The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-12-19
Montgomery's z Old Citizens.

Auburn, Ala, Dec. F, 1901. Editor The Advertiser:
 Your article on Montgomery in the Sunday mornings Advertiser, Tread with much interest, and cannot refrain from saying something to you about it. l enjoyed reading the whole article, and only regretted that you did not write more. In referring to Montgomery, espe- cially just before the war-the Mont gomery that l knew so well. as young man. and loved quite as much as a man ever loved the city of his birth-your remarks were indeed most happy, but all too brief. The Montgomery of 1SoT-S and 1S5g-60-four years, in which, it may be said, that I almost lived in the place, was beyond all question the most pleas ant and interesting city in the South. What a grand race of men and women filled and frightened the elegant and tasteful homes adorning its level thoroughfares and picturesque eminences. They were the genuine and unadulterated outcome of a civilization, to the excel fences of which the history of the world can furnish no parallel Cultured and intelligent, honest and liberal, chivalrous and independent. unselfish and refined they really had no faults that did not spring from virtues. Let me mention a few of the names of those who gave
  of that day-to mention them all would swell this letter to unreadable dimen- sions; The Betheas, Arringtons, Bibbs, Elmores, Yanceys. Baldwins, Clantons. Winters, Rices. Whitings. Picketts, Gold thwaites, Billiards. Gunters, McGehees. Chiltons. Judges. Watts, Pollards, etc. Take these, and the hundreds of other names that could be given, and tell me what other city with a population no Of women so extensive and so brilliant? should like to speak particularly of some of the women as well as the men-wo- men they were, indeed, whom ito love- '" as Steel said of Lady Hastings in the Tatler, was a liberal education" but I forbear.
 To many of these people you gracefully allude in your excellent paper, while Inqre extended notices are given therein of, few, Who were most prominent in building up the city You do but simple justice to the merits of Hanrick in your sketch of that old, quaint, shrewd and Kindly man. His office at the time of which I speak (the office was his home, I think) stood somewhere in the vicinity of the spot now occupied by the theatre. I am unable to locate it exactly at present-the streets thereabouts having undergone so many and such great
  that the walls of his office were sprinkled all over with the notes and bills he had endorsed and paid for his friends during the time of his financial prosperity-all of which, 1t may be added, reduced him to comparative poverty. I knew Hanrick well. I can call up before me now, even to the minutest detail. the old man just as he appeared in those days-his short and uncouth figure wrapped in old clothes loose and ill-made; his strong and hard but not unamiable. face: his quick nervous and jerky voice; and his equally quick, nervous and jerky walk accen- tuated by a slight limp. He went with me to the Indian country. when l was sent out as Indian commissioner by MT Davis in 1863, to quiet troubles in some of the leading nations because of the delay In paying some of the promised | annuities. It was simply his great in l terest in the Confederacy and the In | dians that lead him to go. He was no ofieial-simply volunteer in the matter His knowledge of Indian character was considerable: and the advice I received from him at different times was valuable to me-was of material assistance in my l interviews with the chiefs and headmen | of the several nations-Motey kinnaird, | Stand Waite, John Jumper, Peter Pitch | lyn. the Folsoms. Leflores, and others
 ''I wish the limits prescribed by you for your article, had been such as to allow you to say more about Charles r Pol | lard. Montgomery owes much to him, l and you arc. not only fully acquainted