The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1920-12-29

hard worker, palnstaklng, dlllgent
in business, impatient of delay, eager
to finish his task and have "a clean
slate This accounts for the celebrity
with which he dispatches the business
of the Court during term time, and
the promptness with which he hands
down the opinions in the cases as
signed to him. No suffer can complain
of 1.-THE laws delays" when the opin-
ion in his case is to be written by
Chief Justice Gary.
Onerous though his labours are as
Chief Justice, he still finds time for
respite from those labours in other
studies than the strictly legal. Studi-
Gus by nature and habit, he takes his
recreation in much reading of gener-
al literature, history seeming to be
his favorite branch, if we are to judge
by several of his published addresses
on historical subjects. In more than
one of those addresses he has present.
ed most admirably the case of the
Southern Confederacy, subject
which even at this late day receives
scant justice at the hands Of North
ern writers. He has delivered a num-
Der of excellent addresses to law stu
dents, and even those addresses ha7;
historical tendency; as also have
those he has made at the dedication
of new court houses. A notable ad-
dress on Legal Ethics, which he de-
livered before the South Carolina bar
Association was deservedly compli-
rnented by Judge Alton B. Parker of
New York, who was in the audience.
He rose and congratulated South
Carolina on having at the head of her
Judiciary one who could produce so
admirable paper.
The Chief Justice has also been a
frequent contributor Of articles to
Law Journals. He is said to have writ
ten at least eighteen hundred opin-
ions, before writing which he had to
listen with close attention to nearly
[ four thousand arguments of opposing
counsel. Add to this the labour in
preparing numerous public addresses
and contributions to various journals,
is it surprising that his predecessor,
the late Chief Justice McIver, him
self hard worker, said that Chief
Justice Gary was the hardest working
man he ever knew?
In 1915 the degree of L. L. D. was
conferred upon him by the Univer-
sity of South Carolina.
Having given this outline sketch of
Eugene Blackburn Gary, let me now
look up his pedigree. 1t is pedigree
to be proud of. He comes of good
stock on both the paternal and ma
ternal side of his family. Both the
Garys and the Blackburns have clear
claim of descent from early pre-Rev-
olutionary settlers. The Garys are
first heard of in Virginia. The first
identified Gary ancestor Of our Chief
Justice is Charles Gary, who had come
with others of the same family name
from Virginia and settled in Carolina,
in what is now called Newberry Coun-
ty. There we find him in 1867.
The Blackburns, his mothers fam
lily, are descendants of William Black
burn, who was killed in the battle of
Kings Mountain fighting against the
British.
But it is through the Porters, the
family of his grandmother, Mrs.
Thomas R. Gary, that the Chief JUS
tice can go furthest back in tracing
his descent. That venerable LADY,
knew her well-was the lineal des-
cendant of John Witherspoon, Pres
byterian minister, born in Scotland
in 1870, who, after having lived in
Ulster, in the North of Ireland, came
to Carolina in 1884, and made his
home in the Williamsburg settlement.
He was a descendant of John Knox,
the great Scottish Reformer. He was
brother-in-law of another John
Witherspoon, the illustrious divine,
the president of Princeton College,
one of the signers of the Declaration
of independence. He did more than
merely sign. There was in the Con-