the undertaking was a colossal one, but Mr. Pickett gave himself to it
with a zeal worthy the enterprise, traveled much, wrote many letters, and
spent a large sum of money in the interest of the preparation of the
history. For years together, he was patiently and assiduously engaged in
the accumulation of data, the sifting of facts, and the preparation of the
two volumes. The most painstaking care was exercised with respect to
accuracy of statement, and this made the undertaking a most plodding one.
But in 1851 the author was enabled to issue the two volumes in neat and
attractive form.
So comprehensive was the work, so minute in detail, and so careful were
the citations that on its appearance it was greeted with great favor not
alone in Alabama, but elsewhere. Had the conditions of authorship been as
favorable as they now are, the work would doubtless have been more happily
arranged, but as it is, it is a monument of labor, skill, industry and
fidelity. It was an unusual occurrence that the history should have been
favorably mentioned in a message to the legislature by Governor Collier
and with such favor.
The style of the book is simple and easy, the statement of fact clear and
devoid of ornament or speculation, and throughout it is entirely free of
bias. The obvious intention of the author was to state fact as he saw it,
nor was a statement made by him that was not supported by undisputed fact.
No book was ever more scrupulously written as is shown by the care with
which each statement is made.
While in the light of subsequent events the unity of the work is somewhat
impaired and disjointed, still taken altogether, and the conditions
attending its preparation, it is a marvelous accomplishment. Pickett
provided a mine of fact into which all future historians of Alabama can
dig, certainly with respect to the history antedating the occupation of
Alabama by the whites.
The history extends no further than to the period of the attainment of
statehood of Alabama, and yet the author was able to bring it up to the
close of the middle of the nineteenth century. It is unfortunate that this
was not done, but he was averse to deal with the political aspects
presented by the different periods of the state's history. But in doing
that which he accomplished he has furnished a basis for all future
historians. That Mr. Pickett should have done so much, and done it so
well, makes him worthy of the perpetual gratitude of the people of
Alabama.
A gentleman of wide and varied information, his mind was a compendium of
valuable stores of knowledge. He was an animated converser, fluent and
entertaining, and a most exemplary citizen. His popularity, greatly
enhanced by his valuable history, his universally recognized integrity of
character, and his unquestioned ability, led to the mention of his name in
1853 for the governorship of Alabama.
But when the matter was brought with some degree of seriousness to his
attention, he frankly declined to be considered for this exalted station,
saying that he was engaged in the preparation of another work of greater
comprehensiveness than that of the History of Alabama, which he indicated
as the History of the Southwest. Unfortunately he died before the
completion of the proposed work and it was never published. Alabama
sustained a great loss when Colonel Pickett died at the early age of
forty-eight. Besides his history, he wrote much for the press and always
with entertainment and profit.
In 1859 General C. M. Jackson wrote a biographical sketch of Colonel
Albert J. Pickett, which sketch was embodied in pamphlet form. In one
place General Jackson says of him: "He outlived his entire family--father,
mother, brother and sister--and his offspring now constitutes a new
generation, without a single living link to connect it with a former one.
He left a devoted wife, several affectionate children, and many friends to
deplore his untimely death; besides the proper appreciation by the public
of what may be deemed a great calamity--that of the loss of one who had so
largely contributed to the general welfare. His remains were followed by a
large concourse of relatives and friends and interred in the burial ground
at the old family residence in Autauga County, which Colonel Pickett had
inherited--where are also the graves of father, mother and other members
of this family."
Unselfishly he lived and labored, and peacefully he died--one of the most
useful and distinguished citizens of the state.
HENRY TUTWILER
Of an entirely different mold from any of those already noted in these
sketches was Henry Tutwiler, LL.D., Alabama's first great and
distinguished educator. Reared in Virginia, Dr. Tutwiler was among the
first great graduates of the famous university of that state, bearing away
the highest degree which could be conferred by that eminent institution,
that of Master of Arts. Possessing a readily receptive and capacious mind,
Dr. Tutwiler was the peer in point of scholarship of any man in the South
when he issued from the university of Virginia. He was the first to
receive the degree of Master of Arts from that eminent school.
His equipment of scholarship would have fitted him for any chair in any
American school of learning, but he conceived the idea of founding a model
school of his own where he might put into execution his ideas of
education. This was not done at once on graduation, but toward this he was
moving in the consummation of his plans.
Dr. Tutwiler became to Alabama that which Dr. Arnold of the famous Rugby
school was to England. He was not only a typical gentleman of the old
school of the South, but a ripe scholar, a teacher of rare ability, and a
model of manhood to youth. Simple and unpretentious in manner and in life,
he was a pattern in character to the young men who came under his
instruction. His culture was unsurpassed, his scholarship profound and
comprehensive, and his character throughout life vastly above reproach.
Few men have left a profounder impression on his students than Dr. Henry
Tutwiler. There was in his bearing the utter absence of the consciousness
of his greatness, while there was always the demonstration of the
gentleman of a pure democracy. Simple and easy of manner, affable, gentle
and readily communicative, he was easily adjustable to all circles without
the slightest hint of constraint, and by a contagious touch, indefinable
but effectual, he made all others at ease in his presence.
After his graduation from the University of Virginia he remained for two
years at the institution in the pursuit of special studies, after which he
established a high school in the neighborhood of Charlottesville, where he
taught for a time. He was induced to remove to Alabama by being offered
the chair of ancient languages in the university of the state on the
establishment of that institution in 1831. This position he occupied for
six years. He was induced from this position to accept the chair of
mathematics and philosophy in Marion college in Perry County, and two
years later went to the chair of mathematics and chemistry in LaGrange
college, where he taught for eight years more.
But a subordinate position was ill suited to one of capabilities so
varied, and in 1847 he left LaGrange and founded a private school at Green
Springs in this state, where he could put into execution a long cherished
desire to fit young men for the rough encounters of the world, not only by
training the mind, but by molding and directing the character.
No one was better fitted for a position like this than Dr. Tutwiler.
Himself a ripe scholar and a gentleman of superior culture, backed by a
natural impressiveness, his sway of influence was both salutary and
elevating. In a quiet retreat, far from the madding crowd and the din and
tumult of a busy world, with nothing to detract and all to concentrate and
stimulate, he was a character-builder as well as a developer of the brain.
The experience of former years as a teacher brought to his work on this
independent scale served Dr. Tutwiler admirably. He had learned the
defectiveness of a system in which the raw youth with total unpreparedness
would often stride over much that was fundamental and leave behind him
breaches never to be filled, possibly, in his eager outreach for a diploma
which when gotten could not be read by the possessor. Every observant
educator is impressed by the divers irregularities with which most young
men enter college. Symmetry and uniformity are lacking, and often the
defects in fundamental work are too far passed to be overcome and
corrected in the higher departments for which the youth has been unwisely
persuaded that he is prepared. Happily for these later times, this has
been corrected by an admirable public school system with its trained
instructors, but this was not true in the early days when Dr. Tutwiler
opened his school at Green Springs.
To establish a school of logical graduation with every department under
his direct supervision, in which school the student would be thoroughly
grounded from the elementary upward, so as to have a more solid basis for
building, and an idea of correctness and symmetry in all affairs, was the
aim of this skilled educator. Schools of this particular character had
dotted the South ever since the years of recuperation following the
Revolution, and fortunately for the country that this was so.
In 1850 there were in eleven of the southern states at least 2,000
academies of varying grades, with more than 3,200 instructors, and more
than 70,000 pupils. On the highest level of these valuable schools of
learning were the Concord academy and the Hanover academy in Virginia;
Caldwell's and Bingham's schools in North Carolina; Mount Zion and
Waddell's school in South Carolina; the academy of Richmond County and
Sunbury academy in Georgia; Green Springs school in Alabama, and Elizabeth
academy in Mississippi. All these had become noted in the educational
system of the South by the middle of the nineteenth century. Among them
none was more famous than the one presided over by Dr. Tutwiler.
A certificate from a school like this and from so skilled an expert, meant
much to a youth as he entered a school of more advanced learning to
prosecute his final studies. The assurance of a firm footing and
familiarity with subjects which led logically to more advanced studies,
gave to a student the thoroughness of equipment which would save him from
the haphazard to which he would be otherwise exposed.
From the walls of the Green Springs school went forth young men by the
hundreds with initial equipment which not only made the mastery of a
college course more easy and pleasant, but which served to lift them into
future prominence. Passing from under the tutelage of Dr. Tutwiler and
bearing a certificate with his name on it, was a guarantee worth the
having by any young man. From this rural retreat this skilled man of
letters sent into the swelling ranks of usefulness in this and adjoining
states, hundreds of young men who have helped to make their commonwealths
resplendent. It was not a demonstrative work, in the sense of showiness,
but it was demonstrative as it found expression in richness of result and
in exalted citizenship. Thus labored for many years this sage teacher and
mellow scholar, and far more than can be computed is Alabama indebted to
Henry Tutwiler.
DANIEL PRATT
Genuine worth is frequently overlooked because it does not appear in the
glare and rush of demonstration, and because it may modestly shrink from
the spectacular. The solid distinction reached by many is due to
conditions which lie out of sight and without which many who reach
positions of prominence would not have been heard of beyond their native
horizons.
Impelled by ambition, many see and seize the opportune moment presented,
fall into the current created by others, and are borne to eminence. Lying
back of that which the world esteems greatness are causes created of which
many avail themselves to ride to popular spectacularity, and yet these may
be only the superficial and surface effects.
In what are usually esteemed the humbler walks of life are oftentimes
giants who set in motion the tides of influence which make great
communities and even states, and yet whose worthy claims are never
heralded to the world as are the deeds of those who reach the popular
heights toward which the eyes of the public are accustomed to turn.
To this worthy class in the quieter walks of life belong numbers of the
best men of every generation whose vocations are such as to hide them from
the popular view, and yet without whom the greatness and the prosperity of
a commonwealth could not be.
Belonging to this class was Daniel Pratt, a native of New Hampshire, a
carpenter by trade, and a man in whose capacious brain were great
enterprises. Utterly without pretention, he was at first a common
laborer, working at his trade in different cities in Georgia for a period
of about fifteen years, in the early part of the century.
At that time the question of cotton as a staple had assumed new
proportions in view of the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney
about fifty years previously, and in view of the capabilities of the soils
of the South to produce the staple. The struggles of Whitney to maintain
his rights as the inventor of the gin had been prolonged through a
protracted period of years, leaving him barren honor alone, but his
suggestion had found its way to the inventive genius and mechanical
aptitude of others, among whom was Daniel Pratt. He removed to Montgomery
in 1833, for the purpose of establishing a gin factory in that town. At
that time the manufacture of cotton gins was quite limited, but the
sagacious carpenter saw in the future the possibility of a means of vast
commerce in the manufacture of machines that would reduce the
indispensable staple to marketable conditions, and while conditions in
Alabama were at that time still new, Pratt discerned an opportunity both
for the gin and the production of cotton.
Lands were of fabulous fertility; population was pouring southward; the
advocacy of slavery had been hushed by the prospective productiveness of
southern lands, and Alabama was destined to become the center of an
expansive region for the production of cotton.
At that time capital was not so abundant, cotton was not so pregnant a
factor in commerce, and the manufacture of gins was rather a novelty
among the industries. But this sturdy, quiet man of business was
controlled by the conditions then prevailing as he was by the
possibilities of the future. Being a pioneer in an important branch of
industry meant much, and he had the pluck and faith to venture. Pratt
believed in himself and no man succeeds who does not; he believed in the
future of the country, and was resolved to begin the manufacture of gins.
He was not encouraged to locate at Montgomery, as he would have been glad
to do, and most fortunate for that city would it have been, could he have
done so. Mr. Pratt went to Autauga County, and on the plantation of
General Elmore manufactured a few gins. This was only a tentative venture
and one preparatory for greater things toward which he was gradually
moving.
On Autauga Creek, near McNeil's mill, there was abundant water power with
which to operate his primitive machinery, and leasing the use of this
power for a nominal sum, he was enabled finally to begin the manufacture
of gins. Both faith and grit were needed to meet the demand of the
occasion, but these Mr. Pratt had. Guided by the same sagacity which had
led him thus far, he was finally in condition to purchase land farther up
on Autauga Creek, where he built his first factory and founded a town
which he named Prattville.
The manufacture of gins in the South and the production of cotton acted
and reacted on each other with wonderful effect. Mr. Pratt was compelled
to enlarge his facilities for the manufacture of gins, so that by 1860 he
was building not less than 1,500 each year. The Pratt gin became famous
throughout the South, and to the beginning of the Civil War the sales
continued to grow. From that little industrial center in the woods of
Autauga were going forth the means of energy and stimulation which were
gradually transforming the agricultural conditions of the entire South.
Through the years this quiet but enterprising genius was prosecuting his
work unseen and largely unknown for a long time, save by means of his gin,
and yet his quiet retreat was a center from which there was emanating
motive power for the promotion of prosperity.
Mr. Pratt was Alabama's first great captain of industry. He was not a
dreamer, but a seer. He projected his plans into the future, wisely
measured their scope, and carefully moved to their execution. He had a
mission and wisely fulfilled it. He probed the future with the eye of an
industrial prophet, and his interests expanding with the growth of demand,
he himself was being made while he was making. Action always reacts. While
the man makes the fortune, the fortune makes the man. While through more
than a generation others through the flare of publicity enjoyed the
plaudits of the multitude and of the press, Daniel Pratt pursued the even
tenor of his way, building substantially, lastingly. While others were in
the current he was on the outer edge creating a current of his own.
On Autauga Creek he has built his own monument in a mighty industry and in
a little city which is now sought by the world's current of commerce.
MICHAEL TUOMEY
Alabama's original state geologist was Professor Michael Tuomey, whose
service was invaluable, and therefore deserves permanent recognition.
Professor Tuomey was a native of Cork, Ireland, where he was born on St.
Michael's day, 1805.
His scholastic training in youth seems to have been largely private,
though it is certain that he did attend one school outside his home. To
his grandmother was this distinguished man indebted for the first
scientific taste inculcated, for this remarkable woman led the promising
grandson to study with diligence and with accuracy the science of botany,
with which study it seems there was ever afterward associated, on the part
of Mr. Tuomey, a cherished memory by a grateful grandson for timely
inspiration given in his boyhood days on the Emerald Isle. Along with this
was borne the sacred recollection of a fond mother for the careful
cultivation of the beautiful as displayed in the dreamy regions of his
native isle, and in the magnificent landscapes which there abound.
Throughout his life Professor Tuomey bore the impress of the culture
imbibed in those early days, and the earnestness of the instruction given
by loved ones was a perpetual propelling force in all his subsequent
studies and investigations.
His precocity was evidently taken advantage of by these affectionate
instructors, for at the early age of seventeen we find him associated with
a friend in teaching at Yorkshire, England. The young genius, for such he
was, girded by the panoply of a sacred association and thorough drill of
mind, marked out for himself a course of scientific study into which his
natural bent bore him, and his early training, as well.
We are left largely to conjecture as to the time of his emigration to
America, but it must have been in the early twenties. A youthful
immigrant, he appears in Philadelphia, a stranger among strangers,
scarcely knowing whither to turn, till he buys a piece of ground to till,
then ventures in connection with a partner on the purchase of an estate,
finds agriculture ill-suited to his taste and ill-productive of results,
disposes of his interest, and wends his way southward, often trudging
weary and footsore for days together. He reaches the eastern shore of
Virginia, and with a knack of friend-making and possessing a charming
cultured manner, he procures a rural school, rallies about him a host of
friends, later becomes a private tutor in the home of John H. Dennis, of
Maryland, studying while he taught, but always winning the hearts of
others, and supremely that of Miss Sarah E. Handy, a kinswoman of his
private patron, which gifted young woman became Mrs. Tuomey.
His innate craving for scientific knowledge and his love of nature found
slight chance for cultivation at a time when institutions of science in
America were scarce, but he sought the best within reach by a course in
the Rennselaer Institute at Troy, N. Y., whence he was graduated and
became a civil engineer in the construction of one of the early railroads
in North Carolina. The financial crash of '37 imposed a cessation on the
railroad project, and with ready resourcefulness Mr. Tuomey betook himself
again to teaching, by occupying a chair of mathematics and the natural
sciences in a school presided over by Miss Mercer, in Loudoun County,
Virginia.
Responding to an opportunity afforded at Petersburg, Va., to establish a
seminary of his own, he and his gifted wife entered on an enterprise
there. This opened a wide vista to the pent-up zeal of Professor Tuomey
for the cultivation and enlargement of his scientific gifts. In Petersburg
was abundantly vindicated the principle in the person of this indomitable
young Hibernian, that success finally rewards the patient, plucky, and
resourceful. It became his honor at Petersburg to entertain that eminent
English geologist, Sir Charles Lyell, on the occasion of both his visits
to America, and by correspondence and otherwise he came into touch of more
or less intimacy with the learned scientists of the American continent, as
well as with those abroad. Among those with whom he was brought by reason
of scientific congeniality into touch were Agassiz, James Hall, state
geologist of New York, Professor Bache, Professor Dana, Dr. Gibbs, Edmund
Ruffin, and Professor Holmes. It was a glorious company of savants in
those early days of scientific militancy when men of eminence had to
confront an inertia of stout popular opposition.
Impelled by a consuming zeal for scientific research and guided by his own
keen judgment, while availing himself of all possible authoritative
sources of information, Professor Tuomey was meanwhile assiduous in study
and diligent in the collection of rare specimens of geology, mineralogy
and paleontology. His labors anon took permanent and valuable shape in
scientific publications, and after years of labor in other states which
cannot be mentioned here in detail, he was called in the heyday of his
career, in 1847, to the professorship of geology, mineralogy, and
agricultural chemistry in the Alabama university. Lest in a comprehensive
sphere like this, large enough for several men, his leisure time might run
to waste, he had imposed additionally the onerous task of state geologist
of Alabama, in 1848, and lest his extravagance in the use of a narrow
stipend might betray him into undue lengths he was given no compensation
for this additional labor. For six years he labored for the state under
conditions like these, when the legislature came to his rescue and
appropriated $10,000 for a geological survey. This led him to relinquish
his chair temporarily in the university in order to devote his energies to
the field of survey, which he continued till the exhaustion of the fund,
when he returned to his chair in the university.
It was Professor Tuomey who first awoke interest in geological science in
Alabama, and he it was who first disclosed the mineral wealth of the
state. In his pioneer work he fixed the boundaries of the different
formations in Alabama, embodying his charts, maps and reports in permanent
shape, so that after the lapse of more than half a century and in the
blaze of the scientific investigations of later years, his work remains as
a standard of authority.