Chapter XI: Part 11

The Earl of Murray, Lord Regent of Scotland, was not esteemed a great man in his day. His behavior was modest, his abilities were apparently but moderate, and for more than two hundred years he has figured in history as an ordinary man, overlaid by the more violent and intriguing spirits of his time, and his character obscured and distorted by the glamour which surrounds the name of his beauteous but abandoned sister and murderess, Queen Mary. And yet when two centuries afterwards the spirit of philosophic history comes to trace cause and effect, and to show the result of his life's work upon Protestant Christianity, and what he contributed to the domination of the English-speaking races, we agree at once with Mr. Froude that he was in truth one of the best and greatest of men, a benefactor of mankind.

And so it may be said of Bunyan, of Wesley, and of many more, whose beginnings were esteemed but of small account, but whose fame has continually grown brighter and brighter, as the world has been forced to see how wisely they builded.

In many senses of the term Governor Swain was not a great man. As an author, though a man of letters, he neither achieved nor attempted anything lasting. As a politician, though he rose rapidly to the highest honors of his native State, he did not strikingly impress himself upon his times by any great speech, nor by any grand stroke of policy. In this respect he was inferior to many of his contemporaries who constituted, perhaps, the brightest cluster of names in our annals. As a lawyer and a judge, he occupied comparatively about the same position; and as a scholar he was not to be distinguished, being inferior to several of his colaborers in the University. But in many things he was entitled to be called great, if we mean by that term that he so used the faculties he possessed that he raised himself beyond and above the great mass of his fellows. In him there was a rounded fullness of the qualities, intellectual and moral, which constitute the excellence of manhood, in a degree never excelled by any citizen of North Carolina whom I have personally known, except by William A. Graham. If there was in Swain no one grand quality of intellect which lifted him out of comparison with any but the demigods of our race, neither was there any element so wanting as to sink him into or below the common mass. If there were in him no Himalayan peaks of genius, piercing into the regions of everlasting frost and ice, neither were there any yawning chasms or slimy pools below the tide-waters of mediocrity. He rose from the plain of his fellow-men like the Alleghanies, in whose bosom he was born, by regular and easy gradations--so easy that you know not how high you are until you turn to gaze backward--every step surrounded by beauty and fertility--until he rested high over all the land. If there be those who singly tower above him in gifts, or attainments, or distinctions, there are none whom as a whole we can contemplate with more interest, affection, and admiration; none whose work for North Carolina will prove to be more valuable, or more lasting, or more important to future generations; none to whom, at the great final review, the greeting may be more heartily addressed: "_Servant of God, well done!_"

No estimate of Governor Swain's walk through life should omit the consideration of his Christian character. It was especially marked by catholicity of feeling towards all good men of whatever name. He was accustomed to refer this to the circumstances of his bringing up. He would say: "My father was a Presbyterian elder, and an Arminian; my mother was a Methodist and a Calvinist, who loved and studied Scott's commentary. Their house was the home for preachers of all sorts west of the Blue Ridge. Bishop Asbury blessed me when a child. Mr. Newton, a Presbyterian, taught me when a boy, and Humphrey Posey, a Baptist, used to pray for me when a youth. So I love all who show that they are Christians."

On his death-bed he spoke often of the communion of saints with, one another, and with their Head. He was a decided Presbyterian, however; he admired what he called "the symmetry" of the ecclesiastical system of his church; he dwelt on its history with great delight, and was accustomed to find support for his soul in times of deep distress in its interpretations of the Bible. He was a praying man, and not ashamed to be known as such. He first introduced the practice of opening the regular meetings of the faculty with prayer. The night before he died he said of the Lord's Prayer: "The oftener I use it the more precious it is to me; it contains a whole body of divinity."

In private life he was most upright, kind, social, and hospitable. An excellent financier, he left a handsome estate, even "after the war." He had a proper conception of the value of wealth, and all his life practiced a judicious economy, but he knew well both how to lend and how to give. His conversation was delightfully interesting and instructive, replete with anecdote, genial humor, historical incident, or literary quotation. Few men of his associates equaled him in these respects, even after the infirmity of deafness had cut him off from much social enjoyment.

His remains lie buried in Oakwood Cemetery, near Raleigh, and close beside the sleeping soldiers of the Confederacy. The soil of our State holds the dust of no son who loved her more or served her better. Peaceful be his rest, as he waits for the clear breaking of the day over the brow of the eternal hills.

The daisies prank thy grassy grave,
Above, the dark pine branches wave;
Sleep on.
Below, the merry runnel sings,
And swallows sweep with glancing wings;
Sleep on, old friend, sleep on.
Calm as a summer sea at rest,
Thy meek hands folded on thy breast,
Sleep on.
Hushed into stillness life's sharp pain,
Naught but the pattering of the rain;
Sleep on, dear friend, sleep on.

EARLY TIMES IN RALEIGH.

ADDRESS BY D. L. SWAIN.

There were few more exciting topics in ante-revolutionary times than the location of the seat of government.

The first General Assembly, in relation to which we have much authentic information, met at the house of Captain Richard Sanderson, on Little River, in the county of Perquimans, in 1715, and revised the whole body of the public statute law.

The style of enactment is characteristic of the times and of the proprietary government: "Be it enacted by his Excellency the Palatine and the rest of the true and absolute Lords Proprietors of Carolina, by and with the advice and consent of this present General Assembly, now met at Little River, for the northeastern part of this province."

From Little River the seat of legislation was transferred in 1720 to the General Court House at Queen Anne's Creek, in Chowan Precinct, and in 1723 to Edenton.

In 1731 the Proprietary was succeeded by the Royal Government, and in 1734 the legislative will assumed a form of expression worthy of eastern despotism: "We pray that it may be enacted, and be it enacted by his Excellency, Gabriel Johnston, Esq., Governor, by and with the advice and consent of his Majesty's council in the General Assembly of this province."

In 1741 the General Assembly met at Wilmington, but returned the following year to Edenton. From 1745 to 1761, with the exception of a single session at Bath, it convened at New Bern. In 1761 it met again at Wilmington, and from that time keen rivalry was maintained between New Bern and Wilmington for metropolitan distinction, until quieted by the Act of 1766, authorizing the construction of Governor Tryon's viceregal palace at New Bern. This edifice, completed in 1770, dedicated to Sir William Draper--and the subject of his muse in an attempt at Roman versification--was pronounced on good authority, in 1783, superior to any structure of the kind in British or South America.

During the Revolution the General Assembly met somewhat in accordance with the exigencies of the times, at New Bern, Kinston, Halifax, Smithfield, Wake Court House, Hillsborough and Salem.

In 1782 and 1783 the Legislature convened at Hillsborough, and in 1784 and 1785 at New Bern, in 1786 at Fayetteville, in 1787 at Tarborough, and in 1788 returned to Fayetteville.

In 1787 the General Assembly had resolved that it "be recommended to the people of the State to authorize and direct their representatives in the convention called to consider the Federal Constitution to fix on the place for the unalterable seat of government."

The convention met at Hillsborough in August, 1788, and resolved that "this convention will not fix the seat of government at one particular point, but that it shall be left to the discretion of the Assembly to ascertain the exact spot, provided always, that it shall be within ten miles of the plantation whereon Isaac Hunter now resides, in the county of Wake."

The following editorial article is copied from the _Fayetteville Chronicle_ or _North Carolina Gazette_ of the 29th of November, 1790:

"On Thursday last the bill for carrying into effect the Ordinance of the Convention held at Hillsborough in 1788 for holding the future meetings of the General Assembly, etc., came before the House of Commons, when the question was put, Shall this bill pass? The House divided, and there appeared fifty-one for it and fifty-one against it, whereupon the Speaker [Mr. Cabarrus] gave his own vote, and pronounced the passage of the bill. It was then sent to the Senate, when that House divided, and there appeared an equal number of votes for and against the passage of the bill, whereupon the Speaker [General Lenoir] gave the casting vote against its passage, and the bill was rejected."

In 1791, however, the General Assembly met at New Bern, and in compliance with the positive constitutional injunction, passed an act to carry the ordinance of 1788 into effect. The act provides that ten persons shall be appointed to lay off and locate the city within ten miles of the plantation of Isaac Hunter, and five persons "to cause to be built and erected a State-house sufficiently large to accommodate with convenience both houses of the General Assembly, at an expense not to exceed ten thousand pounds."

In the following year (1792) a majority of the commissioners, to wit: Frederic Hargett, Willie Jones, Joseph McDowell, Thomas Blount, William Johnson Dawson, and James Martin, met on the 4th of April, and on the following day purchased of Colonel Joel Lane one thousand acres of land, and laid off the plan of a city, containing four hundred acres, arranged in five squares of four acres and two hundred and seventy-six lots of one acre each: Caswell Square (the site of the Institute for the Deaf and Dumb and the Blind), the northwestern; Burke (the site of the Raleigh Academy) [now the Governor's Mansion], the northeastern; Nash, the southwestern; Moore the southeastern, and Union, on which the State-house stands, the central square.

The names of the towns towards which the principal streets ran gave them their designation, and the names of the commissioners and other prominent citizens were applied to the others. New Bern, Hillsborough, Halifax, and Fayetteville streets were ninety-nine, and all the other streets sixty-six feet in width.

In December, 1794, the General Assembly met in the new State-house for the first time.

In 1802 an act was passed requiring the Governor to reside at the seat of government, and a plain two-story frame building, painted white, and an office on the corner, were provided on lot No. 131. This first gubernatorial mansion was subsequently the residence of the late James Coman. The First National Bank of North Carolina now occupies the site from which the first executive office and Mr. Coman's brick store were successively removed.

In 1813 the General Assembly appointed Henry Potter, Henry Seawell, William Hinton, Nathaniel Jones, Theophilus Hunter, and William Peace, commissioners to erect on the public lands near the city of Raleigh a convenient and commodious dwelling-house for the Governor, at a cost not to exceed five thousand pounds, to be derived from the sale of lots which they were authorized to lay off, and from the sale of lot No. 131, referred to as the residence, at successive periods, of Governors Turner, Alexander, Williams, Stone, Smith, and Hawkins.

The site selected for the new gubernatorial residence, in common parlance the "Palace," was near the terminus of Fayetteville street, directly south of and fronting the capitol, and just beyond the southern boundary of the city. The edifice was completed during Governor Miller's administration, from 1813 to 1816, and he was the first occupant.

In 1819, Duncan Cameron, John Winslow, Joseph Gales, William Robards, and Henry Potter were authorized to sell all or any part of the lands purchased of Joel Lane, with the exception of the stone-quarry, in lots to suit purchasers. The Governor was authorized, from the proceeds of the sale, to improve the State-house under the direction of the State architect, and in conformity with a plan which he had prepared and submitted to the General Assembly.

The old State-house, which is believed to have been constructed from the net proceeds of the sales of city lots in 1792, was described by a writer of the time as a huge, misshapen pile. In form it was substantially, so far as the body of the building was concerned, though on a smaller scale, very similar to the present edifice. It was divided by broad passages on the ground floor from north to south and from east to west, intersecting in the center at right angles. The offices of the Secretary, Public Treasurer and Comptroller were on the lower floor. The Senate chamber and hall of the House of Commons, with the offices appurtenant, above, as at present. The executive office, as has been stated, was contiguous to the palatial residence. The passages and halls of the first State-house supplied all, and more than all, the accommodation to the public contemplated by the founders of this less extensive, but better furnished, and more finely finished edifice [referring to Tucker Hall]. Here divine worship on the Sabbath, balls on festive occasions, theatrical representations, sleight-of-hand performances, and last but not least, fourth-of-July orations and fourth-of-July dinners, all found their places, and their votaries for a time. The construction of the dome, the erection of the east and west porticoes, the additional elevation and covering of stucco given to the dingy exterior walls, the improvement of the interior, and especially the location of the statue of Washington, from the chisel of Canova (a noble specimen of a noble art, commemorative of the noblest of men), in the rotunda at the point of intersection of the passages directly under the apex of the dome, converted the renovated capitol into a sightly and most attractive edifice. There were but few of the better class of travelers, who did not pause on their passage through Raleigh, to behold and admire it. The improvements were designed by, and executed under, the supervision of Captain William Nichols, then recently appointed State architect, and completed early in the summer of 1822. He was a skillful and experienced artist, and made the public greatly his debtor for a decided impulse given to architectural improvements throughout the State, in private as well as in public edifices.

It was my lot on the 21st of June, 1831, to stand a helpless spectator, when that noble edifice, adorned with the statue of the father of his country, was a sheet of blinding, hissing flame, and to hear, amidst the almost breathless silence of the stupified multitude around it, the piteous exclamation of a child: "Poor State-house, poor statue, I so sorry." There were thousands of adults present as sorrowful and as powerless as that child.

It was my lot as Chief Magistrate of the Commonwealth, on the fourth day of July, 1833, to lay the corner-stone of the present capitol, supposed on its completion to be the most magnificent structure of the kind in the Union.

It was my lot on the morning of the 13th of April, 1865, as the friend and representative of Governor Vance, to find, on approaching the southern front of the capitol, the doors and windows closed, and a deeper, more dreadful silence shrouding the city than during the sad catastrophe to which I have referred. I met at the south front of the capitol, however, a negro servant, who waited on the executive department, the only human being who had dared to venture beyond his doors. He delivered me the keys, and assisted me in opening the doors and windows of the executive office, and I took my station at the entrance, with a safe-conduct from General Sherman in my hand, prepared to surrender the capitol at the demand of his approaching forces. At that moment a band of marauders, stragglers from Wheeler's retiring cavalry, dismounted at the head of Fayetteville street, and began to sack the stores directly contiguous to and south of Dr. Haywood's residence. I apprised them immediately that Sherman's army was just at hand; that any show of resistance might result in the destruction of the city, and urged them to follow their retreating comrades. A citizen, the first I saw beyond his threshold that morning, came up at the moment and united his remonstrances to mine, but all in vain, until I perceived, and announced, that the head of Kilpatrick's column was in sight. In a moment every member of the band, with the exception of their chivalric leader, was in the saddle, and his horse spurred to his utmost speed. He drew his bridle-rein, halted in the center of the street, and discharged his revolver until his stock of ammunition was expended in the direction, but not in carrying distance of his foe, when he too fled, but attempted to run the gauntlet in vain. His life was the forfeit at a very brief interval.

The remains of this bold man rest in the cemetery, covered with garlands and bewept by beautiful maidens, little aware how nearly the city may have been on the verge of devastation, and how narrowly the fairest of their number may have escaped insult and death from this rash act of lawless warfare. The bones of the old North Carolinian, the founder of the city thus imperiled, moulder in the midst of other unrecorded dead, beneath the shade of a mulberry on his ancient domain, about as far west as those of the young Texan east of the capitol.

About three o'clock in the afternoon, in company with Governor Graham, who had risked life and reputation in behalf of this community to an extent of which those who derived the advantage are little aware, I delivered the keys of the State-house to General Sherman, at the gubernatorial mansion, then his headquarters, and received his assurance that the capitol and city should be protected, and the rights of private property duly regarded.

May I be pardoned in connection with this narrative, for a brief reference to an incident in my personal history, illustrative of the character of one of the purest, as well as the wisest, men I have ever known. At our first interview after I was elected Superior Court Judge in 1831, Mr. Gaston, who was then at the bar, and who, from our earliest acquaintance, had treated me with the kindness of a father, after cordial congratulations on my elevation to the bench, took occasion to advise me most earnestly never to permit myself, except under an overpowering sense of public duty, to be seduced into a return to political life. He said he was growing old, and endeavored, as much as possible, to withdraw attention from the threatening aspect of public affairs, but there were sleepless hours, when he could not avoid reflection on the utter heartlessness of party politicians, and the difficulty of preserving a conscience void of offense, when mingling in political controversies--that he had always endeavored to place country above party, and that yet, on a calm review of his whole course of life, too many instances presented themselves, when he convicted himself of having been influenced to an extent of which he had no suspicion at the moment, by other than purely patriotic considerations. In addition to all this, it had been his fate on repeated occasions to be most loudly applauded for what, in his own conscience, he regarded as least praiseworthy, and to be bitterly reviled for what he considered to have been the purest and most discreet acts of his public life.

In 1812, and along about that time, the only newspapers in Raleigh were _The Raleigh Register_ and _The Star_, both published weekly. _The Minerva_ had been discontinued.

From 1792 until the publication of _The Raleigh Register_, in the autumn of 1799, _The North Carolina Journal_ was the great advertising medium for the portion of the State north and west of Halifax.

Conspicuous among the merchant princes of that day were the brothers, Joseph and William Peace. They occupied a one-story frame building, perhaps 20x24, nearly opposite to W. C. and R. Tucker. The junior partner informed me many years ago that he had ordinarily purchased goods twice a year, always for cash, and always at ten per cent. discount, and that the advantage thus obtained over those who bought upon credit was the nucleus of the large estate he had realized. He was kind enough in October, 1822, as soon as I was able to travel, after recovering from severe illness, to drive me from Raleigh to the hospitable mansion of the late General Calvin Jones, the present site of Wake Forest College. On the way he related various incidents in his personal history, which interested me. Referring to the success of an eminent lawyer and statesman, as estimable in private as distinguished in public life, he stated that that gentleman, who was licensed to practice law during his minority, applied to him shortly thereafter for a suit of clothes upon credit; that he had always made it a rule to meet such requests with such prompt compliance as to impress the applicant with a grateful sense of the confidence reposed, or, with so blank a denial as to shield him from future annoyance. In this instance he admitted that he hesitated. The appearance and manner of the applicant impressed him most favorably, but he was very young as well as very needy, and the Captain had learned from previous experience that the young lawyer's prospects were a contingent remainder, which required a particular estate of freehold to support them. It afforded him great gratification to remember that his kind impulses prevailed, and that he cut off the goods with great seeming cheerfulness.

I had no suspicion until three months afterwards that the story could point a moral in relation to myself. At the close of a casual interview, after the recovery of my health, he said: "Mr. Swain, perhaps it is convenient for you to pay for that suit of clothes now." "What suit, Captain?" "The suit you purchased some time since." I replied, "I never bought anything of you in my life but one bandanna handkerchief, and I paid for that when I got it." He turned to his book and showed me an account for a full suit of black, dated September 10. "On that day, Captain, I was sick in bed, and my life despaired of by my physicians." "Oh! I remember it was F---- got the clothes." He was sent for, and in reply to my inquiry whether he ever got a suit of clothes for me, replied he did. "Had you any order from me to do so?" "No, sir; but you were expected to die every hour, I knew you had no burial suit, and thought it my duty, as your tailor, to provide one." "Where are the clothes?" "When I found you were getting well I sold them." "What right had you to consider yourself my tailor?" "I made a pair of pantaloons for you last spring." At the close of the dialogue the Captain remarked: "I claim nothing from you, Mr. Swain." The tailor left the store under the decided impression that his best interests would be served by a prompt settlement of the account. Had I died, a punctual but not opulent father, would have paid the bill upon presentation without inquiry.

The late William Boylan, the first editor of _The Raleigh Minerva_, and the immediate successor of Colonel Polk as President of the State Bank, was a gentleman sedate and grave in manner to a degree that to a stranger might have been taken for austerity. Traveling from Raleigh to Pittsborough about 1800, he and Mr. Peace, on reaching the election ground at Brassfields, found a multitude assembled engaged in dancing and other rural sports, in the free-and-easy manner characteristic of the time and place. Mr. Peace was comparatively at home. Mr. Boylan stood aloof until a rowdy approached and invited him to enter the ring with the dancers. On his declining, a dozen came forward, prepared to coerce the submission of the proud aristocrat. In an instant Mr. Peace, with great solemnity, beckoned the leader of the band aside, and whispered: "My friend, be careful how you act. Bless your life, that is Mr. Boylan, the man who made the almanac, and can foretell eclipses and thunder-storms." The reference to the almanac-maker secured at once the most deferential respect for the distinguished visitor.

The late William Glendennin (one of the old merchants) resided and did business during many years in the house nearly opposite the old State Bank, the recent residence of Colonel William J. Clarke. He built a meeting-house at his own expense at a very early period in the history of the city, and during a series of years previous to the erection of any other church, ministered in his peculiar manner at his own altar, without earthly fee or reward, to all who chose to hear him. His deserted tabernacle was pointed out to me, when I first knew Raleigh, standing a little south of the corner, at the intersection of Morgan with Blount street. I remember to have seen, in my early boyhood, his autobiography, recounting numerous conflicts, spiritual and physical, with the arch-enemy of the human race. His little volume is probably out of print. It would be a rare curiosity, at the present time, in many respects. Notwithstanding these vagaries, he was shrewd and systematic in business, and in due time accumulated a handsome fortune for that day. His eccentricities increased, however, to such an extent that a guardianship became necessary, and Mr. Boylan was selected as the person possessing the requisite nerve and tact to control and manage him.

As soon as Glendennin was apprised of the arrangement his confidential clerk, the late Robert Harrison, was dispatched to invite Mr. Boylan to his house. When he entered, Glendennin requested him to take a book from the mantelpiece, which proved to be the Bible, and it disclosed, at opening, a fifty-dollar bill. "The foul fiend was here last night and told me that he had come for the soul of old ----. I obtained a year's respite for fifty dollars, and the fiend is to take the money from that book at midnight." Glancing his eye inquiringly at Mr. Boylan, "I understand that you are my guardian, and I wish to know how I am to act, and what I am to do?" Mr. Boylan intimated that as little change as possible would be made in the management of his affairs. "Mr. Harrison will keep the keys, sell goods, and collect debts, as heretofore." "Am I to be master of my own house?" "Certainly." "May I invite any one I choose into my house?" "Oh, yes; just as heretofore." "May I order a man out, when I don't want him here?" No sooner had Mr. Boylan given an intimation in the affirmative than Glendennin, with a frenzied glare, stamping his foot, and clenching his fist, cried out: "Then, sir, get out of my house; get out of my house, this instant!"

The poor old gentleman died in the summer of 1816, leaving a very pretty property for two nieces in Scotland.

The recent abstraction of records from the executive and other public offices, by persons acting under the authority of the Federal Government, renders it impossible to give as minute an account of an interesting event as I would like to present. As I must relate the circumstances entirely from memory, after the lapse of more than thirty years from the time the records were at my command, allowance must be made for a want of precision, especially as to dates.

During Governor Ashe's administration, embracing the years 1796, 1797, and 1798, it was ascertained that numerous frauds had been perpetrated in the office of the Secretary of State and the offices of John and Martin Armstrong, in the entry and survey of western lands, and active exertions were made to discover and arrest the offenders in this State and Tennessee. It was, I think, in 1797, that a confidential messenger was sent by Judges Tatum and McNairy from Nashville to the Governor to warn him of a conspiracy to burn the State-house, in order to destroy the records, the production of which upon the trial was indispensable to the conviction of the offenders. A guard was armed and stationed around the capitol for the next two months. The communication from Nashville requested the Governor, immediately on its receipt, to erase from the despatch the name of the messenger who bore it, as any discovery of his connection with it would lead to assassination. This was done so carefully as to elude every effort on my part to restore and ascertain it, thirty years ago, and I have not at the present moment the slightest suspicion of the agent who overheard the plot of the conspirators in Knoxville and was sent from Nashville to Raleigh on this secret and dangerous mission.

The earliest letter I ever saw from General Jackson was in relation to this affair. With his instinctive hatred of fraud, he tendered his service to the Governor in any effort that might be necessary to arrest the offenders who were supposed to have sought refuge in the then Spanish domains in the direction of Mobile. This letter was on file in the executive office in 1835.

In 1797, according to my remembrance, on the night when the ball was given at Casso's hotel to the bridal party, very shortly after the second marriage of the Public Treasurer, the festivities were interrupted by the hasty entrance of a servant, with the information that some one was forcing an entrance into the window of the office, where the trunk containing the records in question was deposited. He was caught, was ascertained to be the slave of one of the persons charged with fraud, was convicted of burglary, and executed.

In 1799 the General Assembly passed the act directing the Judges of the Superior Courts to meet together to settle questions of law and equity arising upon their circuits, and to provide for the trial of all persons concerned in the commission of frauds in the several land offices. This act was carefully and skillfully drawn, consisted of fifteen sections, and, voluminous as it was, contained more than met the eye of the ordinary observer: the germ of the present Supreme Court, notwithstanding the proviso in the closing section, "that this act shall continue in force from its commencement only for two years, and from thence to the end of the next succeeding General Assembly" was contained in that act.

Under the provisions of this act Colonel James Glasgow, the Secretary of State, was indicted for a misdemeanor in the fraudulent issue of land-warrants. The four judges of the Superior Courts were John Haywood, Spruce Macay, John Louis Taylor, Samuel Johnston. Blake Baker was Attorney-General, and Edward Jones, Solicitor-General. The latter seems to have been mainly relied on to conduct the prosecution.

The commission under which the court was held was drawn by Judge Haywood. While on his way to Raleigh to meet his brother judges he accepted a fee of one thousand dollars, resigned his seat upon the bench, and undertook the defense of Glasgow.

There has rarely convened from that day to this, even after the resignation of Haywood, an abler tribunal, on any occasion, or for any purpose, than that which tried and convicted the distinguished culprit. In relation to the advocate the late Judge Hall remarks in a judicial opinion delivered in 1828: "I shall not treat with disrespect the memory of the dead nor the pretensions of the living, when I say that a greater criminal lawyer than Judge Haywood never sat upon the bench in North Carolina." The General Assembly in anticipation of the judgment of the court, in 1799, changed the name of the county of Glasgow, erected in 1791, to the county of Greene.

Duncan Cameron, at the early age of twenty-three, was the clerk, and immediately after the close of the trial reported and published the decisions of the court in an octavo of one hundred and eight pages. As I have the only copy I have ever seen of this brochure, the earliest, with the exception of _Martin_ and _1 Haywood_, in the entire series of North Carolina Reports, I give for the benefit of legal antiquarians an exact copy of the title-page: "Reports of cases determined by the Judges of the Superior Courts of law and Court of Equity of the State of North Carolina, at their meeting on 10th of June, A. D. 1800, held pursuant to an act of the General Assembly for settling questions of law and equity arising on the circuit, by Duncan Cameron, attorney at law, Raleigh. From the press of Hodge & Boylan, printers to the State, 1800."

In 1800 an act was passed to continue in force the Act of 1799, three years longer. The sessions of the court by the former act were limited to ten days; they were now extended to fifteen days (Sundays excepted) if the business of the court should so require. The third section of the act is in the following words: "And be it further enacted that no attorney shall be allowed to speak or be admitted as counsel in the aforesaid court." The General Assembly must have entertained a high opinion of the ability and purity of the bench, and serious misgivings in relation to the cunning and crafty bar of which John Haywood was the leader.

The late Judge Hall told me that he was present when Joshua Williams, senator from Buncombe, called upon Governor Turner for advice in relation to the extension of the lease of life to this high tribunal. The Governor urged the continuance of the court until the other offenders could be arrested and tried, and the remaining questions of doubt and difficulty in the law be put finally at rest. My good senator, and there were few as good men as he in any age of the commonwealth, assented, under the entire conviction that a little longer time was necessary to enable the judges to render the law so clear and certain, that no perplexing questions would arise in the future. He was probably more confident of a consummation so devoutly to be wished, since the court was neither to be annoyed nor perplexed by the arguments of such lawyers as Haywood.

Iredell, the greatest of Haywood's compeers was in his grave. Moore was Iredell's successor on the Supreme Court Bench of the United States, and Davie had on the 24th of December, 1799, been appointed Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States to the French Republic as successor of Patrick Henry, who had been compelled to decline on account of bodily infirmity.

In 1804, the court, which since 1801 had been styled the Court of Conference, was made a court of record, the judges required to reduce their opinions to writing, to file them "and deliver the same _viva voce_ in open court." In the following year (1805) the name was changed from the Court of Conference to the Supreme Court of North Carolina, and converted from a temporary to a permanent, I hope immortal, tribunal, in fame as in duration.

The senator from Buncombe, and the great advocate Haywood, removed to Tennessee no great while afterwards. The former lived long enough in the midst of the legal strife which abounded in that young and rising commonwealth to find that the end of controversy, like the end of the rainbow, was not easily reached; and the latter to reap golden harvests of fame and fortune from the "glorious uncertainty of the common law."

When I first saw the Supreme Court in session in June, 1822, Chief Justice Taylor, the Mansfield of North Carolina jurisprudence, Judge Hall, proverbial for integrity, amiability and sound common sense, and Judge Henderson, who in genius, judgment and power of fascination in social intercourse, was without his peer, were the three judges. William Drew, standing on the thin partition which divides great wit and frenzy, was the Attorney-General. Francis L. Hawks, who had not yet attained the 25th year of his age had already given favorable promise of future eminence as a member of the New Bern bar, the representative of that town in the General Assembly, was the reporter. Hawks was destined however to a much wider celebrity in a very different sphere, and for many years previous to his death, as a brilliant writer and eloquent speaker, had a higher transatlantic reputation than any other American divine.

The bar in attendance in those days was much less numerous than at present. He was a young man of rare self-complacency, who would imperil a rising reputation in a contest with the sages of the profession before that tribunal. I well remember the remark of a gentleman, second as an advocate in the Superior Courts to no one of his contemporaries, that he never rose in the Supreme Court without trembling, and never ventured to do more than simply to suggest the principles, and give the names of the cases and authorities upon which he relied.

Of those in attendance, Gaston, from the east, was _facile princeps_, Archibald Henderson, probably the most eloquent and successful advocate in criminal defenses who ever appeared at the bar in North Carolina, was the great representative of the middle, and Joseph Wilson of the extreme west, Judge Murphy and Judge Ruffin represented Hillsborough, and Judge Seawell, Gavin Hogg and Moses Mordecai, the Raleigh circuit. Mr. Badger was just attaining the fulness of fame while the youngest of the Superior Court judges, and Peter Browne, the head of the bar, before Mr. Gaston assumed his position, was deciding cases with unprecedented facility and despatch as chairman of Wake County Court.

Mr. Devereux was the District Attorney for the United States. James F. Taylor, with the most brilliant prospects, died six years afterwards, Attorney-General of North Carolina at the early age of 37.

With the present organization of the Supreme Court, in January, 1819, commenced a gradual change in the length of time consumed in the management of causes, in that and the subordinate tribunals which continues to increase in an accelerating ratio, and which ought to be diminished.

The Act of 1799, limited the sessions of the Court of Conference to ten days, the Act of 1800 extended them to fifteen days exclusive of Sundays. At one time, as we have seen, no arguments were allowed, and throughout the entire existence of the court discussions were of necessity commendably brief.

Peter Browne, with an ample fortune and very high reputation, relinquished his professional pursuits at the comparatively early age of fifty-five. Selling the Lane residence, and his well-selected library to his friend, Mr. Boylan, in the summer of 1818, he returned to Scotland to spend the evening of his life amidst the romantic scenes of his native country. An absence of three years proved that the ties which bound him to Raleigh were stronger than those which bound him to his birthplace. He came back and resided here until his death in November, 1832. In 1821, he accepted the appointment of justice of the peace, and was during several years chairman of Wake County Court.

I remember to have heard him complain of the dilatory proceedings of the courts, and especially of the time lawyers were permitted to consume in argument, as a grievous innovation on ancient usages, and to asseverate most solemnly that there was one court in North Carolina where no such indulgence would be allowed. All who remember his administration, will admit that few and brief were the arguments heard in Wake County Court in his day.

My professional experience of ten years, eight at the bar, and two upon the bench, closed in December 1832. During this period I rode the Morganton, Hillsborough, Raleigh, and Edenton Circuits, and met at intervals nearly every eminent lawyer in the State. I can recall no instance when more than a day was occupied with the trial of a cause.

Judge Cameron, the immediate successor of Mr. Browne as president of the State Bank, was, during the last twenty years of his life, a citizen of Raleigh. He came to the bar at the age of twenty-one in 1798, was appointed judge in February 1814, resigned December 1816, engaged immediately in agricultural pursuits, and the performance of all the duties which properly devolved on eminent citizens in private life, and preeminent among these was the discharge of the duties of presiding magistrate of the County Court of Orange.

He had not attained his fortieth year when he retired from the bench of the Superior Court.

During the fifteen years that he practiced law, his professional emoluments were probably greater than fell to the lot of any other North Carolina lawyer, at so early a period of life, and to none were honors and emoluments more justly awarded.

Mr. Badger, alike eminent as a jurist and a statesman, following Mr. Browne, was, during a series of years chairman in Wake; and Chief Justice Ruffin (a citizen of Raleigh from 1828 to 1834), simultaneously with Mr. Badger's services here, was chairman of the County Court in Alamance.

Of the eminent lawyers who have appeared at our bar during the present century, to no one living or dead has greater length of days, crowned by more brilliant success in all walks of life, been accorded, than to the four great men who closed their professional career by the gratuitous, graceful, able, and impartial discharge of the important duties pertaining to the office of justice of the peace.

While I can make no positive averment, I am very confident in the opinion that during the time that Judges Badger, Cameron, and Ruffin presided on the Superior and County Court bench, no case tried before them ever occupied more than a single day.

Mr. Browne, as appears from the graveyard record, died at the age of sixty-seven. Mr. Badger had entered upon his seventy-second, and Judge Cameron his seventy-sixth year. Chief Justice Ruffin, in the possession of unimpaired intellectual strength, is an octogenarian.

In 1806, five years after the conviction of Glasgow, the great case of Lord Granville's heirs _versus_ Governor Davie and others, which threatened a more extensive confiscation than that menaced in our time, was argued before the Federal Court in this city by Gaston and Harris for the plaintiffs, and Cameron, Woods, and Baker for the State of North Carolina. Potter, District Judge, charged the jury; Marshall, Chief Justice, from personal considerations, peremptorily declining to sit upon the trial.

Marshall is the only Revolutionary Titan I have ever seen. With fair opportunities to judge of him as he appeared upon the bench, and in social intercourse sixteen years afterwards, I can pronounce with emphasis, that I never expect to look upon his like again.

I sometimes feel apprehensive that I will become old myself before a great while, when my memory recurs to the time when Chief Justice Ruffin was one of the promising young men of my day. In 1822, when a student in Chief Justice Taylor's office, occupied by Mr. Gaston during the sessions of the Federal and Supreme Courts, Ithiel Town, the architect who planned the present capitol and who had an important suit pending in the Federal Court against the Clarendon Bridge Company, inquired of Mr. Gaston whether Mr. Ruffin would be acceptable to him as associate counsel. He replied: "No one more so; Mr. Ruffin is a very promising young man, and if he lives ten years longer will be at the head of the profession." The prediction was fully verified at an earlier date.

Rarely since the completion of the Pentateuch has full historic justice been meted out to woman. The character of the great father of the human race is not more fully and clearly delineated by Moses than that of its beautiful mother. The termagant Sarah received quite as much attention as the father of the faithful. Hagar is the heroine of an episode, the most beautiful in the annals of history, with the single exception of the narrative of the maternal tenderness of Naomi, and the filial love and devotion of Ruth, the fascinating little widow, whose charms dissolved the obdurate celibacy of the sage, opulent and stately Boaz. The crafty and managing Rebecca is finely contrasted with the confiding Isaac; and the beautiful Rachel, from the moment that Jacob gave his first kiss "and lifted up his voice and wept," as a bride, and a mother with Joseph at her side in his little coat of many colors and his stainless virtue, constitutes in life and in death, the most charming picture on the historical canvas of any age or country.

Why are not similar pictures presented in modern times? Moses was inspired. Subjects are not wanting worthy of historic inspiration. Has an abler monarch than Elizabeth, or a more estimable sovereign than Victoria ever given character and strength and grace to the British throne? Was "the man of destiny" superior to Josephine? Is the Empress of France inferior to Napoleon III.?

We are told that the heroic Wolfe while passing down the St. Lawrence on his way to "glory and the grave," closed the recitation of the inimitable "elegy" with the remark that he would gladly exchange all the renown he had acquired or hoped to achieve for the fame of the authorship of those verses, and yet Gray makes no reference to the spot where all the mothers of the hamlet sleep.

I have recently wandered through your cemetery, pausing and lingering here and there, at the tombs of familiar acquaintances and intimate friends, and realized the truth, that if I could summon the departed around me, I would stand in the midst of more numerous friends than I meet at the present day in the crowded streets of your living city.

I trust I shall be suspected of no want of gallantry to the living if I venture to intimate that among the nymphs that illuminate the page of memory and imagination, I find pictures of beauty and grace and refinement quite equal to the best specimens of modern times, or even, in poetic hallucination, "some brighter days than modern days, some fairer maids than living maids."

Captain Peace reposes by the side of his aged brother without as yet a stone to tell his name. He was, I suppose, at the time of his death, the oldest citizen of Raleigh, as well as the oldest man who has passed from the living city to the city of the dead. I have never yet met with a man whom I supposed to be a hundred years old. Various colored persons have represented themselves of greater age, but their computations would not bear scrutiny. The late William Henry Haywood, the elder, died at the age of eighty-seven, and Mrs. Haywood in her ninetieth year.

The honored name of their only son, the late Senator in Congress, was given at the baptismal font to the senior proprietor of Tucker Hall, in admiration of early promise, by a discerning father. The suit of clothes presented to the child by the Senator in acknowledgment of the compliment, is in a state of perfect preservation, and will be kept as an interesting illustration of the habits and customs of other days. We are to be instructed by grave lecturers in every department of science and art; shall we not have a miniature museum, a portrait gallery and a niche for the preservation of specimens of the antique, among which the best _bib_ and _tucker_ of earlier times may find an appropriate place?

John Rex was one of the earliest citizens of Raleigh. My acquaintance with him was slight. In appearance he was said to bear striking resemblance to John Quincy Adams. He was a grave, sedate, quiet, retiring, modest man, not unlike in character to his worthy contemporary William Peck. By long years of industry, economy and thrift in the management of the first tannery established in Raleigh at Rex's spring, near the railway station, he accumulated a handsome estate, and like Mr. Peace, atoned for his failure to build up a family, by a liberal provision for the children of misfortune and want. He manumitted all his slaves at the close of life, and bequeathed the remainder of his estate to the endowment of a hospital, the construction of which is understood to be in early prospect.

The Rex Hospital and Peace Institute, the latter far advanced towards completion, will constitute the appropriate and enduring monuments of these public benefactors. Mr. Rex died January 29, 1839, aged seventy-four years.

As scant justice is done to the memory of the ladies who repose in the cemetery, as is accorded to their sex on the page of modern history. The memorials are few, and the information given comparatively meagre.

Of the eighty-nine counties in North Carolina, nearly all perpetuate the names of men. Two only, Wake and Jones, are graced with the maiden names of women, the wives of Governor Tyron and Governor Nash. There are not less significant indications of the want of liberality from the sterner towards the gentler sex. Four-fifths of the wills that I have had occasion to construe, give to the "dear wife" a portion of the estate pared down to the narrowest limit that the law will allow, "during life or widowhood." So universal and inveterate is this phraseology, that a somewhat famous parson in the county of Gates, some years ago at the funeral of her husband, poured forth a most fervent supplication, that the bereaved wife might "be blessed in her basket and her store during life or widowhood."

I know but a single instance, the will of a distinguished American statesman, Gouverneur Morris, which provides a largely increased annuity to the widow in case of a second marriage.

Jacob Marling was the first portrait and landscape painter, and various specimens of his art are now extant, among others a picture of the State-house as it was anterior to the fire of 1831. It graces the parlor of Dr. F. J. Haywood.

The following narrative of the celebration of the thirty-third anniversary of American Independence, is from the pen of General Calvin Jones, one of the most useful men of his day. A careful examination of all the details will present to the mind a more life-like picture of what your city was in all the aspects of society in 1809 than can possibly be produced by the most elaborate attempt at description by a modern pen. Compare and contrast it with the scenes exhibited and the events which occurred on an anniversary fifty-eight years thereafter, and in due time make suitable preparation for the proper observance of a day still dear to every patriotic bosom.

"The thirty-third anniversary of American Independence was celebrated in this city in the usual manner on the 4th inst. At 12 o'clock a procession of citizens and strangers, with Captain Willie Jones' troop of cavalry at the head, formed at the court-house, agreeable to previous arrangements, and directed by Captain Scott, proceeded up Fayetteville street to the State-house, during the ringing of the State-house, court-house, academy and town bells, and firing of cannon. Being seated in the Commons' Chamber, an ode in honor of that day, composed for the occasion, was sung by a choir of about seventy voices, conducted by Mr. Seward, accompanied by a band of instrumental music.

"The Rev. Mr. Turner then rose and delivered an oration on the merits of which we shall at present forbear to speak as we intend to solicit a copy for publication, and hope in our next to present it as a very acceptable treat to our readers. At the conclusion another patriotic ode was sung.

"At 3 o'clock the company sat down to an excellent dinner prepared by Mr. Casso at the State-house, at which Colonel Polk and Judge Potter presided. Seventeen appropriate toasts were drunk, among which we notice the following: 'The President of the United States, may his administration close as it has commenced, with the applause and general approbation of the people.'