Forum Member Danny West Made A Presentation

[RJNorton]

Kudos to Danny West, a member here, on his lecture to the Quitman Woman’s Club (in Mississippi). Club member, Rebecca, wrote:

"The Quitman Woman’s Club enjoyed a lecture yesterday presented by Mr. Danny West on how our county and county seat acquired their names. Clarke County was named after the first Chancellor of our State, Joshua Giles Clarke. The City of Quitman, our county seat, was named for the second Chancellor of our State, John Anthony Quitman. Those attending were intrigued by his years of research. Thank you, Mr. West, for a very informative program."

Here is the text of Danny's lecture:

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Lecture on Joshua Giles Clarke & John Anthony Quitman

Presented to the Quitman Ladies Auxiliary Club

By Danny West

September 6, 2018

The purpose of my lecture/talk today is to give you an overview of how our county and county seat acquired their names. So many people I believe are not aware of this especially here in our own county. I feel it is important to know about your local history as well as state and national history. The big question in history to me is "WHY". I'm not content with just saying something is so. I want to know the origin of the subject at hand. This makes history as well as other disciplines so interesting. I encourage you to have an inquiring mind to do research on whatever topic you desire. Whether it's history or some other subject.

The preparation of this lecture led me on an exciting journey in historical research. I had the honor and privilege of speaking by telephone with the Great-Great-Great Grandson of Joshua G. Clarke. His name is Dr. Jay Calvitt Clarke III, Professor Emeritus in History at Jacksonville University. For you basketball fans one of Jacksonville University's claim to fame is runner up to UCLA in the 1970 National Championship game, no great shame because everybody lost to UCLA & John Wooden. Jacksonville had a player by the name of Artis Gilmore who starred for many years in the old ABA. Dr. Clarke and myself talked about this too in addition to our history talk.
Dr. Clarke supplied me with numerous articles on Judge Clarke, Very nice person in our phone interview and general talk. He is still active in research.

Another person who helped me tremendously was MS Amanda Redmond of the Mississippi Library Commission. She supplied me with all types of materials on both Joshua Clarke & John Quitman. I talked with her by phone to touch base on information and everything I asked for she supplied by email. She is originally from Cincinnati, Ohio and how she got here I don't know, but she knows more about Mississippi History than most Mississippians. With her being from Cincinnati, naturally I asked about Skyline Chili. I told her how awful it was & she told me its not good in a bowl that you have to put it on hot dogs, spaghetti, etc. I encourage you to reach out to her for any research on Mississippi. She encouraged me to telephone Dr. Clark.

If you type in Joshua Clarke's name in the search field on the internet you will see somewhere that he was the first chancellor of the state of Mississippi. This is where the fun began for me. What did chancellor mean? Some universities such as Ole Miss used this term in place of president. But, I knew this was not the answer I was seeking. I first contacted the Secretary of State's office. They had no clue, but the lady i emailed directed me to the Mississippi Library Commission. One important note here is that they do not charge for research as does the Mississippi Department of Archives & History. I got plenty of information from the above mentioned person. I still emailed the Archives & History but only received a partial answer. Joshua Clark was the first Chancellor of the state of Mississippi and ironically John A. Quitman was the second Chancellor. So, our county & county seat where named after the first and second Chancellors of our state.

Now to the anticipated question of what is a Chancellor and what did they do in the early years of state government. The Superior Court of the Chancery in Mississippi was created by the legislature in November of 1821. Joshua Clarke was selected by the legislature to serve as the states first chancellor. a position he held until his death in July of 1828. From the Journal of the Florida Conference of Historians volume 20 gives a definition of chancellor. " A chancellor is a judge who heads the chancery courts. These courts generally hear certain types of cases, such as those involving mortgage foreclosures, usually without juries. They apply principles of equity and order relief, such as injunctions, which may differ from common law's rules and remedies."

Joshua Giles Clarke

c. 1780 -July 22, 1828

1. Clarke was born around 1780 in Maryland and then moved to Pennsylvania where he received a competent education. Very little is known of his early life, but he appears to have arrived in Mississippi by 1804.

2. He first settled in Natchez where he became part of the political establishment. In November 1807 he married Martha Calvit, who was the daughter of Joseph Calvit' Their family was one of the first families to migrate to the Mississippi Territory after the American Revolution.

3. Clarke rose rapidly in Mississippi Society. Politically, he was a Jeffersonian-Republican and became the founding member of the Washington Lodge of Freemasons in Port Gibson.

4. As a member of the territorial legislature, he represented Claiborne County in 1817 at the Constitutional Convention to form the State of Mississippi. His peers noted that he had one of the best legal minds along with his faithful service.

5. Because of his success he built Clareont, among the first of large homes in the Port Gibson area. It was built in the federal style and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

6. One particular case he presided over early in his stint on the Supreme Court was was spun off from the larger scandal surrounding Aaron Burr's conspiracy to set up an independent nation in the west.

7. One of his more famous rulings on the Supreme Court was that he judged killing a slave was murder because slaves were "reasonable creature."

8. Clarke died in Natchez after an illness of several days and was buried in Port Gibson. An added note is Confederate General Earl Van Dorn was from Port Gibson and is buried there as well.

9. Because of his service to Mississippi, he had Clarke County named in his honor. It became a county in December 1833.

John Anthony Quitman

September 1, 1798-July 17, 1858

1. Not that you care but when people ask me where I am from, I will often say, Quitman MS. named for two time governor of Mississippi and Mexican War hero.

2. Quitman was born in1798 in Rhinebeck, New York. Graduated college in 1816, admitted to the bar in 1820 and in 1821 moved to Natchez. There he purchased his home Monmouth in 1826 and it would remain in his family for 100 years.

3. He practiced law in Natchez until 1826, when he was elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives. He became Chancellor of the state in 1828, and served on the state's Constitutional Convention in 1832.

4. Quitman served as the Tenth and Sixteenth Governor of Mississippi. His first term from 1835-1836 he served as a Whig. His second term 1850-1851 he served as a Democrat and was a leading Fire-Eater who were a group pushing for succession.

5. You will notice governors then served two year terms. The original Constitution of 1817 had only a two-year term for Governor, this was expanded to four years in the 1868 Constitution. The longest serving Governor was John M. Stone, who served two terms over ten years. His second term in office was extended to six years by a transitional provision in the 1890 Constitution.

6. With the onset of the Mexican War, Quitman was a Brigadier General of volunteers serving first under Zachary Taylor then was assigned to Winfield Scott's army in their advance on Mexico City. Quitman now was a Major General and served admirably in many battles. He was a commander during the assault on Chapultepec and received the surrender of the citadel in Mexico City. He was named Military Governor of Mexico City for the remainder of the American occupation.

7. During his second term as governor he was approached by Narciso Lopez to lead an expedition to liberate Cuba from Spanish rule. Quitman turned down the offer but supplied assistance to Lopez with men and materials. Quitman was charged with violating the Neutrality Act of 1817. This led him to resign as governor to defend himself.

8. Quitman with encouragement from President Franklin Pierce, began preparations for his own expedition to free Cuba. In May 1854 the administration reversed course on this expedition because of the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and possible damage to the Democratic Party.

9. Quitman returned to politics and in 1855 was elected to congress and served in that capacity until his death in 1858. He apparently died from the National Hotel Disease contracted during his stay there for the inauguration of President James Buchanan. Historians said this disease is similar to Legionnaires Disease.

An Extra Added Bonus

You have heard of Eli Lilly who founded the famous pharmaceutical company. Did you know that he was a prisoner of war right here in Quitman. He was captured in Alabama and sent to th Fort Texas Hospital. He saw how bad medical care was in the Civil War and this gave him the inspiration to found his company in 1876 in Indianapolis, Indiana.

During General Sherman's destruction of Quitman in February 1864 the Trotter -Byrd home was spared because the person living there was a direct descendant of George Washington.


A Note on Sources

I do not consider this a formal paper and by that I mean I am going to list sources not necessarily in alphabetical order. I hope you take the opportunity to further research the material i covered today. Like I really think you are going to do that. Just kidding! I also apologize for any spelling and grammar errors. I could not get spell check to word on wordpad for some reason. So, I will blame any of these errors on my computer.

I want to sincerely thank Dr Jay Clarke for his phone interview and the information he supplied. Also, MS Amanda Redmond with the Mississippi Library Commission answered and researched my every request. Thank you so much to these two people.

1. https://ju.academia.edu/JayClarke. A series of articles by Dr Jay Clarke

2. http://users.ju.edu/jclarke/.default.htm Curriculum Vitae and links of Dr.
Clarke.

3. http://usuers.ju.edu/jclarke/jgclarke.htm An excellent article on Judge Clarke by Jay Clarke

4. Florida Conference of Historians Volume 20 May 2013. Several articles devoted to the life of Judge Clarke and his views on slavery.

5, Mississippi History Now. mshistorynow.mdah.state.ms.us - An excellent website devoted to all things Mississippi. Articles and biographical information on important event and people in Mississippi History.

6. "John A. Quitman and the Southern Martial Spirit" by Robert E. May ( The Journal Of Mississippi History 1979)

7. John A. Quitman: Old South Crusader by Robert E. May

8. Life and Correspondence of John A. Quitman by J.F.H. Claiborne

9. "The Abortive Quitman Filibustering Expedition, 1853-1855" by C. Stanlry Urban (The Journal of Mississippi Historyn1956)

10. "Governor John A. Quitman and the Lopez Expeditions of 1851-1852" by Ray Broussard (The Journal of Mississippi History 1966).

11. And last but certainly not least- Wikipedia - I actually had two professors while working on my Masters Degree said they had no problem with using this. It is a good source for quick basic information.

I want to thank you for the opportunity to present this talk to you today and especially to MS Peggy Doggett for making this happen. We had talked about this before going back to 2013. Various issues arose to were it was not possible but in the end it all worked out.

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https://www.quitmanwomansclub.org/local-...mans-club/