BIO: Henry Clay CHISOLM, Huntingdon County, PA

Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Lana Clark 
<myclarkhistory@hotmail.com>

Copyright 2006.  All rights reserved.
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Commemorative Biographical Encyclopedia of the Juniata Valley: 
Comprising the Counties of Huntingdon, Mifflin, Juniata and Perry, 
Pennsylvania, Containing Sketches of Prominent and Representative 
Citizens and Many of the Early Settlers.  Chambersburg, Pa.: J. M. 
Runk & Co., 1897, page 21-24 
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  HENRY CLAY CHISOLM, M.D., physician and surgeon, Huntingdon, Pa., was born in 
Kemper county, Miss., October 3, 1859.  He is a son of Judge William W. and 
Emily S. (Mann) Chisolm.   
  William Wallace Chisolm, the Doctor's father, was born in Morgan county, Ga., 
December 6, 1830.  At the age of sixteen with his parents he removed to Kemper 
county, Miss.  It was then, as it is now, infested by lawless men, whose bloody 
deeds are still fresh in the memory of many of Kemper's oldest citizens.  So 
pronounced was the spirit of violence, and so light the regard for human life, 
that the growth and improvement of the community was very slow, and the same 
conditions have worked their ill effects upon the fortunes of that region even 
to the present time.  The accession of sober, industrious and trustworthy 
families to a community like that of Kemper, in these days, was hailed with 
delight by all good people far and near, and the Chisolm family were not long in 
establishing their claim to such welcome, and in taking that right rank among 
the worthy residents of the county which they ever after maintained.   
  Judge Chisolm's great-grandfather came from the vicinity of Inverness, 
Scotland, where the Chisolms have lived a large and wealthy clan for hundreds of 
years.  In the final armed effort of Charles Stuart to wrest the crown of the 
allied kingdoms of Scotland and England from the House of Hanover, the Clann 
Siosal, or The Chisholms, espoused his cause.  At the battle of Culloden the 
chief of the clan was slain.  The wild charges of poorly armed and undisciplined 
highlanders could not overthrow the solid columns of the English and Hessian 
troops.  Charles was compelled to fly the field to escape capture.  His safety 
he had to trust to the honor and devotion of his followers.  Three poor members 
of the Clan Chisholm concealed him in a cave, and supported him there until they 
were able to convey him to the coast of Aris-aig, resisting the temptation of a 
reward of 30,000 pounds offered by the English crown for his apprehension.  One of these, Hugh Chisholm, on shaking hands with the Prince at parting, vowed he 
never would offer his right hand to another; a vow he religiously kept.   
  Many members of this clan fought under Wallace and Bruce.  A claymore used by 
one of them at Bannockburn is still preserved, a precious ancestral relic.  
After the battle of Culloden the great-grandfather of Judge Chisolm, at the age 
of twenty-three, with other Scotchmen who had been adherents of Charles, 
emigrated to America, landing at Charleston, South Carolina.  The name in 
Scotland is spelled Chisholm, but the grandfather of Judge Chisolm hoping to 
correct its frequent mispronunciation, dropped the second h, an act regretted by 
all his descendants.   
  Judge Chisolm's father was William J. M. Chisolm, whose wife was Dorothy L. 
Swanson, the daughter of a cultured family in Georgia.  She was born in 1802, 
living until 1882, a woman of great force of character, and during the Rebellion 
outspoken in her loyal sentiments.   
  In March, 1851, the head of the family died, leaving William, then a boy of 
nineteen, to be its guardian and protector.  Three of the children were younger 
sisters, and on his deathbed the father enacted of the son a promise that he 
would not only discharge the obligations of the estate, which amounted to a 
large sum, but also educate his three sisters and provide for them comfortably.  
Young Chisolm at once set himself about the faithful performance of these 
duties.  How well he carried out his pledge, the creditors or their heirs, and 
two of the sisters in good homes and surrounded by happy families, are still 
living to attest.   
  On October 29, 1856, William Wallace Chisolm was married to Emily S. Mann, an 
accomplished young lady, a daughter of John W. Mann; he was a native of Amelia 
Island, Florida, a prominent lawyer, and a gentleman of high literary and social 
culture.  The career of the Manns, during the period of the early settlement of 
Florida, was somewhat remarkable.  The grandfather of Emily S. Mann, who owned a 
large tract of land under a Spanish grant, was the first settler and built the 
first house where the city of Fernandina now stands.  In the dispute between the 
early American settlers in Florida and the Spanish authorities, in which the 
former endeavored to hold certain lands against the claims of Spain, the Manns 
took a leading part, by virtue of superior intelligence, skill and bravery.  
Many of the settlers were driven from their homes, while others were put to 
death or carried off and compelled to drag out a life of refined torture as 
captives in Moro Castle, Cuba.  Whether the theory be correct or not, it is 
natural to believe that the strong characteristics which distinguish the conduct 
of individuals do mould, at least to a degree, the minds and fortunes of their 
posterity.  If this be true, perhaps the bold and venturesome spirit so 
constantly displayed by this family in the days when the iron rule of Spain bore 
so heavily upon the pioneer settlers, had its influence in shaping the 
remarkable character and life of Emily Mann Chisolm.  The grandfather of Emily 
S. Mann, Thomas Mann, a soldier of the Revolution, born in Virginia, was the 
third generation from the first settler of that name, who was a Scotchman and 
merchant from Edinburgh, and who owned the ships transporting his goods.  Thomas 
Mann volunteered early in the struggle for liberty and served till the close of 
the war pronounced liberty gained.  Mr. Mann was shot through the knee at the 
battle of the Cowpens in South Carolina, and was again wounded, by a party of 
Tories, and left for dead, the ball entering the left side of the chest and 
passing through into the shoulder, where it remained until his death at the age 
of eighty-four years.  Mr. Mann was in the battle of Brandywine, and was for 
some time a captive on a British prison ship.   
  Mrs. Chisolm's mother was also one of a family of whom many were patriot 
soldiers of the Revolution.  She was a daughter of Wheeler Gresham, a Methodist 
minister, who was ordained by Bishops Asbury and Coke, Wesley's first two 
bishops.   
  The education acquired by young Chisolm, up to the date of his marriage, was 
only such as could be gained at odd times in the common schools of the country, 
then very poor; but with the assistance of a fond and faithful wife, his 
intellectual acquisitions soon began to be more nearly commensurate with his 
enterprising and nobly emulative spirit.  From that happy marriage dates the 
beginning of an eventful and prosperous life.  Full of manly vigor, young 
Chisolm first entered upon the business of farming, almost the only legitimate 
pursuit then open to the young men of that country, most of whom preferred a 
life of idleness and debauch to one of persevering toil.  On the 30th of 
January, 1858, at a special election for magistrate, W. W Chisolm was chosen to 
fill that important and honorable position in the township in which he lived.  
During his term as magistrate he read law and was admitted to the Bar.  It was 
on the 11th of February, 1858, that Cornelia Josephine, the first child of 
William Wallace Chisolm and Emily S. Mann, was born.  The sublime character of 
this pure girl, who nineteen years after fell a victim of savage outlawry, and 
died while defending her father against the assault of a bloodthirsty mob, is 
worthy the emulation of America's most exalted womanhood.  Her young life, 
yielded up on the altar of filial love and devotion to those principles of 
justice and right which ever inspired the hearts alike of the parent and of the 
child, cannot have been sacrificed in vain.  The lesson taught by her example 
will live on after the generation and spirit that prompted those inhuman acts 
shall have been forgotten, or numbered with the things of the past.  In the 
historic record of the proud names of our country's noble women that of Cornelia 
Chisolm will be written in golden letters on the brightest page.

   TO THE MEMORY OF CORNELIA J. CHISOLM,
          BY STEPHEN S. HARDING
Written on the First Anniversary of her Death

Brave, murdered, martyred maid;
I've listened long in silence-listened long
To hear some matchless poet's song,
Great soul to thee and thine,
Thou matchless heroine,
To soothe thy wandering shade,
But all in vain.

Why sleeps the silent lyre,
With its wild, sobbing strain?
Why hushed the poet's words of fire,
That rouse brave hearts with manly ire,
'Gainst lawless deeds of blood,
And wrongs of helpless womanhood,
In cowardice so mean, in infamy so vast,
That hell gives in and devils stand aghast.

Oh, peerless heroine, what tho' thy name
May lack in euphony and rythm;
What boots the name
When deeds of thine shall burn a deathless flame
In hearts of valiant men;
And thy pure soul, from mortal dross refined,
Shall glow with magic light, as when
A dewdrop is enshrined
In bosom of trihedral prism?

Cornelia Chisolm!
Hadst thou but died in classic Rome,
Where thy great namesake died,
Thou wouldst have lived in Parian stone,
Supreme in excellence alone;
Through the long ages dim.
Thy very name the poet's synonym
For filial love and courage deified.

Why should Columbia's daughters weep
For Jeptha's virgin daughter?
Victim to vow-dread vow to keep-
For Ammonitish slaughter.
Why wander forth in fancy's dreams,
Along the mountain paths and streams,
With misty eyes, where Mizpah's maiden trod,
Doomed sacrifice to Judea's God,
And have no tears, brave Kemper girl, for thee,
Thou more than virgin maid of Gallilee.

  From this slight digression we return to the narrations of events in the order 
of their occurrence.  In October, 1858, at a general election, young Chisolm was 
again chosen magistrate by the voters of his district.  He served his term of 
two years with honor to himself, and to the entire satisfaction of his 
constituency, so, at least, we may infer from the fact that in November, 1860, 
he was made probate judge of the county, a place which he held almost 
uninterruptedly until 1867, when he resigned in favor of John McRea, the 
appointee of the provisional governor of the State.  During his long tenure of 
this office, Judge Chisolm was elected three times in succession against Judge 
Gill, an older man, said to have been, next to Judge Chisolm, the most popular 
official ever elected in the county.  In all these years, while enjoying to so 
high a degree the confidence of his countrymen, Judge Chisolm was a pronounced 
Union man, of Whig proclivities, and an uncompromising enemy of the party which 
had precipitated the Rebellion, with all its terrible consequences.  There being 
no Lincoln ticket in Mississippi, he voted for Bell and Everett, nominated by 
Southern Unionists in opposition to the seceding Democratic ticket, Bell being a 
Whig and a Tennessee Unionist.   
  As a civil officer and citizen, he was steadily opposed to the parricidal 
contest, unalterably refusing to lend to it any personal aid.  He never bore 
arms except in the thirty days' militia, and then under protest; meanwhile the 
popular voice of the country was for the vigorous prosecution of the war, even 
unto the "last ditch."  Yet, Whig and Unionist as he was, from term to term 
Judge Chisolm was continued in office.  Young and inexperienced in politics as 
he was, some qualities inherent to his character must have won him the hearts of 
his fellows and insured for him this phenomenal success.  At the close of the 
great struggle, he was among the few Southern men needing no "reconstruction," 
in whom the pure flame of enthusiastic patriotism burned with pure and steady 
light.  Such were the leading characteristics of Judge Chisolm in early manhood, 
which, gathering strength as time advanced, marked his whole public and private 
career.   
  Besides Cornelia J., already mentioned, Judge Chisolm had five younger 
children Dr. Henry Clay; Julia Augusta, born October 13, 1861, died November 21, 
1861; John Mann, born October 5, 1862, shared the fate of his father and eldest 
sister; Ida May, born October 16, 1865, died January 11, 1866; and William 
Wallace, born October 19, 1866, is a member of the Huntingdon county bar.  After 
resigning his judicial position, Judge Chisolm filled other offices in Kemper 
county until 1875.  In 1876 he was elected to Congress on the Republican ticket.  
The news of his atrocious murder by the notorious "Ku Klux Klan," with those of 
his two children, Cornelia and John Mann, a brave boy of fourteen, sent a thrill 
of horror to all right-minded people North and South.  It took place April 29, 
1877, and was one of the last of those outbursts in the lawless neighborhoods of 
the South which showed the fire of secession to be still smouldering among the 
ashes of the "lost cause."  It was one of those deeds in which the perpetrators 
overshoot their mark; even those in political sympathy with them could not but 
repudiate such brutality.   
  The boyhood of Dr. H. C. Chisolm was passed in DeKalb, Miss.  His primary 
education was carried on by private tutors and in common schools, he 
subsequently entered Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn., but was compelled 
to leave that institution on account of the death of his father.  From March, 
1878, to September 8 of the same year, he held a position in the office of the 
Surgeon General, Washington, D.C.  Resigning this place, he became a student at 
the Williamsport, Pa., Commercial College, and was graduated in 1879.  From that 
date until January, 1883, he was in Harrisburg, a clerk in the office of 
Governor Hoyt throughout the Governor's administration.  In 1883 he went West, 
spending a few months in Idaho; in the sane year, and during part of the year 
1884, was a student at Columbia College, Washington, D.C.  In 1885 he returned 
to Hahnemann Medical College, Philadelphia, Pa., in order to finish a course in 
medicine which he had begun earlier.  His first year of practice, 1888-89, was 
spent in Harrisburg, Pa.; in 1889 Dr. Chisolm removed to Huntingdon, where he 
now ranks among the well established practitioners. 
  Dr. Chisolm is a member of the Homoeopathic State Medical Society, and of the 
Alumni Association of Hahnemann Medical College.  He is a Mason and Knight 
Templar, and is affiliated with a number of other organizations.   
  Henry Clay Chisolm was married in Harrisburg, April, 28, 1883, to Lillian, 
daughter of John and Katherine Gross.  They have four children: Cornelia, born 
February 13, 1886, died February 8, 1887; Anna, born in Harrisburg, December 31, 
1887; Emilie, in Huntingdon, February 28, 1892; and William Wallace, May 8, 
1894.  Dr. Chisolm has always taken the liveliest interest in matters political.  
He is a Republican of the strictest sect.  In 1896 he was nominated by his party 
for State Senator in the Thirty-third (Huntingdon-Franklin) District, and 
elected by a majority larger than that ever before given a candidate in that 
district.  He is a member of a number of important Senate committees, and has 
taken an active part in legislative matters since he entered the Senate.