stormier days, LaFayette was taken to the humble cottage of the missionary
in the woods, and in order partly to entertain the distinguished guest and
partly to afford him an insight into aboriginal life, Mr. Smith arranged
for a game of ball to be played by the Indians. The day over and LaFayette
was taken into the cabin, served with the scanty fare of the pioneer
missionary, and beside the primitive fireplace the two, the missionary and
the great Frenchman, sat that night and fought over the battles in which
both were participants during the Revolution. They parted on the
following morning, LaFayette continuing his course toward Cahaba, the
state capital, and Mr. Smith resuming his treadmill round of duty as a
secluded missionary to the Indians. They parted with the same
demonstrations of affection with which they had met, and never again met
each other in the flesh.
With cheerful alacrity Mr. Smith continued his work among the Indians, to
which work he gave expansion in later years as the white population
continued to multiply. He was of immense service to the government in
adjusting the claims of the Indians and in pacifying them in the
acceptance of the inevitable lot finally meted out to them. As a
mediatorial agent Mr. Smith prevented much butchery in those early days
when the extinction of the Indian was so seriously desired.
With fame unsought and undesired, the Rev. Isaac Smith continued his
missionary and evangelistic labors in Alabama till forced by the weight of
years and the results of the privations of pioneer life to retire from the
scene of activity. He lived, however, to see the state of his adoption
pass from an infantile stage to one of great population and prosperity and
to witness the consummation of much of that of which he was one of the
original prospectors. Retiring in his last years to Monroe County,
Georgia, he died at the age of seventy-six. On the moral and spiritual
side he was one of the foundation builders of the state of Alabama. His
labor and sacrifice deserve recognition alongside that given of men whose
stations in life gave them great conspicuousness in the public eye. He
was of the class of men who labored in comparative obscurity, passed away,
and in due time are forgotten, but their works do follow them in their
everlasting results.
CLEMENT CLAIBORNE CLAY
Hon. Clement Claiborne Clay inherited all the strong traits of his
distinguished father. His birthplace was Huntsville, where he was born in
1817. In his boyhood years he would learn much of the struggles through
which the people of the state were passing in a transition from pioneer
conditions to those of real life, and thus manhood unfolded
contemporaneously with the development of his native state. His first
knowledge of Alabama was derived at a time when conditions were rude and
crude and during his career of more than three-score years he saw it
expand through successive periods, his sentiments keeping pace with its
development.
In most respects highly favored by fortune and condition, Mr. Clay knew
how to prize these and use them as stepping-stones to success. His father
was his most intimate companion, and the stations held by him were as
largely shared in by the son as was possible. So soon as young Clay was
prepared to do so he was sent to the state university, from which he
graduated at the early age of seventeen. While his father was governor,
the youth served as his private secretary and while his father was serving
as senator at Washington, the son was at the same time pursuing his law
course at the University of Virginia, which course he completed in 1840.
At the early age of twenty-five the junior Clay was elected to a seat in
the lower house of the legislature. He attracted attention at first by the
introduction of a resolution instructing the Alabama delegation in
Congress to support a bill favorable to refunding to General Andrew
Jackson the fine of one thousand dollars imposed on him by Judge Hall of
New Orleans in 1815 for declaring martial law in that city, under which
the judge was imprisoned by Jackson for discharging on habeas corpus a
member of the Louisiana legislature who had been caught in the act of
secretly communicating with the enemy and had been imprisoned by General
Jackson. The fine was for contempt and Jackson paid it, and now, after the
lapse of more than a quarter century, the sum was returned with interest,
the total being at the time of the refunding about $3,000.
The speech made by the young man in advocacy of his resolution won him his
first spurs. It flashed with fervid eloquence and was pervaded throughout
with the choicest diction. Many were the predictions of his future
greatness because of that speech.
His service in the legislature led to his retention in that body for three
successive terms, during the last of which he was elected by the
legislature to the judgeship of the county court of Madison. After serving
thus for two years, he resigned and resumed the practice of the law. Five
years later still, he offered for congressional representative, but was
defeated by the Hon. W. R. W. Cobb of Jackson County. The sting of defeat
was abundantly alleviated, however, when he was chosen by the legislature
a United States senator at the close of the same year. The distinction was
the greater because of the handsome majority given him over his
distinguished opponent, the Hon. R. W. Walker, Clay having received
eighty-five votes, while Walker received thirty-seven.
The gifts, training, and acquirements of Mr. Clay eminently fitted him for
this exalted forum. It was at the time when state rights doctrine was well
at the front and into the thick of the fray he entered as an ardent
disciple of Mr. Calhoun. His speeches on the floor of the senate chamber
won for him wide attention, and gained for him national renown. Throughout
the country his speeches were a subject of comment, while in Alabama his
name was on every thoughtful lip.
Having served for six years in the National Senate, Mr. Clay was again
chosen in 1859, and was in the senate when Alabama seceded in 1861, and
with all the other southern senators resigned, which furnished occasion in
harmony with the temper of that time to provoke a vote of expulsion of the
southern senators. On his return to Alabama, Mr. Clay was at once chosen a
senator from the state to the Confederate Congress. In Richmond he was in
vital touch with the Confederate government, the confidence of which he
enjoyed to an unusual degree. After a senatorial service of two years at
Richmond, Mr. Clay stood for re-election before the legislature of
Alabama, and was opposed by Colonel Seibels of Montgomery and the Hon. J.
L. M. Curry of Talladega. After a number of unsuccessful ballots Mr. Clay
withdrew in favor of R. W. Walker, whom he had previously defeated for the
United States senate, and Mr. Walker was elected.
In 1864 Mr. Clay was sent on a confidential errand from the Confederate
states government to the provinces of Canada. His mission was one of
diplomatic secrecy, but under prevailing conditions resulted in nothing
practical. While the nature of his mission was not known, it was supposed
to be that of exciting Canadian interest in the affairs of the
Confederacy, and to arouse such interest as would eventuate in procuring
an army of invasion of sufficient force to raid with success the northern
frontier of the Union. The northern press charged at the time that Mr.
Clay was abetting the adventurers who attempted the destruction of New
York City by fire.
During his stay in Canada, Mr. Clay was instrumental in inducing the
members of the peace party in the North to prevail on President Lincoln to
open negotiations with him looking to the settlement of hostilities
between the North and the South. An unofficial mission was entered on, but
without avail. When he learned of the capitulation of the Confederate
armies, Mr. Clay started from Canada on horseback for Texas, but, seeing
in the northern press that he was openly charged with complicity in the
assassination of President Lincoln, he changed his course and made his way
to Macon, Ga., where he might surrender with a view to a thorough
investigation. In reward for this expression of honor on the part of Mr.
Clay, he was seized, sent to Fortress Monroe, put in irons, where he lay a
fellow prisoner of Jefferson Davis for twelve months, without being
brought to trial on the false charges of treason and assassination. His
health was sadly broken under these cruel and disgraceful conditions, and
his release was finally procured by his devoted and gifted wife, whose
pleadings with the governmental authorities at last prevailed, and it was
believed, not without reason, that the government, as it then was, was
glad to appear to display magnanimity in view of the atrocious course
pursued concerning one who was thus being served purely on an unfounded
presumption, and one, too, who had gone beyond his way seeking a trial, in
face of the public charges. Mr. Clay died at Huntsville on January 3,
1882.
HOSEA HOLCOMBE
Altogether worthy of a place in the historic archives of Alabama are the
spiritual heroes who added so much to the moral life of the community,
converting disorder into order, and bringing calmness from confusion and
chaos. Among these may be named Rev. Hosea Holcombe, a native of North
Carolina, and for a period a pastor in upper South Carolina. Mr. Holcombe
came to Alabama in the early stages of its statehood and settled at
Jonesboro, in Jefferson County, from which point he pursued his early
missionary labors, undergoing all the privations and difficulties incident
to those days.
Without scholastic advantages, Mr. Holcombe turned to practical advantage
the slim resources which came within his reach, and by studious
application became possessed of more than an ordinary education for one
living at that period. He was Alabama's first church historian, and
rendered a lasting service to the state by his preserved record of the
early churches of Alabama.
While statesmen and publicists were laying the foundation stones of a
great political commonwealth, the pioneer missionary, especially of the
Baptist and Methodist denominations, was abroad with his wholesome
influence, checking vice, inculcating virtue, and seeking to bring the
lives of men into practical conformity to those principles which make
alike for the present, and the life which is to come.
Those old heroes, often trudging weary and footsore over mountain paths or
threading their way along the Indian trails winding through the forests,
visiting the primitive settlements of Alabama, and dispensing the truths
which make men better, are too often neglected in recounting the elements
which entered into the formation of a great state. Limitedly known while
living, and soon forgotten when dead, the substantial and fundamental
service rendered is not embalmed in the public records, and yet without
such agents, in a rude and crude condition of society, a state could never
become great. Far more valuable than is commonly supposed was the service
rendered by those pioneer preachers. In the absence of courts in those
pioneer days, matters in dispute were often held in abeyance for
adjudication till "the preacher" should come, and his unbiased decision
was usually accepted as final.
Mr. Holcombe was a leader among those humble but heroic men who braved the
terrors of the wilderness while Alabama was yet the hunting ground of the
savage, and though most of them were untaught in the schools, they
grappled with the gravest problems encountered on the frontier of
civilization, in bringing the chaotic elements of society into subjection
to the gospel, and in cool disregard of the dangers which threatened from
every side, by reason of the presence of the hostile Indian, they
evangelized the widely scattered settlements, preached, visited, cheered,
inspired, and built houses of worship for the future promotion of
Christianity.
Living and laboring with a zeal unquenched by difficulty or danger, they
passed from the scene of action, but their influence abode still, and as
a silent force has been transmitted through succeeding generations. Most
of those old spiritual heroes lie in unmarked graves. Soon leveled to the
surface, these primitive mounds left unindicated the resting places of the
genuine heroes, and the tangled vine and riotous weed came to usurp the
sacred though narrow places where sleep their ashes, but they, being dead,
yet speak in the characters and lives of those who have come after.
To this type of spiritual frontiersmen belonged the Rev. Hosea Holcombe.
His life was one of serious devotion to the cause of humanity and of God.
Without reward of purse, he labored unceasingly, eking out a bare
subsistence by the labor of his own hands, that he might have the
privilege of laboring for the welfare of his fellows. He founded all the
early Baptist churches in Jefferson County and frequent were his tours
into different parts of the state. His sage counsel was sought, and such
was the force of his character, that his decisions on all disputed
questions were taken as well-nigh oracular.
In those early days, and for generations, disputatious contention,
especially between the Baptists and Methodists, was frequent. If this had
its unpleasing side, as it always does, it was not wholly without
compensation, for it stimulated sacred study and grounded the masses in
the truths and principles of the gospel.
Like all others of the ministry of that remote period, Mr. Holcombe shared
in the prevailing controversial spirit of the times. In the maintenance
of his views he wrote a number of pamphlets, but his chief literary
production was a history of the Baptists of Alabama. While the work lacks
unity of arrangement, and is devoid of literary finish, it reflects the
spirit of the times, and is a monument to the privations and fortitude, as
well as the energy and struggles, of that period now grown dim.
As the population of the state grew, and the necessity of schools became
more urgent, this unlettered man became one of the earliest exponents of
education, and of all institutions which were conducive to the promotion
of the good of society.
The services rendered by men like Hosea Holcombe escape the pen of the
historian, because they lie apart from the spectacular and the din of
political and commercial struggle, remote from the universal flow; but
they are chief among the unseen forces the results of which assume shape
in the transmuted lives and characters of men and women and in the visible
institutions of which they were the chief founders. Their records are
usually assigned to the department of unwritten history, but their lives
and labors are the fundamental sources of the institutions, the beneficent
influences of which are ours of today.
One who leaves his impress on a generation lives for all time, for in some
form his influence works its way, though silently, and contributes to the
symmetry of character in the generations that follow. Deeds of benefaction
are noble, but a good man, in virtue of his life, is a benefaction, and
his daily walk is a constant asset of the good of the future. This admits
of application to the life of this pioneer preacher, which life extended
to near the middle of the nineteenth century.
The Rev. Hosea Holcombe died in 1841, and his humble grave is on his
original farm near Jonesboro, Jefferson County. A shaft now marks the last
resting place of the old hero. Till this was recently erected, a large
bowlder alone indicated where sleeps the pioneer preacher. Its native
roughness and solidity represented the times as well as the character of
the Rev. Hosea Holcombe.
H. W. COLLIER
There was not in the life and career of Governor Henry Watkins Collier
that which was apt to catch the popular eye and invite popular applause,
for he was not gifted with the flash of oratory, nor did he seek the
clamorous applause which passes with the day. Governor Collier was of the
practical mold of men who merely did things, who patiently wrought in
painstaking silence far away from the madding crowd and the host of empty
babble. He won distinction, but he did it by dint of granite merit, while
disdaining the acclaim which comes as the vapid breath of the hour.
A Virginian by birth, Governor Collier had the prestige which comes of
distinguished lineage. In the genealogical line were the names of such men
as Sir Francis Wyatt, one of the original English governors of Virginia,
and Admiral Sir George Collier of the British navy. But distinction like
this he relied not on, and his career throughout showed that he regarded
the life of each one a distinct entity dependent entirely on individual
worth.
Governor Collier came to Alabama in the flower of his youth well qualified
to respond to the demands arising from the colonial conditions of a new
state. He had been grounded in the solid soil of academic drill at a time
when the test of pupilage lay in the thought created by the student rather
than in the mere mastery of that already kneaded by others, and served to
the taste. For to be a student of those early times of even tolerable
tolerance one had to dig rather than to reap, as others had sown. By the
few really skillful preceptors of those primitive times, the student was
encouraged to create and originate his own material from the bare
principles furnished. This molded men of stalwart proportions, promoted
self-assertion, augmented confidence, stiffened reliance, and toughened
the fiber of character by effort.
Instruction of this character was given in the famous pioneer school of
Moses Waddell at Willington, S. C., where were trained for the stern life
of grappling with grim, original conditions such men as George McDuffie,
James L. Pettigru and Augustus B. Longstreet, and many others whose fame,
and, no less, whose example, remain as a perennial inspiration to aspiring
youth, for after all every man who is made is self-made. Be one's
advantages never so much or so meager, self and self-worth are at last the
determinative factor.
Girt with equipments like these borne from the Waddell school, young
Collier reached Alabama just as it was emerging into statehood. His first
residence was at Huntsville, where as a youthful pleader he opened his
little office, but soon removed to Tuscaloosa as the partner of Hon. Simon
L. Perry.
The demand for competent legislators and men for the occupancy of other
spheres, at a time when the population of the state was sparse, opened the
door of opportunity to aspiring young men to which class Collier belonged.
When only twenty-six he went as a representative from Tuscaloosa County,
and so profound was the impression made by this solid young man that the
legislature, at the next session, elected him to a place on the supreme
bench, a distinction the more pronounced because his competitor for the
place was Judge Eli Shortridge.
Four years later, on the occasion of the reorganization of the state
courts, Judge Collier was displaced from the supreme bench, but was
retained as a circuit judge for four years, at which time Judge Saffold
retired from his seat on the supreme bench, and Governor Clay appointed
Judge Collier in his stead, till the legislature should meet and elect his
successor. On the convening of the general assembly, Judge Collier was met
by a contestant for the honor in the person of Hon. A. Crenshaw of Butler,
but the election resulted in favor of Judge Collier, who received more
than twice the number of votes given his opponent.
For twelve years he continued to dispense justice in that high tribunal,
and the value of the service rendered the state by him is attested by the
luminous and voluminous decisions which run through thirty-five volumes of
the Alabama reports, a perpetual monument of valuable labor.
By this time no man so completely filled the eyes of the people of the
state as Judge Henry Watkins Collier. His high sense of justice, his
impartial incision, and his solid and unvarying calmness made him, without
self-effort to attain it, the dominant public figure in Alabama.
Practically without effort, he was chosen, almost by a unanimous vote of
the people, to the office of governor.
This was in 1849. Judge Samuel F. Rice, one of the brightest and ablest
of Alabamians, appeared against him, and the final vote stood 36,350 for
Collier and 364 for Rice, with a few scattering votes. At the close of his
first term for governor three competitors appeared in the field for the
same distinction--B. G. Shields, Nathaniel Terry and William L. Yancey,
and of a total popular vote of 43,679, Governor Collier was indorsed by
37,460 of these.
Nor was this due to an active canvass on the part of Governor Collier.
While he was by no means indifferent to his retention of the gubernatorial
chair, he preferred to base his claim on genuine merit illustrated in
official function, rather than by clamor for recognition before the
assembled multitude. He had scrupulously sought to make his work worthy as
a judge and as a governor, and was entirely willing that it should shine
by its own light. He could not plausibly plead for support or indorsement,
had none of the arts and tricks of the vote-getter, and therefore relied
on actual service and worth to give exploit to his value as an official
servant. His ideal of the office was lofty, and he felt that he could not
climb down into the arena of personal scramble when the people were as
fully informed of his competency as they would have been had he made a
heated canvass.
From the beginning to the close of his life, Governor Collier was under
strain. He did not fret nor chafe under the burdens imposed, but his
powers wore under the dogged strain of perpetual labor. Nothing could
deflect him from public duty. To him its claim was supreme. He died in the
ripeness of his manhood at Bailey Springs in 1865, being only fifty-four
years old, his early death being largely due, no doubt, to the overstrain
of his vigor.
JOSEPH G. BALDWIN
No more genuine compliment can be paid a book than to have the name of the
author so associated with it that at the mention of the work the name of
the writer is at once suggested. This is true of that once noted work,
"Flush Times in Alabama and Mississippi." So widely was the book for years
read, and so popular was it because of its reflection of a period of
southwestern history that to mention the work is to call in immediate
connection with it the name of the author--J. G. Baldwin.
On its appearance the work was greeted with popular applause and was
highly prized for its genuine merit. While the production of such a work
with its unique and sparkling wit, is worthy of the pen of anyone, the
fame of Judge Baldwin does not repose on it alone, for he was both a
statesman and jurist, and rendered valuable service to Alabama.
Beginning life under disadvantages because of meager education, Judge
Baldwin fitted himself for life by individual effort and private study and
became one of the most eminent citizens of the state, and later a
distinguished justice on the supreme bench of California. His qualities of
character were sterling, his relations to others uniformly courteous, and
his disposition one of perpetual sunshine.
In politics a whig, he was ever ready to champion the cause of that party.
He was a skillful tactician, and as one of the whig leaders in Alabama he
often occasioned concern in the ranks of his opponents. On the floor of
the legislative hall he was a formidable disputant, and while he often
dealt herculean blows, he held himself in courteous readiness to receive
them in return. Familiar with parliamentary principles, he held himself
scrupulously within limit, but stoutly demanded that this be returned by
his opponent. He was greatly admired for his manliness and uniform
courtesy, but was dreaded as an opponent. He could rise to heights of
greatness, but could never sink to levels of littleness. This reputation
Judge Baldwin established and maintained alike in legislative hall, the
court room, and in the social circle.