Biographical and Pictorial History of Arkansas, Chapter VIII

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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.


BIOGRAPHICAL AND PICTORIAL
HISTORY OF ARKANSAS.

HISTORICAL.

CHAPTER VIII. THE CELEBRATED CONWAY FAMILY.

THE history of Arkansas would be incomplete without the Conway family being
embraced. They are very prominent factors from 1819 to 1860. The family is of
high and ancient lineage. In following up the ancestral line we are carried back
to the reign of Edward I, of England, in the latter part of the thirteenth
century, to the celebrated castle of Conway, on Conway river, in the north of
Wales, where the lords of Conway, in feudal times, presided in royal style. They
have made a history in England which will be preserved, but it is with their
descendants in America we are now treating.

  Thomas, a noble scion of the ancient house of Conway, like many other younger
  sons of the British nobility who were cut off by the laws of entail and
  primogeniture from inheriting either property or the peerage, came to America
  about 1740, and settled in the colony of Virginia. These gentry, connected as
  they were with the nobility of Great Britain, principally settled in Virginia
  and gave origin to that republican butt of sarcasm long known as the "first
  families of Virginia;" and the caste is still preserved without any royal
  sinecures and appendages to support it in democratic America. But whilst this is
  an admitted fact, it must not be forgotten that these noble scions have
  engrafted much vigorous blood on our people and have left their imperishable
  impress on the spirit and the genius of our institutions, and we can well afford
  to indulge their noble ancestral pride even if we deny the assumption that the
  best blood of people is not so certainly transmitted as that of animals.

  Henry Conway was the only son of the first emigrant; he was a colonel first, and
  then a general in the revolutionary service of the colonies. His daughter,
  Nellie Conway, was the mother of President Madison; his son, Moncure D. Conway,
  was brother-in-law to General Washington. The father of Governor John Sevier of
  Tennessee was intimately associated in the revolutionary war with General Henry
  Conway as an officer in the same army.

  These comrades owned much slave and other property, and to preserve it from
  British capture and confiscation in the approaching struggle, sent their
  families and property in charge of their sons, Thomas Conway and John Sevier,
  across the Allegheny mountains. They settled in what is now known as Greene
  county, Tennessee, near the present town of Greenville. Thomas Conway, the
  father of the illustrious sons whose history we are writing, married Ann Rector,
  a native of Virginia, whose lineage we will give hereafter as the mother of more
  distinguished sons than any woman in America. Seven sons and three daughters
  were the fruits of this marriage. Common interests and common dangers cemented
  the friendship between the Conways and Seviers.

  Two sisters of Thomas Conway married sons of Governor John Sevier, and the third
  sister married John Sevier, the governor's nephew, a prominent lawyer in the
  early days of Tennessee. Ambrose H. Sevier, our distinguished senator in
  congress, was born of this marriage.

  Thomas Conway was president of the senate during the short life of the so-called
  State of Franklin. He was blessed with strong native intellect, great energy,
  force of character and strong individuality. These qualities drew to him. the
  admiration and warm friendship of General Jackson, and insured the sons a
  passport to the heart of the old hero.

  General Jackson was a splendid judge of human nature, and his friendship was
  always accorded to deserving men of solid worth, firmness of decision and
  character; and their loyalty never failed him either on the field or in the
  senate, and no man ever guarded the interests of his friends with greater
  fidelity or more immovable purpose than he did. He was a frequent guest at the
  mansion of his friend Conway, where sire and son alike drank at the fount of his
  noble inspiration; and this friendship is as pleasing as it is an honorable
  heritage to the Conway descendants.

  That old and honored historic land-mark of Arkansas, Governor Elias K. Conway,
  the last survivor of the ten children of Thomas Conway and Ann Rector, imparts
  this information to the author; and his beneficent countenance rekindles at
  sacred altars as he spans the tide of years in his mental voyage to that sacred
  shrine in the wilderness of East Tennessee where he sat on the lap of the noble
  guest and heard the story of "how battles were fought and fields won."

  The father secured the services of the best teachers, and gave all of his
  children good educations, and the boys all excelled in mathematics.

  In 1818 he moved to the old French village of St. Louis, in the territory of
  Missouri but did not remain there long until he moved to that splendid body of
  lands now embraced in Boone county, Missouri, where he continued to reside until
  his death, in 1835.

  We will now give the history of the sons in the order of seniority:

  Henry Wharton Conway, the eldest son, was born in the stately Conway mansion on
  the banks of Chucky river, in Greene county, Tennessee. But as the marble shaft
  which commemorates his memory contains a synopsis of much of his history, I copy
  entire the heraldry which greets the visitor to the cemetery at Arkansas Post:

  "Sacred to the memory of Henry W. Conway, who was born in Tennessee, 18th March,
  1793, entered the United States Army Ensign in 1812,- was promoted to 2d
  Lieutenant in 1813.

  "Fought at Fort Boyer, Mobile Point (commanded by Capt. Lawrence), at the defeat
  of the British fleet and land forces and the destruction of the commodore's
  vessel in 1814 - was retained in the service as 1st Lieutenant in the peace -
  Resigned and received an appointment in the Treasury Department at the City of
  Washington in 1817- Resigned and emigrated to Missouri in 1818 - emigrated to
  Arkansas in 1820, having been appointed Receiver of Public Moneys - Resigned and
  was elected delegate to congress in 1823, was re-elected in 1825 and 1827 by
  large majorities. Was unfortunately mortally wounded in a duel with Robert
  Crittenden on the 29th Oct., and died 9th Nov., 1827, aged 34 years, 7 months
  and 21 days, deeply lamented by all who knew him.

  "This Tomb is erected as a small memento of his great worth by his devoted Bro.
  James S. Conway."

  His uncle Major-General George Conway was the first to receive that high grade
  from the State of Tennessee, being elected by the first legislature in 1797.
  General Conway was succeeded by General Andrew Jackson.

  He inherited the martial spirit of his ancestors in two hemispheres, and when
  but sixteen years old became the protege of General Jackson, and a soldier in
  the war of 1812 under him with the rank of second lieutenant. The general
  promised his mother and father to take good care of him, and they sent their
  faithful servant, George, to wait on his young master.

  He commanded a detachment to watch the movements of the British off the coast of
  Mobile, and being on this detached service prevented him from participating in
  the great battle of the 8th of January, 1815.

  After the conclusion of peace he was retained as an officer in the regular army,
  and assigned to an important command in the north-west, being stationed at Green
  Bay nearly two years. The exciting incidents of war passed away and the service
  became monotonous to the young soldier and he resigned to accept a bureau in the
  treasury department. This in turn became monotonous and he resigned, and in
  connection with his brother James Sevier Conway (the first governor of the State
  of Arkansas) took a contract to survey a large body of lands in the territory of
  Missouri, embracing the county, now State, of Arkansas. These brothers came in
  the spring of 1820, just before the organization of the territorial government.
  Henry W. was receiver of public money under Monroe's administration. As soon as
  it became known that a territorial government had been created by congress, his
  business sagacity suggested the financial advantages which would accrue to those
  owning the permanent site of the capital city. With this view he organized a
  town-site company, consisting of himself, Wm. Russel, Judge Wm. Trimble, Robert
  Crittenden and Robert C. Oden, and they became owners of the present site of
  Little Rock, believing its eligibility and their united influence would cause it
  to be adopted as the site of the capital city, and time has confirmed their
  wisdom. This was the first joint-stock company formed in Arkansas after the
  creation of a territorial government under the authority of the United States;
  but, as we have seen in our historic chapter, a colonization company was formed
  one hundred years before by John Law and associates under grant from Louis XV,
  of France. He was elected territorial delegate to congress in 1823, defeating
  the first incumbent, James Woodson Bates, and was re-elected in 1825 and 1827.
  He secured an appropriation by congress to build the military road from Memphis
  to Little Rock, and from thence on to Fort Smith.

  In 1827 his right to a third term in congress was warmly and ably contested by
  his old townsite partner, Robert C. Oden, who was ably supported by Robert
  Crittenden, another one of the townsite partners. The democratic party was then
  centering on General Jackson, and party lines were drawn to their utmost
  tension. These contests of ten drew after them a history and record of blood.
  Conway was a man of great ability, spirited, sensitive, chivalrous and fearless,
  perhaps, to a fault; certainly so in the light by which these things are viewed
  at the present day. He was as honest as he was fearless in the expression of his
  conviction that Crittenden had gone further than his relations warranted in the
  support of Oden; and that the zeal and ability displayed in the effort to defeat
  his election was fraught with more than political significance, and challenged
  him to atone for it on the field of honor. This challenge followed immediately
  on the heel of his election to a third term.

  Crittenden, too, was a man of dauntless courage and exalted ability, but it is
  said by contemporaries with much force and plausibility, that his support of
  Oden did not warrant the extremes embraced in Conway's convictions, and,
  therefore, he replied to the challenge in the following conciliatory language:

  "Mr. Conway, you have been elected by the people three times to serve them as
  their delegate in congress; you have served them two terms with honor to
  yourself and satisfaction to them; they now have superior claims on you, go and
  discharge this obligation to the people, and when you return, if nothing short
  of what you now demand will satisfy you, I will then meet your demands."

  Conway then published him as a coward, and cut off all honorable accommodation
  but the field. Major Wharton Rector, of the United States army, acted as the
  friend of Mr. Conway, and Colonel Ben. Desha as the friend of Mr. Crittenden.

  The duel was fought on the 29th October, 1827, on an island in the Mississippi,
  opposite the mouth of White river; tradition says John J. Crittenden, long a
  distinguished senator in congress, was present; Robert was his protege and
  youngest brother. Governor Elias N. Conway informs the author that there was a
  serious misunderstanding of the cartel, which (it is claimed by the friends of
  Mr. Conway) saved the life of his adversary and sacrificed his own.

  Wharton Rector understood the backs of the principals were to face until after
  the word u fire," when they were to wheel half round to the right and fire.

  Desha understood they were to stand with their right sides facing, and were not
  to move out of their tracks before firing (this was the way they fought),
  leaving Crittenden the advantage of the method in which he had been instructed,
  and Conway the reverse.

  Conway's pistol exploded an instant in advance of his adversary's and the lint
  flew from the breast of Mr. Crittenden, the ball passing through the lappel of
  his coat without inflicting any injury. This caused Colonel Desha to lean
  forward in great anxiety and ask, "Mr. Crittenden, are you seriously hurt;" to
  which he replied in the negative, but said, "I fear I have killed Mr. Conway,"
  who reeled and fell the next moment, pierced through the body, from which he
  died eleven days afterward.

  He was a noble specimen of intellectual and physical manhood, and fell a deeply
  regretted sacrifice to the false teachings of the times in which he lived. He
  was never married.

  A fine oil painting by one of our American masters perpetuates his features and
  adorns the residence of his youngest brother, Governor Elias Nelson Conway.

  Many versions of this contest have been published in the ephemeral literature of
  the times, many varying many degrees from the truth, but the author regards the
  version here given as correct.

  Governor James Sevier Conway, the second son and first governor of the State of
  Arkansas, was born in 1798. He came with his brother Henry, as previously
  stated, to the county of Arkansas, in the then territory of Missouri, early in
  1820, in the interest of a large contract to survey the public lands, and he was
  soon after appointed surveyor-general of the territory. Although young, they
  were men of great activity and enterprise, and were thoroughly conversant with
  the details of business. They had from ten to fifteen surveying parties in the
  field; each attended to his allotted portion, and all the details connected with
  it. Their supplies were transported overland from St. Louis and distributed to
  their men in the wilderness. Their work was well and thoroughly done, and to
  James S. the result was the basis of a large fortune.

  General Jackson, on his accession to the presidency in 1829, re-appointed him
  surveyor-general of the territory, and he held the office four years longer. He
  was never ambitious for but one office, and that was, to be the first governor
  of Arkansas after her admission into the sisterhood of States. Archibald Yell
  nursed the same ambition near his heart, but as we have stated in our
  biographical sketch of his life, the wings of his ambition were clipped by
  constitutional disqualification.

  After the admission of Arkansas into the federation of States, Conway's ambition
  was gratified in the democratic nomination for governor. In that race he was
  opposed by a very able and ambitious whig in the person of Absalom Fowler, but
  Arkansas, under the leadership of many able and devoted adherents to the
  fortunes of General Jackson, was irretrievably democratic, and talents, however
  great in the person of a whig, were but a nominal factor in the race. Governor
  Conway was elected in a total vote of seven thousand seven hundred and sixteen,
  by a majority of one thousand one hundred and two, for the constitutional period
  of four years. He was a man of fair ability and irreproachable integrity, but
  was not the man for the times; his administration was the most unfortunate one
  the State has ever had, always excepting radical administration during the war
  and re-construction periods.

  He was inaugurated governor at a critical time, when Arkansas needed a man of
  broad statesman-like comprehension to see, and an iron nerve to crush legalized
  schemes of spoliation and plunder. None but such a man could have foreseen and
  crushed the iniquity in which the Real Estate and State Banks were conceived and
  administered during his administration. This piratical crew of furtune seekers
  took the helm from Governor Con-, way's hand at the start, and scuttled the
  financial fame of the State, and left her the legacy of a Pandora's box to
  trouble unborn generations and cloud her fame to this day.

  Governor Conway did not design, did not foresee these things, but it is none the
  less the State's misfortune that he did not; he commanded the ship when she was
  captured. The author's complaint is chiefly confined to the absence of executive
  foresight and resistance to the various encroachments of financial adventurers.
  Defense of the executive during this era lies in the purity of innocent
  intentions - in the presumptive sin of omission for want of comprehensive
  forecast - rather than the sin of commission. This has always been accorded,
  never denied.

  But the line of succession finally reached his younger brother, Governor Elias
  Nelson Conway, who, with comprehensive forecast and the iron nerve of Jackson,
  grappled with and throttled the monster iniquities of the bank so far as to cut
  short continued repetition of its iniquity. For this, if nothing more, the State
  ought to build a monument to his memory forever commemorating his services.

  Governor Conway retired from public life at the expiration of his term in 1840,
  and settled down on his princely possessions on Red river, in the southern part
  of the State. He owned more than an hundred slaves, was a large cotton planter,
  and in his social and domestic relations was idolized by family and friends, and
  was, all in all, a splendid representative of the high-bred southern planter. He
  married a Miss Bradley, of Nashville, Tennessee; one son survives, Frederick
  Elias Conway, who married a grand-daughter of Governor Fulton; he resides on the
  inherited estates in Lafayette county. Governor Conway died on the 3d of March,
  1855, at Walnut Hill, his country seat in Lafayette county.

  Frederick Rector Conway, the third son, is a historic landmark in Missouri and
  Illinois. He was long recorder of French and Spanish claims at St. Louis, and
  was also commissioner to examine and report to congress on the nature, and
  validity of these claims, and was afterward long surveyor-general of Missouri
  and Illinois.

  John Rector Conway, the fourth son, was a very eminent physician. Under
  President Tyler he was commissioner, and as such run and established the
  boundary line between Texas and the United States. He died in San Francisco in
  1868. Thomas Conway, his son, was a member of Walker's fillibuster expedition to
  Central America. He killed his rival in a duel before leaving the tropics.

  William Conway, B., the fifth son, was born, as near as the author can
  approximate in 1806, in the old homestead on Chucky river, East Tennessee. He
  was thoroughly educated at Bardstown, Ky., that celebrated institution of
  learning where so many distinguished men in the south and west were educated. He
  read law with the celebrated John J. Crittenden, and commenced the practice at
  Elizabethtown, Ky. He had a cousin of the same name living in the same town,
  which occasioned some inconvenience in receipt of their mail, and to obviate
  this he added the B. to his name. He moved to Arkansas about 1840, and in 1844
  was elected judge of the third circuit. In December, 1846, he was elected
  associate justice of the supreme court. He died December 29, 1852, and is buried
  by the side of his noble mother in Mt. Holly cemetery, Little Rock. He was a man
  of moderate abilities, but possessed of sterling and uncompromising integrity,
  which after all, is the strongest pillar of state.

  The sixth son, Thomas A., died in his twenty-second year, in Missouri.

  Governor Elias Nelson Conway, the youngest son, was born May 17, 1812, at the
  family mansion in Tennessee. His middle name is for a near relation on the
  mother's side - Judge Nelson of Maryland, an eminent jurist.

  We have stated he was well educated, particularly in the mathematical branches.
  No man fills a greater chapter in the history of Arkansas than he does, and none
  are deserving of more honorable mention in a field where so many stars shine.

  On the 20th of October, 1833, there were sad, thoughtful and prayerful hearts at
  the old homestead in Boone county, Mo. Ann Conway, the mother, carefully
  arranged and stored away in a pair of leather saddle-bags her boy's wardrobe, as
  she was making her last preparation for the advent of her youngest son in the
  great and uncertain battle and vicissitudes of life. Her thoughts ascended to
  heaven on the wings of a mother's prayer fur God's guidance and providence over
  the fortunes of her last-born. A tear crept out from the windows of the soul to
  gem that troubled, yet radiant face. If there is a place for sainted purity on
  this earth, where sin dare not enter, it is in the sacred shrine of a mother's
  heart.

  Whilst these preparations were going on within, without the old servant hostler
  was rigging the best horse on the farm for his young master under the careful
  supervision of the lord of the manor, and all the servants on the farm gathered
  in the mansion and beneath the grove surrounding it, to bid farewell to the boy
  who had been raised with them. He held a loving, tender place in their heart
  too, and they came with the rich and sacred tribute of a tear to the family
  shrine, as its altars were being broken up forever in submission to the
  vicissitudes of a troubled life.

  The Roman heart of the father struggled against the tide of the affections, but
  he broke down under their onward rush through the soul.

  When the young sojourner in the wilderness mounted, the old servant started off
  to open the woodlawn gate in the distance, but the aged sire waved him back and
  performed this last office himself. That was the last time father and son ever
  met.

  Since then "the years have come, and the years have gone," and more than fifty
  have been gathered in the cycle of time, yet there is no picture in the gallery
  of creation so vivid as this in the mind of the grand old man who was then a
  boy.

  When he gave this picture to the author, his heart seemed to wrestle with time
  to reconquer and regain all its impressive elasticity and vigorous felicity of
  youth. His countenance put on a soft, subdued, melancholy expression, as though
  the brightest gem in the garner of a long and useful life was hid away back in
  the years forever gone.

  When I listened to his sweet and simple, yet sublime pathos, in this rendition
  of the world's history in miniature, and gazed in that tear-glistening eye and
  on that lofty forehead, once the throne of unclouded reason, I felt that God was
  there in the execution of unfathomable design and exalted majesty and pity for
  His children.

  "The years live, and the years die, And all they touch they sadden."

  Governor Conway arrived at Little Rock in November, 1833, and immediately
  entered into a large contract to survey public lands in the north-west part of
  the territory, embracing Boone and Washington counties. This kept him constantly
  in the field eighteen months.

  His close application and fine business qualifications soon became manifest, and
  in July, 1835, he was appointed auditor, and held the position fourteen years.

  The donation land laws of the State and the homestead laws of the United States
  originated with him during his enlightened administration of the auditor's
  office; but Andrew Johnson, that greatest of national 1mmbugs, introduced the
  homestead bill in congress, and has claimed and has been accorded the entire
  credit of originating the national homestead law. The historic facts and
  circumstances ultimating in these laws are briefly as follows:

  The Federal government at a very early period adopted the policy of issuing
  military bounty land warrants to soldiers. Arkansas in process of time became a
  bounty land district, and a great number of these land warrants were located on
  the public lands in the State.

  At one time the practice of locating these warrants by lottery prevailed. But
  few of the beneficiaries ever located or lived on the lands; their patents were,
  in a great number of instances, sold like a piece of cloth, by delivery without
  any written indorsement or transfer. The lands were assessed for taxes, but the
  soldier who had sold paid no further attention to it, and the holders of the
  patent parchment in process of time found they had nothing but an equity, which
  would cost as much to perfect as the lands were worth, and they quit looking
  after them or paying taxes on them. In this way a vast body of lands were
  forfeited to the State for non-payment of taxes, and the State could not dispose
  of them for the back taxes, because the arrearage often amounted to more than
  the lands were worth.

  To prevent this waste of revenue and to encourage actual settlers, Governor
  Conway, in 1840, addressed the legislature in an ably-prepared communication,
  advising the donation of these lands to actual settlers. This letter was copied
  by the press in every State in the Union, and the wisdom of the financial policy
  foreshadowed was commended in high places. The State adopted the idea in
  December, 1840, as its permanent policy.

  Andrew Johnson appropriated the idea, and in 1842, if I am not mistaken, it
  became a part of our national polity. The democratic convention in 1844, with
  but three dissenting votes, nominated Governor Conway for governor, and these
  three asked leave to change their votes to the affirmative. He did not seek, did
  not want and declined the nomination so flatteringly tendered him, because of
  obligations he could not then neglect. The leaders then came to him and asked
  him to indicate his choice, or at least a suitable person for the office, and he
  advised the nomination of Thomas S. Drew, a farmer hitherto unknown in the
  polities of the State, and he was accordingly nominated and elected.

  In 1852, and again in 1856, he was nominated by the democratic party and elected
  governor and served the people faithfully in that capacity eight years, a longer
  period than any other governor has ever served. Under the constitution of 1836
  four years was the term of office.

  One of the leading features of his first administration was his successful
  contest with the powerful political organization which had grown up under the
  more than questionable influences growing out of the corrupt management of the
  old Real Estate Bank. The directors of this institution had loaned about
  $3,000,000 to creditors throughout the State, secured by mortgage on their
  landed property. These creditors were afraid to oppose the bank party for fear
  of encountering the destructive engine of foreclosure. 

  Governor Conway says the Gazette was bought by, and edited in the interest of
  the bank party. The anti-bank party, two years before his accession to office,
  established the True Democrat, and put that sterling and fearless old champion,
  Richard H. Johnson, at the editorial helm. Mr. Johnson was an able and powerful
  writer, and his editorials fell on the opposition like thunderbolts. The baneful
  influences of the bank made it an enemy to the best interests of the people.

  The Conway party waged a relentless war of extinction against the bank and the
  evils growing out of it.

  The Pulaski chancery court originated in this fierce political war.

  W. H. Field was then judge of the capital circuit, and before him was then
  (1854) pending a suit against the bank, which, if successfully prosecuted, would
  result in extinguishing it. Field was an upright judge but was averse to the
  bitter strife involved in the contest, and resigned to escape criticism.

  John J. Clendenin was elected by the people as the successor of Judge Field, but
  was a stockholder in the bank and disqualified to sit in the case. Governor
  Conway says these things were not mere coincidences, but were brought about by
  direct design of the bank party to foil and checkmate him in his efforts to
  crush the bank.

  These impediments to the progress of the suit suggested the idea of an
  independent jurisdiction, and resulted in the creation of the chancery court,
  and the transfer of the suit against the bank to that court. Governor Conway
  says he drew the act creating the court, and to prevent vexation and delay in
  the selection of a judge, the act conferred the power of appointment on the
  governor.

  Governor Conway was generally regarded as a strong partisan, but in this
  instance he appointed a whig of conservative tendencies to the office of
  chancellor because he wanted a man of ability, removed as far as possible from
  party ties and affiliations either with or against the partisans of the bank,
  and he appointed the distinguished Hulbert F. Fairchild of Batesville, and
  finally took the bull by the horns and throttled the bank, and crushed its
  monster abuses. 

  Judge Fairchild appointed his whig friend Charles Fenton Mercer Noland receiver
  for the bank, but soon removed him for causes stated, as the author understood
  them, in the life of Noland; but the governor denies most earnestly the
  statement, that he demanded or influenced the removal of Noland. And he is
  entitled to the benefit of his candid disavowal, because he is a man of great
  integrity and purity of character.

  In a recent interview with the author on this subject he said: "Soon after
  Noland's appointment to the high non-partisan trust of receiver for the bank he
  was seduced into a very hostile attitude to my administration by being placed at
  the head of the editorial staff on the Gazette, the partisan organ of the
  friends of the bank, and that this action of filiation meant as its price and
  reward obstacles to the progress of the suit against the bank, formidable in
  their character as long as he was receiver.

  "That, as receiver, Noland had charge of all the assets and the records of the
  bank, and that it was impossible to successfully advance with the suit when its
  enemies had charge of all the magazines of war - that the records of the bank
  contained a vast volume of evidence against it which could not easily be reached
  whilst in the hands of a pronounced friend to the bank interest."

  Governor Conway further said: "Noland's hostility to the suit was not even
  artfully concealed, either in his editorials or reports to the chancellor and
  governor; and that Chancellor Fairchild removed him on his own motion."

  It is said Judge Hubbard, a whig, and the step-father of Governor Garland, said
  Judge Fairchild did right in removing Noland, who was appointed receiver to
  execute, and not to defeat, the law.

  Under his administration the railroad system of the State had its origin and was
  favored and promoted by him. The Cairo and Fulton Railroad Company was organized
  in 1853, and in 1854-5 obtained a large congressional land grant in aid of the
  enterprise.

  His long connection with the State government familiarized him with its
  interests in every detail. He practiced and enjoined rigid economy in the
  administration of the government, and when his official career closed the
  treasury had $420,000 in its vaults. He was "the bull-dog of the exchequer."

  Governor Conway belongs to the ancient guild of honorable bachelors; he said to
  the author, "there will be no widow to mourn for Conway when I pass out of the
  world; I do not want my demise to distress the friends I leave behind."

  He never made any pretensions to public speaking, never canvassed the State, and
  never asked an elector to support him; he said, "my life is not a sealed book;
  it is open and known to the people, and if they want me to serve them they will
  make it known without importunity or solicitation." His life has been
  characterized by unquestioned integrity, great good, practical sense, and great
  tenacity of purpose.

  He now lives in great seclusion, and has occupied the same cottage more than
  forty-five years. The reception-room in this ancient cottage is a historic
  gallery of family paintings, of great interest to lovers of history. There we
  see the beneficent and beautiful face of Ann Conway, the noble mother of so many
  distinguished sons. To her right hangs a splendid painting of Governor James S.
  Conway, to her left, another painting by one of the masters preserving the noble
  features of Governor Elias N. Conway, and farther to the left and front, there
  smiles on the great mother the noble features of another distinguished son,
  Henry W. Conway, and directly in front, on the opposite wall, another great face
  beams and smiles as in life, on his mother, Dr. John Rector Conway.

  The husband and father and two more distinguished sons are not represented in
  this gallery, but their names are linked in a spotless fame, and to-day
  constitute one of the brightest historic gems in the heritage of the State.