_ANDREW JACKSON, THE MAN._
Andrew Jackson was a more courageous man, as well as a much greater
man, than many of his most ardent admirers knew of. At the time of
his duel with Avery, if the version which I believe to be true is
correct, he was afraid of public opinion--that is, he believed that,
if he made an explanation, somebody might think that he feared Avery,
and so, rather than run the risk of being suspected of cowardice, he
was willing to give Avery a chance to kill him. But later in life he
had outgrown this, and had no master except his convictions of duty,
his own sense of right and wrong. He did not care what anybody might
believe or suspect him of, so long as his course had the approval of
his judgment and his conscience.
This was established beyond doubt, in the minds of a few old gentlemen
(who afterward learned the actual facts), by an incident which happened
in 1832--probably in the early part of October--at the public house
or tavern kept by Capt. Bell at Bean’s Station, in Grainger county.
President Jackson had left Washington, in the early part of August,
1832, in company with Francis P. Blair and others, to visit the
Hermitage; and the incident about to be related occurred on the return
trip to Washington. Before leaving the Hermitage, the itinerary or
schedule of travel and stopping-places on the route had been made out.
Bell’s tavern had been fixed upon as a point for dinner and rest, and
Capt. Bell had been notified of the date. Bell had been a friend and
admirer of Jackson for many years, and he and his wife naturally made
great preparations to receive and entertain the President and his
accompanying friends. Quite a number of leading citizens, acquaintances
and adherents of Jackson, who had been apprised of the day he would
arrive, were on hand to greet their old friend and leader, the
President of the United States.
The party arrived on time, and the President’s carriage stopped in the
public road in front of the tavern, which stood at some little distance
back from the highway. Capt. Bell and others were at the carriage door
to receive President Jackson, who got out immediately and “shook hands
all round.” Bell, however, observed that Jackson, with an ominous
storm-cloud gathering on his face, was looking intently toward a broad
porch which extended along the front of the tavern, his eyes evidently
fixed upon a gentleman who was walking back and forth on this porch,
and who was evidently in turn eyeing Jackson with equal intensity.
Suddenly, Jackson turned toward the conveyances which were accompanying
him with friends, some of whom had already gotten out, and said, “Don’t
get out--we will not take dinner here.” Then, turning to Capt. Bell,
he said, “I regret that I can’t stop, rest awhile and take dinner with
you. Tell Mrs. Bell that I could not stop.” The latter remark was made
in an undertone to Capt. Bell, after which President Jackson got into
his carriage and ordered his driver to go on, and his friends followed.
Capt. Bell’s curiosity was as great as his disappointment at the turn
things had taken. He did not know what had caused it, but suspected
that the presence of the gentleman walking on the porch had something,
if not everything, to do with it. This gentleman had only stopped for
dinner, and left immediately after it was over, without alluding to the
Jackson incident. Indeed, no one then knew whether or not he knew who
Jackson was; but Capt. Bell, during the hour or so that he remained,
learned what afterward proved to be three important facts--the name
of the gentleman, that he was from North Carolina, and that he was
on his way to Kentucky. At that time, the thoroughfare from all East
Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia was by way of
Bean’s Station through Cumberland Gap to Kentucky.
Some months later, Capt. Bell learned that the gentleman in question
was one of President Jackson’s most bitter and unrelenting enemies;
that he was in fact the leader of the opposition to Jackson in North
Carolina; that he had made public speeches in North Carolina and
elsewhere against him, in the campaigns of 1824 and 1828, and was then
(1832) most active in his opposition; and that he was at that time
probably on his way to Kentucky to consult with Jackson’s opponents in
that state. He, as Bell afterwards learned, had rehashed in his public
speeches all the slanders which had been invented against Jackson,
including no doubt the one which had cost Dickinson his life in 1806.
After learning these facts, Capt. Bell said that he well knew the
terrific struggle which Jackson had then and there, to control the
storm rising within his breast as he saw, within a few yards of him, a
hated foe who had committed a crime which, in Jackson’s judgment, ought
to bar him out of heaven. But Bell’s idea was that Jackson--the man
with a temper like a tornado, and whose very nature, as some professed
to believe, was nothing but a raging torrent of fury--said to himself,
“I am President of the United States; and I can not afford to bring
reproach upon the people who elected me, or to degrade the highest
office on earth by a scene, or a difficulty with that man, which is
certain to follow if I stop here”; and he therefore immediately got
into his carriage, and left without any explanation except the words
given above. When Capt. Bell met Jackson again, a few years afterward,
no explanation was necessary--he knew all.
Capt. Bell’s son, who as a young man was present when the incident
occurred, is authority for the account given above, and for his
father’s views and recollections of it. So far as I know, it has not
been published hitherto.
Those who knew Andrew Jackson would agree with Bell that it took
a superhuman effort even to remember, at the moment, that he was
President of the United States, and to control the passion that the
sight of this man aroused in him; but he did it, and, in doing it,
proved himself a greater man, if possible, than many of his friends
ever believed him to be. The struggle that the President of the
United States had with Andrew Jackson, on this occasion, can better
be understood when it is remembered that the man walking on the porch
had repeated statements which, it is said, was the origin of Jackson’s
trouble with Sevier and others, and which also caused Jackson, in his
duel with Dickinson, after the latter had fired and hit him, to place
his left hand tightly on the spot where the ball had entered, take
deliberate aim with the other hand and pull the trigger; and then, when
the weapon failed to fire, the hammer having caught at the half-cock
notch, to examine it carefully, recock it, aim carefully again, and
fire again--this time to see his enemy fall mortally wounded, dying in
a few moments afterward. Jackson’s act at Bean’s Station, in leaving
abruptly the presence of a calumniator of the memory of the wife whom
he had worshipped in life, and at the very mention of whose name after
her death tears came into his eyes and a tremor in his voice, was an
exhibition of courage and self-control showing greatness in a direction
and to a degree not often met with in the very greatest of great men.
On this same journey from Washington to the Hermitage, in 1832,
President Jackson was given an ovation and reception which, it is
believed, was the most pleasing and gratifying to him of any of the
numerous public demonstrations of popular esteem theretofore shown him.
This affair had its beginning four miles northeast of Jonesboro, on the
public highway--the old state road--on each side of which, at the point
mentioned, was an old-fashioned crooked rail fence, and also large oak
and other native forest trees. It was in the latter part of August, or
early in September, and the day was an ideal one. The road was on and
along the top of a high ridge, with the Iron Mountain in plain view
across the valley to the south. At this point, the President was met by
one hundred picked men, uniformed, and mounted on a hundred of the very
finest dapple-grey saddle horses that could be found in the country, to
escort him into Jonesboro. This column of horsemen was under command
of Samuel Greer, a life-long friend of Jackson. As it approached the
carriage of the President, who had had no intimation of its approach,
and got within about a hundred feet, a hundred stentorian voices
simultaneously shouted: “Three cheers for Andrew Jackson, the greatest
man on earth!” and the cheers which followed made the welkin ring and
woke the echoes of three commonwealths.
The carriage was pulled to the right of the road, under the shade of a
large oak (which was still standing as late as 1884), and the President
alighted, removing his hat as he did so, and bowing three several
times to the horsemen. This act of course caused another burst of
applause. When quiet was restored, the column, at the command of Greer,
dismounted and passed to the rear, where he introduced each one to the
President. It is said that the latter, in as many as forty or more
instances, while holding some young man by the hand, would tell him
who his mother was before her marriage, what his father’s given name
was, and in what part of the county he had lived--whether on Watauga,
Nolichucky or Holston river, or on Limestone, Cherokee, Boon’s, Brush
or Knob creek. After this, Jackson turned in the direction of the Iron
Mountain, and as he pointed to it, said in substance: “Forty-four
years ago last spring, I crossed that mountain, and settled, as I
then thought, in this country permanently, amongst your fathers and
ancestors; but Providence had decreed that I should not spend my life
in this particular part of our great state, and took me elsewhere.
Every time, for the last few days, that my carriage has been where I
could see that mountain, I have been looking out at it, and letting my
mind run back over my stormy and eventful life; and, at the moment you
approached and gave me the first notice I had of your coming by your
cheers and applause, I was thinking of whom I would meet and whom I
would miss of my old friends at the old town just ahead of us, where I
began life. I wish to say, before we resume the journey to the town,
that in all my career I have not been the recipient of a demonstration
more greatly appreciated than this one, here under the old trees, in
this old road that I used to travel so often, by the sons of my old
friends and acquaintances.” Then, with Greer and ten of the escort
some little distance in front of the carriage, and ninety in the rear,
the journey was resumed. It was understood throughout the country that
Jackson would arrive in Jonesboro that afternoon, and also that he
would spend the next day in the old town. This had brought thousands
of people to Jonesboro; men, women and children came, on foot, on
horseback and in every kind of vehicle. There was no way to house and
feed the multitude that had arrived and filled the town when Jackson
reached it late in the afternoon. The sides of the road were lined with
people for a mile outside the town, the streets were packed, the
tops of many of the houses were covered, and the President was received
with waving of hats, bonnets, aprons, handkerchiefs and improvised
flags and with shouts from the multitude, from the time he came in
sight until he got out of his carriage and went into the hotel.
[Illustration: CHESTER HOTEL, JONESBORO, TENNESSEE.
On the porch of which Jackson held the reception in 1832. From a
photograph taken in 1881.]
The hotel at which he stopped was on the main street, and had a broad
porch that extended the full length of the house. This was about eight
or ten feet high, projecting out over the sidewalk, and was reached
by a stairway at each end. On the following day, the President held a
reception on this porch, and there shook hands with all of the people
who had assembled to see him, they passing up at one end of the porch
and down at the other. On this porch, on this day, was dispelled
from the minds of some of his friends every vestige of the slight
suspicion which had been produced by vile hired slanderers, that his
fierce nature, turbulent spirit and stormy life had sapped his mental
powers, judgment and reason, and that he was no longer the real Andrew
Jackson of New Orleans, but was surrounded and controlled by designing,
unscrupulous scoundrels, who were feeding the vanity of the old man
in his dotage on flattery which he was then unable to detect and
resist. President Jackson stood on the hotel porch at Jonesboro, and,
possibly at the very moment when public speakers and editors in other
parts of the country were lamenting(?) the loss of his former “energy
of character” and the decay of his mind and judgment, gave to those
people the very highest evidence that he was the Andrew Jackson of old:
his form, although he was sixty-five years old, was “straight as a
gun-barrel,” and his eyes as flashing and his mind as clear as on the
night of the fire, or on the day when he left the bench and arrested
Russell Bean, in that very town. As his old friends would approach him
in their plain and simple garb, with their wives and children,[R] he
would call out their names, grasp their hands, put an arm around them,
kiss their daughters, compliment their younger children, and tell the
wife that the good-looking boys and girls “favored her” more than they
did the father. Incidents of his early life would suggest themselves to
his mind--a lawsuit, a fox chase, a deer drive or something else--as
they came up, and he would refer to it in some way, in the few moments
which he could spare to that particular individual. His famous
horse-race with Col. Love in Greasy Cove was mentioned; and it came
very near bringing down the porch when a kinsman of Col. Love, by the
same name, grasped the old hero by the hand and asked him if he had
any better race horses at the Hermitage than he had when he lived in
that country; to which he promptly and laughingly replied: “Yes, better
than either one of us had that day; come over to the Hermitage, and you
shall have one.” Such were the scenes and incidents of that memorable
day on the hotel porch in the historic old town of Jonesboro.[S]
The “bank conspirators,” as they were called, had been at work
incessantly, and they had a few--a very few--helpers in that country,
who had been furnished with and had repeated (with great regret?) this
charge of imbecility of old age, which rendered it dangerous to the
liberties of the people and perilous to the government to re-elect the
once great man, then a mental wreck. It may, even at this late day, be
of benefit to reproduce in part an editorial from one of the newspapers
of the period--a strong and powerful one--which, it was said, had been
hired to desert and slander President Jackson, and to wait until he
was in the midst of his journey through the country to the Hermitage,
before it made its first assault on him. This editorial, among other
things, said:
Since 1823 I have been the firm, undeviating friend of Andrew Jackson,
through good and through evil report. I have defended his reputation
and advocated his cause; and, for the last five years, my exertions
in his behalf, as the conductor of a public journal, have been known
to this country. But the time has now arrived when I owe it to the
people, to the institutions of the country and to myself to declare
my deliberate conviction that he has not realized the high hopes
which his reputation and previously written and declared opinions
promised, nor redeemed the sacred pledges which he voluntarily gave
on his election to the first station in the world. Let us not be
misunderstood: I do not--I never will--impeach his patriotism or his
integrity; but as a sentinel at my post, true to the duty which I
voluntarily assumed when I became the editor of a public journal, I
feel called upon to proclaim to the people that Andrew Jackson is
not their President; that, enfeebled by age and the toils, cares and
anxieties of an active and laborious life, he no longer possesses his
former energy of character or independence of mind, but, confiding
in those who have wormed themselves into his confidence, he has
entrusted the affairs of this great nation and the happiness of
thirteen millions of freemen to the hands of political gamblers and
money-changers, time-serving politicians, who, in the pursuit of
their unhallowed purposes, threaten ruin to the country and to that
sacred charter of our liberties which was maintained by the wisdom
of our fathers, after having been purchased with their blood and the
sacrifice of every selfish motive on the altar of public good.[T]
The foregoing is from a three-column editorial which appeared during
the very week that Jackson was in Jonesboro, and only about two days
previous to his reception in that town. Eight newspapers that had
theretofore supported Jackson immediately followed the lead of the
_Courier and Enquirer_, took the names of Jackson and Van Buren from
their mast-heads, and went over to the support of Nicholas Biddle and
the banks, on the ground that the President had lost his mind and his
“former energy of character”; but they all lived long enough to find
out how the people of Jonesboro received the slander,[U] and also to
learn that the whole country knew that they had been hired to traduce
the life, character, abilities and public services of this great
soldier, statesman and patriot, and to have the finger of indignant,
honest scorn point them out as traitors to the cause and slanderers of
Andrew Jackson.
Space has been given to this reception at Jonesboro for the reason
that it took place during the period of ten days within which nine or
ten of the newspapers in the east which had been supporting Jackson
suddenly discovered that he had “lost his former energy of character
and independence of mind,” and was so “enfeebled by age” that his
re-election would endanger the happiness of the people and the “sacred
charter of liberty.” This was nothing more nor less than the first
move in the conspiracy that was formed to defeat his re-election and
destroy him. These newspapers had been bought, the price paid and the
trade closed, some time after Jackson’s nomination on the 21st of May
preceding, at Baltimore; but they were instructed to reserve their
opening fire upon him until an opportune time. It was ascertained that
he was about to visit the Hermitage, and that he was going “overland”
down across Virginia and on through Tennessee. When he was about
midway on this journey, with no telegraph or fast mail communication
to give him information, these “bushwhackers” fired on his character,
his integrity and his administration, and yet protested in the same
editorials that they did not intend to “impeach his patriotism or his
integrity.”
The cold-blooded, savage brutality of this conspiracy; its “lying in
wait,” concealment in ambush for weeks, to catch the victim away from
home, out in the interior on a long journey, and then assault and
attempt to assassinate his character, is without parallel in American
political warfare. But the people could not be bought, deceived, driven
nor intimidated. Of the popular vote cast in the election, that year,
Jackson received 687,502, and Clay 530,189. Jackson carried seventeen
out of twenty-four states, and received 219 out of 288 electoral votes.
If the men who became the tools of this conspiracy to ruin his
usefulness, and to cloud his former fair name and fame, had any
sensibilities left, what must have been the depth of their humiliation
when, in June, 1833, Andrew Jackson, then President of the United
States for a second term, and sixty-six years of age, rode on horseback
along Broadway in the city of New York. Parton describes it in a few
words:
And what a scene was that, when the Old Man, victorious over
nullification, and about to deal his finishing blow at the bank,
visited New York, and was borne along Broadway on one roaring wave of
upturned faces and flashing eyes; when it seemed, said a spectator, as
if he had but to speak the word, and they would have proclaimed him on
the spot a king.[V]
This ovation in New York was after he had been elected; the other
mentioned was before he was elected, and was given to _the man_, in
a country road, between crooked rail fences, under the shade of the
native oaks.
President Jackson, during his second term, carried out his “previously
written and declared opinions and promises,” and “redeemed the sacred
pledges which he voluntarily gave,” by crushing the United States Banks
and freeing the people, commerce and trade from their domination,
bringing shame and disgrace upon the conspirators and the hired
traducers of this great man, whose name and fame will not perish until
the departed spirit of American Independence shall shake hands with the
ghost of Liberty across the grave of the greatest republic that has
ever existed.
FOOTNOTES:
[R] During the progress of this reception, on the porch of the
old Chester Hotel, a lady--an old friend and admirer of Jackson--came
up to him, and after a cordial greeting, she presented her little son
and namesake of the President. President Jackson was so impressed with
the manner and appearance of the little fellow, that he gave him a
“five-dollar gold piece.” This little fellow grew up to manhood, became
a teacher and then a lawyer. During the late war he was Lieutenant
Colonel of the 8th Tennessee Federal Cavalry; then a State Senator
some years ago from the first district; then Circuit Judge of the
First judicial circuit, which position he held for eight years; now
resides at Greeneville, Tenn., an honored and respected lawyer, citizen
and gentleman, and still has the five-dollar gold piece--Hon. Andrew
Jackson Brown.
[S] My mother, whose maiden name was Mary M. Chester, married
for her first husband Richard Gammon, Jr., and they resided at
Blountville, Sullivan county, where Jackson was their guest on this
trip from Washington, for the night preceding his arrival at Jonesboro.
Mr. Gammon and my mother accompanied the President from Blountville to
Jonesboro, where my mother was born and reared, and she was present on
the hotel porch during this reception.
[T] New York _Courier and Enquirer_, quoted by Parton, III,
428.
[U] The _Courier and Enquirer_ which contained this editorial,
reaching Jonesboro a few days after Jackson’s reception, was torn in
pieces, trampled and burned in the street.
[V] Life, preface.
APPENDIX
A CENTENNIAL DREAM.
BY DR. R. L. C. WHITE.
(_Nashville American, March 7, 1897._)
Having spent an afternoon in wandering about the Centennial grounds,
I had devoted the evening to Haywood, Ramsey and other chroniclers
of early Tennessee history. These two circumstances combined were
doubtless the cause of a singular dream which I had that night. I
thought that I stood in the Auditorium, and saw congregated within
its walls many of the famous men and women of the past whose names
are closely interwoven with the history of our state. They seemed to
constitute a convention of some kind; and, although the assemblage
had not yet been called to order, the chair had already been taken,
very appropriately, by the illustrious patriot whom Andrew Jackson
styled “the Father of Tennessee” (1), while the publisher of the first
newspaper issued in the state (2) acted as secretary, assisted by the
first native historian of Tennessee (3), the founder of the first
“campaign paper” established west of the Alleghanies (4), and the
editor of the first abolition paper issued in the south (5).
Seated upon the platform were several persons who seemed to have been
designated as vice presidents of the meeting. There were the statesman
who defeated another eminent Tennessean for speaker of the national
House of Representatives, and was in turn defeated by him (6); the only
two United States Senators from Tennessee who were ever expelled (7,
8); the only Confederate States Senators from Tennessee (9, 10); the
man of whom an ex-President of the United States said that he was “the
greatest natural orator in Congress” (11); the United States Senator
who published the first map of Tennessee (12); “Old Bullion” (13); and
the patriot who, on resigning his seat in the Senate because he could
not conscientiously obey the instructions of the legislature, said:
“For myself, I am proud that my state can, in my person, yet produce
one man willing to be made a sacrifice rather than sacrifice his
principles” (14).
An interesting quartet, near the stage, consisted of the member of the
first constitutional convention who proposed the name “Tennessee” for
the infant commonwealth (15); the eminent statesman who said of the
first constitution of Tennessee that it was “the least imperfect and
most republican” of any which had been adopted up to that time (16);
and the presidents respectively of the second and third constitutional
conventions (17, 18).
Seated together, a little farther back, were the two men who signed the
act ceding “the territory south of the Ohio” to the United States (19,
20); the Virginia statesman in whose honor, at the suggestion of Andrew
Jackson, a county was named, in recognition of his earnest advocacy
of the admission of Tennessee to the Union (21); the man who gave in
the Senate the casting vote which secured that admission (22); and the
commissioner who was sent by the Confederate government to effect the
withdrawal of Tennessee from the Union (23).
Chatting pleasantly together, in one corner of the hall, was a notable
group of women, comprising the wife of whom her husband left the
record that she was “a being so gentle and yet so virtuous, slander
might wound, but could not dishonor” (24); the only female for whom a
Tennessee county has ever been named (25); the pioneer maiden who, in
endeavoring to escape from Indians, fell into the arms of the soldier
who afterwards became her husband (26); and the beautiful Irish girl
who was the cause of the disruption of a President’s cabinet (27);
while near them “the Pocahontas of the West” (28) stood silently
listening.
A remarkable group was composed of the famous general whose name was
bestowed on the largest area ever embraced within the limits of a
single county (29); a nobleman whose ancestral name, in abbreviated
form, is borne by a Tennessee county (30); the explorer who named the
Cumberland mountains and river (31); the governor by whose misspelled
name a large part of Tennessee was known for many years (32); the
revolutionary soldier in whose honor the first settlement on the
Cumberland was called (33); and the famous explorer whose mysterious
death, within the limits of the county which now bears his name, has
never been satisfactorily explained (34).
A picturesque trio consisted of the leader of the first body of white
men who ever set foot on the soil of Tennessee (35); the first white
man who erected an edifice within its limits (36); and the nobleman
whose titular name was given to the first structure built therein by
English-speaking people (37).
Grouped modestly in the rear of the hall were several men whose dress
and accoutrements proclaimed them pioneers. There were the famous
“big-foot hunter” who lived in a hollow tree (38); the man whom the
Indians called the “fool warrior” on account of his reckless bravery
(39); the commander of a marvellous expedition by water, of which it
has been said that “it has no parallel in modern history” (40); the man
for whom the oldest town in the state was named (41); the first white
child born in Tennessee (42); the first white child born in Nashville
(43); and the bridegroom of the first marriage ceremony performed west
of the Cumberland mountains (44).
Just beyond these, leaning on their Deckhard rifles, stood three
men who would have attracted attention anywhere--the celebrated
backwoodsman who left an engraved record to designate the spot where he
had “cilled a bar” (45); another, equally famous, who relates in his
autobiography that he killed one hundred and five bears in less than a
year (46); and still another who shot thirty-two of these “varmints”
during one winter within seven miles of Nashville (47).
I was much interested in the appearance of a number of
intelligent-looking men who sat together, engaged in earnest
conversation. There were the man who founded the first educational
institution in the Mississippi valley (48); the first minister who
preached regularly to a Tennessee congregation (49); the bishop whose
journal forms a valuable contribution to the history of early times
in this state (50); the president of the first non-sectarian college
chartered in the United States (51); the classmate of Daniel Webster
who founded the first academy for females in Tennessee (52); and the
eminent educator who declined successively the presidency of seven
universities and colleges in other states, in order that he might
continue his chosen work in this (53).
Immediately in rear of these were the illustrious savant who first
mapped the Gulf Stream, and demonstrated the feasibility of a
submarine cable (54); the first state geologist of Tennessee (55);
a distinguished surgeon who served professionally in the armies of
three countries (56); and the young physician who, while perishing in
a snow-storm on Mont Blanc, kept a record of his sensations for the
benefit of science (57).
Just across the aisle sat the first chief justice of Tennessee (58);
the judge who, after having been chief justice of Kentucky, removed to
this state and became the greatest criminal advocate in the history of
its bar (59); the first judge who was ever impeached in Tennessee (60);
the eminent jurist who wrote President Jackson’s farewell address (61);
and the judge whose singular death from the attack of an infuriated
turkey-gobbler was regarded by the early settlers as retributive
justice for official oppression (62).
A literary group was composed of “the father of Tennessee history”
(63); the famous printer whose name a short-lived commonwealth once
bore (64); the English author who founded a colony in this state which
was named for the scene of his best-known book (65); a Tennessee editor
who was afterward elected to a seat in the British parliament (66); the
author of “Hymns to the Gods” (67); and “Sut Lovengood” (68).
In a prominent position in the center of the hall were a man who was
governor of two states of the Union (69); a governor of Tennessee
who was buried in two states (70); the first man who became governor
by virtue of his position as speaker of the Senate (71); one who was
elected governor, but never inaugurated (72); a governor who was
presented by a grand jury as a public nuisance (73); one to whom a
celebrated author referred as having given to his official station “the
ill-savor of a corner grocery” (74); the only person present at the
death of Henry Clay except the members of his immediate household (75);
the editor famous as “the fighting parson” (76); and the man who, by
casting the entire vote of the state at a national convention, although
he was merely a chance bystander, gave a new word to Tennessee politics
(77).
A distinguished looking body was composed of the revolutionary general
to whom 25,000 acres of land in Tennessee were granted by legislative
enactment (78); a famous fighter under Jackson who was said to have
been “a great general without knowing it” (79); a naval officer who
was master of a vessel at twelve years of age, and whom one of the
best-known of American poets has styled
“The sea-king of the sovereign west
Who made his mast a throne” (80);
the Tennessee postmaster to whom Andrew Jackson bequeathed a sword
(81); the colonel of the famous “Bloody First” (82); and the “grey-eyed
man of destiny” (83).
Elsewhere were to be seen the man who supplied the funds which equipped
John Sevier for King’s Mountain (84); the man who furnished Jackson
all the cannon-balls used by him at New Orleans (85); the first man
who coined silver money in Tennessee (86); the owner of the first
steamboat that ever landed at Nashville (87); the man who inaugurated
the movement for building the first railroad in Tennessee, and was
long known as “Old Chattanooga” in consequence (88); the man who
exchanged a cow and calf for the hill on which the state capitol was
afterwards built (89); the man who bought the ground on which a large
part of one of the most important cities in the state now stands, for
a rifle, a mare and a pair of leather breeches (90); the discoverer of
the Yosemite valley (91); the famous philanthropist who was chiefly
instrumental in the founding of a state asylum for the insane (92);
the author of the first bill for the establishment of a normal school
in Tennessee (93); and the patriotic citizen who erected, at his own
expense, the first monument to the memory of John Sevier (94).
A striking pair was composed of the man in whose veins circulated the
blood of four races, and who simultaneously held commissions in the
armies of three countries and was loyal to none (95); and the Choctaw
chief who was graduated at the University of Nashville, and of whom
Charles Dickens has said that he was “as stately and complete a
gentleman, of nature’s making,” as he had ever met (96). Another pair,
quite as striking, consisted of the first permanent settler at French
Lick (97), conversing volubly in his own tongue with a royal personage
who visited Nashville in his youth, and afterwards became a king (98).
Just then the presiding officer arose and gave a premonitory rap with
his gavel. As he did so, I saw slipping furtively out of a rear door
“the great western land pirate” (99), closely followed by the man who
was instrumental in bringing him to justice (100).
INTERPRETATION OF THE “DREAM.”
(_Nashville American, May 16, 1897._)
1. James Robertson.
2. George Roulstone.
3. James Gattys McGregor Ramsey.
4. Allen Anderson Hall.
5. Elihu Embree.
6. John Bell.
7. William Blount.
8. Alfred Osborn Pope Nicholson.
9. Landon Carter Haynes.
10. Gustavus Adolphus Henry.
11. Meredith Poindexter Gentry.
12. Daniel Smith.
13. Thomas Hart Benton.
14. Hugh Lawson White.
15. Andrew Jackson.
16. Thomas Jefferson.
17. William Blount Carter.
18. John Calvin Brown.
19. Charles Johnson.
20. Stephen Cabarrus.
21. William Branch Giles.
22. Samuel Livermore.
23. Henry Washington Hilliard.
24. Rachel Jackson.
25. Mary Grainger.
26. Catharine (or Katherine) Sherrill.
27. Margaret O’Neill (or O’Neal).
28. Nancy Ward.
29. George Washington.
30. Marie Jean Paul Roche Yves Gilbert Motier de Lafayette.
31. Thomas Walker.
32. Estevan Miro.
33. Francis Nash.
34. Meriwether Lewis.
35. Fernando (or Ferdinand or Hernando) DeSoto.
36. Robert Cavelier de La Salle.
37. John Campbell, Earl of Loudoun.
38. Thomas Sharpe (or Sharp) Spencer.
39. Abraham Castleman.
40. John Donelson.
41. Willie Jones.
42. Russell Bean.
43. Felix Robertson.
44. James Leiper (or Leeper).
45. Daniel Boone (or Boon).
46. David Crockett.
47. John Rains.
48. Samuel Doak.
49. Tidence Lane.
50. Francis Asbury.
51. Samuel Carrick.
52. Moses Fisk (or Fiske).
53. Philip Lindsley.
54. Matthew Fontaine Maury.
55. Gerard Troost.
56. Paul Fitzsimmons Eve.
57. James Baxter Bean.
58. John Catron.
59. Felix Grundy.
60. David Campbell.
61. Roger Brooke Taney.
62. Samuel Spencer.
63. John Haywood.
64. Benjamin Franklin.
65. Thomas Hughes.
66. John Mitchel.
67. Albert Pike.
68. George Washington Harris.
69. Samuel Houston.
70. John Sevier.
71. William Hall.
72. Robert Looney Caruthers.
73. James Knox Polk.
74. Andrew Johnson.
75. James Chamberlain Jones.
76. William Gannaway Brownlow.
77. Edmund Rucker.
78. Nathanael (or Nathaniel) Greene.
79. John Coffee.
80. David Glasgow (or Glascoe) Farragut.
81. Robert Armstrong.
82. William Bowen Campbell.
83. William Walker.
84. John Adair.
85. Montgomery Bell.
86. Charles Roberson.
87. William Carroll.
88. James Overton.
89. George Washington Campbell.
90. David Shelby.
91. Joseph Reddeford Walker.
92. Dorothea Lynde Dix.
93. Robert Hatton.
94. Albigence Waldo Putnam.
95. Alexander McGillivray (or McGilveray).
96. Peter P. Pitchlynn.
97. Timote (or Timothy) Demonbreun.
98. Louis Philippe.
99. John Arnold Murrell.
100. Virgil Adam Stewart.
In the matter of the orthography of the foregoing names, latitude
is allowed wherever it is proper to do so. For example, the famous
“backwoodsman of Kentucky” was in the habit of signing his name “Boon”
or “Boone,” as the fancy struck him; Capt. Leiper was known as “Leiper”
or “Leeper” indifferently, the latter having been the signature to the
Cumberland Compact; the surname of “Bonnie Kate” is always printed as
“Sherrill” by historians (the “Sherril” of Putnam being manifestly a
typographical error), although her father wrote his name “Sherrell”;
that romantic scoundrel, Alexander McGillivray, was almost as versatile
in the matter of autographic variants of his family name as was
Shakespeare--Capt. Allison, in his “Dropped Stitches in Tennessee
History,” speaks of having examined two autograph letters, one of which
is signed “McGillivray” and the other “McGilveray”; the middle name of
the “big foot hunter” is “Sharpe” or “Sharp,” as may be; the Moses Fisk
of history appears in the catalog of Dartmouth College as “Fiske”; and
while the actual name of the “pretty Peggy” of Jackson’s time seems
unquestionably to have been Margaret O’Neill, Parton invariably prints
it “O’Neal.” On the other hand, there are several cases in which it is
not at all difficult to determine the absolutely accurate orthography.
Instances are the Christian name of Meriwether Lewis, a facsimile of
whose autograph may be found in Appleton’s “Cyclopedia of American
Biography,” and who invariably signed his name as it is here given,
although the Tennessee legislature, with that faculty for blundering
which seems an inevitable characteristic of Tennessee legislatures
at all periods, inscribed his tombstone “Merriwether”; the Earl of
Loudoun, for any other spelling of whose name there is no shadow of
authority; John Mitchel, the Irish patriot; Willie (pronounced “Wylie”)
Jones, whose Christian name many persons seem to regard as a diminutive
of “William” (even Phelan makes this error); Demonbreun, which is the
form the name of the pioneer of French Lick assumed when its bearer,
who was “De Mont Breun” in France, came to America--the various curious
shapes in which the name is given by Haywood and Ramsey being merely
vagaries of the fancy of these worthies, who had an ingenuous habit,
where proper names were concerned, of “spelling by ear”; and notably
the “misspelled name” referred to in 32, which, given by Haywood,
Ramsey and Putnam in various forms (all of them incorrect), is rightly
given in Martin’s history of Louisiana--unquestionable authority in all
matters relating to that period. A photographic reproduction of Miro’s
autograph signature may be found in a recent issue of that valuable
publication, Professor Garrett’s “Magazine of American History.” One
name which is incorrectly printed in all the histories is that of
Charles Roberson. Capt. John Allison informs me that the old court
records at Jonesboro show that he invariably signed his name as I
have given it above. It may be well here to state that the general
belief that Charles Roberson was a relative of Gen. James Robertson is
incorrect.
In connection with the identity of the editor referred to in 4,
attention may here properly be called to a remarkable blunder in
Crew’s History of Nashville, where the positive assertion is made that
Jeremiah George Harris, in 1840, “issued the first campaign paper ever
issued west of the Alleghanies, named _Advance Guard of the Democracy_,
and this occasioned the issue from the office of the _Banner of The
Spirit of ’76_, a Whig campaign paper.” This statement is the exact
reverse of the fact, the first issue of _The Spirit of ’76_ (Allen A.
Hall’s paper) having made its appearance March 14, 1840, while Harris’s
paper did not see the light until the 23d of the following April, it
having evidently been suggested by, instead of suggesting, the rival
campaign paper. This blunder is the more singular from the fact that
bound volumes of both papers were easily accessible to the writer in
the library of the Tennessee Historical Society--and he does not even
give the name of Harris’s paper correctly!
There can be no doubt that Elihu Embree was really the first abolition
editor. To settle definitely a matter which all of the histories
and biographical dictionaries (so far as I have examined, without
exception) misstate--they invariably call Benjamin Lundy the pioneer
in anti-slavery journalism--I quote here a passage from an extremely
rare book--Lundy’s Autobiography. After narrating his experiences in
St. Louis, in 1819, which caused his determination to return to his
home in Ohio, Lundy says: “Before I left St. Louis I heard that Elihu
Embree had commenced the publication of an anti-slavery paper called
‘The Emancipator’ at Jonesborough, in Tennessee; but on my way home I
was informed of the death of Embree, and I determined immediately to
establish a periodical of my own. I therefore removed to Mount Pleasant
[Ohio] and commenced the publication of ‘The Genius of Universal
Emancipation,’ in January, 1821.... When the friends of the deceased
Embree heard of my paper they urged me to remove to Tennessee and use
the press on which his had been printed. I assented, and after having
issued eight monthly numbers of the ‘Genius’ I started for Tennessee.
On my arrival I rented the printing office and immediately went to work
with the paper.”
Careless reading of Ramsey has led astray a large number of people with
regard to the minister referred to in 49. Speaking of the expedition
of Col. Christian for the relief of the Watauga settlers in 1772,
Ramsey says: “The Rev. Charles Cummings accompanied the expedition as
chaplain, and was thus the first Christian minister that ever preached
in Tennessee.” Granted--but while this is doubtless true, the question
is not who “first preached in Tennessee,” but who first “preached
regularly to a Tennessee congregation,” and that this was Tidence
Lane, in 1779, is clearly demonstrated elsewhere by Ramsey. Goodspeed,
indeed, using Ramsey’s facts, but changing his language, asserts in
terms that Cummings had charge of a congregation “within the limits of
the state”; but Goodspeed is in error in this, as he is in very many
other statements. In Park’s “Historical Discourse,” a work which is
the result of the most careful and painstaking original research, the
statement is explicitly made that the congregation to which Goodspeed
refers as having enjoyed the ministrations of Cummings “in the Holston
valley as early as 1772,” was really not located in Tennessee at all.
It was “in Virginia, near the site of the present town of Abingdon.”
Dr. Park, himself a Presbyterian, would not be likely to fail to claim
for a minister of his own denomination any credit justly due him.
In order to be absolutely frank, I desire to correct an error--the only
one, I believe, in the “Dream,” and one fortunately of little moment.
The man who “founded the first academy for females in Tennessee”
(52) was not a classmate of Daniel Webster, as stated; although the
misstatement was made on what I considered good authority.
R. L. C. WHITE.
INDEX.
Allison, David--
admitted to the bar, 4;
subsequent career, 6.
Anti-slavery agitation--begun early in Tennessee, 77.
Avery, Waightstill--
duel with Andrew Jackson, 110;
life and character, 110;
his favorite authority, 113.
“Bacon’s Abridgment”--
figures in a duel, 113;
singular substitute for, 115.
Bancroft, George--letter from, 17.
Barker, Thomas--
case of, 63;
intervention of his wife, 66;
place of burial, 68.
Battle of New Orleans--unique account of, 107.
Bean, Russell--
character of, 119;
cruelty to an infant, 119;
arrested by Jackson, 120;
reconciliation with his wife effected by Jackson, 121.
Bell’s tavern--Jackson’s adventure at, 125.
Boyd, Ben--
rencontre with Andrew Jackson, 122;
his involuntary bath, 124.
British, hatred of the--its survival in East Tennessee, 108.
Brown, Andrew Jackson--President Jackson’s gift to, 132 (note).
Centennial Dream--
text of, 137;
interpretation, 143.
Church--first west of the Alleghanies, 25.
Contested election--the first case west of the Alleghanies, 40.
Conventions, early, 27, 28, 32.
Corporations, private--regulation of, 80.
_Courier and Enquirer_, New York--
quoted, 133;
burned at Jonesboro, 134 (note).
Court, the first held in Tennessee--
oath taken by the members, 22;
first session, 40;
powers and jurisdiction, 57.
Culton, Joseph--curious record concerning, 54.
Cumberland Turnpike Company--incorporation of, 81.
Currency, commissioners of, 46, 47.
Debts, interest-bearing--early policy of the state opposed to, 72.
Doak, Samuel--
arrival in Tennessee, 24;
founds Salem church and Washington college, 25.
Dream, Centennial--
text of, 137;
interpretation, 143.
Electors, presidential, in 1796--method of their selection, 97.
Emancipation of slaves--
early cases of, in Tennessee, 77;
authority conferred on county courts, 78.
Embree, Elihu--first abolition editor, 78 (note), 148.
Fees of public officers and attorneys--regulated by law, 73.
Fire at Jonesboro--
Andrew Jackson’s share in extinguishing, 121;
Ben Boyd’s rencontre with Jackson, 122.
Franklin, state of--
inception, 27;
organized, 29;
boundaries, 29;
extent, 30;
early laws, 31;
collapse, 35.
Free and independent government, the first--
its establishment, 20;
its dissolution, 22.
Fuller, Melville W.--on selection of presidential electors, 97.
Greasy cove--famous horse-race in, 102.
Hamilton, Joseph--
admitted to the bar, 5;
subsequent career, 6.
Interpretation of the Centennial Dream, 143.
Jackson, Andrew--
errors of his biographers, 1, 2;
arrival at Nashville, 1, 2, 4;
appointed United States district attorney, 3;
admitted to the bar in Washington county, 4;
contest with Sevier for Major General, 6;
not a witness of Sevier’s “rescue,” 8, 9;
advent at Jonesboro, 9;
residence there, 10;
characteristics as a lawyer, 11;
incident at the Rogersville “tavern,” 12;
love of sport, 13, 101;
judicial administration, 101;
his famous horse-race in Greasy cove, 102, 132;
his fiery temper, 106;
ovation on Broadway, 109, 135;
duel with Avery, 110;
another duel at Jonesboro, 117;
arrest of Russell Bean, 120;
as a volunteer fireman, 122;
his moral courage, 125;
ovation at Jonesboro, 128;
his wonderful memory, 129;
conspiracy against, 132.
Jenkins, J. S.--life of Jackson quoted, 2.
Jonesboro--
district court at, 2;
Andrew Jackson’s residence there, 10;
organization of the county court at, 22;
conventions at, 27, 28;
proceedings of the county court at, 39;
Jackson’s duels at, 111, 117;
fire at, 121;
ovation to Jackson at, 130.
Legislation, early--examples of 69, 70, 73, 74, 77, 80.
Love, Colonel--Jackson’s famous horse-race with, 102.
McCay, Spruce--
his summary methods as a judge, 51;
character, 52.
McGillivray, Alexander--
character of, 91, 93, 94;
quoted, 92, 93.
McNairy, John--
admitted to the bar, 5;
subsequent career, 6.
Mecklenburg “resolves”--letter from Bancroft concerning, 17.
Mero district--
created, 87;
correct orthography of the name, 87;
name discontinued, 96.
“Mink skins”--origin of the term, as applied to currency, 31.
Miro, Estevan--
character of, 88, 96;
services, 89, 92, 95;
quoted, 92, 94.
New Orleans, battle of--unique account of, 107.
Nolichucky River Company--incorporation of, 80.
Orthography of “Miro,” 87.
Ovations to Andrew Jackson--
on Broadway, New York, 109, 135;
at Jonesboro, 128.
Parton, James--life of Jackson quoted, 2, 123, 135.
Pensions to soldiers--granted by Tennessee before action by the
United States government, 70, 72.
Presidential electors in 1796--method of their selection, 97.
Printing press--first in Tennessee and second west of the
Alleghanies, established at Rogersville, 36.
Pugh, John, “Regulator” and sheriff, 18.
Pybourn, Elias--severe punishment of, 53.
Reid, John--life of Jackson quoted, 1.
Roane, Archibald--
admitted to the bar, 4;
subsequent career, 5, 6.
Roberson, Charles--
father-in-law of Russell Bean, 119;
Parton’s injustice to, 121.
Robertson, James--suggests name of Miro district, 87.
Roulstone, George--established first printing press, 36.
Salem church--founding of, 25.
School, first, west of the Alleghanies, 25.
Settlers, the early--life, habits and characteristics, 15, 16, 18, 24.
Sevier, James--
clerk of Washington county court, 33;
unique record of, 34.
Sevier, John--
contest with Jackson for Major General, 6;
subsequent career, 7;
his “rescue” at Morganton, 8;
contest for clerk, 40;
commissioner of currency, 46, 47, 48.
Slaves, emancipation of--
early cases in Tennessee, 77;
authority conferred on county courts, 78.
Specie contracts--regulation of, 74.
Taylor, Christopher--friend of Andrew Jackson, 11.
Tennessee county--
created, 86;
divided, 96.
Treason--early trials for, 42, 43, 63.
Washington college--founding of, 25.
Watson, Sir Thomas--visit to Washington county, 108.
Wilson, Thomas J.--quoted, 78 (note).
* * * * *
Transcriber’s note
Minor punctuation and formatting errors have been changed without
notice; otherwise spelling and punctuation has been retained as
published. The following Printer errors have been changed.
=CHANGED= =FROM= =TO=
Table of
Contents “136” “137”
Page 13: “holsters and saddlebags” “holsters and saddle-bags”
Page 16: “came from the “came from the
battlefield” battle-field”
Page 35: “which covered the same “which covered the same
terriritory” territory”
Page 42: “I am satisified” “I am satisfied”
Page 42: “they simply put in prison” “they simply put him in
prison”
Page 65: “John McNab” “John McNabb”
Page 67: “John McNab” “John McNabb”
Page 80: “True philanthrophy “True philanthropy
liberates” liberates”
Page 102: “his was the ecstacy” “his was the ecstasy”
Page 107: “and old man of sixty” “an old man of sixty”
Page 108: “words adquate to express” “words adequate to express”
Page 146: “foregoing names, lattitude” “foregoing names, latitude”
All other inconsistencies are as in the original.