did soldier upon the Confederate side in the civil war. Until two or three years before his death Judge Jackson was jointly interested with his brother in the blooded racing stock business. Dwelling upon West Mead, a fertile farm of some 1,500 acres- -a valley plain of lovely meadows, sparsely shaded blue-grass pastures, finely watered, encircled upon two sides by the bold ridge of the "rim" of the lacustrine "basin" of Middle Tennessee, covered with herds of fine stock, with a beautiful home, presided over by a quiet, cultivated, and refined wife-a woman, too, of strong sense, capable herself in affairs, of the old-fashioned Southern-womanly type, with a small circle of lovely children, with a delightful coterie of cultivated friends with whom to enjoy sometimes conversation, sometimes chess, and sometimes a fox chase, addressing himself with equal practical sense and capacity to the business of his court, the affairs of his farm and the disposition of its products and investment of its proceeds, his was an ideal life.

Hon. Thomas H. Malone, one of the leading members of the Nashville bar, a near neighbor of Judge Jackson's, relates that he would sometimes telephone him to go fox hunting, when he was troubled with some knotty lawsuit. When the fox was started, he followed the hounds with all the eagerness of a boy. When the dogs were thrown off scent, he would dismount, take a seat on a log, and begin to discuss the difficulties of the case he had in hand, which they would argue back and forth, until the hounds were heard again, when he would remount and follow the dogs with gleaming eye and face flushed with the excitement of the chase. He kept a pack of well-bred and well-trained red fox hounds, and keenly enjoyed the chase of the long-winded reynard or of some deer escaped from the magnificent and well stocked deer park at Belle Mead. His only other diversions, besides entertainment of his friends at his hospitable home, was an occasional dip into literature, rarely a novel, a game of chess, sometimes a game of whist or euchre. He also keenly enjoyed a well run race, and took especial pride in the achievements of

the Belle Mead stock. He had also capacity for moderate enjoyment around the festal board, where with frugal indulgence, as the bowl went round, he became a most delightful companion.

He was an elder in the First Presbyterian Church at Nashville, a man profoundly religious, not in any spasmodic or emoitonal way, but because of a firm and abiding belief in a Supreme Intelligence, and a wise, orderly, just, and law-governed universe. The logical build of his own mind compelled such belief. His purity was of that kind that is never questioned. · His character was that of a self-contained man, just, upright, and temperate, with passions and emotions all his life so well in hand that they no longer needed a touch of the rein; a man in whom the virtues were habitual. Unlike the most of such men he was exceedingly charitable to the halting, stumbling, and falling of those whose lives are a continual struggle against evil. To these he was always ready to award praise for genuine heroism, when they fell and arose and tried all there was in them to walk well again in upright ways. To them he was ready to give support and help. Such was the man, one of clear, precise, practical business character, great self-containment, deep, but not obtrusive religious faith, logical faculties both acute and strong, broad philosophy, wide grasp of facts and principles, close analytical and equally powerful synthetic ability, ripe scholarship, acquaintance with the best literature, a fine fancy, perfect purity of morals, and a human capacity for innocent enjoyment of recreative amusements in rare moments of unbending. In this direction or that, he may have been excelled by others; few men have been more fully or ripely rounded out from the center in all directions. Out of this full rounded manhood grew that success which has been called his "luck." His success was a result from a past life of fidelity to himself and what was in him, trustworthiness and fidelity to the trusts that came to him to fulfill. He occupied but for a brief time that highest of earthly posts, a place upon the supreme bench of the United States. His career was cut short just when it had opened up for him in all the fullness of earthly honors and opportunities for usefulness. He left his high station like the patriot soldier who leads a forlorn hope, and it might be fitly inscribed upon his tomb: He fell upon the field of conflict and of duty.

THE WASHINGTON COUNTY BAR-THE FIRST BAR WEST OF THE ALLEGHANIES.

S. C. WILLIAMS.

The tide of emigration first crept through the difficult passes of the Alleghanies in 1769, and the earliest permanent settlement west of those mountains was effected in that year, on the Watauga river. The settlers had become so numerous by the year 1772 that the necessity for some form of government became apparent; accordingly in May of that year there was formed a "written association"-voluntary articles for the government of the settlement. There were appointed five commissioners: John Carter, chairman, James Robertson, Charles Robertson, Zachariah Isbell, and John Sevier, a majority of whom was to decide all matters of controversy arising in the settlement. Thus was organized the first court west of the Alleghanies.

The first sessions of this court were held in a building, constructed of round poles, which stood within gun reach of the fort at Watauga. The site of justice of the settlement was near the mouth of Gap creek, on Watauga river, at a point almost midway between the present towns of Johnson City and Elizabethton. The proximity of this rude courthouse to the fort suggests the dangers from the hostile Cherokees to which these pioneers of our civilization were exposed, and in fact subjected.

However, as the community increased and expanded, and safety from savage depredations became a determinate quantity, the sessions of the court were no longer held within the shadow of the fort, but at the residences of various leading settlers-for

the most part at the house of Charles Robertson, who for many years was one of the most active of the members of the court. His residence was on Sinking creek, within a few miles of Johnson City. Here the court continued to be held until the location of the permanent site at Jonesborough, and the erection there in 1779 of a courthouse "built of round logs, fresh from the adjacent forest, covered in the fashion of the cabins of the pioneers, with clap-boards," and without windows or floor.

A few years later the authorities of Washington county proposed for themselves a more pretentious courthouse, which was erected at the same place in 1784, the court prescribing of record the plan, as follows: "Twenty-four feet square, diamond corner, and hewed down after the same is built up; nine feet high between the two floors, and body of the house four feet high above the upper floor; each floor to be neatly laid with plank; the roof to be of joint shingles hung on with pegs; a justices' bench, a lawyers' and clerk's bar; also a sheriff's box to set in."

Whether originally so intended or not, the Watauga association and its court served only a temporary purpose. In the earlier portion of 1776 the inhabitants living on the Watauga and Nolachucky rivers the "Washington district" as they styled it-petitioned to be annexed to and taken under the jurisdiction of North Carolina. This petition was not granted until 1777. In February, 1778, the county court of Washington county was organized as a court of common pleas and quarter sessions at the house of Charles Robertson, succeeding the Watauga association court or commissioners. In point of fact, the five commissioners became justices of the peace and members of the new court, under the jurisdiction of North Carolina.

The courts that sat in the rude structures at Jonesborough were the legitimate successors of the original court of the Watauga association. Jonesborough continued to be for many years the judicial center of the cis-Alleghany country.

When first laid off the limits of Washington county were coterminus with the boundaries of the state of Tennessee; and, at that date, the county court of common pleas was the only

court in all that territory. True, shortly afterwards, the counties of Sullivan and Greene were formed, and a like court established in each; but about the same time, in 1782, the legislature of North Carolina, in response to an emphatic demand of the western settlers, established at Jonesborough a "court of oyer and terminer and general goal delivery," with jurisdiction over all counties then established.

Two years later, 1784, this territory "west of the mountains" was erected into a "superior court of law and equity district," and called Washington district. The district continued intact until November, 1788, when it was divided, and Mero district established for the convenience of the settlers on the Cumberland. Jonesborough was from the first the site of the Washington district. Still later, Jonesborough was the site for the superior court of the territory south of the Ohio river; and there, in 1791, was established the first court exercising equitable jurisdiction in the West.

So that, in a true sense, the site of Washington county was, prior to 1796, the judicial capital of the country west of the Alleghanies. It is of the lawyers who attended at the courts of the Watauga association, and at Jonesborough during the period ending in 1796, that it is proposed here to treat.

No record of that unique lay court, the Watauga commission, is preserved, and it is impossible to state with precision when attorneys first came to its bar, and equally as difficult is it to determine who was the first lawyer to practice there. Yet it may be stated that at least two lawyers appeared regularly before the earliest western court prior to 1776, Luke Bowyer and Ephraim Dunlap.

Luke (sometimes written Lue and Lew) Bowyer was prosecutor for the Watauga association or "district attorney" in the earlier portion of 1776, and presumably, prior to that time. He continued in this office until 1778, when he was succeeded by Ephraim Dunlap. Bowyer seems to have been of a turbulent disposition-an untamed and unbridled son of the border. He appeared less and less frequently as a practitioner before the