Makers and Romance of Alabama History Part 3

Governor Martin was by birth a Tennessean. Denied an advanced education, he turned to the best account that which he had in the common schools, which limited training he solidified by teaching during his younger years.

He reached Alabama in 1819, the same year of its admission into the Union, finished his law studies, which had been begun in Tennessee, and settled at Athens to practice. The political stations held by Governor Martin have already been indicated, and by reason of these he took with him into the gubernatorial office a thorough knowledge of public affairs. It was during his administration that the Mexican war occurred, the demands growing out of which he met with official fidelity. His term of office having closed, he resumed the practice of the law, and, save when elected to the legislature in 1853, he never filled another official station. For thirty years, almost, he was in the public service, and a more faithful officer the state never had. He died at Tuscaloosa on November 2, 1866, being sixty-seven years old.

ISAAC SMITH

No man in the early annals of the state had a more varied or romantic career than the Rev. Isaac Smith, a courageous missionary of the Methodist Church. His life and labors do not find recognition on the page of secular history, but the contribution which he made to the state in its early formation wins for him a meritorious place in the state's chronicles. It is doubtful that his name and labors are familiar to the present generation of the great body of Christians of which he was an early ornament, but they are none the less worthy of becoming record.

Mr. Smith enlisted from Virginia in the army of Washington while yet a youth. Bright and alert, he was chosen an orderly by Washington, and served in that capacity under both Washington and LaFayette. When the new nation started on its independent career and when the region toward the west began to be opened, Mr. Smith migrated toward the south, became a minister of the Methodist Church, and offered his services as a missionary to the Indian tribes. Hated because of their ferocity, the prevailing idea in the initial years of the nineteenth century was that of the destruction of the red man, but Mr. Smith felt impelled to take to him the gospel of salvation.

His labors were not confined to any particular region and he trudged the country over, imperiling his life among the wild tribes, who came to love him because he was one pale face who sought to do them good. He founded an Indian school near the Chattahoochee and taught the Indians the elements of the English language. When Bishop Asbury, the most indomitable of all the Methodist bishops, came to the South, Mr. Smith was his close friend and adviser, and most valuable were his services to the bishop in planting Methodism in the lower South.

All real teachers are greater learners than instructors, for in their zeal to impart they must first come to acquire. Mr. Smith was an a.s.siduous student and with the growth of his years was an acc.u.mulated stock of both wisdom and learning. As he pa.s.sed the meridian of life he became a power in his denomination and his counsel was freely sought in the high circles of his church. When, in 1825, General LaFayette visited Alabama in his tour of the South, he pa.s.sed through the Creek Nation, in Georgia, and was escorted by a body of Georgians to the Chattahoochee River and consigned to the care of fifty painted Indian warriors, who vied with the pale faces in doing honor to the distinguished visitor. Rowing LaFayette across the river to the Alabama side, he was met by Rev. Isaac Smith. The great Frenchman instantly recognized Mr. Smith as one of his boy orderlies during the campaigns in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. There was a cordial demonstration of mutual affection between the old French veteran and the younger man, now a Methodist preacher. The painted Indian warriors looked on the exchange of greeting with evident pleasure. It so happened that LaFayette reached the Alabama side just at the point where stood the humble school building of the intrepid missionary.

The first demonstration of greeting being over, Mr. Smith eschewing all conventionality, and, in keeping alike with his Methodist zeal and the joy which he experienced in meeting his old commander, proposed that all bow in prayer. When LaFayette and Smith dropped on their knees the Indian warriors did the same, and there on the banks of the deep rolling Chattahoochee, beneath ancient oaks, in fervid and loud demonstrations of prayer, the voice of Mr. Smith rang out through the deep forests. The picture thus presented was worthy the pencil of the master--the ardent but devout preacher, the great French patriot and the half hundred warriors, each with his hands over his face, praying in the wild woods of Alabama.

The prayer was an unrestrained outburst of joy at the meeting of the old commander and a devout invocation for the preservation of the life of the friend of American liberty.

Yielding to the hospitable pressure of the boy soldier of other and 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 partic.i.p.ants 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 pa.s.s 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 cla.s.s of men who labored in comparative obscurity, pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sing 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 a.s.sa.s.sination 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 a.s.sa.s.sination. 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 pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d.

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 ma.s.ses 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 fort.i.tude, 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 inst.i.tutions 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 a.s.sume shape in the trans.m.u.ted lives and characters of men and women and in the visible inst.i.tutions of which they were the chief founders. Their records are usually a.s.signed to the department of unwritten history, but their lives and labors are the fundamental sources of the inst.i.tutions, 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 n.o.ble, but a good man, in virtue of his life, is a benefaction, and his daily walk is a constant a.s.set 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 pa.s.ses 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 ent.i.ty 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-a.s.sertion, 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.