Arthur St. Clair Colyar

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Arthur St. Clair Colyar (born June 23, 1818 in Jonesborough , Tennessee , † December 13, 1907 in Nashville , Tennessee) was an American lawyer , newspaper editor, businessman and politician .

Career

Arthur St. Clair Colyar, one of 13 children of Catherine Sevier Sherrill (* 1795) and Alexander Colyar (1790-1856), was born in Washington County about three years after the end of the British-American War . He attends the community schools there. In 1828 the family moved to Franklin County and settled near Pond Springs (now Hillsboro in Coffee County ). About two years later the family moved to the Old Stone Fort near Mitchellville (now Manchester in Coffee County). In 1837, Alexander Colyar acquired 187 acres of land on the waters of Robinson Creek near Old Salem in southwest Franklin County. The following years were overshadowed by the economic crisis of 1837 . Arthur started out as a teacher. He later studied law in Winchester with Colonel Micah Taul (1785-1850). He was admitted to the bar in 1846. In the same year the Mexican-American War broke out, which overshadowed the following years. Colyar began to practice in the firm of William Pitt Hickerson senior (1816-1882) in Manchester. He later opened his own law firm in Winchester.

Colyar supported the Whigs in a traditionally democratic stronghold. Although he owned about 30 slaves by 1860 , he was a member of the Constitutional Union Party at that time . Colyar was an opponent of secession until Tennessee was annexed to the Confederate States in 1861. During his subsequent candidacy for a seat in the First Confederate Congress, he fell ill with pneumonia in October 1861 . He recovered from it by 1863. During this time he practiced as a lawyer in Winchester. According to an anecdote, during this time, at the risk of his own life, he was defending an unjustly imprisoned Unionist from the Confederates. He left Winchester shortly after the Confederate General Assembly met there and parted without result, which took place after the Tullahoma campaign in June 1863 by General William Starke Rosecrans (1819-1898). In November 1863 Colyar was elected to the Second Confederate Congress. He took his seat there in May 1864 and held it until March 18, 1865. Although he supported direct taxation, agricultural tax in kind and taxes on corporate profits, he was against economic controls, an attitude which he rejected after the end of the civil war . Colyar was against the suspension of the habeas corpus . He advocated the opening of peace talks and refused to support the motion to remove Senator Henry S. Foote (1804-1880) for peace negotiations in the spring of 1865 from his office.

After the end of the Civil War, he was pardoned in September 1865 by US President Andrew Johnson (1808-1875). Colyar moved to Davidson County and settled there in Nashville. He resumed his practice as a lawyer. In addition, he was still politically active. In the following years he ran three unsuccessfully for governor of Tennessee. In 1870 he suffered a defeat in the governor nomination for the Conservatives and Democrats. He then joined the Reunion and Reform Association in 1871 , which he then left again in 1872 to run as an independent candidate. However, he later withdrew his candidacy in favor of John C. Brown (1827-1889). Colyar was one of the founders of the Greenback Party in 1876 . He participated as a delegate to their National Assembly and then suffered a defeat in his candidacy for the General Assembly . As an Independent, he was elected to the first and additional sessions of the legislature of 1877 for Davidson County. He then suffered defeat on his Democratic governor nomination in 1878.

His political activities have always been linked to his diverse business interests in industry, mining and business. Colyar had been in the coal mining and iron smelting industries since 1858. At that time he acquired the Old Sewanee Mining Company in Sewanee , which became the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company after the war and later Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railway Company, one of the largest companies in the region. In 1881 he sold a stake, but his stake in the company remained substantial. He then teamed up with Joseph Buckner Killebrew (1831-1906) and others in 1882 to form the Rockdale Company and the Rock City Real Estate Company with the purpose of acquiring and developing the mineral rights in Maury County . Colyar also held interests in the Rising Fawn Furnace, the Chattanooga Furnace, and the Soddy Coal Mines. In 1881 he acquired the majority stake in The Nashville American, a newspaper which he edited and published until 1884.

As a New South devotee, Colyar drove industrial development by promoting the northern capital, agricultural diversification, and immigration of foreigners. As Vice President of the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railway Company , he was an avid supporter of the state's convict leasing program , which delivered convicts to replace the free miners. In 1885 the Nashville Banner disclosed Colyar's involvement in the Convict Lease System. The result was a legislative investigation and a defamation lawsuit. Colyar successfully foiled early penal reform and evaded censorship.

His interests varied. Colyar was a patron of what would later become Mary Sharp College at Winchester and helped the Episcopal bishops establish the University of the South at Sewanee. He was also a member of the Tennessee Historical Society. Colyar died in Nashville in 1907 and was buried there in Mt. Olivet Cemetery .

Works

  • 1891: The Civil and Political History of the State of Tennessee from Its Earliest Settlement Up to the Year 1796: Including the Boundaries of the State
  • 1904: Life and Times of Andrew Jackson; Soldier - Statesman - President

family

On December 9, 1847, he married Agnes Erskine Estill (1826–1885), daughter of Eleanor Crabb and Dr. Wallace Estill from Winchester. The couple had eleven children together. Two years after the death of his first wife, he married Mary McGuire of Louisville ( Kentucky ).

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Arthur St. Clair Colyar on the lib.unc.edu website
  2. ↑ Micah Taul in the Find a Grave database . Accessed January 30, 2015.
  3. ↑ Micah Taul in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
  4. ↑ William Pitt Hickerson Sr. on the website of tn.gov ( Memento of the original from July 16, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.tn.gov
  5. ↑ William Pitt Hickerson, Sr. on the familytreemaker.genealogy.com website
  6. ^ Proposed Reunion and Reform Association at Nashville , The Chicago Tribune, October 7, 1871
  7. ^ Doyle, Don Harrison: New Men, New Cities, New South: Atlanta, Nashville, Charleston, Mobile, 1860-1910 , UNC Press Books, 1990, ISBN 9780807842706 , p. 324
  8. ↑ Joseph Buckner Killebrew on the lib.unc.edu website
  9. ^ Belt, Gordon T .: John Sevier: Tennessee's First Hero , The History Press, 2014, ISBN 9781626191303 , p. 154
  10. ↑ John Haywood and Arthur St. Clair Colyar: The Civil and Political History of the State of Tennessee from Its Earliest Settlement Up to the Year 1796: Including the Boundaries of the State , WH Haywood, 1891
  11. ↑ Colyar, Arthur St. Clair: Life and Times of Andrew Jackson; Soldier - Statesman - President , BiblioBazaar, 2009, ISBN 9781115301282
  12. ↑ Agnes Erskine Estill Colyar on the curtisit.com website
  13. ↑ Norwalk, Jay: John Templeton of Iredell Co., NC: and related families of Handly, Marks, Folk, Pilcher, Colyar, Bate and Beall , Templeton Foundation Press, 1997, ISBN 9781890151034 , p. 495
  14. ↑ Arthur St. Clair Colyar on the curtisamerica.com website

Web links
personal data
SURNAME Colyar, Arthur St. Clair
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American lawyer, newspaper editor, businessman, and politician
DATE OF BIRTH June 23, 1818
PLACE OF BIRTH Jonesborough , Tennessee
DATE OF DEATH December 13, 1907
Place of death Nashville , Tennessee