History of Giles County Tennessee United States of America

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Local History Notes:

Giles County was erected on November 14, 1809, formed from a part of Maury County, and named in honor of Governor Wm. B. Giles,24 of Virginia, at the suggestion of Andrew Jackson. For the county seat a site was selected as near the center of the county as practicable and it was named Pulaski, in honor of Count Pulaski, of Poland, who had espoused the American cause in the Revolutionary war, and was killed at Savannah in 1779.

The act establishing this county appointed James Ross, Nathaniel Moody, Tyree Rhodes, Gabriel Bumpass, and Thomas Whitson commissioners to select the county site and sell lots, reserving two acres for the public square on which the courthouse and stocks should be erected. The site selected was on the land 'South and West of the Congressional Reservation Line' and, consequently, being Indian land, title to it could not be given until the restriction was removed on November 14, 1812.

The act establishing the county provided also for organizing a Circuit Court to be held on the second Monday in June and December, and also a Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, whose first session was held on the third Monday in February at the home of Lewis Kirk, when the following named officers qualified: German Lester, clerk; James Buford, sheriff; James Westmoreland, register; and Nelson Patterson, chairman.

The first Circuit Court was held probably in June, 1810. Thomas H. Stewart was judge, James Barry, clerk, and Amos Balch, attorney-general.

William Crawson and others made the first permanent settlement probably in 1805, near the mouth of Richland Creek. Some pioneers who settled on the lands south and west of the Reservation Line were repeatedly ejected by the United States soldiers stationed at Fort Hampton on Elk River, who destroyed their houses, crops and fences.

The first water power mill was established by Nathaniel Moody in 1809, on Robertson Creek. In 1810, Lewis Brown built the first horse power mill. Daniel Allen built a powder plant a little later, the saltpetre being obtained from a cave in Maury County. Lester Morris had the first cotton gin in 1810.

Early lawyers were: John Minns, W. H. Field, W. C. Flournoy, John H. Rivers, Governor Aaron V. Brown, Adam Huntsman, Governor Neill S. Brown, Robert Rose, Alfred Harris, Lunsford M. Bramlett, and Davidson Netherland.

Educational institutions of importance: Pulaski Academy, chartered November 30, 1809; Martin College, and Massey School.

Probably the first church established was by the Baptists in 1808, followed in 1809 by the Methodists and in 1810 by the Presbyterians.

It was in Giles County that Sam Davis was captured on November 20, 1863; and he was executed at Pulaski.

At Pulaski the Ku Klux Klan was organized by John C. Lester, Jas. R. Crowe, John Kennedy, Calvin Jones, Richard R. Reed, and Frank O. McCord.

Statistics for Giles County: Population, 1920, 30,948. Assessed valuation of taxable property, 1921, $21,651,634. Area, 656 square miles. Number of farms, 5,299. Railway mileage, fifty-three. Drained by Elk River and Richland Creek. This county borders on Alabama, and its surface is undulating, with some sections well timbered. The soil is very productive, and it is one of the few cotton producing counties in Tennessee. Corn, cotton, fruit and live stock are staple products. County intersected by the L. & N. Railroad. Pulaski, county seat, has a population of 2,780, and is on the L. & N. Railroad, eighty-one miles from Nashville. It is a flourishing town with two weekly newspapers, strong banks, fine churches and schools, and flourishing manufacturing and business establishments. Pulaski ships 8,000 to 10,000 bales of cotton annually. Lynnville, with a population of 552 is another flourishing town. Scholastic population of county, 10,264; high schools, eleven; elementary schools, 106.

From: Moore, John Trotwood. Tennessee, The Volunteer State, 1769-1923. Vol. 1. Chicago, IL, USA: S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1923.

Biographies:

John Calvin Brown, governor of Tennessee, was born in Giles county, Tenn., Jan. 6, 1827; was graduated from Jackson college in 1846, and engaged in the practice of the law with his brother, Neil S. Brown, who was governor of Tennessee, and U.S. minister to Russia under President Taylor. John Calvin entered the Confederate service in 1861 as captain, was three times wounded, and by repeated promotions won thee rank of major general. He was president of the state constitutional convention of 1870, and was governor of Tennessee from 1870 to 1874. He was made general counsel for the Texas Pacific railroad in 1876, and was subsequently its vice-president, receiver, president and general manager. He resigned in 1891 to accept the presidency of the Tennessee coal, iron and railroad company, He died at Red Boiling Spring, Tenn., Aug. 17, 1889.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

Alfred S. Dickey, Lawyer and Judge, was born in Giles county, Tennessee, January 6th, 1812. When he was about four years old, his parents removed to South Salem, Ross county, Ohio, where he grew to manhood. He descended from a family who removed from the north of Ireland to the colony of Virginia, many years before the revolutionary war. His ancestry, so far back as any knowledge extends, were always noted for their devotion to Presbyterian religious faith. On the 19th of January, 1832, he was married to Emily Ann Mackerly, and shortly afterward removed to Washington Court House, where, in 1838, he was elected Prosecuting Attorney. Here he rose rapidly in his profession, and soon occupied an enviable reputation, both as counsellor and advocate. In March, 1847, he removed to Greenfield, as much to educate his children at the Greenfield Academy, as to be more in the centre of his practice, which now extended to the several surrounding counties. He succeeded Hon. James Sloan to the office of Judge of the Court of Common Pleas for the counties of Ross, Highland and Fayette, by appointment from Governor S. P. Chase in 1858, and was successively re-elected to that office until the fall of 1871, when he was succeeded by Judge S. F. Steele. He now returned to the practice of his profession, and while on a visit to his sister, near Ripley, Ohio, suddenly became ill, and after a few hours departed this life on the 22d day of August, 1873. His last distinguished professional effort was made in the Supreme Court of Ohio, December term, A. D. 1872, in the case of James Taylor and others vs. The Board of County Commissioners of Ross County et al. In this case the famous Boesel Railroad Law was declared unconstitutional, and with that case terminated the professional career of Judge Dickey. The case was characteristic of the man. Being of the people and the founder of his own fortune in every respect, he was opposed in every interest of his nature to extravagance in private or public life; and therefore he most earnestly opposed the illimited and illimitable power of taxation as claimed by the State; and throughout the able argument of himself and his compeers, that zeal, that earnestness, and that conviction of right can be perceived controlling the line of the argument which always characterized him when once he espoused a cause. He was a Democrat until the Kansas territorial trouble sprang up as to the area of slave territory, and on the nomination of Mr. Buchanan, believing that the result of his election would tend to perpetuate slavery and the increase of the slave power, and being conscientiously faithful to all the interests of his uation and his education and the religion of his family, he began gradually to withdraw his allegiance from the Democratic party to identify himself with the new party then forming, and which resulted in the organization of the present Republican party. With this latter party he most earnestly supported the administration of Mr. Lincoln throughout the whole war of the rebellion. He had a just conception of the position and functions--the rights and duties--of the bar; and he looked upon the profession as something above a mere occupation in which to make money. He not only believed that underhand practices will fail in the end, but he detested such practices as in themselves wrong and dishonorable, and bringing the profession itself into disrepute. He had an excellent mind for the law. His power of analysis was strong. In the investigation of a subject his mind rejected the irrelevant and weak. He was fond of investigating and applying general principles. His mind pondered upon whatever subjects he under-took to examine, until he saw them in all their aspects and bearings. He endeavored in his investigations to keep clear of the ruts of commonplace, and to tread on the higher planes of thought. He did not decide until his judgment was thoroughly convinced. If he could not, on the first effort, find data on which to base a satisfactory conclusion, he suspended his judgment for the time being, and renewed his process of pondering. He was an instance of the truth of a striking observation of a distinguished philosopher: "There is," says he, "much in this process of pondering and its result which it is impossible to analyze. It is by a kind of inspiration that we rise from the wise and sedulous contemplation of facts to the principles on which they depend. The mind is, as it were, a photographic plate, which is gradually cleansed by the effort to think rightly, and which, when so cleansed, and not before, receives impressions from the light of truth." Whilst he was at the bar, Judge Dickey was a successful lawyer. He did not degrade his profession by making merchandise of his legal knowledge and skill. He did not "run down" business, but let it seek him. He would not litigate a case, if he could well avoid it, when he thought his client would surely fail. He never encouraged a client who had not justice on his side. He preferred compromising controversies to bitterly litigating them. He seldom prepared any other brief than a reference to a few authorities, and he hardly ever prepared a written argument. He could think and reason orally with greater accuracy, clearness and force, than he could with a pen in his hand. On the trial of a case he was master of the facts, understood the exact points in contest, and was prepared to discuss them intelligently and ably. He had an eminently judicial cast of mind. He loved justice, and desired that every case should, if practicable, be decided upon its substantial merits. Some practitioners in his courts thought he was too much inclined to allow equitable views and considerations to enter into his decision of every question and every cause. A sound point, clearly stated by the weakest member of the bar, had the same effect upon his judgment as it would have had if urged in argument by the strongest lawyer in his court. He was not often misled by a fallacious proposition, however artfully and strongly put. His instructions to the jury were plain and simple. Whilst he had a discriminating mind--a mind for which clear, nice distinctions were nutriment--still, as a magistrate, he seemed to think that too much refining destroys pure reason and interrupts the course of justice. Very few of his rulings or judgments were reversed. Nearly all of them that were carried to the Supreme Court were unanimously affirmed. Judge Dickey was a good judge. He seemed to have been fitted up by his mental and moral training, and his habits of industry and patient investigation, peculiarly for that position. Not a quick, off-hand, rapid despatcher of the business before him, ready, as some, before they have half heard a case, to decide, and become impatient, but a patient, painstaking magistrate, willing to hear all and to weigh all the matters involved in the case, and only ready to decide upon the fullest investigation and a thorough understanding of the whole case. Such a man could but make a safe judge. He was an honest man, and desired to administer the law so that right and justice should be done "though the heavens fell." Slow in coming to conclusions, it is true, sometimes, but when he did conclude he was firm, fixed and steadfast; not opinionated, however, but always ready to yield an opinion when convinced of his error, and always open to conviction by force of reason and truth. If we have, or have had any men among us who have or had the qualifications that Jethro recommended to Moses to select for judges in Israel, he was one of them. He was an "able man, such as feared God, a man of truth, hating covetousness." On the bench, at the bar, and in every other position, he was of sterling integrity. "The best court of equity is a good conscience." But above all, he was a true man. He was kind, genial, tolerant and intelligent. He could interest, edify, and divert any person, whether learned or illiterate, refined or rude, young or old. His conversation and discourse were characterized by solid sense and useful information, and oftentimes sparkled with seasonable wit and humor. If any man who came into his company had any genuine wit or humor in his nature, it would be brought out--it would catch of the judge's, as fire of fire. He was a sensitive man; his emotional nature was of fine fibre. Hence he was easily affected by sharp or unkind words, or malicious criticism. But he was not revengeful; his resentments were fleeting. He doubtless thought the most speedy and effectual, as well as the noblest, remedy for injuries is oblivion. He cherished his friends; "grappled them to his soul with hooks of steel." And he seemed to regard them as a shield to his sensitive nature against harsh criticism and unjust censure. He was more charitable in his judgment of his fellow-men than they were in their judgments of him. In speaking of others he acted on the principle that detraction is a sin against justice. He did not try to discover and hold up for ridicule and execration the foibles of any man, whether friend or foe. He was above the meanness of envy. He never sneered at that which he could not rival. He praised meritorious deeds, by whomsoever done. He was pleased when a young man came to the bar who gave promise of maintaining its proper standard of learning, honor and ability. No man ever trusted him and was deceived or betrayed. He had a spark of divinity within him that made him every inch a man. He loved virtue and hated vice. His heart was always touched by the misfortunes of his friends or fellow-men, and his hand always outstretched and his pocket open to alleviate distress, come from what quarter it might. He was frank and firm in what he believed to be right, and would not "have flattered Neptune for his trident, or Jove for his power to thunder." He was a modest and unassuming man, cool and reflecting. His physical powers seemed hardly robust enough without excitement to a full development of his intellectual. His analytical and logical powers were of a superior type, and when duly exercised on any subject, his conclusions were seldom incorrect. He loved his family; he was bound to them by strong cords of affection, and perhaps in no sphere of life were the beauties of his true character and real inner life displayed to better or even as good advantage as in his family life--his home circle. His home was home indeed; there love and affection reigned, and virtue and intelligence displayed themselves in their true loveliness and beauty. His was a character requiring no concealments--no charitable coverings, which the grave is too frequently called on to conceal. "De mortuis, nil nisi bonum" is not to be applied to him.

From: The Biographical Encyclopedia of Ohio of the Nineteenth Century. Columbus, OH, USA: Galaxy Publishing Co., 1876.

History of Giles County Tennessee

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