oxsan
Keeper of the Keys
Registered: Nov 2001
Location: Rio de los Brazos de Dios
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Below is an article concerning Alfred W. Arrington that appeared in the Arkansas Historical Quarterly for Fall 1889 . It filled in quite a few gaps in my search for info on the family tree. How flowery can you get?
Alfred W Arrington
In all of the creations of the omniscient power there is nothing so inexplicably strange and curious to the inquiring mind as the complex mechanism evinced in the delicate organism of the human mind. In all of the stores of either sacred or profane learning, there is nothing more conclusive to enlightened man, of God, of Infinity and immortality. Throw theology to the winds, consign its complex mysticism to oblivion, and we have the vehement conclusion left. Great talents and great vices are often wedded in the same mind, and their compound results emblazon the world’s history as far back as her authentic records extend, and when these fail us, legend and tradition lift and lend their dim lights in confirmation of the fact that imperfection is one of the primal laws of man’s creation. Deny this and we embrace a theory destructive of the universe; deny it and we crown chaos, deny it and we strike down that infinite wisdom and progression leading onward and upward in eternal gradation. The strange character, the curious compound of frailty and greatness we now sketch give rise to these reflections. One Sabbath morning in 1833, two promising young Whig lawyers sat in animated conversation, about the prominent features of Jackson’s expiring administration and the chances for the succession in the approaching election to fill the electoral college. A young itinerant Methodist divine had just arrived, and was announced as the officiating minister that morning in the little log church which then stood where the capitol now stands in Little Rock
Absalom Fowler and Jesse Turner impelled as much by curiosity to hear the young divine as by devotional feeling, entered the primitive sanctuary just as Alfred W. Arrington was announcing his text., “Evidence of the existence of God”. The young auditors went away with the conviction that they had listened to the conviction of no ordinary man. On their minds he left a fadeless impression. His language and voice rose in musical cadence on ornate key, and gradually expanded into rapturous rhythm and a wilderness of splendor. He carried his auditory on magnetic wing in a tireless flight, and then with the greatest facility and without the slightest friction, passed to grave argument and resistless logic.
The next year this erratic genius appeared in Fayetteville as the pastor of the local Methodist Church, and drew immense audiences, but soon became involved in a “ crim.con scandal which
was suppressed for a while but ultimated in expulsion. From the Methodist Church he fled to the Campbellite Church and there officiated and flourished for some time as a star of the first magnitude. But his worldly example did not harmonize with orthodox teachings and he abandoned the church altogether. and took refuge in scepticism and deism. At this point in his life he read law and was admitted to the bar in Fayettville and rapidly ascended to the zenith of his profession from the first case that he argued. The mantle of a tyro never rested on his shoulders. He took the position of a master at once. His speeches were not all flashes of ornate and lingual splendor.. He combined chaste and elaborate rhetoric with a just and fascinating logic. When he chose to deal in philipic, he turned on his adversary like a “cataract of fire
In 1842 he was elected on the Whig ticket from Washington County to the Arkansas Legislature. He wrote a series of pamphlets called “Southwest Desperadoes” which had a wide circulation at the time , but he wrote with more than poetic license and when he wanted an incident or a fact his fertile imagination was there to supply it. When he wanted relaxation he threw his books down and “painted the town”.Once he called a mass meeting and promised barbecue and plenty of free liquor----at which neither was to be had. When the assemblage became angry and restless, he mounted the improvised rostrum and made one of the finest temperance addresses ever delivered by man, and left many in tears and all in revolt against the evils of whiskey. Afterwards when speaking of this event to “Honest Alf Wilson” he said “ Alf when I made that temperance speech I had a pint of whiskey under my belt.” He was square built, weighed two hundred pounds, had large gray eyes, always wide open, auburn hair, light complexion, long arms and enormous pedal extremeties, was careless and inattentive to dress and presented in general physical make-up a very awkward appearance.By those who knew him well this is said to be a good picture of Arrington the celebrated. He was a Whig elector in the campaign of 1844, pitted agaqinst Chester Ashley but before completing the canvass he abandoned it and went to Texas with a mistress leaving an estimable wife and several children without any cause whatever and never returned to them. After a short probation in Texas he was elected circuit judge but great public dissatisfaction arose concerning his conduct and a move was made to impeach him, but this author is not acquainted with the details. From Texas he went to Chicago where his fame as a lawyer and orator proceeded him but his imperfections did not. He took the city by storm and soon had an immense practice. In Chicago he married a lady of refinement and culture
known to the literary world. The late James R. Pettigrew told the author that the late Judge David Davis said that he heard Arrington in the Supreme Court of Illinois make one of the finest arguments that he had ever heard. His rapid rise in Chicago is without parallel in the history of the profession. He was a native of Indiana. He died a few years ago in Illinois.( Arrington died in 1867.)
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oxsan
Don't kick until yer spurred.
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03-28-2006 05:18 AM
