Gov. Archibald Dixon
Memorial of Gov. Archibald Dixon's Family.
CAPTAIN WYNN DIXON.-The father of Hon. Archibald Dixon, was Captain Wynn Dixon, who fought through the Revolutionary War, having joined the army at the early age of sixteen. He moved from North Carolina to Henderson, KY, in 1804. His father, Colonel Henry Dixon, commanded a regiment in the Revolutionary War, and was killed at the battle of Eutaw Springs. Light Horse harry Lee, in his memoirs of the Revolution, pays Colonel Henry Dixon a high compliment for his gallantry and bravery at the battle of Camden.
HART FAMILY.-The mother of Hon. Archibald Dixon was Rebecca Hart, daughter of David Hart, of North Carolina. David Hart, and his brother Nathanial and Tom, were three of the nine members of the Henderson Grant Company, who, in 1775, through their agent, Daniel Boone, purchased of the Indians all that part of Kentucky lying between the Kentucky and Cumberland Rivers, and established at Boonesboro the first government in Kentucky, called Transylvania.
CABELL FAMILY.-Hon. Archibald Dixon married Elizabeth Robertson Cabell in 1832. Children by that marriage: Rebecca Hart, (wife of Hon. John Young Brown), Susan Bell, deceased (who married first Cuthbert Powell, second Major John J. Reeve), Dr. ARchibald Dixon, Hon. Henry C. Dixon and Joseph C. Dixon.
Dr. William Cabell, a native of England, and a graduate of the Royal College of Surgeons, in London, immigrated to Goochland, now Nelson County, VA, in 1723 or 1724. he had four sons, first, William; second, Joseph, who was also a physician; third, John; fourth, Nicholas. Dr. Joseph Cabell married Mary Hopkins, aunt of General Samuel Hopkins. Children by that marriage: Joseph, Mary, who married John Breckinridge, Ann, who married Benjamin Harrison, and Elizabeth.
BOLLING FAMILY.-Joseph Cabell, father of Elizabeth Robertson Cabell, married the second time Ann E., daughter of Archibald Bolling, of Red Oak, Buckingham County, Va, and his wife, Jane Randolph. Archibald Bolling was lineally descended from Colonel Robert Bolling of Petersburgh, Va., and his wife, who was the granddaughter of the Indian Princess Pocahontas.
BULLITT FAMILY.-The second wife of Hon. Archibald Dixon was Susan, daughter of William C. Bullitt, of Jefferson County, Ky, whom he married in 1853. Children of that marriage: Kate J., who married D. R. Burbank, Jr., William B., and Thomas B.
The father of William C. Bullitt was Alexander Scott Bullitt, who emigrated from Virginia to Kentucky in 1780. he was President of the First Constitutional Convention of Kentucky, and her first Lieutenant Governor.
The mother of William C. Bullitt was the daughter of Colonel William Christian, and own neice of the celebrated orator, Patrick Henry. Colonel Christian was killed by the Indians, near Louisville, Ky., in 1782. Christian County is named for him.
The mother of Susan Bullitt, wife of Archibald Dixon, was Ann Fry, a lineal descendant of Colonel Joshua Fry, of Virginia. Joshua Fry was Colonel of the regiment of which George Washington was Lieutenant Colonel. He died a short while before " Braddock's defeat,' when Washington succeeded him in the command.
The father of Ann Fry was Thomas Walker, the first surveyor to run a line in Kentucky. He was in Kentucky before Daniel Boone's visit in 1769.
ARCHIBALD DIXON-was born on the second of April, 1802, in Caswell County, N.C. His father, Wynn Dixon, had been in good circumstances, but, through suretyship, lad lost his property, and in 1805, whit his family, came to Henderson County, Ky., and resided there until his death. His son, Archibald, had no other educational advantages than could be obtained in this county, then almost an unpopulated winderness. At twenty years of age he began the study of law in the Town of Henderson, in the office of James Hillyer, an attorney of high character and fine legal attainments, and, despite his meagre education, he pursue his studies with such industry that at twenty-two he was admitted to the bar, and very soon took a commanding position.
His career as a lawyer was a success. In the surrounding counties, in Kentucky and Indiana, he was employed in nearly all important contested cases, and was in them always a leader. His learning was extensive, his energy without limit, and his zeal and devotion to his clients won him an absolute trust. No labor was so onerous, no peril so imminent, no sacrifice so great as to cause him to abate one jot of his duty. If a man had the right on his side, with Dixon as his advocate, hi was safe. His reputation as a lawyer was wide spread and enduring. He was a great criminal lawyer, but was always for the defense, and would never take a fee in the prosecution.
He was not permitted to follow uninterrupted the profession of his choice, but in 1830 was elected by the Whig party to represent Henderson County in the Lower House of the General Assembly. This position he filled with his accustomed ability and fidelity. Returning to the practice of law, after his service in the Legislature, he pursued it with increasing success and reputation until 1836, when he was elected to represent the counties of Daviess, Hopkins and Henderson in the State Senate. His term of office expired in 1840, but he had then become distinguished throughout the State as a political leader of great talent and influence, and he was chosen by the Whig party in 1844 as its candidate for Lieutenant Governor on the ticket with Governor Owsley. The Democratic candidate for Lieutenant Governor was William S. Pilcher, of Louisville, a very accomplished orator. In the election, Mr. Dixon's majority exceeded that of Governor Owsley by about seven thousand, a handsome tribute to the ability and personal popularity of the man. He filled out this term of office and was put forward strongly for the nomination of the Whig party for Governor at the next election, but Mr. Crittenden, then a much older leader, and one of the greatest Whigs of his time, was chosen as its candidate, and was elected over the late Governor Powell. This was in 1848, the year that General Tylor was elected President.
Mr. Clay, in many respects the greatest statesman and political leader of any age or country, was then the most influential citizen of Kentucky.
The next year the State was to form a new Constitution, and the question of slavery was making itself disastrously prominent in the public mind. At this day it is difficult to realize what intense prejudices pervaded the mass of the slaveholders of Kentucky. To be called an abolutionist in Kentucky in that day was considered the grossest insult, and he was a bold man who could, in the mildest way, express his dissatisfaction with slavery.
In February, 1849, Mr. Clay, then in New Orleans, wrote a letter to a friend in Lexington, in which he advocated the adoption of some plan for the gradual emancipation of the slaves in Kentucky, and their removal to a new country. It was a patriotic and far-seeing letter, and if Mr. Clay had done no other service to his State, it would have entitled him to rank with the great men of his day. Had his views been promptly adopted in Kentucky, and the other slaveholding States, the bloody and devastating war, whose demoralizing effects are still felt throughout the country, would have been avoided and slavery would have been extinct. But Mr. Clay alienated thousands of his friends, and the writer has it from one who was at the time in Frankfort, that when he came there that year he was quite neglected. He had, heretofore, always been received in Kentucky with enthusiastic devotion, and he felt the neglect keenly. Governor Dixon was at the time in Frankfort. He had been Mr. Clay's friend, and while he differed as widely from him in his emancipation views as any man in the South, he was not disposed to turn the cold shoulder to him. He accompanied him alone to the boat when he took his leave, and Mr. clay, with great feeling, said to him: "Dixon, I believe you are the only friend I have left." This incident is to illustrate the fidelity of Mr. Dixon to his friends, and the intensity of that popular sentiment in support of slavery, which could wipe out the friendship of a lifetime for no other reason than a difference of opinion on that subject. However, Mr. Clay's subsequent services to the country recovered the good will of the party in the State, and added increased lustre to a fame already wide as the world.
In that year Mr. Dixon was chosen by Henderson County to represent her in the Constitutional Convention. The Convention assembled in Frankfort on Monday, October 1st, 1849. The Whigs nominated Dixon for Chairman, the Democrats Mr. Guthrie, of Louisville. The latter was chosen by a majority of two, on a strict party vote, and it was thus demonstrated that the sceptre was departing from the Whigs in Kentucky.
The present Constitution of Kentucky was the result of the labors of the Convention, and in its proceedings no man took a more able and active part than Mr. Dixon. He was a large slaveholder and opposed every move which looked to the overthrow of the institution of slavery. he offered a preamble and resolution in the Convention, in which he asserted the doctrine that the right of private property was above constitutional authority, nor could private property be taken from the owner for any other than public uses, and then only upon the condition that he should be fairly compensated therefor. The principle was ingrafted into the Constitution, and in advocacy of it the distinguished mover of the resolution proved himself one of the greatest debaters in the Union.
The Constitution submitted by the Convention to the people was adopted the next year, and the first election for Governor thereunder was had in August, 1851. Notwithstanding the fact that Mr. Clay had estranged thousands of friends by his views on slavery, many Whigs had been impressed with their wisdom. The Constitution contained nothing which favored them, on the contrary, it was framed with the view to prevent emancipation, and to this day, after slavery had been destroyed by civil war, the people find it almost impossible to change their Constitution in the manner provided therein. It was the object of the slaveholders to prevent any change except after the greatest deliberation and repeated expressions of the popular will in favor of it.
The chief opposition to the new Constitution was from the Whig party, Mr. Clay's emancipation views were opposed to it, and its provisions to protect and perpetuate slavery aroused the hostility of the emancipation element in the Whig party. Cassius Clay, a relative of the great Clay, and a man of talent, was nominated and ran for Governor as an emancipation candidate. He had been a Whig, and the vote he received, amounting to several thousands, was drawn almost exclusively from the Whig party.
Mr. Dixon was enthusiastic and active in his advocacy of the new Constitution, and, of course, was constantly antagonizing that portion of the Whig party which opposed it. So bitter was the Whig opposition that it became evident that it would be difficult for that party in its divided condition to retain control of the State.
In December, 1850, Mr. Dixon, in answer to repeated solicitations to become its candidate for Governor, published an address to the Whigs of Kentucky, in which he stated clearly the causes of dissensions in the Whig party, and the difficulties under which he would labor as its candidate, in view of his position in reference to the new Constitution, and urged his friends not to place his name before the Convention. Nevertheless, he was nominated by the Convention for Governor, and made a canvass which, though unsuccessful, increased his reputation and influence.
The Democratic party, on the other hand, being united and confident of victory, nominated Mr. Dixon's neighbor and personal friend, Governor Powell. It could not have made a wiser nomination. governor Powell added to great talents, and an acquaintance throughout the State, a personal popularity, a geniality of temper, and a charm of manner, which made him the strongest Democrat in Kentucky.
The canvass was a hot one. Perhaps the two candidates spoke in every county in the State, certainly in nearly every county, and the vote was so close that for weeks the result was unknown and the greatest upon Governor Powell by a majority of eight hundred and fifty. Cassius Clay received about six thousand Whig votes. Despite the prominence of Dixon as an advocate of the new Constitution, it is doubtful if any other Whig could have obtained against Governor Powell the vote which he received. It is creditable to both the distinguished gentlemen that they continued through life the warmest personal friends, although so often and so sharply opposed in political feeling and interest.
Mr. Clay was spending his last days in the Senate, serving his country to the end, when Dixon and Powell were contending for the Governorship of Kentucky.
The year before, the agitation of the slavery question in Congress had become fiercer and more portentious than ever, and it was no doubt in a great measure owing to Mr. Clay's extraordinary personal influence that what has been known as the compromise measure of 1850 were adopted, and the evil day of civil war postponed. On account of his failing health he tendered his resignation as Senator, to take effect on the meeting of Congress in December, 1852. It was accepted, and the Legislature of Kentucky elected Mr. Dixon to fill the remainder of his term. Thus he became the successor of Mr. Clay, and no man in Kentucky was worthier to succeed him.
In the Senate, as in every other position in life, he became a man of influence. The evil spirit of discord had only been laid for a time by the compromise measures of 1850. In 1854, Senator Douglas, of Illinois, Chairman of the Committee on Territories, offered a bill to organize Territorial Governments for Kansas and Nebraska. Immediately the winds of passion were let loose. The orginal bill, as offered by Douglas, proposed that when these territories should be admitted as States, they should be received into the Union with or without slavery, as their Constitution might prescribe at the time of their admission. Under the eighth section of the act of March 6th, 1820, known as the Missouri Compromise act, slavery was prohibited in all the territory acquired from France, of which the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska were a part, which lay north of latitude 360 30', and these two territories were altogether north of it, so that while, under the provisions of the bill offered by Senator Douglas, the State Constitution might make slavery lawful, it was unlawful under the Missouri Compromise act for a slaveholder to take his slaves into the territory while it remained in its territorial condition. Mr. Dixon, and every slaveholder, knew that if the slaveholders could not take their slave property into the territory they would not go there, and that the anti-slavery inhabitants would never adopt a State Constitution establishing slavery. He, therefore, offered an amendment to the bill repealing the eight section of the act of March 6th, 1820, thereby leaving the territories open alike to the Northern and Southern emigrant, and, the effect, transferring the question of slavery from the Congress of the United States to the people of the Territories and States.
After a conference with Judge Douglas, the latter incorporated into his bill a section embodying the amendment and reported it again to the Senate. The excitement was intense, but the principle contended for by Dixon was right, and prevailed. In the discussion upon it Judge Douglas proved himself more than a match in debate for all the anti-slavery leaders in the Senate. The bill passed both Houses of Congress, was approved by President Pierce, and became a law.
It has been thought that the amendment repealing the Missouri Compromise was impolitic and disastrous to the South. It is useless, if not idle, to speculate upon the cousequences of a measure whose influence for good or evil had long since spent itself, but this may be said, that Mr. Dixon was right in principle and had the boldness to contend for the rights of the people. When that Missouri prohibition was adopted Mr. Jefferson, then in his old age, on April 22d, 1820, wrote to his friend John Holmes: "I had for a long time ceased to read newspapers, or pay any attention to public affairs, confident they were in good hands, and content to be a passenger in our bark to the shore from which I am not distant. but this momentous question, like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed, indeed, for the moment, but this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence. A geographical line, coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, and held up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated, and every new irritation will mark it deeper and deeper."
So that those who would hold Governor Dixon responsible for the building up of the Republican party must go further back, and place the responsibility where it belongs, in the Congress of 1820, which adopted the prohibition, which established this line to grow "deeper and deeper with every new irritation." Mr. Dixon and Judge Douglas, in 1858, were vindicated by the Supreme Court of the United States, in the celebrated case of Dred Scot against Sandford, in an opinion of unsurpassed ability and research, in which that Court decided the eighth section of the Missouri Compromise act unconstitutional and void.
This claim, that these two great and patriotic men were right on this question, does not commit them or the writer to the approval of slavery as an institution. They were acting under a constitution, and had to respect the constitutional rights of the people. It was not for them to palter with their oaths, in a double sense, and say we will uphold the Constitution wherever it suits us, and rend it wherever it does not suit us. They were for the Constitution they had sworn to support. They were right not only in a Constitutional view of the question, but right in view of the great principles on which our independence as a people rested. The colonies revolted from the mother country and established a separate government, in vindication of the right of the people to control their local and domestic affairs, in their own way, and the Kansas-Nebraska bill, extended to the people of the Territories the right to legislate for themselves on all local matters, so soon as they were organized into a territorial government.
Had the question of slavery been out of the way--a question which in that day seemed to cloud the reason of men and make them mad-no friend of republican institutions would have found fault with the Kansas-Nebraska bill, but the abolitionist of the North and the fire-eater of the South were alike ready to violate the great principles of popular sovereignty, and to demand that Congress should so legislate in reference to the Territories as to force upon them their peculiar views regardless of the wishes of the inhabitants.
Other important questions arose during Mr. Dixon's term of office, in the consideration of which he took an important and distinguished part. He served out his term, which expired in 1855, maintaining a position of influence in that august body, then holding many of the greatest statesmen and orators which the country has produced.
He returned to his home in Henderson and resumed the practice of the law and the management of his large estate. The Know-Nothing, or American, party arose about this time, and he was left quite alone in politics. The Whig party, which he had served so long and well, had been absorbed by that party in the South, and by that party and the Republican party in the North. Upon those questions of policy which had divided the Whig and Democratic parties he was a Whig, and failing to approve the peculiar doctrines of the American party, he was left without a party. He abandoned no principle.
In 1856 the Democracy nominated James Buchanan and John C. Breckenridge for President and Vice President on a platform which endorsed the principles of the Kansas-Nebraska bill. The Republican party nominated Fremont and Dayton, and the American party nominated Fillmore and Donelson for the same offices. Mr. Dixon advocated the election of Buchanan and voted for him, because he regarded the Democracy as sound upon the question of slavery, which had become the paramount issue in American politics.
The Republican party continued to increase in strength, and in 1860 nominated Abraham Lincoln for President. The Democracy split upon the rock of slavery, and Mr. Douglas was nominated by the Northern wing and Mr. Breckenridge by the Southern wing of the party. The American party, under the name of the Union party, composed chiefly of old Whigs of the North, who would not unite in an abolition crusade against the South, and old Whigs of the South who would not unite with the Secessionists, who were trying to "precipitate the cotton States into a revolution," nominated Bell, of Tennessee, for President, and Everett, of Massachusetts, for Vice President. It was a party of conservative patriots, but not calculated to win in the exciting times which preceded the civil war.
Mr. Dixon, with his accustomed energy and ability espoused the cause of Douglas, but to no purpose, and he and Breckenridge and Bell were defeated, and Lincoln elected, on a strictly sectional platform, and without an electoral vote from the South, and almost without a popular vote from a slaveholding State. The line, as prophesied by Jefferson, had grown deeper, and the frightful spectacle of a sectional triumph, based upon open and avowed hostility of the North to the South, rose up to terrify all lovers of the Union. Within sixty days from the announcement of Mr. Lincoln's election, several of the Southern States had formally seceded from the Union and were busy with preparations for war. The flag of the country had been displaced by them for another symbol of nationality, and in the madness of the hour all the glorious achievements of the united arms of the North and the South in the Revolution, in the War of 1812, the various Indian wars, and the more recent conquest of Mexico, were forgotten, and curses both loud and deep were hurled against the Union of our fathers.
During the winter of 1860-61, Mr. Dixon and many distinguished patriots devoted themselves unceasingly in the effort to stay the tide of disunion. A convention of distinguished citizens of the States of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Virginia, Maryland, Missouri and Kentucky, assembled at Louisville and passed patriotic and pacific resolutions. Mr. Dixon was a delegate and participated in the proceedings. He took a bold stand for the Union, but denounced the secessionists and abolitionists as enemies to the Constitution and the Union. He advised the border States that in the event of disunion and war, their territory would be the theater of battle, and would be devastated by the contending armies. His idea was that if these great States in the center of the Union would act in concert to prevent a collision of arms, the people of the South would undo their folly of secession, and that the people of the North would compel Mr. Lincoln, although elected as a sectional candidate, to protect the Constitutional rights of the South. But it seems as if a Higher Power had grown weary of the curse of human slavery, and had pronounced its doom, and no counsel, however wise, could restrain the violence of those partisans of the cotton States who, in their eagerness to make slavery permanent, dealt it a death blow in seceding from the Union.
Mr. Dixon, in his own home, at Paducah, and Frankfort, and in other portions of Kentucky, made speeches of extraordinary power and eloquence in behalf of the Union, and of the neutrality of the State of Kentucky. The writer of this sketch had the pleasure of hearing him, and although nearly a quarter of a century had passed, he remembers his words, his looks, his voice, as if it were yesterday, and language is wholly inadequate to convey an impression of his wonderful oratory. But nothing could stay the storm.
In April, South Carolina opened fire on Fort Sumpter, and the Stars and Stripes were hauled down and the flag of the Confederate States raised in its stead. Then, indeed, were "the dogs of war let loose," and the country given over for four years to tyranny and bloodshed. In the North, and in the South, the principles of liberty were forgotten. A free press and free speech were silenced. The great writ of habeas corpus was contemptuously spurned by any petty corporal, and prisons were filled by citizens of the highest character, who were arrested without lawful accusation and held without trial.
It was in these dark and troublesome times that Mr. Dixon's character shone most resplendent. Living on the dividing line between the North and South, his county and town were the scene of many heartrending tragedies. He remained at home, the incarnation of peace unterrified, amid the tumult of war, doing all in his power to relieve the distressed and unfortunate of either side, and to mitigate the horrors of bloody and irregular warfare. To his influence and prompt intercession with Mr. Lincoln, with whom he was personally acquainted, it is pretty certain that some among the living owe their lives. No one applied to him for help that he did not receive it, not grudgingly, nor for pay, but receive it free as the air of Heaven.
His farms were ravaged and his slaves forced from their homes. He was not made ungenial by wrongs or misfortune, and the slaves who had served him in bondage, looked to him as their friend and protector in freedom. His influence over them, and their reverence and affection for him, showed that he had discharged the duty of a master to them, as he had all other duties, in an unexceptionable way, and their tears fell freely when he died.
After the war he took an active interest in building up the prosperity of the country and restoring to the South the Constitutional rights to which she was entitled as a part of the Union. He acted with the Democratic party, and opposed those military usurpations in the South, which marked the administration of Grant. Occasionally he published communications on the affairs of the country, which were read far and wide, but his health was too feeble to permit him to take an active part in political life. He never entered the political arena after the war, but continued to exert the influence of a private citizen in behalf of the Constitution of the country.
He was especially hostile tot he interference of the military in elections, and publicly advocated an amendment to the Federal Constitution prohibiting such interference in either State or Federal elections.
Notwithstanding his activity in State and National affairs, he was not unmindful of the local interests of his neighbors and friends. He originated many enterprises of great importance to Henderson, and urged them forward with energy and resolution. If the writer is correctly informed, he was among the first to advocate the building of a railroad from Henderson to Nashville, and the erection of a bridge across the Ohio at Henderson, and was instrumental in procuring charters for these great works. His interest in the prosperity of the city, and its people, was undiminished through life.
This is an outline of the career of Governor Dixon, in those matters which were of a strictly public nature, and it will be seen that he was a man to whose life any country could look with pride and gratitude. But the private life of so distinguished a character can be no less interesting than his public career.
He was a man of the most striking appearance. He was slightly above the medium height, and stood perfectly erect. There was nothing out of line in his figure. In his early and middle life he was rather spare, but in old age he became somewhat more fleshy, yet never to a degree to impair the symmetry of his proportions. His movements were full of grace and dignity. His face was no less attractive than his form. Every feature of it seemed full of expression, and in moments of enthusiasm, when speaking, his eyes seemed to flash fire. His temperament was nervous and sanguine, and his manner excitable, and at times tempestuous, but he was always self-controlled, and his will kept in subjection the ardor of his disposition. No man possessed a higher order of courage. He was incapable of fear, and nothing could daunt him, For twenty years before his death his hair was white as snow, his complexion clear and fair, his port majestic, and, seen among ten thousand, he would be singled out as a great man. A gentleman of Union County said that he believed him the greatest man Kentucky ever produced, and mentioned that when he attended court there, if from any cause he was late entering the court room, as he did so, every eye was turned to gaze upon him. Another, who accompanies him to hear his friend Douglas speak at Indianapolis in 1860, in that memorable struggle for the Presidency, said that when he registered at the hotel inquiries from all parts of the office were heard as to who he was. A great soul has seldom animated a finer form.
He was genial and friendly in his intercourse with men, never failing to salute those whom he met. The ragged negro in the street was as sure of his cheery recognition as the most distinguished of his neighbors. To young men he had always words of encouragement and good cheer, and many now in mature life cherish him in their memories with grateful affection.
His information was extensive and his literary taste very fine. He was a lover of Shakespeare, and his conversation and writings showed that he was familiar with his masterpieces. Added to his literary, legal and political information, he had an extensive business experience, and there have been few men who were more practical and sensible in their affairs. He had an abundant share of that talent which is called common sense, the most useful of all talent.
His moral character was above suspicion. Being a distinguished and successful man he was naturally a mark for calumny, but it is doubtful if in the darkest corners, where slander lurks, there was ever a whisper against his integrity. He was just, true, public spirited, honorable and courageous, a liberal friend to all good enterprises, and a most kind heated gentleman. His bearing towards females was as courteous and chivalric as that of the knight errant of the middle ages. In social conversation he was quite as happy as in his public addresses, and no one capable of appreciating good company could talk with him without being instructed and entertained. He was fond of out door exercise, and was daily to be seen walking along the streets, a pleased observer of any improvement that was going on, usually in company of some friend or some young man whom he wished to help along by his sympathy and fatherly counsel.
In religion he was no churchman in a sectarian sense, but he was a Christian, thoroughly imbued with the great truths taught by the Savior, and they comforted him in his last days. He was stricken down several weeks before his death, and was conscious that his end was near. No unmanly apprehension, no remorse for evil deeds, no distrust of the goodness of God, fretted his latter moments. He talked of death, and of his accountability to God, as if he, in full health, had been discussing the condition of some other person. Yet in that time, so full of sorrow to his friends and family, it should not be though that life had lost its attractions for him. When a friend called on him a few days before he died, and said that in another county his friends had made anxious inquiries concerning his condition, he said, with a feeling which wrung tears from those present, "Give them my compliments and bid them a long farewell." A few days after, on Sunday night, the twenty-sixth of April, 1876, he died, surrounded by his family, who had done all that love could suggest to prolong his life and soothe his sufferings.
He was twice married, first in March, 1834, to Mrs. Eliza B. Pollett, a most estimable woman, who died in 1851, leaving him six children, five of whom still live. In October, 1853, he married Miss Sue Bullitt, of Jefferson County, who survives him with three children, and upon whom compliment is exhausted in saying that she is in every way worthy the confidence and love which her distinguished husband lavished upon her.
