CHAPTER 31.

Memorial-William and Julia Gahagan Heiskell.

Those persons who consider it a mark of poor breeding for one who is very proud of his father and mother to say so to others, or, to write so in a book, will conclude that the author has sinned most grievously in this chapter against the canons of alleged gentility, or, the rules of conventional propriety. It is due the reader that it be said that such canons and such rules are in instances, as the author views them, proper subject for jest among people who do not think all there is in life is the external and the superficial-in other words, show only. Conventional rules are in a measure necessary and proper, but their wisdom and utility depend upon what they intrinsically are. It is more than an opinion-it is a certainty-that some of our social rules are breeders of hypocrisy and deception, to say nothing else, and that they are "more honored in the breach than in the observance."

People differ widely about the career and views of Theodore Roosevelt, but there ought to be no difference of opinion on his eulogizing in his autobiography, his father and mother and "Uncle Jimmy Bulloch," his mother's brother, which he does whole-heartedly. This and his evident affection for children are the finest things in his book.

For illustration, he says, "My father, Theodore Roosevelt, was the best man I ever knew. He combined strength and courage with gentleness and great unselfishness

He was interested in every social reform movement and he did an immense amout of practical charitable work himself."

Again, "My mother, Martha Bulloch, was a sweet, gracious, beautiful Southern woman, a delightful companion and beloved by everybody."

Again, "Uncle Jimmy Bulloch was a dear old retired sea captain and utterly unable to 'get on' in the wordly sense of that phrase, as valiant and simple and upright a soul as ever lived, a

veritable Colonel Newcomb. He was an Admiral in the Confederate Navy and was the builder of the famous Confederate war vessel Alabama."

Who does not respect Roosevelt more for writing these lines? Devotion to parents does not stop with the parents. It is the tie that binds families together; it is the cement of the American home. Without it the American home would become a wreck, and that wreck would destroy the loftiest ideals and the finest aspirations of the republic. A dangerous tendency has seemed to appear of late years in the United States-a tendency to loosen the family bonds, to disrupt the old order of domestic things, to alienate blood from blood, to make unconnected, unsympathetic units of everybody. This tendency is abhorent to all that is best in our past, and provocative of untold evils in our future, and calls for the joint action of all well-meaning mankind to overthrow and crush it.

HONORABLE WILLIAM HEISKELL.

My father, Hon. William Heiskell, was a Marylander by birth, at Hagerstown, but his parents moved to Virginia in his very early years, so that he was always considered, and so considered himself, a Virginian, where he had a large family connection. After his maturity as the years went by, he was very successful in a financial way and became the owner of slaves and lands. He was a member of the Virginian Legislature and of the Virginia Constitutional Convention, and his influence was pronounced and Statewide in that Commonwealth. Prior to the Civil War, two of his brothers, Frederick and Daniel Heiskell, having moved to Tennessee, he followed them, and located on the Little Tennessee river, in the land of the Cherokees, on a large plantation, where he lived the usual life of a slave-holding planter of ante-bellum days.

he came to Tennessee there was not a railroad in the State, and he and his brother Frederick devoted several years, in conjunction with others, to arousing a public sentiment that would materialize in the construction of railroads. At that time Chattanooga was a town of about 1,000 inhabitants, Knoxville about 2,000, and the population of Eastern Tennessee, from Bristol to Chattanooga was small and very much scattered. Other parts of Tennessee, while a little more advanced, was not very much so. The real development of all parts of Tennessee came after the railroad era began.

The State, under the Constitution of 1834, was authorized to lend its credit in the shape of bonds to promote railroad construction, and in the eastern part of the State, the Hiwassee Railroad Company was chartered, and the aid of the State loaned to its construction; but somehow, for one reason or another, the road had mishaps and drawbacks and discouragements to the extent that public opinion concluded that it would be best to transfer the interests of the State in that railroad Company to the East Tennessee and Georgia Railroad Company, which was designed to extend from Knoxville to Chattanooga; and so in the Legislature of 1847 it became an acute question before that body whether the State's interest in the Hiwassee Road should be transferred to the East Tennessee and Georgia Road. Frederick S. Heiskell was a member of the State Senate from Knox County, and was one of the active supporters of the bill to make the transfer, which was passed on February 4, 1848. In 1849, William Heiskell was a member of the House of Representatives from Monroe County, Tennessee, and supported additonal legislation for the East Tennessee and Georgia Railroad. That road went into active and successful construction, and was completed to Knoxville in 1854, and from about the year 1849 or 1850, he was a director in the East Tennessee and Georgia Railroad, and so remained until that road was consolidated with the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad, extending from Knoxville to Bristol, Tennessee, a distance of 130 miles, under the name of the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railroad. He then became a director in the consolidated road and remained such until about a year before his death, when, by reason of bad health, he had to cease connection with all business enterprises whatever. The consolidated road extended the full length of the valley of East Tennessee, from Bristol to Chattanooga, a distance of 242 miles, through one of the most beautiful, picturesque and wealthy valleys in the world.

The Knoxville and Kentucky Railroad, extending from Knoxville to Caryville, Tennessee, was one of the roads that received State aid, and was in part constructed before the Civil War, and my father was a director in that road, but when he became such I cannot certainly state, but it is certain that he was a director after the Civil War when Col. Charles M. McGhee was President, and he remained a director until he resigned on account of ill health as in the case of the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia

Railroad. The Knoxville and Kentucky Railroad is now a part of the Southern Railway, which extends from Knoxville to Jellico on the Kentucky State Line.

He was an original charter Trustee of Hiwassee College in Monroe County, the incorporation of which by the State Legislature he championed while a Representative in the Legislature in 1849 and 1850. The bill incorporating the college charter passed February 8, 1850.

At the time of his death and for a number of years before, he was a Trustee of the University of Tennessee, and also President of the Board of Trustees of Hampden Sidney Academy, in the City of Knoxville.

He was Speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1865, and it was during this period that the Legislature offered a reward of $5,000.00 for the apprehension and delivery of Gov. Isham G. Harris to the civil authorities of the State. At this writing, 1920, fifty-three years after this reward was offered, very few persons know that such action was ever taken by the Legislature, and none born since can appreciate the exceeding bitterness of those days between the champions of the North and the supporters of the South. Vast and seemingly incurable antagonism existed, not only between the sections and political parties, but between individuals and families, and it was out of this condition that the reward was offered for Gov. Harris, as follows:

"REWARD FOR GOV. HARRIS."

"Resolved by the General Assembly of the State of Tennessee, that the Governor of this State is hereby authorized and instructed to offer a reward of $5,000.00 for the apprehension and delivery of Isham G. Harris to the civil authorities of the State. He shall fully describe said fugitive from justice and cause publication to be made for three months or longer, as he may deem proper, in one newspaper in each of the three grand divisions of the State, and in papers published at Richmond, Virginia, Raleigh, North Carolina, Savannah, Georgia, Little Rock, Arkansas, New Orleans, Louisiana, and publish these preambles and resolutions with his proclamation.

Passed May 1, 1865.

William Heiskell,

Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Samuel R. Rogers,

Speaker of the Senate."

Gov. Harris was never captured pursuant to this resolution, so the reward was never paid.

From 1865 to 1895 is thirty years, and in the latter year, the same Isham G. Harris was a candidate before the Tennessee Legislature for a fourth term in the United States Senate, and I was a representative in the Legislature from Knox County, and was requested by the managers of the Senator's interests to put him in nomination before the body for re-election, which was done in this address:

MR. SPEAKER:

THE AUTHOR'S ADDRESS.

"I have been informed that the Republican caucus will present to the General Assembly the name of Honorable E. J. Sanford of Knoxville as a candidate for the support of the Republican members for the United States Senate, and I take this opportunity to say that Colonel Sanford is a very strong and able man whom it would do Republicans credit to vote for. In my judgment he is the ablest business Republican in the State, and has so demonstrated by his varied activities and successes in the City of Knoxville where he has lived for forty-one years. Politically he is a firm and settled Republican, who is loyal to the national principles and policies of the Republican party. He never marches under two flags; he never makes believe. He came south from Connecticut, and by brains, sagacity, industry and perseverance has achieved a high position in the business and commercial world in Tennessee. He never plays the demagogue in politics, and his appeals are based on what in his judgment are the policies which are best for the country.

"In presenting Colonel Sanford's name before this General Assembly for United States Senator, the Republican members have taken a long step forward to lessen the vast distance between the average southern Republican politician and that distinguished Democratic Senator, Isham G. Harris, whom it is my pleasure to place before this body as the nominee of the Democratic caucus for Senator.

"Mr. Speaker, in 1876 I sat in Staub's Theatre in Knoxville as a boy of eighteen years and had the pleasure of listening to a speech delivered by a former Governor of Tennessee who was then a candidate for the United States Senate. A large and enthusiastic audience listened to the delivery of that speech, and he was elected to the United States Senate. Six years rolled around and he was again elected; six years again rolled around and a grateful constituency elected him a third time to the exalted position of Senator, and, now, Mr. Speaker, with a reputation that is as broad as the republic, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Lakes on the north to the Gulf on the south, with a reputation that is not only national but international, I come