Jackson Purchase Historical Society

The Governor of Tennessee when South Carolina seceded from the Union was Isham Green Harris.  Elected in 1857, Harris urged secession after the November 1860 election named Abraham Lincoln president.  Voters in Tennessee initially rejected the idea of secession, especially in the eastern part of the state.  When the Tennessee general assembly finally passed an ordinance of independence and alliance with the Confederacy, Harris prevented the separation of East Tennessee and its alliance with the Union.  Tennessee was the last state to secede, joining the Confederate States of America on June 8, 1861.

Harris remained governor until he was forced to flee the state in 1862 after the fall of Nashville.  Harris volunteered to serve the Confederacy as an aide-de-camp and participated in all of the major battles fought  in Tennessee and by the Army of the West except Perryville.  When Lee surrendered, Harris fled to Mexico City fearing retribution from the Union victors.  In 1867 he moved to Memphis where he again practiced law.

Harris was born in Tullahoma, Tennessee on February 10, 1818.  After attending public aschols and Winchester Academy he moved to Paris, Tennessee and worked as a merchandise store clerk.  He moved to Mississippi to study law, passed the bar in 1841 and returned to Paris, Tennessee to practice.  He had a long political career before dying in Washington D. C. in 1897.

He was a Democrat and his political career began when he was elected to the Tennessee State Senate in 1847, the U.S. House of Representatives in 1849 serving until 1853, Governor of Tennessee from 1857 until 1862 (3 terms), and the U. S. Senate from 1877 until his death in 1897.

Serving in the U.S. House of Representatives  from March 4, 1859 to March 4, 1861 for the 8th Congressional District of Tennessee was James Minor Quarles from the Opposition Party.   The 8th Congressional District in 1860 covered the northwestern part of the state and included the present day counties of Lake, Henry, Weakley, Obion, and Stewart.  Quarles was born in Virginia in 1823, moving to Kentucky in 1833.  He was an attorney admitted to the bar in 1845 and practiced in Clarksville, Tennessee.  During the Civil War he served in the Confederate Army under his brother, Brig. Gen. W. A. Quarles, until the end of the war.  He then moved to Nashville in 1872 continuing to practice law.   He died in Nashville on March 3, 1901.

On December 20, 1860, South Carolina seceded from the Union!  Secessionists believed that the United States (the Union), was a confederation, allowing each state to “go its own way” and thus giving each state the right to secede.  Although various sections of the country had been disagreeing for several years over the issues of slavery, tariffs, states’ rights and the differences between agrarian and industrial lifestyles,  the magnitude of the Republican Party victory and the election of Abraham Lincoln  in 1860 created a secessionist response from the Deep South.   Lincoln’s winning meant that approximately three quarters of the elected officials in the next Congress would represent the “Yankee” and antislavery viewpoint.   South Carolina lawmakers’ reaction to Lincoln’s election was to convene and pass a secession ordinance before Lincoln could take office.  The U.S. Government rejected South Carolina’s secession as illegal.

In December 1860, the Congressional Representative for the First District of Kentucky, which encompassed the entire Jackson Purchase, was Henry C. Burnett, a Democrat-States Right advocate.  Burnett was elected first in March 1855 and would serve until December 1861 when he was expelled from Congress for his actions in support of the Confederacy.  Burnett had presided over the Russellville Convention in 1861 that formed a Confederate government for Kentucky.  Burnett was succeeded by Samuel L. Casey, a Republican Unionist.  Before the Civil War ended, Burnett raised a Confederate regiment at Hopkinsville and briefly served in the Confederate States Army.  The Confederate recruiting site, Camp Burnett, located in Clinton, Hickman County, Kentucky was named for him.

In December 1860, the Governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky was Beriah Magoffin, a Democrat, who had been elected August 30, 1859 on a platform of states rights (right to secede) and slavery and had supported the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision.  Magoffin sought compromise to avoid the country’s sectional divisions and wrote to an Alabama representative in December 1860: “You seek a remedy in secession from the Union.  We wish the united action of the slave states, assembled in convention with the Union.”  Magoffin would eventually resign on August 18, 1862 because the Unionists distrust of him and their repeated overriding of his vetos had put a tight rein on his powers and made his situation intolerable.  Magoffin was succeeded by James F. Robinson.   Magoffin would later serve a term in the Kentucky House of Representatives (1867-69).

EVENT: Our Civil War Sesquicentennial Celebration will kickoff at our Winter Meeting, January 22, 2011.  Dr. Mulligan will be our speaker and those attending will have the opportunity to win a special prize; won’t you make your plans now to attend?

(This posting created using the following resources:  Kentucky’s Civil War, 1861-1865, Back Home in Kentucky, Inc. publisher, ISBN 0976923122; The Jackson Purchase Sesquicentennial Publication, 1819-1869; Internet website at http://en. wikipedia.org)

Dr. Robert H. Grubbs accepts Nobel Prize from His Majesty the King, Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, December 10, 2005

On December 10, 2005, Robert Howard Grubbs was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with Yves Chauvin and Richard R. Schrock.   This Nobel Prize recognized Grubbs’ work in the development of the metathesis method of organic synthesis.   “Metathesis is a chemical reaction in which atom groups break away and reform, “switching partners”. It is used in organic chemistry and pharmaceutical research, and Grubbs’ work has led to more efficient, simpler and more environmentally benign ways to synthesize medicines and plastics” (www.nndb.com/people).

Grubbs was born February 27, 1942, in Marshall County, Kentucky on a farm between Calvert City and Possum Trot, to Howard and Faye Grubbs.  Both parents were from small farm families.  Howard Grubbs moved his family to Paducah where Robert in due time graduated from Paducah Tilghman High School.  Grubbs credits a junior high teacher with interesting him in science.

Grubbs earned his B.S. and M. A. in chemistry at the University of Florida, and his PhD in organic chemistry from Columbia University.  He has been a professor at Michigan State University and is currently Victor and Elizabeth Atkins Professor of Chemistry at the California institute of Technology.  He is married and the father of three children.

Grubbs says “The academic model of my mother and grandmother and the very practical, mechanical training from my father turned out to be perfect training for organic chemical research”.   His mother, Faye Grubbs,  persevered  for 28 years to earn her degree from Murray State while teaching school on a teaching certificate.  She taught school for 35 years.   His father attended night classes when he returned from WWII and became a diesel mechanic.   Grubbs has two sisters, one a teacher and one who became the first female journeyman electrician in western Kentucky.

Even in a family that treasures intellectual achievement, being awarded the Nobel Prize must have earned Grubbs at least a well deserved pat on the back!

(This posting created using the following resources:  More Profiles of Past – Paducah People, Volume 4, 2010, by Allan Rhodes, Sr. and John E. L. Robertson, Sr.; www.nobelprize.org, Les Prix Nobel, The Nobel Prizes 2005, Editor, Karl Grandin [Nobel Foundation] Stockholm, 2006;  http://en.wikipedia.org; and www.nndb.com/people)

Obituary from the Mayfield Monitor’s Wednesday, 8-14-1895 edition:

“T. B. Waller died at his home…after complication of diseases after illness of only a few days.  About two years ago, he came to Mayfield…engaged in queenware business until his death.”

Queenware? The online World English Dictionary says queensware is “a type of light white earthenware with a brilliant glaze developed from creamware by Josiah Wedgwood and named in honor of his patroness, Queen Charlotte”.    Wedgwood gifted Queen Charlotte, wife of George III, with a tea set made of this tableware which resulted in Wedgwood being appointed Potter to Her Majesty in 1765.   Upon receiving the Queen’s permission this tableware was called Queen’s Ware.

Queen’s Ware was not an original invention of Wedgwood but a refinement and development of a cream coloured earthenware already produced in several potteries in Staffordshire, England.   Queen’s Ware rapidly became the generic name for creamware.  In 1767, Wedgwood wrote to a friend that “it was really amazing how rapidly the use of it (Queen’s Ware) has spread almost over the whole globe, and how universally it is liked.”  It was also apparently very affordable in cost for the non-royals.

Wedgwood’s Queen’s Ware is described as being able to stand sudden changes in heat and cold without “injury” and made in a “fine form, thin body, clear and brilliant glaze which formed a perfect background for the ingenious enamellers as well as other more mechanical forms of decoration”.   Queen’s Ware will have a mark and the words “Queen’s Ware” on the underside.  A partial dinner service of Queen’s Ware, circa 1790, with impressed marks and gilt was auctioned for $17,719 at Christie’s in November of 2008.

So, if Mr. Waller sold Queen’s Ware, and grandma was one of his customers, there may be cash in your cupboard!

(Information used in this posting found in the Graves Co. KY Newspaper Genealogical Abstracts, Volumn 4, Mayfield Monitor Jan. 1894 to April 1896, Copyright 1981 by Don Simmons; Internet sources at http://dictionary.reference.com/browse, www.wedgwoodmuseum.org.uk,  www.thepotteries.org/types, and www.christies.com)