The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1903-05-15
PEOPLE lind THINGS.
A Working Chancellor.

Gerry Division, presided over by Chan-
cellOr Walter = BeaTden. of Shelby
vile. Judge Bearden has heen holding
court here the past three weeks
and has made many new frIends by
his uniform courtesy ana kindness.
He is tireless worker on the bench.
He believes in getting through with
the docket, without wasting time. A
prominent lawyer the other day. who
wanted more time OH at the noon
adjournment than the Chancellor was
disposed to grant, was complaining at
the latter's court hours. ''Why be S
the most terrific worker | ever saw !;
he Just wants to work all the time.
The Chancellor when told of this,
humorously observed: ''Oh. these Co
lumbia lawyers are too lazy. They
don t want to work, unless you Keep
square after them. And tor the past
three weeks he has been keeping square
after them. This division has always
been peculiarly fortunate In the
selection of its chancellors. No better
men, both as private citizens and as
public servants ever served the people,
of this division than Andrew j. Aber-
nathy and VIM. S. Fleming. Where
ever they held court they were es-
teemed most highly by all the people
and their popularity was not
limited to the confines of their cir
cults. The same can be said OF { lis
circuits Judges. The bench ana the
bar of this Judicial Circuit never
knew a more splendid gentleman nor
a more upright judge than Judge Il.
d. Patterson, of Savannah. During
the twelve years he sat OH the bench
no man ever had cause to utter one
word against him. In addition to his
legal attalnments, he was the very
soul of affability and courtesy and
he had heart as tender as a child &.
The writer remembers time some
seven years ago when Judge Patterson
was holding court at Savannah, MS
home. At the bar and on trial for
his life was Gus Thomas, the cele-
brated Hardin county moonshiner and
murderer, whose deadly Winchester
hao ended no less than seven lives
in the mountainous country In which
he lived with his clan and carried on
his work of illicit making and selling
of whiskey. For years he mad ter
rorized Hardin county with hls bloody
acts of outlawry and the sheriff and
his deputies. the United States Mar
shall and his deputies, stood in abso-
lutte fear of him. He issued his defis
to them with all the nonchalanoe OF
barbaric despot ana they cringed
before him IN covering fear. Finally,
one night Thomas and his gang. drunk
with their mean whlskey and the
belief that they had the officers COM
pletely overawed, ventured into the
very outskirts Of Savannah and in an
old clubhouse they Kept up the widest
orgies possible Somehow. the news
was carried into town that the daring
desperate and his band were drunk in
house In the edge of town. The
Sheriff Immediately summoned
posse of seventy five men, surrounded
the house and captured them.
Thomas trial was one of the most
dramatic cases ever tried In Hardin
county. ALI through 1t he sat with
his steel brown eyes rlveted upon the
state witnesses and 80 completely did
he have the whole community ter
rorlzed that the witnesses refused to
tell anything they knew; several OF
them. it was generally talked, perJur-
ing themselves rather than incur the
enmlty of the Thomas gang. nder
such circumstances it was miracle
that Thomas conviction was secured
Frank Boyd, who was Attorney Gen
eral, never worked harder on a case IN
his life, and it was only due to his
persistent and effective prosecution
that the conviction was secured.
The jury fixed the punishment at
death, and it was up TO Judge Patter-
tI
never before sentenced man to
capital punishment, and though he did
his duty, he said afterward that he
would rather have given up his posi-
ton and quit the bench than to have
passed the sentence, even though the
defendant in the case richly deserved
death 1t was just an indication OF
the tender heartedness OF the man. A
short while after, Judge Patterson
announced his retirement from the
He is still living at his
home in Savannah. where he is one OF
the wealthest men in the county. Very
few people in this Judicial CIR
cult knew, possibly, when he was
elected. that Judge Patterson was a
full fedged yankee; he was born and
raised in Iowa. He emlgrated to the
South, however, shortly before the
war, aud located at Savannah.
From the first, his sympathies were
genuinely Southern, and when the
civil war broke out he enlisted in the
Confederate army. His father was
an intense Northerner. When his son
notified him that he had shouldered
his gun for the South, the lrate old
gentleman became 80 indignant that he
threatened to disinherit him. For years
he refused to have anything to do with
his son because he mad moved down
south. and it was only when the latter
took dangerously i'll of pneumonia,
and his life was nearly despaired
of that the parental heart re-
Tented 1t il doubtful il this circuit
ever has another judge so much ad
mired and esteemed as was Judge
Patterson. Judge Sam Holding will
be, if he serves out his present term,
for there has never been a man who
outgrew 30 many rrejudlces and in
the lower counties well believed false
hoods 30 easily rs Judge Holding He
has grown marvelously with the
people since he went into Office. The
reason of it was that he mad not com
pleted his first trip through those
counties before the PEOPLE found out