Jacob McGavock Dickinson – Nashville Historical Newsletter

Jacob McGavock Dickinson: Jurist and Statesman

by Kathy B. Lauder.

Jacob McGavock Dickinson was a distinguished attorney, Tennessee Supreme Court Justice, Assistant U.S. Attorney General, and U. S. Secretary of War. A grandson of Jacob McGavock and great-grandson of Felix Grundy, Dickinson was born January 30, 1851, in Mississippi. He enlisted at fourteen in the Confederate cavalry,¹ just as the Civil War ended, and soon thereafter earned A.B. and M.A. degrees from the University of Nashville. He studied law at Columbia University and in Europe² before being admitted to the Tennessee Bar (1874).³He and his wife, née Martha Overton, reared three sons.⁴

Dickinson, an early law partner of Judge Claude Waller,⁵accepted four temporary appointments to the Tennessee Supreme Court (1891-1893)⁶ before becoming Assistant U.S. Attorney General (1895-1897), as well as General Attorney for the Louisville & Nashville Railroad⁷ and law professor at Vanderbilt University (1897-1899).⁸

He moved to Chicago to serve as Solicitor General (1899-1901) and General Counsel (1901-1909) for the Illinois Central Railroad.⁹ One of three attorneys representing the United States before the Alaskan Boundary Tribunal (1903),¹⁰ Dickinson delivered the successful closing argument in an emotionally charged case.¹¹ He helped organize the American Society of International Law (1906) and became president of the American Bar Association a year later.¹² Between 1905 and 1909 he received honorary doctorates from Columbia,¹³ Yale,¹⁴ and the University of Illinois.¹⁵

President William Howard Taft, seated left; Judge Howard H. Lurton, whom Taft appointed to the Supreme Court, standing center; and Jacob McGavock Dickinson, seated right. (photo courtesy of Peggy Dickinson Fleming)

In March 1909, President William H. Taft, a long-time friend,¹⁶ appointed him Secretary of War, a post he occupied until May 1911.¹⁷Secretary Dickinson proposed two pieces of legislation: providing an annuity retirement system for civil service employees and admitting foreign students to West Point.¹⁸

Much in demand as a dinner guest, Dickinson preferred the company of friends and family to the Washington social scene. Once, having refused a persistent hostess’s dinner invitations for each night from Monday through the weekend, he finally growled, “Dammit, madam, I’ll just come Monday!”¹⁹

Before 1890 Dickinson owned several large estates, including the Henry Hayes mansion, Ensworth, which he sold in 1898 to the Sisters of Charity as the future site of St. Thomas Hospital.²⁰ Around the same time, he infuriated Nashville residents with his decision to sell another historic property, Polk Place (the former residence of not only U.S. Congressman, Senator, and Attorney General Felix Grundy, but also President James K. Polk) to a developer, who razed the presidential home (1900) to build apartments.²¹ Dickinson bought Belle Meade in 1906 as a place to entertain guests²²; his son Overton lived there year-round with his family.²³ When Overton died of heart disease in 1910, a year after his wife’s death, Jacob Dickinson sold Belle Meade and never returned.²⁴

From 1913-1917 he served as Special Assistant U.S. Attorney General in the federal prosecution of the U.S. Steel Corporation, acting also as receiver for the Rock Island Line, which he restored to solvency.²⁵ In later years Dickinson was president of the Izaak Walton League, an early conservation group.²⁶

After his death on December 13, 1928, his body lay in state in the Tennessee Capitol²⁷ before being transported to Mt. Olivet Cemetery for burial.²⁸

The Dickinson papers at the Tennessee State Library and Archives include his correspondence with, among others, William Jennings Bryan, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, George W. Goethals, and presidents Cleveland, Coolidge, Hoover, Taft, Wilson, and Theodore Roosevelt.²⁹ (2015)

SOURCES:

¹ Nashville Families and Homes: Selected Paragraphs from Nashville History. Nashville: Nashville Room, Nashville Public Library, 1983, 33.

² Nashville, A Family Town: 1975-76 Paragraphs from Nashville History. Nashville: The Nashville Room, Nashville Public Library, 1978, 85.

³ Dickinson, Jacob McGavock (1851-1928) Family Papers, 1812-1946. Microfilm #836. Tennessee State Library and Archives (finding aid).

⁴ Sobel, Robert. Biographical Directory of the United States Executive Branch, 1774-1989. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood Publishing Group (ABC-CLIO), 1990.

⁵ Nashville, A Family Town, 85. Waller was the first judge appointed to the Second Circuit Court after its creation in 1895.

⁶ Nashville Families and Homes, 35.

⁷ Sobel.

⁸ Dickinson Family Papers (finding aid).

⁹ U.S. Army Center of Military History. Washington, D.C.: Office of the Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of the Army. http://www.history.army.mil/books/Sw-SA/Dickinson.htm (Accessed 3-23-2015)

¹⁰ Nashville, A Family Town, 87.

¹¹ Dickinson Family Papers (finding aid).

¹² U.S. Army Center of Military History.

¹³ Columbia University Quarterly, Volume 7. New York: Columbia University Press, 1905.

¹⁴ Office of the Secretary and Vice President for Student Life. New Haven: Yale University. http://secretary.yale.edu/programs-services/honorary-degrees/since-1702?field_degrees_value=All&field_year_value=All&keys=&page=13&order=title&sort=asc (Accessed 3-24-2015)

¹⁵ Commencement at Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Campus: Honorary Degrees 1891-Present. http://commencement.illinois.edu/ceremonies/honors_awards.html (Accessed 3-24-2015)

¹⁶ Nashville Families and Homes, 37.

¹⁷ Sobel.

¹⁸ U.S. Army Center of Military History.

¹⁹ Fleming, Peggy Dickinson. “Jacob McGavock Dickinson, Sr.” Nashville Historical Newsletter, https://nashvillehistoricalnewsletter.com/2021/10/17/jacob-mcgavock-dickinson-sr/ (Accessed 3-15-2015)

²⁰ Nashville, A Family Town, 90.

²¹ Nashville, A Family Town, 90.

²² Fleming, Peggy Dickinson.

²³ “Later Residents of Belle Meade.” Belle Meade Plantation website. http://bellemeadeplantation.com/later-residents/ (Accessed 3-24-2015)

²⁴ Fleming, Peggy Dickinson.

²⁵ Nashville Families and Homes, 35.

²⁶ U.S. Army Center of Military History.

²⁷ Nashville Families and Homes, 44.

²⁸ Find A Grave. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=8004817 (Accessed 3-24-2015)

²⁹ Dickinson Family Papers (finding aid).

University of Nashville in the DAB

by Mike Slate.

The Dictionary of American Biography, an esteemed multi-volume reference work, contains essays on individuals who died before 1981. One portion of its master index lists the subjects of the biographies by the college or university they attended. Under “University of Nashville” are seventeen names: William Barksdale, John Bell, Jacob McGavock Dickinson, Andrew Jackson Donelson, Tolbert Fanning, Ephraim Hubbard Foster, Henry Hitchcock, Cave Johnson, John Berrien Lindsley, George Earle Maney, Robert Paine, Gideon Johnson Pillow, James Davis Porter, Wickliffe Rose, William Walker, John Anthony Winston, and William Yerger.

Lindsley Hall, the main classroom building of the University of Nashville, still stands near the Howard Municipal Office Building at 2nd and Lindsley.

Of these seventeen, ten are also featured in The Tennessee Encyclopedia of History & Culture, and we refer the reader to that volume for their biographies. Here we offer introductions to the remaining seven, not only to highlight their lives but also to illustrate the extensive influence of the University of Nashville.

William Barksdale (1821-1863), born in Rutherford County, Tennessee, attended the University of Nashville and studied law in Columbus, Mississippi. He became editor of the Columbus Democrat before serving in the U.S. Congress from 1853-1861. An advocate of slavery, Barksdale rose to the rank of brigadier-general during the Civil War. He died of wounds received at the Battle of Gettysburg.

Jacob McGavock Dickinson (1851-1928) was born in Columbus, Mississippi, but moved to Nashville and became one of the city’s most accomplished citizens. From the University of Nashville he received the A.B. degree in 1871 and the A.M. the following year. A well-known lawyer and judge, Dickinson served as president of the American Bar Association from 1907-1908. His appointment as Secretary of War under long-time friend William Taft is another of his many achievements. An interesting fact not mentioned in the DAB (but noted by Margaret Lindsley Warden in Nashville: A Family Town) is that at various times Dickinson was the owner of three of Nashville’s historic estates: Ensworth, Polk Place, and Belle Meade.

Henry Hitchcock (1829-1902), an Alabama native, graduated from the University of Nashville in 1846 and from Yale in 1848. He was pro-Union and served under Sherman during that General’s march to the sea. A scholarly jurist and able speaker, Hitchcock organized the law school of Washington University in St. Louis and was its first dean. Like Dickinson, he served as president of the American Bar Association (1889-1890).

Born in Franklin, Tennessee, George Earl Maney (1826-1901) graduated from the University of Nashville a year before Hitchcock but, as a Confederate brigadier-general, fought against Sherman in the Atlanta Campaign. After the War, Maney became president of the Tennessee & Pacific Railroad and was elected to the state legislature. From 1881 to 1894 he served as a diplomat in South America.

In 1814 Robert Paine (1799-1882) moved from North Carolina to Giles County, Tennessee. The DAB reports that he was “ready to enter the sophomore class of Cumberland College [a forerunner of the University of Nashville]” when a religious experience moved him to preach. In 1846, after serving for sixteen years as president of LaGrange College in Alabama, he was elected Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and moved to Aberdeen, Mississippi. He is the author of Life and Times of William McKendree.

John Anthony Winston (1812-1871), born in Madison County, Alabama, “spent some time at Cumberland College” in Nashville and became a successful planter, owning plantations in four Southern states. He was governor of Alabama (1853-1857), and, after the Civil War, was elected to the U.S. Senate. An ardent Confederate, he was denied his Senate seat after refusing to take the oath of allegiance to the United States.

William Yerger (1816-1872), born in Lebanon, Tennessee, graduated from the University of Nashville in 1833. He moved to Jackson, Mississippi, where he developed one of the largest law practices in the state. Although he opposed secession, Yerger was elected to the state legislature and remained in that office throughout the War. At war’s end, he was instrumental in bringing Mississippi back into the Union.

The seventeen DAB articles on men who attended the University of Nashville reinforce the importance of that institution in our city’s history. In addition, Nashville-related entries in standard reference works remind us that our history often ceases to be only “local” and becomes national or even international in significance.

Jacob McGavock Dickinson Sr.

A Reminiscence by Peggy Dickinson Fleming.

Throughout my life I have been a very lucky person. I am thinking of the luck that brought me to be one of the grandchildren of Jacob McGavock Dickinson Sr. Specifically, this meant that I was the heiress to all sorts of good things connected with him: namely, the many great names that brought about the cities of Nashville, Memphis, and other places in Tennessee. Perhaps I inherited a small portion of his greatness and love of life.

*Jacob McGavock Dickinson (front row, center) with family, 1923 (photo courtesy of the author*)

When I was born, my father, Captain Jacob McGavock Dickinson Jr., was fighting in the trenches in France, specifically in the Battle of Champagne during World War I. When he received the news of my arrival, he had the chaplain of his regiment christen me in absentia with a small vial of holy water that he had saved for the purpose, using his helmet for the basin. When the 42nd Rainbow Division was reactivated in 1943, he took his family with him to Tulsa, Oklahoma, the site of the reactivation. Upon hearing the news of my “activation” in the Rainbow, the General of the Regiment, Colonel Harry J. Collins, officially designated me “The Rainbow Girl.” I have attended many reunions of the 42nd Division since that time, basking in the recognition and praise for “The Rainbow Girl.”

After the death of my grandfather, my father and mother moved our family back to Nashville. This was in the late 1920s. They purchased my father’s ancestral home, Travellers Rest, where his mother, Martha Maxwell Overton, had been born and raised. I spent many happy years at Travellers Rest as well as at Antrim in Columbia, where I moved after my marriage to Stuart Swope Fleming.

My life has indeed been a happy one, and I like to think that perhaps some of that happiness is due to my close association with and love of my grandfather, Jacob McGavock Dickinson, Sr.

Travellers Rest, Nashville, Tennessee (photo from NHN collection)

Grandfather loved his family very much. He bought Belle Meade with the idea of using it both as a place to entertain and as a retreat. When business called him elsewhere, his eldest son, Overton, and family lived there. After a very unfortunate tragedy occurred — both Overton and his wife died from complications of influenza — Grandfather sold Belle Meade, and, as far as I know, never went there again. Overton’s two little girls were entrusted to the care of his sister-in-law, but Grandfather was very attentive to their education and took them on many wonderful trips.

All of this occurred before I was born. Grandfather moved to Chicago to serve as counsel for the Illinois Central Railroad. After he established law offices there, my father, mother, and family moved to Chicago, also, settling in Winnetka, Illinois. Grandfather was a most loving grandfather. He came out on the train on Sundays for lunch, armed always with Hershey chocolates that I, being of a saving nature, squirreled away in my closet. I remember sitting on his lap, when he would run his finger up my spine and admonish me always to hold my back straight.

Grandfather was very fond of my mother. When he sometimes invited her to have lunch with him, he would order only the best. On one memorable occasion, “the best” included raw oysters. Mother was dismayed but gamely resolved to eat them. When he glanced across the table and discovered her actually trying to cut them up, Grandfather sternly admonished her to “Stop murdering those oysters!”

When Grandfather was Secretary of War under President Taft, who was a great friend of his, he was in great demand as a dinner guest. However, I don’t think he was particularly interested in the constant dinner parties. One persistent hostess kept after him, starting with an invitation for Monday night, which he declined. She progressed through the week, day by day, and when she reached the weekend, Grandfather replied, “Dammit, madam, I’ll just come Monday!”

We went into Chicago on occasion to have lunch with him in his apartment. The chairs for the dining table were upholstered in a very dark green horsehair, a very scratchy material at best. He had an elegant bedroom set consisting of bed, armoire, dresser, and night stand. I am fortunate enough to have that now here in my house. When he was taken ill, he of course was propped up in that big bed. I can see him now.

After his death, we all traveled to Nashville on the train to accompany his body, which lay in state in the Tennessee State Capitol.

How Nashville Dishonored a President and Altered American History

Musings by Mike Slate.

The maintenance of our metropolitan humility requires us occasionally to confess and recount our sins against historic preservation. The current Nashville building spree may lull us into forgetting that during the twentieth century we destroyed probably the finest of Tennessee’s public squares (along with Francis Strickland’s courthouse), countless other downtown buildings (flirting, even, with razing Union Station and Ryman Auditorium), and several historic mansions (including two gubernatorial residences). Topping any catalog of questionable annihilations should be Polk Place, erased from our national heritage in 1901.

*Postcard image of President James K. Polk from NHN collection.*

Having expanded the nation’s borders to the Pacific Ocean, James K. Polk retired to Nashville a very weary man. A workaholic, he had served as a Tennessee state legislator and governor, U.S. Representative and Speaker of the House, and president of the United States from 1845-1849. In 1847 he had purchased the home of one of his mentors, the distinguished Felix Grundy, and refurbished it to his and First Lady Sarah Polk‘s desires. He lived there, however, for less than two months, dying on June 15, 1849. Sarah Polk lived on at Polk Place as the grande dame of Nashville for more than four decades, passing away in 1891.

President Polk’s will (which itself has had an incredible lost-found-lost again-found-again existence) expressed his wish that Polk Place be tendered to the State of Tennessee after Sarah’s death. Polk’s heirs wrangled and the State balked. The upshot of the imbroglio was that Polk Place was sold in a Chancery Court sale to another of Nashville’s preeminent citizens, Jacob McGavock Dickinson, Grundy’s great-grandson. In turn, Dickinson sold the columned mansion and its hallowed grounds – which until 1893 had included President and Mrs. Polk’s tomb, classically designed by William Strickland – to J.C. McLanahan, a Philadelphian. McClanahan proceeded to tear down Polk Place and build an apartment complex, the Polk Flats.

Polk Place was situated near the heart of Nashville between 7th and 8th avenues. Today’s Polk Avenue was once the lane that led from Church Street to the mansion on the rise at Union Street. The house certainly had a fortuitous location, leading us to wonder how the city fathers could have been so shortsighted as not to have seen the patriotic and economic benefits of a president’s residence in downtown Nashville. And just as the Ladies’ Hermitage Association rose up in 1889 to save Andrew Jackson’s estate, why did no such organization successfully lobby for the salvation of Polk Place? I suppose that the truism of the real estate business – that value is determined by “location, location, location” – ironically facilitated the home’s demise.

The Polk tomb (on the right above) once graced the lawn of the former president’s mansion. It was later moved to the grounds of the Tennessee State Capitol. (Photograph of the Polk home by Calvert Brothers Studio. Used by permission of the Tennessee State Library and Archives.)

What if the Polks’ retirement house were here today, surrounded by beautiful, well-kept grounds of even modest size? Literally millions of visitors would by now have toured the home, and James Knox Polk, rather than being relatively obscure in the presidential pantheon, would be far better known and interpreted. However, instead of enjoying a national landmark, we must confess to having spilled the milk of American history.

In a detailed article about Polk Place written for The Tennessean (“Learn Nashville,” 7-10-02), columnist George Zepp mentioned Mayor Richard Fulton‘s 1979 plan to acquire the original site and replicate the mansion. Evidently this magnanimous idea was not feasible at the time, but it seems worth revisiting today. At the least, an enterprising builder could duplicate the house – perhaps in an upscale development such as the Governors Club – using the elevations and floor plans published in the Tennessee Historical Quarterly in 1966 (pages 280-286). Perhaps such a replica already exists at some location.

Blessed with geographic significance, Nashville has expanded impressively over the years. We are justifiably proud of the landmark structures we have built and are building, yet we must be vigilant in remembering that the counterbalance of growth is destruction – and we have been excellent at that, too. In the twenty-first century a healthy respect for history will save us from more hard-to-swallow humble pie.