NEARLY A CENTENARIAN
Mr. CHARLES CARTER OF ALABAMA TELLS OF THE PAST
Mr. CHARLES CARTER OF ALABAMA TELLS OF THE PAST
A Life long Democrat Predicts That the Government 'Will Go to Pieces
(Grover) Cleveland a statesman
Mr. Charles Carter of Talladega County, Alabama recently visited his son, Mr. Charles F. Carter at the corner of Ross avenue and Crockett street. Mr. Carter was born on the 8th of May 1803 in Albermarle County, Virginia, and he is in his 90th year. Not withstanding his ripe age, he is hale and heart and his hold on vitality enabled him to travel from his home in Alabama to Dallas and from Dallas to Belton, where another son resides. He has lived through the nineteenth century, during which the nation grew from the colonial period to its present power and greatness and the most wonderful achievements which characterize this as a fast age were developed. He has been a close an intelligent observer, is a ready conversationist and a chat with him is more refreshing and interesting than perusal of the volumes of history which have been made during the period of his long and active life. Though a planter all his life he takes an active interest in politics and beginning with a two years' term as magistrate he served his county as treasurer six years and he was three terms as representative of his district in the Alabama legislature.
When a News representative called on Mr. Carter, he found him sitting on the porch in his shirt sleeves, enjoying the cool of the late afternoon, while others were comfortable in heavy coats. He extended a cordial welcome.
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When asked to what he attributed his long life, his ruddy complexion and his immunity from the feebleness of old age he replied, "To hard work, regular habits and an outdoor life."
"My friends tell me," he proceeded, that I have taken care of myself, but I tell them I have not. Taking care of people as it is understood these days kills more of them than anything else. I have used tobacco seventy years, and yet I reckon I did wrong in learning to use it. My father died when I was 18 months old. My mother was poor, and the laws of Virginia in those days excepted nothing. I received a fair education. I have been a member of the Methodist church seventy-four years, a democrat all my life, and I think my chances for the future are about as good as the chances of any of the rest of them. I don't care to live longer, only I want to vote one more time and I want to see Cleveland elected. Thomas Jefferson was president when I was born and I have lived under the administration of every president of these United States except Washington. I was married on the 15th of December 1827 to Miss F. T. Veasey of Madison county, Alabama, and my wife died in the spring of 1886 there being fifty-nine years of married life. We had thirteen children , seven of whom are living - two in Texas - and I have eighty three lineal descendants, including two great-great grandchildren."
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Mr. Carter's happy jovial nature crops out in witty expressions every now and then in his conversation. "I am one of the first families of Virginia," he said. "They all left the state and it seems they have a sorry lot now. They turned republican and went after Mahone, but I believe there is no state like old Virginia. I was thirty years ago at the old Home where I was born. I cast, my first vote for Andrew Jackson in 1824, I was simply a Jackson man. I wasn't a democrat then. I was simply a Jackson man. He won the Battle at New Orleans and he whipped the Indians and the Indians thought he was the greatest man living. I voted for him three times and I have voted for a democrat for president seventeen times and never missed going to the ballot-box for a single time. I think Jackson was one of the best presidents we ever had, but he never would have been made president if he hadn't won at the battle of New Orleans. War records made several men president and they have assisted a great many men into office. Zach Taylor was a good fighter and that was all, and so were Tippecanoe Harrison and Grant, I think people become very foolish in campaign times. I went to the Dallas convention here and got disgusted and left, but in my young days I acted as many of them did. During Polk's campaign I went with a party to a rally and we tented a whole week. He was called hickory too, and when we were on our way to the rally we stopped in a hickory thicket. There were about 1500 men in the party and we all secured hickories and serenaded the town with them. It looks foolish to me now. During Tippecanoe Harrison's campaign he was the poor man's candidate. He was represented as having a log cabin covered with coon skins and the latch string always on the outside to the poor man. The Whigs built log cabins out of poundcakes and had them at their gatherings. On one of our gatherings we got a big poke stalk and fastened it in the shaft of a wagon and tied Tippecanoe's coon by the neck and had him dangling from the top of the poke stalk. Now, what was the argument there in that? When Harrison died, John Tyler made a first-chass democratic president. He vetoed the Whigs' national bank scheme and they accused him of being a traitor to his party. But he was no traitor. He wasn't elected president and he wasn't bound to do what they wanted done."
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Conversation drifting to the present political era, Mr. Carter observed: "Cleveland has many of the traits of Jackson. He is as pure as Clay or Webster, but he has not got the hold on people that they had. He knows when he wrote that silver letter that he would be persecuted and his position on the tariff he knew would injure him, but he is bold, fearless and honest and I would as soon trust him as any man in the government. In the early days of this government we had statesmen. Judge McCormick says we have more statesmen today than we had then, but I tell him we have more politicians who will sell the government out for their own political aggrandizement than we had then. I don't believe in my fellow man as I did fifty years ago. I have lost confidence. I don't believe we are capable of self-government, and I believe this government will develop this fact. I don't like to prophecy evil, but I believe the government of the United States more than twenty-five years in its present form. I think there will be a revolution of blood or opinion and our constitution will be changed. We may drift into a monarchy. I have watched the course of this government nearly ninety years, and we have never had anything like the spectacle that is presented today. In the past we had isms and issues,We had to have them then. We had the "knownothing" ism and the United States bank and internal improvement issues, but such absurdities as confront the people now were never proposed then. Can you conceive of a republican form of government with all the people discontented? They are all restless and dissatisfied. There are too many issues and we have no statesmen who can bring about a reconciliation."
Referring to the progress of science and inventions during
the century, Mr. Carter said: About all that has been done on
that line has been accomplished within the last sixty years.
The first railroad that I knew anything about was built in 1832.
It was a line about thrity miles long, running from Mussel Shoals
to Tuscumbia. It was built of stringers laid on the ground and
flat iron placed on top of them and bolted down. There were no
cross ties. I think the building of that road broke practically
every man who had anything to do with it. I never rode on it.
My first trip in a railway car, I think was made over the Selma,
Rome and Dalton road, which the first to penetrate middle Alabama.
We made very slow time and wrecks were common. Sometimes the
wheels would pick up a rail and it would shoot through the air
and kill a lot of people. Most all travel then was by stage.
Some merchants went through on horseback to New York to buy goods.
It took three months to make the trip. They had to carry their
money with them. Before leaving they would try to get United
States money, or else when they traded in New York their state
money would be shaved. We had state banks in those days, and
under the law any man could receive acceptable indorsers [sic]
and could procure the recommendation of his representative in
the legislature to his application and could borrow any sum from
the state banks not exceeding $2000. It wasn't much trouble to
get indorsers [sic], and if the representative was a candidate
fir re-election, or for any other office it was no trouble to
get his recommendation. Some men who made acceptable indorsers
[sic] sold the use of their names/ This banking system, went
out of date, I think in 1837 and it nearly bankrupted the state
We are paying interest on money issued then to this very day.
While it was in vogue I never saw money so plentiful, but the
crisis came and I never saw money scarcer in my life. Values
depreciated by about half and you couldn't sell your property
for hardly anything. That's what inflation and booms do. It is
just like getting a man drunk and sobering up. I never knew people
to get in debt during the hard times. They always get in debt
when times are flush. That is when they buy everything they want
and if they have got the money they go in debt for it.
"There were no newspaper to speak of in my early days. We got our news by stage and it traveled very slow. The first newspaper in Alabama that I knew anything about was the Huntsville Demo. It was established by W. B. Long, a Kentuckian, and one of the brightest young men I ever knew. I saw a copy of one of the first issues fifteen or twenty years ago and I wish you could have seen it. I tried to buy it but the party who had it wouldn't give it up. It was printed on two sheets about the size of fools cap and it was full of advertisements about runaway negroes. Long was finally elected to the legislature, but he died before he began his term office. His partner continued the paper and it is running yet.
"I could tell you enough to fill a volume, young man," he continued. "The first gin I ever saw was in Virginia. It had about ten saws I think. I remember my grandmother had a big bag of cotton that you wanted to have ginned, and we boys had a bog squabble over who should enjoy the novelty of going to the gin. I got to go, I remember, and I had to wait a long time before I could get my cotton. When I went to Alabama, which was then known as the Mississippi territory, in 1813, comparatively little cotton was raised. In those days we couldn't gin over one bale a day. We got it to market by hauling it ten miles to Whitesburgand loading it on the Tennessee river on flatboats and sending it around by Memphis to New Orleans. John Terry, who is now living back there, was a steersman and he made money boating cotton.
"I remember when the first telegraph came about. We didn't believe in it. People were mightily divided on the question of its success and we used to have some warm discussions over it. I don't like to prophesy about electricity. I don't know what they may do with it, but I am sort of a skeptic yet on some inventions."
Then
Mr. Carter told of his dealings with the Indians and his observations of their
characteristics. "I bought land in 1835 from Tallasehadgo and Archie
Leslie, one-half section from each. They were Creek Indians and Tallasehadgo
was the last Indian to sell in that county. When I first went to him with
an interpreter to negotiate about buying the land his wife overheard the conversation
and she came tearing out and I never heard a woman go on at such a rate. My
interpreter told me it was no use, the old woman spoiled the business, But
afterward I learned I made a good impression on Tallasehadgo and he stuck
to me to the last. His wife told me she would be over the next day to see
my wife. I told her she could come, but I knew she wouldn't like my wife because
she was so ugly. The next day, sure enough, here come Tallasehadgo and his
wife. As soon as she saw my wife she commenced laughing. "Why,"
says she, "she's a good looking woman and the only thing about her that
makes we wonder is that she took you as a husband." I told her there
was nothing ugly about me but my ears. "Yes," she says, "and
I want them for saddle skirts." She was as sharp as a briar, and I tell
you, while Indians are not educated, they are naturally smart. Tallasehadgo
wouldn't sell it to me for a long time. He allowed me to live on his land,
and he told me he would some day sell to me. He was an indian of strict integrity.
Others tried to buy the land, but he wouldn't sell to them. He kept his promise
to let me have the land, and I am living on it to this day.
" Mr. Carter is familiar with
the political situation in Texas. His son, Mr. C.F. Carter of Dallas is supporting
Geo. Clark for governor while his other son living at Belton, is a Hog supporter,
and therefore the old gentlemen remains neutral on the subject of Texas politics.
"I like Texas and her people," he said, " and if I was a young
man again I expect I would live here, but there are some things her I don't
like. The son tells me that you have courts running all the time and you have
the worst water in Texas I ever saw. The grand juries, I am told, hold six
weeks' sessions. It is bad enough where I live but it must be worse here.
A week's session of the grand jury is long enough for us; but then it used
to be said that all of our bad people left us and came to Texas," saying
which he laughed.