One who leaves his impress on a generation lives for all time, for in some form his influence works its way, though silently, and contributes to the symmetry of character in the generations that follow. Deeds of benefaction are noble, but a good man, in virtue of his life, is a benefaction, and his daily walk is a constant asset of the good of the future. This admits of application to the life of this pioneer preacher, which life extended to near the middle of the nineteenth century.
The Rev. Hosea Holcombe died in 1841, and his humble grave is on his original farm near Jonesboro, Jefferson County. A shaft now marks the last resting place of the old hero. Till this was recently erected, a large bowlder alone indicated where sleeps the pioneer preacher. Its native roughness and solidity represented the times as well as the character of the Rev. Hosea Holcombe.
H. W. COLLIER
There was not in the life and career of Governor Henry Watkins Collier that which was apt to catch the popular eye and invite popular applause, for he was not gifted with the flash of oratory, nor did he seek the clamorous applause which passes with the day. Governor Collier was of the practical mold of men who merely did things, who patiently wrought in painstaking silence far away from the madding crowd and the host of empty babble. He won distinction, but he did it by dint of granite merit, while disdaining the acclaim which comes as the vapid breath of the hour.
A Virginian by birth, Governor Collier had the prestige which comes of distinguished lineage. In the genealogical line were the names of such men as Sir Francis Wyatt, one of the original English governors of Virginia, and Admiral Sir George Collier of the British navy. But distinction like this he relied not on, and his career throughout showed that he regarded the life of each one a distinct entity dependent entirely on individual worth.
Governor Collier came to Alabama in the flower of his youth well qualified to respond to the demands arising from the colonial conditions of a new state. He had been grounded in the solid soil of academic drill at a time when the test of pupilage lay in the thought created by the student rather than in the mere mastery of that already kneaded by others, and served to the taste. For to be a student of those early times of even tolerable tolerance one had to dig rather than to reap, as others had sown. By the few really skillful preceptors of those primitive times, the student was encouraged to create and originate his own material from the bare principles furnished. This molded men of stalwart proportions, promoted self-assertion, augmented confidence, stiffened reliance, and toughened the fiber of character by effort.
Instruction of this character was given in the famous pioneer school of Moses Waddell at Willington, S. C., where were trained for the stern life of grappling with grim, original conditions such men as George McDuffie, James L. Pettigru and Augustus B. Longstreet, and many others whose fame, and, no less, whose example, remain as a perennial inspiration to aspiring youth, for after all every man who is made is self-made. Be one’s advantages never so much or so meager, self and self-worth are at last the determinative factor.
Girt with equipments like these borne from the Waddell school, young Collier reached Alabama just as it was emerging into statehood. His first residence was at Huntsville, where as a youthful pleader he opened his little office, but soon removed to Tuscaloosa as the partner of Hon. Simon L. Perry.