Mr. Crawford was now rapidly declining, his nervous system was completely undermined, and he felt the approach of death calmly and without fear. Still, he continued to give his attention to business, and was sufficiently strong to go abroad to calls of duty. In one of these journeys he stopped to spend the night in the house of a friend, and was found dead in his bed in the morning, after a quiet and social evening with his friend and family.
William Holt Crawford was a native of Virginia: his family were Scotch, and came early to the United States, and have been remarkable for their talents and energy. Since the Revolution, there has scarcely been a time that some one of the family has not been prominently before the public as a representative man. Mr. Crawford was an eminent type of his race, sternly honest, of ardent temperament, full of dignity, generous, frank, and brave. Plain and simple in his habits, disdaining everything like ostentation, or foolish display—strictly moral, firm in his friendship, and unrelenting in his hatred, his sagacity and sincerity forbade the forming of the one or the other without abundant cause. He was never known to desert a friend or shrink from a foe. In form and person he was very imposing; six feet two inches in height; his head was large, forehead high and broad; his eyes were blue and brilliant, and, when excited, very piercing. His complexion was fair, and, in early life, ruddy; he was, when young, exceedingly temperate in his habits, but as he advanced in years he indulged too freely in the luxuries of the table, and his physicians attributed mainly to this cause his attack of paralysis, which ultimately destroyed him. His mind had been very much excited during the Presidential canvass; the attacks of his enemies were fierce and merciless, and very irritating to him; and this doubtless had much to do with it. He lies buried in the garden of his home, without a stone to mark the spot. It is a reproach to the people of Georgia that her most eminent son should be neglected to sleep in an undistinguished grave. But this neglect does not extend alone to Mr. Crawford. I believe, of all her distinguished men, James A. Meriwether is the only one whose grave has been honored with a monumental stone by the State. Crawford, Cobb, Dooly, Jackson, Troup, Forsyth, Campbell, Lumpkin, Dawson, Walker, Colquitt, Berrien, Daugherty, and many others who have done the State some service and much honor, are distinguished in their graves only by the green sod which covers them.
POPULAR CHARACTERISTICS.
A Frugal People—Laws and Religion—Father Pierce—Thomas W. Cobb— Requisites of a Political Candidate—A Farmer-Lawyer—Southern Humorists.
The plain republican habits which characterized the people of Upper Georgia, in her early settlement and growth, together with the fact of the very moderate means of her people, exercised a powerful influence in the formation of the character of her people. She had no large commercial city, and her commerce was confined to the simple disposal of the surplus products of her soil and the supply of the few wants of the people. It was a cardinal virtue to provide every thing possible of the absolute necessaries of life at home. The provision crop was of first necessity, and secured the first attention of the farmer; the market crop was ever secondary, and was only looked to, to supply those necessaries which could not be grown upon the plantation. These were salt, iron, and steel, first; and then, if there remained unexhausted some of the proceeds of the crop, a small (always a small) supply of sugar and coffee; and for rare occasions, a little tea.
The population, with the exception of mechanics, and these were a very small proportion, and the few professional men and country merchants, was entirely agricultural. This rural pursuit confined at home and closely to business every one; and popular meetings were confined to religious gatherings on Sunday in each neighborhood, and the meeting of a few who could spare the time at court, in the village county-seat, twice a year. There were no places of public resort for dissipation or amusement; a stern morality was demanded by public opinion of the older members of society. Example and the switch enforced it with the children. Perhaps in no country or community was the maxim of good old Solomon more universally practised upon, "Spare the rod and spoil the child," than in Middle Georgia, fifty years ago. Filial obedience and deference to age was the first lesson. "Honor thy father and mother, that thy days may be long in the land," was familiar to the ears of every child before they could lisp their a, b, c; and upon the first demonstration of a refractory disobedience, a severe punishment taught them that the law was absolute and inexorable. To lie, or touch what was not his own, was beyond the pale of pardon, or mercy, and a solitary aberration was a stain for life.
The mothers, clad in homespun, were chaste in thought and action; unlettered and ignorant, but pure as ether. Their literature confined to the Bible, its maxims directed their conduct, and were the daily lesson of their children. The hard-shell Baptist was the dominant religion; with here and there a Presbyterian community, generally characterized by superior education and intelligence, with a preacher of so much learning as to be an oracle throughout the land.
The Methodists were just then beginning to grow into importance, and their circuit-riders, now fashionably known as itinerants, were passing and preaching, and establishing societies to mark their success, through all the rude settlements of the State. These were the pioneers of that truly democratic sect, as of the stern morality and upright bearing which had so powerful an influence over the then rising population.
It is more than sixty years since I first listened to a Methodist sermon. It was preached by a young, spare man, with sallow complexion, and black eyes and hair. I remember the gleam of his eye, and the deep, startling tones of his voice—his earnest and fervent manner; and only yesterday, in the Baronne Street (New Orleans) Methodist Church, I listened to an old man, upward of eighty years of age, preaching the ordination sermon of four new bishops of the Methodist Church. It was he to whom I had first listened: the eye was still brilliant, the face still sallow, but wrinkled now, and the voice and manner still fervent and earnest; and the great mind, though not the same, still powerful. It was that venerable, good man, Lovie Pierce, the father of the great and eloquent bishop. What has he not seen? what changes, what trials, what triumphs! Generations before his eyes have passed into eternity; the little handful of Methodist communicants grown into a mighty and intelligent body; thousands of ministers are heralding her tenets all over the Protestant world—mighty in learning, mighty in eloquence—yet none surpass the eloquence, the power, and the purity of Lovie Pierce.