Macon County, Georgia Biographies

ANDERSON, Clifford Le Conte, lawyer, was born at Macon. Ga., July 7, 1802. son of Clifford and Anna (Le Conic) Anderson. His father was for many years attorney-general of Georgia and professor of law in Mercer University, Macon, Ga. He was graduated in the academic department of Mercer University in 1880, and in the law department in 1883. when he was admitted to the bar. He practiced law at Macon until March, 1886, when he removed to Atlanta, Ga. Since Jan. 1,1890, he has been in partnership with Porter King. Mr. Anderson became prominent in his profession early in his career, and has a law practice, particularly in corporation cases. Since June, 1899, he has been a member of the board of commissioners for roads and revenues of Fulton, Ga. He was a lieutenant of the Gate City guard in 1886, and a captain of the Gate City guard in 1887 and 1888. He resigned his captaincy in 1889 to become a military aid, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, on the staff of Gov. William J. Northon. He is a frequent contributor to newspapers on scientific and other topics. Mr. Anderson was married. Sept. 10, 1884, to Kittie, daughter of Wilson J. and Mary J. Van Dyke, of Minneapolis, Minn. They have a son and a daughter.

Lanier, Sidney, educator, poet, and musician, was born at Macon, Feb. 3, 1842, and graduated at Oglethorpe university in 1860. He served during the war in the Confederate army. When peace was restored he taught and for a time practiced law. His literary career began in 1876. In 1877 he settled in Baltimore, gave popular lectures on literary subjects and in 1879 became professor of literature in the Johns Hopkins university. Among his principal poems are "A Song of Love," "The Revenge of Hamish," "The Song of the Chattahoochee" and "Sunrise." He died at Lynn, N. C in 1881. He was buried at his request in Macon, and a marble bust has been erected to his memory in that city.
Source: Comprising Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events, Institutions, and Persons, Arranged in Cyclopedic Form
EDITED BY Ex-Governor ALLEN D. CANDLER AND General CLEMENT A. EVANS Vo. 3 1906

Lochrane, Osborne A., was one of the most genial and magnetic of men, as well as one of the most learned and accomplished of legal scholars, and it may be gravely doubted if his superior as an advocate before the jury has ever appeared in this state. Such was his happy faculty for weaving poetic sentiment and Irish humor into the fabric of his arguments that he easily made his hearers captive to the mesmeric charm of his eloquence. But he was equally at home in any public arena which brought his wonderful oratory and rare powers of mind into full play, and some of his occasional speeches and addresses have been preserved as models of exquisite English. Judge Lochrane exemplified his Irish lineage in his impassioned appeals as well as in his racy anecdotes and lightning like displays of repartee, and the combination of qualities which he possessed made him the idol of his fellow citizens. Had he chosen the arena of public life for the exercise of his brilliant gifts there is no telling to what heights of distinction he might have reached. He preferred the congenial labors of the law to the most tempting seductions which the forum of politics could offer him and he remained in the professional harness throughout his entire career. Judge Lochrane was born in County Armagh, Ireland, Aug. 22, 1829, the son of Dr. Edward Lochrane, an eminent physician, from whom he derived many of his distinguishing mental traits. Equipped with the best educational outfit which the university life of his native country could give him, the ambitious young Irish lad, feeling that his oppressed birthland offered him no prospects commensurate with his cravings for usefulness and distinction, came over to America at the age of eighteen and finally, after many buffetings and adventures, located in Athens, Ga., where he became a clerk in a drug store. This kind of work was not in the least suited to the tastes of the future jurist, nor was it at all in accord with the rosy anticipations which filled his mind when he sailed from the shores of Ireland, but it was the best he could do under the circumstances and it enabled him to keep body and soul together until he could find better employment. While still engaged at his post behind the counter, he managed to make the acquaintance of the best people of the cultured town and to improve his opportunities for showing the outside world what was really in him. Many of the college students became strongly attached to the young drug clerk and as an evidence of the esteem in which he was held on the campus he was elected an honorary member of the Phi Kappa society. Every moment which he could spare from his work was devoted to his mental culture and many were the compositions both in prose and verse which he produced in the solitude of his room, when the inspiration to write seized him. Being chosen on one occasion as an anniversary temperance orator he acquitted himself with such marked success in this initial effort that he was encouraged to take up the study of law. After duly equipping himself at odd intervals he was admitted to the bar at Watkinsville, Ga., at the spring term of the court of 1850. Chief-Justice Joseph Henry Lumpkin was one of the number of entranced listeners who enjoyed Judge Lochrane's temperance speech and he strongly urged the young orator to turn his attention to the law, assuring him that success awaited him in this direction. How completely his prediction was verified may be noticed from the fact that Judge Lochrane was eventually elevated to the same high judicial bench on which the chief justice then sat. Judge Lochrane's first achievement as an orator before the temperance society in Athens was soon followed by another as orator of St. Patrick's Day in Savannah, and with the prestige gained from this second success, he located in Macon, Ga., for the practice of his profession, and soon became distinguished as one of the foremost young lawyers of the state. At the beginning of the war Judge Lochrane was elevated to the superior court bench and was given the first appointment made under the Confederate government. On the bench he developed marked judicial powers, showing an equipoise of mind and an acumen for penetrating to the marrow of every issue in dispute, wholly unsuspected by those who had witnessed his triumphs as an advocate, and in this capacity also was shown his uncompromising courage and his robust strength of character, traits which were always manifest in his dealings with men, but never more strikingly apparent than when he assumed the ermine to sit in judgment upon his fellows. Shortly after the war he resigned his judicial office and took an active part in reorganizing civil government. Though an ardent friend of the South, he took the course which was the least popular at the time, but which seemed to him the wisest in the end, and by making use of his influence at Washington he succeeded in softening many of the hardships of reconstruction. When the state capital was located in Atlanta Judge Lochrane transferred his place of residence to that city and was shortly afterward made judge of the Atlanta circuit, but soon resigned the place and accepted an appointment from Governor Bullock to the bench of the supreme court. Though his career as associate justice in this august tribunal was comparatively short, it was conspicuously able and some of the clearest decisions handed down during this period came from his scholarly pen. Chief Justice Logan E. Bleckley is quoted as saying that he never knew a mind in which fancy and logic were more happily yoked together than in the mind of this brilliantly gifted jurist. On retiring from the bench Judge Lochrane resumed the active practice of his profession in Atlanta, and until the time of his death was constantly engaged in the courts, devoting himself exclusively to civil business and figuring in many important cases. The following extract from his commencement address which he delivered at the University of Georgia in 1879, and which evoked the warmest encomiums from such competent authorities as Alexander H. Stephens and Robert Toombs, is an example of his style of oratory: "The most unhappy men on this continent are those who have sacrificed most to fill conspicuous positions. The heart burnings and envies of public life are too often the results of ambition. What a sorrowful lesson of the instability of human grandeur and ambition may be found at the feet of the weeping Empress of Chiselhurst. Just as the star of the prince imperial was rising to the zenith, like a flash from Heaven, it falls to the ground; just as he was gathering round him the hopes of empire the assegai of the savage hurls him to the dust. Born on the steps of a throne, amid the blazing of bonfires and congratulations of kings, he fell in the jungles of an African wilderness without a friend to close his eyes; born to rule over thirty millions of people, he was deserted by all and went into the chill of death without the pressure of a friendly hand. Although royalty carried flowers to deck his bier, and princes were his pall bearers, and maishalls knelt by his coffin, and cabinet ministers bowed their heads, and his empress mother clung over him in an agony of grief, alas, the glory of his life had passed, and out of the mass of sorrowing friends, his spirit floated away, leaving to earth but a crimson memory. Life's teachings admonish us that the pathway of ambition has many thorns, and the purest happiness oftenest springs from the efforts of those who sow for the harvesting of peace and joy at home. And this lies at your feet in your own state, although she has suffered by desolation, although millions of her property has been swept into ruin and thousands of her bravest been huiried to their graves; although Georgia has been weakened and bled at every pore; although she has been impoverished and dismantled ; although she has been ridden through and trampled over by armies; although she has seen in folded sleep her most gallant sons, and spirit arms reach to her from the mound of battle fields, she still has the softest skies and the most genial climate, and the richest lands and the most inviting hopes to give to her children. And this is not the hour to forget her. The Roman who bought the land Hannibal's tent was spread upon when his legions were encamped before the very gates of Rome, exhibited the spirit of confidence and pride of country which distinguishes the great patriot. Although disaster stared him in the face, and the bravest hearts were trembling at the future destiny of their country and from the Pincian hill, the enemy, like clouds could be seen piled around, charged with the thunder of death and desolation, and the earth was reeling with the roll and tramp of armies, his heart was untouched with fear of her future. He knew that Rome would survive the tempest of the hour, and her future would be radiant with the splendid triumphs of an august prosperity, and confident of that future whose dawn he felt would soon redden the east, he never dreamed of abandoning her fortunes or abandoning her destiny. This was more than patriotism. It was the heroism of glory. It was sowing a rich heritage of example on the banks of the Tiber for the emulation of the world. One of the mistakes men make is their leaning on too sanguine expectations without labor, waiting for the honors to pursue them, scarcely reaching out their hands to gather the fortunes that cluster at their feet. Well did one of the old poets of Salamanca express the thought:

If man come not to gather

The roses where they stand,
They fade away among the foliage—

They cannot seek his hand.

And if you do not come to the honors of life they cannot go to you; if you don't come to gather the roses they will fade upon their stems and their leaves be scattered to the ground. The rose of fortune Georgia holds out to you is rich with hope and sentiment, and in its folded leaves are more honors for her sons than there is in the rose of England, the lily of France or the nettle leaf of Holstein. Then come together in close and solemn resolve to stand by her destiny and soon the tide will run rich and riotous through the jewelled arches of hope, flushed with her prosperity; soon will come into her borders newer and stronger elements of wealth; manufactories will spring from her bosom and the hum of industry resound throughout her borders; the glorious names of her present statesmen will take the places of those who have gone up higher into glory, and will soon behold her banner waving to the sky. Come spirit of our Empire State, come from your rivers that seek the sea, from the waves that wash your shores and run up to kiss your sands, come from the air that floats over your mountain tops; come from

Lakes where the pearls lie hid

And caves where the gems are sleeping;

come, spirit of glorious ancestry, from beyond the cedars and the stars; come from the history that wraps you in its robes of light, and let me invoke the memories that hang around you like the mantle of Elijah and will be the ascension robes of your new destiny. Touch the chords in these young hearts, these proud representatives of your future fame, that they may rise in the majesty of their love and clasp you with a stronger and holier faith, and raise monuments to your glory higher than the towers of Baalbec. Let them warm to the fires of an intenser love, and brighten with the light of a more splendid glory; let them swear around the altar to be still fonder and still prouder that they were Georgians. As an adopted son who has felt the sunshine of your skies, who has been honored with your citizenship and with positions far beyond his merits, I bow to the majesty of your glory, here in the temple of your fame, and to your spirit I would breathe out the fondest affection and pour prayers upon your pathway; I would clothe you with light, and bathe you in a rain of summer meteors; I would crown your head with laurels, and place the palm of victroy in your hands; I would lift every shadow from your heart and make rejoicing go through your valleys like a song. Land of my adoption, where the loved sleep folded in the embraces of your flowers, would that today it were my destiny to increase the flood tide of your glory, as it will be mine to share your fortunes; for when my few more years tremble to their close I would sleep beneath your soil, where the drip of April tears might fall upon my grave and the sunshine of your skies would warm Southern flowers to blossom upon my breast."
Source: Comprising Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events, Institutions, and Persons, Arranged in Cyclopedic Form
EDITED BY Ex-Governor ALLEN D. CANDLER AND General CLEMENT A. EVANS Vo. 3 1906