First Political Position Subsequent Change-Letter from Mr. Polk- MEMOIR OF HUGH LAWSON WHITE. CHAPTER I. ANCESTRY. ONE mile above Knoxville, on the banks of the Holston River, there stood, until within the last two years, a house worthy of remembrance as the home of two eminent Tennesseans; Hugh Lawson White, the subject of this memoir, and his father, General James White. The daguerreotype of the old building is before me. All over the great West there are thousands like it—the shelters, palaces, and castles of the hardy pioneer; his first forest home, the scene and centre of freedom, energy, courage, privation, truly and peculiarly American; the altar of his first triumphs over the subdued wilderness; often the humble birth-place of talent and genius, and of ambition high, noble, swift, and strong, such as rarely or never before sprung into existence. A front view of the old edifice displays two square sections, "pens," or separate apartments, of unequal size, each a story and-a-half high, built of logs coarsely hewn, the interstices of which are stuffed with clay, and with an outer covering of boards. Between these two rooms stands a heavy stone chimney, furnishing a fire-place in each. A rude piazza extends across the whole front, its roof some distance below the eaves of the house, and supported by six slender sawed posts. The whole stands upon wooden blocks or underpinning; one small window is visible, while a simple step-ladder in one corner of the piazza is the stairway to the half story above. In this house lived the father of Hugh Lawson White, and here he brought up his family, during that trying period when East Tennessee was a wilderness of wild beasts and fiercer savages. General James White was, in many respects, a remarkable man. He was of Irish descent, and during his earlier years was an inhabitant and citizen of North Carolina, where he married, and where his son Hugh was born. He served his country faithfully in the Revolutionary war; afterwards removed with his family to Fort Chiswell, in Virginia, and, finally, in 1781, emigrated to Knox county, Tennessee, where he erected for himself the humble home just described, on the banks of the beautiful Holston. For himself-but also for a home and resting-place for every weary wanderer. From his hospitable door none were ever sent empty away; and the more needy the applicant, the more certain was he of enjoying a full measure of hospitality. Here his characteristic decision, energy, and philanthropy made him a leader among the few but determined spirits with whom his lot was cast. The privations and dangers to which all new settlers are exposed, seemed only to nerve him to greater exertions. The wild and boundless forests, their inhabitants, whether savage beasts of prey, or yet more savage red men, their enmities, their snares, their secret and open attacks, all failed to intimidate him. With his fellow-emigrants, he determined that the fertile valleys and rugged hills, the blue mountains and sparkling streams of East Tennessee should become the paradise of the white man. But enlarged and comprehensive as were his views and plans, and brilliant as were his anticipations, yet when in 1792, he founded the good town of Knoxville, he certainly could not have foreseen that within fifty years there would stand in the place of the gloomy forest, a large and populous city, with its many spires pointing to heaven, much less the triumphs of modern science. Little did he dream of the gallant steamers that were to plough the clear blue waters where then was seen only the Indian's bark canoe, or the rude raft of the trader. Little did he dream of the iron horse, rushing with wind-like speed along his fiery way, through the valleys and over the hills. Nor could he even anticipate that almost within the half century there would be erected, not a hundred yards from the site of his own humble cabin, a manufactory of the very window-glass which he considered not only a useless superfluity, but a harmful luxury. During his forty years' residence in Tennessee, Gen. White occupied almost every post of distinction in the gift of the people. He was a member of the convention chosen in 1785, for ratifying or altering the proposed Constitution of the State of Franklin; and preserved the independence and integrity of his character through the stormy scenes of its sessions. He was elected to the first Territorial Assembly at Knoxville, in 1794; and, while serving in that body, introduced a bill creating a literary institution; which measure was the origin of Greenville College. Statesmen, judges, lawyers, clergymen, men eminent in every variety of public station in Tennessee, date the beginning of their career in learning from the day when, often as rude, awkward, penniless boys, they first turned their hesitating steps toward the modest tower and white spire of that institution, which gleamed so long with the light of science and religion over that beautiful landscape. Its memory now alone remains, inseparably blended, however, with that of the good men who gave it a name and power in the land. General White was also a member of the convention which framed the Constitution of the State of Tennessee-a legislative body whose disinterestedness is without parallel in our national history. By act of Assembly, each member was entitled to two dollars and a half per diem for services, and as much for every thirty miles of travel in going and coming. The convention first reduced this compensation nearly fifty per cent., and then, to show their disregard for mere pecuniary reward, voted unanimously to receive nothing. He was also, at a subsequent period, a member and speaker of the State Senate. In 1812, although now' an old man, he again proffered his services to his country, in order to maintain the independence which in his youth he had assisted to establish. He was chosen Brigadier-General by the militia of Tennessee, and distinguished himself in the Creek War. General White was admirably fitted by physical and mental constitution, for the times and circumstances in which he was placed. Strong, hardy and active in person, intrepid, cool and hopeful, he was ever ready to encounter any hardship or to brave any peril. On the 26th of June, 1791, Zeigler's Station, near Bledsoe's Lick, the rude defence for several families, was attacked by a large party of Creek Indians and burnt. Zeigler himself, who was intoxicated, and could not make his escape, was consumed in the flames; his three little daughters, together with Mrs. Wilson, General White's half-sister, were |