A BARBECUE AT THE BLUE SPRING, KY.—NOTABLE NATIVES OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD —THE SCHOOLHOUSE CHURCH—SOME OF THE PREACHERS—THE TEACHER OF SINGING—HOW THE SCHOOLMASTER WAS PAID—MANNERS AND DISCIPLINE—THE DEBATING SOCIETY—THE WRITER'S SPEECH TO HIS OLD NEIGHBORS—SOME BOYHOOD FRIENDS.
Soon after my nomination for the Vice-Presidency, in 1892, I attended a barbecue at the Blue Spring, a stone's throw from my father's old home in Kentucky. This was in the county of Christian, in the southwestern part of the State. It is a large and wealthy county, its tobacco product probably exceeding that of any other county in the United States.
Christian County was the early home of men distinguished in the field, at the bar, and in the State and National councils. Hopkinsville, the county-seat, had been the home of Stites, the learned Chief Justice of the Court of Appeals; of Jackson, who fell while gallantly leading his command at the battle of Perryville; of Morehead, an early and distinguished Governor of the Commonwealth; of Sharp, whose legal acumen would have secured him distinction at any bar; of McKenzie, whose wit and eloquence made him the long-time idol and the Representative in Congress, of the famed "Pennyrile" district; of Bristow, the accomplished Secretary of the Treasury during the administration of President Grant; of the Henry brothers, three of whom, from different States, were at a later day Representatives in Congress, and one the Whig candidate against Andrew Johnson for Governor of Tennessee.
Hon. Gustavus A. Henry, well known as the "Eagle Orator of Tennessee," was the Whig candidate for Governor of the State in opposition to Andrew Johnson, at a later day President of the United States. The latter was at the time an old-fashioned, steady-going mountain orator with none of the brilliancy of his gifted antagonist. At the close of a series of joint debates Johnson said: "This speech terminates our joint debates. I have now encountered the 'Eagle Orator' upon every stump in the State, and come out of the contest with no flesh of mine in his claws—no blood of mine upon his beak." To which Henry instantly replied: "The eagle—the proud bird of freedom—never wars upon a corpse!"
A few miles from the Blue Spring, in the same county, were the early homes of Senator Roger Q. Mills of Texas, Governor John M. Palmer of Illinois, and Jefferson Davis of the Southern Confederacy. Less than a score of miles to the southward, upon the banks of the Cumberland in Tennessee, stood historic Fort Donelson; while a few hours' journey to the northward stands the monument which marks the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln.
Following the earliest westward trail from Iredell County, North Carolina, across the Blue Ridge Mountains, for a great distance along the banks of the romantic French Broad my grandfathers, "Scotch-Irish Presbyterians," James Stevenson and Adlai Ewing, with their immediate families and others of their kindred, had in the early days of the century, after a long and perilous journey, finally reached the famous Spring already mentioned. Near by, their tents were pitched, and in time permanent homes established in the then wilderness of southwestern Kentucky.
The first public building constructed was of logs, with puncheon floor, and set apart to the double purpose of school-house and church for the use of all denominations. Its site was near the spot where the speaker's stand was now erected for the barbecue which I have mentioned.
From the pulpit of this rude building, the early settlers had more
than once listened spell-bound to the eloquence of Peter Cartwright,
Henry B. Bascom, Nathan L. Rice, Finis Ewing, and Alexander
Campbell.
In this old church the time-honored custom was for some one of its officers to line out the hymn, two lines at a time, and then lead the singing, in which the congregation joined. Among my earliest recollections is that of my uncle, Squire McKenzie, one of the best of men, standing immediately in front of the pulpit, and faithfully discharging this important duty after the hymn had been read in full by the minister. I distinctly recall the solemn tones in which, upon communion occasions, he lined out, in measured and mellow cadence, the good old hymn beginning:
"'T was on that dark, that doleful night,
When powers of earth and hell arose."