CHAPTER X.

_ANDREW JACKSON, THE MAN._

Andrew Jackson was a more courageous man, as well as a much greater man, than many of his most ardent admirers knew of. At the time of his duel with Avery, if the version which I believe to be true is correct, he was afraid of public opinion--that is, he believed that, if he made an explanation, somebody might think that he feared Avery, and so, rather than run the risk of being suspected of cowardice, he was willing to give Avery a chance to kill him. But later in life he had outgrown this, and had no master except his convictions of duty, his own sense of right and wrong. He did not care what anybody might believe or suspect him of, so long as his course had the approval of his judgment and his conscience.

This was established beyond doubt, in the minds of a few old gentlemen (who afterward learned the actual facts), by an incident which happened in 1832--probably in the early part of October--at the public house or tavern kept by Capt. Bell at Bean’s Station, in Grainger county. President Jackson had left Washington, in the early part of August, 1832, in company with Francis P. Blair and others, to visit the Hermitage; and the incident about to be related occurred on the return trip to Washington. Before leaving the Hermitage, the itinerary or schedule of travel and stopping-places on the route had been made out. Bell’s tavern had been fixed upon as a point for dinner and rest, and Capt. Bell had been notified of the date. Bell had been a friend and admirer of Jackson for many years, and he and his wife naturally made great preparations to receive and entertain the President and his accompanying friends. Quite a number of leading citizens, acquaintances and adherents of Jackson, who had been apprised of the day he would arrive, were on hand to greet their old friend and leader, the President of the United States.

The party arrived on time, and the President’s carriage stopped in the public road in front of the tavern, which stood at some little distance back from the highway. Capt. Bell and others were at the carriage door to receive President Jackson, who got out immediately and “shook hands all round.” Bell, however, observed that Jackson, with an ominous storm-cloud gathering on his face, was looking intently toward a broad porch which extended along the front of the tavern, his eyes evidently fixed upon a gentleman who was walking back and forth on this porch, and who was evidently in turn eyeing Jackson with equal intensity. Suddenly, Jackson turned toward the conveyances which were accompanying him with friends, some of whom had already gotten out, and said, “Don’t get out--we will not take dinner here.” Then, turning to Capt. Bell, he said, “I regret that I can’t stop, rest awhile and take dinner with you. Tell Mrs. Bell that I could not stop.” The latter remark was made in an undertone to Capt. Bell, after which President Jackson got into his carriage and ordered his driver to go on, and his friends followed.

Capt. Bell’s curiosity was as great as his disappointment at the turn things had taken. He did not know what had caused it, but suspected that the presence of the gentleman walking on the porch had something, if not everything, to do with it. This gentleman had only stopped for dinner, and left immediately after it was over, without alluding to the Jackson incident. Indeed, no one then knew whether or not he knew who Jackson was; but Capt. Bell, during the hour or so that he remained, learned what afterward proved to be three important facts--the name of the gentleman, that he was from North Carolina, and that he was on his way to Kentucky. At that time, the thoroughfare from all East Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia was by way of Bean’s Station through Cumberland Gap to Kentucky.

Some months later, Capt. Bell learned that the gentleman in question was one of President Jackson’s most bitter and unrelenting enemies; that he was in fact the leader of the opposition to Jackson in North Carolina; that he had made public speeches in North Carolina and elsewhere against him, in the campaigns of 1824 and 1828, and was then (1832) most active in his opposition; and that he was at that time probably on his way to Kentucky to consult with Jackson’s opponents in that state. He, as Bell afterwards learned, had rehashed in his public speeches all the slanders which had been invented against Jackson, including no doubt the one which had cost Dickinson his life in 1806. After learning these facts, Capt. Bell said that he well knew the terrific struggle which Jackson had then and there, to control the storm rising within his breast as he saw, within a few yards of him, a hated foe who had committed a crime which, in Jackson’s judgment, ought to bar him out of heaven. But Bell’s idea was that Jackson--the man with a temper like a tornado, and whose very nature, as some professed to believe, was nothing but a raging torrent of fury--said to himself, “I am President of the United States; and I can not afford to bring reproach upon the people who elected me, or to degrade the highest office on earth by a scene, or a difficulty with that man, which is certain to follow if I stop here”; and he therefore immediately got into his carriage, and left without any explanation except the words given above. When Capt. Bell met Jackson again, a few years afterward, no explanation was necessary--he knew all.

Capt. Bell’s son, who as a young man was present when the incident occurred, is authority for the account given above, and for his father’s views and recollections of it. So far as I know, it has not been published hitherto.

Those who knew Andrew Jackson would agree with Bell that it took a superhuman effort even to remember, at the moment, that he was President of the United States, and to control the passion that the sight of this man aroused in him; but he did it, and, in doing it, proved himself a greater man, if possible, than many of his friends ever believed him to be. The struggle that the President of the United States had with Andrew Jackson, on this occasion, can better be understood when it is remembered that the man walking on the porch had repeated statements which, it is said, was the origin of Jackson’s trouble with Sevier and others, and which also caused Jackson, in his duel with Dickinson, after the latter had fired and hit him, to place his left hand tightly on the spot where the ball had entered, take deliberate aim with the other hand and pull the trigger; and then, when the weapon failed to fire, the hammer having caught at the half-cock notch, to examine it carefully, recock it, aim carefully again, and fire again--this time to see his enemy fall mortally wounded, dying in a few moments afterward. Jackson’s act at Bean’s Station, in leaving abruptly the presence of a calumniator of the memory of the wife whom he had worshipped in life, and at the very mention of whose name after her death tears came into his eyes and a tremor in his voice, was an exhibition of courage and self-control showing greatness in a direction and to a degree not often met with in the very greatest of great men.

On this same journey from Washington to the Hermitage, in 1832, President Jackson was given an ovation and reception which, it is believed, was the most pleasing and gratifying to him of any of the numerous public demonstrations of popular esteem theretofore shown him. This affair had its beginning four miles northeast of Jonesboro, on the public highway--the old state road--on each side of which, at the point mentioned, was an old-fashioned crooked rail fence, and also large oak and other native forest trees. It was in the latter part of August, or early in September, and the day was an ideal one. The road was on and along the top of a high ridge, with the Iron Mountain in plain view across the valley to the south. At this point, the President was met by one hundred picked men, uniformed, and mounted on a hundred of the very finest dapple-grey saddle horses that could be found in the country, to escort him into Jonesboro. This column of horsemen was under command of Samuel Greer, a life-long friend of Jackson. As it approached the carriage of the President, who had had no intimation of its approach, and got within about a hundred feet, a hundred stentorian voices simultaneously shouted: “Three cheers for Andrew Jackson, the greatest man on earth!” and the cheers which followed made the welkin ring and woke the echoes of three commonwealths.

The carriage was pulled to the right of the road, under the shade of a large oak (which was still standing as late as 1884), and the President alighted, removing his hat as he did so, and bowing three several times to the horsemen. This act of course caused another burst of applause. When quiet was restored, the column, at the command of Greer, dismounted and passed to the rear, where he introduced each one to the President. It is said that the latter, in as many as forty or more instances, while holding some young man by the hand, would tell him who his mother was before her marriage, what his father’s given name was, and in what part of the county he had lived--whether on Watauga, Nolichucky or Holston river, or on Limestone, Cherokee, Boon’s, Brush or Knob creek. After this, Jackson turned in the direction of the Iron Mountain, and as he pointed to it, said in substance: “Forty-four years ago last spring, I crossed that mountain, and settled, as I then thought, in this country permanently, amongst your fathers and ancestors; but Providence had decreed that I should not spend my life in this particular part of our great state, and took me elsewhere. Every time, for the last few days, that my carriage has been where I could see that mountain, I have been looking out at it, and letting my mind run back over my stormy and eventful life; and, at the moment you approached and gave me the first notice I had of your coming by your cheers and applause, I was thinking of whom I would meet and whom I would miss of my old friends at the old town just ahead of us, where I began life. I wish to say, before we resume the journey to the town, that in all my career I have not been the recipient of a demonstration more greatly appreciated than this one, here under the old trees, in this old road that I used to travel so often, by the sons of my old friends and acquaintances.” Then, with Greer and ten of the escort some little distance in front of the carriage, and ninety in the rear, the journey was resumed. It was understood throughout the country that Jackson would arrive in Jonesboro that afternoon, and also that he would spend the next day in the old town. This had brought thousands of people to Jonesboro; men, women and children came, on foot, on horseback and in every kind of vehicle. There was no way to house and feed the multitude that had arrived and filled the town when Jackson reached it late in the afternoon. The sides of the road were lined with people for a mile outside the town, the streets were packed, the tops of many of the houses were covered, and the President was received with waving of hats, bonnets, aprons, handkerchiefs and improvised flags and with shouts from the multitude, from the time he came in sight until he got out of his carriage and went into the hotel.

The hotel at which he stopped was on the main street, and had a broad porch that extended the full length of the house. This was about eight or ten feet high, projecting out over the sidewalk, and was reached by a stairway at each end. On the following day, the President held a reception on this porch, and there shook hands with all of the people who had assembled to see him, they passing up at one end of the porch and down at the other. On this porch, on this day, was dispelled from the minds of some of his friends every vestige of the slight suspicion which had been produced by vile hired slanderers, that his fierce nature, turbulent spirit and stormy life had sapped his mental powers, judgment and reason, and that he was no longer the real Andrew Jackson of New Orleans, but was surrounded and controlled by designing, unscrupulous scoundrels, who were feeding the vanity of the old man in his dotage on flattery which he was then unable to detect and resist. President Jackson stood on the hotel porch at Jonesboro, and, possibly at the very moment when public speakers and editors in other parts of the country were lamenting(?) the loss of his former “energy of character” and the decay of his mind and judgment, gave to those people the very highest evidence that he was the Andrew Jackson of old: his form, although he was sixty-five years old, was “straight as a gun-barrel,” and his eyes as flashing and his mind as clear as on the night of the fire, or on the day when he left the bench and arrested Russell Bean, in that very town. As his old friends would approach him in their plain and simple garb, with their wives and children,[R] he would call out their names, grasp their hands, put an arm around them, kiss their daughters, compliment their younger children, and tell the wife that the good-looking boys and girls “favored her” more than they did the father. Incidents of his early life would suggest themselves to his mind--a lawsuit, a fox chase, a deer drive or something else--as they came up, and he would refer to it in some way, in the few moments which he could spare to that particular individual. His famous horse-race with Col. Love in Greasy Cove was mentioned; and it came very near bringing down the porch when a kinsman of Col. Love, by the same name, grasped the old hero by the hand and asked him if he had any better race horses at the Hermitage than he had when he lived in that country; to which he promptly and laughingly replied: “Yes, better than either one of us had that day; come over to the Hermitage, and you shall have one.” Such were the scenes and incidents of that memorable day on the hotel porch in the historic old town of Jonesboro.[S]

The “bank conspirators,” as they were called, had been at work incessantly, and they had a few--a very few--helpers in that country, who had been furnished with and had repeated (with great regret?) this charge of imbecility of old age, which rendered it dangerous to the liberties of the people and perilous to the government to re-elect the once great man, then a mental wreck. It may, even at this late day, be of benefit to reproduce in part an editorial from one of the newspapers of the period--a strong and powerful one--which, it was said, had been hired to desert and slander President Jackson, and to wait until he was in the midst of his journey through the country to the Hermitage, before it made its first assault on him. This editorial, among other things, said:

Since 1823 I have been the firm, undeviating friend of Andrew Jackson, through good and through evil report. I have defended his reputation and advocated his cause; and, for the last five years, my exertions in his behalf, as the conductor of a public journal, have been known to this country. But the time has now arrived when I owe it to the people, to the institutions of the country and to myself to declare my deliberate conviction that he has not realized the high hopes which his reputation and previously written and declared opinions promised, nor redeemed the sacred pledges which he voluntarily gave on his election to the first station in the world. Let us not be misunderstood: I do not--I never will--impeach his patriotism or his integrity; but as a sentinel at my post, true to the duty which I voluntarily assumed when I became the editor of a public journal, I feel called upon to proclaim to the people that Andrew Jackson is not their President; that, enfeebled by age and the toils, cares and anxieties of an active and laborious life, he no longer possesses his former energy of character or independence of mind, but, confiding in those who have wormed themselves into his confidence, he has entrusted the affairs of this great nation and the happiness of thirteen millions of freemen to the hands of political gamblers and money-changers, time-serving politicians, who, in the pursuit of their unhallowed purposes, threaten ruin to the country and to that sacred charter of our liberties which was maintained by the wisdom of our fathers, after having been purchased with their blood and the sacrifice of every selfish motive on the altar of public good.[T]

The foregoing is from a three-column editorial which appeared during the very week that Jackson was in Jonesboro, and only about two days previous to his reception in that town. Eight newspapers that had theretofore supported Jackson immediately followed the lead of the _Courier and Enquirer_, took the names of Jackson and Van Buren from their mast-heads, and went over to the support of Nicholas Biddle and the banks, on the ground that the President had lost his mind and his “former energy of character”; but they all lived long enough to find out how the people of Jonesboro received the slander,[U] and also to learn that the whole country knew that they had been hired to traduce the life, character, abilities and public services of this great soldier, statesman and patriot, and to have the finger of indignant, honest scorn point them out as traitors to the cause and slanderers of Andrew Jackson.

Space has been given to this reception at Jonesboro for the reason that it took place during the period of ten days within which nine or ten of the newspapers in the east which had been supporting Jackson suddenly discovered that he had “lost his former energy of character and independence of mind,” and was so “enfeebled by age” that his re-election would endanger the happiness of the people and the “sacred charter of liberty.” This was nothing more nor less than the first move in the conspiracy that was formed to defeat his re-election and destroy him. These newspapers had been bought, the price paid and the trade closed, some time after Jackson’s nomination on the 21st of May preceding, at Baltimore; but they were instructed to reserve their opening fire upon him until an opportune time. It was ascertained that he was about to visit the Hermitage, and that he was going “overland” down across Virginia and on through Tennessee. When he was about midway on this journey, with no telegraph or fast mail communication to give him information, these “bushwhackers” fired on his character, his integrity and his administration, and yet protested in the same editorials that they did not intend to “impeach his patriotism or his integrity.”

The cold-blooded, savage brutality of this conspiracy; its “lying in wait,” concealment in ambush for weeks, to catch the victim away from home, out in the interior on a long journey, and then assault and attempt to assassinate his character, is without parallel in American political warfare. But the people could not be bought, deceived, driven nor intimidated. Of the popular vote cast in the election, that year, Jackson received 687,502, and Clay 530,189. Jackson carried seventeen out of twenty-four states, and received 219 out of 288 electoral votes.

If the men who became the tools of this conspiracy to ruin his usefulness, and to cloud his former fair name and fame, had any sensibilities left, what must have been the depth of their humiliation when, in June, 1833, Andrew Jackson, then President of the United States for a second term, and sixty-six years of age, rode on horseback along Broadway in the city of New York. Parton describes it in a few words:

And what a scene was that, when the Old Man, victorious over nullification, and about to deal his finishing blow at the bank, visited New York, and was borne along Broadway on one roaring wave of upturned faces and flashing eyes; when it seemed, said a spectator, as if he had but to speak the word, and they would have proclaimed him on the spot a king.[V]

This ovation in New York was after he had been elected; the other mentioned was before he was elected, and was given to _the man_, in a country road, between crooked rail fences, under the shade of the native oaks.

President Jackson, during his second term, carried out his “previously written and declared opinions and promises,” and “redeemed the sacred pledges which he voluntarily gave,” by crushing the United States Banks and freeing the people, commerce and trade from their domination, bringing shame and disgrace upon the conspirators and the hired traducers of this great man, whose name and fame will not perish until the departed spirit of American Independence shall shake hands with the ghost of Liberty across the grave of the greatest republic that has ever existed.

FOOTNOTES:

[R] During the progress of this reception, on the porch of the old Chester Hotel, a lady--an old friend and admirer of Jackson--came up to him, and after a cordial greeting, she presented her little son and namesake of the President. President Jackson was so impressed with the manner and appearance of the little fellow, that he gave him a “five-dollar gold piece.” This little fellow grew up to manhood, became a teacher and then a lawyer. During the late war he was Lieutenant Colonel of the 8th Tennessee Federal Cavalry; then a State Senator some years ago from the first district; then Circuit Judge of the First judicial circuit, which position he held for eight years; now resides at Greeneville, Tenn., an honored and respected lawyer, citizen and gentleman, and still has the five-dollar gold piece--Hon. Andrew Jackson Brown.

[S] My mother, whose maiden name was Mary M. Chester, married for her first husband Richard Gammon, Jr., and they resided at Blountville, Sullivan county, where Jackson was their guest on this trip from Washington, for the night preceding his arrival at Jonesboro. Mr. Gammon and my mother accompanied the President from Blountville to Jonesboro, where my mother was born and reared, and she was present on the hotel porch during this reception.

[T] New York _Courier and Enquirer_, quoted by Parton, III, 428.

[U] The _Courier and Enquirer_ which contained this editorial, reaching Jonesboro a few days after Jackson’s reception, was torn in pieces, trampled and burned in the street.

[V] Life, preface.

APPENDIX

A CENTENNIAL DREAM.

BY DR. R. L. C. WHITE.

(_Nashville American, March 7, 1897._)

Having spent an afternoon in wandering about the Centennial grounds, I had devoted the evening to Haywood, Ramsey and other chroniclers of early Tennessee history. These two circumstances combined were doubtless the cause of a singular dream which I had that night. I thought that I stood in the Auditorium, and saw congregated within its walls many of the famous men and women of the past whose names are closely interwoven with the history of our state. They seemed to constitute a convention of some kind; and, although the assemblage had not yet been called to order, the chair had already been taken, very appropriately, by the illustrious patriot whom Andrew Jackson styled “the Father of Tennessee” (1), while the publisher of the first newspaper issued in the state (2) acted as secretary, assisted by the first native historian of Tennessee (3), the founder of the first “campaign paper” established west of the Alleghanies (4), and the editor of the first abolition paper issued in the south (5).

Seated upon the platform were several persons who seemed to have been designated as vice presidents of the meeting. There were the statesman who defeated another eminent Tennessean for speaker of the national House of Representatives, and was in turn defeated by him (6); the only two United States Senators from Tennessee who were ever expelled (7, 8); the only Confederate States Senators from Tennessee (9, 10); the man of whom an ex-President of the United States said that he was “the greatest natural orator in Congress” (11); the United States Senator who published the first map of Tennessee (12); “Old Bullion” (13); and the patriot who, on resigning his seat in the Senate because he could not conscientiously obey the instructions of the legislature, said: “For myself, I am proud that my state can, in my person, yet produce one man willing to be made a sacrifice rather than sacrifice his principles” (14).

An interesting quartet, near the stage, consisted of the member of the first constitutional convention who proposed the name “Tennessee” for the infant commonwealth (15); the eminent statesman who said of the first constitution of Tennessee that it was “the least imperfect and most republican” of any which had been adopted up to that time (16); and the presidents respectively of the second and third constitutional conventions (17, 18).

Seated together, a little farther back, were the two men who signed the act ceding “the territory south of the Ohio” to the United States (19, 20); the Virginia statesman in whose honor, at the suggestion of Andrew Jackson, a county was named, in recognition of his earnest advocacy of the admission of Tennessee to the Union (21); the man who gave in the Senate the casting vote which secured that admission (22); and the commissioner who was sent by the Confederate government to effect the withdrawal of Tennessee from the Union (23).

Chatting pleasantly together, in one corner of the hall, was a notable group of women, comprising the wife of whom her husband left the record that she was “a being so gentle and yet so virtuous, slander might wound, but could not dishonor” (24); the only female for whom a Tennessee county has ever been named (25); the pioneer maiden who, in endeavoring to escape from Indians, fell into the arms of the soldier who afterwards became her husband (26); and the beautiful Irish girl who was the cause of the disruption of a President’s cabinet (27); while near them “the Pocahontas of the West” (28) stood silently listening.

A remarkable group was composed of the famous general whose name was bestowed on the largest area ever embraced within the limits of a single county (29); a nobleman whose ancestral name, in abbreviated form, is borne by a Tennessee county (30); the explorer who named the Cumberland mountains and river (31); the governor by whose misspelled name a large part of Tennessee was known for many years (32); the revolutionary soldier in whose honor the first settlement on the Cumberland was called (33); and the famous explorer whose mysterious death, within the limits of the county which now bears his name, has never been satisfactorily explained (34).

A picturesque trio consisted of the leader of the first body of white men who ever set foot on the soil of Tennessee (35); the first white man who erected an edifice within its limits (36); and the nobleman whose titular name was given to the first structure built therein by English-speaking people (37).

Grouped modestly in the rear of the hall were several men whose dress and accoutrements proclaimed them pioneers. There were the famous “big-foot hunter” who lived in a hollow tree (38); the man whom the Indians called the “fool warrior” on account of his reckless bravery (39); the commander of a marvellous expedition by water, of which it has been said that “it has no parallel in modern history” (40); the man for whom the oldest town in the state was named (41); the first white child born in Tennessee (42); the first white child born in Nashville (43); and the bridegroom of the first marriage ceremony performed west of the Cumberland mountains (44).

Just beyond these, leaning on their Deckhard rifles, stood three men who would have attracted attention anywhere--the celebrated backwoodsman who left an engraved record to designate the spot where he had “cilled a bar” (45); another, equally famous, who relates in his autobiography that he killed one hundred and five bears in less than a year (46); and still another who shot thirty-two of these “varmints” during one winter within seven miles of Nashville (47).

I was much interested in the appearance of a number of intelligent-looking men who sat together, engaged in earnest conversation. There were the man who founded the first educational institution in the Mississippi valley (48); the first minister who preached regularly to a Tennessee congregation (49); the bishop whose journal forms a valuable contribution to the history of early times in this state (50); the president of the first non-sectarian college chartered in the United States (51); the classmate of Daniel Webster who founded the first academy for females in Tennessee (52); and the eminent educator who declined successively the presidency of seven universities and colleges in other states, in order that he might continue his chosen work in this (53).

Immediately in rear of these were the illustrious savant who first mapped the Gulf Stream, and demonstrated the feasibility of a submarine cable (54); the first state geologist of Tennessee (55); a distinguished surgeon who served professionally in the armies of three countries (56); and the young physician who, while perishing in a snow-storm on Mont Blanc, kept a record of his sensations for the benefit of science (57).

Just across the aisle sat the first chief justice of Tennessee (58); the judge who, after having been chief justice of Kentucky, removed to this state and became the greatest criminal advocate in the history of its bar (59); the first judge who was ever impeached in Tennessee (60); the eminent jurist who wrote President Jackson’s farewell address (61); and the judge whose singular death from the attack of an infuriated turkey-gobbler was regarded by the early settlers as retributive justice for official oppression (62).

A literary group was composed of “the father of Tennessee history” (63); the famous printer whose name a short-lived commonwealth once bore (64); the English author who founded a colony in this state which was named for the scene of his best-known book (65); a Tennessee editor who was afterward elected to a seat in the British parliament (66); the author of “Hymns to the Gods” (67); and “Sut Lovengood” (68).

In a prominent position in the center of the hall were a man who was governor of two states of the Union (69); a governor of Tennessee who was buried in two states (70); the first man who became governor by virtue of his position as speaker of the Senate (71); one who was elected governor, but never inaugurated (72); a governor who was presented by a grand jury as a public nuisance (73); one to whom a celebrated author referred as having given to his official station “the ill-savor of a corner grocery” (74); the only person present at the death of Henry Clay except the members of his immediate household (75); the editor famous as “the fighting parson” (76); and the man who, by casting the entire vote of the state at a national convention, although he was merely a chance bystander, gave a new word to Tennessee politics (77).

A distinguished looking body was composed of the revolutionary general to whom 25,000 acres of land in Tennessee were granted by legislative enactment (78); a famous fighter under Jackson who was said to have been “a great general without knowing it” (79); a naval officer who was master of a vessel at twelve years of age, and whom one of the best-known of American poets has styled

“The sea-king of the sovereign west Who made his mast a throne” (80);

the Tennessee postmaster to whom Andrew Jackson bequeathed a sword (81); the colonel of the famous “Bloody First” (82); and the “grey-eyed man of destiny” (83).

Elsewhere were to be seen the man who supplied the funds which equipped John Sevier for King’s Mountain (84); the man who furnished Jackson all the cannon-balls used by him at New Orleans (85); the first man who coined silver money in Tennessee (86); the owner of the first steamboat that ever landed at Nashville (87); the man who inaugurated the movement for building the first railroad in Tennessee, and was long known as “Old Chattanooga” in consequence (88); the man who exchanged a cow and calf for the hill on which the state capitol was afterwards built (89); the man who bought the ground on which a large part of one of the most important cities in the state now stands, for a rifle, a mare and a pair of leather breeches (90); the discoverer of the Yosemite valley (91); the famous philanthropist who was chiefly instrumental in the founding of a state asylum for the insane (92); the author of the first bill for the establishment of a normal school in Tennessee (93); and the patriotic citizen who erected, at his own expense, the first monument to the memory of John Sevier (94).

A striking pair was composed of the man in whose veins circulated the blood of four races, and who simultaneously held commissions in the armies of three countries and was loyal to none (95); and the Choctaw chief who was graduated at the University of Nashville, and of whom Charles Dickens has said that he was “as stately and complete a gentleman, of nature’s making,” as he had ever met (96). Another pair, quite as striking, consisted of the first permanent settler at French Lick (97), conversing volubly in his own tongue with a royal personage who visited Nashville in his youth, and afterwards became a king (98).

Just then the presiding officer arose and gave a premonitory rap with his gavel. As he did so, I saw slipping furtively out of a rear door “the great western land pirate” (99), closely followed by the man who was instrumental in bringing him to justice (100).

INTERPRETATION OF THE “DREAM.”

(_Nashville American, May 16, 1897._)

1. James Robertson. 2. George Roulstone. 3. James Gattys McGregor Ramsey. 4. Allen Anderson Hall. 5. Elihu Embree. 6. John Bell. 7. William Blount. 8. Alfred Osborn Pope Nicholson. 9. Landon Carter Haynes. 10. Gustavus Adolphus Henry. 11. Meredith Poindexter Gentry. 12. Daniel Smith. 13. Thomas Hart Benton. 14. Hugh Lawson White. 15. Andrew Jackson. 16. Thomas Jefferson. 17. William Blount Carter. 18. John Calvin Brown. 19. Charles Johnson. 20. Stephen Cabarrus. 21. William Branch Giles. 22. Samuel Livermore. 23. Henry Washington Hilliard. 24. Rachel Jackson. 25. Mary Grainger. 26. Catharine (or Katherine) Sherrill. 27. Margaret O’Neill (or O’Neal). 28. Nancy Ward. 29. George Washington. 30. Marie Jean Paul Roche Yves Gilbert Motier de Lafayette. 31. Thomas Walker. 32. Estevan Miro. 33. Francis Nash. 34. Meriwether Lewis. 35. Fernando (or Ferdinand or Hernando) DeSoto. 36. Robert Cavelier de La Salle. 37. John Campbell, Earl of Loudoun. 38. Thomas Sharpe (or Sharp) Spencer. 39. Abraham Castleman. 40. John Donelson. 41. Willie Jones. 42. Russell Bean. 43. Felix Robertson. 44. James Leiper (or Leeper). 45. Daniel Boone (or Boon). 46. David Crockett. 47. John Rains. 48. Samuel Doak. 49. Tidence Lane. 50. Francis Asbury. 51. Samuel Carrick. 52. Moses Fisk (or Fiske). 53. Philip Lindsley. 54. Matthew Fontaine Maury. 55. Gerard Troost. 56. Paul Fitzsimmons Eve. 57. James Baxter Bean. 58. John Catron. 59. Felix Grundy. 60. David Campbell. 61. Roger Brooke Taney. 62. Samuel Spencer. 63. John Haywood. 64. Benjamin Franklin. 65. Thomas Hughes. 66. John Mitchel. 67. Albert Pike. 68. George Washington Harris. 69. Samuel Houston. 70. John Sevier. 71. William Hall. 72. Robert Looney Caruthers. 73. James Knox Polk. 74. Andrew Johnson. 75. James Chamberlain Jones. 76. William Gannaway Brownlow. 77. Edmund Rucker. 78. Nathanael (or Nathaniel) Greene. 79. John Coffee. 80. David Glasgow (or Glascoe) Farragut. 81. Robert Armstrong. 82. William Bowen Campbell. 83. William Walker. 84. John Adair. 85. Montgomery Bell. 86. Charles Roberson. 87. William Carroll. 88. James Overton. 89. George Washington Campbell. 90. David Shelby. 91. Joseph Reddeford Walker. 92. Dorothea Lynde Dix. 93. Robert Hatton. 94. Albigence Waldo Putnam. 95. Alexander McGillivray (or McGilveray). 96. Peter P. Pitchlynn. 97. Timote (or Timothy) Demonbreun. 98. Louis Philippe. 99. John Arnold Murrell. 100. Virgil Adam Stewart.

In the matter of the orthography of the foregoing names, latitude is allowed wherever it is proper to do so. For example, the famous “backwoodsman of Kentucky” was in the habit of signing his name “Boon” or “Boone,” as the fancy struck him; Capt. Leiper was known as “Leiper” or “Leeper” indifferently, the latter having been the signature to the Cumberland Compact; the surname of “Bonnie Kate” is always printed as “Sherrill” by historians (the “Sherril” of Putnam being manifestly a typographical error), although her father wrote his name “Sherrell”; that romantic scoundrel, Alexander McGillivray, was almost as versatile in the matter of autographic variants of his family name as was Shakespeare--Capt. Allison, in his “Dropped Stitches in Tennessee History,” speaks of having examined two autograph letters, one of which is signed “McGillivray” and the other “McGilveray”; the middle name of the “big foot hunter” is “Sharpe” or “Sharp,” as may be; the Moses Fisk of history appears in the catalog of Dartmouth College as “Fiske”; and while the actual name of the “pretty Peggy” of Jackson’s time seems unquestionably to have been Margaret O’Neill, Parton invariably prints it “O’Neal.” On the other hand, there are several cases in which it is not at all difficult to determine the absolutely accurate orthography. Instances are the Christian name of Meriwether Lewis, a facsimile of whose autograph may be found in Appleton’s “Cyclopedia of American Biography,” and who invariably signed his name as it is here given, although the Tennessee legislature, with that faculty for blundering which seems an inevitable characteristic of Tennessee legislatures at all periods, inscribed his tombstone “Merriwether”; the Earl of Loudoun, for any other spelling of whose name there is no shadow of authority; John Mitchel, the Irish patriot; Willie (pronounced “Wylie”) Jones, whose Christian name many persons seem to regard as a diminutive of “William” (even Phelan makes this error); Demonbreun, which is the form the name of the pioneer of French Lick assumed when its bearer, who was “De Mont Breun” in France, came to America--the various curious shapes in which the name is given by Haywood and Ramsey being merely vagaries of the fancy of these worthies, who had an ingenuous habit, where proper names were concerned, of “spelling by ear”; and notably the “misspelled name” referred to in 32, which, given by Haywood, Ramsey and Putnam in various forms (all of them incorrect), is rightly given in Martin’s history of Louisiana--unquestionable authority in all matters relating to that period. A photographic reproduction of Miro’s autograph signature may be found in a recent issue of that valuable publication, Professor Garrett’s “Magazine of American History.” One name which is incorrectly printed in all the histories is that of Charles Roberson. Capt. John Allison informs me that the old court records at Jonesboro show that he invariably signed his name as I have given it above. It may be well here to state that the general belief that Charles Roberson was a relative of Gen. James Robertson is incorrect.

In connection with the identity of the editor referred to in 4, attention may here properly be called to a remarkable blunder in Crew’s History of Nashville, where the positive assertion is made that Jeremiah George Harris, in 1840, “issued the first campaign paper ever issued west of the Alleghanies, named _Advance Guard of the Democracy_, and this occasioned the issue from the office of the _Banner of The Spirit of ’76_, a Whig campaign paper.” This statement is the exact reverse of the fact, the first issue of _The Spirit of ’76_ (Allen A. Hall’s paper) having made its appearance March 14, 1840, while Harris’s paper did not see the light until the 23d of the following April, it having evidently been suggested by, instead of suggesting, the rival campaign paper. This blunder is the more singular from the fact that bound volumes of both papers were easily accessible to the writer in the library of the Tennessee Historical Society--and he does not even give the name of Harris’s paper correctly!

There can be no doubt that Elihu Embree was really the first abolition editor. To settle definitely a matter which all of the histories and biographical dictionaries (so far as I have examined, without exception) misstate--they invariably call Benjamin Lundy the pioneer in anti-slavery journalism--I quote here a passage from an extremely rare book--Lundy’s Autobiography. After narrating his experiences in St. Louis, in 1819, which caused his determination to return to his home in Ohio, Lundy says: “Before I left St. Louis I heard that Elihu Embree had commenced the publication of an anti-slavery paper called ‘The Emancipator’ at Jonesborough, in Tennessee; but on my way home I was informed of the death of Embree, and I determined immediately to establish a periodical of my own. I therefore removed to Mount Pleasant [Ohio] and commenced the publication of ‘The Genius of Universal Emancipation,’ in January, 1821.... When the friends of the deceased Embree heard of my paper they urged me to remove to Tennessee and use the press on which his had been printed. I assented, and after having issued eight monthly numbers of the ‘Genius’ I started for Tennessee. On my arrival I rented the printing office and immediately went to work with the paper.”

Careless reading of Ramsey has led astray a large number of people with regard to the minister referred to in 49. Speaking of the expedition of Col. Christian for the relief of the Watauga settlers in 1772, Ramsey says: “The Rev. Charles Cummings accompanied the expedition as chaplain, and was thus the first Christian minister that ever preached in Tennessee.” Granted--but while this is doubtless true, the question is not who “first preached in Tennessee,” but who first “preached regularly to a Tennessee congregation,” and that this was Tidence Lane, in 1779, is clearly demonstrated elsewhere by Ramsey. Goodspeed, indeed, using Ramsey’s facts, but changing his language, asserts in terms that Cummings had charge of a congregation “within the limits of the state”; but Goodspeed is in error in this, as he is in very many other statements. In Park’s “Historical Discourse,” a work which is the result of the most careful and painstaking original research, the statement is explicitly made that the congregation to which Goodspeed refers as having enjoyed the ministrations of Cummings “in the Holston valley as early as 1772,” was really not located in Tennessee at all. It was “in Virginia, near the site of the present town of Abingdon.” Dr. Park, himself a Presbyterian, would not be likely to fail to claim for a minister of his own denomination any credit justly due him.

In order to be absolutely frank, I desire to correct an error--the only one, I believe, in the “Dream,” and one fortunately of little moment. The man who “founded the first academy for females in Tennessee” (52) was not a classmate of Daniel Webster, as stated; although the misstatement was made on what I considered good authority.

R. L. C. WHITE.

INDEX.

Allison, David-- admitted to the bar, 4; subsequent career, 6.

Anti-slavery agitation--begun early in Tennessee, 77.

Avery, Waightstill-- duel with Andrew Jackson, 110; life and character, 110; his favorite authority, 113.

“Bacon’s Abridgment”-- figures in a duel, 113; singular substitute for, 115.

Bancroft, George--letter from, 17.

Barker, Thomas-- case of, 63; intervention of his wife, 66; place of burial, 68.

Battle of New Orleans--unique account of, 107.

Bean, Russell-- character of, 119; cruelty to an infant, 119; arrested by Jackson, 120; reconciliation with his wife effected by Jackson, 121.

Bell’s tavern--Jackson’s adventure at, 125.

Boyd, Ben-- rencontre with Andrew Jackson, 122; his involuntary bath, 124.

British, hatred of the--its survival in East Tennessee, 108.

Brown, Andrew Jackson--President Jackson’s gift to, 132 (note).

Centennial Dream-- text of, 137; interpretation, 143.

Church--first west of the Alleghanies, 25.

Contested election--the first case west of the Alleghanies, 40.

Conventions, early, 27, 28, 32.

Corporations, private--regulation of, 80.

_Courier and Enquirer_, New York-- quoted, 133; burned at Jonesboro, 134 (note).

Court, the first held in Tennessee-- oath taken by the members, 22; first session, 40; powers and jurisdiction, 57.

Culton, Joseph--curious record concerning, 54.

Cumberland Turnpike Company--incorporation of, 81.

Currency, commissioners of, 46, 47.

Debts, interest-bearing--early policy of the state opposed to, 72.

Doak, Samuel-- arrival in Tennessee, 24; founds Salem church and Washington college, 25.

Dream, Centennial-- text of, 137; interpretation, 143.

Electors, presidential, in 1796--method of their selection, 97.

Emancipation of slaves-- early cases of, in Tennessee, 77; authority conferred on county courts, 78.

Embree, Elihu--first abolition editor, 78 (note), 148.

Fees of public officers and attorneys--regulated by law, 73.

Fire at Jonesboro-- Andrew Jackson’s share in extinguishing, 121; Ben Boyd’s rencontre with Jackson, 122.

Franklin, state of-- inception, 27; organized, 29; boundaries, 29; extent, 30; early laws, 31; collapse, 35.

Free and independent government, the first-- its establishment, 20; its dissolution, 22.

Fuller, Melville W.--on selection of presidential electors, 97.

Greasy cove--famous horse-race in, 102.

Hamilton, Joseph-- admitted to the bar, 5; subsequent career, 6.

Interpretation of the Centennial Dream, 143.

Jackson, Andrew-- errors of his biographers, 1, 2; arrival at Nashville, 1, 2, 4; appointed United States district attorney, 3; admitted to the bar in Washington county, 4; contest with Sevier for Major General, 6; not a witness of Sevier’s “rescue,” 8, 9; advent at Jonesboro, 9; residence there, 10; characteristics as a lawyer, 11; incident at the Rogersville “tavern,” 12; love of sport, 13, 101; judicial administration, 101; his famous horse-race in Greasy cove, 102, 132; his fiery temper, 106; ovation on Broadway, 109, 135; duel with Avery, 110; another duel at Jonesboro, 117; arrest of Russell Bean, 120; as a volunteer fireman, 122; his moral courage, 125; ovation at Jonesboro, 128; his wonderful memory, 129; conspiracy against, 132.

Jenkins, J. S.--life of Jackson quoted, 2.

Jonesboro-- district court at, 2; Andrew Jackson’s residence there, 10; organization of the county court at, 22; conventions at, 27, 28; proceedings of the county court at, 39; Jackson’s duels at, 111, 117; fire at, 121; ovation to Jackson at, 130.

Legislation, early--examples of 69, 70, 73, 74, 77, 80.

Love, Colonel--Jackson’s famous horse-race with, 102.

McCay, Spruce-- his summary methods as a judge, 51; character, 52.

McGillivray, Alexander-- character of, 91, 93, 94; quoted, 92, 93.

McNairy, John-- admitted to the bar, 5; subsequent career, 6.

Mecklenburg “resolves”--letter from Bancroft concerning, 17.

Mero district-- created, 87; correct orthography of the name, 87; name discontinued, 96.

“Mink skins”--origin of the term, as applied to currency, 31.

Miro, Estevan-- character of, 88, 96; services, 89, 92, 95; quoted, 92, 94.

New Orleans, battle of--unique account of, 107.

Nolichucky River Company--incorporation of, 80.

Orthography of “Miro,” 87.

Ovations to Andrew Jackson-- on Broadway, New York, 109, 135; at Jonesboro, 128.

Parton, James--life of Jackson quoted, 2, 123, 135.

Pensions to soldiers--granted by Tennessee before action by the United States government, 70, 72.

Presidential electors in 1796--method of their selection, 97.

Printing press--first in Tennessee and second west of the Alleghanies, established at Rogersville, 36.

Pugh, John, “Regulator” and sheriff, 18.

Pybourn, Elias--severe punishment of, 53.

Reid, John--life of Jackson quoted, 1.

Roane, Archibald-- admitted to the bar, 4; subsequent career, 5, 6.

Roberson, Charles-- father-in-law of Russell Bean, 119; Parton’s injustice to, 121.

Robertson, James--suggests name of Miro district, 87.

Roulstone, George--established first printing press, 36.

Salem church--founding of, 25.

School, first, west of the Alleghanies, 25.

Settlers, the early--life, habits and characteristics, 15, 16, 18, 24.

Sevier, James-- clerk of Washington county court, 33; unique record of, 34.

Sevier, John-- contest with Jackson for Major General, 6; subsequent career, 7; his “rescue” at Morganton, 8; contest for clerk, 40; commissioner of currency, 46, 47, 48.

Slaves, emancipation of-- early cases in Tennessee, 77; authority conferred on county courts, 78.

Specie contracts--regulation of, 74.

Taylor, Christopher--friend of Andrew Jackson, 11.

Tennessee county-- created, 86; divided, 96.

Treason--early trials for, 42, 43, 63.

Washington college--founding of, 25.

Watson, Sir Thomas--visit to Washington county, 108.

Wilson, Thomas J.--quoted, 78 (note).

* * * * *

Transcriber’s note

Minor punctuation and formatting errors have been changed without notice; otherwise spelling and punctuation has been retained as published. The following Printer errors have been changed.

=CHANGED= =FROM= =TO=

Table of Contents “136” “137” Page 13: “holsters and saddlebags” “holsters and saddle-bags” Page 16: “came from the “came from the battlefield” battle-field” Page 35: “which covered the same “which covered the same terriritory” territory” Page 42: “I am satisified” “I am satisfied” Page 42: “they simply put in prison” “they simply put him in prison” Page 65: “John McNab” “John McNabb” Page 67: “John McNab” “John McNabb” Page 80: “True philanthrophy “True philanthropy liberates” liberates” Page 102: “his was the ecstacy” “his was the ecstasy” Page 107: “and old man of sixty” “an old man of sixty” Page 108: “words adquate to express” “words adequate to express” Page 146: “foregoing names, lattitude” “foregoing names, latitude”

All other inconsistencies are as in the original.