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Chapter IV.
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Chapter IV. The Northern Circuit—Leading members of the Northern Bar, half a century since—First Records of Wilkes County—Judge Dooly, his birth, education, habits and talents,—Tom Peter Carnes—he and Dooly practice in South Carolina—Carnes’ speech on a sy logism [sic]—Charles and the Lawyers at breakfast—Singular treatment of slaves—Dooly’s speech on the nuncupative will—A will made at the bottom of a well—Dooly’s happy manner of saying things—Corn good enough for his horse—Jolters—Don’t let him shoot his way—Comparison between Dooly and Charles the Second—Mr. Sheriff, some more water out of that same well— How Dooly tried to stop gambling—His fight with Long—Tait challenges him—Moves to a tavern, where he will be considered a gentleman—Dooly’s interviews with the roast pig—Rivalry between the village taverns, and the discomfiture of the little widow—Dooly gets the laugh on a young lawyer—Dooly and the brass-healed Doctor—How he punishes his neighbor, hunting Mark Bond—Judge Crawford succeeds Dooly—How rapidly he rose in life—His appearance, his character, his greatness and talents—He and the Lawyer who repeated his arguments—His treatment of Clark men—Reply to his Priest-ridden Landlady— Fatal meeting with Van Allen—Characteristic interview with Mr. Dawson—He, Van Allen and Gov. Clark—He brings the first “ne exeat” in Georgia—The Defendant and Martin at the Corn Shucking—Gen. Heard and his suit—Phil Alston and his amusing originality—How Heard tried to marry off a militia Captain and drunken dependent, and how he prospered—Speech of old Peter Bennett, the constable. Reminiscences of an Old Georgia Lawyer [40] Forty-eight years ago, when I came to the Bar,26 Dooly, the greatest wit of his day, was on the bench. “Tom Cobb,”27 the great Senator, who “sent his word through the court house wall at every lick;” Mr. Upson,28 the most profound lawyer in the Sate; Mr. Lumpkin—late Chief Justice of the State—the most eloquent orator I every heard speak; Mr. Gilmer,29 afterwards Governor of the State, and who, in his fury, foamed and spat over the jury; Mr. Pope, who was the only lawyer in the Circuit, I ever knew who having lived to make a fortune, and that in one county, “by picking up every acorn that dropped,” as Dooly said of him, retired and enjoyed it for years before his death; Mr. Prince, “a man of infinite jest,” and in wit excelled only by Dooly; Duncan G. Campbell,30 father of the late Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, of that name, the leader of his political party in the State, of captivating address and courtly manners, (and queenly wife), and an orator withal; Jno. A. Heard, Solicitor General, a shrewd lawyer, who never let a point escape him, a rollicking companion, and making more money at the time, than any lawyer of the circuit, and General J. V. Harris, a fine old gentleman with a fine family, of great wealth and greater hospitality, were the leading members of the Northern bar, and all, not only gone, but their memories almost perished with them. For, of all the people now living in the circuit, not one in ten ever heard even their names—except Dooly’s and Lumpkin’s— though in their day, perhaps no other eight men occupied more of public attention in the State than they. The great and important murder and other cases, in which they were the leading lawyers; the political campaigns in which they were the leaders of their parties; the loud hurrahs elicited by their oratory on the hustings, and the applause that followed their speeches in deliberative assemblies, are all buried in obscurity by the lapse of a few years, and only faintly traced through the twilight of a few fading memories. Though something, even much, might be said of them all, interesting to Georgia people, and particularly to Georgia lawyers, but little or nothing could, that would be worth telling the general reader. Nothing encourages me to give the little amusing matters which I can recollect of him, more than the knowledge that Judge Dooly’s memory has outlived all his contemporaries, though several may have been his equals, and in some respects, his superiors, it all indicates that the popular taste appreciates wit more than any other talent; comedy above tragedy, and laughter...