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MEMOIR.

A SKETCH

LIFE AND CHARACTER

OF THE LATE

JOSEPH B. SKINNER.

BY HIS BEOTHEE,
THOMAS H. SKINNEE.

NEW-YOEK:
E. FEENOH, 12 BIBLE HOUSE, ASTOE PLACE.
1853.

-^T-HJ

.TOIIX F. TBOW,
rKINTEE AND STKKEOTTI'EK.
49 Aim-street, New-Vork.

A few only of the early acquaintances of the
subject of this memoir survive him. They know
what he was in the vigor, force, and diversified
spheres of his activity. Those whose personal
knowledge of him was limited to the years of
suffering and infirmity which formed so large a
part of his life, can have but a faint impression
of his individuality as a whole.

MEMOIR.

"T HAVE often thought," says Dr. Johnson, " that
-¦- there has rarely passed a life, of which a judi
cious and faithful narrative would not be useful."
This would doubtless be a true judgment, if it were
restricted to good lives, and society suffers loss for
the want of such records. There is improvidence
as well as ingratitude and injustice, in the gene
ral fact, that very soon after the eye has ceased
to look upon their persons, "there is no remem
brance of the wise more than of the fool," of the
good and the useful more than the worthless. Those
of the forgotten dead who faithfully finished their
course, are useful still by the results of their acti
vity, and might be also by the continued influence
of their good examples, if suitable narratives of their
lives had been preserved.

MEMOIR.

"T HAVE often thought," says Dr. Johnson, " that
-L there has rarely passed a life, of which a judi
cious and faithful narrative would not be useful."
This would doubtless be a true judgment, if it were
restricted to good lives, and society suffers loss for
the want of such records. There is improvidence
as well as ingratitude and injustice, in the gene-
I'al fact, that very soon after the eye has ceased
to look upon their persons, "there is no remem
brance of the wise more than of the fool," of the
good and the useful more than the worthless. Those
of the forgotten dead who faithfully finished their
course, are useful still by the results of their acti
vity, and might be also by the continued influence
of their good examples, if suitable narratives of their
lives had been preserved.

MEMOIE.

I write a short memoir of a very singular man ;
a man unusually interesting and dear to his acquaint
ance ; and whose singularity, in every thing strik
ing, was pre-eminently so in his modes of showing
kindness and doing good. E"or was he undistin
guished as to his position . and sphere. Without
seeking promotion, which, for its own sake, his na
ture never inclined him to seek, he rose to it spon
taneously by an internal upward force ; and his in
fluence was widely felt, not only in offices of friend
ship and affection, but in legislation, in jurisprudence,
in agriculture, and in enterprises of business and
beneficence. The memory of such a man deserves
some other monument than the mere record of his
name, birth, and death on the stone, beneath which
his cold and silent dust reposes.* I attempt what
I wish some other person had properly performed ;
for I am to speak of a brother greatly beloved and

* I do not intend to intimate that more than these in this place
were to be desired. Tombstones do not keep, are not expected to
keep, the Ninth Commandment. " If a man has left monuments
of himself, in valuable works of any kind, an inscribed and figured
piece of stone seems an idi^ superfluity. If he has not left such
memorials, the monument will be of no use to his name in future
times. Nothing is more notorious than the utter unworthiness of

JIE3I0IB. 9
revered, and may find it difficult to be impartial.
I do what ought to be done by some one, because
I fear it would otherwise remain undone. I shall
aim at an e?;act representation of him, assured that
this, whatever faults it may include, will be more
than sufficient to gratify my fondest partiality. Of
the matters of fact which I record I have certainty ;
my inferences and judgments are according to con
victions which I cannot resist.
Joseph Bloujstt was the eldest child of Joshua
and Maktha Ann Skinnek, of Harvey's IS'eck.*
His middle name, Blount, was the maiden surname
of his mother, a descendant of an English family of
high reputation.f At his birth, his father, who was
always inclined to piety, and who was a man of
quick and ardent feelings, devoted him to God in a

faith, which, as a general fact, is chargeable on monumental tributes.
It is so notorious, that any particular monument which may bear a
true testimony, will fall hereafter under the same incredulity, unless
it is verified by other known and convincing memorials." — John
Foster. * Appendix A.
f Tradition places her in the lineage of Sir Harry Blount, of
Queen Elizabeth's times.

10 MEMOIE.
transport of natural joy, which vented itself in tears
and thanksgivings. He was baptized in infancy by
a minister of the Church of England.
His youth, though never intractable or way
ward, was marked like his maturer life, by uncom
mon force and independence. It required and it
was subjected to strong government: energy of will
was a characteristic of his father: strenuous disci
pline taught him obedience and self-control. He had
the advantage of early culture. His father, though
not a liberally-educated man, had a strong sense of
the value of education, and his delight in his most
promising son suggested the highest ideal of an edu
cation for him, that he was capable of conceiving.
He was sent to the best schools. His improvement
was very rapid. In his thirteenth year, he was ad
mitted into Nassau Hall, Princeton, then under the
presidency of Dr. Stanhope Smith.* The president
thought him too young, but this objection was over
ruled by the maturity and fulness of his preparation.

* Clarum et venerahile nomen. Among the most eminent presi
dents of Nassau Hall — Davies, Edwards, Burr, Witherspoon —
Samuel Stanhope Smith, the son-in-law of the last, has no inferior
place. In learning and religion — a burning and shining light — an
honor to his country and his age.

MEMOIE. 1 1
He did not complete the college course — a great
disadvantage, which he always deeply regretted.
It was truly to be deplored, that a mind so bright
and energetic as his, should have been imperfectly
regulated and disciplined in its early youth. The
cause was pecuniary extravagance, or what was so in
his father's judgment. It is not known that he
incurred censure from the faculty, or was in any
respect obnoxious to censure from them. He left
college in high repute with them and with his
fellow-students.* He was recalled by his father, on
account of debts which he had contracted, and per
haps from apprehension, possibly misapprehension,
as to the habits which, as cause or consequence,
might be connected with such imprudence. His
father was not a little displeased with him, and
showed his displeasure in a most effective manner,
by obliging him to exchange the activities of the

* He made acquaintances in college, who became much distin
guished. Among these were the Hon. William Gaston and the Hon.
Frederick Nash, with whom he always lived in strict friendship.
" I met him for the first time," says Judge Nash, " at Princeton,
New Jersey, in 1796, a bright, blooming, and animated boy. I
thought him one of the handsomest youths I had ever seen." — See
the Judge's letter in the Appendix.

12 MEMOIE.
mind for those of manual work. The young col
legian was set to his task with laborers in the
field. The father and the son resembled each other in
strength of will ; yet the son, with a docility as wise
as it was filial, yielded a cheerful submission to the
father's stern authority. He was never happier at
his studies, or in intercourse with his college asso
ciates, than he now was in directing the plough. I
do not think that in this he was influenced by a
calculating policy ; his conduct was but true to him,
for will in him always dwelt with a ruling sense of
the fit and the right ; but neither can I think that
he was blind to the fact, that he was pursuing the
course of expediency. He was even in youth aston
ishingly quick in understanding human nature. He
was acquainted with his father's peculiarity, and
could not but know that obedience to him was
better than insubordination. His punishment was
of short duration. The father became more de
lighted with him than he had ever been. Seeing
his noble son so amiably submissive to his austere
requisition, he was unable to refrain himself.
While diligently employed in his rough work in the
field, he went to him with seeming severity of man
ner, assumed to repress a heart-breaking affection

MEMOIE. 13
which otherwise might have overcome him, autho
ritatively bade him leave the plough, even thrust
him away from it, and then silently wept with new
love for his precious child. His offence was ex
piated ; his field-labors were over.
But what course with respect to him was now
to be taken ? His academical education was not to
be resumed ; he was not to be sent back to college.
Probably it was thought that he was sufficiently
advanced. He had been, if I do not miscalculate,
at least three years at Princeton, and had not been
negligent of his advantages. He was certainly
better prepared than the generality of graduates to
begin a professional education ; and to this in his
eighteenth year, he applied himself. It is impos
sible for me to think that this course was wise ; but
if he was to enter so soon on the next stage of his
studies, a better direction to them could hardly
have been asked, than that which through an aus
picious Providence they received. It was deter
mined, in coincidence, doubtless, with his own
strong preference, that his profession was to be the
law. Here, I think, there was no mistake ; and
there was none, certainly — there was a peculiarly ju
dicious and desirable arrangement — in reference to
the guidance and ordering of his preparatory law

14 MEMOIE.
course. It was his privilege, after atoning so satis
factorily for his college excesses, to pass a year or
more with an uncle — a man of uncommon discern
ment, who took a peculiar pride in this interesting
young relative, and became attached to him very
closely.* By the advice and agency of this uncle,
he became a pupil and an inmate in the family of
Governor Samuel Johnston, who had filled the high
est civil offices, and who, in all respects, now occupied
the summit of power and influence in the State. It
was, if I mistake not, on proposing the measure of
his becoming a law student under Governor John
ston, that his uncle remarked to his father, with an
intelligence which proved to be prophetic, " I fore
see that this boy of yours is to be the stay and pride
of both our families."
It was a very rare advantage to him — doubtless
the chief and most valuable one of his early life,
that he was brought so completely and effectively
under the influence of such a man as Governor
Johnston. He was susceptible to no influence more
than to that of example and society. Though he
kept his own individuality, and was always and
every where felt by others more than they were by
* Appendix B.

MEMOIE. 15
him, he was pre-eminently social, and nothing con
tributed SO much to the formation of his character
and habits, nothing was so essential to his happi
ness, as intercourse with persons congenial with him
self, and who commanded his regard. This aptitude
of his nature was now perfectly met. He could
hardly have desired circumstances more suited to
his taste, or better adapted to improve and advance
him in all respects. The Governor was a man of
high education; learned not only in law, but in
politics, in history, in philosophy ; but more than
all, so far as his influence on his pupil was con
cerned, he was a man of large acquaintance with
mankind, of a highly cultivated character, of re
fined manners, of personal dignity, and of the most
honorable connections and relationships. His do
mestic sphere, too, had unrivalled attractions. There
was not a family in the State where polite life had
a purer or richer development; where refinement
or honor in either sex had a superior exhibition.
It was in its highest stage when our young student
of law was admitted into it. A school more to his
mind, or of greater force to form his character, and
fit him for the stage he was to act on in life, could
not have been found.
He was not insensible to the great advantages

16 MEMOIE.
of his situation ; he knew how to avail himself of
them ; he was true to himself. Deferential to his
distinguished superior, he commanded respect from
him by the activity and force of his mind, and by
his general bearing, which was in every thing
manly, independent, proper, attractive. He became
a favorite Avith his new acquaintances. He was uni
versally acceptable. The Governor became his
warm and earnest and permanent friend.
In these circumstances, in aU respects so agree
able, so auspicious, his education advanced with
proportional rapidity. He learnt the law, he learnt
human life, he learnt mankind ; he formed relation
ships, he acquired knowledge of the world, which,
in after life, yielded him invaluable advantage.
After two years, the regular term of preparatory
study, he was admitted to the practice of the law.
He was not quite twenty-one years of age. His
new circumstances were suited to give the most
favorable exercise to his powers — to display advan
tageously his very energetic, fruitful, active mind.
The bar was a strong one ; Brown, Gaston, Stanley,
Blair, adorned it. It was quickened and strength
ened by his accession to it. He was never ambi
tious ; he envied no one ; excellence in others could
not but move him to emulation ; but this did not

MEMOIE. 1 7
hinder him from appreciating and rejoicing in their
gifts, as if they were his own : still nature in him
could not act in a low sphere ; and without aiming
to put any one "below him, it would have denied
itself by taking an inferior position. It was im
possible for him to content himself with a low stand
ard of professional activity. Young as he was, he
was a stimulant from the first, both to the bar and
the bench.
One of the first, if not the very first, of his
speeches in court, gave him great precedence — a
fine beginning to his most successful career. The
case was one of much importance ; a large amount
of property was involved. One of the parties liti
gant was a man of great wealth and greater weight
of character, for whom he had the profoundest
respect. He could probably have had no special
agency in the suit, if he had not volunteered to
plead on the other side for nothing. He was to be
the last speaker. The prospects of his client were
forlorn. Powerful advocates on the adverse part
had given to the wrong the fairest appearance of
right. His speech reversed this appearance; his
client gained the cause. The great loss to the vene
rable man, his personal friend, whose interest he
opposed, was the occasion of greater gain to him.

1 8 MEMOIE.
He intended, he anticipated this result. He had
studied the case, apprehended its merits, felt in him
self that he could make its merits manifest, and he
could not doubt that if he should do so, the conse
quence which he had in view would be realized.
" Joe," said the unsuccessful party, speaking as his
familiarity with him warranted, " you must not take
another fee against me." " I have not taken a fee,"
he replied ; " I appeared for my client for nothing."
" Then," said the other, " you must not appear
against me again." " That, sir," he answered, " shall
be as you please." He was ever afterwards the
counsel of this most estimable man, one of his best
friends, whose business yielded him no small part of
his annual income from professional practice.*
Never was any one's individuality as a lawyer
more distinctively or strongly marked. It was not
in him to imitate any one, or borrow from any one.
In one respect, no man was more a debtor to others.
They stimulated him; their examples were sug
gestive — their wisdom and their mistakes, were
alike useful to him ; he was instructed, corrected, ad
monished, and encouraged by intercourse with them ;

¦ Appendix C.

MEMOIE. 19
but as masters or authorities to prescribe to him, or
as patterns to be followed by him, they were infi
nitely far from his thought. He was, if any one
ever has been, unique and original. As a practi
tioner, his independence was in every thing active
and predominant. In engaging himself as an advo
cate,* in preparing his case, in graduating his
charges,f in his pleas, arguments, use of precedents.

* Judge Nash's remark (see Appendix), " That those he thought
mean, he despised and avoided, and would have no intercourse with
them," is applicable to his appearance as an advocate. " High-
minded and honorable, he could not tolerate a mean action." How
could he then employ his great powers as a pleader in giving any
form of meanness or injustice a triumph ! A man when I was with
him as a student, sought his advocacy ; he required him to tell his
story. When he had finished, he said to him promptly, " You have
been telling me a falsehood ; now tell me the truth." The man va
ried his narrative. " Do you think me scoundrel enough," said he,
" to accept a fee in such a case as yours ? "
f Soon after he began his practice, a friend of his, a senior at the
bar, who had been charging for his services more than the applicant
was willing to pay, suggested to him when he saw that the man was
about to apply to him, that he ought not to charge less. " I shall,"
he said, "judge when the case comes before me.'' He became the
poor man's counsel for about one-tenth of what his friend had de
manded ; and as he told him, regarded himself as well paid. The
rate of his charges was determined by the demands which his cases

20 MEMOIE.
diction, elocution, he was like himself; followed and
exhibited his own peculiar personality ; and whether
he was a pattern to others or not, no one certainly
was a pattern to him. The independence, the origi
nality, the spontaneousness of his professional ac
tivity, one could no more doubt than its triumphant
force and effectiveness.
He was, in the purest sense of the term, a phi
losophical lawyer. He made no display of philoso
phical knowledge; he made httle use of technical
language ; his common speech was that of common
sense, but he had much sense that was not common.
He was truly, as Judge Nash says of him, with ad
mirable discrimination, "profoundly imbued with
the principles of the law." He was constitutionally
inclined to analysis ; whatever he examined, he ex
amined minutely, and in thorough detail ; he could
not cease from an investigation on which he had
made on his professional talents and appHcation, and they were
sometimes much lower, and again very much higher than to others
seemed equitable. What his clients might think reasonable, or
what competitors might be willing to appear for, he did not concern
himself with; his decisions rested on grounds independent of
what theirs might be, and if ever they were changed or modified,
it was not before, but after trial had shown him that they ought
to be.

MEMOIE. 21
seriously entered, until he had seen quite through
the object of his attention, and enabled himself as
far as possible to resolve it into its elements and
principles. Thus he had studied law ; thus he con
tinued to study it, and to study every thing to which
he earnestly applied his mind. He could not stop
short of a principle in the examination of particulars ;
the principle was to him the meaning of the parti
culars. Hence, chiefly, the power which he exerted
in discourse, and especially at the bar. If in speaking
his f(5rce was great, it was so mainly because his
knowledge of his case and of every thing pertaining
to it, was complete. He knew well the science of
his profession, and the science, if I may so speak, of
each particular case in his practice, though he made
little exhibition of the form of science.
He was not a rapid or fluent speaker ; he did not
study beauty, or wit, or gesture ; he gave no thought
to his manner, which minute criticism could not al
ways approve. The commanding character of his
speaking was earnestness, intensity of effort to carry
his point, and this was so commanding, that it hin
dered himself and his hearers alike from paying the
slightest attention to his style or elocution. The
peculiarity of his diction was that which a powerful

22 MEMOIR.
writer ascribes to his own* — " Its verity to the ideas ;
its being composed of words and constructions pre
cisely and directly fitted to the thoughts, with a per
fect disregard to any general model." A fitness, it
may be added, unstudied, undesigned, spontaneous —
the natural effect of his own internal force, under
the stimulus of the occasion, and of the end to which
it was directed. What he said and what he omitted
to say, his entire performance, positive and negative,
in matter and manner, had its ground and reason in
the absorption of his mind in his work, — the earnest
ness with which he sought to gain his point. Nature
in him would be predominant. His speaking was
scarcely less natural than his breathing.
It was in every thing full of life. There was
intense vivacity in his eye, in the tones of his voice,
in his pauses, even in his hesitations and imperfec
tions of language. It was alike manifest, that
he had command of his subject, and that his
subject had possession of him; it animated, per
vaded, filled, every power of his mind. Imagination
adequately aided and recommended his reasoning.
It seldom gave elaborate pictures, but it threw a
warm coloring over every part, and produced,
* John Foster.

MEMOIE.

when they were required, graphic, picturesque, spir
ited descriptions. He had uncommon talent, which
he seemed to exert without any effort or intention,
in enlivening his representations, by noting minute
circumstances, by short similes, and by rhetorical
epithets. By these means he could brighten and
vivify with equal success and equal ease, the ridic
ulous, the atrocious, the painful, the agreeable, so
that they would have on the hearers the effect of
actual life and presence. The facility and natural
ness with which he could describe scenes and occur
rences, with which he could color and animate the
expression of his thoughts, formed a prominent ele
ment of his power in speaking.
Another element was his knowledge of human
nature; of no less importance to a speaker than
knowledge of his subject. In this respect, it is dif
ficult to be just to him without giving the impres
sion of being very excessively eulogistic. What I
say of him I am sure will find the fullest acceptation
from those who knew him best. The ability to un
derstand man seemed, as it existed in him, to be a
distinctive power of his own. He did not know
others only by studying them, or by comparing
them with one another, or by intercourse with them
— a man revealed himself to him by his mere pres-

24 MEMOIR.
ence ; he needed no words, no works, no actions,
nothing but the man's becoming visible, in order to
know substantiall}" what he was at the first sight.
I have, when travelling with him, often trembled at
the liberties he would take with strangers, but the
result invariably showed that, except as to their
names and private histories, they were not strangers
to him.* He took liberties only with such as were

* On a journey in the mountains of Pennsylvania, we stopped
at a place where mutton was promised us for dinner. The promise
was exacted and given with very marked emphasis. On the table
there was meat which, we supposed, was mutton, but its taste more
resembled that of pork. The inn-keeper was called : " Where," he
asked, " is the mutton you promised me ? " " Before you, sir."
There were many peisons at the table. He put into the man's hand
a fork, with a piece of the meat on it, and bade him eat it with an
authority which seemed to take away all liberty from the man, who
put the meat into his mouth, the company staring and wondering,
chewed it thoroughly and swallowed it. Then said he to him,
" What think you now— is it mutton?" The man awoke from the
spell he had been put under ; but, instead of becoming angry, he left
the room in a fit of laughter. The company were greatly relieved
by this termination of the strange scene. I said to my brother,
when we were alone, " You took great freedom with our inn-keeper :
we were all in a tremor as to the result." "You must know your
man," he said. How he got his knowledge of his man, I could not
understand.

MEMOIE. 25
open to liberties. Persons of worth and character
invariably commanded his respectful regard. Of
this wonderful insight into men, he availed himself
in pleading, and especially when he was addressing
juries. Juries to his view were not only discrim
inated from one another, but in the same jury, one
man, or two, or three, would be discriminated
from the rest, and the individuality of each would
be carefully consulted, and while proper attention
was given to all^ the address would be shaped with
special adaptation to such as he saw it to be most
important to convince. This was not done by him
with any unfairness or improper policy ; if he took
advantage of his knowledge of the idiosyncrasies
of his hearers, it was to hinder them from exerting
an influence against the right. He was a skilful,
wise, astute pleader, but he was not a sophist; he
would have been weak if he had been insincere or
untrue to his convictions. Nature in him could
bear no violation; he was constitutionally honest,
true, transparent, and his whole personality was in
fused into his speaking.
His eminence as a lawyer did not appear greater
in addressing juries than in discussing points of law
and in giving counsel. His knowledge was theo
retic, abstract (the knowledge of principles, causes,

26 MEMOIE.
reasons), as well as practical. He understood the
law yet better in its comprehensiveness, its philo
sophy, than he did in its details, and he was quite as
much at home when the learned bench was his
auditory, as when he spoke to plain, unlettered jury
men. And the wisdom and soundness of his opin
ions brought him more business in private than
the court-docket ascribed to him, though that gen
erally could not have represented him as having
more, without giving his agency to both plaintift'
and defendant. His pre-eminence as a counsellor
and an adviser was even greater than his pi-e-emi-
nence as a pleader.
He was often in the State Legislature, and as to
his position and influence there. Judge Nash thus
speaks : " At the time he entered into public life, Mr.
Skinner was stiU a young man ; but he entered with
a mind and character which immediately placed him
with the ablest men in the Legislature, and there
were many of the highest range of intellect. His
mind Avas eminently practical, and he brought to the
discussion of the various matters engaging the atten
tion of the Legislature, a fund of knoAvledge, of
principles, and facts, Avhicli occasioned him always
to 1je listened to AA'itli profound attention."*
* See the Judge's letter in the Appendix.

MEMOIE. 27
His connection with the Legislature, Avhich be
gan in .1801, when he was not quite of age, Avas
repeated in several years, until 1833. In 1814, he
distinguished himself by his defence of the State
Bank against the attacks of its adversaries, who
introduced several bills with the design of destroy
ing it. An extensive system of banking, which
Avas characterized as a mammoth bank, was to be
established in place of it. The chief advocate of
this plan was a very eminent man^ — a powerful
speaker, Avhose main instruments of strength on this
occasion, as they were very often, were wit and
satire, of which he had an extraordinary command.
He had made a masterly speech of its kind, in sup
port of the mammoth bank measure. Mr. Skinner
thought it his duty to answer him ; he Avas very re
luctant to undertake the task ; but as it was declined
by others, to whom it more properly belonged, he
could not but put himself in opposition to what he
was strongly convinced was against the public good.
His answer was characteristic. Whether able to meet
his distinguished opponent or not, with weapons at
Avhich the latter was so expert, he not only declined
employing them now, but insisted that the merits
of the matter demanded the laying of them aside,
and required rather the soberest strain of thought

28 MEMOIE.
and consideration ; limited himself, and begged his
hearers to do the same on their part, tp grave
and solid arguments as the only fitting ones, to the
jealous avoidance of irrelevant sallies of wit ; strictly
bound his adversary to do the same in his reply,
charged his readers to note whether he did so,
whether he met argument with argument in place
of satire, or whether satire alone was his argu
ment. The speech was triumphant. The mam
moth bank bill was demolished. Judge Nash, who
heard this speech, says, that it made an impression
on him, which has caused him to remember both it
and the speaker with pleasure and pride.
In 1835, he was a prominent member of the
State Convention for amending the Constitution;
and, as the journal of the proceedings shows, his
activity in it was prominent. Here, however, as
well as in the Legislature, his most arduous labors
were performed at the committee-rooms, in pre
paring business for the meetings. The toil AA'hich
he endured in performing these onerous, unnoticed,
unappreciated labors, that almost overbore and con
sumed him, was a privilege to him, as being a serA'ice
done for the State. It was natural for him to forget
himself Avhen engaged in offices of public utility.
In 1824, he relinquished the practice of the laAv.

MEMOIE. 29
He probably would not and ought not to have done
this, if he could have thought himself at entire
liberty with respect to it. An annual attack of
fever, which became more and more severe CA^ery
season, obliged him to be absent from the Summer
and Autumnal courts, an interference with court
business too serious to admit of his making himself
responsible as a stated agent in it. After twenty-
three years of laborious occupation in its duties, his
professional hfe, on this account, was ended. He did
not, however, cease from the exercise of his eminent
gifts as a jurist. He continued to give advice with
out charge, and in other ways to subserve gratui
tously the interests of justice and equity, until his
health altogether failed.
His professional labor had not been unproductive
to himself. He rapidly rose to affluence, the fruit
exclusiA^ely of his own industry — the systematic,
steady, and most strenuous application to the busi
ness of his calling. He became wealthy, as the nat
ural result of his aptitudes for business, applied as
they were by his mode of activity. He gave him
self directly not to the pursuit of wealth, but to the
functions of his profession, and it was his manner of
performing them that conducted him to fortune.

30 MEMOIE.
He began Avith nothing, his resources Avere in him
self and in his opportunities ; he made full proof of
them, and they bore him forward to affluence as on
a tide taken at the flood. He did not owe his ad
vancement to his marriage, or to any fortunate
ventures or chances. His marriage gave him an in
terest in a small estate, which, for the sake of others,
he improved ; but his career of success, already tri
umphant, led on to his marriage, was its cause rather
than its effect ; and independently of advantages
from his marriage, which in all respects was most
happy, continued to advance with constantly in
creasing fulness and force, blessing with domestic
abundance those with whom he had become con
nected in his new social relations. Under the direc
tion of a benign and favoring Providence, his suc
cess was entirely from the just use of his talents and
opportunities. He had a surprising tact for business, which was
itself the most A^aluable of his talents, and his
manner of applying himself to business — the ex
actness, fidelity, and efficiency with which he
executed business, brought him into such demand
from those who had business to be discharged
by others' agency, that if he could haA^e dupli
cated himself more than once, he would hardly

MEALOIE. 31
have been able to serve all who desired to engage
him.* His habits of business were determined by
a two-fold force — one from the quantity of work on
his hands necessitating the most perfect economy of
time, the other from within himself, — a constitutional
energy, which in the presence of so much work to be
done could not but put itself forth in the intensest
mode of exercise. He rose very early, and despatched
by candle-light a large amount of correspondence and
of preparations for trial. He continued his occupa
tion till dinner, studying cases and receiving visits
on business. When several visitors came, as they
*He obtained near the beirinnino' of his course great favor
with the Friends, which he never lost, and which in more ways than
one, was very useful to him, by his defence of some free negroes
who were to have been sold as others had been under authority
supposed to be given by an act of the Legislauire. He remarked
to some one, that the act was misapplied, and did not justify the
sale. Very soon, a most honorable deputation from the society of
the Friends, waited on him, to engage him as the advocate of the
negroes. He consented to appear for them, for the value of a
year's hire of each that he should hinder fi-om being sold. They
all, under his advocacy, regained their fi'eedom. The pecuniary
avails to himself surprised him by their amount; but they were
only the beginning of his incomes from the business of Friends.
From every quarter they applied to him as an attorney, and never
ceased showing him their respect and their gratitude.

'>J MEMOIE.
often did, at the same hour, he would attend thor
oughly to one, and then politely request him to with
draw without delay, that he might give himself to
another who was waiting to see him. Sometimes his
engagements in his office would allow him to s^Deak
to no visitor, and if on these occasions one came
to him, he would at once perceive that whoever he
might be, he could not make himself then an object
of notice, and would presently withdraAV and wait
till the season of absorption in his work Avas past.*
It was remarkable, it was worthy of admiration,
that a man of so much passion as belonged to him,
should have been as subject as he was to the stern
command of principle and system — the rule of rig
orous and inflexible determination. He has often
appeared to me as worthy of a lasting memorial, if
it was but for his being an instance of the highest
form of self-control. He was profoundly excitable,
* I was sometimes, when a student of ¦ law under his direc
tion, much troubled lest his absolute non-attention to very I'espect-
able persons, might give them lasting offence. Even Mr. Collins,
whom he respected more perhaps than any man, could not always
gain his notice. I have known the old gentleman to enter the
room, wait some moments, and then depart, without getting from
him more than the common, "good morning, sii-."

MEMOIE. 33
but there was no permanent, paramount despotism
over him but the despotism of Avill, of reason. He
had appetites of unsurpassed strength ; but he said
to indulgence, " thus far, and no farther," and if at
any time it did not obey his decree, he had revenge
in reserve for it. It was a law of his life, not to
forget any thing which he was concerned to attend
to ; he once forgot a paper, of no great importance,
which he was to bring with him from court; he
punished himself, by a sixty miles' drive, that he
might teach himself not to repeat such an inattention.
The value of discipline was to him above the price
of gold : How often have I heard him remark when
suffering most severely from providential disappoint
ment, that the suffering was a greater treasure than
the highest gratification in its stead would have been.
Taking the whole of his life together, his measure of
indulgence Avas excessive ; he saw and deplored this
in his later years ; yet in particular parts of his life,
and also in the whole, I have not known an example
of " reason in passion," by which his was surpassed.
The union of these was the chief former of his indi
viduality ; his very self would have disappeared by
the absence of either.
His rule over himself AA^as as absolute in his time

34 MEMOIR.
of indulgence as it was in respect to business. He
would be entirely disengaged and at leisure Avhen
the hours for his being so arrived : No matters, no
visits of business could have his attention when he
was to be at dinner. His inexorableness in this
respect became so Avell known that his relaxations
were always unmolested ; persons wishing to see
him on business came before dinner. The after part
of the day, though also given ordinarily to business
of some kind, was comparatively a season of repose.
He had much company ; but though the freedom
of the house was given to his guests, his hospitality
was tempered by the general force of his character,
which in all circumstances could not but have been
felt, and the impression it made generally secured a
deportment toward himself of mingled ease and re
straint. He was convivial, deferential, attentive to
every one ; all were cheerful and happy in his socie
ty ; but hilarity in his mansion was not noisy ; reli
gion was associated with repasts ; at table the bless
ing of God was asked, and thanks to Him were
offered. His company was various ; in court time,
the judges and the bar, at religious anniversaries,
the clergy, were iuAdted to dine with him. At a
meeting of the Methodist Conference in the neigh
boring village, more than twenty of its membei's

MEMOIR. 35
A\ere entertained hj him during the session. His
noble liberality exposed him to occasional calls from
persons who did not know Avliat manners Avere due
to him, but he knew hoAV to treat them, and no
one could take liberty with him more than once
It required an uncommonly stu^^id vulgarity to do it
even once.
His style of liA'ing, though very generous, was
strikingly the reverse of being ambitious or osten
tatious. There was abundance of every thing,
and the quality was as the amount, but simplicity,
not elegant luxuriance, was the characteristic of
his domestic life. Splendor of living, the reputa
tion of affluence, display, he did not aspire to, any
more than to public distinction and celebrity. He
did not despise these in other persons who had sub
stantial worth in themselves ; among his most inti
mate friends there were not a few at the height of
external refinement and elegance; but though he
Avas by nature inclined to the highest forms of ex
cellence in every thing, he had no love for elegant
display in his . own mode of life ; and had his for
tune been more than sufficient to sustain the style
of titled nobility, he would not have used it for such
a purpose. His mansion wanted nothing that Avas

36 MEMOIE.
essential to substantial enjoyment ; it included noth
ing that was offensive to simplicity ; but it did not
offer indulgence to the love of elegance. He had a
high relish of true art, but his nature in the position
which he held in society, disinclined him to the dis
play of art, and he was in every thing subject to
his nature. Besides, pleased as he was with art, he
was not a connoisseur^ and he could not have pre
tended to be what in his own consciousness he was
not. He could have lived in sumptuous elegance ;
but he could not have chosen a style of living which
would have misrepresented either his intellectual or
his aesthetic and moral interior. He was doubtless
unconscious of any moral hindrance ; yet I cannot
but think it probable, that one over whom reason
and judgment had so strong a control did deliberate
ly think that he could make a worthier use of his
means, than to apply them in his circumstances to
the maintenance of a splendid domestic establish
ment. He was not, in the technical sense of the words,
a man of conscience ' that is to say, conscience was
not the commanding poAver in his nature. As near
ly as any one it has been my happiness to know, he
Avas a purely honest man ; to know him Avas to trust

MEMOIE. 37
in him ; his word was inviolable ; he Avas a terrible
unmasker of dishonesty ; but, yet, he was not a man
of conscience because he was more — his conscience
itself received light and authority from a higher law
— higher in his constitution, — the law of greatness of
soul. Not by conscience or a sense of duty, or by
benevolence, as commonly understood, but by an
interior nobleness of spirit was this peculiar man
ruled and characterized. At the risk of being thought
extravagantly partial, I cannot forbear ascribing this
high distinction to him — from my very earliest recol
lections, it has been my privilege to be the perpetual
observer and admirer of^ so far as I know, its un
paralleled manifestations. He stands before my mind
in the past, dating from 1803, and thenceforward till
he died, as an agent of good to others in manifold
forms, and always as exerting benign influences not
so much from any distinctive motive as from his na
ture itself, as the sun shines because it is his nature
to shine. Like every other man, he has been an
agent of what is not good, but of good performed of
his own spontaneity and in his own way, his life for
half a century was constantly giving instances.
Anticipating his retirement from the labors of
liis profession, he had some years previously to it

38 MEMOIE.
been preparing for himself another sphere of activi
ty — that of a planter, for which he had always felt
a strong affinitj\ He commenced his second career
before he had finished the other, the termination of
which was doubtless hastened by the very lively
interest which he had in agriculture. His energy
here revealed itself as efficiently as it had done at the
bar. His course still was that of originality and in
dependence. His incentiA^e was peculiar ; it Avas not
to increase his fortune, which was already large
enough to satisfy him, but to please his taste, to give
himself agreeable and useful occupation, to improve
the mode of farming, to teach his neighbors, at least,
a better mode, by his example. His ideas in regard
to farming were at first thought to be chimerical.
His neighbors and friends were startled by what
they supposed to be contempt of experience; so
they interpreted experiments Avhich he made for the
purpose of enlarging experience.'"' He intended to
* The extent of experience is to be measured, not by the num
ber of the repetitions of an experiment, but by the number of in
stances in which difierent experiments, both in the same and other
things, have been made. His uncle used to ridicule the former no
tion of experience, by a fictitious story — that of a boy who in carry
ing his grain to the mill, put that in one end of the sack and a
counter-weinht of stone in the other : When some one a^ked the bov

MEMOIE. 39
apply science to agriculture ; a comprehensive expe
riment involving many particular ones, and as a con
sequence, multiplying lessons of experience. He
did this in anticipation of the aids which chemistry
has of late contributed to make agriculture a scien
tific pursuit. Those who twenty or thirty years ago
left the beaten path of farming, a path still too
much trodden — that of wearing out cleared land
and then clearing new, had to depend altogether on
their own observations of the results of self-sug
gested experiments. They of course were often un
successful ; a fact which discouraged from imitation
others of less enterprise, and established the generali
ty in their prejudice against innovation. When Mr.
Skinner purchased his plantation, even his friends,
who thought he had made a bad bargain, predicted
his failure ; his first operations confirmed their fore
bodings ; they could not appreciate the intelligence
and sagacity, the sound philosophy which directed
them ; they saw nothing but blind innovation, in the
unffinching and indomitable steadfastness with which
they were prosecuted. He was much amused one

why he did not put half of the grain in the place of the stone, he
replied that his father had always carried corn to the mill as he was
doing.

40 MEMOIE.
day to hear an old acquaintance who was riding by
in company with several others, call out to them in
a loud voice, which was intended for his ear : " You
see great works, neighbors, great works ; every stalk
of corn costs him not less than a quarter* — what
are to be the profits ? " Time soon instructed them
on this last point. Agriculture was to be scarcely
less available to him, than had been his law-prac
tice. While by his strenuous industry, the forest with
surprising rapidity became a fruitful field, the waste
and exhausted field was renovated and became
equally fruitful. The only cleared land he had, had
been long used as a race-ground ; a part of it was low
and marshy ; by his method of draining and manu
ring, it was so. improved that in the second year he
realized a harvest of wheat from it, which he sold for
nearly treble the cost of the land, though he had
given for it, it was thought, double its value. Much
of his plantation was covered with gall-berry, a
growth always indicating great acidity in the soil ;
by deep draining, and the due use of lime, he cor
rected the acidity and made the land quite fertile.
Having no guide as to the quantity of alkali to be
* Twenty-five cents.

MEMOIE. 41
used, he failed partially at first, by over or under
dosing ; but from patient observation, he taught him
self how to administer the medicine in just measure.
The productiveness of his fields was a matter for
wonder. He greatly enlarged his possessions in lands, and
whether the wilderness was to be subdued, or the
cultivated field to be fertilized, his efficiency alike
revealed itself, to the surprise first, and then to the
imitation of other planters. Those of his survivors
who were acquainted with the state of his lands
in Yeopim and Hervey's Neck twenty-five years ago,
can judge of his efficiency, by the changes which
he produced in this sphere of his enterprise.
The bar, the legislature, the farm did not limit
his business activity. He was the leader in those
fishing operations, which now require for their accom
modation almost the whole extent of both sides of
Albemarle Sound. " To your brother," says Judge
Nash in his letter to me,* " I have always heard,
the residents on the Chowan and the Albemarle
are in a great measure indebted for their fisheries ;
not that he was the, first to spread the seine in
* See Appendix E.

42 MEMOIE.
their waters, but that he was the first to perceive
their natural importance, and the first by his en
terprise and energy who brought that knowledge
to the use and benefit of the community at large.
To him the State is indebted for having led the
way in the development of this great national in
terest." The Judge is right in saying that " he was
not the first to spread the seine in their waters,"
if he uses the plural form " waters " by enaUage, or
from the continuity of the two waters which he
mentions ; but he was the first, as Governor Iredell
says in his obituary notice of him,* to spread the
seine on the j^bemarle. I know this well, for I
was a member of his family, when, in the spring of
1807, he began his fishery at Eden-House. The
nearest approach to a fishery on the Sound before
this date, was one which the first Mr. Collins estab
lished on Edenton Bay ; but this, which was com
paratively very small, was not on the Sound, and
when my brother informed Mr. Collins of the pro
ject in which he was about to engage, and inquired
if he would let him have a loan to facilitate its exe
cution, the venerable man frowned on the underta
king as venturous, if not impracticable. Indepen-
* See Appendix F.

MEMOIE. 43
dently of all men, he proceeded ; one of his friends,
a man of much executive tact and force,* he associa
ted with himself in the management of operations ;
but he pro\dded all the means and kept the chief
superintendence of every thing in his own hands.
It was the writer's fortune to serve as a sort of sub
altern clerk, being then in his sixteenth year, in
this the first of the fishing seasons on the shores of
the Albemarle.
It might be inferred from what has been said of
this large-hearted man, that his sympathies and views
were too extended, not to embrace all the interests
of humanity. Nothing but necessity itself, could
restrain or limit the generous exercise of the pecu
liarities of nature, which formed his individuality.
He appreciated justly the value of education, pro
fessional and popular, of which, especially in his na
tive State, he was a zealous and liberal supporter.
He was a trustee of the university of North Caro
lina, whose prosperity and usefulness he promoted
by his influence and his purse. Science as applied
to the arts, and especially to the cultivation of the
soil, had no sincerer or more earnest friend ; he was
* Ebenezer Paine, Esq.

44 JIEMOIE.
a liberal subscriber to institutions of literature in its
various departments. In the truest sense of the
terms, he was a politician and a patriot. He had no
temporal interest, which held as high a place in
his regard as the interest of his country : He knew
its history minutely ; he was profoundly acquainted
with its constitution ; he revered the memory of its
heroes ; he studied with the utmost care and with
ever-growing pride and admiration, the character
and services of Washington. His knowledge of
American affairs, American statesmen, American
politics, American jurisprudence, art, trade, com
merce, institutions, was both singularly exact and
singularly comprehensive. With his constitutional
clearness and thoroughness of attention, he read
daily the political newspapers and pamphlets, of
which he always kept at hand a very liberal supply.
I have not knoAvn any one who on matters pertaining
to general politics and to the legislature and govern
ment of the nation, possessed more minute, more ex
act, more reliable information. Indeed, as a man of
general knowledge in contradistinction to a man of
learning, technically so called, it would have been
difficult to flnd his superior, whether respect were
had to abundance, or exactitude and j)erfection of
knowledge. He made no pretence, in any way, to

MEMOIE. 45
uncommon knowledge, but it was always found that
he had it, when the test of attainment was applied.
It was the habit of his mind to look minutely at
every thing that earnestly engaged his attention ; to
examine it in detail, to separate it into its parts,
then bring the parts together, and look at it syn
thetically ; and as he was by his constitution intense
ly inquisitive, inclined to examine almost every
thing deserving of thought, a constant student of
books as well as of men and things, the conse
quence was unavoidable, he could not but have be
come a man of great knowledge, and of knowledge
the most substantial and most available.
He could not but have been interested and active
in works of general philanthropy ; he was an efficient
member of a philanthropic association ; the meliora
tion of the condition of man, the improvement and
elevation of the race in all respects, was an end for
which he lived, which engaged his sober reflection,
and which he pursued as an individual as well as in
co-operation with others ; yet his judgment and con
duct in respect to modes of beneflcence, means and
requisites for advancing the true good of mankind,
were often very peculiar, and in some instances they
were directly against the convictions and approba
tion of others. He gave however as good proof of

46 MEMOIE.
sincerity, if not also of superior thoughtfulness and
intelligence, as he did of characteristic independence.
He did not, for example, think it incompatible with
philanthropy, to hold men in servitude, under cer
tain circumstances; he was himself a slaveholder.
But, unless the terms imply a contradiction, he was
a benevolent master ; and on a sufficient guarantee
that his slaves would be happier than he could make
them, he sevei-al times offered them gratuitously to
others. To those of his slaves to whom he thought
freedom would be an advantage, excepting certain
of them who could not be persuaded to accept of it,
he not only imparted freedom, but means also, by
which they might be enabled to use it for their own
real advantage.* In the management of his slaves.

* He had a veyy excellent man-servant, who he thought would
probably improve his condition by removing to Liberia ; he ofiered
him, including his family, amounting to eleven persons, the means of
transportation, and of a favorable beginning in the colony. The
slaA'e accepted the oflfer. The master, whether from self-interest or
friendship for his faithful servant, or from both, now became unwil
ling to part with him, and made him another ofifer — his freedom
at home and five thousand doUai-s as a portion, still desiring him to
act in the matter without constraint. Abraham determined to make
the experiment of a visit to Liberia, promising to return to his mas
ter if he should not find there a desirable position. After a year,

MEMOIE. 47
he foUoAved the same convictions as to the rule and
mode of benevolence, which determined him to re
tain them in servitude. It was, he thought, no un-
kindness to obhge them to keep strict order, to
exact labor according to strength, to punish strictly
dishonesty and disobedience. His government was
so strong that resistance could not but seem inexpe
dient ; yet it was the exercise not of tyranny, but
of considerate, intelligent, humane authority — au
thority tempered with benevolence. He made the
physical condition of his servants a happy one ; they
Hved in comfortable homes, had good clothing and
food ; had good nursing and medical aid, in sickness ;
had time to rest, and time to work for themselves ;
were relieved of labor and in all respects carefully
provided for, when they were old and infirm.
There was no insubordination, no special appear
ance of unhappiness, no source of complaining or dis-

he wrote to his master, stating that he had satisfied himself as to the
expediency of his remaining ; — that he would return for his master's
sake ; but that otherwise, the value of the State of North Carolina
would not be a sufficient motive to induce him to leave Liberia.
He would doubtless have become a man of distinction among the
colonists, but for a premature death. He was a man of excellent
character and sound sense.
T

48 MEMOIR.
content on his plantation. It would be difficult to
make the condition of persons of this class, better in
all temporal respects, than that of his slaves actually
was, under his most energetic, firm, and wisely-con
ducted economy. Nor was he negligent as to their
spiritual well-being. They held religious meetings
among themselves ; they attended public worship
in the neighboring village ; he sometimes assembled
them in his own presence, to hear preachers whom
he requested to address them ; and while he did not
compel them to attend religious services, he would
suffer no one to intermeddle with them in the order
ly use of their religious liberty. For a time he
employed a minister of the gospel to preach to them
regularly, and if he did not always afford them this
advantage, the cause was that he could not find a
minister whom he thought suited to be useful to them.
There was a sphere in which the influence ot
my brother was most signally benign and useful to
those by whom it was felt — that of his domestic
relationships. I am constrained to speak of it by
the love to him which it has cherished in my
own heart, by a sense of family obligations to him,
and by the persuasion that no form of A'irtue more
deserves a memorial than such an interest in re-

MEMOIE. 49
lations as he evinced. Why should I not tell of
his singular kindness to myself? Even from my
childhood, I was as a first-born in his family. My
father, who with limited means, had a numerous
household to provide for, relinquished the care of
me to him, — most advantageously to myself, in re
gard especially to my opportunities for acquiring an
academical education. But for his kindness, I should
not have been sent to college. Under his direction
and at his expense, I prosecuted a course of prepara
tion for the bar until near the time of my admission
to it, when I tried his affection to the uttermost, by
what he could not but regard as a very sudden and
I'ash refusal of his choice of a profession for me.
Tempted strongly, by my disappointing thus his
fondest and long-cherished hopes respecting me, to
leave me to myself, after a short season of intense
displeasure from him, his former munificence re
turned to me, to forsake me no more till we were
separated by his death. Wherever I have been,
there have ever been with me decisive proofs of
his thoughtful and constant affection. In my sea
sons of severe trial I have always had the aid of his
wise counsel and his effectual sympathy ; and when
my usefulness has been restricted by want of oppor
tunity, his hands have been opened to provide the

50 MEAIOIR.
means of supply. For my favorable position in
Philadelphia, the latter half of my course there,
the seed-time of my ministry, I am mainly indebted
under the divine blessing to his influence, his sug
gestive wisdom, and his purse. When in another
city, I was exhausted and faint from labor, he urged
me to travel in Europe for my restoration to health,
and put at my disposal the means of compliance with
his plan. He has always been afflicted in my afflic
tions, and happy in making me and my household
happy. And this tribute from me may be taken as an
indication of what he was substantially to his other
relations. He has been the guide, counsellor, stay,
as well as chief honor of the whole family- of Avhich
he was a member. To his advice and his means
they owe, beyond their own power of estimation, the
position of respect and prosperity, to which by the
smile of their Heavenly Father, and their own in
dustrious use of their advantages, they have attained.
He was as a father, also, to the family of his uncle,
according to the prediction of that uncle concerning
him, when he AA^as yet in his boyhood. He was to
his uncle himself a faithful, affectionate, devoted
friend to the day of his death ; none more tenderly
lamented him ; none showed such interest in his
children after the death of their father.

MEMOIE. 51
His attention to the happiness of his relations,
was from a principle of goodness, which showed
itself, also, in noble acts of friendship to others, with
whom he was not specially connected by ties of na
ture. He was a friend in deed, as well as in word, to
many other individuals, with whom occasions and
providences brought him into acquaintance. Nor
did he limit himself as to ways and methods of
showing private friendship. He advanced several
poor young men to be enterprising planters, and intel
ligent and useful citizens, by taking them to live with
him, sending them to school in the neighboring vil
lage during the day, and giving them occupation
in the house morning and evening, and, during vaca
tion time, employing them in profltable labor on
the farm.
His peculiarity in religion was veiy remarkable.
He made no profession of religion in early life, and
he certainly was not then a man of piety. He was
not a disbeliever, but he was very far from being a
spiritual Christian. When I Avas deliberating, while
a student of law under his direction, on exchang
ing the bar for the pulpit, he generously offered me
the best advantages for obtaining a theological edu
cation ; he thought the study of theology, especially

52 MEMOIR.
of such books as Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, would
be useful to me in the legal or any other profession ;
but he could not consent to my becoming a minister
of the Gospel, or appreciate the impressions which
induced me, very suddenly as he thought, to forego
such prospects as I had of worldly advancement for
those which a preacher's life presented : He regarded
me as deluded by visionary views: then, and for
several years afterwards, he had no power of spiri
tual discernment :
" I saw a hand he could not see ; . . .
I heard a voice he could not hear.''
But after the restoration of the Episcopal church in
Edenton, he acquired from the flrst minister of that
church,* who was several years an inmate in his

* The Eeverend John Avery, who to the church was an emi
nently instructive, exemplary, and faithful pastor, and to the family
of my brother especially useful — a dear and greatly esteemed friend.
Though not a popular preacher, Mr. Avery was a favorite with my
brother, who interested himself in promoting his usefulness and com
fort. After the repair of the church, when the pews were to be
sold at auction, he attended the sale, intending that its avails should
meet, at least, the expenses. He had assessed the pews at a rate
which would secure this result. But, except himself, there was no
purchaser at this rate. All the most desirable pews were pronounced

MEMOIE. 53
family, a new interest in religion, and from about
the middle of his life he was a communicant. But
if he was to be regarded at any time as a man of
evangelical piety, the standard of judgment was to
be not a little modified by respect to his unique
character. Sometimes, certainly, he did not give the
ordinary indications of piety. He never openly took
the side of irreligion or of error ; on the contrary,
he would be roused by expressions of impiety or the
avowal of heretical opinions on the part of others,
into intense and indignant antagonism to them ; but
he would occasionally express himself in a manner
most startling to pious sentiment, as it generally
prevails among spiritual Christians. Under other
circumstances he would make an entirely different
impression of himself; piety would appear in him
unusually attractive and beautiful. I have often
known him e\dnce the tenderest and deepest interest
in as highly evangelical exercises of religion as the
most spiritual taste could desire : I cannot forbear
referring to the following as an instance. At his de-

to be his by the auctioneer. "What will you do with these
pews ? " said a gentleman to him, who desired one of them. " Put
my negroes in them," was the prompt reply. The pews soon were
sold again at the assessed prices.

54 MEMOIE.
sire, I preached, on a Sabbath day, to the church
which my father had been accustomed to worship
in : there was a large attendance of my father's
descendants ; and my brother requested me, after
dismissing the congregation, to perform a religious
service for them exclusively. There were about
seventy of them present. After a short address, to
which the occasion could not but give peculiar em
phasis, we united in prayer. My brother's frame of
spirit inspired the whole company with tenderness ;
he sat weeping profusely during the whole service ;
and there was a sweet, solemn, gentle, subdued state
of feeling in him through the remainder of the day,
which could not but be felt by those who came into
his company. It seemed to me, that I had never
perceived the true spirit of the Gospel in greater
purity, or in greater depth, than I did in this mani
festation of religious feeling on the part of my dear
brother. It was to me a very memorable occasion,
and it does not stand alone in my reminiscence of
incidents indicative of what he was in a rehgious
point of view.
He was earnestly attached to his own church,
but his preference was infinitely far from magnifying
itself into exclusiveness or unchurching bigotry. He
loved grave and decent form in religious service, but

MEMOIE.

he had an intense contempt for form when it would
take the place of the spirit — for a ceremonious state-
liness or pompous reserve, especially when it would
in any society or in any individual, however humble,
dishonor, or overlook sincere, simple, unpretending
piety. He had religious friends and acquaintances
whose piety he could not question, in the different
denominations ; the unchurching of them or any one
of them he would resent, and denounce as sacrilegious
arrogance, by whomsoever undertaken. He was not
a stranger to ecclesiastical polemics, and knew well
the merits of the controversy on church order ;
but, apart from this knowledge, he had an intuitive
sense of the absurdity of the dogma which denies
the regularity of administrations, though not without
the seal of both divine and human approbation,
merely because they are not in a certain supposed
succession, or maintains their regularity when in
that succession, though the administrator be an
infidel or a man of bad life.
The church of his choice was dear to him, but
not so dear as Christianity. He preferred the Epis
copal order of service, but he had no objections to
free prayer that could hinder his taking high satis
faction in the service of Presbyterians, Congrega-
tionalists. Baptists, or Methodists. He was in entire

56 MEMOIR.
and cordial fellowship Avith all these denominations
as branches of the Holy Catholic Church. There
was a noble catholicity in his nature which was in
consistent with the want of ecclesiastical catholicity
and all superstition in religion.
The last years of his life were years of great suf
fering. His constitution, which had been gradually
impaired by annual attacks of disease, was assailed
by a new malady, with which he was to haA^e an
appalling, fatal conflict. The human frame could
hardly endure more violent pain than that which
he suffered during the latter part of this visitation.
Speaking of it in a message to myself, he said, "You
can know nothing of it but by coming to see me ;
no language can describe it." I had seen him some
months before he sent me this message, and I was
not surprised that he spoke so strongly now. The
pain at last affected his mind, and a short time before
his death, his understanding was perfect only at in
tervals. He was entirely intelligent in his closing
hours, and the manner of his departure was calm,
and in remarkable harmony with his general charac
ter. During his last illness he looked to religion to
sustain him, and he was not disappointed ; his mind
Avas in peace : he died in hope a painful yet tranquil

3[EM0IE. 57
death. He had found the book of Job a pecuhar
solace to his severe suffering ; — a book, as he said to
me, speaking from his experience, particularly de
signed for the consolation of sufferers. It became a
very precious book to him, and he signified his attach
ment to it in a singular way. He directed that, after
death, he should be placed in his coffin in a dress of
black, such as he had been accustomed to wear,
with the Bible under his head opened at the book
of Job. He directed, also, that his prayer-book
should be placed upon his bosom with his hands
resting upon it. These directions were not merely
sentimental ; they were solemn indications of piety,
and in a nature such as his was they had a specific
meaning. He designed that the arrangement and
appearance of his body might testify to those who
should look upon it before it was committed to the
grave, that death did not discompose him ; that he
was in life and death the same ; that he drew his
support in suffering and death from the word of
God, and especially from the portion of it which was
intended particularly for the assuagement of suffer
ing ; and that he received supphes of strength from
the inspired word by looking to God for it, in hum
ble supplication and trust. In life and death, how
peculiar a man was Joseph Blount Skinnee !

58 MEMOIE.
I subjoin a few traits which have not been
brought to view in the foregoing notice of him.
There are often striking contrasts, seeming inconsis
tencies, in characters of the highest order ; there
were in him, and they sometimes occasioned his being
greatly misjudged by persons who had but few op
portunities of observing him ; and even those who
were well acquainted with him might have impres
sions from them for a time, which were not just to
him regarded in the assemblage of his qualities. He
had little prudential reference to what others might
think of him ; his friends, on that account, sometimes
had occasion to regret misrepresentations, or errone
ous impressions which he would make of himself;
but nature in him would generally have free course
in the direction in which it was moving, without much
thought of others' approval or displeasure. If the di
rection were such as to make him appear to advan
tage, he would be very attractive and interesting ; if
it were otherwise, he might produce in others interest
very far from agreeable to them, and perhaps anxi
ety as to the consequences. In one instance he would
seem, extremely severe ; in another he would exhibit
the most touching tenderness, the purest and loveliest
form of affection, the most generous and self-denying
friendship; and if both instances belonged to one

MEMOIE. 59
occasion, or were near enough to each other in time
to qualify and temper one another, the effect of their
contrariety would be most happy as an index of his
character. But the severity apart from the tender
ness, as sometimes it would be, led strangers to look
upon him with feelings as unjust as possible to his
character as a whole. Severity in him was not ty
ranny ; it was the mode in which his great decision
revealed itself When he began with severe meas
ures, he was seldom to be turned aside from them
until they were completed ; others would tremble,
would wonder, at his persistence ; but his regard was
immovably fixed on the end, and for the end's sake,
which with him in such cases was not selfish, but
others' highest good, he would go through with the
painful process according to the measure in which
he had judged it to be necessary.
He was a man of great courage. He often saw
no danger where others thought there was much ;
but when he knew there was danger in the way
which he took to be that of duty, his self-possession
enabled him to face it without fear, and he would
advance against it thoughtfully and prudently, but
with unshrinking determination and firm composure.
He was not rash, yet he often did what others re
garded as rashness, and which in them probably

60 MEMOIE.
would have been rashness. Of this inflexible, thought
ful daring he once gave an example in an attempt to
quell an insurrection among his slaves. They had
armed themselves against the overseer with clubs
and axes. He Avent sedately amongst them unarmed ;
commanded them to submit ; and not being obeyed,
passed through the midst of them into the house,
where there were firearms, of which he did not wish
them to have possession. With the means of self-
defence at hand, he stood in the door of the house
and renewed his command ; his word now had an
authority not to be disregarded ; he made one of the
slaves bind another, until all were bound who had
been in rebellion ; and having caused exemplary
punishment to be administered to the ringleaders,
released them, with no fear that they would again
use their axes as armor. He was entirely alone
and unsupported in this movement. The number
of the insurgents was large ; their subjugation was
the mere effect of courage and authority ; for, though
he prudently secured himself, his having done so —
itself an achievement of intrepidity — was not known
to the slaves. He intended that they should not
know it, for he would not have had them think that
he depended on firearms in maintaining the command
of his servants.

MEMOIE. 61
He was astonishuagly quick in the invention of
expedients; was never at a loss for the means of
accomplishing his ends. His determination as to the
pursuit of particular ends comprehended a percep
tion at once of their feasibility, and of the means he
would have to use. In small as well as great mat
ters, I have been struck with his fertility in devising
means. In journeying Avith him I have often had
the advantage of it, in obtaining small personal at
tentions from servants and innkeepers ; all difficulties
in our travel would vanish almost as soon as they
presented themseh^es. He could afford to get him
self into peril, on account of the ease with which he
could get himself out of it. About thirty years ago,
he was journeying in western New-York, in very
feeble health. The road was one from which the
roots and stumps of trees had not been removed, and
there was racing between the stage-coach he was in
and another. He remonstrated with the driver in
vain ; the racing was kept up, at the peril of health
and life, until the coach arrived at the end of the
stage. He sent a letter of complaint, signed by all
the passengers, to the proprietors of the coach, re
quiring, under penalty, the displacement of the
driver. On his return by the same way a short
time afterwards, the driver who had been displaced

62 MEMOIE.
was Avith him in the coach, and enraged at seeing
the author of his loss of place, he became insolent
and abusive. " If you do not cease," said he to the
ex-driver, " when the coach stops you shall be tied
and flogged." The man became outrageous in his
abuse, and when the coach stopped, dared him to
execute his threat, and prepared for battle with him.
"You mistake," he coolly said to him. "I did not
threaten to flog you, but only that you should be
flogged." And then asking the attention of the pas
sengers, of whom there was a coachful, he described
the case of the racing with its aggravating circum
stances, and then said, " Now, gentlemen, I leave it
to you to decide what shall be done with this fel
low." They replied with one voice, " Give your or
ders, sir, and they shall be executed." The coach
was about to start again : " Get in," said he to the
man, " and if you open your lips again, the thing
shall be done." The man gave him no further an
noyance. He has always appeared to me, after I began to
think of him as a specimen of singularity, to be as
much distinguished by a negative quality as by any
positive one that belonged to him. This was, the
absence of ambition in the precise meaning of the
word. He was in a good sense proud ; too proud to

MEMOIE. 63
do a mean thing, or to countenance any form of
meanness in others ; too proud to desire the reluc
tant favor of any man ; too proud to acknowledge
dependence for his position and influence on a showy
style of living, on equipage, display, costume, osten
tation of wealth ; too proud to receive honor which
was not paid to him as the free, unasked expression
of sincere respect. But this very pride hindered
him, as did also the very frame and structure of his
nature, from being selfishly ambitious. He could
not rise by an outAvard force, nor by any inward
force other than the spontaneity of his nature. Not
that he never proposed himself as a candidate for a
place ; * but that when he did this, he did it not for
* It was desired by his friends that his pre-eminent abilities as a
jurist might have their appropriate exercise on the bench ; but
though he repressed all proposals which had his elevation to this
honor for their object, he accepted and solicited the oflSce of a justice
of the peace after his retirement, in the hope that he might add
dignity and respectability to the proceedings of the county-court,
promote order in its sessions, and justice in its decisions. He gained
his ends. The proceedings of the county-court became, under his
direction, as respectable as those of the higher courts ; from its de
cisions there were few appeals ; and the effect of the change in di
minishing expense to clients, in training the younger lawyers, and in
saving time in the superior-court sessions, Avas generally and grate-
9

64 MEMOIE.
self-aggrandizement in any form, but for purposes of
public utility, or from opposition to unworthy men.
He did not shrink from contests when there was a
sufficient cause for them, but his motive was not his
own advancement except as this might be necessary
to an ulterior end. If this man's ambition had been
equal to his power ; if he could have put his whole
force under the sway of personal ambition, and could
then have governed his ambition itself with the sa
gacity and energy by which all his pursuits in life
were directed, I doubt not that, under ordinary cir
cumstances, he might have exalted himself to the
highest stations of honor and influence. But it was
no part of his nature to court factitious distinctions
or popular applause. He could not study eftect;
nature in him would have its way ; he lived accord
ing to his nature ; perhaps no man ever came nearer
than he did to being perfectly willing to pass for
his exact value. He did not even aim at this ; he
rejoiced in the friendship of the good and the great,
of which it was his privilege to have a liberal share ;
but he did not gain this happiness by distinctively
seeking it, by efforts intended and pursued with
fully acknowledged. His example has been followed by other retired
lawyers, and with the same results, in several counties of tlie State.

MEMOIE. 65
reference to it ; it was an inevitable adjunct of his
nature as developed in his life, its just product, as
the fruit is the product of the tree. Some have
thought that herein he was unjust to himself, that
he ought to have cultivated his faculties, and ar
ranged his plans of life, with reference to advance
ment to positions of civil honor. They may have
been mistaken. Ambition might have abated his
inherent strength. It would certainly have given
him another individuality ; it would have deprived
his character of its most marked and interesting sin
gularity ; it would have given him indeed another
character. Of his faults I do not think it necessary to speak
particularly. They were prominent like the other
traits of his character, and the chief of them may be
inferred from what I have said of him. They were
such as are too apt to proceed from a bold, energetic,
singular nature, such as gave him his peculiar indi-
viduahty. Without being irritable, he was very
excitable ; without incivility, he was sometimes ex
ceedingly keen and incisive ; without unkindness, he
was sometimes too sternly reprehensive ; without
vanity, of which he was entirely destitute, he some
times had a manner which, to strangers especially,

66 MEMOIE.
appeared boastful. Judge Nash has referred to a
fault, which, as a general fact, should not perhaps be
called a fault — his free exercise of a sense of the
ridiculous, which he had in an uncommon measure.
He Avas in this, no doubt, occasionally excessive ; but
it rendered his conversation unusually entertaining,
and generally it was a means of exposing persons to
themselves or others who required to be exposed.
Under an exterior which sometimes had the air of
roughness, he had, as Judge Nash says, as kind a
heart as ever throbbed in a human bosom.
He died December 2 2d, 1851, at seven o'clock
in the morning, aged 70 years, 11 months, and 4
days. Soon after he had established himself at the bar,
Mr. Skinner was married to Miss Maria Louisa
LowTHEE, daughter of Mrs. Penelope Lowthee, and
a relative of Governor Johnston. She was a lady of
high cultivation, and, from uncommon inherent worth
not less than from her family connections, held a
position among the highest in refined and polite so
ciety. She was a contrast to her husband in respect
to his masculine, bold, aggressive, forceful traits ; but
the opposites of them belonged to his ideal of female

MEMOIE. 67
perfection, and her taste and affection were gratified
by the prominent and commanding individuality
AA'hich they imparted to him. The particulars of
their resemblance and affinity to each other were
sufficient to form a ground for the highest measure
of mutual esteem and sympathy ; and their dissi
militudes tended only to enhance, on the whole,
their complacency in one another. They had great
happiness in their union, which Avas terminated pre
maturely by her death. She died September 22d,
1822, in her 36th year. He surviA^ed her twenty-
nine years, and never ceased to lament her with
sincere and profound sorrow. If the sanctuary of
domestic love and grief might with propriety be
opened, I could present a Yiew of him in the depth of
his affliction in which he would appear strangely con
trasted with himself in the severe and strong pecu
liarities of his character — as if he was the personifi
cation of submissive, prostrate, flowing, gentle grief.
They had no child until fifteen years after their
marriage, when, in close succession, two daughters
and a son were born to them. Of his descendants
none remain except his son, T. L. Skinnee, Esq. and
Maeia Louisa Waeeen, a child of a deceased
daughter.

68 MEMOIE.
I conclude with a brief notice of Mrs. Lowthee,
the mother of Mrs. Skinner. She was a grand
daughter of Governor Gabriel Johnston* and Pene
lope Eden, daughter of Governor Eden. Her parents
were William and Penelope Dawson ; her husband
was Tristrim Lowther, Esq., a man of refined man
ners, who had a high standing at the bar, and
Avas esteemed and beloved for his kindness to the
poor, and the general excellence of his character.
Mrs. Lowther was distinguished by birth and
education, in both of which she had every advan
tage, less than by intrinsic excellencies ; such, espe
cially, as form the highest grace and charm of the
female character. Her person was a rare model of
beauty and delicacy; in height, in shape, in com
plexion, in every feature and line so exquisitely fash
ioned, that, regarding it in the class of forms to which
it belonged, art itself could scarcely suggest an im
provement or desire any variation ; one, at least,
could note no defect, could attempt no criticism, in
the presence of so much that was so surpassingly
beautiful and attractive. I cannot imagine that any
one not insensible to beauty could see Mrs. Lowther,

* A brother of Governor Samuel Johnston's father.

MEMOIE. 69
though in a multitude of " the fair," without having
his eye riveted by her distinctive, queenly appear
ance. And yet she was the complete contrast of
ostentatious beauty. The charm of all her charms
.was a palpably evident self-unconsciousness of being
in any degree uncommon or distinctive. She could
not be hid, yet it appeared to observers that she
would be if she could. It gives me singular pleas
ure, at this remote day, to contemplate such a speci
men of unaffected modesty ; I have never conceived
of any thing, of its kind, which I think more entitled
to be termed celestial. And the adornments and
movements of her person were invariably consistent
with its peerless symmetry and elegance. Her dress,
her steps, her attitudes, her looks, were always such
as became her inherent modesty, the true dignity
and nobility which belonged to her nature. For six
years during which I was an inmate of the family,
according to my best remembrance of those happy
years, I saw her do nothing which had not a deco
rum and propriety in entire keeping with her char
acter as I have represented it. She had always
a tasteful and beautiful air, and to look upon her
face or hear her voice, at any time, was a refresh
ment. And if she was so lovely and beautiful in ap-

70 MEMOIE.
pearance, she was yet more beautiful within. She
did not aim at effect ; if she studied to please others,
as she certainly did, it was for their sake, not her
own. It seemed to be as much her nature to be
unselfish, as it is the nature of man generally to be
the reverse. She always appeared, for she always
was, happy in what made others so ; and in the af
flictions of others, how spontaneously, how sincerely,
how deeply was she afflicted. When the weather
was stormy, her sympathies were with the weather-
beaten mariner ; when the pestilence was raging,
they were with- sufferers in the chamber of disease
and death. I never heard her, I cannot think any
one ever heard her speak an eyil word of any person.
She would extenuate the faults of others, and the
more so, sometimes, when she herself was the sufferer
by them ; and if she could flnd no excuse for them,
she would weep, and comfort herself as far as she
could with that "charity which hopeth all things."
Her cultivation and politeness gave her no inferior
place among pei'sons of refined and elegant manners ;
but in intercourse with the humble and the poor,
even such of them as were of lower habits, while
she retained her lovely individuality, she Avas as fa
miliar as if she had been one of their own class. She
gaA^e such evidence as no one could question, that she

MEMOIE. 71
esteemed those she had intercourse with, whether of
high or loAA^ rank, better than herself, and even for
got herself, in the interest which she took in them.
She had a bright and well-furnished mind ; her
proper sphere was that of the highest cultivation
and intelligence ; but she was quite at home, also,
with persons of inferior name and condition.
The loveliness, the grace of Mrs. Lowther's char
acter, as now regarded, though advanced and ma
tured by education, was merely natural ; it was what
belonged to her by her original constitution, as giA^en
her by her Maker. That such native excellence
should have been crowned and sanctifled by evan
gelical piety, was not a fruit from itself, and not to
be on any account anticipated as a necessary or cer
tain result. In my early acquaintance with her I do
not think she was a spiritual Christian. Her good
ness was constitutional, natural, not from the renew
ing influence of the Holy Spirit. But when the
change occurred in myself, which led to a change in
my choice of a profession, she was simultaneously
and similarly changed ; she sympathized with me in
my new feelings, began a strictly religious mode of
life, and, until her death, continued to give most de-
cisiA^e evidences of renovation by the Spirit. Her
religious character was unproved by time ; she was

72 MEMOIE.
a mature and established Christian when she died ;
and her death was serene, touching, triumphant.
One circumstance of it was remarkably characteris
tic. When the last struggle was about to commence,
observing her daughter, who sat near her, oA^er-
AA^helmed in sorrow, she said, "Let Maria be re-
moA'ed ; what is about to take place is more than
she can bear." She arranged her person, with her
own hand pressed her falling chin upward, and so
calmly and peacefully yielded up her spirit into the
hands of God.
In reviewing what I have said of a dear friend, I
am not conscious of any exaggeration ; howcA^er it
may appear to others, in my own vivid couAdction
it is but an utterance of strict, sober truth. Until
but a short time before her death, she lived with
her daughter, the pride of the family, as she was
also of the eminently cultivated and reflned social
circle to which she belonged. *
* Appendix D.

APPENDIX.

APPENDIX.

A. page 9.
They had thirteen children ; Joseph Blount, Mary,
Charles Worth, Sarah, Elizabeth Blount, Martha Ann,
Thomas Harvey, Margaret Harvey, John, Benjamin Smith,
Joshua, Edmund Blount, and Josiah Collins ; of whom but
one (John) died under age. He suffered shipwreck, near the
mouth of the Mersey, England, in his seventeenth year. In
his natural character, he resembled his eldest brother, and
with equal cultivation and advantages Avould probably have
been quite his equal in general force and efficiency : he was,
if possible, superior to him in his command over others, which
was his distinguishing trait. The other children married
and Avere prosperous. Mary, Sarah, Margaret, Josiah, and
Edmund, died of consumption in the order in which they are
here named. Joshua died of dysentery, at Saratoga, last
summer.

76 APPENDIX.
My parents were respectable persons, simple and plain
in their mode of life, distinguished for their probity, hospi
tality and kindness to the poor, beloved and honored by the
community, pious and strict in the training and education
of their children. My father was by birth a Quaker, my
mother was an Episcopalian. Their marriage Avas the means
of his separation from the Friends. They became members
of the Baptist Church, under the highly evangelical and
faithful ministry of the Rev. M. Ross, Avho had married my
paternal aunt, my mother first about the middle of her life,
and her husband ten years afterwards. They were both
bright examples of spiritual religion, and died in faith and
in peace. My father was inclined to piety from his youth. Before
he became a member of the Church he was severe in his
morals, and loved the company of the pious. His neighbors,
Avho were generally his near relatives, were persons of dis
tinction, Avho had no sympathy with him in his religious
peculiarity. They held him in peculiar esteem ; he was
intimate Avith them all ; but there Avas a wide difference be
tween him and them in regard to religion and modes of life.
They Avere fond of fashion and gayety, in which he took no
part, against Avhich, indeed, he sometimes protested in no
indecisive manner. His difference from them A\-as in nothing
more marked than in the government and order of his house
hold. His discipline of his children was severe — more so,
doubtless, than it Avould have been, if the families of his neio-h-
bors had been less fashionable. The proximity of such a
display of the world's spirit, perhaps led him into an extreme

APPENDIX. 77
of the contrary spirit. As to this, however, I am far from a
full persuasion ; his success with his family — the blessing of
God on the course Avhich he took in respect to it — Avas very
signal, and unusual.
He often had preaching in his house, before he made a
religious profession ; afterwards his activity in family reli
gion became much greater ; his children and servants were
assembled for worship daily ; and in these daily meetings, he
appropriated much time — an hour or more each evening — to
reading and prayer. His house was much frequented by
religious persons, and especially by preachers : Avhen the
latter visited him, the neighbors were invited to hear ser
mons from them. He had his house furnished as a church,
and three Sabbaths out of four he conducted public worship
in it himself The service in the church, twelve miles distant,
was monthly ; the intervening Sabbaths were his own seasons
for conducting divine service. He did not preach ; he prayed
Avith the people, read the Scriptures to them, and read also a
sermon, generally one of the A'illage sermons, or one of
Davies', whom he preferred as a preacher to all others : he
united exhortation with his reading ; his children conducted
the music. He saw the fruit of his pious pains : God blessed
his family greatly, and made him a blessing to his neighbors.
He continued these meetings until his strength failed, from
old age and disease.
My dear father, though not himself a liberally educated
man, was desirous that others, and especially his children
should, as far as possible, have the advantages of edu
cation. A school-house formed part of his domestic esta-

7 b APPENDIX.
blishment, and a schoolmaster was a constant inmate of his
family. From my earliest remembrance, the school-house
which stood on his premises, was that to A\hich the children
of the neighborhood were sent. He Avas a lover of knowledge
and a constant reader, his mind was well furnished with
general information, and his conversation Ayas unusually inter
esting and instructive to those who were about him. He
suffered greatly from disease, especially in his later years,
but excepting some short seasons of nervous depression, his
life was very cheerful, and he was on the whole a very happy
man. He was not a man of pretension ; his simplicity and
transparence were the chief ornaments of his character. He
was capable of severity, but tender sensibility was predomi
nant in him. He was very energetic, Avas as far as possible
from being merely negative in his position or influence ; but
he Avas characteristically a man of peace and good will. He
never was in debt to any man, and never had a law-suit.
Humane, hospitable, generous, upright, pious, and died
lamented by all his acquaintance, in a good old age.
His will Avas an index of his character : it closed with a
charge to his children, in the patriarch's words, '" See that
ye fall not out by the way." *
My mother was a striking example of gentleness and un
conscious excellence, of patient endurance, quietness, fewness
of words, propriety of deportment, the properties Avhich com-
* Genesis xlv. 24.

APPENDIX. 79
mand tranquil respect and strong enduring affection. I
have supposed that the subject of this memoir received the
extraordinary strength and force of his nature by inheritance,
through his mother chiefly, yet she herself seemed to be
characterized not so much by these, as by gentleness and
delicacy. The former qualities were to be found in others
of her lineage ; * they were by no means wanting in herself ;
she had a symmetrical and lovely character ; but her distinc
tion certainly was softness and gentleness rather than their
opposites. For a mother such as she was, her children had
cause for special gratitude to God.
She was small and delicate in person ; my father was
larger and more robust than the generality of men." He
lingered long on the bed of death ; she was in comparative
health while he lived, but soon after he was separated from
her, she began to decline, and in two years her beloved form
was sleeping by the side of his in the grave.
At the close of this note, I add a word concerning the
residence of these persons, at their first son's birth. It was
quite different in some respects from what it is at present.
Their house, situated about a mile from Harvey's Point, like
the other dwellings on the Neck, was of humble appearance ;
the settlement of the Neck was comparatively recent ; and
the land was very imperfectly cleared. But it was more
populous than it is at present, and having been the seat of

¦ Pre-eminently in her elder sister, Mrs. jMoNaik.

80 APPENDIX.
Governor Harvey, whose descendants were then its chief
occupants, the society was cultivated and fashionable, and
the Neck was often the scene of much gayety and pleasure.
There Avas, on the northern side of the Albemarle, no locality
more desirable. The woods abounded with deer and other
game, and immense flocks of swans and wild-geese swam on
the waters both of the Sound and the very beautiful river,*
feeding on a SAveet grass which then grew on the bottom.
The waters were at that time saline ; they are not so now,
and the grass, and, with it, the swan, have disappeared. The
bank of the Sound has, of late years, been rapidly giving
place to the ever-beating wave, which has at length removed
the foundation of the house in which my parents lived.

* The Perquimons.

APPENDIX. 81

B. page 14.
This uncle was a younger brother of my father, Mr.
John Skinner, Avho resembled him in the prominent points
of his natural character, especially in its artlessness, affec-
tionateness, sincerity, energy, generosity. He was in some
respects, however, very different from him. He was much
more a man of society, a man of the world, much more con
versant with men of station and office ; and he held positions
of honor and influence, to which my father did not aspire.
He had a very vital, vigorous, active mind, which, without
being liberally educated, was very familiar with politics and
history, and was richly furnished with general knowledge.
It was through his agency, as well as by his advice, that my
brother became a pupil and an inmate in the family of Gover
nor Johnston.
There was a strong affinity, a remarkable similarity of
tastes, a peculiar intimacy and friendship between this uncle
and his nephew. Their intercourse with each other was
entirely confidential, and it never was interrupted till death
separated them. He lived to realize his anticipation of his
nephew's advancement in life ; and he could hardly have
had a higher pleasure and pride in it, if he had been his own
son. My brother reciprocated fully his uncle's generous,
singular interest in him. Living, dying, and after death, his

82 APPENDIX.
affection for him was evinced by offices of devoted friendship,
of which I have known few parallel examples.
In one particular, my uncle's mind was distinguished
above any one I have been acquainted with. His ima
gination was so inventive, so fertile in fiction, that he
could almost improvise a novel in his ordinary conversa
tion, if by means of one he could secure his purpose.
He would not exert this singular power merely for amuse
ment ; but if (e. g.) he wished to rebuke impertinence,
or rudeness, or vanity, he would, without any appearance of
effort, fabricate a fictitious story, an extended complicated
parable, which it would require no little time to repeat, and
after entertaining the company, and none more than the per
son for whom it was intended, with the graphic, Avell-wrought
recital, as if it were a matter of real history or experience, he
would apply it to his object, with an efficacy not to be re
sisted and never to be forgotten.
It is refreshing to me to recall the evidences of fraternal
affection, of free, noble endearing interest in one another,
by which intercourse between my uncle and my father was
always marked. Their spheres of life were in some respects
contrasts to each other. My uncle had no sympathy with
my father in his religious tastes and preferences ; they dif
fered much from each other in their ideas of family govern
ment, and the training of children ; they had minds of dis
similar aptitudes and capacities ; they Avere open and un
restrained in the expression of their respective peculiarities ;
but they were not divided from one another, in the smallest
degree, on account of their points of dissimilitude and dis-

APPENDIX. 83
agreement ; in all substantial matters they were identified in
life and in interest ; and it was ahvays palpable to each that
notwithstanding their very different individualities, nothing
except death could touch the ties of their brotherhood. A
glance at my uncle's distinctiveness in one respect may be
obtained from an incident. My father had spoken to him
very freely and faithfully, as to what he regarded as a serious
mistake in the mode of training up children : my uncle was
exceedingly sensitive to the implied rebuke, and his wounded
feeling revealed itself in no measured terms. They parted
Arithout any apology from my father, for the freedom he had
used. It was not long before my uncle made him a visit, to
pour out to him a heart of love and thankfulness for his faithful
admonition : " You are right, Colonel," said he ; "I see and
lament my mistake ; there shall be nothing more of what
with so much frankness and fidelity you have spoken to me
about." My uncle, like my brother, was constitutionally a
very proud man ; but the resemblance between the two held
in another respect ; they were both pre-eminent in simplicity
and transparency of nature.

84 APPENDIX.

C. page 18.
The first Mr. Josiah Collins. I think I have a suffi
cient apology for mentioning the name of this most excellent
and venerable person, in the unusual relation of intimacy and
friendship which always existed between him and my brother.
He held no inferior place in my brother's esteem. Next to
his uncle, if even he should be excepted, there was perhaps
no man in his acquaintance whom he so deeply respected.
Nor did he value him too highly. There was not in the com
munity so commanding, so impressive an example of digni
fied, systematic, undeviating application to business, of en
lightened, judicious, successful enterprise, of devotion to the
public interest, of beneficence, of kindness, of cheerful gravity,
of decorum of manners, of integrity and urbanity. He was
a man of great wealth, of great simplicity of life, and of
singular wisdom and discretion in the stewardship of his
substance and his influence. His memory deserved to be
held, as it has been, in peculiar respect and honor by the
community, of which he was, on the whole, the most distin
guished member. He was a public benefactor. The Church
and the Academy of Edenton, are among the many monu
ments of his munificence.

APPENDIX. 85

D. page 72.
Persons of high excellence are seldom found in a state
of isolation from one another. The stars appear in groups.
When Mrs. Lowther was in her prime, she Avas one among a
rarely distinguished number with whom she had intimate inter
course. In her day, especially in the former part of it, there
were persons in the society of Edenton who gave that beauti
fully situated Adllage a prominence of interest and importance,
unsurpassed probably by any other town in the State. In
its external appearance, and particularly in its religious con
dition, Edenton has improved. The old church was then a
ruin, and there was no other religious building, and no minis
ter of religion in the place, until, through the liberality of
the venerable Mr. Collins, the church was restored. But
apart from religion, which was every where neglected, as if
it had been a reproach to man, Edenton was most honorably
distinguished. There were families in it that would have
given elevation to any place ; — those, for instance, of Iredell,
Tredwell, Collins, Littlejohn, Blount, not to mention others.
Where can a society be found that would not be honored by
the accession of such a member as the mother of the Iredells,
or of her eldest daughter? There Avas no display in the
manner of living in this circle of true refinement, but every
thing in it indicated a pure, enlightened, and cultivated taste.

86 app:^ndix.
Blessing and prosperity to the place it adorned ! It cannot
but be always a place of very peculiar interest to me. There
my worthy Masters Metcalf and Freeman prepared me
for college, there under my dear brother I studied the law,
there I first tasted the sweets of the purest, simplest, most
beautiful social life, and, more than all, there, I hope, God
met me with His renewing and saving mercy, when amidst
the pleasures and temptations of the world, I was estranged
from Him, and exposed to destruction.

appendix. 87

E. page 41.
LETTEE FEOM JUDGE NASH.
HiiLSEOEOuGH, Nov. 29th, 1852.
Dear Sir, My acquaintance with your late brother
commenced early in life, Avheu we Avere both boys. I met
him for the first time at Princeton, in Ncay Jersey, in 1796 ;
he was just leaving and I just entering college (not that he
had graduated), a bright, blooming, animated boy : I thought"
him one of the handsomest youths I had ever seen.
We did not again meet until the year 1814, at Raleigh,
as members of the assembly. The acquaintance of youth
was soon, very soon, ripened into the friendship of manhood,
a friendship which I am proud to say continued down to his
death. At the time he entered into public life, Mr. Skinner was
still a young man, but he entered Avith a mind and character
which immediately placed him with the ablest men in the
Legislature, and there Avere many of the highest range of
intellect. His mind was eminently practical ; and he brought
to the discussion of the various matters engaging the atten
tion of the legislature, a fund of knowledge, both of principles
and facts, which occasioned him always to be listened to with
profound attention. The leading character of his mind

appendix.

Avas a sound, discriminating judgment ; evidenced not only in
his political, but in his private life, by the success which
uniformly attended him. To this principle he mainly owed
the large fortune he accumulated while still young, for I
have understood from him that he entered upon his profession
as a lawyer without means. As a lawyer he was eminently
successful, as the records of the courts in which he practised
will show ; and up to the time when he retired from the bar,
he stood, if not at the head, with the most eminent in the
profession. And it was as a lawyer that the predominating
character of his mind availed him. Profoundly imbued with
the principles of the laAv, he at once perceived the true points
of his case, and brought to them a power of investigation,
which rarely failed to carry Avith it the minds of the hearers.
With juries he was very successful, for his knowledge of
human nature Avas great.
To your brother, I have always heard, the residents on
the ChoAvan and the Albemarle are, in a great measure, in
debted for their fisheries. Not that he Avas the first to spread
the seine in their waters, but that he was the first to perceive
their great national importance, and the first by his enter
prise and energy, who brought that knowledge to the use
and benefit of the community at large. To him the State is
indebted for haA'ing led the way in developing this great
national interest.
Under an appearance of roughness was concealed a heart
as warm and kind as ever throbbed in a human bosom. De
voted to his friends, he was no one's enemy. Those he
thought mean he despised and avoided, and would have no

APPENDIX. 89
intercourse with them. High-minded and honorable, he
could not tolerate a mean action.
He had a keen relish for the ridiculous, both in character
and manners, and Avas perhaps too much in the habit of draw
ing amusement from what he saw of the ridiculous in men.
This character of his mind led him to indulge in exciting the
admiration of strangers, by an amplification of facts, a play
of imagination, sometimes injurious to himself, where not
well known.
Such, sir, is a very slight and imperfect sketch of the
character of Joseph B. Skinner. Just and upright in all his
dealings, true and steadfast in his friendships, honorable and
high-minded, judicious, useful and active — his loss Avill be
severely felt and long deplored by the community of which
he was a member. I loved him as a brother, and lament his
loss as a brother. With sincere respect,
F. NASH.

90 APPENDIX.

F. page 42.
brief OBITUAET HOnCE BY GOVEENOE lEEDELL.
Died, on the 22d ult. at his residence near Edenton,
Joseph Blount Skinner, Esa., in the 71st year of his
•age. Mr. Skinner was no ordinary man, and his loss will be
deeply felt in the community in which he resided. After
spending some time at Princeton College, he studied law
under the late Governor Samuel Johnston. He lived tvro
years under the roof of that eminent man, enjoying not only
the benefit of his legal instruction, but the still superior
advantages of his accomplished manners, and his interesting
conversation, his varied and extensive learning, and his
thorough knowledge of the Avorld. Soon after engaging in
the practice of his profession, Mr. Skinner obtained a high
and enviable position at the bar. Distinguished for his in
tegrity and close application to his duties, his excellent sense
and skill as an advocate, rather than for any brilliant display
of talent, he was a leading counsel in CA'ery cause of impor
tance Avithin his circuit. So lucrative was his practice, that
in a fcAV years he found himself possessed of an ample com
petence. He then exchanged his profession for a pursuit
more congenial to his taste, and purchased a farm, on Avhich
he has ever since resided, in the neighborhood of Edenton.

APPENDIX. 91
Farming in that section of the State was at that time con
ducted in a most negligent, slovenly, and unscientific manner.
Few of the farmers, rich as their lands were, produced more
than sufficient for the support of their families, and a large
portion of them were in debt at the end of each year. Mr.
Skinner undertook to correct this evil. The skilful and
profitable management of his own farm gradually produced a
most favorable eftect in the increased improvement of others.
He did more ; he took an active part in exhorting, advising,
and instructing his neighbors, and, when it Avas necessary,
extending pecuniary assistance to them. It Avas one of his
most cherished objects, to impress upon the cultivators of
the soil a proper estimate of the dignity of their station in
the scale of society, to rouse their pride and teach them the
ennobling nature of their pursuits. His efforts were ad
mirably successful, and are to be seen in the present highly
improved condition of agriculture in that beautiful region
of country — beautiful beyond any other in our State — which
is bordered on the south by the broad and sparkling waters
of the Albemarle.
Mr. Skinner also gave the first impulse to that valuable
branch of industry in that section of the State, the herring
and shad fisheries. The fisheries had been confined to the
Roanoke and Chowan rivers and their tributary streams, and
were few in number and of small extent. Mr. Skinner, with
his characteristic energy, first ventured upon the experiment,
then deemed visionary and impracticable, and launched his
seine upon the wide and oft-vesed Albemarle itself His

92 APPENDIX.
example has been followed, until the northern shore of the
Sound is literally studded Avith fisheries, creating a new
source of wealth, and adding annually hundreds of thousands
of dollars to the industrial products of the country.
Such a man may emphatically be styled a great public
benefactor. Richly did Mr. Skinner earn the distinction.
Deep should be the gratitude of the public ; and ever should
his tomb be encircled by a garland of merit, more precious
than the warrior's laurel.
A firm and generous friend, liberal without ostentation,
mild and amiable in his disposition, he endeared himself to
all who knew him well, and enjoyed the devoted love of his
family. He married in early life Miss Lowther, the great-
granddaughter of Governor Gabriel Johnston, so distinguished
in our colonial annals. By her, who died many years since,
he left an only son and a daughter of a deceased daughter.
January, 1852.

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