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SKETCH OF ANGUS WILLIAM
MCDONALD, JR., ELDEST
SON OF COLONEL ANGUS W. MCDON'ALD, BY HIMSELF.
School Days.
I was born on the 16th of May, 1829, in
Romney, Hampshire County, then a portion of Virginia, now West Virginia.
The place of my birth was in the house now owned by the Gilkeson family.
In this house also were born my sister, Ann S., and my brother, Edward
H. It is immediately opposite the old Armstrong Hotel.
This was a noted hostelry in its day.
Before the completion of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad to the Ohio
River the North Western Turnpike, built by the State of Virginia, passed
through Romney. This with the National Turnpike, passing mainly through
Maryland and Pennsylvania, carried then much of the travel and freight
from the East to the Ohio River. Passengers were carried in Troy four
horse coaches. Col. Crozet, a professor at West Point during my father's
cadetship there, was its Chief Engineer. My father was very fond of him,
and I have often seen him as a visitor at our house while he was
building this road. The stages, as we then called them, changed horses
and were furnished with meals and liquid refreshment, if desired, at
this hotel. Many members of Congress and other distinguished men from
the South and West were its
guests from time to time. Amongst these I
can recall Henry Clay and the crowd of admirers who called on him when
he was candidate for President in 1844.
It was here that I met for the only time
in my life the brilliant Tom Marshall of Kentucky. I was a youngster at
the time, and was introduced to him by my father and placed under his
care while going to Winchester. I sat beside him and was greatly
attracted to him. He entertained the passengers continuously with his
stories which were full of fun and interest.
At a very early age, before I was big
enough to sit upon the wooden benches in front of the desks and touch
the floor with the tips of my toes, I was posted off to the Academy,
then taught by Dr. Foot. I carried with me a little stool, the seat of
which was covered with a piece of carpet. Upon this I sat with no desk
in front of me. Two other boys about my age were similarly accommodated
with seats, which were located in different parts of the schoolroom, the
idea doubtless being that good behavior for the three would be much
promoted by getting each one as far as possible from the others thus
preventing combustion by scattering the brands.
I don't mean to intimate that this was
the only means the Doctor had to enforce good behavior. He also had
conveniently at hand a heavy ruler about two feet long which he
frequently used. The Doctor, besides being the Principal of the Academy,
was the Pastor in charge of the Presbyterian Church at Romney. He left
Romney when I was about ten years of age but returned again about 1845.
In the meantime he had been engaged in writing his "Sketches of North
Carolina" and "Sketches of Virginia." Both of these books have great
value for their historical accuracy and are often quoted by later
historians. President Roosevelt in his "Winning of the West" repeatedly
quotes them.
During the interval between his leaving
Romney and his return the Academy had two principals, men of very
opposite characteristics. The first, the Rev. Theodore Gallaudet, was
not over five feet, four or five inches in height and very subdued
looking, "as meek as Moses." He would submit to almost any kind of
disorder in the school rather than thrash a boy. He did not even keep a
ruler or switch at hand. The result was that the school was a perfect
pandemonium. We sometimes organized regular bands. The instruments upon
which we performed were combs wrapped with tissue paper through which we
used to sing. My sisters, Mary and Ann, and three brothers besides
myself, Ned, Will and Marsh, all attended this school.
The Academy was then divided by a board
partition. In the room adjoining was another school with Mr. Ben E.
Pigman as principal. Pigman was the opposite of "Old Gallaudet," as the
boys called him. He kept always something between a switch and a club
which he freely used.
Upon one occasion the smaller boys of the
Gallaudet school, composed of Ned and Will McDonald, Bob White and some
others about the same age, led by "Old Dad Kern," a boy about my age,
had gotten out of the open windows and as "Old Gallaudet" sat upon the
platform hearing recitations commenced an attack upon him by throwing
clods, pieces of sod and other things neither clean nor hurtful at him.
At first there was no intention of hitting him but the sport got to be
very exciting a he left his platform and dodged about the room to avoid
the missiles, and though the old gentleman was not hurt, he was struck
often. This attack continued until the boys got tired, when the outraged
old gentleman hunted around the schoolroom until he got hold of a good
sized stick and then quietly resumed the hearing of his classes.
The first one of the party to appear,
climbing in the open window, was "Old Dad" (John Kern) . At sight of him
the old man grabbed his cane and went for him. The first lick was just
over the eye brow, laying the skin open, and then such a trouncing as
Dad received had never before been seen in that school. After this
reckoning with Dad he quietly resumed his work and watched for the next
victim. One by one the other participants in the sport stole quietly
into the schoolroom and were permitted to take their seats. When all had
been seated the fun again commenced. The old gentleman grasped his stick
and went for each one. As each boy in turn was attacked he would dodge
under his desk, which prevented the free use of the stick, as he would
scramble from one end of the desk to the other. In this way the members
of the whole party took their medicine. While the school was never
famous for its orderly conduct there never was any more clod throwing at
the teacher. "Old Dad," who was somewhat of a rhymer, composed this
couplet upon the occasion:
"Gentlemen and ladies,
I'll tell you plump and plain,
If you fool yourself with Theodore he'll hit you with his cane.''
He would repeat it often during the
school hours, to the amusement of the scholars as well as Theodore
himself.
The usual punishment in the school, for
an offence not capital, was the announcement to the offending party that
he would not hear him a lesion for one, two or even three weeks,
according to the grade of the offence. The result of this kind of
punishment was that at the end of the last session there were some in
the school who had not recited a lesson for weeks.
Poor old gentleman! Often have I recalled
him in years since and sorrowed over the more than savage treatment he
received. He was a scholar and an author; no one ever possessed a
greater or kinder heart; but he was as much out of place in that school
as an angel.
My memory, in spite of me, goes back to
those bygone school days. I cannot help recalling here another incident.
Our boys would frequently, in warm weather, stand before the open
windows of the Pigman school and watch the proceedings going on inside.
John J. Jacob, an eminent lawyer in his day and at one time Governor of
West Virginia, was a pupil in that school. Jacob had committed some
offence, it could not have been a great one for he was a model boy as
well as man in every respect. The penalty inflicted was to make him walk
the floor of the schoolroom with a paper fool's cap on his head and a
long, paper cigar in his mouth, while a part of the Gallaudet school
enjoyed the performance through the windows.
The same party of boys who had engaged in
throwing clods, etc., at "Old Gallaudet," undertook, shortly after the
affair with him, to play the same game with Pigman. But Pigman was made
of sterner stuff. The game had hardly begun before Pigman seized his
stick and vaulted through the window. Pigman was a young man not over
twenty-five years of age and close on to six feet high, broad-shouldered
and fully able to take care of himself. The assailants first showed
fight. Ned McDonald was in the advance. Pigman seized him by the collar
and commenced to belabor him with his stick. Ned was a child in his
hands. Others of the assailants came to the rescue, but Pigman kept his
hold and thrashed away. The cries of the boys brought to the rescue
three or four of the larger boys in our school, who were soon out of the
windows and rushing at Pigman. Against this new force the enemy gave
away and ran to the cover of his schoolroom amidst a shover of missiles
from the victorious and pursuing boys.
Gallaudet was succeeded as principal of
the school by one Johnson, an Englishman. There was nothing of the
Gallaudet type about him. He had great contempt for moral suasion as a
means of preserving order amongst boys. He was much after the order of
Pigman, only more so. Fully six feet tall, about fifty years of age,
with iron grey hair, short cut and standing straight up from the scalp,
he was an impersonation of the English bull clog. He, too, relied upon a
stout stick in his maintenance of order. He had two sons, Dick and Bill,
both hard and game fighters. Dick Johnson and Ned McDonald were
frequently engaged in fights. These fights, before they were ended,
generally involved in addition a fight between W'ill Johnson and Will
McDonald. While never fought to a finish the bloody noses and torn
clothing which resulted showed that they were no child's play. Johnson
was inclined to put the blame on Ned McDonald for these fights. One day,
after an unusually severe fight had taken place between these boys,
Johnson seized Ned and commenced to thrash him. Will and I interfered;
Johnson seized me, as the most dangerous of his foes by reason of
superior size, got me down on the floor and gave me the last thrashing
that I ever got in school. Then Will and Ned were taken in turn and
received like punishment. My father happened to be standing in a yard
adjoining and witnessed the whole scene. But he never said a word about
it and we did not even know he was there. Speaking of it afterwards,
when we were disposed to complain of his indifference, he said he knew
nothing about who was to blame but was inclined to believe that we were
and that Johnson was right. There was no appeal from his judgment as far
as I remember. This was the last fight between the McDonald and the
Johnson boys.
Dr. Foote returned, as well as I
remember, to Romney about the year 1844. He had been engaged by the
Literary Society of Romney to become the principal of the "Romney
Classical Institute." This society in its day took a very active part in
the education of the youth and in the development of a taste for letters
in the town. In the early history of the society the State had granted
it a charter to sell lottery tickets. Principally through the agency of
my father this charter had been sold in New York for some twenty-five or
thirty thousand dollars. The members of the society embraced principally
the members of the bar of the town, at that time numbering some fifteen
or eighteen, the physicians, the clergy and others of literary tastes.
For years the annual contribution of each member for the purchase of
books had been ten dollars. From the sum raised by the sale of the
lottery tickets some thousands of dollars had been set apart, the income
of which, together with the annual contribution from the members, was
expended in the purchase of books, embracing history, belles lettres,
science and art. At the breaking out of the war between the States this
library had become, perhaps, the finest and most complete of any in the
State west of the Blue Ridge.
The school buildings, upon the return of
Dr. Foote, had not yet been completed and the school which was to be
installed in it was temporarily taught in the old Court House. All of
the nine children of my father, except the eldest, my sister Mary, who
was then at school in Winchester, and the youngest, were pupils in this
school. Dr. Foote was a man who sanctioned fully the biblical precept
that to spare the rod was to spoil the child, as many of the boys could
testify.
In the year 1847 I became an assistant in
the school and just before starting for the University of Virginia in
October, 1848, felt very proud when the good old Doctor counted out to
me two hundred dollars in payment for my services as assistant. It was
the first money, of any considerable amount, that I had ever earned, and
was devoted by me, as far as it would go, in payment of my expenses at
the University. I took what was called by the students "the green
ticket," that is ancient and modern languages and mathematics. I offered
for graduation upon Latin only, and much to my disappointment and
surprise was "pitched." I was a fair Latin scholar before I went to the
University, having read Caesar, Cicero, Virgil, Sallust, Horace, Ovid
and Livy, and I could translate them all without much trouble. Dr.
Gessner Harrison was professor of Latin at the time. The Doctor used a
grammar written by himself. His hobby was the uses of the ablative,
roots of words and other things strange to me of which Adams (the
grammar I had used) had known very little, or if he did know had never
said much about it. One thing I recall; in Adams one of the rules was:
"When the place `where' or `at which' is spoken of, the name of a town
is put in the genitive. As vixit Romae, he lived at Rome." The Doctor's
grammar taught that this was error and that Romae was the ancient form
of the ablative. The rock upon which I split was ignoring Harrison's
grammar and sticking too closely to old Adams. The next year, 1849-50, I
dropped ancient languages from my ticket and substituted Dr. McGufl'ey's
course, mental and moral philosphy and political economy. I received
diplomas that year on French and Spanish and Dr. McGuffey's ticket.
During my absence at the University my
sister Mary had married Thomas C. Green, who was then practicing law in
Romney and was a partner of my father. They afterwards moved to Charles
Town, where Mr. Green continued to practice law up to the time of his
appointment by Gov. John J. Jacob to fill a vacancy upon the bench of
the Court of Appeals. He was twice chosen to this office by the people
and held it until his death. He was the son of Judge John Green, who for
many years had been a distinguished Judge of the Court of Appeals of
Virginia, and a brother of William Green, recognized as the most learned
lawyer in the State, and upon his merits alone appointed by the Military
Authority commanding in Virginia, Judge of the Circuit Court of
Richmond. This notwithstanding the fact that he was a strong Southern
man and had given to the Cause his only son who was killed on the
battlefield. Judge T. C. Green had another brother, James W. Green, who
was a Major in the Confederate Army, and who had married my sister Ann
S. Both James W. and John Cooke Green were noted lawyers. Thus connected
with a family of distinguished lawyers it was to be expected that Judge
Green should become prominent in his chosen profession. It has been said
of him while on the Bench that he scarcely knew the names of the parties
to the suits which he decided. To him they all were A, B and C. His
decisions were logical conclusions arrived at by almost mathematical
processes. It has been generally conceded by the Bar of this State that
he was the greatest Judge that ever sat upon the Supreme Bench of West
'Virginia. A private in the Confederate Army, no braver or more faithful
man ever carried a musket. A man without guile; simple hearted as a
child; absolutely indifferent to friend or foe in the performance of a
duty; fearing his God but no man: true to every relation of life, he
(lied loved best by those who knew him best.
On my return from the University in 1850,
John Jacob and myself, he having graduated from Carlisle College, Pa.,
became law' students in Judge Green's office at Romney, and without
further preparation were both licensed to practice law in the year 1852.
Jacob), having been elected about this time President of the University
of Missouri, was not engaged in the practice Lentil after the war. He
then returned to Romney and formed a law partnership with Col. Robert
White, afterwards Attorney General for the State. I opened an office in
Romney and was as successful as most young lawyers generally are. I
recollect well the first fee I received. It was a twenty dollar gold
piece. The service rendered was the obtaining of an absolute divorce. It
was my first case and the fee looked to me as bib as a cart wheel. I
wondered how anybody could have the conscience to take so much money for
so little service. In the course of time these qualms were gotten rid
of.
in the spring of 1852, I was nominated by
the Democratic Convention as a candidate for Commonwealth's Attorney. My
opponent was a well equipped lawyer, Alfred P. White, who had held the
office for a number of years previous. I was beaten by from one to two
hundred majority. The result surprised no one. I had been warned
repeatedly by my friends that I would be beaten if I (lid not ride
around more and electioneer. The idea of asking a man for his vote was
repulsive. My view was that the office mist seek the man, and not the
man the office. This view, however, became somewhat modified in later
years I recall an incident in that campaign. I was mounted on Old Bob,
my father's favorite riding horse, and was some sixteen miles from home.
I had passed several voters, strangers to me, and had not had the
courage to ask them for their votes. I was ashamed of the whole
business, especially of my want of courage in failing to ask for votes.
Shortly afterwards I saw in the distance a man approaching me. I
resolved at once to ask him for his, vote. As soon as we met I told him
my name and that I had the honor of being the nominee of the Democratic
Party for Commonwealth's Attorney. My father had been formerly a State's
Right Democrat. He was opposed to the proclamation of General Jackson
issued upon the Act of Nullification by South Carolina, and after that,
with many State's Rights Democrats in the State, had voted with the Whig
Party and was still classed as a Whig. This voter R,:new how my father
was classed, and evidently had some difficulty in reconciling the facts
that the lather was a Whig and the son of a Democrat. He asked me to
repeat my name, and then replied: "Yes, I know your father is a Whig,
and I reckon you have changed over to get this office. That's enough for
me, I votes for Alf 'rite." Indignant and disgusted with that reply, I
dropped my heel into Old Bob's flank and never stopped until I had
covered the fifteen miles between me and home. Four years afterwards I
was again the nominee of the party, with the result that the election
was reversed. I was elected over White by about two hundred and fifty
majority. |
