The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-05-19

by Professor George F. Mellen, of Knoxville. Tenn, printed in the April Quarterly Sewanee Review:
 Joseph Glover, son of Joseph Clarke and Eliza c. Baldwin, Baldwin, was born in January, 1915. at Friendly Grove Factory, near Winchester. Va. His ancestors. the Baldwins. or BUCKS County, England, were of ancient ana honorable lineage. The name appears in the roll of BattleAbbey, in "Doomes- day Book" indeed, on the pages of English history among the highly fa- vored from Alfred the Great to Henry VIII. Their first settlement in this country was made at Milford, Conn, where brothers and kinsmen Of the name purchased lands in 1639. on the fathers side, Joseph G. Baldwin was a descendant of Nathaniel; on his mothers, of John Baldwin. The exact relation of John to the other Baldwins is not certain, but the fact of settle ment in the same town in the same year seems conclusive evidence or Kin ship. Nathaniel was registered as 2 free planter" John, as "a settler, the distinction being that the iatter was not a member of the church. By way of New Jersey and Ohio the two branches found their way to Virginia. The grandfather on the fathers side was born in Connecticut, moved 10 Ohio, thence to Rocxbri ige County, Va, where. it is said, he established the first woolen and cotton factory In the Valley of Virginia. The grandfather on the mothers side was Cornelius Baldwin. a graduate of Princeton, surgeon in the Revolutionary war, a popular and skillful physician, and gentleman of character and social pc sition. He married Mary Briscoe: daughter of Colonel Girard Briscoe' or Winchester. with which union are as sociated by descent and inter-merrl- age. Briscoe G. Baldwin, John 5. oalu- 1s, win, A. H. H. Stuart, and Jonn w. Daniel. noted names in virginia h's- tory.
 loved by Baldwin were tmperfect' though one would not suppose such to be the case from his diction. the va rie ty of classical allusion, and the quo tations from stancard authors that scintillate throughout his writings. These evidences of culture, together with the apt phrase. the pointed simiie' and the pithy remark, show unmis- takably that wide reading had largeIy made amends for any defects or carry education. In 1886, having acauireo some familiarity. as he himsef says with Sir William Blackstones Com- mentaries." and deeming the oppor.,u- ,, mites for a young lawyer in the Vlr- ginia home meager, where conditions were settled and litigation infreauent' where the only briefs then known 10 the stripline were "being brief Of money and brief of credit" he deter mined to begin his career in the newly onened Southwest. He had heard of th inflowing tide of immigration, the interminable confusion of titles ana Indian claims, the reckless daring ana wild profligacy, and the almost un- bridled reign of lawlessness as lnvit- ing a munificent field of opportunity for the fledgling lawyer. With the scant outfit of pony, clotn.nsS :, cient to i'll a pair of saddiepags, ana some Virginia bank bills, he left be- hind the red hills of his native Shen- andoah Valley home and leisurely pur- sued his way through Southwest Vir- ginia. East Tennessee and Alabama to a point in Eastern Mississippi. where his ehortness of funds urged the lm- mediate pitching of his tent. He did not. could not, debate the matter. Tne account of the motives underlying ms move the adventures and impressions along the tourney, and his preparations for practice are told with rich humor in his Flush Times of Alabama ana Mississippi" In East Tennessee he mo- ticed the farmers pretty daughters worked barefooted in the fields, ignor- ing the refinements of artificial soci- etv while the men believed thoroughly in the patronage of home institutions, evidenced by that unreserved devotion maid to the numerous distilleries Of the section. "The transition from East Tennessee to Southwestern Alabama and Eastern Mississippi was something like a sudden change from Sleepy hoi- low to the Strand. A man retailing onions by the dozen in WeatherSdeld, and the same man turned Into real estate broker in San Francisco. would realize the contrast between the plc- ayune standard of one region, and the wild spendthriftism, the impetuous rush, and the magnificent scale or op- era tions. in the other.
 He began the practice of law at De- Kalb, in Kemper. County, Miss. General Reuben Davis. in his Recollection of Mississippi and Mis6issippians," has left an interesting account of Bald wins first case and of the success that attended his efforts.
 DeKalb and Kemper County, with a sparse population not noted for wealth and culture, did not afford promiS- ing field to a lawyer of his gifts ln- terested and appreciative friends sug- gested and urged that he should go to a more inviting arena. Accordingly. at the end of two years, he moved to Gainesville, in Sumter County, Ala
 bama, both county and town then be- ing among the most prosperous In the State, though but recently acquired from the Indians and opened up to set clement. Situated on the Tombigbee River, Gainesville was tine shipping point of much of Easetrn Mississippi, whence he had migrated. and was do- ing a fiourishing business. Old settlers in joyful reminiscence, tell Of the time when successive cotton wagons, con- stituting trains in length from a quarter to half mile. rolled their bales into the streets of the place for shipment to Mobile. It was founded by a New England land company, whose leading spirits, Jonathan Bliss. W. w. and David Russell, William Lewis and others, gave to the town all air of wealth culture and aristocracy which the adversites of more recent years have not been able to obliterate. Yankee Street, on which are the most prominent residences, perpetuates their memory. The surrounding country, slightly undulating, was picturesque and inviting for habitation. Southward to Livingston, the county seat, west
 ward to the Mississipp line, and north ward to the Mississippi line, and north lands in their virgin state, as fertile as
 the overfiowed banks of the Nile.
 This entire region was people by large shareholders of the highest type
 of Southern aristocracy, who cultivated