The Tiffin tribune. (Tiffin, Ohio) 1868-1887, 1877-03-15
Sketch by H. V. RedfleId.

first met d. M. Key at Jasper
Tennessee, in the spring of 1868.
Colonel Key was then forty-two years
old, bronZed veteran from the wars,
q tall, straight, well formed man,
with dark hair and. dark eyes, gray,
aud one Of the kindest faces l ever
looked upon.
He had gone into the war and come
out. The cause was lost, his property
gone, and he was casting about in the
counties of lower East Tennessee,
picking up the fsg ends OF his cIlte
6eLlttnl law practice. Many OF his old
cases had survived the shock Of war,
a strong testimonial to their vitality,
for papers were lost. doekets gone,
records scattered, and witnesses dead.
He bent his energies to the building
up of the Courts, the setting Of Gov
ernment wheels in motion, and the
work of bringing order out of chaos.
And this, too, although by the laws
OF the State he was debarred from
holding Office or voting, snd a law
was at the time before the Legislature
to prevent eX-rebels from practicing
in the Courts. The great mass OF the
white people were debarred from
voting or sitting on juries, and
BroWnlow and his Vindictive Legis-
lature had everything their own way,
making farce of the very name of
government. Their ill-tempered rule
brought forth its fruits, and for the
years 1857 and 1868 Tennessee was the
most discorGant and disorderly State
in the Union and has so gone upon
record in the new American Cyclic
pedia.
The bearing Of Colonel Key through
all this, his uniform gentleness and
conservatism, had wide influence in
keeping the peace in lower East Ten
nessee through all those years Of trial
and despair, when the most sanguine
lost hope, and the bravest faltered be-
fore the DARK picture of the future.
But we will take events in their or
der.
BIRTH AND EARLY YEARS.
David M. Key was born in Greene
county, East Tennessee, January "a,
1924. Greene county is where An
drew Johnson landed when he struck
out rom North Carolina, and where
he lived more than forty years, official
residence elsewhere of course except
ed. His father was a minister of the
gospel, and brought up his family in
the fear of God.
When young Key was two years
old, his father moved to Monroe
county, and the children were reared
on a farm. David labored between
the plow handles from the time he
was "chunk Of a lad until twenty
one. The largest return he has for
his early labOrs in tie cornfield is q
constitution and q well knit frame.
His father was poor, and when
David was twenty-One and his own
man, he found that his knowledge of
farming, though excellent, would not
carry him through the world except
as farmer. He resolved to master
one of the professions, and chose the
law. He was backward in books, and
st twenty-one had to begin at point
which most young men with rich
fathers reach st sixteen. But, as is
so often the case, the boy who makes
his own way, makes 1t the best, and
comes out sixteen lengths ahead on
the home stretch.
Young Key had to educate himself
and pay his own way, but he stuck TO
it, and graduated at Hiwassee College,
Monroe county, when twenty-six
years of age. 1 believe he taught
school awhile after that, for 1 have
heard his younger brother, Summer
field, dryly refer to the vast stores OF
information be imbibed while going
to David's school.
! While teaching he gave his spare