I can’t tell you how much delight and pleasure your reminiscences in
the Saturday Evening Post have given me, as well as the many others who
have followed them, and I suppose you will put them in a volume when
they are finished, so that we may have the pleasure of reading them in
connected order.
As you know, I live in Raleigh and I was very much interested in your
article in the issue of April 5, 1919, with reference to Andrew
Johnson, in which you quote a story that “used to be current in
Raleigh, that he was the son of William Ruffin, an eminent jurist of
the ninetenth century.” I had never heard this story, but the story
that was gossiped there was that he was the son of a certain Senator
Haywood. I ran that story down and found that it had no foundation
whatever, because if he had been the son of the Senator reputed to be
his father, the Senator was of the age of twelve years when Andrew
Johnson was born.
My own information is, for I have made some investigation of it, that
the story about Andrew Johnson’s having a father other than the husband
of his mother, is as wanting in foundation as the story about Abraham
Lincoln. You did a great service in running that down and exposing it,
and I trust before you finish your book that you will make further
investigation and be able to do a like service in repudiating the
unjust, idle gossip with reference to Andrew Johnson. In your article
you say that persons who claim to have been present when Johnson came
to Raleigh and erected a monument over the grave of his father, declare
that Johnson said he placed this stone over the last earthly abode of
“my alleged father.” That is one phase of the gossip, and the other is
that he said “my reputed father,” both equally false.
The late Mr. Pulaski Cowper, who was private secretary to Governor
Bragg, of our State, just prior to the war, and who was afterwards
president of our leading life insurance company, a gentleman of high
character, and of the best memory, was present at the time that Johnson
made the address from which you quote the rumor. Mr. Cowper wrote an
article for The News and Observer, giving the story and relating that
Johnson said that “he was glad to come to Raleigh to erect a tablet to
his father.” The truth is that while his father was a man of little or
no education, he held the position of janitor at the State Capitol, and
he was not wanting in qualities which made him superior to his humble
position. If he had been living in this day he would have been given a
lifesaving medal, for upon the occasion of a picnic near Raleigh when
the cry came that children were drowning he was the first to leap in
and endanger his life to save them.
Andrew Johnson’s mother was related to the Chappell family, of which
there are a number of citizens of standing and character near Raleigh,
several of them having been ministers of the Gospel, and one at least
having gained distinction as a missionary in China.
I am writing you because I know that your story will be read and
accepted and I thought you would be glad to have this story, based upon
a study and investigation and personal knowledge of Mr. Cowper, whose
character and competency are well known in North Carolina.