Lives of Distinguished North Carolinians, with Illustrations and Speeches

by Unknown

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.