Biography of Thomas Lacy, Arkansas

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Submitted by: Joy Fisher < >
        Date: 16 Dec 2007
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BIOGRAPHICAL AND PICTORIAL HISTORY OF ARKANSAS.
BY JOHN HALLUM.
VOL. I.
ALBANY: WEED, PARSON'S AND COMPANY, PRINTERS.
1887.

Entered according to act of Congress in the year eighteen hundred and eighty-seven,
BY JOHN HALLUM, 
In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.

NOTE.

  [Before receiving the last twelve sketches by General Albert Pike, the author had
prepared short biographies of some of the same men, to-wit, John Taylor, Thomas J. Lacy,
Edward Cross, David Walker, William Cummins, Archibald Yell and Terrence Farrelly, hence
these characters appear in duplicate; not, however, with the unwarranted assumption that
they will lend any thing to what the greatest of American scholars has written, any
further than to fill in the details omitted by that great man.]


THE CUMMINS BROTHERS - WILLIAM AND EBENEZER, LITTLE ROCK.

  These two brothers once adorned and honored the bar of Little Rock. William, the elder,
came on the stage in territorial times, and was an important actor in shaping our laws
and jurisprudence. Ebenezer, the younger, was an active worker with those not now old,
and died in the prime of manhood, a short time before the late civil war commenced. They
were born on their father's farm in Jefferson county, Kentucky -William on the 11th day
of June, 1800; Ebenezer on the 1st of February, 1818. Their paternal grandfather, William
Cummins, immigrated from Pennsylvania, and settled in Kentucky in the times of Daniel
Boone. The old pioneer and his son John, the father of William and Ebenezer, built a fort
near the present site of Louisville to protect them and their families against Indian
warfare. This was of prime consideration to the early settlers in the "dark and bloody
ground," whose history is written in the best blood of the most heroic type of our race.
The elder Cummins became a large landowner and settled a numerous family of sons and
daughters around him on the rich lands of Jefferson county.

  John, the father of our subjects, had twelve children, of whom William was the oldest.
He gave his children the best educational advantages the country and times permitted.
William at the age of sixteen had mastered a good English education, and at the age of
twenty had accomplished a classical education. He left school and entered the law office
of his uncle, William Cummins, who was a profound scholar and able lawyer then living in
southern Kentucky. The careful training under his kinsman left its impress through life,
and bore the ripest fruit.

  In 1824, young Cummins located in Little Rock, and commenced a brilliant professional
career - soon advancing to the front rank at a bar renowned for able men, many of whom
attained national fame. In October, 1833, the ripest scholar America has yet given to the
world located in Little Rock as one of the editorial staff of the Advocate, a whig paper
founded by Robert Crittenden.

  This young man read law at leisure intervals whilst engaged in editorial labor, and in
October, 1834, was licensed to practice law by Judge Thomas J. Lacy. In the spring of
1835, William Cummins, recognizing the great possibilities in the reach of the young man,
offered Albert Pike a law partnership, which was accepted. This partnership lasted many
years; they were congenial spirits; their minds were of the same chaste, classic mould;
their ambition joked upward to the same goal, though the means to reach it varied; their
political affiliations and convictions were founded on the model of the great whig idol,
Henry Clay.

  Cummins sought political preferment, and would have attained the highest honors in the
gift of the people, if his fortunes had not been linked to the whig party, which never
attained the ascendency in Arkansas.

  Pike's ambition led him to avoid the conflict of political parties, and to quietly
ascend on the wings of literature, jurisprudence and philosophy to a loftier throne than
that presided over by the fickle godness of popular fortune in a republic.

  The old Knickerbocker president's administration was very unpopular with a large
majority of the American people. This caused the great tidal wave of 1840 which swept
democracy from power and gave Van Buren an opportunity to luxuriate at Kinderhook for
life.

  In the contest of 1840 the whig party everywhere put its best material in the field.
That year William Cummins, Dr. Lorenzo Gibson and Charles P. Bertrand (all whigs) were
elected to the legislature from Pulaski county. This was the only political office ever
held by Mr. Cummins.

  But it should not be forgotten that he was a member of the constitutional convention of
1836 which formulated our State government, and that his great abilities as a lawyer gave
him conspicuous prominence in that body and enabled him to render the State valuable and
lasting service.

  He who employs a great intellect, and toils well in laying the foundation of a great
State deserves the gratitude of her children to the remotest ages.

  May Arkansas, midst all the revolutions of government - the mutation and spoliation of
time never forget to honor and remember her worthy sons, who made her history and
achieved her fame. He was often appealed to by the whig party to lead its forlorn hope in
deathly struggles with the democratic party, encountering defeat in contests with Yell
and Judge Cross for congress. He stood alone in his family in politics; his father and
brothers and other kindred were democrats. He adhered to the fortunes of the old whig
party with unswerving tenacity, and preferred its flag as a winding sheet to his
ambition, rather than court success by joining the dominant party in Arkansas. In this
conscientious devotion to principle he has left a nobler signet to fame than all the
laurels of office could lend. In 1832 he married Francine Notrebe, the beautiful and
accomplished daughter of Colonel Frederick Notrebe, then a wealthy planter in Arkansas
county, who immigrated from France about 1810, and settled at the Arkansas Post. Notrebe
is a historic character, and is entitled to honorable mention in any work which relates
to the early history of Arkansas. He was a polished, high-spirited gentleman, and had
been an officer in the French army under Bonaparte during the consulate. He had
participated in the revolution which dethroned and exiled the effeminate Bourbon dynasty
from France, he drew his sword, as he thought, in the interest of liberal institutions,
certainly not to strengthen monarchy or despotism.

  When the first consul in 1804 threw off the mask and put on the crown, he sheathed his
sword and came to free Arkansas, to enjoy what the inevitable had denied him in Europe.

  Men like Notrebe, who give up home, fortune, place and power, rather than principle,
belong to the highest type of man, are entitled to the highest consideration, and make
the strongest pillars of State. He was buried in the cemetery at Arkansas Post, and his
remains have been invaded and washed away by the river in its onward flow to the sea.

  William Cummins left one daughter, now living in St. Louis, widow of the late Captain
Edward Morton. He died in March, 1843, in Little Rock in the forty-third year of his age,
and was buried in Mt. Holly cemetery. The first four volumes of Arkansas Reports contain
all his law arguments that have been preserved. He was possessed of a high order of
physical and moral courage, was never officious and never avoided just responsibility. He
was a devoted friend, a defiant enemy.

  Ebenezer, the younger brother, enjoyed the same educational facilities his elder
brother, William, enjoyed, and he also acquired a classical education at Middleton,
Kentucky. He was a good-natured boy and one of the most amiable of men, and though an
ardent, zealous advocate, never wounded the feelings of any one, certainly never
intentionally. After the completion of his studies in 1838 he came to Arkansas and read
law with Pike & Cummins, and for a short time before his brother's death was his law
partner. After his brother's death in 1S43 he practiced law alone until after Captain
Pike returned from the Mexican war. In 1848-9 he formed a partnership with his old legal
tutor, and this relation continued until Captain Pike, afterward General, removed to New
Orleans, late in 1854.

  In 1856 there lived in Washington, Hempstead county, an obscure young lawyer who was
scarcely known beyond the limits of his county, but he was possessed of a strong native
intellect, untiring application and splendid possibilities. The young man naturally
desired an outlet, an opening upward for the flight of his genius, that it might soar
away from the unkind clouds that hid A. H. Garland from the world.

  Ebenezer Cummins was kind hearted and held that splendid opportunity in his power. He
commanded a much larger business than a man of his precarious health could attend to. Mr.
Garland saw the opportunity and utilized it.

  In 1856 the partnership of Cummins & Garland was formed, and Mr. Garland made one round
of the extensive circuit before the death of Mr. Cummins in March, 1857. This partnership
was a great stepping-stone to the junior member and left him heir to an extensive and
lucrative practice. After the death of the elder partner many wealthy clients in Chicot
urged on the surviving junior the propriety of engaging older counsel. To obviate the
necessity of dividing large fees and playing second fiddle, the junior resorted to
strategy and diplomacy by calling up a demurrer in one of the most important cases in
Chicot circuit, which to the astonishment of clientage, court and auditory, he argued at
great length, displaying wonderful knowledge of the law, and the minutest detail of fact
and history of the case. This had the desired effect and ended all importunity for
associate counsel. This inheritance of a large and wealthy clientage, with the ability to
sustain the demands it imposed, opened up to Mr. Garland a brilliant career and national
fame.

  Mr. Cummins had a national reputation as a lawyer, and many of the cases in which he
was employed as senior found their way to the supreme court of the United States, and
carried Mr. Garland to that tribunal with them, giving him a larger docket at one time in
that tribunal than perhaps any man of his age. These cases opened up the way to ex parte
Garland, involving the test-oath question growing out of the reconstruction acts of
congress, reported in 4th Wallace, which first introduced Mr. Garland to national notice
as a great lawyer.

  Ebenezer Cummins never sought, desired or held office. His great abilities as a lawyer
always furnished ample and congenial employment for his great talents. He was a profound
lawyer, a logical and cogent reasoner; he cared nothing for eloquence, ornate language or
felicity of expression, except in so far as it flashed light on the conclusions to which
he was leading and driving. "He drove right to the point and cut the heart clear and
clean." It required a strong man to meet and match him in debate. He was very popular
with the masses - always voted the democratic ticket, but resisted every importunity to
run for office. Had his ambition led to the political field, he could have attained the
highest offices in the gift of the people. He never married and seemed indifferent to
female charms, and was equally indifferent to fashion and the obligations it laid on
dress. The quiet, even tenor of his life, the plain simplicity of his ways, and the
good-will he always showed to his fellow man, made him universally beloved of men.

  Like General Pike, he loved the old rather than the new friends, but was courteous and
gentle to all. He died in Little Rock at the home of his sister, Mrs. Eliza Adams, who
yet survives him.