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).