mouth; and afterwards I saw the two or three thousand prisoners captured at Plymouth, as they passed through on their way to Salisbury. This expedition against Ply- mouth had therefore always possessed a special interest for me. Moreover, the Confederate Ram, “Albemarle,” without as ipa — es 5 Sg ap A ATOMS sees er eng erl 144 GENERAL ROBERT F. HOKE the codperation of which Plymouth could. hardly have been taken, had been built at Edwards’s Ferry on Mr. William R. Smith’s plantation, by his son, Peter E. Smith, and Gilbert Elliott, all of them my father’s parishioners; and I had as a boy been very proud of. knowing Captain Cook, the Commander of the “Albemarle.” I was therefore naturally desirous of engaging General Hoke in conversa- tion upon the subject of the Expedition against Plymouth. He was a modest man, not at all talkative at any time and very little given to speaking of his own exploits. I found it quite difficult to arouse his interest in the subject. But we had some hours to pass before bedtime; I was myself deeply interested, and perhaps a little persistent. But I was careful to keep within the bounds of the deference and respect due to a man so much older and more distinguished than myself; and his natural kindness and courtesy at last yielded to my efforts. He became interested himself, as the memories of the past flowed back upon his mind; and, grow- ing more animated than I had ever before seen him, he gave me a vivid account of what was really a brilliant military exploit, though not on a large scale. I give in my own words the substance of what he then told me. As the spring of the year 1864 came on, the condition of the South was growing increasingly difficult. Virginia being almost completely exhausted, food for the “Army of North- ern Virginia” had to be drawn almost wholly from eastern North Carolina over the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad. It came to the knowledge of the Confederate authorities during the winter of 1863-64, that Plymouth was being made a great depot of supplies by the Federal Government. Great quantities of food, ammunition, and military material ORDERED TO ATTACK PLYMOUTH 145 of all kinds were being collected to an extent which sug- gested the inauguration of some great movement from that base. Finally official correspondence was intercepted, which disclosed to the Confederate authorities that it was pro- Posed to move a strong force from Plymouth up the Roa- noke River to capture Weldon, and thus cut the line between Eastern North Carolina and Richmond and deprive General Lee of supplies of food for his army. Such a movement, if Successful, would have been fatal to the South. Very important political considerations had also to be taken into account; for Holden at that time was endeavor- ing to create in North Carolina a “Peace at any Price” party, by appealing to the Union sentiment of the old Whigs in this State. It was therefore seen to be of the last importance that the proposed movement should be anticipated and that Plymouth should, if possible, be captured before the prepara- tions of the enemy could be completed. The armored Ram, “Albemarle,” had been launched at Edwards’s Ferry, and then taken up the river to Halifax. Her defensive armor, consisting of railroad iron rails, spiked down upon heavy oak timbers, was being put upon her and Was nearing completion. Captain Cook of the Coniederate Navy, had been assigned to command her, and with his complement of officers and men, was on board hurrying on the work. In this situation of affairs, Mr. Davis, President of the Confederate States sent for General Hoke and told him that an expedition was to be sent againt Plymouth and that he had been selected to command the land forces, consist- ing of his own brigade and the brigade of General Matt. Ww. Ransom; and that the “Albemarle,” under Captain Cook, 10 146 GENERAL ROBERT F. HOKE would codperate in the attack. I do not remember what artillery was provided for the expedition. Mr. Davis said to General Hoke that during the previous year an expedition under General Pickett had been sent against Newbern, but so much time had been wasted in preliminary movements that the enemy had leisure to make such defensive preparations as caused the attack, when delivered, to be an utter failure. He therefore impressed upon General Hoke the absolute necessity of rapid move- ment and a prompt attack. General Hoke replied that he could promise nothing else, but he could assure Mr. Davis that if he should command the expedition, the attack would be made at the first moment possible. General Hoke said to Mr. Davis that if the “Albemarle” was to codperate in the attack on Plymouth, Captain Cook should be instructed to take his orders from the General in Command, so that perfect harmony of action might be insured. To this the President demurred. He said that Cap- tain Cook, was under the Navy Department and not sub- ject to the orders of the War Department. General Hoke replied that, in an expedition of the kind proposed, unity of command seemed to him absolutely essential to success; that he could feel no assurance of effecting the object de- sired unless he had control of the entire attacking force; that a possible conflict of opinion between the land and the naval forces, if it had to be referred to the authorities in *I remember to have heard a distinguished Colonel of the Army of Northern Virginia say that General Hoke in going into battle reminded him of Stonewall Jackson. He said they brought their men into action with extraordinary rapidity; that, almost before it was apparent what they purposed to do, it had been done. This was the impression made on him by both these great soldiers. Ss