TICKER HOUSE tVilliamsburg. Virginia I1£DEXBE>4CG. S. U, TALES OF THE TUCKERS

DESCENDANTS OF THE MALE LINE OF

ST. GEORGE TUCKER

OF BERMUDA AND VIRGINIA JUL i:. tm

BY

Beverley Randofpk'Twekei—- T j Un Ah 1 c1 si'i a'11. r-_ D n r ur ri! .'>U 1 n1 t r LrI i I FFB 5 1990 I 1ft

G. S •••••v-. CALL r^V> * i ZuSlTOs 6ew&

• GENEAueere^L • SOCIETY OF UTAH

THE DIETZ PRINTING COMPANY Richmond, Virgin'ia COPYRIGHT, 1942 BY BEVERLEY RANDOLPH TUCKER

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA THIS BOOK IS J-sfctcaisfc TO

THOSE DESCENDANTS OF ST. GEORGE TUCKER, FOUNDER OF OUR BRANCH OF THE FAMILY IN VIRGINIA, WHO HAVE BEEN BORN IN THE FEMALE LLNE, IN THE HOPE THAT SOMEONE WILL WRITE THE STORY OF THE FINE MEN AND WOMEN OF THAT SIDE OF THE FAMILY. TABLE OF CONTENTS (Only male members of the family bearing the Tucker name who attained adulthood are mentioned in this table. Those who are given separate sketches are in italics.) First Generation PAGE St. George Tucker (1752-1828) of Bermuda and Virginia, jurist, professor of law (W&M), soldier (colonel), states­ man, poet Thomas Tudor Tucker (1745-1828) of Bermuda and United States, physician, military surgeon, treasurer of United States. (No adult sons.)

Second Generation (SONS OF ST. GEORGE) Henry St. George Tucker (17801848) of Virginia, jurist, professor of law (Winchester and U. of Va.), statesman, author 12 Nathaniel Beverley Tucker (1784-1851) of Missouri and Vir­ ginia, jurist, professor of law (W&M), author. ... 18

Third Generation (SONS OF HENRY ST. GEORGE) David Hunter Tucker (1815-1871) of Virginia, physician, professor of medicine, author 27 Nathaniel B-everley Tucker (1820-1890) of Virginia and Washington, D. C, diplomat, businessman, lawyer, editor. 30 Also 90, 91 vi Table of Contents

PACE John Randolph Tucker (1823-1897) of Virginia, professor of law (W&L), attorney general of Virginia, statesman, author 65 Also 141

Tudor Tucker of Virginia, Confederate soldier (1st lieuten­ ant), (left no sons) 74

Henry St. George Tucker* (1828-1863) of Virginia, lawyer, teacher, soldier (colonel), author, poet 74

Alfred Bland Tucker (1830-1862) of Virginia, physician. . 81

(SONS OF NATHANIEL BEVERLEY)

OF MISSOURI AND VIRGINIA

St. George Beverley Tucker (1839-1894) of Missouri, physi­ cian 82

Thomas Smith Beverley Tucker of Missouri, Confederate soldier 158 Also 25 Montague Beverley Tucker, Confederate soldier (left no sons). 25

* * *

Fourth Generation

(SONS OF DAVID HUNTER)

PHYSICIAN OF RICHMOND

Dallas Tucker of Virginia, Episcopal minister (left no sons). 29

John Randolph Tucker of Virginia and Alaska, jurist (left no sons) 29

*There was an earlier son named Henry St. George who died young. Table of Contents vii

PAGE (SONS OF NATHANIEL BEVERLEY)

OF VIRGINIA AND WASHINGTON, D. C.

James Ellis Tucker (1844-1924) of Virginia and California, Confederate soldier (color bearer), adventurer, government official 84 Also 31, 43, 46, 48, 57, 63 Beverley Dandridge Tucker (1846-1930) of Virginia, Confed­ erate soldier, Bishop, poet. 104 Also 51, 80, 85, 132, 137 John Randolph Tucker (1848-1880) of Virginia and Wash­ ington, D. C, Confederate soldier, lawyer, editor. . . . 132 Also 68, 85 Charles Ellis Tucker (1852-1939) of Virginia and Tennessee, business executive 143

(SON OF JOHN RANDOLPH)

OF LEXINGTON, VA.

Henry (Harry) St. George Tucker (1853-1932) of Virginia, professor of law (W&L), statesman, author 146 Also 36 (SON OF ALFRED BLAND)

PHYSICIAN OF VIRGINIA

Alfred Bland Tucker (1857-1915) of Virginia and New York, physician , 153

(SON OF HENRY ST. GEORGE)

OF VIRGINIA, COLONEL AND AUTHOR

Gilmer Walker Tucker of Tennessee, chemist 75

(SONS OF ST. GEORGE BEVERLEY)

OF MISSOURI

Beverley Tucker (1867-1938) of Colorado, physician. . . . 153 viii Table of Contents

PAGE John Speed Tucker of Colorado, mine broker 82 Also 25, 155 Hugh Mercer Tucker of Colorado, mechanical engineer. . . 82 Also 155 St. George Tucker of Colorado, business executive. ... 82 Also 155 (SONS OF THOMAS SMITH BEVERLEY) OF MISSOURI

Nathaniel Beverley Tucker (1868-1921) of Virginia, colonel, professor V. M. 1 157

William Peyton Tucker, physician 158 * -* * Fifth Generation (SONS OF JAMES ELLIS)

OF VIRGINIA AND CALIFORNIA William Burling Tucker of California, State Mining Engineer for California 57

Beverley Harris Tucker, soldier (Capt. World War I), farmer. 57

(SONS OF BEVERLEY DANDRIDGE)

BISHOP OF SOUTHERN VIRGINIA

Henry St. George Tucker of Virginia and Japan, Presiding Bishop of Episcopal Church, U. S. A., author 115 Also 55, 125 Augustine Washington Tucker of Virginia and China, physi­ cian (chief surgeon) St. John's Hospital, China. . . . 116 Beverley Dandridge Tucker of Virginia and Ohio, Bishop of Episcopal Church Ohio, Rhodes scholar 116

Richard Blackburn Tucker of Virginia and Pennsylvania, busi­ ness executive 116 Table of Contents ix

PAGE John Randolph Tucker of Virginia and West Virginia, lawyer. 116 Herbert Nash Tucker of Virginia, Episcopal minister. . . . 116 Lawrence Fontaine Tucker of Virginia, engineer 117 Ellis Nimmo Tucker of Virginia and China, professor of mathematics 117 Francis Bland Tucker of Virginia and Washington, D. C, Episcopal minister 117

(SONS OF JOHN RANDOLPH) OF VIRGINIA AND WASHINGTON, D. C. Beverley Randolph Tucker of Virginia, physician, medical pro­ fessor, author, poet 152 William Crump Tucker (1876-1931) of Virginia, jurist. . . 160

(SON OF CHARLES ELLIS) OF TENNESSEE Morrison Tucker of Tennessee, businessman 143

(SONS OF HENRY [HARRY] ST. GEORGE) OF VIRGINIA AND WASHINGTON, D. C. John Randolph Tucker of Virginia, lawyer, professor of law University of Richmond 146 Albert Sidney Tucker, colonel U. S. A 146 Henry (Harry) St. George Tucker, business executive, Lex­ ington, Ky 146

(SON OF ALFRED BLAND) OF VIRGINIA AND NEW YORK Alfred Bland Tucker of Virginia and New York, Junior Officer U. S. Navy. . . . '. 154 x Table of Contents

PAGE (SON OF NATHANIEL BEVERLEY) OF VIRGINIA (V. M. I.) Nathaniel Beverley Tucker of Virginia and Ohio, professional chemist 157

(SON OF WILLIAM PEYTON) PHYSICIAN Norman Tucker, physician 158

(SON OF JOHN SPEED) OF COLORADO Beverley St. George Tucker, Major U. S. Army 155

Note: In the 5th generation the living Tuckers are only briefly mentioned; William Crump Tucker, who is the only one dead of the adult males of this generation, has a sketch. The 6>th generation is not considered at all, for members of this generation are either in college or just starting their careers. Of the nineteen Tuckers mentioned whose age at death was known, the average was a little over sixty-three years. Of the forty-nine Tuckers mentioned, including five generations, the chief vocations were as follows: Attorneys-at-Iaw, n; physicians, 10; clergymen, 6; engineers, 3; edu­ cators, 2; government officials, 2; business executives, 6; military officers, 3; chemists, 2; farmer, 1; occupation unknown, 3 (all Confederate soldiers, one a 1st lieutenant). Of the eleven attorneys eight became judges or professors of law or both; of the ten physicians five became heads of hospitals or professors of medicine or both; of the six clergymen three became bishops; of the six businessmen all became executives; of the three living army officers two are majors and one a colonel. Of others listed under other occupations one was a colonel in the Revolu­ tion; two were colonels in the Confederacy, and one was a 1st lieutenant; one a colonel in the National Guard; one a captain in the World War I. Of the forty-nine mentioned in the table of contents twelve have published •books or been editors. Four of the twelve were also poets. Many of these Tuckers served in public office, and one was Treasurer of the United States, four of them in the Congress of the United States. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Tucker House, Williamsburg, Virginia Frontispiece

FACING PAGE The Tucker Arms xv Judge St. George Tucker i Dr. Thomas Tudor Tucker 9 Judge Henry St. George Tucker . . 12 Judge Nathaniel Beverley Tucker 18 Dr. David Hunter Tucker 27 Col. Nathaniel Beverley Tucker 32 Hon. John Randolph Tucker 65 Col. Henry St. George Tucker 74 James Ellis Tucker 84 James Ellis Tucker 89 Rt. Rev. Beverley Dandridge Tucker 104 Beverley Dandridge Tucker no John Randolph Tucker 132 Charles Ellis Tucker 143 Hon. Harry St. George Tucker 146 Dr. Beverley Tucker 155 Col. Nathaniel Beverley Tucker 157 Judge William Crump Tucker 160 ml* < '/•/•.T-S-^^

THE TUCKER ARMS (The Complete Motto is "Nil Desperandu/n Auspice Teucro") INTRODUCTION HAVE set myself not to a task, but to a difficult though I pleasant duty. Others of the present and past genera­ tions of the descendants of St. George Tucker have been asked, and have intended, to write the story of the family but for one reason or another it has never been done. For fear that many of the family anecdotes and other things pertaining to its members will be forgotten, but duly realiz­ ing my limitations, I have determined to attempt this service for the benefit of the ever oncoming Tucker generations. In writing the TALES OF THE TUCKERS I am almost entirely confining myself to the descendants of St. George Tucker who came to Virginia from Bermuda in 1771. In the preparation of the book I have consulted freely with other members of the family for whose help I am exceed­ ingly grateful, but I cannot lay the faults herein contained to anyone other than myself for I have used the material without preconceived plan, and I have not, in all instances, run down the absolute accuracy of anecdote or of event. I relate the tales the best I can as they were told to me with the confidence that all of them are essentially true. Where I have given more prominence to one member of the family than to another it is due chiefly to the fact that I happen to know more about the one than about the other. These sketches do not include, except in occasional brief references, the living Tuckers of this branch of the family. It suffices here to say that many of them are following in the paths their fathers have trod. I sincerely regret that limited time and energy does not allow me to include those members of this branch of the family who have descended through the female line. I also xiv Introduction regret that I cannot include those collateral Tuckers, many of whom have become distinguished, who did not descend from our ancestor, St. George. I am including but few family letters and papers and I am presenting merely sketches of the various members rather than biographies. Others, if they wish, may collect more complete knowledge of the individual and of his his­ toric surroundings from the very considerable source ma­ terial which exists. I am here endeavoring to preserve some of the tales which possibly would be forgotten, the source of many of which has been by word of mouth. May the good Lord and the Tucker tribe forgive my inadequacies! —B. R. T. THE TUCKER LEGEND CCORDING to one legend the Tuckers, who are of A. Norman descent, bore the original name of Tout Caeur (all heart) which was later changed to Toukere, Toucker, Tuckere, and then to Tucker, or occasionally Tooker. According to another legend the origin of the name was derived from an occupation of certain people known as fullers or weavers or tuckers of cloth. You may take your choice. The Tucker who established the English family was William Tucker, a Norman yeoman who crossed the channel with William the Conqueror. The yeomanry was required to go bareheaded unless some member distin­ guished himself. May it ever redound to the Tucker pride that William, after the battle of Hastings, was allowed to wear a cap! It is related that William Tucker's son, Stephen, was granted the honor of wearing his cap in the presence of King Henry the First and was granted the estate of Lamertin in Devonshire. The Norman ancestry of the Tuckers is shown by their names in many of the early English records, Roger Ie Tuckere in 1273, Percival Ie Toukere in 1301, Robert le Tuckere in 1321, and William le Touker about the same time. Tucker is quite an early surname in England. The earliest of surnames, as heredi­ tary designations, appeared in England about the year 1000 only a little over half a century before the Norman Con­ quest, after which surnames became more frequent. The early Tuckers settled in Devonshire and in Kent and all the present Tuckers—good, bad, and indifferent—may trace their earliest Anglo-Saxon locale to this area of South­ eastern England. A brother of William Tucker, John Tucker, was given the estate of South Travistock in the xvi The Tucker Legend

County of Devonshire and in 1079 the family was granted a coat-of-arms. One of the Tuckers, Daniel, in the time of the good Queen Bess, was appointed Master-of-the-Port-of- the-Thames and was given by the Crown a grant of land on which Milton Manor, a large and handsome mansion, was built. Later, Daniel erected for his son another fine house, The Hall, on the same land. In 1538 Robert Tucker was alderman and mayor of the City of Exeter. Around this date William Tucker, the brother of Robert, married Isota Ashe and their grandson, Daniel, became the second gover­ nor of Bermuda. During the reign of Charles I, George Tucker was a member of the Warwick party in the Virginia Company. He was a brother of the Daniel Tucker, above mentioned. George Tucker's son, George junior, emigrated to Bermuda in 1648 and founded the family in Bermuda. The Tuckers in England have been distinguished people and have served their country well, but none of them has ever received knighthood. They belong to that sturdy stock, the upper middle class English. It has been said that they have Tudor blood in their veins. Thomas Tudor Tucker has been a frequent name in the family. The English Tuckers have lived in song and story and gained enviable positions in literature, commerce, and in both civil and mili­ tary government. From them good colonial stock was founded in Bermuda, in the United States, and in other parts of the world. Many of the Tucker women have married important personages; Sir Henry St. George, General Lauzern, who was on Wellington's staff at Water­ loo, and a long list of others. Nancy Tucker, wife of General Lauzern, was a sister of St. George Tucker, the founder of our branch of the family in Virginia. Raeburn's portrait of this beautiful woman is considered his master- The Tucker Legend xvii piece and is a valued possession of the National Gallery in London. Many engravings of this have been made. 1 possess an excellent oil copy which I was fortunate enough to be able to purchase in London. The first St. George Tucker, uncle, I believe, of the St. George of Bermuda-Virginia, was president of the famous East India Company and is said to have accumulated con­ siderable wealth, a rare accomplishment among the Tuckers. The East India Company had many enemies and this St. George was accused of rape and tried in India. Whatever were the circumstances, let it be known he was gloriously acquitted. The first governor of Bermuda was Richard Moore, a fine man and a militant churchman, who built Bermuda's first church, and her first fort. The second governor of Bermuda (1616) was Daniel Tucker, a fine man, too, in some respects, but probably not so strong a churchman. He had to deal with a motley crew of colonists, many of whom were lazy. Old Daniel, to get wharves built, fresh water conserved, and ground planted, is said to have been able to outswear any of the islanders and one morning to have beat forty of these fellows over their backs with his cane. In a few years he sailed back to England in a ship called The Blessing, which many of his subjects thought appropriately named in spite of the fact that the Governor had accom­ plished much for the colony. Another Tucker, Captain William Tucker, came to Vir­ ginia in 1609. In leading an attack against the Dages Indians he is said to have disregarded an Indian flag of truce and to have killed a number of them. This apparent­ ly despicable act may have been justified because of several recent massacres by the Indians. At any rate he became a member of the House of Burgesses. He left Virginia to xviii The Tucker Legend live in Bermuda during the sixteen-twenties. His name is on the monument at Jamestown which commemorates some twenty early settlers. Many officers in the English army have been Tuckers and have shed their blood in the Cawnpore massacre by the Sepoys and wherever England has flung her flag so that the sun could not set except upon her possessions. The noted authoress of more than half a century ago who wrote of India and signed herself A. L. O. E. (a lady of England) was a Tucker, and also doubtless a member of the family was Little Tommy Tucker who sang for his supper, lustily, too, I'll wager. Then there was old Dan: Old Dan Tucker, he got drunk Fell in the fire and kicked up a chunk; A red hot coal got in his shoe And he said, "Lord ha' mercy! What shall I do?"

Among the high spots in the memory of my wife and me have been the occasions on which we have dined at cousin Boswell Tucker's in London. The cousinship was distant, but he was of the same line and the Tuckers are clannish. He and Mrs. Tucker, their two sons, Robert and Herbert, and their daughter, Dorothy, were just as Tucker- ish as the Tucker families are in any part of the world. Once I wrote a historical novel called Narna Darrell. A lady critic called it Tuckerish. I doubt if she ever knew that I valued this appellation more than any other that was applied to the book. Mrs. Boswell Tucker was a real genealogist and gathered a splendid collection of Tucker data. Their children are living and worthy of them, I am glad to say, but this dear and cultured couple has passed through the "portals of the mortal." I met in London, in 1931, Mr. Robert Tucker of Balti- The Tucker Legend xix more, who has a fine collection of Tucker portraits. This distinguished gentleman was then in his eighties. He resem­ bled Cousin Flarry St. George Tucker, the former Congress­ man, in looks and manner enough to have been his brother, and possessed many of the traits common to the family. In 1938, my wife and I visited Bermuda. There we met several of the Bermuda branch. Edward we had known when he lived for some years in Richmond. The copy of the Tucker coat-of-arms in this volume was done by him. He also has drawn an excellent family tree. He is an archi­ tect and many of the modern buildings of beautiful Bermuda were designed by him. One of his brothers is a beloved doctor. We went to St. George's and to the old church on the walls of which are tablets to many Tuckers. Lo and behold! the rector of this church was Arthur Tucker, in looks and manner as much like my beloved Uncle Bev, the old Bishop of Southern Virginia, as two peas in a pod. Canon Arthur Tucker has written a short history of Bermu­ da. Read it. He is a real Tucker. I know because he kissed my wife and told her she was young and pretty. When she said, "Why I am a grandmother," he dismissed the statement with a twinkle and "I don't believe you." George Preston Coleman of Williamsburg, a Tucker descendant, has a large collection of the Virginia Tucker family letters, some of which his accomplished wife has published along with other Tuckerana. Scattered here and there in Virginia and elsewhere are Tucker portraits and heirlooms but the Tuckers of Virginia have never produced rich men of large estates and valuable material collections. Rather they have possessed social traits, geniality, and humor. They have given their services largely to profes­ sions. The descendants of St. George Tucker have frequent­ ly been lawyers, clergymen, and physicians. The lawyers xx The Tucker Legend have tended to become judges, statesmen, and professors of law; the clergymen, teachers and bishops, and the physicians, chiefs of hospitals and professors in medical colleges. Many of this family have written textbooks, histories, essays, and novels. A flair for writing verse has come to one or two members of each generation from St. George Tucker to the present generation. Nearly all of the Virginia branch have been good letter writers. Christian names have been repeated over and over in the family, and it is somewhat confusing to identify the individ­ ual members by their first names. In Virginia the most fre­ quent names are St. George, Beverley, and John Randolph. While the descendants of St. George Tucker have loved peace, they have ever answered, as did he, the call of the bugle in time of war and their records will not be found deficient in deeds of valor. The stock of the descendants of St. George Tucker, like their Bermuda and English ancestors, has been a sturdy stock, particularly free from insanity, tuberculosis, chronic alcoholism, and all forms of hereditary disease. They have been pioneering people; to the western part of the United States, to Japan, and to China, but still they have main­ tained a good standard of health and longevity. The Tucker stock is a dominant stock and although the blond type has prevailed, whether blond or brunette, a certain family like­ ness and certain common characteristics have been noted. Their ideas of life, their aims and ideals, their views upon public questions, their voices, their laughs, their character strength and their human failings, their emotions, and their mannerisms have been strikingly alike. And still, in spite of these similarities, each Tucker seems to have been able to develop an individual personality. The Tucker Legend xxi

The Tucker coat-of-arms, as I have said, was given the family in 1079. On its crest is a griffin's claw holding a battle-axe and on the shield are three sea horses. The full motto is Nil Desperandum Auspice Tucro—never despair under the auspices of the Tuckers; but this motto is often split and on some arms Nil Desperandum is used, while on others Auspice Tucro. [UDGE ST. GEORGE TUCKER I 752-1 828 Bermuda-Virginia ST. GEORGE TUCKER i 7 5 2- i 8 2 8

Founder of Our Branch of the Family

HERE grew up in Bermuda a family of Tuckers, Tchildren of Henry Tucker and Anne Butterfield, his wife. Among them were St. George, the founder of our branch of the family in Virginia, and his brother, Thomas Tudor Tucker. In 1771 these two brothers sailed for Virginia. Thomas Tudor had studied medicine in Edin­ burgh and St. George entered the law school at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg under the famous professor, George Wythe. While at William and Mary, St. George became a member of the Flat Hat Society, which consisted of rather an uproarious group of youngsters but which later evolved into the Phi Beta Kappa Society, the first Greek letter fraternity in America. Tudor went to Charleston, South Carolina, to practice medicine and a brief sketch of his career will be found following this of St. George. Suffice it to say here that Thomas Tudor had two children who died young and left no descendants. A most attractive life of St. George has been written by Mrs. George P. Coleman, St. George Tucker, A Citizen of No Mean City, which was published in 1938 by the Dietz Press of Richmond. All of St. George Tucker's descendants should read this book. After his graduation St. George practiced law for a time in Williamsburg. When he was in his early twenties he happened to be in Richmond during the meeting of the Assembly at St. John's Church and to have been sitting in the gallery when Patrick Henry made his famous "Give me 2 Tales of the Tuckers

Liberty or Give me Death" speech and immediately after­ ward St. George Tucker wrote what we know of the speech today. (See Garland's Life of John Randolph.) So enthusi­ astic was he about Patrick Henry's oratory that, although considered a citizen of Bermuda at the time, he became an ardent revolutionist. St. George Tucker married the widow Randolph, nee Frances Bland, the daughter of Theodorick Bland and granddaughter of Richard Bland and the mother, by her former marriage, of that famous character, John Randolph of Roanoke. By her St. George Tucker had many children, some of whom died at an early age, but among those surviving were Henry St. George and Beverley, of both of whom we shall hear more. It is said of Frances Bland Tucker that she was the only woman who has ever had three sons in the United States Congress at one time—John Randolph of Roanoke, Beverley Tucker, and Henry St. George Tucker. Her husband, St. George, had been a member of the Continental Congress and of the first two Federal congresses. Frances Bland Randolph-Tucker was a remarkable wo­ man in many respects. During the Revolution she refugeed with her three Randolph children from Carsons, near City Point, to Bizzarre, west of Petersburg, and here she reared them and her increasing Tucker brood, giving them their early education herself. Her husband, St. George Tucker, was in the army until 1781. During that time she was much alone except for the children and she was exposed to the fear and the danger of raids of the British troops. Often she was in ill health, but her fortitude and her acceptance of her responsibilities never deserted her. When her son, John Randolph, was nine years old she took him to Roanoke, a plantation in Charlotte County which he had inherited. St. George Tucker 3

Riding on horseback with him over these broad acres she stopped on a knoll and said to him, "Son, this is your land; keep your land and your land will keep you." This injunc­ tion was given wisely, for John Randolph ever kept Roanoke and it probably saved his eccentricities from turning into mental derangement. It is astounding to realize that this woman who had accomplished so much died at the early age of thirty-six. The relationship of St. George Tucker with his stepson, John Randolph of Roanoke, was affectionate until 1814 when Randolph wrote him accusing him of cruelty. Once John Randolph refused Judge Tucker's proffered hand and Bruce relates the stepfather saying, "Oh Jack, I never thought that one of my children would refuse my hand." Mrs. George Coleman in her life of St. George Tucker states that in correspondence he afterwards mentioned John Randolph occasionally, calmly, and affectionately, but with obvious restraint. Very close and affectionately did St. George Tucker and his brother, Thomas Tudor, hold their young cousin from Bermuda, George Tucker, a literator, who wrote Tucker's History of the United States and became professor of moral philosophy at the University of Virginia. He was also for several terms a representative from Virginia to the Congress of the United States. Virginia is a remarkable place for long standing friend­ ships and many of the descendants of the friends of St. George Tucker — John Page of Rosewell, some of the Carters, the Beverley Randolphs, the Andersons and the Archers who had come from Bermuda, the Cabells of Warminster, the Coalters, the Tylers, the Blairs, and the Peachys, besides his many legal and political friends — 4 Tales of the Tuckers are friends of the Tuckers today unto the fifth and six generations. St. George Tucker rose to be a colonel in the Continental Army and was wounded at the Battle of Guilford Court­ house in North Carolina and again at Yorktown where he was on the staff of General Lafayette. He must have been a handsome man as his portrait by St. Memin, unless it was greatly flattered, will attest. He undoubtedly had a versatile and brilliant mind evidenced by the fact that, besides being an officer of considerable rank in the army, in civil life he became a wealthy ship owner, author of Dissertation on Slavery in 1796 (advising its gradual abolishment) and of Tucker's Blackstone. Also he was a judge of the Supreme Court of Virginia, a judge of the Federal District Court, served in Congress, and followed his preceptor, George Wythe, as professor of law at William and Mary. In 1790 he was given an LL.D degree at William and Mary. His residence in Williamsburg, the Tucker House, is one of the show places, and his character was such that he was not only adored by his family but greatly beloved by a wide circle of both humble and prominent friends and respected by all. The Tucker House in Williamsburg, on Palace Green, is a double house of colonial architecture which, connected by a wide hall, faces two ways; one toward the Duke of Gloucester Street of the town and the other toward the meadows which now lead to the railway station. It is a frame house, floored with wide, hewn pine planks, and has paneled pine wain­ scoting on the walls. From the main floor two similar stair­ cases lead up to the floor above. It is a wide house, made so by wings which were added as the family increased in number. This house is the only remaining Tucker residence of any antiquity in Virginia. There were other Tucker residences which have disappeared through fire or adversity, St. George Tucker 5 but anywhere a Tucker family lives, whether in their own or in a rented house, there is home and all that goes with that homely but beautiful word. In the Tucker House in Williamsburg generations of chil­ dren have grown and here have gathered both distinguished and humble guests. Overreaching the inevitable sadnesses, its rooms and halls have the memory of the sound of merry feet and laughter, the warmth of welcome and hospitality, and of the never dying love for each of the Tucker tribe, as they have been styled, and of all who have been dear to them. May the timbers of this house stand strong for many more centuries, symbolic of the family which it has sheltered. In this remarkable man, St. George Tucker, there was in addition to his sterling traits a spirit of independence and a dash of the dare-devil. In spite of his family and friends in Bermuda considering him a rebel, he not only gave his services to the Revolution but he undertook, at the sugges­ tion of Patrick Henry, then Governor of Virginia, the high­ ly dangerous task of taking two ships to Bermuda and con­ fiscating British gunpowder which was on the wharves ready for the British fleet. This feat he accomplished, bringing the powder to this country after running the British block­ ade. It is said that he arrived at Bermuda at night, slipped off from the ship and entered his old home through the window of his beloved mother's bedchamber, and paid her a visit. The old lady did not betray his presence, and by the next morning he was gone with the powder. A few years ago my brother, Crump, visited Bermuda and one of the Bermuda family asked him from which Tucker he was de­ scended. "From St. George," said Crump. "Ah! the rebel," exclaimed the cousin. "Yes, thank God," was the reply. But there is a sequel to the gunpowder story. When Colonel St. George Tucker went to Richmond and reported 6 Tales of the Tuckers to Patrick Henry on the success of his mission the Governor failed to thank him. Years afterward when St. George was holding court as Federal judge, Patrick Henry came into the courtroom. It had always been the custom on the occasions when a distinguished visitor appeared for the judge to ask him to sit beside him on the bench, but Judge Tucker failed to do this and Mr. Henry, the peoples' idol, had to sit in the audience. In a letter to a relative St. George related the incident and explained that he had no intention of giving Mr. Henry a second opportunity to snub him. St. George Tucker, besides his many other accomplish­ ments, from time to time wrote verse. One poem, Days of My Youth, has survived in anthologies to the present day and is as follows:

DAYS OF MY YOUTH

Days of my youth, Ye have glided away; Hairs of my youth, Ye are frosted and gray; Eyes of my youth, Your keen sight is no more; Cheeks of my youth, Ye are furrowed all o'er; Strength of my youth, All your vigor is gone; Thoughts of my youth, Your gay visions are flown.

Days of my youth, I wish not your recall; Hairs of my youth, I'm content ye should fall; St. George Tucker 7

Eyes of my youth, You much evil have seen ; Cheeks of my youth, Bathed in tears you have been; Thoughts of my youth, You have led me astray; Strength of my youth, Why lament your decay?

Days of my age, Ye will shortly be past; Pains of my age, Yet awhile ye can last; Joys of my age, In true wisdom delight; Eyes of my age, Be religion your light; Thoughts of my age, Fear ye not the cold sod; Hopes of my age, Be ye fixed on your God.

—ST. GEORGE TUCKER, "An American Anthology, 1787-1900," ed. by Edmund C. Stedman. Whatever the sorrows and cares of his old age may have been, it is good to know that he had some fun and hilarity in his youth. Recently one hundred and fifty manuscripts of his poems, many of them on patriotic subjects, have been given William and Mary by his great-grandson, George Coleman. He died in 1828 in Nelson County, much respected, and one of the eminent men of Virginia. The following is a free translation of the Latin inscription 8 Tales of the Tuckers on the tomb of Judge St. George Tucker at "Edgewood," Nelson County, then the home of his friend, Joseph Cabell.

Here rests St: Geo: Tucker Born in Bermuda An adopted son of the State of Virginia Impelled by a love of liberty He was a brave and valiant Soldier. After liberty was established He was a pure and upright Judge— At the College of William & Mary he was for some time A learned and faithful Professor Well versed in the Laws and decisions, He was familiar with the Arts and Sciences With a cultivated taste for Poetry. In public affairs he was vigilant and enlightened In private life his affections were constant and conspicuous In all things upright and faithful At all times firm and constant— This tomb is erected by his children and his nephews and by his beloved wife in memory of the benevolence and benignity—of his admirable life and of his uprightnesses and virtues—as an expression of their sorrow. Born July 10, 1752 Died Nov. 10, 1828 DR. THOMAS TUDOR TUCKER 1745-1828 Bermuda-South Carolina-IVasliington, D. C THOMAS TUDOR TUCKER 1745-1828

Physician and Treasurer of the United States

HOMAS TUDOR TUCKER came to Virginia in T 1771 with his'brother, St. George Tucker, and went to Charleston, South Carolina, to practice medicine. He had graduated from the University of Edinburgh. In Charles­ ton he married Esther Evans and had two children. His wife soon died and his children died in early youth. Dr. Tudor Tucker entered the Army of the Revolution as a surgeon, and later in the war was put in charge of the army hospital at Williamsburg, Virginia. Mrs. George P. Coleman says, "Dr. Tucker's career as a physician does not seem ever to have been successful from a financial point of view. He made many ventures, ap­ parently usually unfortunate, in trading with Bermuda and the West Indies, running the blockade during the years of the Revolution, and had shares in several schooners, but in 1787 he accepted an appointment as Delegate to the First Continental Congress, saying that his practice in Charleston was 'so inconsiderable' as barely to offer him a means of subsistence. He was elected in opposition to a Mr. Ralph Izard, after having fought a duel—in which he was severely wounded—with that gentleman's nephew, over the diver­ gence of their political opinions." In this session the form and function of the new republic was discussed. It was during the session of the First Congress that the following letter, to his brother in Virginia, was written: io Tales of the Tuckers

Thomas Tudor Tucker to his Brother St. George Tucker

New York, May 13th, 1789

My beloved Brother # # * $ # * Our new Government is now in full Operation but how it will move or what will be the end of it I can scarcely conjecture. I am not yet in Love with it, & I doubt if I ever shall be. With concern I perceive that it has infused into the Minds of People here the most intolerable rage for Monarchy that can be imagined. Verily I believe that a very great proportion are ripe for a King & would salute the President as such with all the Folly of Enthusiasm. What are Men ? Not rational Beings, surely, as they pretend to be, they bawl about Liberty, & only want the Liberty to make themselves slaves.

:£ ^ TJJ % 3fc- -&

Soon after the arrival of the President, the Senate sent us a resolution appointing a committee to confer with a Committee of our House & to report whether any Titles & what other than expressed in the Constitution were to be given to the President & Vice Presi­ dent. I objected to the Appointment. But I was alone in my Opinion & a Committee was appointed; the Report to both Houses was that no Titles be given. We agreed to the Report & presented our Addresses accordingly in Answer to the Speech to both Houses. After this we received a Message from the Senate informing us that they had rejected the Report & at the same time a new Resolution appointing a Committee to confer with a Committee of our House & to report what Title was to be given the President. I again objected to the appointment of a Committee, but in vain. A Com­ mittee was appointed to confer on the subject of the differing Votes of the two Houses. In the mean while this Senate, it seems have done more on this Subject than they have informed us of (by the bye their Doors had never been set open). They had, I understand, ap­ pointed a Committee to report what Title should be given, & the Report was that it be His Highness the Presidest, Protector of the Liberties of the United States. Thomas Tudor Tucker II

What will be the Issue of all this I know not; but the word Highness is in the Mouth of every Fool & Knave—& even His Sacred Majesty has been seriously talk'd of. I am out of all Patience when I think how we suffered ourselves to be duped into Measures destructive of every Republican Idea. How these things sit upon the Mind of the President I cannot judge, but if he is the Man I take him to be & hope to find him they must give him not a little pain. ***** *" (See footnote)

After the Revolution Dr. Tucker represented South Carolina in the first and second Congress, 1789-93. In 1801 he was appointed Treasurer of the United States by Thomas Jefferson and served in this capacity until his death in 1828. He held this office longer than anyone else has ever done and through more administrations, although from his letters one can see that he had entered upon his duties in fear and trepidation. After his entrance into public life, financial fortune seemed to smile upon him in that his invest­ ments prospered and as he had no immediate family he was at but little expense. He died in his eighty-fourth year, beloved, respected, and leaving an estate of $100,000 which made him quite a rich man for his time. His likeness to his brother St. George may be noted in the accompanying copy of the St. Memin portrait.

From the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. XXII, No. i, Jan. 1934, page +7. HENRY ST. GEORGE TUCKER 1780-1848

Jurist and Professor of Law, University of Virginia

ENRY ST. GEORGE TUCKER came to Williams­ H burg when he was nine years old at the time his father, St. George Tucker, was appointed professor of law at William and Mary. He had been born at Mattoax in Chesterfield County on December 29, 1780. He went to grammar school in Williamsburg and later was graduated from William and Mary in the humanities and in law. At the age of twenty-two, in 1802, he settled in Winchester, Virginia, to practice law, and there in 1806 he married Miss Ann Evelina Hunter. The Tucker family has always possessed a high sense of humour but this characteristic was undoubtedly heightened when Evelina Hunter's blood began to circulate in the family. Humour differs from wit in that it flows from good spirits and lacks the sting of wit. Humour is humanish and wit is waspish. As an example, a lady once asked me, "Doctor, what musical instruments do you like best?" "The hurdy-gurdy, the calliope, and the drum," I answer­ ed. This may be considered humour. "Then I see," she replied, "that you tend to be an admixture of the organgrinder, the circus clown, and the dead-beat." That's wit. Evelina Hunter was somewhat of a character. She was a devoted wife, a splendid mother, and an excellent house­ keeper, and at the same time, although she was a stern disciplinarian and a strict religionist, she bubbled over with good humour. Dr. Weir Mitchell told me that as a boy, [UDGE HENRY ST. GEORGE TUCKER I 7 8 o - I 8 4 8 Virginia Henry St. George Tucker 13 because he was considered delicate, he lived for two years at the home of Flenry St. George Tucker in Winchester. Old Mrs. Tucker, he related, would line up her large family in the church pews on Sunday and that if any one of the youngsters dropped off to sleep during the services she would poke the child in the ribs with the green silk umbrella she invariably carried. When the child would jump because of this prodding she would smile and wink at the offspring and continue her worship. But if the child laughed out loud it was liable to get a crack on the knuckles from the handle of the same umbrella. Grandpa Tucker told me that when any two of the brothers got into a fight, the old lady would call both of them into the parlor and proceed to thrash each of them. Immediately two of the other children would stage a fight in the hall and then great-grandmother would leave the ones she was thrashing and go after the last culprits. When this occurred the first two would start fighting again and back into the parlor she would go after them. The end result of this chasseing policy was that she would break into a laugh and everybody was happy. Henry St. George Tucker in Winchester became counsel for the estate of Lord Fairfax which involved considerable important business, also he was elected to the General Assembly of Virginia, and at the outbreak of the War of 1812 he raised a company of horsemen and was at Balti­ more when the British were repulsed in 1814. The next year he was elected to the United States Congress and later he was appointed Brigadier General of the State militia by the Virginia Legislature. In Congress his career was distinguished. Although al­ ways personally loyal to his friends he was independent in politics. Serving with such great men as Clay, Calhoun, 14 Tales of the Tuckers

Webster, John Randolph, and Pinckney, none was mentally his superior. He supported issues for the enlarged power of Congress in domestic and foreign affairs and he backed the formation of a Bank of the United States. While in Congress a law was passed raising the salaries of Congress­ men, against which he had voted. Henry St. George Tucker took the view that Congressmen had no right to raise their own salaries and he refused to accept the extra remunera­ tion. The amount still stands to his credit in the United States Treasury. He left Congress in 1819 and was elected to the Virginia Senate. Here he introduced a bill for the gradual emanci­ pation of slaves which was defeated by only one vote. In 1825 he established a law school of his own in Winchester. Before this time he suggested to Thomas Jefferson the establishment of a State University, and, not only that, he suggested that it should be located in the neighborhood of Charlottesville. He refused a seat on the Supreme Court Bench of the United States offered by President Andrew Jackson because he preferred to accept the presidency of the Supreme Court of Virginia. He resigned this judgeship in 1 841 to accept the professorship of law at the University of Virginia. During his second year at the University he was made chairman of the faculty and he inaugurated in that institution its famous "honor system" which as far as is known was the first college honor system of the world. These honors would seem enough for one man but his commentators and biographers all agree that great as were his political and legal accomplishments, his chief characteris­ tics were those of heart and personality. It was said of him that he never had an enemy in the world. He stayed on good terms with his irascible half-brother, John Ran­ dolph of Roanoke, and refused to run for office because he Henry St. George Tucker 15 thought John Randolph wanted it. He opposed at times in the General Assembly and in Congress the policies of his party, but he held the admiration and respect of all. As a man and as a judge it was said that he was tolerant of the faults of everyone save his own. I hope this last was a misstatement and that he was also tolerant of his own faults. Henry St. George Tucker's home life was a happy one, filled with hospitality, gaiety, and culture. His sons, especi­ ally Ran, St. George, Bev, and David, became distinguished men. His courtly manners, his learning, his brilliant conver­ sation, and his love not only for his family but for all man­ kind illumined the path wherever he trod. Like his father, St. George, he wrote verse, none of which to my knowledge is now extant, except the following few lines which he gave Dr. Weir Mitchell with his auto­ graph when Dr. Mitchell was a boy. The autograph shows a slight tremor and under it great-grandfather had written:

The time has passed my friend when youthful pride A neat facsimile could have supplied; By time the vigor of the arm's unmanned, And trembling palsy shakes the aged hand; In second childhood, as on life's first stage, The vilest pothooks mar the blotted page.

Dr. Mitchell had kept this through the years and when he sent it to me he was the age of seventy-six and his own handwriting showed the tremor of age. It is not definitely known who built "Woodbury," Judge Tucker's home near Winchester. In an article by Anna W. and Linnie Schley, published in the Magazine of the Jeffer­ son County Historical Society, Volume VII, December 1941 —they say that it is presumed Judge Henry St. George Tucker built "Woodbury." Their evidence, however, is far 16 Tales of the Tuckers from convincing. At any rate "Woodbury" was owned by Henry St. George Tucker and his wife, and on June 8, 1844 it was sold by him and his wife, Ann Evalina, to Dr. P. Rogers Huffman. "Woodbury" must have been a fine house in which to live. The fallowing is a description from the above article:

"One of the largest and most elaborate houses in Jefferson County (now of West Virginia, then of Virginia) is Woodbury, lying between Kearneysville and Leetown some distance to the left as the road approaches the latter place. It is built of stone faced with white plaster and is essentially of the Regency period in design. Every detail appears to have been executed in a studied attempt to produce as elegant and rich an effect as possible. Where the main inner stairway rises next to the western wall, a false window was placed in the front of the house to give proper balance to the true window on the other end of the front facade. A center portico supported by four columns marks the main or west entrance. A wide back porch runs the length of the house opening from both the first floor and the basement. The first floor rooms open from the large hall which runs across the entire front of the house. There are large double parlors or drawing rooms with connecting sliding doors. The tapered pilasters around the doors show skill in their design and in the workmen who made them. On this floor is also a third room of generous proportions and a small room in the northwest corner, which may have been a powder room or an office. The magnificent main stairway is well worthy of note for its grace and beauty, and for the window placed in the southern wall, half way up, which with its sill slanted downward was planned to give a maximum of light to those ascending and descending. The second floor is similar to the first. The third floor or attic is finished throughout. All the doorways in the house are of maple wood with natural finish. No paper or paint has ever covered the white plaster interior walls. "Woodbury has twenty-two rooms which make it a very large house. According to authorities certain architectural features, such as the sliding rather than folding doors, place its construction as during the period between 1810 and 1840. "The elegance of Colonial days, the grandeur of early 19th Henry St. George Tucker \"J century hospitality are merged in Woodbury, for it is truly a great house, meant for balls and banquets, and for the comfort of a large and prosperous family. It would require no small number of servants to wax the many square yards of floors, to keep alight the fires in its twenty fireplaces and to carry the food from kitchen to dining room. "A remnant of an old flower garden can be seen on the slope east of the house. Barn and other outbuildings are of a later period. There are no traces of earlier structures of any kind."

In 1845 Henry St. George Tucker resigned his professor­ ship at the University because of a stroke of apoplexy and after three years of illness and suffering he passed on, in 1848. His brother, Judge Nathaniel Beverley Tucker, pro­ fessor of law at the College of William and Mary, wrote his epitaph which reads as follows:

"In memory of Henry St. George Tucker, President of the Court of Appeals. "Learned without pedantry; grave without austerity; cheer­ ful without frivolity; gentle without weakness; meek but unbending; rigid in morals, yet indulgent to all faults but his own. "The elements of goodness were in him combined and harmonized in a certain majestic plainness of sense and honor, which offended no man's self-love, and commanded respect, confidence and affection of all. "A faithful husband; a kind and prudent father; a gentle master; a steadfast friend; an able and diligent public officer; "He lived without reproach, And died without an enemy." NATHANIEL BEVERLEY TUCKER i 784-1851

Jurist and Professor of Law at William and Mary also Author.

UDGE BEVERLEY TUCKER rarely used his first J name, Nathaniel. He was the son of St. George Tucker from whom our branch of the Virginia family sprang, and thus he was the brother of my great-grandfather, Judge Henry St. George Tucker. He was born at Mattoax in 1784. As a very young man he lived for some years at Roanoke with his older half-brother, John Randolph of Roanoke, and although Beverley adored John Randolph, this association had undoubtedly a profound influence on the younger man, deleterious as well as desirable. From the association with John Randolph and his ardent support of States' Rights, his studious and literary tastes, and his great general knowledge, the younger man grew in mind, but on the other hand the Tucker humor in him was undoubtedly lessened, and Beverley, in his early manhood, became rather morose and restless. John Randolph craved flattery and liked to arouse jeal­ ousy, playing off one admirer against another. He fed upon resentment and criticism and tried to inculcate these charac­ teristics in Beverley by making this sensitive youngster think that only he, Randolph, "understood" him. Also, he taught Beverley to feel that only he, above all the Tuckers, revered the memory of their mother, the magnificent woman, Frances Bland Randolph-Tucker. After her death Randolph never forgave his stepfather, St. George, for remarrying. Judge Tucker was the first of the Tuckers to be named k DGE NATHANIEL BEVERLEY TUCKER I784-1851 Missouri and Virginia Nathaniel Beverley Tucker 19

Beverley, being named after a friend of his father's, Mr. Beverley Randolph, who was also his godfather. He studied law under his father at William and Mary and read law with his brother-in-law, John Coalter, at Staunton. Soon afterward he went to Missouri, a very pioneer part of the country in those days, and became judge of the Circuit Court and then of the United States Court in that State. He married Lucy Anne Smith, who is said to have been a beauti­ ful and accomplished lady, and came back to Virginia upon the request of John Randolph of Roanoke that he and his young wife and baby daughter, Cynthia, make their home with him at Roanoke to be the comfort of his declining years. Providence intervened and while this little family was on its way from Missouri to Roanoke, John Ran­ dolph died. Then, in 1833, tne professorship of law at William and Mary, which had been held by his father, was offered Judge Tucker; this position he held until his death in 1 85 1. As a child he had lived in the old Tucker House in Williamsburg. It had come to him upon the death of his father in 1828. His grandson, George Preston Coleman, still lives in the house, and it goes to his children at his death and then to the Rockefeller Foundation. The Tucker House in Williamsburg with its central hall and wings on the side added, as required by family increase from time to time through the generations, is the only representative house of the family still in existence. Here the important Tucker letters were accumulated and were stored until they reached some six thousand, here have occurred the entrance and the exit of many of the Tuckers, here the paneled walls have echoed the pattering feet and the laughter of the children of the family, and here the first Christmas tree, at least in this part of the State, was erected to add to the holiday cheer of the children. Probably in the 20 Tales of the Tuckers

Valley of Virginia where many Germans settled, and in other German settlements in the country, there were earlier Christmas trees in honor of Kriss Kringle. Hence, Christmas trees are not a very old institution in America—yule logs, various evergreen decorations, and the singing of carols, after the British custom, preceded the trees. But to Williamsburg came a young German refugee, Charles Minnegerode, about a hundred years ago. Brilliant of mind and noble of character he was taken by Judge Tucker into his home. In the year 1842, May Coleman, from whom 1 got much of this information, says this homesick young exile, to whom the Tuckers were devoted and nicknamed "Minck," asked permission to give a Ger­ man children's party such as he and his brothers and sisters had always enjoyed at home. May says her mother-in-law, Cousin Cynthia, was about ten years old and that she and Mattie Page, afterwards Mrs. Vandergrift, of Gloucester, who lived to be one hundred and three years old, always remembered this Christmas tree party. Regular sized can­ dles were cut down and fastened on the tree, nuts were gilded, and other ornaments made. Presents were probably not distributed at this time, but there were songs, games, and refreshments. All of this so touched the sentimental heart of Judge Tucker that it became a regular family custom which has been kept up in the Tucker House to this day, naturally as a Christmas festival but also in honor of Charles Minnegerode, the refugee of that day who later meant so much to the people of his adopted country. He became a gallant Confederate soldier and an Episcopal clergyman. For many years he was the beloved rector of St. Paul's Church, Richmond. As there are and have been so many Beverley Tuckers, I have designated this one "Judge" rather than as my great- Nathaniel Beverley Tucker 21 great uncle. Judge Tucker had six children who lived to adulthood, three sons and three daughters, and in the names of each of the six he put the name Beverley. Judge Tucker had many sides to his personality. His mind was brilliant and versatile, he wrote on subjects of law, he published novels, and wrote some poetry, he was a pioneer judge in Missouri, he was a great teacher of law, he served in Con­ gress, he was romantic and enthusiastic, and he had a prophetic vision of the War of Secession. Raised in a happy, joyous household he went as a youngster to Roanoke to a life of much isolation with a crotchety and older man. Accustomed to the graces and cultured society of Tidewater Virginia, he lived for some years in Missouri the rough life of the then Far West. These two experiences shall have to be somewhat described if we are to get a fairly full view of his accomplishments which were remarkable under the circumstances. Roanoke was a fine plantation in Charlotte County on Staunton River. Here John Randolph lived in a one-story frame house but of large proportions, and he had his "office" in an outhouse. This office still stands, but flames have long since claimed the house. However, in furniture and silver and library the house at Roanoke rivaled the best of the day. To Roanoke, this bachelor, John Randolph, retired when the hand of fate had laid heavily upon him. His mother, Frances Bland Randolph-Tucker, had died, one of his full brothers, a weakling from disease, had died, and another had undergone a terrific tragedy. John Randolph himself had suffered from a most unfortunate youthful infatuation with a girl in Philadelphia when he was a student there and later had been all but crushed by his unculminated romance with the beautiful Maria Ward who had later married his cousin, Peyton Randolph, and lastly he had 22 Tales of the Tuckers wretched health himself because of what I believe would now be diagnosed pernicious anemia. In consequence of all these things he had become eccentric, demanding, and cyni­ cal, but in spite of them he took an interest in his fine horses, he had a well run plantation, and he served his country in Congress brilliantly and with honor. Into these surroundings came young Beverley Tucker in the capacity of both companion and student. He must have been appalled at some of John Randolph's tirades, puzzled at his many physical complaints, and hurt at times by his withering sarcasm. On the other hand, the younger half- brother must have admired John Randolph's cultured and ready mind, absorbed his States' Rights doctrines, and been proud of his oratorical ability. Whether he learned to love John Randolph it is hard to say. He did not name one of his sons after him as did his brother, Henry St. George. May Coleman, George Coleman's wife, has written me the following, gleaned from old letters:

"After Randolph's death someone wrote to Beverley suggesting that Nathaniel Hawthorne should write a biography of John Ran­ dolph. Beverley Tucker rejoined scornfully that to have Randolph's life written by Hawthorne would be like having one of the grandest, gloomiest of Byron's poems 'sung by a little girl in pantalettes accom­ panied by her small brother on the flageolet.' In another letter Beverley describes spending the night in Randolph's room. Randolph was excited and restless and, rousing up in the night, would talk for hours. 'And, ye gods! how he can talk!' I am inclined to blame most of Beverley Tucker's faults on his admiration of Randolph."

In Missouri many of the people were adventurers and there was a large lawless element. Communications were difficult, there were still many Indians, the houses were rough and often uncomfortable, and there was little oppor­ tunity for the social or intellectual intercourse of the East. Nathaniel Beverley Tucker 23

For young Beverley Tucker to have been made judge and then elevated to a higher judgeship attests to both his ability and his character. Had he not been offered the professor­ ship at William and Mary he would doubtless have returned to Missouri and lived and died in the Middle West, but he still would probably have written books. The urge to authorship has no geographic confines, but location does alter the direction and often the mode of expressing subject matter. One summer in the 1840's Judge Tucker addressed the knights of a Grand Tournament at the White Sulphur Springs and did so, much to the delight of the gathered throng, in blank verse in true Sir Walter Scott style. He wound up with this appeal:

"Then forward to the lists. Bright eyes are on you, And love's warm breath shall lend its rich perfume To the applause that waits upon your triumph!"

Judge Tucker wrote three novels, George Balcombe, Gertrude, and The Partisan Leader; the best known of these was the latter which predicted the Civil War as starting in Virginia. This book was first published in 1836, bearing the fictitious date of 1856, and had the war, in retrospect, to start in 1849 with Martin Van Buren as President of the United States. In 1862 it was re-published in New York and then suppressed. Judge Tucker had known the mother of Edgar Allan Poe and this formed the basis of a life-long friendship with Poe, who sent him some of his poems and other writings to criticise. For a short time Judge Tucker acted as editor of the Southern Literary Messenger to which he had sent con­ tributions from time to time. In the 1920's Langdon Mitchell, son of Dr. S. Weir 24 Tales of the Tuckers

Mitchell, and, like his father, an author of note, wrote an article upon the literary epitaphs on Southern tombstones. One of the most beautiful and noted of these is that of Dr. Pettigrew in St. Michael's Churchyard in Charleston, South Carolina. One comparable to that Judge Beverley Tucker wrote for the tomb of his brother, Judge Henry St. George Tucker, which I have copied in my sketch of him. It is not only a sincere tribute to an older brother, but it has a high literary value all its own. Judge Tucker was made an LL.D. of William and Mary in 1837, and in Andrew Jackson's administration he was tendered a judgeship on the United States Supreme Court, but this he declined. (Tyler's Cyclopedia of Biography.) My grandfather Crump studied law under Judge Tucker at William and Mary and lived in his house. He was a great admirer of him both as a law professor and as a man. In fact, he named his second son, Beverley Tucker Crump, in his honor. Grandpa Crump was very fond of the whole family, especially Cousin Cynthia who later 'married Doctor Coleman of Williamsburg. Cousin Cynthia was a woman of fine mind and sterling religious character. She taught a Bible class of William and Mary students for many years and was a pillar of Bruton Parish Church. Among her endeavors was an effort to get old Mr. Montague Thompson to attend church. Mr. Thompson was a leading lawyer and an old bachelor. I remember him well both when I, as a boy, visited Williamsburg and when he would come to Richmond to see Grandpa Crump. He wore a long, black over-cape and a toupee and walked with a gold-headed cane. One Sunday morning shortly before services Cousin Cynthia button-holed him and made him promise to go to church. As good as his word he appeared and sat in one of the rear pews. All went well until the collection was taken up when Nathaniel Beverley Tucker 25

Dr. Edwin Booth, who lived a short distance down the James River at "Carter's Grove," passed the plate in the part of the church where, much to the satisfaction of the congregation, sat Mr. Thompson who had not been to services for years. Mr. Thompson made a good-sized con­ tribution, but in getting the plate returned Dr. Booth caught Mr. Thompson's toupee in his sleeve button and marched up the aisle with it hanging from his arm and wondered why the congregation was tittering. When the offering was received by the pastor 'and the vestrymen returned, Mr. Thompson, who had arisen in bald-headed indignity, grab­ bed the toupee from the doctor's sleeve, slapped in on his pate, and left the church never to return again until his funeral many years afterwards. Judge Tucker had a son, Montague Beverley Tucker, who, I suppose, was named for Mr. Montague Thompson of whom this story is told. He was the youngest son and was only two or three years of age when his father died. The War of Secession came on and this boy in his early teens ran away from school and joined the Confederate Army. Later he went to Missouri where he married Ada Lewis who was a very splendid wo­ man. He left one daughter named Virginia. I do not know his exact occupation or the date of his death. Judge Tucker had also a son, Thomas Smith Beverley Tucker. Cousin Thomas was wounded near Fredericksburg during the War of Secession and 'my grandfather Crump in Richmond had him brought to his house where he was nursed by the family until he recovered. He had another son, St. George Beverley Tucker, who became a pioneer physician in Marshall, Missouri. This Dr. Beverley Tucker became widely known and had a son, Beverley, who also studied medicine at the University of Virginia and practiced in Colorado Springs. The latter died several years ago much 26 Tales of the Tuckers beloved and highly respected for his great ability. He and his family were affectionately hospitable to my wife and our daughter, Elsie, when they visited Colorado Springs in 1931. Judge Beverley Tucker, considered one of the most bril­ liant men of his time, died in 1851, ten years before the war he had predicted and ten years before the chair of law was discontinued, because of the war, at William and Mary. It seems a great pity that this chair of law which had been held by such illustrious professors and had turned out so many distinguished graduates has not been re-instituted. DR. DAVID HUNTER TUCKER I 8 I 5 - I 8 7 I Richmond, Virginia DAVID HUNTER TUCKER i 8 i 5- i87 i Physician Y great-uncle Dr. David Hunter Tucker was born in M Winchester, Virginia, in 1815, one of the six sons of Judge Henry St. George Tucker and Ann Evelina Hunter Tucker. There were also two charming daughters—three other children died young. Having been reared in this really charming and cultured household, he went to the University of Pennsylvania and graduated in medicine and became an instructor in medicine at the Jefferson Medical College. In 1849 he came to Richmond as professor of medicine of the Medical College of Virginia, which chair he filled until 1869. From 1853 to 1856 he was also dean of the college. Thus he served as professor of this institution during the four strenuous years of the War of Secession, where, through intensive training, there were turned out rapidly many young doctors who served in the army of their State and their section of the country. During the war Dr. Tucker was called, in 1863, by his young though distant cousin, Dr. Hunter McGuire, a fam­ ous Confederate surgeon, to consult on the last illness of the gre'at Stonewall Jackson. Of this event Dr. Stuart Mc­ Guire, his son, has said:

"As you know Jackson was wounded at Chancellorsville and was operated on in a hospital and then hurriedly moved to a small house about fifty miles from Richmond, which you often see as you pass on the R. F. & P. Railroad. After his arrival at this house he developed pneumonia. My father desiring more consultation and someone to share the responsibility and looking for the strongest man in the State, called Cousin David Tucker. He arrived on a Saturday 28 Tales of the Tuckers and remained until Jackson died the following day. Dr. Tucker's advice and sharing of responsibility were a great satisfaction to my father and he never forgot it."

To show further the affection and esteem which existed between the two cousins, I shall quote again from Dr. Stuart McGuire:

"After Appomattox my father rode on horseback to his home in Winchester, arriving the latter part of April. In July he received a letter from Cousin David saying that Dr. Charles Mason Bell had died and the college authorities were looking for a professor of surgery and asked my father if he would accept it. My father was anxious to come to Richmond and he saw the possibility of a hand­ some salary which would enable him to get married. Therefore he wrote a very enthusiastic acceptance to Cousin David and wanted to know if he could do anything personally to help him in the matter. Cousin David wrote back saying, 'Damn it! stay where you are; I don't want anybody to see you until after the election takes place as you are so lanky and young looking.' Through the influence of Dr. Tucker he was elected to succeed Dr. Bell and came to Richmond that fall and located. "In those days the faculty was in much trouble, badly divided by different factions and schisms. Cousin David headed one faction and needless to say my father was his lieutenant. While my father always spoke of him with affection and gratitude, my mother always blamed him for getting my father into many quarrels."

Dr. M. Pierce Rucker informs me that Dr. Tucker pub­ lished a book on obstetrics, and I quote from a letter Dr. Rucker wrote me:

"There is in the vault of the Medical College of Virginia a book entitled, Elements of the Principles and Practices of Midwifery, Philadelphia, Lindsay and Blakiston, 1848, by Dr. David Hunter Tucker. My impression is that this is the first textbook on obstetrics written by a Virginian and the only one except, much later, Robins' Notes on Dr. Christopher Tompkins' Lectures." David Hunter Tucker 29

After the war Dr. David Tucker still served the college as professor of medicine and had a large but unremunerative private practice. The college was depleted in equipment, personnel, and finances, and Dr. Tucker, the eminent physi­ cian, was poor, ill a good deal of the time, and overworked. But his spirit was kept up by his ideal of duty and the sense of humor of his beloved wife, Elizabeth Nicklin Dallas, daughter of George Mifflin Dallas, who served as Ambassa­ dor to Russia, as Vice-President of the United States under James K. Polk, and later as Ambassador to the Court of St. James. Uncle David lived in Richmond on Fourth Street, out toward Gamble's Hill; a tall, bearded, kindly, courteous, humorous man of medium stoutness, blondish- gray and florid, working day and night, attending the sick and holding his family together—his adored wife, his witty and attractive daughters, Virginia (affectionately known as Ginny), Cassie, and Emma, and his sons, Dallas, afterward a beloved Episcopal minister, and John Randolph, who was to be Federal Judge in Alaska. Another son, Henry St. George, died at 18 years of age after exposure on guard duty on James River in 1862. Through days of studenthood and practice, through his twenty years of professorship, through days of war as teacher, counselor, and mentor, I imagine the most stressful part of his life came after the war during the days of recon­ struction, the days of poverty, the days of loyal responsibility to a sick medical college, and the days of a growing family. But he met all of these obligations with a twinkle in his blue eyes, with a tease in his voice, and with a contagious chuckle. I shall cite several anecdotes which show his sense of humor and, also, his pertinacity. Recently I heard two emi­ nent heart specialists conversing. They said that certain heart sounds difficult to differentiate could be best classified 30 Tales of the Tuckers by putting the ear to the chest, thus hearing and feeling the beat of the heart directly against the chest wall. Dr. Tucker was professor of medicine at the Medical College of Vir­ ginia when the stethoscope was introduced. One of his stu­ dents asked him in class what was this wonderful new instrument—the stethoscope. The doctor answered that it was "simply a tube with a patient at one end and a damned fool at the other." On another occasion when he went into the lecture room early during one session and began to call the roll, the students had brought a dog in with them. During the calling of the roll the dog was called by the students from one side of the lecture room to the other. When the roll was finished Dr. Tucker said, "I shall suspend the lecture for a few minutes, gentlemen, in order that you may matriculate your new class member." Needless to say, the dog was quietly led out. Toward the latter part of his life Uncle David was fond of his toddy. He was physician to my great-grandmother Ellis whom I remember well, although she died at the age of ninety-six when I was eight years old. She was a dear old lady whom all the family called "grandam," and the last year of her life she was chair-ridden. She was strongly against liquor drinking. When Uncle Dave would go to see her he would talk to the family downstairs and take a drink before he went upstairs to see her. This conversation took place at each visit: Great Uncle David, "Good morning, grandam, I hope you feel better today." Then he would kiss her. Great-grandmother, sniffing, "David, David, I can detect by your breath that you have been drinking." Great Uncle David, "Yes, grandam, I stopped at the David Hunter Tucker 31 sideboard on the way up to give a toast to your very good health." Great-grandmother, "Thankyou, David, thankyou kindly." Uncle Jim Tucker, who was regimental color-bearer, was brought to Richmond badly wounded during the war, the bullet entering the back part of his right shoulder as it was turned in grasping the flag staff. Uncle David would dress the wound and tease as he left, "Ah! shot in the back— think of it—a Tucker shot in the back!" Uncle Jim never quite forgave him for this. During the war Dr. Tucker's daughters refugeed to Charlotte County near "Cliffside," the home of my wife's grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Hannah, whose son, George, was a beau of Cousin Ginny. One day on a visit to his family, Uncle David went into the parlor where young George Hannah, who was on furlough, was sitting on the sofa with his daughter, Ginny. The doctor left immediately with the teasing remark, "Why, George, haven't you popped the question yet?" The end of this story is that neither George nor Ginny ever married. Dr. Tucker was a modest man. Some twenty years ago Dr. W. W. Keen, the famous Philadelphia surgeon, wrote me asking that I get a photograph of Dr. Tucker for him as the University of Pennsylvania was publishing sketches of the careers and pictures of its distinguished graduates. I had the files of the Medical College of Virginia searched, but Dr. Tucker apparently avoided being photographed, even in faculty groups. Recently, one of his granddaughters, Elizabeth Wingo, found a photograph of him from which a portrait was painted by Miss Virginia Kennady and presented by the family to the Medical College of Virginia. Dr. David Tucker was only fifty-six when he died, but he had led a full, a useful, and a distinguished life. BEVERLEY TUCKER i8 20-i8 9 o

United States and Confederate Diplomat

NE of the most colorful and interesting of all the O Tuckers was Nathaniel Beverley Tucker, a son of Henry St. George and Ann Evelina Tucker, who was born in Winchester in 1820. He soon dropped the name Na­ thaniel, which he did not like, and was known only as Beverley Tucker. I have heard my grandmother, Jane Ellis, daughter of Powhatan Ellis of Richmond, say that she never knew grandp'a had Nathaniel in his name until she saw it on her marriage certificate. They had eight children, three dying young. Grandpa used to say humorously that he was never free, that he was the middle one of thirteen children and had married before he was twenty-one. When grandpa was twelve years of age and his father had been appointed president of the Virginia Supreme Court, he moved with the family to Richmond. After going to private schools in Richmond he went to the University of Virginia where he did not distinguish himself, for, as he said, he was not very fond of books. He was a tall lad, six feet one at fifteen years of age, but bright, social, attractive, 'and lovable, which traits he retained the balance of his life. He had more occupations than any man of whom I can think. For a year he engineered on the James River and Kanawha Canal, he attempted farming, he was a merchant at one time, he contracted for ammunitions, he joined a law firm although there is no record of his ever having gradu­ ated in law, he was an editor, a diplomat, a soldier, a hotel manager, a manager of one of the world's largest estates, COL. NATHANIEL BEVERLEY TUCKER I 820-1 890 Virginia-IV asliington, D. C. Beverley Tucker 33 an advocate for claims before Congress, and withal a true friend, a raconteur, a joyous personality, and the beloved head of a large family. From boyhood he was an expert horseman and shot. He was always handsome, tall, large of frame, rather stout, 'and of distinguished bearing. He numbered among his intimate friends many of the most noted men of his day. Brilliant in intellect, at the same time he was jovial in spirit. It was said of him that he told the best stories of any public man of his day and that he never related one that was off-color. But in this I feel like quoting from Pinafore: "What, never?" "Well, hardly ever." Grandma was an intelligent and a lovely woman. She lived to be eighty-two and even till her death she had few if any gray threads in her lovely suit of chestnut brown hair. She wrote for her grandchildren a memoir of her beloved husband which is well worth reading. I shall quote now to, some extent from it, and again later on:

"The first summer of our married life was passed with his father and mother at their country residence, 'Woodbury.' I recall now the perfume of the lilac hedge, which enclosed the large garden and was in full bloom when we first drove up, to be welcomed to both heart and home. I would like to give you some idea of an old Virginia home in those days. There were many such in our State, and yet none surpassed this, for Judge and Mrs. Tucker were incom­ parable as host and hostess. Exquisite courtesy of manner was the Judge's known characteristic, and each guest was made to feel that he conferred a favor, and Mrs. Tucker's noble, generous heart was shown in her cordial greeting and untiring efforts for the pleasure of her guests. A talent for conversation was cultivated in those days, and it was an intellectual treat to sit at their table and listen to the brilliant flashes of wit and humor that passed from hosts to guests. It required great administrative talent to superintend so large a household, and Mrs. Tucker's table each day groaned under the many dishes, so elaborately filled with heavy joints of meat, smaller delicacies, and delicious desserts. The summer of which I 34 Tales of the Tuckers

speak was a typical one. There were forty whites in the family, besides the large number of servants, and there was a round of neighborly visits and entertainments. "The following year we went to 'Hazelfield,' which was an old homestead in the family, the first home of our married life. It holds a tender place in my memory. The old house, with no real beauty about it, but substantial and comfortable; the yard, with its Lom- bardy poplars and other noble trees; the large garden where vege­ tables, fruits, and flowers mingled together; the well with its ice cold water. I think I can see them all, and the old servants who came to greet the young mistress. Uncle Peter, our factotum, and old Aunt Dolly, a hundred years old she said she was, and she lived many years after, and Pin Fanny (as she was called, because years before she had swallowed a pin and never thought she could do any work after that). They looked upon me as a child, and would say, 'Go long, honey; you don't know nothing.' We all lived very amicably to­ gether, and they were cared for and no work ever required of them. Aunt Dolly, the hundred-year-old lady, read her Bible without spectacles and sat erect, never touching the back of her chair. My young, loving, joyous husband brought his friends to the house, we visited all the beloved relatives around, and for the two or three years we lived in Jefferson County we lived as Southern planters then lived, with open abundance, careless ease, and a thankful acceptance of God's gifts."

While in this section grandpa entered into partnership with two men in the mercantile business, putting all his small fortune therein. The business soon failed and creditors came forward to compromise for the money due them, but he shouldered the failure, promised them one hundred cents on every dollar they had put in, and although this obligation hampered him for years, he paid them. off. Around the time of the war with Mexico grandpa saw the advertisement of a government bid for shell and cannon ball the profit from which would be $10,000. He told his

Note: "Woodbury" and "Hazelfield" were homes in the Valley of Virginia both of which have long since passed from the hands of the family. Beverley Tucker 35 friend, John Y. Mason, Secretary of the Navy, that he was going to bid on these munitions. Secretary Mason said, jeeringly, "Suppose the balls do not fit the cannon?" "In that instance," said grandpa, "I shall then bid for cannon to fit the balls." He secured the bid and had the shot and shell made. He had them made, I think, at the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond. Grandpa supported Franklin Pierce for President, but he showed the same political independence that his father had and when he disapproved of Pierce's measures, he joined the opposite side of the party and started and edited, in Washington, the Sentinel, a journal which was for years of considerable importance. In 1857 Buchanan appointed him United States Consul to Liverpool to follow Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author. This appointment carried great responsibility which grandpa bore with credit until he re­ gretfully resigned because he had hoped for the preservation of the Union. When he found his beloved Virginia was to be invaded he, as other Southerners, felt there was no choice except to cast his lot with his native sod and his kin. When Beverley Tucker and his family arrived in Liver­ pool, his three older boys, Jim, Bev, and Ran, were put in what was considered the best available school. The family attended commencement but much to grandpa's disgust, although many prizes were given, no prize was awarded to any one of his three boys. His indignation, however, was not with his boys but with the school; so in a day or two he invited all the children of the school to a party. A long and tempting table was spread and when the delicacies had been partaken of, grandpa rapped for attention. He then produced an elegant, gilt-edged volume and called upon James Ellis Tucker to stand up. Jim stood and his father asked him to accept the volume as a prize for excellent 36 Tales of the Tuckers scholarship and exemplary conduct at school. Bev was called upon and presented with a similar prize in the same manner. Then Ran was asked to stand'and the formula was repeated. The following year grandpa changed the boys to another school. I doubt if any dead or quick pedagogues, or even modern child guidance psychologists, would approve of this procedure, but I stand ready to defend it. At any rate, three splendid men and three fine minds evolved in spite of it. The other son, Ellis, was too young to attend the school. In a year or two these three older boys were sent to Vevey, Switzerland, to M. Sillig's School and there they stayed until after the war broke out in America. Uncle Ellis, the youngest son, went to school in England and Aunt Maggie, the oldest living child, was put in school in England and later in Paris. The oldest son, St. George, bad died at the age of seven before they left Virginia, and little Annie was too young to go to school. Grandpa and grandma met and made friends of many notable people in England and afterwards in France and also came to know many of the English Tuckers. Old Mrs. Henry St. George Tucker, of the English branch, received grandpa with kindly dignity when he called to express his sympathy a week after seven of her immediate family had been killed in the massacre at Cawnpore in the Sepoy rebellion. In 1907 when Cousin Harry St. George Tucker, President of the Jamestown Ex­ position, went to England, he met King Edward VII and asked the King if he remembered grandpa when he, Ed­ ward, was Prince of Wales. "Why, certainly," replied the King, who had hunted with grandpa, "he was one of the best shots and seats in England." Life was pleasant for grandpa and grandma in England and in spite of letters and papers bearing rumblings of the oncoming war at home this was one of the quietest and most Beverley Tucker 37 secure parts of their much perturbed married life. Then, as the war broke, Beverley Tucker with a sad heart sent his wife and daughter home, visited his boys in Switzerland, and shortly afterward went to Richmond bearing important in­ formation and dispatches to President Davis. He enrolled with the State troops and saw service in the country around Richmond, but Davis sent for him, commissioned him colonel, a title which he never used except when abroad on official business, 'and sent him and Mr. Gilford to England and France to purchase much needed supplies for the Con­ federacy. He just escaped being captured as he sailed from New Orleans. He reached France in November 1861. Mr. Gilford had sailed separately and on his return trip from England with supplies and money 'and medicines the ship was lost and nothing was ever after heard of the vessel or a soul on board. In England and in France grandpa was able to render great service to the Confederacy. As many of his 'accomplishments were diplomatic and secret, I have no way of recording them. After about a year he returned safely to Richmond. With his side whiskers he had but little difficulty in getting through the North and passing the lines under the guise of an Eng­ lish observer. After a while he was sent by the Confederate Government to Canada to endeavor, through Canadian authorities, to trade with the United States Government cotton for beef, pound for pound. These negotiations were partly successful and well under way when the end of the war came. It would be difficult to imagine grandpa's astonishment when, upon reading a Canadian newspaper one morning, he saw that a reward of $100,000 had been offered by the United States Government for Jefferson Davis and $25,000 each, dead or alive, for himself, Mr. Clay, Mr. George N. 38 Tales of the Tuckers

Sanders (also in Canada), and Mr. Jacob Thompson. They had all been accused of being in a plot with Wilkes Booth 'and others to assassinate Lincoln. For several years grand­ pa could not enter the United States, and government agents and adventurers seeking the reward were ever on the watch for him. Grandpa immediately, upon hearing the accusa­ tion, denied the impossible charge in a public letter, To the People of the United States, dated May 19, 1865, in an­ other, To the People of Canada, and in a letter to Andrew Johnson, besides letters to others. These letters are quoted in grandma's memoirs; suffice it here to quote abstracts from them. From the letter, To the People of the United States: "He (Andrew Johnson), at least, who charges vie with such a crime must expect to be dealt with as a man, not a poten­ tate—an individual, not the chief magistrate of a once great and Christian country. He who thanks God, in the presence of the representatives of the nations of the earth and his as­ sembled countrymen, and in his public speeches rejoices that he is a 'plebeian' and a 'demagogue,' shall not with impunity brand me as a criminal. . . I fearlessly denounce him, in all his mighty panoply of power, in the plenitude of my own conscious innocence, a wicked and wilful libeller. . . He has charged with complicity in the death of Mr. Lincoln one (Mr. Davis) whose very name is a synonym of honor; whose fair name, even in the bitterness of our fallen for­ tunes, the breath of disparagement has never clouded. . . Indeed, it is not too much to assert that his persistent re­ sistance to all entreaties to retaliate for the innumerable outrages of the enemy upon the people and troops of the South was one of the chief causes of a partial unpopularity which grew up in the last two years of his administration." In a letter to Jefferson Davis, written in 1867, grandpa Beverley Tucker 39 said that the reaction to this letter was somewhat critical even among Southerners, but that a greatly larger number of the comments were most favorable. To the Military Bureau formed by Andrew Johnson, grandpa paid his respects. Of its president, Major General David Hunter, he said: "That moral lusus nature, himself childless, and who, as if in resentment for God's wise pro­ vision that monsters should not propagate their species, blackened his soul and charred his hands with the burning ruins of the homes of his own unoffending kindred, where, and among whom, he had in youth and manhood enjoyed the most elegant and lavish hospitalities"; and of the Judge Advocate he wrote in this letter: "The Judge Advocate, is a man—mankind, I crave your pardon—'a worm—little animals forgive the insult." He goes on to outline John­ son's actions in Tennessee, his actions in the Senate, and his action in having Booth killed by the twenty-eight men who should have captured him. He asks pertinently why Booth called on Johnson eight hours before the planned assassi­ nation, and also, who would have benefited more by Lin­ coln's death than the man who succeeded him, and why the judicial examination should have been secret? Mr. Sanders and Beverley Tucker offered to surrender themselves if they could be assured of a fair trial. Mr. Davis and Mr. Clay had already been put in cells at Fortress Monroe and Mr. Davis was known to have been manacled. A letter sent by Beverley Tucker and George Sanders to Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, opens: "Sir,—Your proclamation is a living, burning lie, known to be such by yourself and your 'artful surroundings; and all the hired perjurers in Christendom shall not deter us from exhibiting to the civilized world your hellish plot to murder our patriot, Christian President, Jefferson Davis." 40 Tales of the Tuckers

They then Challenged Johnson to select any nine of twen­ ty-six Union generals named "to form a courtmartial for our trial." This challenge was not accepted nor was any offer of a fair trial made. The letter closed with this paragraph: "In conclusion, we say we have no acquaintance whatever with Mr. Booth, or any of those alleged to have been engaged with him. We have never seen or had any knowl­ edge in any wise of him or them—he never wrote us a note —he never sought'an interview with us." I have read several laudatory biographies of Andrew Johnson, one by Judge Winston even condoning his drunken­ ness and attempting to explain his signing of Mrs. Surratt's warrant for execution by saying he did not know this para­ graph was written into the document! It would be most informative to investigate 'any possible connection with, or knowledge of, the assassination of Lincoln that Johnson may have had. His association with Wilkes Booth is at least provocative. Such a possibility was strongly hinted in some of the Northern papers of the day, but it is hardly worth­ while to go into it now, for Time, that great mellower of the sordid, has so often not only forgiven wrongdoing, but even raised enduring monuments and memorials to the dis­ reputable and to the scoundrels of a past period. And now we enter into another phase of the career of Beverley Tucker—the period of practical exile, first in Canada and then in Mexico. When he arrived in Halifax from Richmond, grandpa had an infected thumb which, on a long sleigh drive to Montreal, became frostbitten and the first phalanx had to be surgically removed. Later, at an official dinner for some distinguished English gentlemen, grandpa, who was sitting next to a peer who stuttered and was easily embarrassed, reached for the sherry decanter to Beverley Tucker 41 help himself and pass to the one on his left, 'as was the custom. Because of his partly amputated right thumb he let the decanter slip and the wine poured forth on the table. Without a moment's loss he said aloud to the peer, "My Lord, I am sorry you upset the sherry, but no harm is done and I am sure this slight accident will not cause our gracious host'a moment's uneasiness." "Why certainly not," said the host, and all at the table thought "My Lord" had spilled the wine. Grandpa used to say that the nobleman started to stutter an explanation, but became so confused that he at last got out that he did not know whether or not he had upset the decanter. There is another story later on about this thumb. Trying several unremunerative business adventures and falling into ill health with a severe and chronic bronchitis, contracted in attending the last illness and funeral of 'a friend, grandpa was relieved and delighted when later he had a prospect of going into business in England. Grandpa's wonderful charm of manner, his great ability to 'adapt himself to any vicissitude or society into which he was thrown, and his zest for life made him many admirers and intimate friends. He seemed to have unconsciously adopted two lines from that hymn in the Episcopal Hymnal —"Fight the Good Fight":

"Lay hold on life and it shall be Thy joy and crown eternally."

At any rate he always adopted offensive tactics toward life 'and never let its trials and misfortunes lay hold on him. I remember once asking him why, with his varied experi­ ences, he made so few or no lasting enemies. His explana­ tion was that whenever a man showed enmity to him he endeavored to approach that man and show him that he had 42 Tales of the Tuckers no personal malice toward him. In this way he had made some of his best friends. He had no opportunity to thus approach Andrew Johnson—and the best bet is that Andrew would have been an exception to prove this general rule of procedure. The only enemy of whom I ever heard him complain was his gout and when an attack came on his habitual remark was, "Well, my old enemy has got me by the foot again." He was generous to a fault and would go the limit to help anyone in distress. One cold winter night in Winches­ ter he saw the town drunkard lying in the gutter without having on an overcoat. Grandpa had just had a seventy- five dollar overcoat made and he took it off, put it on the drunkard, took him home and left the overcoat with him, asking him to return it the next day. The overcoat was never returned and grandma, gentle as she was, chided him for letting the drunkard have it. "Never mind, Jane," he said, "bread cast upon the water will return with interest." Years after, when they went to Winchester on a visit, the drunkard had reformed and grandpa hearing of it said to grandma, "Now you see, Jane, how that overcoat has been paid for." Grandpa and grandma went to England from Canada. The business connection did not pan out. I shall let grand­ ma's memoirs speak again: "And now it was that our thoughts turned towards Mexico. Commodore Matthew Fontaine Maury had been to England and pub­ lished in the English papers glowing accounts of that country, of his friend, the Emperor Maximilian, and of the liberal offers made to all Southerners who would go there as colonists and support the new empire. There were generous, whole-souled Englishmen who had been enthusiastic supporters of the Southern cause during the war, and who now extended sympathy and hospitality to all of the wan- Beverley Tucker 43

derers of the Lost Cause. Especially were we indebted to the Rev. Mr. Trapnell. "Through some of these influences the London Standard made an offer that Mr. Tucker should act as their Mexican correspondent, if he went to that country, and so the idea did not seem so hopeless or irrational, especially as the Cincinnati Enquirer continued him in the same capacity. . . Already our son James had reached Mexico. He could not content himself with school or college, after playing the part of a man for four years, and had accepted an offer from Colonel Talcott to join his engineer corps in Mexico. Colonel Talcott was then constructing the great railway from Vera Cruz to the City of Mexico, and since that beginning, railroads have been built in every direction and this beautiful country has been opened up to the world as never before. "We were hospitably received and entertained at Vera Cruz by- General Stephens and his wife (who were amongst the Southern refugees), and the first impressions of Mexico are written in our newspaper letter, mailed to the Cincinnati Enquirer. The next day we went by rail to Paso del Macliio (it was finished no further then), and from there by stage to Cordova. The Dixie Hotel, to which we went, was a barn-like place, without a single comfort, but a Confederate refugee kept it, and so it was patronized by all Southerners. Judge Perkins, from Mississippi, was living in Cordova and was very kind. Carlotta, a mile or two distant, was the new settlement, of which we read such glowing accounts in England, and your grandfather rode there the next morning to see what it offered. Dickens' account of Eden is only a facsimile of what he found. He met General Price, of Missouri, on his way from there going to Vera Cruz. I think there were three inhabitants, two half-finished houses, a booth, and a tent. Only the land was as rich as tropical soil can be. Three or four crops could be raised a year. Coffee, cocoa, fruits of all kinds, were growing in abundance, but fever lurked in all this luxuriousness, and one by one the settlers had been .forced to leave. Besides, the empire seemed already unstable and rumors were rife that it could not last." Describing the trip from Vera Cruz grandma says: "We knew that such travelling was unsafe, and followed the advice of others in taking off watches, rings, etc., and placing them 44 Tales of the Tuckers in our trunks. Robbers in Mexico generally stop the stages and rob the passengers of all their personal belongings. In this case it was different, for when we halted at daybreak the driver coolly announced that all the baggage had been cut off. Even that in the front under him, containing a box of new clothing for your grandfather, was gone. It was a real disaster. All our clothing bought in Paris, sufficient to last several years, was stolen, and there was the prospect of arriving in the City of Mexico without even a change of raiment, and with very little money to replace the loss. Your grandfather's gold watch, costing $250, his chain and seal, which bore the family coat-of-arms—all gone. I think / was disposed to grumble a good deal and to talk a great deal about it, but one of your dear grand­ father's chief characteristics was a cheerful submission to personal losses and to whatever was inevitable, and so he asked me then and there to bear it bravely, and when he reached Mexico he joked about it with his friends and would not complain, and although steps were taken to try and recover it, that could not be done; and so we tried to forget it and to think of it as one of our war sacrifices. The Talcotts and other friends gathered around us at once, the ladies sending me changes of clothing, and some purchases were made to supply our wants. There was some suspicion that this was not simply a Mexican robbery, but that it was ordered by American agents, with the expectation of finding papers and documents in your grandfather's trunks. Whether this was so or not, we had no way of deciding, but very strangely a week afterwards we were informed that our trunks were at the station, and so they were, but on opening them every article belonging to us had been taken and the empty trunks filled with sample boards and cards of American calicos, cloths, and other goods. This is all we ever heard of our baggage, but two trunks intended for the Empress, which were on the same diligence, were safely forwarded to her. And surely the whole thing was quite unlike ordinary Mexican stage robberies."

There is- an aftermath of the story of that $250 watch. Until his death grandpa wore a nickel watch larger and fatter than a biscuit and, it seemed to me, weighing half a pound. I have that watch now, though I do not wear it. When anyone would remark on it he would say, "Yes, that Beverley Tucker 45

watch cost me two hundred and fifty-six dollars and is a better timepiece than any gold watch I ever saw." He would add to whatever comments were made on this statement; "You see, I had a two hundred and fifty dollar gold watch which was stolen from me by bandits in Mexico and then I bought this watch, which keeps better time, for six dollars. I have gotten a great deal of satisfaction from the swap." In Mexico the newspapers, letters, and remittances were interrupted. Maximilian's throne was beginning to totter. Grandpa and grandma were -reduced to virtual poverty, he making a few dollars occasionally and she teaching school for a pittance. Again I shall let grandma take up the story: "One beautiful morning we stood at the gate, after our breakfast of coffee, bread, and three turkey eggs (your grandfather laughed so heartily at my insisting upon dividing the odd turkey egg), and the fact had to be faced that our last cent was gone. Just then Mr. Barron rode out of his gate on his superb black horse, and, after going a short distance, turned back and asked to speak to Mr. Tucker for a moment. Truly the proverb, 'It is darkest just before day,' was now proved to be true. He asked your grandfather to call at the bank and see his brother-in-law, Baron Escandon, on a matter of business. Any honorable business was what your grandfather needed just then. Baron Escandon was one of the wealthiest men in Mexico. He owned the largest stock haciendas in the whole country. He was one of the Imperialists who invited Maximilian to the throne, and now his estates were in danger, as the Republicans were rising in the State of San Luis Potosi, and a large body of troops commanded by General Trevino, were marching through the country, and confiscating and raising money on all the property belonging to the Imperialists. Escandon had never in his life dared to visit these haciendas, although his largest income was derived from them, for the lawlessness of the country was such that he would surely have been seized by robbers and held for ransom. He wished now to send Mr. Tucker to take charge of them, to be his administrado—indeed, to make them over to him, so that he might hold them, and, if possible, prevent their being raided on or confiscated. He wished 46 Tales of the Tuckers him to be entirely neutral in politics, to conciliate the Republican leaders, and to act as if the whole property belonged to him. He told him there were great risks to be run, but the offer was a grand one. Unlimited credit on the bank at San Luis Potosi was given him and he was to use his own discretion and act as seemed best for Escandon's interest. He could take a staff of three or four young men along with him, and, if things settled down, invite emigration from the Southern States. There could be no hesitation. We were in a strange country, on the eve of revolution, and we were literally without any means of support. It was a high compliment to be selected for such a trust, when so many other Americans were in Mexico and had been there much longer than he had. Trials come with all blessings, and our trial was that we would have to separate. Travelling was very unsafe in that direction—impossible for a lady, and as it was necessary for him to leave as early as possible, arrange­ ments were hurried and our little Mexican home broken up. . . "Your dear grandfather and his son James left for San Luis two days before I started on my journey. They took the diligence on November 3, 1866, and I was .fortunate in hearing of them by tele­ graph first at Vera Cruz and afterwards at Havana. He was accom­ panied by General McCausland (one of the Confederate generals) ; Mr. Murphy, an Irish cousin of the Barrons, I think, and Mr. Earle, a young Englishman. They were to act with your grand­ father, as it were, on his staff, and young Murphy spoke Spanish well. They reached San Luis Potosi about the 20th of November, and were hospitably received and entertained at the home of Messrs. Davies & Co., English merchants, long resident in Mexico, and acting for the Escandons as bankers and agents. . . "The two estates of Guaname and Las Cruces, sixty miles from the city of San Luis Potosi, were considered the most valuable live stock estates in Mexico. The Guaname bull was also chosen for the 'bull fights' of Mexico. The estates adjoined and contained about 1,500,000 acres. Two large chief mansions were on each estate, and they were capacious enough for the residence of several families. Besides these, there wrere many other houses on both estates, good churches and priests living there to attend to the spiritual needs of the peons, and good supplies of groceries, wines, etc., so that guests could always be entertained. Servants for house work and gardening Beverley Tucker 47 always on hand, and all domestic arrangements on a princely scale. Your grandfather receipted for the stock on hand as follows:

FOR GAUNAME Horses 7,277 Mules 1,000 Donkeys 1,002 Horned cattle 2,000 Sheep 82,828 Merino cashmere 428 Goats 2,419 CRUCES Horses 4,114 Mules 646 Donkeys 1,198 Horned cattle 608 Sheep . 85,108 Stock of maise (or corn) . . fanega 23,875 A fanega of maise weighs 140 pounds.

"The whole country was in a ferment of excitement and lawless­ ness and travelling was very dangerous. His experience of the robbers was renewed. In two separate trips to San Luis he was robbed. Another gold watch, that he had bought for James, was taken from him, with such money and other personal effects as he had. More and more uncertain was the condition of affairs, and correspondence with the City of Mexico was difficult. He sent General McCausIand to see the Escandons, and afterwards Mr. Earle went. He had gone to San Luis the beginning of November, and the Escandons wished him to return to the City of Mexico early in January to confer with them before they left for Europe. It was becoming almost impossible to travel safely now, but he did not hesitate. Indeed, it was neces­ sary to take further steps about the property, and so, bidding good-bye to their friends, the Davises and others, father and son commenced their perilous journey. They left the haciendas December 15, 1866, for San Luis. On the 27th the French and Imperial troops evacuated that city. Your grandfather and James had to return to the hacien­ das—but on the 12th of January, 1867, James and his father received letters from Mexico City, and, going on to San Luis again they 48 Tales of the Tuckers started for the City of Mexico on the 28th of January. The whole country was full of armed men. Arms of defense were useless, for wherever found they were confiscated for the use of the troops. As they journeyed on they were stopped over and over again. They had safe passes given by the Liberal leaders, but that pest of Mexico, the wayside robber, still infested the highways. The diligence was stopped and attempted robbery made seven times during this perilous journey, and as the passengers were unarmed they were utterly powerless. "The most dramatic and dangerous of these experiences was as they neared the City of Mexico. There are castes and degrees amongst these highwaymen. Heretofore, although everything of value was taken from them, and they felt the humiliation of these constant encounters, no special indignity had been offered them. Now a lower type of these outlaws stopped the stage and ordered all the passengers to throw up their hands and lie flat upon their faces on the ground. The Mexican passengers immediately did so. Your grandfather and James refused, and, as James showed some resist­ ance, he was instantly struck on the temple near the eye with one of those sharp Mexican knives called machete. Mercifully, the eye escaped, but your grandfather saw the blood spurt out and stepped forward to his assistance. In a moment six of these long, pointed, sharp knives were held around his breast and body and he was literally impaled. James instantly called out: 'Father, do not move, or we will both be killed. I am not seriously hurt.' The blood still streamed down the side of his face, but he did not even lift a hand to wipe it away. Father and son stood up boldly, calmly and un­ flinchingly, and were not further molested, except that most of their clothing, even the boots they had on, were taken, because they had been robbed before of all their valuables. It is such times as these that try men's souls."

Then the Maximilian government fell and the Emperor was executed. Through courtesies of French officers, grand­ pa and Uncle Jim joined the retreating forces and reached Vera Cruz, sailing for Canada on March 5, 1867. Again in Canada, grandpa was joined by his beloved wife and daughter and although ill most of the time with bronchitis, Beverley Tucker 49 he was more or less relaxed and rested by the kindness of his Canadian friends and there, too, he was visited by his beloved brother John Randolph Tucker, Mrs. James M. Mason, General Jubal A. Early, General Breckenridge, Ex- President Jefferson Davis (at last released), and others. It was at this time he managed the hotel in St. Catharine. This hotel venture, after several years, went on the rocks because of grandpa's generosity to Southern relatives and friends who were often guests in the strict sense of the word, and it was also due to the fact that he was about as well fitted for the position of a hotel man as a snowbird would be for summertime. In 1871 he went back to Washington, there being no restrictions now as Johnson's amnesty procla­ mation was issued in 1868. This amnesty proclamation has always been a puzzle to me. It could hardly have been issued altruistically by a man born and reared in the South who had planted the rank weed of reconstruction upon his defeated brethren in his native soil and watched it grow and flourish unmoved. Could Johnson have proposed amnesty because of his insatiable desire to continue in office in spite of his disreputable administration, and hope thereby to gain Southern votes? Be this as it may, Beverley Tucker's return to Washington during Grant's administration marked the beginning of another period in his life. Loved and admired by many, discredited by some, and even despised for a time by a few, grandpa's re-establish­ ment of himself was not without its disagreeable instances. His attitude toward the changed order is indicated in a letter written to his son, Randolph, my father. He said that soon after his return to Washington he was invited by Secretary Hamilton Fish to a large reception and that he had accepted with the determination to be cordial to anyone who spoke to him and to pass unnoticed any slights he might receive. At 50 Tales of the Tuckers the reception he enjoyed meeting some of the foreign diplo­ mats whom he had known abroad and some old, before-the- war, friends. Several politicians whom he had known passed him without a sign of recognition. Secretary Fish was most kind and took him up to General Grant, the President, whom he had not met but who knew perfectly well who he was. Grant spoke to him and extended his hand which, of course, grandpa shook. By and large the ex-exile enjoyed himself very much. One evening shortly after his return to Washington, grandpa dined at the Metropolitan Hotel. At an adjoining table was a drunken Federal colonel who was loudly berat­ ing the South. Soon he said that Southern women were greatly overrated in their reputation for beauty and that there were hardly any virtuous women to be found among them. Grandpa got up, went over to the colonel, handed him his card, and challenged him to a duel, which challenge the colonel accepted. Seconds were quickly obtained. Ar­ rangements were made for the duel to take place the next morning in the woods back of Arlington. Grandpa, his second, and a surgeon friend arrived first on the scene. Pistols were the chosen weapons and the shots were to be fired at ten paces. The colonel -was late. Grandpa tramped the ground impatiently, the second waited, and the surgeon sat on a log. Soon the colonel, his second, and an army surgeon drove up in a carriage. The colonel's second ap­ proached grandpa directly and said that the colonel realized he was in his cups when he uttered the offensive statement and wished to apologize. Grandpa told the second that he would accept the apology only on condition that the colonel would make the apology publicly, that very day, in the same dining room and at the same hour the offensive statement Beverley Tucker 51 had been uttered, and make it in as loud a voice. This the colonel agreed to do, and did. Uncle Bev, afterward Bishop, was at the time attending the Episcopal Seminary in Alexandria studying for the ministry. He got wind of a rumor that his father was going to fight or had fought a duel and he hurried over to Wash­ ington. ITe found his father and was thankful that no duel had actually taken place. He asked grandpa, "Do you think that a Christian ought to challenge anyone to a duel?" Grandpa replied, "Of course, Bev, you are perfectly right, but the trouble is I was born just a little bit too soon!" It has often been said that the Tuckers are great kissers. When they meet or part, fathers and sons, regardless of age or place, have always greeted each other with a welcome and a farewell kiss. They are an affectionate tribe. On their departing for a distance grandpa used to kiss his grand­ children good-by and say, "Drop me a post card on your arrival; don't forget—one cent and one minute." Then, too, this tribe has always thought pretty well of one another. Someone once rather chided grandpa for boasting of the family and grandpa told him, "Please re­ member the Tucker family is a mutual admiration society and I am the president!" Another story that illustrates his humor is one he used to tell of a lugubrious minister he knew in Winchester. He said of this gentleman, "He never took a text this side of Deuteronomy and his favorite hymn, his favorite hymn mind you, was:

"For guilty death will grimly come And seize you by the hair, And when you see your awful doom 'Twill fill you with despair." ***** GENEAI OGin OF UTAH 2705 a M 1 - IQM 0167908 52 Tales of the Tuckers

Washington had changed during the years grandpa had been away, but he renewed old friendships and made many new ones. His business of advocating claims, as grandma styled it, was a varied one in its pecuniary results; one year he was dead broke and in debt and the next he might be quite affluent because of one or two large fees. He had no idea of the value of money and would lend even more reck­ lessly than he borrowed. He loved to make gifts, to enter­ tain, and, as he would say, to "spread himself." In order to gather his widely separated family together in the summer and because of his gout, he bought a house in the village at Berkeley Springs in Morgan County, West Virginia. The house was elastic and could be made to hold not only several sets of children and grandchildren, but nephews, nieces, cousins, and guests, all at the same time. Those of us who had the privilege of going there remember the happy gather­ ings and how grandma took us under her wing and how Aunt Maggie so perfectly kept house. There were family prayers every morning and grace at each meal and a liquor- case without a key which sat in the hall, and never a soul got drunk. How well do I remember those days, or rather months, year after year, spent at this house at Berkeley Springs! The front yard, which was wide but not deep, was bordered by a white paling fence. My brother, Crump, and I had the whooping cough one year and gave it to grandpa and grand­ ma. Grandpa had awful spasms of coughing and would go out and take hold of the two gate posts and cough. I seemed to enjoy seeing the fence during these coughing spells wave and wiggle for yards and yards on each side of the gate. There was a profusion of tiger lilies around the front porch, which we would sometimes "snitch" to give to some little girl from the village or the hotel. In the backyard was a Beverley Tucker 53 huge apple tree from the fruits of which several of the grandchildren, every summer, were afflicted with what used to be called cholera morbus because belly-ache was a tabooed term. And around the back fence on the inside were currant and gooseberry bushes and in front of them long flower beds, tended by grandma and Aunt Maggie, and bordered by roundish, whitewashed rocks. There was room to play in this backyard when the wash was not hung out, but when it was, with everything from handkerchiefs to counterpanes and from diapers to long-sleeved, high-necked ruffled night­ gowns, there was no room at all. But this mattered not for the next establishment back was the undertaker's, and in front of the house across the road was The Grove with the hotel and the bowling alley and, above all, the swimming pool. We would play hide and seek in the empty coffins, practice pitching curves, a new feat then, against the side of the bowling alley, and learn to swim in the cold water of the pool. To those who gathered at Berkeley the memories are indelible. The hotel guests included many prominent people from, especially, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington. In the village the Van Rensselaers of New York and sev­ eral other well known families had summer homes. A family of cousins of ours, the West Virginia Pendletons, lived in the neighborhood. Two of them were frequent callers at grandpa's summer home—Cousin Clayton and Cousin Nat Pendleton. They were brothers. Cousin Clay­ ton had been a sharpshooter in the Confederate army, and Cousin Nat a Union soldier. They were always received with equal cordiality by our family. They were both rather heroes to us boys, not so much for their war exploits but because Cousin Clayton was the best shot in that part of the country and killed wild turkeys with a rifle, shooting 54 Tales of the Tuckers them only in the head, and Cousin Nat could, and often did, eat a dozen ears of corn at dinner. The pool in a large bathing house in the Grove had a temperature of seventy degrees the year round. Here we learned to swim by being tossed into water over our heads. If there were no grownups to furnish us tickets to the pool, there was a swimming hole up the creek where the same method of learning to swim was pursued. Home-made wagons brought loads of bark to the tannery in Berkeley, which was the only large industry of the town. Coming to town, the mountaineer and his family either rode on top of the bark or walked with the inevitable cur by the side of the horses. As soon as the bark was sold the women and children bought supplies for their cabin, usually flour, calico, blue or red ribbon and peppermint candy—-and the men purchased jack-knives and whiskey. The knives they put in their pockets and the whiskey in their bellies. So the brown jug with a corn-cob stopper, which they put in the wagon, was more likely to contain kerosene than whiskey. Worn out with the day's trading and dissipations, they would crawl into the springless wagon and go homeward about dusk, the women and children asleep, the men in a drunken torpor, the dog trudging under the wagon, and the horses, driverless, finding their way home over the rough and often dangerous mountain roads. Looking back from the present complex times to that simple period it seems, superficially, that the people of the various strata of society were happier in those days, but, on the other hand, I cannot help feeling that there was too much complacency, too great narrowness and not enough concern about the world in general. Possibly those very restrictions of outlook led to the perturbations of today. One should not live in the world without consciously being of the world. Progress, which is Beverley Tucker 55 the essence of evolution, is necessary even if it makes life difficult and full of stressful endeavor and anguishing dis­ appointments. Eventually, if we fight the good fight, life on earth will reach a worthwhileness beyond our present contemplation. But those individuals, those families and those races who sit by idly, or pamper themselves, or lower their standards, shall surely perish. We should steel the future generations to their responsibilities and envy their greater potential opportunities. In the Grove at Berkeley Springs was a spring believed to have extraordinary virtues in curing or benefiting any­ thing that ailed one. This spring was attended by a dipper- boy who, through donations put in a slit of a cigar box, made considerable money. Although he and I were friends we would get into a fight every few days. These fights took place under one of the large oak trees near the spring and always attracted enough attention to gather an audience of villagers and hotel guests. There was no betting, for it was soon found out that I always got beat. My friend was a typical mountain lad, freckled face, raw-boned, and rangy. I was heavier and a little shorter than he. The last summer I was at Berkeley we were each fourteen and I had been beaten by him at least a dozen times, but I was always impelled to try again. This summer waned, and I was to leave the next day, so the night before I prayed and prayed that I would be able to lick him just this once. In the morn­ ing I picked the fight. Word had got around and a large crowd gathered. Lo and behold, I beat the lights out of him! Who dares say that prayers are not answered? I have never seen or heard of Jack since, but I know somehow he has led a fine and creditable life, for he always fought fair. Another fight took place one summer between St. George, 56 Tales of the Tuckers now Presiding Bishop, and me. Grandpa heard of it and sent for us and stood us up before him. "Now boys," he said, "remember, dog doesn't eat dog and Tuckers must not fight Tuckers. If you wish to fight, pick someone outside of the family. Shake hands and run along." Grandpa used to give us grandchildren a cent a day for being good. A cent was real money to a child in those days and we would collect each evening. If we were bad we did not get the penny, but the next morning the dear old gentle­ man would give it to us for having been good all night. All the children adored him. When he would come to any of their homes, as soon as the front door was opened, he would call out at the top of his loud voice, "Is everybody happy in this house?" The children would rush joyfully from wherever they were to greet him. Later, a young rela­ tive who was paying some attention to a wealthy girl asked him if it would be all right to marry a rich girl. Grandpa told him, "Never let money be an object, but then, on the other hand, never let it be an objection." However, this particular cousin did not get this particular girl. A United States senator was a visitor to the house in Berkeley and arrived with a backache contracted on the stagecoach ride from the railway station. Grandma pro­ duced a bottle of liniment and asked me to go to the sena­ tor's room and rub his back. This duty was performed willingly and vigorously and when I was through the senator handed me a silver half-dollar. I handed it back to him with the awkward remark that I would not take money from strangers. The senator complained to grandpa about my refusing the money and grandpa, of course, took my side and went to great pains to explain to him why I was right in refusing. The senator may have known a great deal Beverley Tucker 57 about parliamentary rules, but I do not think he had ever heard the term "noblesse oblige." Uncle Jim, who lived in California, had married a beauti­ ful woman, Laura Harris. They had two children, Burling and Bev. Aunt Laura died when they were young boys and grandpa, grandma, and Aunt Maggie took them and reared them. Burling is now State mining engineer of California and is married and has children. Bev has a farm in Louisa County, Virginia, and is also married but has no children. These boys were a great joy to grandpa and grandma in their declining years and gave Aunt Maggie an outlet for her maternal instinct. Aunt Maggie was always efficient, always lovable, always a broad-minded though devout Christian, and until her death she was the correspondent through whom the widely separated family kept in touch. It is said that she was engaged to a brilliant young Confed­ erate artillery officer who was killed during the early period of the War of Secession. She must have been beautiful when young as her photograph, taken at the time she was presented at the Court of St. James, will attest. She lived to be the mentor as well as the coordinator of the family. With a firm hand, a steady mind, and loving-kindness, she managed the large and varied household at Berkeley Springs. To this house there came as guests many distinguished men, statesmen, and old friends from all over the United States and Canada. Frequently to meals came people who lived in the village, some of whom had worn the blue and some the gray in the "late unpleasantness." No difference was ever made between those of divergent religious or political opinions. Being the oldest grandchild, I was usually allowed a seat at dinner parties where grandpa made humor and wine flow freely and where the table groaned with food 58 Tales of the Tuckers deliriously prepared under grandma's and Aunt Maggie's direction. At night the sitting room would be filled and there was a How of easy, cultured, informative conversation; there was an unwritten and unspoken rule that personalities, com­ plaints, or vindictiveness were not to be indulged in. Grand­ pa who weighed nearly two hundred and fifty pounds would take Crump or one of the other younger children in his lap and cover him with a huge silk handkerchief. When the child dropped off to sleep he was taken upstairs to bed without interruption of the social intercourse. There were not so many fretful children in those days and when a child was fretful it was thought to be ailing and given a nice dose of castor oil straight out of a tablespoon. It would be hard for any modern psychologist to beat this cure for fretfulness. Fretfulness in a child is usually due to one of two things— sickness in the child or to a lack of good spirits in the elders. It is often a matter of astute diagnosis as to who should get the castor oil, the child or the elder. Grandpa was always considerate of humble people when they wrere trying to do their best, and he never quarreled with them. He usually shaved himself, that is, his chin and neck, for he wore English side whiskers, but one morning he went to the barber shop and had an ancient negro shave him. The barber nicked his tender skin in place after place without the old gentleman uttering a single complaint. When he was leaving the old negro said: "I hopes you enjoyed yo' shave, Sir." "I want to tell you," said grandpa, "I have been shaved all over this country and by barbers in Europe who served the crowned heads, but I have never had such a shave as this one." Beverley Tucker 59

"Thank you, Sir," said the barber, "I sho must be sumpin' sho nuf." Grandpa always dressed well. At Berkeley Springs he usually wore white flannels and a linen helmet-hat cream colored on the outside and green on the inner side of the brim. For sun or rain he carried an umbrella also cream on the outside and green inside. Sometimes he would go hunting on horseback over the mountains and his seat in the saddle was superb. With his blue eyes he could see and shoot a squirrel, a pheasant, or a wild turkey as well as the most expert mountaineer. In Berkeley Springs he held court and was within himself King, jester, Lord Chamberlain, and beloved counselor. Grandpa had a most attractive person­ ality—people admired and loved him on short acquaintance regardless of their age, creed or race. Those close to him called him Old Bev, or Uncle Bev, or Cousin Bev, and named their children Beverley for him, whether they were boys or girls. And now the scene shifts back to Washington where his light-colored clothes turned to black broadcloth covered in winter with a long black cape. His umbrella changed to a gold headed cane and his linen helmet to a black beaver. But nothing else about him differed. No man was more popular in the Capital. He was a friend of Cleveland, of Harrison, of Blain, of Randal, of Hayes, of John W. Daniel, of Hamilton Fish, and of other leading and lesser lights of the day. Beverley Tucker had been very active in Grover Cleve­ land's first campaign, and they had become warm friends. There were many points of mutual attraction between the two. They were congenial spirits. As a youngster I heard the following story—it has also been told as having happened at an earlier date in connec- 60 Tales of the Tuckers

tion with Buchanan. I think, however, Cleveland was the man; anyhow here goes: The night before Cleveland's first inauguration there was a meeting of the faithful with Mr. Cleveland present. There was reason both for congratulations and pride. Cleveland was to be the first Democratic president since the war. Amid the hilarity and hand shaking it was said that Mr. Cleveland came over to Beverley Tucker and, putting his arm around him, said, "Well, Bev, tomorrow when I am inaugurated what can I do for you?" "Grover," said Tucker. "I shall be on the Capitol steps, an humble onlooker, when you take oath as the President of the United States, and all I ask you to do when you have taken the oath is to beckon to me. I shall step right up. Then put your arm around me and call me Bev before that great assembled multitude, just as you have done tonight. This is all I ask. My fortune will be made." President Hayes appointed grandpa Minister to Haiti, a position much welcomed because of his poor health and low finances, but some rascal dug up the old Andrew Johnson charges of his being implicated in Lincoln's assassination and the appointment was nullified. The injustice of this hurt him deeply, but it did not embitter him. He had always sought the eagle's route and, to quote Lewis, "He must travel light who takes An eagle's route, and cope With canyons deeper than despair, With heights o'ertopping hope."

At last his gout, his old bronchitis, and his advancing years overcame his splendid constitution and his health began rapidly to fail until uremia set in. But he did not complain and his humor never deserted him. He was Beverley Tucker 61 brought to St. Luke's Hospital, Richmond, then on Twelfth and Ross Streets, and placed under his old friend, Dr. Hunter McGuire. Trained nurses were scarce and different members of the family sat at his bedside during the night while grandma and Aunt Maggie attended him during the day. One day, which looked as if it would be his last, he lay apparently unconscious when Dr. McGuire visited him and in a low voice told grandma that he thought "Cousin Bev" was dying and would not regain consciousness. But the old gentleman's eyes opened and a faint smile crept over his face as he said, "Don't fool yourself, Hunter, for you are not fooling me. I am going to live a little longer." Uncle Jim, his eldest son, was on his way from San Fran­ cisco to see his father and grandpa prayed and hoped to live to see him. Three nights before he died I, who was then sixteen years of age, sat up with him. I had always hoped to be a doctor and I was proud of the confidence imposed in me. I shall never forget that night. Grandpa was ill, desperately ill, but his stupor had considerably lifted. There was a low gaslight in the hospital room and grandpa, who had a Bible and a prayer book by his bed, asked me to read the Twenty- third Psalm and then to read the hymn, Rock of Ages. I read these aloud, although I knew he knew them both by heart. Then there was a long silence during which I felt that he was praying even if his lips were not moving. These devotions over, he must have felt sorry for me sitting there with nothing to do, so he began to entertain me, saying that he could not sleep, by telling me anecdote after anecdote. One of them he told me that night was about the missing thumb. He said that when he first came back to Richmond some five years after the war, and before he decided to 62 Tales of the Tuckers settle in Washington, he wrent to New York to see if he could not make some newspaper connections. On the train he sat next a Yankee carpetbagger who was going to Wil­ mington, Delaware. This man asked all sorts of questions which grandpa answered politely even though the queries became more and more personal. He asked grandpa if he were an'ex-Confederate officer and grandpa told him that he had once been appointed colonel. This seemed to impress the carpetbagger greatly. About this time the man noticed the missing thumb and his inquisitiveness was so heightened that grandpa decided to get some fun out of the situation. "Was it shot off, Colonel?" "No." "How did you lose it, Colonel?" "What does that matter?" "Oh, please tell me, Colonel, was it cut off by a sabre?" "No." "Please tell me how you lost it, Colonel." The train was nearing the Wilmington station. The people in the coach had overheard and had become inter­ ested. "I'll tell you when you get off at Wilmington," said grandpa. "Thank you, Colonel, but tell me now." "Not just yet, come around to the window—it's time for you to get off." The train puffed into the depot and stopped. The carpet­ bagger with his carpetbag got off the train on the long station platform and came around to find the window. It was summer and the window was open. Bursting with curiosity the man found the window. "Now, Colonel, tell me how you lost your thumb," he demanded, "you promised to tell me." Beverley Tucker 63

Grandpa put him off a few moments until the train started pulling out and the man walking with the slowly moving train repeated the question. "It was bit off, sir, bit off," grandpa told him. As the train picked up speed the carpetbagger, bag in hand, trotted with it calling, "What bit it off, Colonel, what bit it off?" By now all the heads were out of the window's and the curious man began to run with the train. "Frost bit it off, frost bit it off, sir," yelled grandpa, as the running inquisitor tripped and fell, but as he did so he called from the ground, "Thank you, Colonel, thank you kindly." Amidst roars of laughter from the whole coach grandpa said, "That was the most polite carpetbagger I ever met." Toward morning the dear old gentleman dropped off into a quiet sleep. Later the sleep deepened into a stupor from which he did not arouse until just before his death several days later. Uncle Jim was rushing east on the train and it was feared he would not arrive in time. On the afternoon of his arrival grandpa was dying and I was sent up to Elba Station on Pine and Broad Streets to meet him. I told a colored hack-driver to hold his vehicle in readiness for us. Uncle Jim, even before greeting me, asked if grandpa was alive. I told him he was expected to die any minute. We jumped into the hack. Taking dollar bills out of his pocket, Uncle Jim put one between each finger of his right hand, stood up, grasped the back of the negro driver's seat to steady him­ self, and until we arrived at the hospital yelled to the driver, "Drive fast. All of these are yours and the fare too if you drive faster." It was the Fourth of July or else we would probably have 64 Tales of the Tuckers been arrested, for the darky had his two horses galloping all the way. Uncle Jim rushed up to his father's room, knelt at his bed, put his arms around his beloved father, and kissed him. "Father, I have come," he said. Grandpa aroused from his torpor and looked at his son. "Jim, my dear Jim," he said. "I have prayed to live to see you." He closed his eyes with a smile on his face and in a few minutes his spirit had left his body. There was much to do, arrangements to make, telegrams to be sent, people to see, and it was probably nine o'clock at night before anyone thought of something to eat. The ladies of the family had been taken home but still at the hospital were Uncle Jim, Uncle Bev (the minister) from Norfolk, Uncle Ellis from Memphis, Cousin Harry Tucker from Lexington, Uncle Bev Crump and Uncle Ned Crump from the neighborhood, my brother Crump, and myself. The Davis Hotel with its well-known restaurant was across the street from the hospital and to its dining room we re­ paired. Portly Mr. Davis with his huge black handle-bar mustache came himself to take the order. "Let's have kidney stew," said Uncle Bev Tucker. "Father was always fond of kidney stew." Other things were selected for which grandpa had shown a preference, including amontillado sherry. The conversa­ tion was of grandpa, of the people and of the things he had loved and of the stories he had told. In the midst of death there was the verve of life. Hox. JOHX RANDOLPH TUCKER I 82 3- I 89 7 Lexington, Virginia-Washington, D. C. JOHN RANDOLPH TUCKER (OF LEXINGTON)

I 8 2 3 - I 8 9 7

Professor of Law Washington and Lee

REAT-UNCLE RAN was born in Winchester De­ G cember 24, 1823, the son of Judge Henry St. George Tucker and Evelina Hunter Tucker. He was thus a member of that happy household of "Woodbury" which has been mentioned several times in these sketches. He was named after his half-uncle, the famous John Randolph of Roanoke. Uncle Ran studied law at the University of Virginia and became a very great lawyer, attaining the presidency of the Virginia State Bar Association in 1891 and the American Bar Association in 1893. He was given the degree of LL.D from William and Mary, Harvard, Yale, and the Union College of New York. During the War of Secession he was Attorney General of the State of Virginia. He was counsel for Jefferson Davis after his arrest. He also figured as counsel in the John Randolph will case, in the defense of the Chicago anarchists, in the defense of General Rufus Ayres for con­ tempt of court, in the South Carolina tax cases, and in other notable legal battles. In spite of divergent political opinion, President Garfield left him guardian for his children. After Garfield's tragic death, Uncle Ran so acted. He also wrote Tucker on the Constitution which was edited by his son, Harry St. George Tucker, and published after Uncle Ran's death. Uncle Ran was a member of Congress from 1875 to 1887. Here he became noted as a States' Rights democrat 66 Tales of the Tuckers and a famous constitutional lawyer. From 1870 to 1875 and again after his retirement from Congress until his death in 1897 ne served as professor of law at Washington and Lee University. In this professorship he was not only known as a profound instructor, but he gained the love and admira­ tion of his students, many of whom were to earn distinction at the bar in various parts of the country. John W. Davis, Democratic candidate for President in 1924, and Newton D. Baker, Secretary of War under President Wilson, were his students and ardent admirers. As a memorial to him there was built at Washington and Lee the Tucker Law Building which was burned several years ago and replaced by the present Tucker Hall, a dignified and impressive structure. Great as were these distinctions, probably the most out­ standing thing about him was his personality. Uncle Ran was a handsome man, tall, with dark hair, and of distin­ guished bearing. He was the greatest mimic I ever knew and he bubbled over with fun and good nature. When I was a child and living at my Grandfather Crump's house in Richmond, his visits, like those of his brother Bev, my grandfather, were real events to the children as well as to the grownups. My brother, Crump, and I, with our faces washed and our hair carefully brushed, would be sent down­ stairs to see him. In a second he would rumple our hair and dishevel us with romping and then stand us up before him and tell us, "Now you look like real boys." When I was a cadet at the V. M. I. I had a standing invitation to take dinner at his home "Blandome" when I could get off from duty on Saturdays or Sundays. With his children, grandchildren and guests the table was always large. Aunt Laura, his wife, who was a Miss Powell from Loudoun County, presided at her end of the bountiful table and never seemed to tire of joining with him in making the meal a John Randolph Tucker 67 happy occasion. Dinner would start with a good sized Presbyterian grace, proceed with laughter, anecdotes, and teasing, and just before dessert Uncle Ran would lead with Aunt Laura a procession of all at the table singing some comic song. But on Sundays we would sing "Onward Christian Soldiers." In good weather we would march out of the front door and around the yard. He would say that this performance was to "jolt the dinner down to make room for the dessert." When I was about fifteen years of age I went to the Richmond Academy of Music to hear a debate between Uncle Ran and some politician—I wish I could remember who—from New York. They were both Democrats, but Democrats had intra-party differences which at times were quite as divergent as they are in these days. Uncle Ran opened with a few remarks stating his side and then the opponent opened up. He was devastating in his argument and the packed house responded with frequent applause. Uncle Ran sat on the stage, his eyes nearly closed, and seemed to pay but little heed to what the gentleman was saying. Besides being a mimic Uncle Ran had a most re­ markable memory. When his opponent finished, his argu­ ment seemed to be unanswerable. Uncle Ran arose slowly and walked to the front of the stage with a peculiarity of gait exactly like that of his opponent. This gentleman from the North had a curious way of pronouncing some of his words, at least curious to a Southern audience, and he also had used many unusual gestures. When Uncle Ran started his speech it was a repetition of his opponent's speech in words, voice, and gesticulation. The audience was at first confused and astounded, but as the speech went on they began to laugh and to applaud. Then Uncle Ran continued emphasizing all the peculiarities of the gentleman from 68 Tales of the Tuckers

"Nu Yarrk" until the people were almost in hysterics. He closed with a few solemn, well-chosen remarks and un­ doubtedly won the debate as far as that audience was con­ cerned. But the next morning the newspaper roasted him. When Paderewski was a young but noted pianist he came to Washington and was invited to one of the senator's homes to give a recital. Paderewski was known to be very solemn and some of the Washington gentlemen had been telling him American jokes, but he would not crack a smile. At the recital one of the senators told Uncle Ran of this and Uncle Ran said, "I'll bet ten dollars I can make him laugh." The senator took him up. Uncle Ran cut loose on the pianist between numbers, but never a smile he got. It appeared that he would certainly lose or had lost when Paderewski went to the piano to play his final encore. When the piece was finished Uncle Ran, who had some smattering of music in his make-up, solemnly asked the distinguished pianist if he would be good enough to listen to his rendition of a difficult piece. Paderewski graciously consented. Uncle Ran sat on the piano stool, looked around and bowed to those assembled just as Paderewski had done, and then hit the keys, raising his hands high in the air, and shaking his head until his hair fell down over his face, all in exact imitation of the great Polish musician, who finally broke into as hearty a laugh as anyone else in the room. It was often told of Uncle Ran that he would have been appointed to a seat on the Supreme Court of the United States except for his great humor and story-telling propensi­ ties. But I believe that if I had the choice I would rather have had his glorious fun-making ability than to have been Chief Justice. There is a story told about my father, who was named for Uncle Ran, when a law student under him at Washing- John Randolph Tucker 69 ton and Lee. He was attending family prayers which Uncle Ran held regularly every morning. Father sat on the sofa between two very pretty girls and knelt between them when Uncle Ran prayed a long Presbyterian prayer. Uncle Ran noticed through the corner of his eye that father had one of his arms around each of the girls. Immediately he let up on the prayer long enough to correct him by saying: "Ran, if you will cease worshipping the ladies I shall continue to worship the Lord." ' Honorable William A. MacCorkle, former governor of West Virginia, in The Recollections of Fifty Years, says of Uncle Ran: "A gentleman told me one day of witnessing a funny incident in Washington to which Mr. Samuel A. Miller was a party. He said he was leaving the Capitol building and with others walked down to the Peace Monument and entered a street car. John Randolph Tucker was in the party, which was a very distinguished one. Mr. Tucker had just made his great argument in the Virginia Tax Case, a speech that made the soul of every Virginian who heard it throb with pride at the great learning and eloquence of Virginia's counsel. When they got on the car, which had only one or two men in it, they all noticed that Mr. Tucker walked over and sat down almost on top of a quiet little man who was sitting on one of the long side car seats. In a moment or two Mr. Tucker pushed up nearly on top of him and the gentleman moved up, and in a little while Mr. Tucker pressed over on him a little closer and then everybody knew that there was something on hand and gave their attention. The gentleman moved over very politely, but Mr. Tucker pushed over against him again, and this kept up until he had him crowded into a corner and was sitting almost on top of him. Finally Mr. Tucker said, 'Have you been up to the Capitol, sir?' 'Yes,' the gentleman replied, 'I have been to the Capitol.' After shoving him up a little closer into the corner, Mr. Tucker said again to him, 'Sight-seeing in the Capitol?' The reply came with some asperity, 'No, sir. I have been in Court.' Said Mr. Tucker, 'Oh, you have been in court. Have they had you as a witness?' 'No, sir, not as a witness; in the 70 Tales of the Tuckers

argument of the cause,' he replied, a little more sharply. Said Mr. Tucker, "You have been trying a case. You are a lawyer, are you?' The old gentleman's voice was beginning to ring as he replied, 'Yes, sir.' Well, Mr. Tucker walloped him a little closer into the corner and said, Where are you from?' He replied that he was from West Virginia. Mr. Tucker said, 'What part of West Virginia?' 'I am from Charleston, sir,' was the very curt reply. 'Oh, yes, from Charleston, way out in the mountains. Well, do you know anybody out there?' The other gentleman, 'Yes, I know everybody,' and by this time there was a good deal of indignation in the old fellow's voice. After shoving him up into the corner a little farther, Mr. Tucker said to him, 'Now, do you know an old fellow out there by the name of Sam Miller? I presume, though, he is dead and gone years ago.' Mr. Tucker had served in the House of Delegates in Virginia and also in the Confederate Congress with Mr. Miller and they had been very close friends, but they had not seen each other .for years. On a critical occasion Mr. Miller's legs had not been as steady as they should have been. The gentleman replied, with some acerbity, Yes, sir, I know Mr. Miller, and he is not dead.' After shoving him up a little closer, Mr. Tucker said, 'How are old Sam Miller's legs?' The old gentleman reached in his pocket and took out his eyeglasses, gave Mr. Tucker a long, look and said, 'Damn you, Ran Tucker, is that you? Won't you ever learn to behave?' Mr. MacCorkle continues: "Among the features of my campaign which were vividly im­ pressed on my mind were the speeches of John Randolph Tucker, of Virginia. He was the greatest constitutional lawyer of his era. He was one of the most eloquent men in the South. He had great knowledge of common law, and with his inimitable wit and humor, was a great general in a law case. In Virginia, as a trial lawyer, he was almost supreme in his time. He was my old preceptor and he wrote me that above all his engagements, which were legion, he wanted to come out to West Virginia and speak for me in my campaign for governor. He came as soon as I had made the engage­ ment for him. It was the day of parades, of processions, of torches and of uniforms, and when the other speakers had had their say, the multitude instinctively gathered around the platform on which the John Randolph Tucker 71 gray-haired lion sat, and began a tremendous and insistent call for 'Tucker.' I saw that he was going to speak and I did not want him to speak at that time. I wanted him for the great meeting at night. I went to him and said, 'Mr. Tucker, don't speak this afternoon, because you are going to have a greater meeting tonight, and it will break you down.' Well, Mac,' he said, 'I might die before night and lose my chance at this great crowd.' There were eight or ten thousand people standing around him. They were very quiet while he was talking to me, and when he put his hand upon my shoulder and rose there was a great roar of delight. For an hour, with his powerful eloquence, his vast knowledge of the tariff, which was the issue in the campaign, with his patriotism, and his eloquent expression of it, he poured forth one of the most beautiful and magnificent speeches I have ever heard. The crowd was delighted and over­ whelmed. "That night a great multitude gathered to hear him, and not­ withstanding his efforts of the day, the people were on their feet, for more than two hours and a half shouting now in pleasure at the eloquence of the speaker, then in tears with his pathos, and then again in wild shouts of frenzied laughter at his humor. In some respects, it was one of the greatest speeches I have ever heard, and it affected me greatly, because here was my old preceptor, the greatest constitutional lawyer of his day, from my old home county, speaking for me, who was a candidate ,for office within the gift of the people of my adopted State. "Mr. Tucker, when he concentrated his mind on a subject, forgot all else. During the iniquitous Force Bill period when the whole Southern country was roused as it had never before been in my time on a political question, Mr. Tucker was not in Congress, Harry St. George Tucker, his son, having succeeded him in the House. One day I was waiting at an out-of-the-way station in Virginia, which was a connecting point with another road, and to my surprise I met Mr. Tucker at that station waiting for the train that left about the same time as mine. He was full of the bill and its dreadful conse­ quence to the South and hoped the Senate would fight it to the last. I remember he said that the rules of the Senate were designed to give great latitude so as to provide against any untoward action on the question. He caught me by the buttonhole, standing in that little 72 Tales of the Tuckers bare out-of-the-way station, and said to me, 'If I were in Congress I would argue this question in this manner.' Standing there and holding on to me, for an hour, he made one of the greatest arguments that I ever heard. He seemed to forget himself, that he was at a little desolate station, and to think he was in the Congress of the United States with a listening multitude, so absorbed was he that he repeatedly addressed me as 'Mr. Speaker.' Gradually the dwellers at the little station, hearing his voice, gathered and he continued without thought of the listeners, looking only at me as his audience. It was an impassioned and wonderful constitutional argument. Only the train stopped the music of his wonderful voice and the flow of the great constitutional speech he was making to me against the infringement of the liberties of the people."

In the days when in summer his children and grand­ children gathered around him in Lexington, Uncle Ran's joy was unconfined. There was a huge apple tree in the yard and "dropped" apples were always on the ground. There was a bathhouse also in the yard, modern bathrooms in the house not having come in vogue, and it was his habit each morning to put on his dressing gown and slippers and go out to the bathhouse to bathe in a huge tin tub which had been placed there and filled with water. As he would hurry forth to his bath and back, the grandchildren would pelt him, amid roars of laughter, with apples much to his, as well as their, delight. Mr. William Cabel Bruce, the biographer of John Ran­ dolph of Roanoke and a man who has done much for Virginiana and for Virginia, once told me that as a boy he and his brother Philip attended a boarding school in the neighborhood of Richmond. This was just after the War of Secession and during the reconstruction period. One morning Uncle Ran, who was passing that way, was asked by the principal to speak to the boys. Mr. Bruce said that John Randolph Tucker 73

Uncle Ran arose and looked at the assembled school, spoke to them, and closed by saying: "Boys, your mother is ill and weary. She has been trampled upon by strangers and has been shown disrespect by her neighbors. The servants of her house have left her. Even some of her own children have been disloyal to her and her fair name has been attacked. Nelson said to his sailors, 'Men, England expects every man to do his duty,' and I say to you: Boys, all through your lives rise to the support of and in the defense of that mother who has nurtured you with her life blood and who has given you a heritage that is unsurpassed—Virginia!" There was no ap­ plause, but the whole school spontaneously arose. During his last illness Uncle Ran was attended by his family physician in Lexington, Dr. Glasgow. He asked the doctor if he thought death was impending. Dr. Glasgow replied that he was seriously ill, that no one could predict the outcome, but (by way of encouragement) that he cer­ tainly had a wonderful constitution. The great constitutional lawyer replied, "Well, doctor, I have stuck by the Consti­ tution all of my life, and I expect it will have to stick by me to the end." A man of full life with honors heaped upon him, John Randolph Tucker, surrounded by his loved ones, went un­ flinchingly at the age of seventy-four, to join his fathers. There was sadness throughout the nation. But he would not have had it so. COL. HENRY ST. GEORGE TUCKER i 828-1863

Lawyer, Author, Soldier

ENRY ST. GEORGE TUCKER, JR., (he rarely H used Henry in his name) son of Judge Henry St. George Tucker and Ann Evelina Tucker, was born January 5, 1828 and died January 24, 1863. Like his brothers, Beverley, John Randolph, and David, he was both gifted and humorous. He was the second of the sons to bear the name Henry St. George, for his oldest brother who died at nineteen and is said to have been a very brilliant young man, had borne the name. There was another brother, Thomas Tudor, who served in the Confederate Army and fell into bad health and died without issue at the Lee Camp Con­ federate Home in the 1880's. Another brother, Alfred, was a physician. The subject of this sketch studied at the University of Virginia from 1843 to I§45 an

The British consul at Norfolk, Mr. G. P. R. James, who was also a novelist, was a friend of Sainty's. Mr. James was eating Limburger cheese one afternoon in a restaurant, with remnants of a huge dinner scattered around, when Sainty came in and made some exclamation. Said James, "You see, Tucker, I am, like Samson, slaying my thou­ sands." "Yes," replied Sainty, "and with the same weapon." During the latter part of his residence in Richmond, Uncle Sainty wrote Hansford, A Tale of Bacon's Rebellion. This historical novel was widely and well received and was re-published later in Philadelphia under the title of The Devoted Bride. In 1859 he wrote the poem commemorat­ ing the 166th anniversary of the founding of William and Mary. Uncle Sainty was said to have been a handsome man. He married Elizabeth Gilmer, daughter of Thomas Walker Gilmer, one-time Governor of Virginia and, under President John Tyler, Secretary of the Navy. Their children con­ sisted of one son, Gilmer Walker, who was educated as a chemist by his uncle, John Randolph Tucker of Lexington, and moved to Memphis, Tennessee, and three daughters, Lena, Lucy, and Annie. Annie married Lyon G. Tyler, 76 Tales of the Tuckers

President of William and Mary and the son of President John Tyler. Their daughter, Julia, married Dr. James Southall Wilson, Poe professor of literature, University of Virginia. They have two lovely and brilliant daughters. I have not been able to trace the further history of Gilmer Walker Tucker or of his children. I have before me a love letter St. George wrote Lizzie (Elizabeth Gilmer), part of which I shall quote. It is dated Williamsburg, October 31, 1847:

"While the neighbouring Church is ringing its solemn peal for evening service I have seated myself alone in my room, to write once more to my beloved Lizzie,—while I trace the rugged lines unworthy of the sweet object for whom they are designed, the crowd is passing on their solemn way to the tabernacle of their God. The young are there, tripping with lightsome feet and merry hearts, as if to mock the serious nature of the place. Some are lovers and I can see them as they pass, whispering with low voice those tender words to which you, too, my Lizzie, have often been a witness. The aged too are there, and as they tread with solemn gait the path, where even their fathers have often trod—they look forward, with hearts weary of the woes, and joys of life, to the not far distant day, when in the sanctuary of the blessed they shall look upon the ruin and decay of this earthly temple of the living God—why then, my Lizzie's heart will ask, is not her Saint joining in the solemn train? Why is he alone absent from the house of worship? "I went to morning service and heard an excellent discourse from Rev. Mr. Hodges, on the 'progress of sin'—and as I do not think a frequent visitation of God's house desirable, inasmuch as it lessens the serious impression made by its solemn services, I have withdrawn from the world to perform that next most sacred duty, after the worship of my Maker, of communing with my beloved Lizzie. How slowly do the hours of absence roll by—Only a few weeks since, and I was seated by your side enjoying the sweet presence of all that makes life desirable to me—and now hundreds of miles are spread Col. Henry St. George Tucker 77 between us—Yet even in absence methinks there is a kind of magnetic communion of mind with mind and heart with heart—and especially, when the soul is freed from the restraining influence of external sense, in the dream land it meets the object of its love—and there enjoys those precious drops of happiness which the rigid discipline of Destiny has denied them when awake.—There is no truer maxim in the world, than that 'while the cat is away the mice will play' . . . "I have been studying very assiduously since my arrival at Wil­ liamsburg, and have therefore little of the gossip of the town, which might interest you, to communicate—In iact, I have not been out of my room except to Lecture and meals for the past week and conse­ quently welcome this day of rest with no ordinary degree of pleas­ ure—Your dear picture still remains a source of the sweetest conso­ lation—and often while gazing on its mirrored surface I am struck with mute admiration of my Lizzie—Besides the ordinary duties of my legal studies I am quite busy in the preparation of a Thesis which is to be delivered at the close of the session on receiving my degree—Degree! Thrice happy word—not only does it admit me to the dry business of the bar, but to what poor old Lane insisted upon calling 'Cupid's high Court of Matrimony.' "Do remember me to my family every member of which I know you will appreciate—Especially my dear Father, who, despite his disease and the ravages of time, still preserves in all their pristine excellence the warmest heart that ever beat in human bosom, and the graceful accomplishments of a perfect Gentleman—You may think this unbecoming and indelicate, but your affectionate nature has, I doubt not, arrived at the same conclusion. . ." Yes, the letter is sentimental and its style is, perhaps, antiquated but still love and sincerity and a sense of life's values permeates it. There may be no such love letters written these days and such letters may even excite ridicule; however, those marriages resulting from them held until death and in most of them the sweetheart reverences and courtesies were life long. In this letter there seems to be a subtle and naive implication when he says after hearing a 78 Tales of the Tuckers sermon on the "Progress of Sin" that it is best not to go to services too often. In 1859 St. George Tucker opened an academy for boys at Ashland, Virginia. But when the War of Secession broke he raised a company, The Ashland Grays, and became its captain. During the first year of the war he wrote the oft quoted poem The Southern Cross. This poem bears much resemblance in meter to The Star Spangled Banner and became very popular as the first poem of the Confederacy.

O, say, can you see through the gloom and the storm More bright for the darkness, that pure constellation? Like the symbol of love and redemption its form, As it points to the haven of hope for the nation. How radiant each star, as the beacon afar, Giving promise of peace or assurance of war! 'Tis the Cross of the South! Shall it ever remain, To light us to freedom and glory again!

How peaceful and blest was America's soil Till betrayed by the guile of the Puritan demon, Which lurks under virtue and springs from its coil To fasten its fangs in the life blood of freemen. Then boldly appeal to each heart that can feel, And crush the foul viper 'neath Liberty's heel! And the Cross of the South shall in triumph remain To light us to freedom and glory again!

'Tis the emblem of peace, 'tis the day-star of hope, Like the sacred Labarum that guided the Roman ; From the shore of the Gulf to the Delaware's slope 'Tis the trust of the free and the terror of foeman. Fling its folds to the air, while we loudly declare The rights we demand or the deeds that we dare! While the Cross of the South shall in triumph remain To light us to freedom and glory again! Col. Henry St. George Tucker 79

And if peace should be hopeless and justice denied, And war's bloody vulture should flap its black pinions, Then gladly to arms! while we hurl, in our pride, Defiance to tyrants and death to their minions. With our front to the field, swearing never to yield, Or return, like the Spartans, in death on our shield. And the Cross of the South shall triumphantly wave As the flag of the free, or the pall of the brave.

During the war Sainty wrote his wife, after the troops had been camping on the banks of the James when the weather was exceedingly hot, that he would have enjoyed sleeping in the bed of the river with nothing but a sheet of water over him, but instead his command was moved to a ridge where ticks were plentiful. Later, in a considerable number of verses, he answered, with truly a Mark Twain touch, a letter written him by an eight-year-old niece, Nan, who had heard that he was dead and wrote to inquire if that were true!

How could you, my Nan, my divine little Houri, Suppose that your uncle had died in Missouri? That he left old Virginia, the land of his birth, To enrich with his ashes a far-distant earth?

It was said when a man had expired of yore, That the place which once knew him should know him no more; But still you suspect me of being so green, As to die in a place that I never have seen.

It is strange, I confess, that a man of my name, Should have died so obscure and uncared-for by fame, But still his survivors may cherish the pride That their friend left behind him a name when he died. 80 Tales of the Tuckers

My wife and two children have just gone to church, And left your poor uncle alone in the lurch— So I've seated myself (and what more could I do) To write, my dear Nannie, a letter to you.

Nor judge me too harshly that thus I should stay, From the forms of the rigidly righteous away— For believe me, my girl, that the heart which love warms, Is religious enough, despite of their forms.

But now I must close by once again giving, The pleasing assurance that I am still living— As far as I know—and be sure when I die, That no one will hear of it sooner than I.

St. George Tucker was taken ill during the "Seven Days Fight" around Richmond. At the Battle of Malvern Hill he was down of fever, but he got out of bed and led his company with gallantry. After this he was commissioned Lieutenant. Colonel. But the illness had settled upon him and was thought to have been due to exposure. It was considered to have been consumption, a favorite diagnosis at the time for any puzzling fever, and most of the fevers of the day were puzzling. This admired and beloved man had retired to Charlottes­ ville, where he died January 24, 1863, at the age of thirty- five to the month. One consolation is that he died at the height of Confederate successes and in the firm belief that the Southern cause would win. His comrades who lived may have had their consolation too as was later indicated by his nephew, Bishop Beverley D. Tucker, Sr., in his poem Appomattox— The years may swiftly flee, The proudest boast shall be, "We failed—but failed with Jackson and with Lee." ALFRED BLAND TUCKER i 8 3 o - i 8 6 2 Physician

REGRET that I know and can find so little about I Great-uncle Alfred. He was a son of Judge Henry St. George Tucker and Ann Evelina Hunter, his wife. He was born October 4, 1830, in Winchester, Virginia, or at "Woodberry," and died September 26, 1862. He is said to have studied medicine under some doctor in the Valley of Virginia and to have practiced medicine although he had not graduated from a college—not an uncommon thing in the mountains in that period. In the memoirs of grandpa by grandma, page 19, after telling of the death during the War of Secession of various relatives, she mentions "another brother (of grandpa's), Dr. Alfred Tucker, in charge of one of the hospitals in Georgia, also died." He was only thirty-two years of age and left several daughters and one son who was named for him. He is said to have been highly thought of and beloved by his patients in the valley, and his fellow physi­ cians in the army. ST. GEORGE BEVERLEY TUCKER i 839-1894

Physician of Missouri and Colorado

HIS Tucker preferred and used the name Beverley to TSt. George, although he was called by some of his intimates "Sainty." He was the son of Judge N. Beverley Tucker, professor of law at William and Mary and was born in Williamsburg Dec. 11, 1839. He obtained his academic education at William and Mary and studied medi­ cine at the University of Virginia and the College of Physicians in New York. He served as surgeon in the Confederate Army through the War of Secession and after practicing for a while, both in Richmond and in Lynchburg, he went to Marshall, Missouri and afterward to Colorado Springs, Colorado. In 1862 Dr. Beverley Tucker married Lilie Christiana Mercer of Williamsburg, daughter of Dr. John Mercer of Fredericksburg and a descendant of General Hugh Mercer of Revolutionary fame. Dr. Tucker had two daughters and four sons. The sons were John Speed, born in 1863, mining broker in Colorado Springs; Hugh Mercer, born in 1870, mechanical engineer of Fresno, California; St. George, born in 1875, a business manager in Colorado Springs; and Beverley, born in Lynchburg, Virginia. John Speed has a son, Beverley St. George, who gradu­ ated at West Point and is now a major in the United States Army. Dr. Beverley Tucker carried on his longest practice in Marshall, Missouri, traveling over a wide area of country on horseback, through good weather and bad, night and day, St. George Beverley Tucker 83 fording rivers and riding over rough roads. The love and admiration of his patients for him was boundless but eventually his health broke and he moved to Colorado Springs to spend the balance of his life. His death occurred in 1894 when he was in his fifty-sixth year. JAMES ELLIS TUCKER i8 44-i9 2 4

Virginia and California

IM TUCKER'S life was full of adventure. He was the J eldest son of Beverley and Jane Ellis Tucker and was born near Winchester, Virginia, in 1844. His early school years were spent in Richmond, and he was about thirteen years of age when he went with his family to Liverpool on the appointment of his father as United States Consul at that port. After attending school in Liverpool several years he went to Vevey, Switzerland, to Mr. Sellig's school with his brothers, Bev and Ran. At this school in Vevey, among other boys from New England, were three Curtis brothers who were about the same age as the three Tucker boys. One of the features of this school was that the boys learned to sail boats on Lake Geneva. When news came of Lincoln's call for troops and war was declared, Uncle Jim challenged the Curtis brothers to fight a battle on the lake with the Tucker brothers. A Confederate flag was made from the description of one in a letter from home and the Curtis boys had a United States flag. Each side selected a sail boat. The rules of war were simple, the boats were to sail into each other, and the crews were to board the opposing boat and fight it out with fists. The battle came off before a number of spectators and the Tucker boys always thought they won. Anyhow they claimed that this was the first naval engagement of the war and that theirs was the first Confederate flag raised in Europe. After the war, the Curtis brothers and the Tucker brothers be­ came fast friends until their deaths. JAMES ELLIS TUCKER 1844-192+ Virginia-California James Ellis Tucker 85

So enthusiastic was Uncle Jim that he issued a challenge to all the Northern boys in school to fight it out on land with the Tucker boys. He was to take the larger boys, one by one, Uncle Bev the middle size boys, and father the smaller ones. This fight actually started, but was soon stop­ ped by the instructors. In the next generation the greatest compliment that one Tucker boy paid another was that he was as brave as, or could fight like, Uncle Jim. Then Uncle Jim left school for actual war. In Paris he was met by his father and given important papers to be delivered in person to Jefferson Davis. This commission was to be kept secret, so the documents were put in a rubber bag and strapped around his body. He caught an English blockade-runner which was headed for Wilmington, North Carolina. The ship approached the port at night, but was sighted and fired upon when she was about three miles from shore. Knowing the importance of the documents he carried, Uncle Jim, seventeen years of age, left his luggage to fate, dived overboard, and swam to shore. From here he, as we would say now, "hitchhiked" his way by wagon and train to Richmond and delivered the papers to the President in person. President Davis compli­ mented him. I don't think Uncle Jim ever heard what became of the ship. He volunteered in the army right away and was assigned to Jubal A. Early's command and to Fitz- hugh Lee's cavalry. In this command he soon became regi­ mental color bearer and during the war he was wounded three times and had five horses shot from under him. He was twice cited for bravery. He was shot in the leg at Aldie, near Leesburg, in 1863, and in the shoulder at the Battle of Spottsylvania Court House in 1864, and got a sabre cut in another action. But each time he held to this battle flag and rejoined his com- 86 Tales of the Tuckers mand as soon as possible. When he was wounded at Aldie, grandpa, who happened to be in Richmond, received word that his condition was serious. Indeed all wounds at that time were potentially serious because of the frequency of gangrene. Grandpa rented a spring wagon and had a mat­ tress put into it and drove over a hundred miles to get his beloved son. Uncle Jim was found, put in the wagon, and driven to Richmond over bad roads, grandpa walking at the head of the horse a good deal of the way. After the war someone asked General Fitz Lee about Uncle Jim. The general replied that he was one of the bravest men he ever knew but that he had one fault, he went at the enemy so fast that the troops could never keep up with the colors. Jim Tucker and Fitz Lee were kindred spirits—both of them liked a fight. Years later, when General Fitzhugh Lee was Governor of Virginia, his son, Fitz, and I were good friends. Our gang used to rock-battle against other gangs of boys. Fitz could throw a rock swift and far; while I could not equal him in these respects, I was considered quite accurate. One day in the side yard of the Governor's Mansion, Fitz and I got into a fist fight. Ann Lee, Fitz's sister, saw us and ran and told the Governor. He came out on the porch and walked to the nearest rail. I can see him now, he was a very stout man, with his hands in his pants' pockets and his paunch protruding over the rail. He said no word but watched us fight it out. When we were through he said, "Well, boys, you both fought well, so shake hands and make up." Of course we did so. After this General Fitz­ hugh Lee was always a special hero to me. When the surrender at Appomattox came Jim Tucker kept his battle flag. He had concealed it around his body and did not surrender it. He had a sweetheart from Ten- James Ellis Tucker 87 nessee and to her keeping he entrusted it under her oath to hold it for him until he could come and claim it. It was "tattered and-torn" and he loved it probably more than he did the girl. He feared to keep the flag with him for the times were too precarious. Several years afterward he traveled out to Tennessee to claim the flag, but she had given it, upon demand, to General Thos. Munford, who, when General Fitz Lee was promoted, succeeded him in command and thus was the commander of Uncle Jim's regiment. This officer had courted and married the girl's sister and learning of her possession of the flag he persuaded her that as commander of the regiment he had the right to it. Uncle Jim was the most polite man to ladies I ever knew, but I have heard he was not very polite this time and that for a while was offended with his ex-commander. However, he seems to have gotten over this for I have a letter written by Uncle Jim to General Munford in 1905, given me by Charles Talbott, a cousin, which is not only most amicable but even affectionate. This letter speaks of the last days of the war. In it he mentions meeting General Breckenridge, the Secretary of War, who told him that he, by order of President Davis, had just signed Uncle Jim's commission as Second Lieutenant of cavalry. General Breckenridge somehow got into the battle line and General Munford told Uncle Jim to escort him back. Uncle Jim did so with the flag in one hand and brandishing a pistol in the other. General Breckenridge admonished Uncle Jim about being careless with his pistol. "All right," said the color-bearer to the Secretary of War, "I'll put you on your honor not to escape me, sir, for I am responsible for you!" He returned the pistol to its holster. 88 Tales of the Tuckers

How these men loved their flag is expressed by Father Ryan, the South's war poet.

THE CONQUERED BANNER Furl that banner, for 'tis weary, Round its staff 'tis drooping dreary; Furl it, fold it, it is best: For there's not a man to wave it, And there's not a sword to save it, And there's not one left to lave it In the blood which heroes gave it, And its foes now scorn and brave it— Furl it, hide it, let it rest.

Take that banner down—'tis tattered, Broken is its staff and shattered, And the valiant hosts are scattered Over whom it floated high. Oh! 'tis hard for us to fold it, Hard to think there's none to hold it, Hard that those who once unrolled it Now must furl it with a sigh.

Furl that banner, furl it sadly— Once ten thousands hailed it gladly, And ten thousands wildly, madly, Swore it should forever wave; Swore that foeman's sword could never Hearts like theirs entwined dissever, Till that flag would float forever O'er their freedom or their grave.

Furl that banner! true 'tis gory, Yet 'tis wreathed around with glory, And 'twill live in song and story Though its folds are in the dust; For its fame on brightest pages, Penned by poets and by sages, Shall go sounding down the ages, Furl its folds though now we must. '

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JAMES ELLIS TUCKER Confederate Color-hearer James Ellis Tucker 89

Uncle Jim came to his grandmother Ellis' home in Rich­ mond on Second and Franklin Streets after the war. His first cousin, Ellis Munford, had been killed at Malvern Hill, his uncle, St. George Tucker, had died from exposure after that battle, and his sister, Annie, had died. He saw his brothers, Bev, Ran and Ellis, and his mother and his sister, Maggie, his grandmother, and his Aunt Lizzy Munford and her daughters. The house was running over with rela­ tives, but the reunion was brief. His father was in Canada. It was spring and the apricot trees in the yard were in bloom. Peace had come and all seemed quiet enough except that Virginia was District No. 1, and half the city was in ashes, and the negroes were free. The servants still worked in the homes, but there was no money to pay them wages. It was a city of disappointed hopes, half-starved women and children, wounded comrades, confused negroes, no business, hungry and disappointed returning soldiers clad in what was left of their once gray uniforms, and Northern soldiers in spick-and-span new blue uniforms. It is true there were pretty girls, but they did not venture on the porches where wisteria was blooming. Lincoln had appeared conciliatory and the people pinned their hopes on him. Then a shot rang out in a Washington theatre and Lincoln was dead. This was another blow to the already crushed Capital of the Confederacy. And then Andrew Johnson, a man despised, issued a proclamation offering a reward for Jefferson Davis and four others, dead or alive, and one of them, Uncle Jim learned, was his adored father. So Jim Tucker determined to go to Canada, his father having been sent there on a Confederate mission months before the war ended. Uncle Jim reached Canada. As they met, father and son, they threw their arms around each other and kissed. Grandpa was delighted to get first- go Tales of the Tuckers hand news of the family. The old gentleman, dead broke, asked Uncle Jim if he had any money. "Only a five dollar bill left," said Jim. "That's enough," replied his father. "We will get a bottle of champagne and celebrate your arrival." And so they did. In some months the rest of the family joined them. Uncle Jim was entered in the University of Toronto, but after serving in the army for four years he could not get down to study. Shortly, grandpa went to England on business and from there to Mexico where so many Confederates went after the war. Hearing through letters that his mother and father were going to Mexico, Jim left the University and arrived in Mexico just before his father, mother, and sister. On leaving Canada he had no money so he shipped on a passenger boat as one of the crew and was put to scrubbing the decks. In a day or so the captain noticed him and thinking he did not look much like a deck hand he had him transferred and made him a waiter in the dining room. Now, on this boat was a French princess traveling incognito as the Princess Fan Fan to join the court of the Emperor Maximilian and the Empress Carlotta. The first dinner Jim Tucker served was a fateful one. The sea was rough. The Princess appeared in a beautiful Parisian yellow silk dress. Waiter Tucker bringing in the soup was all eyes and no feet. The ship rolled and he lost his balance and down he poured the soup all over the gown of the Princess. His "pardon moi" amounted to nothing and he was immediately demoted to scrubbing the decks again. He landed at Vera Cruz and through the help of some Southerners he stayed in that city until his father's arrival. Grandpa was cordially received by friends and he and James Ellis Tucker 91 grandma and Aunt Maggie were given invitations to the Emperor's ball in Mexico City. Grandpa procured an invi­ tation for Uncle Jim and proceeded to the capital. He gave Uncle Jim what money he needed for the trip and enough to have a dress suit made. Then Uncle Jim followed them to Mexico City. The ball was a gorgeous affair and when the dancing was started he had himself introduced to the Princess and asked her to dance. Jim Tucker spoke French fluently and was now dressed in the latest evening clothes so he flattered himself that he could make some headway with the unsuspecting Princess. But while they were waltzing around she looked at him sharply and said, "It seems to me, Mr. Tucker, that your face is strangely familiar." "It should be, Your Highness," laughed he, "I am the young man who spilled the soup over your lovely gown." In the center of the floor she stopped dancing, stared at him for a moment, threw up her head, and marched to her seat; not to the ire of, but rather to the amusement of, her escort. More of Uncle Jim's experiences in Mexico are told in the sketch of his father, Beverley Tucker. When Maxi­ milian was dethroned and executed, Jim Tucker was to have been shot with him, but he made his escape and with two companions went to Luis Potosi where he founded the first Masonic order in Mexico. Grandpa, grandma, and Aunt Maggie sailed for Canada. Uncle Jim in a short time got to Vera Cruz and then over to Cuba where he obtained work on one of the plantations. Jim Tucker had been in Cuba some months when he was shown an editorial in one of the New York papers which was very insulting to and abusive of his father. It referred to, as if they were true, the old charges of his being implicated in a plot to assassi- 92 Tales of the Tuckers nate Lincoln. Uncle Jim caught the next boat to New York and went to see the editor. He obtained admittance to his private office, shut the door and pulled a chair up and fastened the back of it under the knob. Then from under his coat he unwound a Cuban cattle whip and told the editor he would whip him to within an inch of his life if he did not write an editorial to be published the next morning retract­ ing all that he had said. The retraction was thereupon written and read to Uncle Jim who pronounced it satisfac­ tory. Jim told the editor that if it did not come out he would brain him even if it took years to get at him. Then he removed the chair and walked out of the building without being stopped. The next day the editorial retraction ap­ peared. After this Uncle Jim went to Canada again and joined his family who had returned there. Cousin Ginny Tucker, Uncle David's oldest daughter, was staying with them. Uncle Jim had fallen in love with her after the affair with the young lady to whom he had unwisely entrusted his battle flag, and he had bought Cousin Ginny a gold watch in New York. As soon as he could he walked with her down to the shore of Lake Ontario and courted her. She told him she loved him dearly as a cousin but that she would never marry a first cousin. Upon receiving this information Uncle Jim took out the gold watch and threw it as far as he could into the lake. In 1869 he decided to go to Utah expecting to be superin­ tendent of some silver mines, but when he arrived in Salt Lake City he was penniless and the weather was very cold, with heavy snow on the ground. The position he had been promised did not pan out. He decided to try to go to Cali­ fornia and, giving his trunk of clothes as security, at last persuaded the Wells Fargo Express people to advance him James Ellis Tucker 93 a little money and give him a second-class ticket to San Francisco. Because of snow it took him a week to get there and he arrived on Christmas morning without a penny. He refused pecuniary aid and got employment running a street car. In a short while he was ill with laryngitis and lost this job. As soon as he was well enough he got work as a laborer loading coal on vessels. His manner and appearance pro­ cured him promotions and before long he was purser on a vessel going back and forth from San Francisco to China. It seemed destined, however, that he was to have adven­ ture after adventure. On one of the trips a terrific storm came up considerably off the coast of China and the ship struck a rock. All were ordered to leave the ship by life­ boats, the passengers first. Uncle Jim took his stand and helped the passengers, women and children first, to get into the small boats. Some of the crew, however, attempted to get in and he ordered them back but they refused to obey. He drew his pistol and although he would never discuss it, I believe he had to shoot several of the crew. At any rate ever thereafter, although many times in dangerous positions, he never carried a weapon and he told me that he felt if he had done so he would not have lived to tell the tale. On his arrival in China word of his gallantry soon got around and he was handsomely entertained by mandarins and others. I have heard him say that he had lived in many parts of the world, but that he had never met any gentlemen superior in graciousness and courtesy to the Chinese. Back in California again he obtained several positions. California in the seventies had a rough population gathered from the four corners of the earth and Uncle Jim led an exciting and dangerous life. His presence of mind, his innate gentlemanliness, his high character, his fine appear­ ance, his sense of humor, and his undoubted courage com- 94 Tales of the Tuckers bined with his goodness of heart soon made him an out­ standing figure and for years before his death there was hardly a better known or more popular man on the Pacific Coast. He was once superintendent of large quicksilver mines where many of the workers were Chinese who trusted him implicitly. It was his habit to drive, twice a month, over the mountains to a town a good many miles away, there to draw from the bank $6,000 to pay off the miners in gold and silver coin. To carry this money he had made a strong, leather bag which he would put in his lap when he stopped to eat or between his feet in the sulky when he drove back to the mines. One afternoon he stopped in a restaurant and ordered some food. While he was eating he noticed three men standing about. When he left he felt sure they had noticed the weight of the bag he was carrying; especially the tall, handsome man whom he took to be the leader. He knew that highway robbers plied their "trade," as they called it, from time to time in the neighborhood. Although unarmed he determined to drive on to the mines rather than to risk spending the night in the little town. The trip was made with two mustangs hitched to a sulky. He got in his sulky, put his black bag between his feet, touched his fast and highly trained mustangs with his whip, and drove off. After going some miles without incident he began to feel that after all he was not being followed. However, he was not entirely at ease, for he knew that ahead was a narrow road, ruggedly cut in the side of the mountain, over part of which he would have to drive slowly and with care. If the three men he had noticed were robbers and came up to him on this cut there was no hope of out-distancing them and of his saving the money or his life. Just after he reached this cut road he thought he heard hoof beats behind James Ellis Tucker 95 him. There was nothing to do but go on. On the left side of the narrow road the mountain was rocky and creviced, on the right was a precipice of a thousand feet and night was fast approaching. The only hope, if the highwaymen were coming, was to reach a settlement several miles further on where the mountain road went into a plateau. The distant hoof beats became more distinct. He whipped the mustangs as they had never been whipped before and they responded splendidly. Soon Uncle Jim looked over his shoulder and what was his horror to see three men on horseback racing after him. Even at a distance he recognized the tall, slender leader. In a moment he felt that his flight was hopeless although he knew that not far ahead was the settlement and comparative safety. He did not believe they would hold him up there. The robbers were coming with terrific speed and had gotten close enough for him to hear the leader call to him to halt. But in answer he whipped the mustangs. He had them under perfect control. Some yards ahead a boulder jutted and around it the road curved. He could just make it out in the dusk. As he passed it with the robbers now almost upon him he drew up his mustangs and in an instant backed the sulky as far as he could into a crevice which he had sensed was on the far side of the boulder. As the robbers thundered past he pointed his pocket knife at them and shouted, "Halt or I'll shoot." He heard the leader yell, "Hell." The riders kept on. Again he lashed the mustangs and chased the men to the village through which they dashed. Here he got in touch with the sheriff whom he knew and a posse was quickly formed to ride after the highwaymen. But they were not caught. Uncle Jim drove on leisurely and peacefully to the mines. He was late. The white miners were gathered around in groups discussing whether he had been robbed or had ab- 96 Tales of the Tuckers sconded with the pay, but the Chinamen were quietly eating their supper around a fire. As Uncle Jim came up, his black leather bag in his hand, the head Chinese said, "We know you no 'fraid and you honest, Mis tar Jimmie, so we no worry." Many years after this Uncle Jim was in Chicago eating dinner in a famous restaurant. A tall gray-haired gentle­ man, elegantly dressed, came up to the table and said, "Aren't you Mister Jim Tucker?" "Yes, sir." "Well, you once saved my life and I consider you the nerviest man I ever saw." "How is that and where did I meet you?" "I am the man," he replied, "who with two others was about to rob you on the mountain road in California and you turned the tables and got the drop on us. "I'll be damned. Sit down and have dinner with me." This the ex-robber did and they talked over the old days in California. As the guest shook hands to leave he said, "I have one question to ask you, Mr. Tucker. When you had the draw on us, why didn't you kill me?" "Because my pen-knife would not go off," said Uncle Jim, and they both had a hearty laugh. Uncle Jim had many other business and mining experi­ ences in California. He married Laura Harris and had two sons, Burling and Beverley. In a few years Aunt Laura died and the boys came to live with grandfather and after his death with Uncle Bev for several years and then at the Munford cousins with grandma and Aunt Maggie. Uncle Jim had a unique way of giving advice. When I was a young man he told me, "Bev, if you are ever in Paris and walk down the Rue St. Honore or the Boulevard de 1'Opera and a beautiful demimonde approaches you and James Ellis Tucker 97 says, 'Mon cher,' lift your hat, bow gracefully and reply, 'Adieu, mademoiselle.' Then go to the nearest cathedral, make obeisance to the Virgin Mary, and thank Her for having inspired you to say, 'Adieu, mademoiselle'." President Harrison, in his first administration, appointed Uncle Jim appraiser at the Customs House of the port of San Francisco which position he held for years through Harrison's and Cleveland's administrations. He was later appointed to organize the appraiser's office for the port of Honolulu. He became one of the authorities on customs in this country. During middle life he married Miss Maye Bourn by whom he had no children. He was for many years a member and once president of the Pacific Union Club of San Francisco. During all this time he made trips when he could to his beloved Virginia. He said that when he left Virginia as a boy he had been very fond of ginger cakes and bananas and that when he came back he visited his various relatives and they always remembered this and served these to him, although he had lost his taste for them and had diabetes. He made quite a joke of his diabetes which he had for twenty-five years, and when he took a Scotch highball, of which he was very but not inordinately fond, he would say that Scotch whiskey was the best medi­ cine known for diabetes and that every time he took a drink of it his sugar would drop. On one of his visits to Virginia just after Uncle Bev had been made Bishop, Uncle Jim had to wait a week or two until his brother returned from making a round of visits to the churches in his diocese. When they had met and em­ braced, Uncle Jim stood off and looked over the much traveled and rather worn Bishop. "Well, Bev," he exclaimed, "I expected to see you dressed in purple and fine linen, sitting on a high-backed plush chair 98 Tales of the Tuckers with your feet on a stool and big seal ring on your finger, but I find that you are only a bedraggled traveling salesman of religion." Bob Bryan (Dr. Robert Bryan) visited his cousin Jim in California and on one occasion when they were talking of Virginia Uncle Jim asked, "Bob, when you go back home I would like you to do me a favor." "Certainly," said Bob, "I'll do anything you wish, Cousin Jim." "Then, Bob, please get a wooden box and put in it some of the soil of old Virginia and ship it to me. I have always longed for some of Virginia's soil to have near me out here in California." "I will send it to you." Some days afterward, when Bob was leaving, Uncle Jim saw him to the train and reminded him, "Bob, don't forget that box of the soil of dear old Virginia." "I shall not forget," said Bob. "And, Bob," said Uncle Jim, "when you are packing that box with the soil of old Virginia, it would be nice if you would not quite fill the box and put on top of the soil one of those good old Virginia hams." Bob carried out the suggestion to the letter. Although much of Uncle Jim's life was spent in the rougher days of California, he never smoked. He did not use tobacco because the odor of smoke and the taste of the weed made him sick. He was allergic to it, as we say now­ adays. His drinking was convivial and not to excess. He never had serious trouble with anyone although one of the San Francisco editors once printed something personal about him that he did not like. Some of Uncle Jim's friends told James Ellis Tucker 99 the editor he had better watch out or Jim Tucker would horsewhip him, and the editor locked himself in his office for days, much to Uncle Jim's amusement. When Aunt Maggie died he stayed at my house in Rich­ mond and his grief was pathetic. On another visit to Richmond he was taken ill and I had him at the Tucker Hospital. He was the most polite patient we ever had. When a nurse gave him a dose of medicine he would sit up in bed, although he had a temperature, and thank her as if she were a queen laying the sword of knighthood on his shoulder. The nurses adored him. Cousin Harry Tucker, then in Congress, came to see him on one occasion. Uncle Jim was fairly ill, but these first cousins chatted and told jokes and roared with laughter. Uncle Jim asked Cousin Harry, "Harry, what has become of Mr. So-and-So who so bit­ terly opposed you in such-and-such an election?" "Well, Jim, shortly after the election the good Lord took him." "And what has become of Mr. So-and-So who wrote so abusively of you?" "Well, Jim, soon afterward the good Lord took him, too." Uncle Jim rose up in bed and stretched both arms toward heaven, rolled his eyes to the ceiling, and exclaimed, "The good Lord is sometimes right." I was invited to deliver a course of lectures on nervous diseases at the old Cooper Medical College in San Fran­ cisco, which had just become the medical department of the Leland-Stanford University. I went there in the early fall of 1908. Aunt Maggie Tucker had recently been operated upon for cancer of the breast and she knew that the disease had so extended that her days were numbered. She wished to see her brother Jim before she died but not mentioning ioo Tales of the Tuckers

•her reason, which I too well knew, she asked me if I would object to her going out with me. I was delighted. I had been practicing in Richmond only somewhat over a year and my first child was a few months old. Money was scarce for both of us so the Munford cousins made us up a box of lunch which if we had put in cold storage between meals I believe would have lasted to San Francisco and return. We stopped over in Chicago and I took Aunt Maggie to see a movie. It was the first one she had ever seen and I think the second one I had seen. The whole trip was most enjoyable and we were met about forty miles this side of San Francisco by Uncle Jim who boarded our train. The meeting of this brother and sister was most affecting and upon seeing it many of our fellow travelers had tears in their eyes. At the station were Aunt Maye and a host of their California friends. Mr. Bourn, Aunt Maye's brother, turned a Franklin car with a white chauffeur over to me while I was in San Francisco. At that date I had ridden in a car but a few times. The San Francisco doctors and the people we met were wonderfully cordial to Aunt Maggie and me. I have never experienced such hospitality. Uncle Jim gave me a great dinner at the Pacific Union Club with twenty-five guests, all prominent professional or business men of San Francisco. Among other things there was a quart of champagne and a whole wild duck served at each plate. When all had left but Uncle Jim I thanked him, but I told him he must not entertain me so lavishly, for in the first place I didn't deserve it, and in the second place I knew he could not afford it. Fie laughed and said, "Do you know, my dear boy, that dinner did not cost me a penny?" .1 told him it must have cost five hundred dollars. "Well, maybe it did," he said, "but it was no expense to James Ellis Tucker 101

me. I told my friend, Mr. Blank, that you were the greatest neurologist in America and that you have been selected from among all others to come three thousand miles to give some lectures and that as he was always complaining that although he was one of the richest men in the West he never got any fun out of his money, hence I was going to ask him to let me show him a good time. So he told me to order the dinner, invite whom I chose, and he would foot the bill." "I hope he enjoyed himself," I said. "He certainly did," Uncle Jim told me, "he thanked me when he left and said he had not had so much fun in years and begged me to entertain for him any time I wished." In a few days Mr. Blank invited me to his house. He told me that he would give his millions for Uncle Jim's good spirits and humor and that there was no man more generally beloved in the city than Jim Tucker. Uncle Jim and Aunt Maye seemed to meet every ragged and tattered Virginian who came to California and to manage one way or another to help them. On my trip I stayed a few days in beautiful Nappa Valley at the Bourn's place. Uncle Jim asked me if I would drive over to another valley, quite a distance, to call on a dear old friend of his. When we got to the little town we stopped at an inn known to him. When we went in the bartender came around in front of the bar and he and Uncle Jim threw their arms around each other. Then I was introduced. The bartender, delighted to hear that I was from Richmond, asked if I knew various prominent Virginia people. In turn I inquired if he had ever been to Richmond and was told, "I once visited there for a while." I thought at first maybe he had tended one of the Richmond bars and met some people this way, but then I began to wonder. He was a splendid looking, elderly man, with gray hair, and his man- 102 Tales of the Tuckers ner and conversation were those of a man born to the purple; but on the other hand he was in his shirt sleeves and wore a bartender's apron. After some general conver­ sation and some more drawing-me-out questions about Vir­ ginia, we bade him an almost affectionate farewell. When we left we turned back to the road from whence we had come. I asked Uncle Jim if he wasn't going to pay the visit he mentioned. "We have paid it," Uncle Jim told me. "That bartender is the scion of one of the best Virginia families and a highly educated gentleman. He came West and got into a run of hard luck. He was too proud to write to his people for aid and he became a hard drinker. Then he stopped drinking but could not find work. Twenty years ago I got him the position he now holds under a friend of mine who owns the inn. He is contented. He never allows any rowdiness in the place and is always glad to see me or anyone from Virginia." Uncle Jim told me who the man was and I suppose I have known a dozen of his family, but I have never mentioned to any of them that I had the pleasure of meeting their really fine kinsman in California. I do not believe they have heard from him since he left Virginia to seek his fortune. Uncle Jim lived his fourscore years in many places, through changing times, and under many vicissitudes, and he always lived courageously, in good humor and high spirits, making friends and being a friend, and withal main­ taining the courtesy of a gentleman and a high sense of honor. He died in San Francisco in 1924 and requested that his body be cremated and that his ashes either be put in the Confederate soldier's monument in Richmond or scattered from an aeroplane on the broad Pacific. As yet James Ellis Tucker 103 neither of these suggestions has been carried out. It may be better thus. His ashes rest in San Francisco in the Episcopal Chapel of St. Mary the Virgin, a house of worship toward which, as the newspaper notice of his death said, he had maintained a deep interest and affection for many years. BEVERLEY DANDRIDGE TUCKER i8 46 -i9 3 o

Bishop of Southern Virginia

IFE is a curious admixture of heredity, environment, and 1J of such enveloping circumstance, for instance, as 'war. Uncle Bev, the second of the sons of Beverley and Jane Ellis Tucker, who survived until adulthood, shared the vicis­ situdes of the family in a world of changing surroundings and momentous events. Uncle Bev was born in Richmond on November 9, 1846, and spent his early years in Virginia. Blond, genial, and of good mind he went with the family to Liverpool when his father was appointed United States consul. Here he attended grammar school, and in a few years was sent with his older brother, Jim, and his younger brother, Ran, to Mr. Sellig's school in Vevey, Switzerland, where they were when the War of Secession broke out in this country.* In Switzerland Uncle Bev and his brothers learned to speak French like natives. All through their lives these three brothers used the French tongue to express certain emotions and refinements. My father, Ran, when ill in Richmond long afterward, spoke only French for three weeks much to the consternation of his doctors and attend­ ants. When the war at home occurred, Jim left school in a few months to join the Confederate army and Uncle Bev and father followed later. A description of the trip home of these two youngsters is told in the sketch of my father, Ran. On arrival in Virginia, Bev, at the age of sixteen, joined the Otey Battery and served until Lee surrendered at

•I do not object to the term Civil War, although it was not, strictly speaking, a civil war, nor to the designation War Between the States, although it fails to express what group of States, nor even to the War of Rebellion, although it w.as far more than .a rebellion, but I prefer this war to be called the War of Secession because that is what it really was. K 'V * . Jr. fl gg flUl

RT. REV. BEVERLEY DANDRIDGE TUCKER I 8 4 6 - i 9 3 o Virginia Beverley Dandridge Tucker 105"

Appomattox. Ran went to the V. M. I. a short while and into the army when he was sixteen years of age. Many years after the war when Uncle Bev was Bishop, in a sermon delivered in St. Paul's Church, Richmond, which Sunday happened to fall on the day before Lee's birthday, he told several anecdotes of General Lee. St. Paul's was the church which Lee attended when he was in Richmond during the war and so the occasion was most appropriate. I had the pleasure of hearing this sermon delivered in Uncle Bev's beautifully modulated voice. It is needless to say the congregation was greatly impressed. I shall copy the whole sermon:

LEE, THE CHRISTIAN A SERMON PREACHED IN ST. PAUL'S CHURCH, RICHMOND, VA. JANUARY 18, 1925 BY THE RIGHT REVEREND B. D. TUCKER, D.D.

"By faith, Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the Son of Pharaoh's Daughter, choosing rather to suffer afflictions with the people of God, than to endure the pleasures of sin for a season."—Heb. 7:24, 25. Eighteen months ago, I had the privilege of speaking in this church, so full of memories and associations, on the birthday of Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States. Today, as then, I turn to one of these windows for my text, as we come to bless God's holy name for the faith and good example of His servant Robert E. Lee. The subject of the window was sug­ gested by Bishop Randolph, follower and kinsman of Lee. The scene depicted is the gorgeous palace of the Pharaohs. The treasures of Egypt are displayed in lavish profusion. The daughter of the King, with her attendant maidens, makes offer of wealth, power and glory to one in whose easy grasp they lie. Moses stands, a strong, beautiful picture of manhood, in the presence of a tempta­ tion like to that, though ever so far off, Where there was shown to the Son of Man all of the kingdoms of the world and the glory 106 Tales of the Tuckers

thereof. In the making of this decision, and life is full of choices, we find the keynote to the character of Lee. The supreme moment in his life came to him, when there was offered to him, a man trained in the army of his country and devoted to its flag, the command of the forces of a great and powerful nation. On the one hand was presented all that a soldier could desire, wealth and power and the applause of men, the peace and security of the beautiful home which was mirrored in the flowing river. (Arlington.) On the other hand was all that sacrifices could mean, renunciation of the place to which he had risen by the efforts of his life, the espousal of a cause, which lay only in the bounds of the possible, the loss of property and of home, hardships for his dear ones and for himself. We know how he decided. Place duty in one scale and all that the world could give in the other, and for such a man as Lee, there could be no moment of hesitation. So it was all through his life. He was master of self. He saw right and duty with clear vision, and seeing it, it was for him to follow them. This is the true spirit of the Christian, the readiness to renounce, the power to choose, the manliness to sacrifice, the willingness to endure all things, for right­ eousness' sake. The choice that Moses made, the choice that Lee made, the choice that you and I make, are to be determined by faith in the living God, and a respect unto the recompense of reward. You will understand, my friends and comrades, that in this sacred place and on this holy day, we are to speak not of the genius, nor of the great achievements, nor of the glory of him whom we remember in our thoughts. These, year by year, have a larger place in the history of the world. It is something to be thankful for that the chief leaders of the Southern cause combined the greatness of achieve­ ment with the greatness of character. We can hold them up to those who come after us, not so much for what they did as for what they were. Gamaliel Bradford, of Boston, to whom we owe the most remark­ able personification of our great Southern general, said that when he began it was with the intention of writing the life of "Lee, the Rebel." As he went on he changed it to "Lee, the Virginian," then to "Lee, the American." It seems to me that the time is coming Beverley Dandridge Tucker 107 when for the realized ideals of character, we shall speak of "Lee, the Christian." I have been asked by your rector, (his son, Beverley D. Tucker Jr.) whom in this church I am bound to obey, though I believe he is younger than I, to speak to you informally, basing what I have to say on my own personal memories of our great historic past, and on the impressions made on me by General Lee. I am conscious that there may be those in this church who knew him better than I. But I can say, with truthfulness, that my life has been influenced for good because it has been touched ever so faintly by that of him under whom I served. No one who had the honor of following him could fail to see at least the ideals of duty, of service and of faith as goals in the pathway of life. I first saw General Lee in the vestibule of this church, outside the center door. I was but a boy of sixteen years when my father intro­ duced me to him. I can never forget the thrill of pride with which I received his gracious greeting. General Wolseley has said that, in that noble presence, one unconsciously stood erect, as one is said to do when looking upon the sculptured form of the Apollo Belvidere. I saw him again in the Sunday-School room of this church, where dear old Dr. Minnigerode, whom he loved, held the Lenten service at seven in the morning. Old Traveler was hitched to the telegraph pole outside. He who led the armies of the Confederacy was humbly bowed in prayer. I can not help thinking that this example of faith in God and simple dependence upon him was helpful to all who witnessed it. He had started, at break of day, from his headquarters, near Chaffin's Bluff, and had ridden more than ten miles to seek guidance and strength in the House of God. Like his Lord, it was ever his wont on the Lord's day to enter the place where honor dwelleth, to hear His Holy Word and to kneel before Him in prayer. And, day by day, he kept close to God. His great achieve­ ment in the field of strategy, his wonderful power of leadership, his genius as one of the world's greatest soldiers, these belong to history. His simple recognition of his need of God, his humble following and imitation of his Lord Christ—the thought of these should be a lasting power to influence the children of our land. My next memory of Lee takes me back to the lines below Richmond. The Northern forces had captured Fort Harrison, a 108 Tales of the Tuckers salient point in the defences of this city. An effort was made to retake it, these divisions being en echelon. The one to which I be­ longed was the last. As we waited, tense and anxious, General Lee rode up to the entrenchment, dismounted, and with his field glasses swept the field of battle. I was standing near and watched him. In a few moments, he turned to his attendant officer, "Sound the retreat," he said, "such a division is too late, the attack has failed." I remember the quiet way in which he returned his glasses to the case, the unruffled look upon his brow, the patient acceptance of what could not be remedied. It was this fortitude in the presence of disappointment, this patient acceptance of God's will, this power of being equal to what might come that taught me one of the great lessons of life. One scene lingers in my memory of those fearful days of the retreat to Appomattox. The army had failed to find the expected rations at Amelia Courthouse. The ragged hosts were worn out with hunger and almost despairing. A few men of my battery were struggling to move a gun which was sunk in the mud. It seemed impossible with the horses weakened for lack of food. Suddenly, General Lee rode up and stopped. "My men," he said, "I am sorry you have nothing to eat, but you must keep up a good heart, and all will be right." The look and word of human sympathy were more than food, and the cheer that rang out upon the April air came .from hearts whom his tender thoughtfulness had refreshed. (The horses pulled anew and the cannon came out of the mud.) Where did he learn this spirit of self-forgetfulness, this depth of sympathy, this power of love, if not from the Master, who in the night in which He was betrayed forgot His own travail, as He looked on the faces of His disciples and said, "Let not your hearts be troubled." The time has come, thank God, when the world is beginning to feel that war with all its barbarities must pass away. The horrors of the World War through which we have passed leave but little for thoughts of glory or .for the exultation of victory. Lee was ahead of his time in that he tried with all his might to keep the humanities in the midst of war. He had the hardest of all loves to practice, yet that which makes us most like God, the love of enemies. No man ever heard from Lee a word of hate. The order he published at Beverley Dandridge Tucker 109 the time of the invasion of Pennsylvania, commanding his men to respect the private property and the persons of noncombatants marked a new era in the history of war. It passed away, but left us hope, only for a time, in the last war. "I have fought," he said, rebuking the vindictiveness of a friend, "against the North because I believed they were seeking to wrest from the South their inherent rights, but I have never cherished toward them bitter or vindictive .feeling, and I have never seen the day when I did not pray for them." Or again, to a clergyman, who was speaking the language of hate, he said, "Doctor, there is a good book that I read and you pray from which says, 'Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you'." He kept the simplicities of life in the midst of war. The glamour of rank, the thirst for power, were nothing to him. He was the commander of all the armies of the Confederacy and his son was a private in the Rockbridge Artillery, such a thing could only be possible with such a father and such a son. He kept the tenderness of love and sympathy in the midst of the callousness of war. May I illustrate this by reading a letter which has not been published? It was written during the campaign of what is now West Virginia in September, 1861, from the field of battle. It was a critical time. His son, then Col. W. H. F. Lee, was reconnoitering the enemy's position. With him was Col. John Augustine Washington, aide de camp of General Lee, who was the grandfather of your rector. He was the friend and neighbor at Mr. Vernon of Lee. The two officers rode into an ambuscade. Washington was killed and Colonel Lee, whose horse was killed, escaped on the riderless horse of Washington. He brought the tidings to his father, whose heart was grieved at the loss of his friend. He was busied with great matters, but he thought of the little children in their home in Fauquier, motherless and now father­ less. He, himself, packed the belongings of his friend and sent them by an officer with the horse to the sorrowing home. And he wrote, then on the field of battle, facing great responsibilities, to the children of his friend this letter of Christian sympathy. It revealed an imita­ tion of the Christ, who was never too busied or too hurried, to stop to heal, and to comfort and to solace. no Tales of the Tuckers

"Camp on Valley River, "September 16, 1861. "My dear Miss Louisa, "With a heart filled with grief, I have to communicate the saddest tidings you have ever heard. "May 'Our Father, Who is in Heaven' enable you to bear it, for in His inscrutable Providence, abounding in mercy and omnipotent in power, He has made you fatherless on earth. Your dear father, in reconnoitering the enemy's position, came into the range of the fire of his pickets and was instantly killed. He fell in the cause to which he had devoted all his energies, and in which his noble heart was warmly enlisted. My intimate association with him for some months has more fully disclosed to me his great worth, than double so many years of ordinary intercourse would have been sufficient to reveal. We have shared the same tent, and morning and evening his earnest devotion to Almighty God elicited my grateful admiration. He is now safely in Heaven. I trust with her he so loved on earth. We ought not to wish him back. "May God, in His mercy, my dear child, sustain you, your sisters and brothers under this heavy affliction. My own grief is so great, I will not afflict you further with it. "Faithfully your friend, "R. E. Lee. "Miss Louisa Washington." Lee was a soldier, but first he was a Christian. He was con­ cerned for the well-being of his men, but he was concerned also for their spiritual welfare. He, himself, gave the example of faithful attendance upon the services of the Church, and when they could not be had, he knelt in prayer and read God's Word. Bishop Johns, in one of his Convention addresses, written after the death of Bishop Meade, speaks of Stonewall Jackson, and how shortly before he was killed, he urged upon him the necessity of sending more chaplains into the army. This request, says Bishop Johns, was renewed by our great Commander-in-Chief, accompanied with the statement that the condition of the soldiers was most favor­ able for religious improvement. There was a great review of the Army. Dr. Patterson, one of our most faithful chaplains, a native of BEVERLEY DANDRIDGE TUCKER Confederate Soldier Beverley Dandridge Tucker 111

Greece, who often preached in St. Paul's, was arrayed in his vest­ ments, standing with the staff of his regiment. As General Lee rode by he stopped, removed his hat, and said, "I saluate the Church of the Living God." After the war, when he was president of Washington and Lee, he had as a law student, John Janney Lloyd, the son of a friend and neighbor near Arlington. He said to him one day: "John, I want you to ride out with me." In the front of the quiet home, old Traveler was saddled and another horse. Together they rode until they came to the foot of House Mountain. General Lee stopped and said, "John, I have brought you here to tell you that I think you ought to enter the ministry of Christ." And the wonderful work which Lloyd did in the mountains of Southwest Virginia was due to the leadership of Robert E. Lee. Would to God that the sons of our people could hear the voice of the lowly servant of Christ, calling them to share in the precious ministry of His Gospel. Would that fathers and mothers would pray God to honor them by calling the sons He has given them. As Lee lived, so he died. His head bowed as he prepared to ask God's blessing upon the food which was His gift, as should be the wont of all Christian people. Then he sank to the floor, and soon was not, for God took him. Oh, my friends, it is a great privilege which the name and memory of Robert E. Lee brings to us. We should hand them down as a precious heritage to the children who come after us. He was one whose greatness grows with the passing years, but great above all in Christian character, and one who should be our leader in the paths of duty, and in the way which leads us up to God.

An anecdote which Uncle Bev once told me was that one afternoon shortly after the War he was visiting on the front porch of the home of Miss Mary Triplett, afterward Mrs. Philip Haxall, one of Richmond's famed beauties and belles. General Lee walking down Franklin Street stopped and spoke to them. As he left the General kissed the lovely Miss Triplett and turning to Uncle Bev said with a smile and a twinkle in his eye. 112 Tales of the Tuckers

"Now, Mr. Tucker, don't you wish you could do that with propriety?" I feel here that it would not be out of place to tell a few more unpublished stories of that great Anglo-Saxon, Robert E. Lee. An old ex-Confederate soldier once told me that after the Army of Northern Virginia had been quartered all winter on the Rappahannock near Fredericksburg there was a very warm spell in March. Many of the troops decided to swim in the river and after they had been doing so for several days an officer came to General Lee's headquarters and said that two ladies living in a nearby house had com­ plained of these men bathing nude in front of their home. General Lee sent an aide to investigate the situation. The next day the aide reported that the two complaining ladies were old maiden sisters and that the place where the men were bathing was three miles away from their house but that he had seen the ladies looking at the bathers through a large spyglass. General Lee went to his camp desk and wrote the ladies a note in which he said that the officers of the Army of Northern Virginia were very short of field glasses and asked them most politely if they would not kindly donate to the cause the excellent spyglass he heard they possessed. The aide returned with the spyglass and there were no further complaints. Toward the end of the War, General Lee called at my Grandfather Crump's home and Aunt Emmy Crump asked him for a lock of his hair, while her younger sister, Fanny, my mother, begged him for a military button from his coat. The General, who was always fond of young girls, respond­ ed to both requests, giving each a button from his uniform and a bit of his hair. Afterward my grandfather had the buttons gold plated and pins put on them and the hair put in the buttons. When these girls died as old ladies, one Beverley Dandridge Tucker 113 eighty-nine and one eighty-seven, these pins had been their most valued possessions. After the War, Uncle Bev went to the Canadian Univer­ sity at Toronto and then he taught school for a while in Winchester, Virginia. Soon he began to study law but this was not to his liking, so he entered the Medical College of Virginia, where his Uncle David Tucker held the chair of medicine. But neither did medicine suit his taste and so, in a short while, he entered the Episcopal Theological Semi­ nary at Alexandria, Virginia. Here he found his life work. After graduation, he married Maria Washington, who lived at Mt. Vernon and was the daughter of John Augustine Washington, great-great nephew of the Father of His Coun­ try. Uncle Bev's first charge was at Warsaw, Virginia, on the Rappahannock River, where he was given a modest rectory and a salary of five hundred dollars a year. Before he married Uncle Bev must have been quite a ladies' man for every now and then we of the younger generation hear of some lady who had been his sweetheart. He was not, by any means, the only Tucker who in youth had these vacillating qualities. I here copy some verses of unpublished poems which he wrote when living in Canada and sent to his cousin, Jenny Munford, for her comment and correction. These verses were found in the Munford collection and given me by my cousin, Charles Talbot.

INNOMINATA No, no, not .here! No strains of passing song Shall breathe her name—nor midst the crowding throng That sweep the corridors of Thought along Shall she be found—but when the busy mind Is lulled to rest, borne on the midnight wind, Her loved name comes—comes like the weird toll Of Phamtom bells, until my very soul 114 Tales of the Tuckers

Chimes with memories—until my spirit feels Her presence—until Imagination steals Her image from the sky. And when once more The wand is laid aside—its magic o'er— Then,—peering far beyond the starlit stair Of Aidenn—on the wings of silent prayer I send her name, to greet her spirit there.

A DREAM OF THE LAUGHING ELAINE You see her—as she sits over there, The laughing Elaine. It is night, but you look at her hair And old Sol in his glory you'd swear Was shinina; again.

And so, when the blasts of trouble shall blow O'er laughing Elaine, Her spirit'll peep thro' curtains of woe, Just like the sun—far brighter, you know, When piercing the rain.

It is said that once Grandma, on unpacking Uncle Bev's trunk, found a whole tray of bits of ribbon, locks of hair, ladies' handkerchiefs, odd gloves, and love letters. But when he met Aunt Maria his fate was sealed for the rest of his life with one of the finest women, in my opinion, who ever lived. Through their fifty-six years of married life, in his courtesies and in his attentions, he treated her as his sweetheart. And this couple had thirteen children, nine boys and four girls. All of these children survive unto this day. None turned out badly, none of them was defective, and the world has been better off for the lives of each one of them. Uncle Bev was once asked how large a family of boys he had. "Well, nearly sixty feet of sons," he replied. Beverley Dandridge Tucker lie,

One of Uncle Bev's sons was paying.ardent attention to a very pretty girl at Virginia Beach. This young lady rather spurned his suit much to the consternation of an old lady matchmaker who told the girl that she did not see why she failed to set her cap for Mr. Tucker who was a fine young man, studying for the ministry and would surely make his mark. "I would not marry him," said the girl, "if he were the best man in the world and every hair of his head were strung with diamonds." "My goodness! Why not?" queried the matron. "Because," said the damsel, "his great-grandfather had fourteen children, his grandfather ten, and his father thirteen." "I can't much blame you," mused the elder woman. A brief mention of the children of Uncle Bev and Aunt Maria is as follows: Henry St. George, the oldest son, is now Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States. He is six feet three in height, has been a noted swimmer, and in school and in college he led his classes. Quiet and reserved in manner, he is of outstanding physical and moral courage, and in intellect he at least equals, and probably surpasses, any Tucker who has lived. When St. George went to the University of Virginia his companions looked up to him and loved him and since then his name has become a tradition in that institution. When he graduated from the Seminary he went as a missionary to Japan and later became Bishop of Kyoto. In Japan he helped Dr. Rudolph Teusler to start and continue St. Luke's Hospital. The World War came on and St. George wras sent as head of the Red Cross to Asiatic Russia. After a quarter of a century he returned to 116 Tales of the Tuckers

Virginia and became Bishop of Virginia and in 1937 was made Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States, which position he now holds. In 1934 he published a theological book, Providence and the Atonement. Next in the family came the four daughters, Nellie, (Mrs. Winthrop Lee), Jane, (Mrs. Luke White), Lila, who is unmarried, and Maria (Mrs. Malcolm Griffin), all of whom are exceptionally fine women. Beverley Dandridge was graduated from the University of Virginia, and selected as a Cecil Rhodes scholar to Ox­ ford. He studied for the ministry and was graduated at the Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, later be­ coming a professor in this institution. He had several pastoral charges, among them one at the University of Virginia, and one at St. Paul's Church, Richmond, and then was elected Bishop of Ohio in 1938. During the World War he was chaplain of Base Hospital 41. Augustine Washington was graduated in medicine at the University of Virginia, and then went to China where for thirty-four years he has been chief surgeon at St. Luke's Hospital, Shanghai. During the World War he was head of a Red Cross medical unit which served in Russia. Richard Blackburn, the next son, after attending the University of Virginia, went into business and is now general sales manager of the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company. John Randolph attended the University of Virginia and graduated in law at George Washington University and is practicing law in Welch, West Virginia. Herbert Nash attended William and Mary College and the University of Virginia, and was graduated at the Vir­ ginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria. During the Beverley Dandridge Tucker 117

World War he was a chaplain. He is now rector of St. Paul's Church, Suffolk, Virginia. Severely crippled with arthritis, he has uncomplainingly continued his service to the church and is greatly beloved and admired. Lawrence Fontaine graduated at the University of Vir­ ginia in civil engineering and afterward entered business. He is now living in Norfolk, Virginia. During the World War he was a first lieutenant. Ellis Nimmo exhibited a great talent for mathematics. He was graduated at the University of Virginia and is professor of mathematics at St. Johns University, Shanghai. During the World War he was a private. Francis Bland was graduated at the University of Vir­ ginia and the Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria and is now rector of St. John's Church, Georgetown, Dis­ trict of Columbia. He served with a field hospital unit near Verdun in the World War. Uncle Bev, after being rector in Warsaw, received a call to old St. Paul's Church in Norfolk where he served twenty- five years until he was made Bishop of Southern Virginia. To give an outlet for the family he and Aunt Maria built a cottage at Virginia Beach. In Norfolk and at Virginia Beach this remarkable family was chiefly brought up. Old Mr. Baker, a vestryman of St. Paul's, Norfolk, on the occasion of the birth of Uncle Bev's twelfth child, chided him by telling him, "Now, Mr. Tucker, you have had a dozen children and that's enough for any man. You must promise me not to have any more." "All right," said Uncle Bev, laughing. In about eighteen months, however, the thirteenth child arrived, and Mr. Baker scolded, n8 Tales of the Tuckers

"Now, Mr. Tucker, you promised not to have over a dozen children and you have broken your promise." "No I haven't, Mr. Baker," replied Uncle Bev, "I thought you were referring to a baker's dozen." I do not think I ever knew a clergyman quite so human or quite so beloved as Uncle Bev. Interested in everybody, tolerant, humorous, cultured, a noted conversationalist, and without any of the assumption of piety or of prelate pomp- ousness, he captivated all with whom he came in contact. He had a natural charm, and charm is a rare quality, especially in a man. He enjoyed smoking a pipe or a cigar and he was not on occasion averse to taking a toddy or a glass of wine. He was a poet of quality and when he published a collection of his poems, My Three Loves, he did not hesitate to include one that he wrote as a young man, after his dinner partner had left. The best known of these poems are probably Old St. Paul's and En Dat Vir­ ginia Subitum. I copy a few verses of some of these poems:

AD PUERUM THE DINNER, AFTER SHE LEFT!

I care not for sherry a cent, Sir,— I call for my Cherie in vain,— My heart is with real pain rent, Sir, I scarcely have need of champagne. No fig would I give for a raisin,— Such reasons you only would waste,— The desert my sad heart now stays in Is dessert enough for my taste! But lo! as the ev'ning grows later, And the night is chasing the day, I'll order a pony, O Waiter, And drive all my sorrows away. Beverley Dandridge Tucker 119

OLD SAINT PAUL'S In other lands the stately fanes arise With sculptured walls and towers that woo the skies, And jewelled shrines, and pure majestic dome And fretted aisles long drawn—but this is home!

So keep it, Lord, thro' changing years, a place Where souls may come and meet Thee face to face— And bring us, Christ, at last in tender love, Thro' storm and cloud to cloudless skies above.

PRAYER FOR OLD SAINT PAUL'S

The sparrow hath found her a nest, Thine altars, O God! O make, too, our shelter and rest The courts we have trod! As tendrils of ivy that cling And hang to its walls, O Christ, be the love that we bring And give to St. Paul's.

'EN DAT VIRGINIA QUINTUM" VIRGINIA DAY, CHICAGO, 1893

"En dat Virginia quintum"— So ran the legend that bore The shield of the Old Dominion Emblazoned in days of yore. And what did she give, O England? Ay, what did she give to thee?— A soil that was pure and virgin And rivers unfettered, free, Which filled all the land with gladness As they rushed to th' azure sea. 120 Tales of the Tuckers

"En dat Virginia quintum"— No blush as she marks her past! She's followed the lead of duty And comes into port at last. She brings to the mart of nations Her riches of mine and field,— But poorer she'll be if ever She barter or sell or yield One jot of her stainless glory, One ray from her spotless shield. I remember one night in Norfolk Uncle Bev was called out in the middle of the night because a prostitute, who had been taken suddenly ill, wished to see a minister. Several younger clergymen had been called but had refused to go to the house. But Uncle Bev never hesitated and stayed several hours until the woman died. On his return he did not even criticize those who had refused to go but only God knows what he must have thought. On an occasion one of his boys, advancing in adolescence, went into his father's study and told him he hated to inter­ rupt him but that he felt it his duty to regretfully inform him that he could not believe in the doctrines of the church and that he really doubted the truth of all the things for which his father stood. Uncle Bev's only reply was to put down his pipe, come over to where his son sat, put his hand on his shoulder and say, smiling, "Never mind that, my boy, when I was your age I had all of those doubts myself." This son is now a vestryman in the church. I remember too when Elsie, my wife, asked him how to manage children he told her, "Never punish them, just show them where they are wrong." When our fourth child, Beverley, arrived and was a few days old, Uncle Bev came out to see us. Much to Elsie's Beverley Dandridge Tucker 121 dismay when he left her he said, "Well, Elsie, you have made a good beginning." Mr. Sam Hannah, Elsie's uncle, was present and he turned to me and said, "Doctor, you should have more respect for the cloth than to try to com­ pete with the Bishop." Uncle Bev, who lost his teeth as he became older, used to say that he did not see why the good Lord let people have teeth, for we were born without teeth and teeth gave trouble when they came, while they lasted, and when they left, and store teeth were better anyway and could not ache. How­ ever, if he ever had any artificial teeth himself I never knew him to wear them. He just got along without them. Lev Powell tells of meeting his cousin, the Bishop, at the depot in Roanoke where the steps are long and steep. Uncle Bev's legs were getting old and he was stout. On climbing the steps he said, "Lev, there is only one thing about the pleasure of going to heaven that I have been uncertain about." "What is that, Cousin Bev?" asked Lev. "Well, it's this question of climb­ ing the golden stairs. I can't see that they would be any easier than these iron ones in Roanoke." Uncle Bev was very fond of French poetry and frequently carried a small volume of the poems with him when travel­ ing. On one occasion he and his daughter Lila were on the train together but occupying seats across the aisle from each other. Uncle Bev read from his book of poems for a while, then put the book in his pocket, leaned his head back, closed his eyes and recited some of his favorite verses in French. Finally the lady who had taken a seat by him jumped up and moved across the aisle to the scat by Lila and said, "I can't sit by that drunken foreigner any longer." Uncle Bev frequently did not wear clerical clothes and as he grew older he became stout and very florid. His duties 122 Tales of the Tuckers as Bishop required him to travel a great deal. On the train he usually sat in the smoking car and conversed with the men there while he smoked cigar after cigar. On one occasion the smoking room was filled with traveling sales­ men who discussed their various lines of goods. From time to time Uncle Bev, in his ordinary dress, asked pertinent questions. One of the salesmen turned to him with, "Say, brother, what's your line, whiskey or cigars?" "Neither," he replied, "I only dispense the gospel of the Lord." The men laughed, never suspecting that he was a Bishop of the Episcopal Church. Another time he was attending a church convocation in New York and was dressed as a clergyman. He was late and jumped into a taxi, telling the driver to drive as fast as he could. Up Broadway the taxi was halted by a big Irish policeman who began upraiding the driver. Then he caught sight of Uncle Bev and said, "All right, Father, excuse me. Go as fast as you like but don't forget the cop four blocks up is a damned Pro­ testant." This story has been told of other clergymen but Uncle Bev told me himself that it happened to him. The following story has been told both of Uncle Bev and Bishop Randolph. Going to a country house to spend the night and to hold the next day, Sunday, a confirmation service, his host asked him if he would like to stop on the way and attend a revival service. The Bishop said he would like to see one. When they arrived they took back seats. The meeting was under a tent and the benches were well filled. The revivalist was ranting and successfully working up his audience. As he reached his climax he sent exhorters into the crowd and he and his workers shouted, "All who want to be saved stand up!" A great many stood. Then Beverley Dandridge Tucker 123 the exhorters went from bench to bench and called to those sitting, "Brother, sister, don't you want to be saved? Stand up." They usually stood. Then one of them reached the old Bishop. "Stand up, brother. Don't you want to go to heaven?" "Yes, very much," said the Bishop, "but not tonight." It's an old Southern custom to allow much license when a Confederate veteran tells a'story about the war. Uncle Bev on one occasion told of having been on the west bank of the Chickahominy River in a breastwork when during his re­ treat part of McClellan's army was trying to hold the east bank. Every time a cap was put on a stick and raised above the rampart, the Yankees put a hole through it. Things got pretty monotonous and food was scarce. Then Uncle Bev saw a fishing worm; so he found a piece of string and as he had a pin he bent it into a hook and for a sinker he tied on a small stone. With the worm for bait he cast over into the river. "In a few moments," he said, "I felt a bite and pulled over the rampart a large pike." "Father," asked his son Bev, "When you pulled that fish over did it land in a frying pan?" "I believe it did," laughed the old Bishop. The home of Uncle Bev and Aunt Maria on College Street in Norfolk was really remarkable. The furnishings were simple but here and there was a tester bed, a highboy, a chair, a set of china, or pieces of silver of antique beauty or historic value. A back room on the second floor was Uncle Bev's study. However, it was always accessible. For several years Grandma Tucker, Aunt Maggie and Uncle Jim's two boys, Burling and Bev, lived with Aunt Maria and Uncle Bev and their thirteen children. Nearly always there were also visitors from the Washington or Tucker families and friends of some of the children. The Lord must surely 124 Tales of the Tuckers

have provided as the finances were scant and the servants few. Mary Roach, a white woman of great usefulness, helped with the nursing and the housework. Cousin Nannie Pendleton frequently stayed at the house and aided in the mending and in other ways. The children learned to make themselves useful and later by working during the summer helped to send themselves to college. The house was rarely in a hubbub. Family prayers and grace were regular. Meals were on time even when twenty or twenty-five sat down to the table. In sickness none of the children was sent to hospitals; trained nurses could not be afforded and relatives and friends helped with the nursing. There were only two bathrooms and they were used by taking turns, all of the children taking a daily cold plunge. At Virginia Beach the ocean was the place of ablution as well as of sport. Uncle Bev, until he was eighty, took a plunge every morning around six o'clock. There were few gadgets in those days, and no cosmetics except the use of a little rice powder. Perfume was con­ fined to Eau de Cologne which was chiefly sniffed in sickness. The main medicines were quinine, calomel, and castor oil, and it is surprising how many various ailments these three musketeers conquered. There was no dieting and everyone was supposed to and did eat heartily at every meal, other­ wise the housekeeper would be offended. Vitamins come from the storeroom rather than from the drug store. There was an orchard belonging to a friend a mile or so back of the beach and one day we children tried to see how many June apples we could eat. Maria put away twenty-nine, my brother Crump twenty-seven, I gave up at fourteen and was con­ sidered a ninny, but none of us got sick. Trays of twenty- four rolls came in from the kitchen time and again for breakfast and supper; at dinner a roast of beef or a leg of Beverley Dandridge Tucker 125 lamb would disappear in a few minutes. Home-made ice cream was served on every birthday either of the family or of the guests, and five gallons constituted the necessary amount. If there was a party the boys would put on clean shirts and cravats, brush their suits and their hair and they were ready. The girls could make the most bewitching tulle or organdy party dresses for a dollar or two in an hour or so. Camaraderie, mutual assistance, and affection, laughter and high spirits filled the house. At one time I had to be in Norfolk for several months. I was invited to stay at the house; it was rarely called the rectory. I told Uncle Bev I was not going to impose upon them and would board in the neighborhood. "Very well then," he said, "board with us." So it was arranged that I would pay five dollars a week which I did regularly, putting the money in an envelope and handing it to him. When I was about to leave Uncle Bev asked me to take a walk with him. We had gotten a block or so when he stopped, pulled out of his pocket all of my envelopes with the seals unbroken, and handed them to me saying, "Bev, your Aunt Maria and I have decided that we can never let your father's son pay for his board and lodging." Aunt Maria had brown hair and eyes, was tall and rather angular, and had a most intelligent and attractive face. She had no airs and once told Coalter Grinnan, not wistfully either, that she could never be a dainty type woman. She believed strongly in educating her sons and daughters and willingly made any sacrifice to accomplish this end. She was not talkative but she had the knack of always saying the right thing, and, with so little time to read, her knowledge of past and current events was astounding. Her emotions and reason were splendidly balanced and she was loved by everyone who knew her, but she was not loved without being 126 Tales of the Tuckers admired. A baby laid in her lap ceased to cry, a fretful child smiled in her presence, a young person in love confided in her. She took problems to their source and they ceased to be problems. She saw the good in everybody and the usefulness or the beauty of all things. If anyone was hurt or was ill she attended sympathetically but calmly. If a child became lost she felt it would surely come home all right. One day Ran was lost. Darkness began to descend. Uncle Bev was restless and nervous and insisted upon notify­ ing the police. All of us youngsters were scurrying around making inquiries and searching different parts of town. Aunt Maria, calm and poised as usual, told Nellie to look on the wharves as he might be playing there. After dark Ran, crying, was found sitting on the edge of a wharf between two watermelons. He gave the expalnation that he had five cents and with it had bought three watermelons from one of the market boats. One he ate. The other two melons were so large and he was so full he could not take them home. He would not desert them so he sat between them and began to cry. Soon he, Nellie, and the water­ melons arrived. "I thought it was something like this," laughed Aunt Maria. Years afterward when Uncle Bev was Bishop he and Aunt Maria went to a convention of the church in one of the large Northern cities and were the guests of another Bishop and his wife. When they retired the hostess said to her husband that she thought Bishop Tucker was such a charming man and so entertaining, much more so than his wife. She said that she had asked Aunt Maria what had been the occupation of her father and that Aunt Maria had answered that he was a farmer. The good lady then ex­ claimed to her husband. Beverley Dandridge Tucker 127

"I can't understant how Bishop Tucker happened to marry a farmer's daughter!" "Did she tell you who the farmer was and what farm her father owned?" asked her husband, the Bishop. "No. What difference does that make?" "Well," replied the Bishop, "her father was John Augus­ tine Washington, great-great-nephew of the Father of His Country, and the farm was Mt. Vernon." The next day Aunt Maria was doubtless amused at the amount of attention she received at the hands of her hostess who previously had rather ignored her. All of the Tuckers, as far as I know, have been good swimmers, but Uncle Bev's oldest boy, St. George, was the best. At Virginia Beach he saved several lives and in Nor­ folk when we were twelve years old he and Harry Goodrich saved the life of your humble servant. After being rescued I must have seemed pretty sick for Harry ran to his mother's room in their home which was near and asked what was good for a boy who had drunk too much salt water. Not suspecting the near tragedy the good lady said sodamints, and gave him a bottle. I came to with Harry and St. George shoving sodamints down my throat. Like the home in Norfolk, the cottage at Virginia Beach —which seemed to be elastic—was an open house and a happy one. After meals, if the table had been a large one, the children and their guests lined up like a fire brigade and passed dishes down the line to be emptied, soused, and wiped in order, and what would have been an arduous chore be­ came an interesting game which was over in a few minutes. Airs and complaints were as rare as hen's teeth and the esprit de corps taught many a discontented youngster how to take things on the chin. One summer day the dinner bell rang and the Tucker 128 Tales of the Tuckers

family and their friends piled in from the beach, followed by two young men. They all sat down at the table and ate heartily. The boys thought the two young men were friends of their sisters' and the sisters thought they were their brothers' friends and Aunt Maria and Uncle Bev thought they were friends of the children—so they were made to feel at home. After dinner the young men went up and thanked Aunt Maria for being so nice to them and asked what was the charge for the two meals. It came out that they thought they had entered a boarding house. This resulted in much laughter and introductions all around. The chief amusement at night was sitting on the porch facing the ocean where the conversation changed from subject to subject, often a profound one but more often a jolly one interspersed with peals and roars of laughter. Personalities were rarely indulged in except in the form of humorous teasing. Old and young were allowed to have their say; the boys smoked cigarettes, rolling their own for ready-made ones were too expensive. I never heard of one of these boys being corrected for smoking. The girls fre­ quently entertained their beaux in this gathering. Uncle Bev smoked his long-stemmed pipe, or cigars when someone had given him a box, and Aunt Maria relaxed, usually for the first time during the day. Morning or afternoon, the boys and girls would swim out so far in the ocean that they could hardly be discerned. Uncle Bev would sometimes get nervous but Aunt Maria took it with "Oh, they will get in all right." Sickness or accidents were rare but when they came they were taken as a part of life. One summer I was ill at the cottage for weeks with a spell of malarial fever. I was given from thirty to forty grains of quinine a day and nursed by Aunt Maria or one of the cousins sitting by me or staying near. Beverley Dandridge Tucker 129

In my delirium, for my temperature was daily over 1050, I imagined I was appointed to send the flies to hell and then see that they stayed there. My yelling to flies, loud enough to be heard on the walk, "go to hell" created amusement in this parson's house rather than consternation. When I was convalescent, but weak, I walked to the nearby depot to go to Richmond. I leaned on Aunt Maria, who was carrying a bottle of blackberry wine. This she gave me when I got on the train with the instruction not to be ashamed to take a sip whenever I felt sick or weak. God bless her memory! No Bishop could have been more beloved or respected by all denominations and all classes of people than was Uncle Bev. He led a busy life, traveling much of the time, and he made himself uncomplainingly and charmingly at home wherever he happened to be. Aunt Maria's death a few years before his own was his great sorrow but he accepted it as the will of the Lord and "carried on," as the English say, as he knew she would have wished him to do. His sermons were always of love and mercy and helpfulness, delivered in a soft, modulated voice. He, as did all of his immediate family, used the broad A naturally. Even those who were not listening attentively got a feeling of devotional elevation when he preached or read the service. At Virginia Beach he raised the money, built and nurtured the little Episcopal Church. It was to him like a fourteenth child, and it has recently been dedicated as a memorial to him. When he was about eighty years of age he went to Dr. James H. Smith in Richmond to be medically examined. Dr. Smith asked him if he had had any serious illnesses in the past. "Yes," replied Uncle Bev, "I have recovered from three incurable and fatal diseases." 130 Tales of the Tuckers

"My, how was that?" exclaimed the astonished doctor. "Well," the Bishop related, "when I was young I was told that I had galloping consumption, in middle life the doctors had me fatally afflicted with Bright's disease, and later on they said that I was dying of cancer of the bladder, so here I am to find out with what you are going to end me up." Dr. Smith found him in pretty good condition considering his age. A few years after this when he was eighty-four he fell down the front steps of his home in Stockley Gardens in Norfolk and fractured some ribs. He remarked upon this occasion that now he knew how Adam felt when he lost a rib. He never really recovered from this fall and was taken to Sarah Leigh Hospital in Norfolk. A bladder complication came on which required an operation. Because of his age it was decided to operate under local anesthesia; thus he was perfecdy conscious while he was being operated upon. The surgeon appeared in gown, cap and mask and asked him how he felt. "All right," answered the old Bishop, "except that In your regalia you look so much like the devil that I feel as if I would like to go to heaven." Toward the end I went to Norfolk to see him, taking as a present (it was during the prohibition period) a bottle of pre-war whiskey. I found him looking very ill, weak, and much depressed. He was especially bad that day because it happened to be the anniversary of his and Aunt Maria's marriage. Lila was at his bedside and I asked her if the nurses and doctors would object to his having an eggnog made according to my Grandfather Crump's recipe. Uncle Bev paid no attention. Lila obtained permission and I went into the diet kitchen and made the eggnog and put it in a large cold-tea glass. Returning with it I asked him to try it. Beverley Dandridge Tucker 131

This he did, sip by sip. When he was about half through he asked for his dressing wrapper and to be propped up in bed. When this was attended to he asked me to look on the dresser where I would find a box of cigars and to take one and give him one. Then he began to smoke and tell anecdotes in his old inimitable way. When I left he said that he felt fine and that my medicine had done him a world of good. In a few weeks again I went to Norfolk, this time to attend Uncle Bev's funeral. He died January 17, 1930. The services were held in old St. Paul's Church where he had been rector for a quarter of a century. After the service his remains were taken to rest by the side of Aunt Maria in Zion Churchyard, Charles Town, West Virginia. I do not believe a more genuinely beloved man ever lived in Virginia unless he was General Lee. JOHN RANDOLPH TUCKER 1848-1880 Attorney at Law and Writer

ATHER was born in Richmond on September 7, 1848, F the son of Beverley and Jane Ellis Tucker. He accom­ panied the family to England when he was nine years old and his father had been appointed United States Consul to Liverpool by President Buchanan. He went to school in Liverpool several years and then attended Mr. Sellig's boarding school in Switzerland with his two older brothers, Jim and Bev. Here they all learned to speak French fluently. While they were at Vevey the War of Secession broke out. Jim quickly left to join the Confederate Army and father and Uncle Bev continued at the school until 1862 when they sailed for New York under assumed names as two English boys of fourteen and sixteen. They were in the charge of friends of their parents, Mr. and Mrs. Albert of Baltimore. On their arrival in New York they were taken to a hotel by the ship's captain and sat at the table to eat their first American dinner for years with General Mc- Clellan, who happened to be in New York at the time. They had no trouble getting to Baltimore with the Alberts. They decided to enter Virginia via Martinsville as the ac­ tivity around Fredericksburg was too intensive for them to attempt the direct route to Richmond where they knew their mother was staying at the old Ellis house, the home of her parents, on the corner of Second and Franklin Streets. At Martinsville the boys were arrested by order of General Milroy of the Federal Army. They were searched for papers and although none was found the cautious general said they might bear messages to the Confederacy by word JOHN RANDOLPH TUCKER 1848-188(1 Virginia-Washington, I). (.'. John Randolph Tucker 133 of mouth, so they were put in a wagon under guard of two' soldiers who sat in the rear with muskets pointed at their backs and driven to the prison camp, Point of Rocks, not far from Winchester. Hearing that the boys were at the camp their aunt, Mrs. Magill of Winchester, went to General Milroy at his head­ quarters and demanded their release, but the general was obdurate and several visits and an appeal to General Hunt­ er, a Federal cousin, were of no avail. On her last visit to Milroy it is said that the old lady lost her temper and dressed the general down with language which, as the darkies say, "wasn't hardly fitten talk fer a lady." In ex­ piation of her, however, I add that she was always styled by her brothers and sisters as saintly sister. Fortunately the commanding officer at the camp was a French soldier of fortune, who, hearing these boys talk to each other in his native tongue, made friends with them and one night let them escape. After various difficulties of travel they at last arrived in Richmond, only to be halted at the gate of the Ellis home and informed that they could not enter because their mother had, of all things, smallpox! However, she was convalescent and waved and kissed her hand to them from a closed window. Bev in a few months joined the Otey Battery and went to war, and Ran went to Virginia Military Institute, which, shortly before General Hunter burned the Institute buildings in Lexington, had moved lock, stock, and barrel and very little else, to a camp at the City Poor House in Richmond. In the late fall of 1864 my father, just sixteen, joined the defense troops around Richmond under General Custis Lee and then the corps of cadets of the Virginia Military Insti­ tute and remained with them in the field until the close of the war. He was not wounded, but after great exposure on 134 Tales of the Tuckers

Christmas night contracted what was then diagnosed as congestion of the lungs, which rendered him more or less delicate the balance of his short span of life. Then Richmond was evacuated and the business section was partly blown up and set on fire by its own people. The fire spread and many residences burned. My grandfather Crump's house on Twelfth and Broad Streets, where the Memorial Hospital later stood, caught fire three separate times and was put out with wet blankets by the boys and girls of the family. Richmond was then a town with many large residences and extensive yards and gardens. A num­ ber of people kept their own cows and chickens, and some even raised hogs. Just before the evacuation an order had been given for all residents to pour into the street gutters what liquor they had so that the Yankees could not get drunk, and thus the gutters ran with choice wines, brandies, and whiskeys. The family used to tell me when I was a boy that they saw hogs and chickens staggering drunk on the streets. I asked how about the cows and was told they did not indulge. I rather felt sorry for the cows. When the Yankees did come, the green blinds of the house were closed and the children spent their time peeping through the slats. The front lawn was bordered by a box­ wood hedge and just in front of that was an iron fence. This part of Twelfth Street was used by the Northern quartermaster to pile up stores—new shoes for the soldiers and also underclothes and some uniforms. A guard walked up and down the street in front of these goods. The temp­ tation was too great for old Simon, the family butler. He would wander in the yard, then slip into the boxwood and purloin a pair of shoes and some underwear, stuff them in his loose clothes, and saunter back to his room in the ser­ vants' quarters in the rear of the house. The trips were John Randolph Tucker 135 frequently repeated. The girls watching this argued that Simon was stealing and should be made to stop and to return the goods, but the boys out-argued them by saying if the Yankees took the city Simon had a right to take what he could. When grandma was having family prayers she once asked Simon, "Simon, what chapter in the Bible would you like me to read this morning?" He replied, "Well, missus, suppose you read de two-eyed chapter of de one-eyed Kings." Simon married one of the housemaids. They were al­ lowed to go down to Gloucester on their honeymoon. On their return the maid was asked how she liked being mar­ ried. "Lawdy, Miss Mary," she replied, "fo' goodness I aint neber noticed no difference." Father knew mother in these days for she was the daugh­ ter of grandfather Tucker's old friend, Bill Crump—Judge William W. Crump, assistant secretary of the Confederate Treasury, who had gone South after the evacuation with Jefferson Davis and with what gold there was left. But mother was only fifteen and father was not yet seventeen. He was soon to fall in love with her, however, for grand­ father Tucker was in Canada when the war ended and could not come back to these United States for reasons elsewhere related and at one time he managed a hotel in St. Cather­ ine's. One summer grandpa Crump took grandma, Aunt Emmie, and mother to spend the summer at his old friend Bev Tucker's hotel. Father and Uncle Bev and Uncle Ellis were in Canada attending the Upper Canada College in Toronto, and father fell in love with mother, Fanny Crump, and never had another serious sweetheart, as far as I know. He married her in 1873. I have a book that he won for 136 Tales of the Tuckers scholarship at this Canadian college. Grandfather's hotel venture did not pay, for the big-hearted old gentleman had as his personal guests more dead-broke ex-Confederates than he had paying guests. After leaving the college in Canada, father obtained a clerkship under the Canadian government in the Department of Marine and Fisheries. Later father went to Washington and Lee University and studied law under his uncle, John Randolph Tucker, for whom he was named. The repetition of Christian names in the family has always been quite confusing to outsiders. I have stayed in the house weeks at a time with as many as five Beverley Tuckers. We, whose names were duplicates, usually had different middle names, or were juniors, or one was called Harry St. George instead of Henry, or Saint, or were designated Norfolk Bev, California Bev, or Richmond Bev. I would be sorry to see these family names discon­ tinued, but still I feel that we have used them a little too frequently. After graduating in law my father went to Charleston, West Virginia, to practice. It is hard to realize how poor nearly everyone was in those days. I remember Grandma Tucker telling me that one time she had not received a letter from father for weeks and then it occurred to her that he might not have money for a stamp, so she wrote to him and sent him stamps and heard from him by return mail. He had his law office and slept in the back room over the post office and having no change he had not the face to borrow a stamp. One of our Munford cousins told me that she was nearly grown before she ever had a whole orange. In a few years, by 1873, my father had built up enough practice to risk marriage. During his courting days father had written mother that he would come to Richmond to see her on Christmas Eve, 1872, and spend the Christmas holidays. John Randolph Tucker 137

On the evening of the twenty-third, the day he was to leave Charleston, the Kanawha River was so swollen with floods that the bridge over the river leading to the railway station was washed away. But nothing daunted, young Lochinvar, as night came on, disrobed on the bank, tied his clothes and his valise on his shoulders, swam the swollen river on a December night, caught the train and arrived at his lady's house at the appointed time. 1 sometimes wonder if the modern lover would be so enterprising. I recently saw this squib in a newspaper: "In the olden days young gentlemen disputing over an appointment with a young lady would fight a duel to settle the question, but now they decide which guy is to have the date by flipping a coin."

EPITHALAMIUM The following verses are from a poem written by Uncle Bev and presented to father and mother on the day of their marriage—April 29, 1873.

Since many strange antithesis Our lives comprise; Since there are no unruffled seas Nor cloudless skies; Since, tho' at times bright oases Enchant the eyes, Life's pathway oft by fate's decrees In desert lies.

And when the storm with which you cope Your strength defies, May love, the radiant sign of hope Paint in the skies: And when the changeless deserts burn Your weary feet, May love's quick eye afar discern The waters sweet! 138 Tales of the Tuckers

May love walk hand in hand with dole When pleasure's end, 'Till grief shall seem unto the soul Almost a friend! May love be like a violet From some far clime, Whose sweetness wiles us to forget The winter time.

CHRISTMAS 1873

These verses are part of a poem written by father to mother on the first Christmas after their marriage.

She will take up her life with its beautiful gems, The love, and the trust and the truth, The beauty, the goodness, which no man condemns, The radiant dew of her youth. She will lay the rich gift as a crown on his brow Who hath bound her to him by the sweet, solemn vow.

She will lift up the poor common duties of life, And color them all with her love, 'Till the care and the toil and the wearying strife Shall glow like the rainbow above. She will sweeten all things with her own tender grace 'Till the lowliest home be a radiant place.

She will hold in her touch all the balm of the earth, To soothe him in sorrow and pain, To bring the reward that his labors are worth, To urge him to effort again. She will stand by his side with his hand in her own 'Till the call of the Master leaves one all alone.

I was born, mother coming to her father's in Richmond for the event, in 1874. I found among my mother's things after she died at the age of eighty-seven, a poem father John Randolph Tucker 139 wrote me when I was a year old. I was born the twenty- sixth of April. It was called To My Yearling. I shall quote a few lines:

The fresher foliage of the trees, The softer green on grassy plain, The zephyrs wafted by the breeze, The peeping blades of new-born grain, The genial sunbeam's warmer fire; These all announce thy natal day And Nature's self, in spring attire, Inspires this unpretending lay.

In Charleston the young couple made many friends. One event of father's life here should be recorded. He represented in court the opposite side of a case to an attor­ ney who had been a Confederate general. Toward the close of the first day of the trial the general made some very insulting and insinuating remarks about father. I have been told that father simply sat and looked straight at him and became more and more pale as the attorney proceeded. Then father arose and asked if the court would allow him to answer, under "personal privilege" the next morning, the remarks of the opposing attorney. To this the judge as­ sented. All that evening and far into the night father sent his friends, and he had many, on secret errands. When asked what he was going to do about the matter he said that he was going to run the general out of Charleston the next day. This got about and in the morning the courtroom was crowded. Father entered with papers in his hand and when court opened he arose and read affidavit after affidavit showing one shady deal after another with which his op­ ponent had been connected. When court adjourned for lunch the general not only left town but left that part of the country. 140 Tales of the Tuckers

To supplement his meager law earnings father wrote edi­ torials and news articles for the Daily Charleston Courier and other newspapers, the Washington Post and the New York World. In 1876 my brother Crump was born and about this time Uncle Ran, for whom our father was named, offered to set father up in law practice in Staunton, Virginia; so the family moved to Staunton. This would have been a happy solution of many problems except that within a year father's health broke. He was later taken to Philadelphia to the family friend, Dr. S. Weir Mitchell. Just what the diagnosis was I have been unable to determine, but at any rate after Dr. Mitchell treated him he was better, and Aunt Maggie accompanied father to Warm Springs to re­ cuperate. When he had recovered, a position as clerk to Speaker Samuel J. Randall, of Pennsylvania, was obtained for him and in 1878 we moved to Washington. He soon became private secretary to the Speaker. Things went well until his last illness. I can just remember our apartment on F Street. Father had Speaker Randall and a few of his friends meet there one afternoon and served them cham­ pagne and oranges, a combination I have never since seen. I also remember one day, when I was five years old, walking with him. I asked to buy a banana. He gave me five cents and watched me go up to the fruit stand and buy it. Bananas were expensive in those days. I handed the man the coin and received a very small banana. Returning to father rather disappointed he told me that I had bargained wrong, that I should have asked the price of the bananas, picked out a larger one for the nickel, and then handed the man the money. I know this was good advice, but I must not have been an apt scholar for I have been a poor bargainer all my life. Father was slender, six feet-one tall, and had brown hair John Randolph Tucker 141

and eyes, and Tucker features. He made friends easily and all attest that he had a splendid mind and a lovable dis­ position. Once in New York he met Mr. Otto Kahn who was so taken with him that on an occasion when Mr. Kahn was leaving New York on business he gave father his box at the grand opera for a week. The young ex-Confederate hunted up other young ex-Confederates and nightly they filled the box dressed in borrowed dress suits from newly- made Yankee friends. It was written of father at his death, by his uncle, John Randolph Tucker, who loved and admired him and who had done so much for him, that "he was an impartial ob­ server of men and events and was singularly free from prejudices and partisan feeling. . . He was gifted with an acute mind, even subtle in its processes, which analyzed with accuracy and investigated with eager research, all the facts and data upon which a conclusion could be reached with logical precision. His mind was fertile and the imaginative faculty was sufficiently developed to make his intellect sug­ gestive and fruitful in multiplying the methods of investiga­ tion needful to a full and complete view of the subject presented for solution. He was sincere and truth-loving in his mental work, as he was in his heart. . . He was in disposition as gentle as a lamb; but when truth called or falsehood challenged combat, he was as brave as a lion. Under the sweet and kindly and courteous exterior of that calm and thoughtful face, there burned the fires of courage as unflinching and dauntless as ever vindicated the right or redressed the wrong in the days of chivalry or of Christian martyrdom." In the early summer of 1880 father went down the Potomac River with a party of friends and contracted typhoid fever. He was brought to my grandfather Crump's 142 Tales of the Tuckers house in Richmond and on the night of July the Fourth he died of that then common and always dread disease. The night of his death Crump and I were taken to his bedside where he blessed us and told us he was sorry he had to leave us. Crump was only four and I was six years of age and father was thirty-two. In after life my brother and I always felt that had father lived he would have become a very great man. That was a consolation, for fatherless boys suffer a particular kind of grief. ,*

CHARLES ELLIS TUCKER I85 2- I 93 9 Virginia- Tennessee CHARLES ELLIS TUCKER i852-i939

Cotton Business Broker

NCLE ELLIS was the youngest son of Beverley and U Jane Ellis Tucker. He missed the adventure of the War of Secession that his brothers had experienced, for he was too young to enter the Confederate Army. He was in Canada, in his teens, with his parents after the war and when the reward was offered for his father by Andrew Johnson he insisted upon carrying a pistol and following his father about to protect him. He got his schooling first in Richmond, then in England, then in Canada, and when a very young man he went to Memphis to seek his fortune. Sweet of nature, frank, and possessing a contagious laugh he made friends wherever he went. In Memphis, he at first had a hard time but he took what odd jobs he could get and never lost heart. Eventually he went into the cotton business and soon rose to be a mem­ ber of the firm of Boyd and Tucker. He courted and mar­ ried Maybelle Morrison, a beautiful belle of Memphis, and established himself as one of the leading citizens of the town. He had two daughters, Margaret and Elizabeth, and a son, Morrison, who is now a business man in Mem­ phis. Margaret became one of the beauties of the Missis­ sippi Valley, married and has a daughter, Margaret. Eliza­ beth married and lives in England. Her son, Cyril Cunning­ ham, has been to school in this country at Groton. As he has just come of military age he has left to go in the British Army. Uncle Ellis and Aunt Maybelle entertained beautifully 144 Tales of the Tuckers and a story of Uncle Ellis' manners is told. A distinguished guest was invited to dinner. The guest inadvertently broke a coffee cup of an exceedingly beautiful set of china. To make him feel at ease Uncle Ellis lifted his cup and saucer from the table and dropped them on the floor, much, I expect, to Aunt Maybelle's disconcertion. Some years ago my wife and I went to Memphis where I attended a meeting of the Southern- Medical Association. I was scheduled to read a paper on tumors of the brain, so I had an old suitcase arranged to carry nine brains prepared in formaldehyde and wrapped in cotton and covered with oil-cloth. These brains, all with tumors, were for demon­ stration of my paper. When I got on the train I had checked this particular piece of baggage. Uncle Ellis and the rest of the family were much interested in my presentation of this paper and some of them attended the meeting. But lo, the time for me to be called drew near and the suitcase had not arrived. Frantic messages were sent to the baggage office of the railroad. But when I was called on the suit case had not been found. The chairman read the title of my paper and announced, "Well, here is Dr. Tucker without his brains." Amid the laughter which followed the suitcase arrived and the chairman said, "I am glad to announce that Dr. Tucker has at last recovered his brains." This was during that peculiar time of prohibition. The lock on the case was broken and a rope had been tied around the case. It was evidently thought to contain whiskey. I wish I could have seen the faces of the snooping prohibition officers when they saw human brains instead of whiskey they could confiscate. When Uncle Ellis got older and retired he and Aunt Maybelle moved to Los Angeles where Margaret was liv- Charles Ellis Tucker 145 ing. St. George Tucker, the Presiding Bishop, more or less recently was in California and held services at one of the churches of Los Angeles. Aunt Maybelle, Margaret and her daughter, Margaret, were in the church, but St. George did not know it. They were all three beautiful women and Aunt Maybelle, well up in her seventies, always dressed in modern style and never showed her age. After service these three lovely blondes went up and kissed the Bishop, much to his surprise until he realized who they were. Uncle Ellis never lost his touch with the family nor his love for Virginia. He died in 1939, eighty-seven years of age, beloved and respected by all who knew him. HARRY ST. GEORGE TUCKER i 853-1932 Professor of Law at Washington and Lee and Congressman

ARRY ST. GEORGE TUCKER, born in 1853, was H really named Henry St. George Tucker, but he was universally known as Harry. He was the son of John Randolph and Laura Powell Tucker of Lexington. Like his father he was a profound lawyer, a writer on legal subjects, professor of law at Washington and Lee from 1897 to 1902 and a member of Congress. He acted as president of Washington and Lee following the death of the distinguished William L. Wilson. He was dean of the schools of law and diplomacy at Columbian University, now the George Washington University at Washington, presi­ dent of the American Bar Association, president of the Jamestown Exposition in 1907, a member of Congress from 1889 to 1897 and again from 1922 to his death in 1932, and an LL.D. from Mississippi and Columbia Universities. In humor, spirit, and popularity he resembled his father as he did in general appearance and bearing. His first wife was Henrietta Preston Johnston, grand­ daughter of General Albert Sidney Johnston of Confed­ erate fame. By her he had three daughters, Rosa, Laura and Henrietta, and three sons, John Randolph, who is a lawyer and who was for years professor of law at the University of Richmond, Albert Sidney Johnston, who is a retired colonel in the U. S. Army, and Harry St. George, Jr., a business man of Lexington, Kentucky. Cousin Harry's second wife was Martha Sharp of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsyl- Hox. HARRY ST. GEORGE TUCKER I 8 5 3 - I 9 3 2 Lexington, Virginia-Washington, D. C. Harry St. George Tucker iqrj vania, and his third wife, Mary Jane Williams of Culpeper, Virginia. When he was married the third time at the age of seventy-six some brother Congressman is said to have teased him about marrying again so late in life and Cousin Harry replied, "Well, you can't keep down the spirit of '76." When I was a cadet at V. M. I. I heard him debate in a stump speech against Colonel Robert Beverley in the court­ yard in Lexington. There was a huge gathering of moun­ tain folk standing around in their shirt sleeves, as the day was very hot. Cousin Harry, all dressed up spick-and-span, started speaking. Soon he took his coat off amid cheers from his constituents, later came off his vest and then his tie thus making the mountaineers feel that he was one of them. His opponent did not resort to these phychological disrobings. While Cousin Harry was speaking a man about three sheets in the wind began to heckle him. The speaker ignored the interruption, but the drunken gentleman per­ sisted. Then Cousin Harry paused and solemnly invited the interrupter to come up on the platform and make a speech. The man, of course, hesitated, but Cousin Harry politely insisted until the heckler left in intoxicated embarrassment. Colonel Beverley, in his speech, had referred to his County of Essex as having "cattle upon a thousand hills" and Cousin Harry, answering this, referred to Rockbridge County, in which Lexington is situated, as having "a thousand cattle on every hill" much to the satisfaction of his applauding consti­ tuents. The republicans in Virginia being as scarce as hen's teeth in that day, stump speaking between the two intra- democratic factions was always an event and often tinged with bitterness. Harry Tucker, as his father had been, was a prime stump-speaker. Cousin Harry had a serious and profound side to him as his debates in Congress, especially his fight against the Force 148 Tales of the Tuckers

Bill, his consistent defense of the theory of States' Rights in opposition to centralization of the Federal powers, his speeches in favor of the popular election of senators, and other speeches will amply show. Besides editing his father's book on the Constitution, he wrote Woman's Suffrage by Constitutional Amendment and Limitations of the Treaty Making Power. This last work he wrote after he had been operated upon for cataract. In fact, he had great difficulty with his sight and two severe eye operations were performed during the last twenty years of his life, but he took these things in his stride and kept on with his busy life without complaint. On one occasion my wife (Elsie), myself, and others were talking to him in the sitting room of a hotel when his most bitter political opponent came by and made obsequious salutations. Cousin Harry scrutinized him until he passed on and then asked who was he. All of us knew that he well knew the identity of the gentleman. When he was told his name, however, Cousin Harry said in voice loud enough to be heard even by the politician in question, "You know my poor sight will excuse my lack of cordiality." This was the only time I ever heard him refer to his sight. Harry Tucker was known only once, as far as I have heard, to become confused or to show embarrassment when in a tight place, on the rostrum or otherwise. He was campaigning in southwest Virginia and had been invited to be guest of honor at a large dinner party of ladies and gentlemen. The dinner took place at the house of an in­ fluential friend. Everything was progressing beautifully when the eight-year-old son of the family burst into the dining room and yelled out, clapping his hands in glee: "Mama, mama, Gipsy's got puppies, Gipsy's got puppies." "Fine," said Cousin Harry, getting up from the table and Harry St. George Tucker 149 lifting the youngster upon his shoulder. "How many puppies has she?" "I dunno, sir," answered the boy, "she ain't through having 'em yet." Like other members of his family who had been in Con­ gress, Cousin Harry, though always a Democrat, was inde­ pendent and voted according to his conscience. He had devoted friends on both sides of the House. Henry Cabot Lodge eulogized him in the memorial exercises in Congress and quoted: "His gentleness, his tenderness, his fair courtesy, Were like a ring of virtues 'bout him set, And God-like charity the center where all met."

Like his grandfather, for whom he was named, Cousin Harry refused to accept a raise in salary after Congress had voted to raise the salaries of its own members. These two sums still remain to their credit in the U. S. Treasury. Cousin Harry twice ran for Governor of Virginia and it was thought each time that he could have been elected if he had only bent his opinions a little to suit the exigencies of politics. But neither time would he give in an iota. Representative Otis Bland said of him, "His political courage and refusal to sacrifice principle to expediency re­ ceived the acid test in 1896 when the Democratic Party espoused the cause of free silver at the ratio of 16 to 1. The nomination (for Congress) was Mr. Tucker's if he would accept it upon the terms of voting for free silver. Mr. Tucker refused to accept upon those terms and lost the nomination. Mr. Tucker stood by his party, but refused to sacrifice his principles." General Fitzhugh Lee was president of the Jamestown Exposition to be held in 1907, but he died some time prior 150 Tales of the Tuckers to its opening and Cousin Harry was made its president. This was an arduous task, for he took charge when affairs started by others were half under way, but he carried on to its conclusion. To see about getting important exhibits he went to Europe. Edward VII of England received him with especial cordiality and in order to say something pleasant he told the King that Maria Washington, wife of Beverley D. Tucker, his first cousin, had been reared at Mt. Vernon. He said that she remembered when she was a little girl that the King, as Prince of Wales, had visited the United States and on coming to Mt. Vernon had planted a tree near the tomb of George Washington. This was literally so, but then Cousin Harry drew a little upon his imagination and told the King: "Do you know, Your Majesty, after she was a young lady, Maria served tea many times under the spreading branches of that tree you planted?" The King seemed pleased, but when Cousin Harry came back and told Aunt Maria about it she said: "Why, Harry, aren't you ashamed of yourself? That tree the King planted did not live a year. You must write the King and tell him of your error." Now, gentle reader, (as they say in the old books) would you have written the King? I'll bet even such an honorable man as Cousin Harry did not do so. Cousin Harry as a young man practiced law in Staunton, but most of his life he lived in Lexington. His home, Col Alto, was a joyful and hospitable gathering place for his friends, relatives, and the students at Washington and Lee. No man was too humble in circumstances to be his friend and to call him Harry, and no man in this country had friends in higher station—noted lawyers, scholars, diplo­ mats, statesmen—Grover Cleveland was his friend not only Harry St. George Tucker 151 during his terms as Chief Executive but until his death. When the news came of Mr. Cleveland's first election, Cousin Harry went to congratulate him and carried him a bottle of rare wine. There was a large crowd milling around Mr. Cleveland as Harry Tucker approached. Someone jostled the bottle of wine from him and it broke with a crash. Nothing abashed, Cousin Harry said in a loud voice, "Grover Cleveland, I christen you President of the United States." Many present never knew whether the bottle was pur­ posely broken or not. A question arose at Washington and Lee as to whether it should be a denominational college. Cousin Harry was of the opinion that it should not be. He gathered the argu­ ments into a small book and circulated it among his friends. The following letter refers to this book:

Dr. J. M. Hutcheson, Dec. 3, 1936. 209 Professional Building, Richmond, Virginia. My dear Dr. Hutcheson:— On my way from Richmond to Washington I read the extra­ ordinary Tucker book, which I am this morning mailing to you under separate cover. I am obliged to say that my sympathy went entirely with Mr. Tucker in the controversy and I do not see how he could have acted otherwise and been true to his great inheritance of character and sensitive integrity. The persistence and vehemence with which Mr. Tucker acted is strongly reminiscent of John Randolph of Roanoke, whose memory was a very active influence in the life of all of the Tuckers as I knew them. Harry Tucker's father, John Randolph Tucker, was my teacher in the Law School at Washington and Lee and many of his best stories illustrating legal principles had to do with his "Uncle Jack." The amazing naivete of the suggestion that the best way to keep 152 Tales of the Tuckers the University from being denominational was to make it frankly Presbyterian is too good to be buried in a book with such restricted circulation. I suppose the wisest thing said in the controversy was said by General G. W. C. Lee, who was President of the University when I was there. Time, the great healer of many griefs, has I think more or less permanently assuaged this one, but somehow I like to think that there was in my lifetime a Virginian like Harry Tucker as he is shown to be in this correspondence. With warm regards, Cordially yours, NEWTON D. BAKER.

On July 23, 1932 Harry St. George Tucker died at Col Alto in the eightieth year of his age. I went to Lexington to his funeral. There were gathered in this "Athens of the South" many notable men to pay his memory homage. On the way to the cemetery the streets were lined with mountain people, including many large families with the women and girls bearing mountain wild flowers and the eyes of men, women, and children, all of whom he had known by name, were wet with tears of sorrow. I rode back from the bury­ ing ground in the car with Senator Carter Glass, Captain Robert Massey of Lynchburg, and Mr. Willis Robertson, now in Congress. Cousin Harry's stories were repeated and anecdotes were told about him. We could not help laughing. As we approached the house to bid farewell to the family, Senator Glass said, "No one would have enjoyed his own funeral more than Harry Tucker." ALFRED BLAND TUCKER, JR. i 857-1915

Physician—New York and Berryville, Virginia

OUSIN ALFRED was the son of Dr. Alfred Bland C Tucker and the grandson of Judge Henry St. George Tucker of Winchester. He was born in Berryville in the Valley of Virginia in 1857. He was graduated in medicine at the University of Georgia, practiced in Berryville for a while with his brother-in-law, Dr. Cyrus McCormick, and then went to New York to practice. Flere he devoted most of his time to pediatrics. He was connected with the Nur­ sery and Child's Hospital in that city and practiced a great deal among the extremely poor who were greatly attached to him. In January 1907, after leaving Philadelphia, where I had interned and done post-graduate work for eighteen months, I went to New York to attend the clinics there. Shortly after arriving in New York I called Cousin Alfred over the phone. He was having a conference with some other physi­ cians but bade me come right up. When I arrived I was ushered into his office where eight doctors were sitting around; among them was our mutual cousin, Ranny Graham. I went up to Cousin Alfred and spoke to him. He was astonished that I knew who he was and asked me how I had picked him out because, he said, he had always been told that he did not look like a Tucker. I told him he was the only one sitting on the small of his back and at least in this respect he was like all the Tuckers I had ever seen. He was much amused. I stayed to dinner, a welcome invi­ tation, for beside enjoying being with him and his wife, 154 Tales of the Tuckers money with me was exceedingly scarce. This was the only time I ever saw him. Unfortunately, he later fell into bad health and retired to Berryville where he died in 1915 leaving two daughters and one son, another Alfred Bland, who is now a junior officer in the United States Navy. Cousin Alfred's first wife was Eva Brice of North Carolina and his second, Martha Jones of Berryville. DR. BEVERLEY TUCKER 1867-1938 Colorado Springs BEVERLEY TUCKER 1867-1938

Physician,—Colorado Springs

OUSIN BEVERLEY was the grandson of Judge N. C Beverley Tucker who had been a judge in Missouri and afterward professor of law at William and Mary, and the son of Dr. St. George Beverley Tucker of Missouri. The Dr. Beverley Tucker of this sketch was born in Lynchburg, Virginia on May 27, 1867, but soon went with the family to Missouri where his father practiced medicine. In 1880, when young Beverley was thirteen years of age, he moved with his parents from Marshall, Missouri to Colo­ rado Springs. He decided to follow his father's profession and in 1889 was graduated in medicine at the University of Virginia and settled in Colorado Springs. In 1896 he mar­ ried Martha Josephine Wright who still survives. They had no sons but one daughter, Mrs. Victor Newman of Kansas City. There are three living brothers of this Bever­ ley Tucker, John Speed Tucker, a mine broker of Colorado Springs, St. George Tucker, a business executive also of that city, and Hugh Mercer Tucker of Fresno, California who is a mechanical engineer. The John Speed Tucker above men­ tioned has a son, Beverley St. George Tucker, who is a major in the U. S. Army. In 1931 I went to Berne, Switzerland to attend, as a member, the International Congress of Nervous Diseases. My wife and our daughter, Elsie, were the only ones at our home in Richmond at the time, and, as my wife was having some arthritis it was decided that they go to Colorado Springs while I was in Europe. Suffice it here to say that 156 Tales of the Tuckers

they had a most delightful and healthgiving summer and had the opportunity of knowing the Colorado Tuckers. They were impressed that these Tucker cousins, in appear­ ance and in characteristics, resembled so remarkably the family here in Virginia. Dr. Beverley Tucker was, among other things, a member of the American Surgical Association even though he was a general practitioner devoting most of his time to obstetrics and pediatrics. In 1938 Dr. Tucker, at the age of seventy-one, passed to the great beyond. In spite of being in bad health he prac­ ticed his profession until the last. He was greatly beloved and respected. He had brought thousands of the inhabitants of the City of Colorado Springs into the world, attended them as they grew to adulthood, and then practiced on their children and their children's children. Beside all of this he found time to be one of the most progressive and active citizens in the civic and cultural development of his section. May wars and rumors of other wars and so-called socialized medicine never obliterate physicians of this type. COL. NATHANIEL BEVERLEY TUCKER I 8 6 7 - i 9 2 i Lexington, Virginia NATHANIEL BEVERLEY TUCKER i 8 6 7 - i 9 2 i

Colonel and Professor at the Virginia Military Institute

HIS Beverley Tucker, son of Thomas Smith Beverley TTucker, and grandson and namesake of Judge Beverley Tucker, professor of law at William and Mary, was born in the old Tucker House in Williamsburg in 1867. He first married Miss Bessie Shipp, daughter of General Shipp, superintendent of the Virginia Military Institute. She died in a few years and left no issue. Colonel Tucker then married Mary Preston Graham, of Lexington, by whom he had one son, Beverley, who after teaching at the V. M. I. is now a chemist for Proctor and Gamble in Cincinnati. Colonel Tucker was a cadet at the V. M. I. and was graduated from that institution in 1888. He had attended the old Winchester Academy and later took some special courses at Harvard. From 1889 until his death in 1921 he taught chemistry and geology at V. M. I. Beginning as a sub-professor he soon rose to the full professorship. When I went to V. M. I. in 1890 Bev Tucker was a captain and an instructor. He was of medium height with dark hair and blue eyes. He was a fine soldier and an exceptional teacher and was held in high respect by the faculty and the corps. In spite of his always being cordial to me I stood rather in awe of him until two things hap­ pened. The first was when he caught me smoking on the stoop. He stopped, we saluted. He looked at me sternly and said, "This is the first time I have caught you smoking— let it be the last." And then he smiled and passed on. Mind you, he did not tell me not to smoke but only not to let him 158 Tales of the Tuckers catch me. He did not report me. The second thing that drew me to him was when I received a letter which I thought was addressed to me as Cadet Beverley Tucker when in reality it was addressed to Capt. Beverley Tucker. What was my dismay when I opened it and found after reading deep into it that it was for him from a girl and quite a love letter, too! Well, I took it straight to his quarters, quaking in my boots. When I had stammered my explanation he laughed and said, "It's all right, Bev. It's not a matter of great importance anyhow. In a few years you will get plenty of letters like this yourself." Cadets are pretty frank creatures, but I have never met one in my life who disliked or ever said the slightest thing against that Bev Tucker. Quite the contrary. Colonel Tucker had an only brother, William Peyton Tucker, who was educated at the University of Virginia and was graduated from there in medicine. He married Katherine Norman of St. Joseph, Missouri, and they had two children, Frances Bland and Norman Tucker who is a young physician. Dr. William Tucker's health failed in the prime of life and he retired to St. Joseph where he died in 1916. From all I have heard of him he possessed the better qualities of the Tuckers. It was the father of Bev and William Tucker, Cousin Tom Tucker, who during the War of Secession was badly wounded in the thigh and w:ho was taken to his home on Twelfth Street in Richmond by my grandfather, Judge Crump, and there nursed back to health by my grandmother Crump. It is remarkable how many contacts there were between these two families even before my father and mother were married. Colonel Beverley Tucker attained the degree of B.S. and C.E. and was a colonel in the old National Guard. He Nathaniel Beverley Tucker 159 served Virginia on the State Board of Education. But better still, he attained the affection and admiration not only of the many young men that he taught and inspired but of all who knew him. WILLIAM CRUMP TUCKER i 876-1931

Judge—Richmond

RUMP TUCKER, my brother, was born at Grandpa C Crump's house in Richmond May 4, 1876. I was born there two years earlier. Crump's hair was exceedingly light, almost white, and his eyes were blue, a bright, beautiful blue. It is said that he cried the first two years of his life and that he never wept afterward. Father was very ill at the time of his birth. Crump was ten years old before he spoke distinctly but he got entirely over the difficulty at this age. He did not inherit the flair for verse-making frequent in the family, but I can hear him now, as a little boy when asked what was his birthday, say De fof of May Is my buf day. Grandpa Crump was an austere man but he would let Crump take almost any liberty with him. At dinner one day Grandpa had been fussing about various dishes and the way they were served. The family were all afraid to open their mouths except to put food in them, but Crump put his knife and fork down and looked straight at the old Judge and said, "Grandpa, you are entirely too beticular." Grandpa laughed and complained no more, at least at that meal. Grandpa Crump was tall and thin and wore a high rolled- over collar, a black stock, a Prince Albert coat, a varicolored vest, and shoes so shined that one could see one's face in them. It is said that Thomas Nelson Page had him in mind when he described "The Old Gentleman of the Black Stock." JUDGE WILLIAM CRUMP TUCKER I 8 7 6 - I 9 3 I Richmond, Virginia William Crump Tucker 161

Grandpa was a great criminal lawyer and his cross-exami­ nations were so strenuous that witnesses frequently went to pieces on the stand and occasionally even fainted. I was definitely afraid of him all of my childhood; Crump never was. We lived in his house from the time we were four and six, after my father's death, until we were grown. At times I almost hated the old gentleman, but looking back I realize that he was generous to a fault, that his high sense of honor had a great influence on us, and that from his conversation (he was spoken of as a walking encyclo­ paedia) came the best part of our early education. Crump was always a good student, and I was a poor one. When Crump was seven and I was nine we were sent to Mr. Thomas Norwood's school on Eighth Street, opposite the Academy of Music. This was an old-fashioned school in which drilling knowledge into the boys' heads was at­ tempted and corporeal punishment was the order of the day. I shall never forget the hickory stick about an inch and a half wide, three-fourths of an inch thick, and two and a half feet long with which we were not whipped but beat— at least many of us were but Crump always escaped. Crump remained at this school until he went to college, but I stood it a little less than two years. My leaving made me think much more highly of Grandpa Crump. One day Mr. Nor­ wood called me a liar and I walked out of school and went home. Grandpa Crump happened to have stayed in his library that day to do some writing and hence had not gone to his office. My! how he began to berate me for being out of school that time of day, but when I told him I had come home because Mr. Norwood had called me a liar, he roared: "Were you a liar, sir?" "No, sir, I was not," I said. 162 Tales of the Tuckers

Then Grandpa reached for his hat and his black, gold- headed cane and said: "No one can call my grandson a liar when he was not a liar without being caned for it." Grandmother, a dear and lovely woman, came in and in her quiet way said, "Mr. Crump, (as she always called him), don't resort to violence—just let Bev stop school." "Don't you ever set foot in that school again," he told me, quieting down, and thereby he went up in my estimation a thousand points. At school Crump was in the same classes with me, the dif­ ference being that in the classes he was always near or at the top and I was always near the bottom even though he helped me to get my lessons. I was belligerent and in his whole life I never knew Crump to get into a fight except to help me out. One of the teachers, a strapping man, called me up one day to get a beating with that famous hickory—I forget the offense. At any rate I had had a fall a day or so before on a pile of bricks and had a large bruise on my right thigh. Pointing to this area I asked the brute not to strike me over the bruise. Immediately down came the hickory right across the bruise. I had a heavy history book in my hand and this I let the pedagogue have straight in the face. Crump in a flash jumped up and attacked the teacher too, kicking him on the shins and pommeling him as best he could. In a few moments Mr. Norwood came in and the fight was stopped, but not before, I rejoice to say, we had inflicted some punish­ ment on the teacher; however, I still regret to relate, not until he had lambasted me with several more licks. There were at the school two boys older and larger than I. For some reason I do not recall, I gained their enmity and one afternoon on the way home they determined to give me a beating, which they proceeded to do to my William Crump Tucker 163 great discomfiture. Crump came up and saw the situation at once. One of the boys who attacked me was quite a dude, as we called those who dressed meticulously in those days. Crump was too small to be effective with his fists, so from behind he grabbed this boy's hat and ran home with it. The -family was at dinner and Crump sat down at the table. Presently the door bell rang and the boy whose hat was taken told Old Henry, the butler, that Crump had stolen his hat, and he demanded it. Crump was asked where the hat was, but he would not say a word either about the hat or the fight. Grandpa Crump took the matter in hand, but Crump refused to give even him any satisfaction. In a short while I came on the scene bloody and dirty but not seriously hurt, because I managed to handle myself fairly well with the opponent left after the dude ran for his hat. When Crump saw me appear in pretty good shape he told grandpa he had hidden the hat on the kitchen shelf under a dish cover and that he had determined to leave it there until I came home. The dude got his hat and neither he nor his companion ever bothered me again. One afternoon Crump was kidnapped when he was about six years old. He was playing on the street in the neighbor­ hood when a farmer and his wife driving a covered cart came by, stopped, and induced Crump to get in the cart. They drove off. Crump was missed and a search instituted. It was found out that Woodson Waddy, another small boy, had seen Crump go off in the wagon, but he did not appre­ ciate the significance of the event enough to report it. He said the wagon went down Broad Street toward Church Hill. The police were notified and the cart was overhauled on the Williamsburg Turnpike about twelve miles, quite a distance at that time, east of Richmond. We were never told what was done to the couple. The joy over Crump's 164 Tales of the Tuckers return wiped from our young minds any concern over the kidnappers. Crump was always exceedingly absent-minded. He would often appear without his cravat, or he would have on a tan and a black shoe, or he would forget to brush his hair, and many things of that kind. He would go to class having left his written exercises at home, or even later to court having left important papers in his office. When we were boys we were sent on innumerable messages and errands for there were no telephones. I always thought that I caught more than my share of these chores because of Crump's absent- mindedness. Anyhow, once grandma sent Crump up Broad Street to buy and bring back five pounds of rice. It was a cloudy day and Crump was provided with an umbrella in case of need. After he had bought the bag of rice and started home I happened along on the other side of the street. There were billboards near Eighth and Broad Streets of the "Black Crook," which showed many Mae West- shaped ladies in tights. I saw Crump stop and look at the lithographs. He had the bag of rice under one arm and the umbrella under the other. He craned his neck, stretched, and the tip of the umbrella punctured the bottom of the bag from the back. Crump then resumed his walk home, deep in thought. What these thoughts were I do not know, but a thin stream of rice followed him the four blocks to the house. On the other side of the street I trailed him. When he arrived at the front gate he had nothing left of the rice but the empty bag and sticking out in front between his arm and side the nubbing of the tied bag top. I then called to him and asked where his rice was. Dismayed he realized what had happened. "When did you see me?" he asked. "At the billboard where you stuck your bag," I answered. "And so you let me lose all that rice without telling me," William Crump Tucker 165 he yelled, starting after me with the umbrella. I inglorious- ly ran away, hoping the incident would teach him a lesson. But I do not think it did. As we grew older Crump went to Richmond College (now the University of Richmond) and to the University of Virginia, and I went for two years to the Virginia Military Institute. Crump started the practice of law in Richmond in 1896 and I, after not doing well in my studies at the V. M. I., went to work at eighteen years of age. We now hear a great deal of the "gay nineties." They may have been gay north of the Potomac, but there was very little gaiety in the South during this period, for, having lived through both, I can say that the depression of the 1930's was nothing to the depression of the 1890's, at any rate in Virginia. Crump could hardly make office rent at law prac­ tice and I, after trying everything from day laborer's work up, at last rose by 1900 to a job paying about eight hundred dollars a year. Our grandfathers on both sides had died before 1900 and also my dear grandmother Crump, who was not only one of the best housekeepers I ever knew, but she and Grandma Tucker, who lived some years longer, were beloved, fine, and cultured women. Crump and I and our mother were all as poor as church mice and mother was sick and nervous most of the time from father's death in 1880 until her death at eighty-seven years of age in 1937. For some years before and a few years after the turn of the century, our little family could hardly make out at all and could not have done so except that our two maternal uncles, Edward and Beverley Crump, themselves hard pushed financially, each contributed fifteen dollars a month toward our support. One of our happiest and grandest recollections was the day we could support our little family without out­ side help. Still Crump struggled on in law and I worked 166 Tales of the Tuckers hard, always hoping to study medicine—a forlorn hope it seemed to the family and friends when they contemplated my poor school career, but never a forlorn hope to me, or to my brother Crump, or to my Uncle Bev Crump. After working eight years at last my ambitions were realized and I entered the Medical College of Virginia at twenty-six years of age. I was able by working in the optical business in Norfolk on week-ends and some during the week in Richmond to work my way through college without costing the family a penny, but this I could not have done except for the real economies practiced by my mother and Crump. All through the years Crump and I were much like twin brothers, sharing each other's joys and hardships and even our intimate thoughts. It is difficult for me to write of him and to portray fully his fine traits for, take it by and large, I think of him as the best man I ever knew. He would give his last cent and be thankful that he had it to give. He kowtowed to no one, but he would pick up a drunkard in the gutter and take him to care and shelter. Patience, tolerance, and a desire to help were integral parts of him. When he was judge he would put a substitute on the bench and deduct the time lost from his pay and from his vacation to help a relative or a friend in trouble or distress. Before he went on the bench of the Civil Justice Court, he gave so much of his time to advising and doing legal research for other lawyers that his practice was never a financial success. It was said that he had one of the best legal minds in the State, but he was so modest and reserved that many did not realize it. In a group he did not obtrude remarks, but listened and would sit for hours without saying a word. If, however, his opinion was asked or he felt it his duty to express himself, he would take charge of the conversation and in a deliberate, forceful manner show that he had William Crump Tucker i6y mastered the whole topic, and what he said was usually definitive. Do not think by what I have written that Crump was solemn and not sociable. His blue eyes could shine with humour or excitement, his laugh was spontaneous and con­ tagious, and he was frequently the life of the party. Always in moderation, he would enjoy a drink as much as anyone I ever saw, especially a mint julep. He had devoted friends in all strata of society and as a member of the Richmond Light Infantry Blues there was no one more popular. And when his indignation was really aroused he could "call down," as we say, anyone, be he prelate, pompous politician, or imposter, to the "Queen's taste," as we also used to say. Crump's only sweetheart was Madge Fife of Charlottes­ ville, who became his wife, and although they were not blessed with issue, their modest home was a shrine. When the World War came Crump volunteered and went into the Officers' Training Camp at Fort Meyer. While there Gov­ ernor Henry Stuart appointed him Judge of the Civil Justice Court of Richmond. Crump would have declined this appointment had not the Governor insisted that he could be of more service as a civil officer. No one who has not experienced a decision of this character can realize what a hard duty it is for a man not to go to war. I had to stay and I know. I had built up a private hospital, was $84,000 in debt; I was professor of neuropsychiatry at the Medical College of Virginia, and I had three small children and another on the way. Although I was on the State Medical Examining Board and served a summer as examiner in the mustering office at Camp Lee near Petersburg, I was at the time and am now unhappy not to have been able to go abroad with the army. Crump made an enviable record as civil justice. I have 168 Tales of the Tuckers often heard those against whom he decided say that they were sorry to have lost but that at heart they knew his decision was correct. He lived usefully and happily until the spring of 1931 when he was taken with what was a rather obscure abdominal illness until he was operated on, and it was found that he had carcinoma of the pancreas. Never complaining of the distressing symptoms from which he suffered, he died on October 14, 1931, a man who had always been true to every relationship of life. IN CLOSING HEN I began to gather some of the anecdotes of W the St. George Tucker branch of the family, or tribe as they have been facetiously styled, I expected to write a pamphlet—but this collection has gradually grown into rather the size of a book. I soon found that these tales per se, without something of the personality of the individ­ ual involved, or of his time and place, would not do; so these sketches in somewhat biographic form are the result. It would be interesting to make a scientific study of the family from a genetic and eugenic viewpoint but to do so does not appear to me to exactly belong in this volume. I shall leave this interesting task to someone else. I believe that it is fitting, however, to mention here that the family has been remarkably free from such diseases as insanity, feeblemindedness, serious alcoholism, tuberculosis, cancer, or chronic blood pressure, heart or kidney conditions. Longevity has been the rule of those who have reached adulthood; minor conduct irregularities have been average but gross conduct disturbance, at least that which has come to light, has been negligible. It is also interesting to note in the descendants of St. George and his wife, Frances Bland, how many of them have been lawyers, physicians, clergymen, chemists, and engineers, and to contemplate the number of those who have shown versatility by becoming in addition authors, poets, professors, judges, army officers, or public servants. If I were asked to state the most characteristic traits of the Tucker tribe I think I should say a love of life; an interest in, coupled with a desire to be of help to, others; a fundamental appreciation of justice tempered by tolerance; a sense of humour; a versatility of mind; and a clannish 170 Tales of the Tuckers affection for and loyalty to family and friends. On the other side of the ledger the members of the family are as a rule poor financiers, are not musical, have produced no painters or sculptors, are lacking in mechanical abilities, and have not been outstanding industrialists. I am regretful that time for genealogic research does not permit me to write of the female descendants of the family. I hope some other member of the tribe capable of doing so will take up this fascinating work. The Tuckers as a rule have been fortunate in their marriages and the resulting protoplasm has kept up the vigor of their offspring with the result that many fine and distinguished men and women have come of these unions. Achievement, a tolerant attitude, sociability, and versatility are also attributes of the descend­ ants from the female side and the Tuckers are linked by blood to many prominent families, especially of Virginia. I would wish to include in this book sketches of living members of the tribe but I have felt that this had best be left to some future member. I realize that a good deal more description might have been given to times and places, to interesting outside contemporary individuals, and to cer­ tain historic events; but on the whole I have preferred to confine these sketches to the individual in hand and to the main events of his life and to the stories that have been handed down about him. In closing I have no advice to give the members of the tribe, no message to deliver, no swan song to sing. I can only say Hail and Farewell and feel with a smile of satis­ faction and a warmth of affection that the Tuckers, quick and dead, always forgive each other's faults and over­ praise each others endeavors. To those, may they be many, not yet terrestrially introduced, I wave the tribal hand and say, nous verrons ce que nous verrons.