Lives of Distinguished North Carolinians, with Illustrations and Speeches

by Unknown

Thomas Ruffin, the eldest child of his parents, was born at Newington, the residence of his maternal grandfather, Thomas Roane, in the county of King and Queen, in Virginia, on the 17th of November, 1787.

His father, Sterling Ruffin, Esquire, was a planter in the neighboring county of Essex, who subsequently transferred his residence to North Carolina, and died in the county of Caswell. Ardent in his religious sentiments, and long attached to the Methodist Episcopal Church, he very late in life entered the ministry, and was for a few years prior to his death a preacher in that denomination.

His mother, Alice Roane, was of a family much distinguished in Virginia by the public service of many of its members, and was herself first cousin of Spencer Roane, the Chief Justice of that State, in the past generation, whose judicial course, connected as it was with questions of difficulty and importance in constitutional law, gave him high professional, as well as political, distinction; but it may well be doubted whether, in all that constitutes a great lawyer, he had preeminence over the subject of our present sketch, his junior kinsman in North Carolina, then but rising into fame, and destined to fill the like office in his own State.

His father, though not affluent, had a respectable fortune, and sought for the son the best means of education. His early boyhood was passed on the farm in Essex, and in attendance on the schools of the vicinity. Thence, at a suitable age, he was sent to a classical academy in the beautiful and healthful village of Warrenton, in North Carolina, then under the management of Mr. Marcus George, an Irishman by birth and education, a fine classical scholar and most painstaking and skillful instructor, especially in elocution, as we must believe, since among his pupils who survived to our times we found the best readers of their day, within our acquaintance. His excellence in this particular was probably attributable to his experience on the theatrical stage, where he had spent a portion of his life. He made his first appearance in the State at Hillsborough, during the Convention of 1788, which rejected the Federal Constitution, and being in search of employment as a teacher, he was engaged by the Warren gentlemen then in attendance, and many years subsequently was still at the head of a flourishing school, in which our student entered. The system and discipline of Mr. George conformed to the ancient regime, and placed great faith in the rod; and he being a man of much personal prowess and spirit, did not scruple to administer it on his pupils, when sloth, delinquency or misbehavior required, without regard to age, size or other circumstances. Yet he secured the respect of his patrons and the confidence of the public, and inspired the gratitude and affection of his pupils in a remarkable degree.

This turning aside from our subject, to pay a passing tribute to his old preceptor, is deemed to be justified not only by the long and useful labors of Mr. George, in the instruction of youth in the generation in which Mr. Ruffin's lot was cast, but because he himself entertained the highest appreciation of the profession of an instructor, accustoming himself to speak of it as one of the most honorable and beneficent of human employments. Throughout his laborious and well-spent life he often acknowledged his obligations of gratitude for the early training he had received under the tuition of this faithful, but somewhat eccentric, son of Erin. And it may well be doubted whether Lord Eldon, in the maturity of his wisdom and great age, retained a more grateful and affectionate recollection of Master Moises of the High School of New Castle, than did Chief Justice Ruffin of Master George of the Warrenton Male Academy.

At this institution were assembled the sons of most of the citizens of eastern North Carolina, and of the bordering counties of Virginia, who aspired to a liberal education. And here were formed friendships which he cherished with great satisfaction throughout life. Among his companions were the late Robert Broadnax, of Rockingham, subsequently a planter of large possessions on Dan River, among the most estimable gentlemen of his time; and Cadwallader Jones, then of Halifax, but afterwards of Orange, an officer at different periods in the navy and in the army of the United States, a successful planter, and a model of the manners and virtues which give a charm to social intercourse. Here, too, he found Weldon N. Edwards, of Warren, subsequently distinguished by much public service in Congress and under the government of the State, thenceforward his lifelong friend, with whom the bonds of amity seemed to be drawn more closely as others of his contemporaries dropped from around him. Of these four youths of the Warrenton Academy, in the beginning of the nineteenth century, Mr. Edwards alone survives. Long may he live to enjoy the veneration and respect due to a life of probity, honor, and usefulness.

From the Warrenton Academy young Ruffin was transferred to the College of Nassau Hall, at Princeton, New Jersey. It is believed that his father, who was a deeply pious man, was controlled in the selection of this college in preference to that of William and Mary, in Virginia (next to Harvard University the oldest institution of learning in the United States), not only by a desire to guard his son's health, which had suffered from the malaria of tide-water Virginia, but to secure him as well against the temptations incident to college life in an institution where, as he supposed, the discipline was too lax for the sons of affluence who matriculated there. He entered the freshman class at Princeton, and graduated at the commencement in 1805, the sixteenth in a class of forty-two members, "being the first of the second division of intermediate honors." The late Governor James Iredell, of North Carolina, was in the class succeeding his own, and for nearly the whole of his college course his room-mate. Thus commenced a friendship between these gentlemen in youth which was terminated only by the death of Mr. Iredell. Among others of his college associates who became distinguished in subsequent life, there were Samuel L. Southard and Theodore Frelinghuysen, of New Jersey, Joseph R. Ingersoll, of Philadelphia, the Cuthberts and Habershams, of Georgia, Christopher Hughes of Maryland, and Stephenson Archer, of Mississippi.

Returning home with his bachelor degree, Mr. Ruffin soon afterwards entered the law office of David Robertson, Esq., of Petersburg, as a student of law, and continued there through the years 1806 and 1807. Here he was associated as a fellow-student with John F. May, afterwards Judge May, of Petersburg, and Winfield Scott, afterwards so highly distinguished in arms, and the only officer, down to his time, except General Washington, who attained the rank of Lieutenant-General in the army of the United States. General Scott, in his autobiography, describes their preceptor, Mr. Robertson, as a Scotchman, a very learned scholar and barrister, who originally came to America as a classical teacher, but subsequently gained high distinction as a lawyer, and was the author of the report of the debates in the Virginia Convention which adopted the Federal Constitution, and of the report of the trial of Aaron Burr for high treason. In a note to the same work, General Scott mentions his chancing to meet Judge Ruffin in New York in 1853, while the latter was attending as a delegate the Protestant Episcopal Convention of the United States, after a separation of forty-seven years, and recurs to their association together with Judge May, as law students, and to the conversation in which they then indulged, with manifest pride and pleasure. He also refers to their subsequent intercourse in the City of Washington, in 1861, while Judge Ruffin was serving as a member of the Peace Congress, and expresses the opinion that if the sentiments of this good man, always highly conservative (the same as Crittenden's), had prevailed, the country would have escaped the sad infliction of the war, which was raging at the time he wrote.

Sterling Ruffin, the father, having suffered some reverses of fortune, determined to change his home, and removed to Rockingham county, North Carolina, in 1807. His son soon followed, a willing emigrant. It was in North Carolina he had received his first training for useful life: here was the home of most of his early friends, and here he confidently hoped to renew his associations with Broadnax, Jones, Edwards, Iredell, and other kindred spirits.

He doubtless brought with him a considerable store of professional learning from the office of Mr. Robertson, in which he had been more than two years a student, but on his arrival in North Carolina he pursued his further studies under the direction of Hon. A. D. Murphy, until his admission to the bar, in 1808. Early in 1809, he established his home in the town of Hillsborough, and on the 9th of December in that year he was united in marriage to Miss Ann Kirkland, eldest daughter of the late William Kirkland, of that place, a prominent merchant and leading citizen.