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The following newspaper article on the life and career of Reverend Eustace Willhouby Speer appeared in the MACON TELEGRAPH soon after his death in 1899. The article is a late addition to the research for this book and contains some information on Eustace and his ancestors that is not mentioned elsewhere.

Note that the spelling of his middle name is different than that used in this book. See CHAPTER 17 for more on Eustace, his family, and descendants.

By

Harry Stillwell Edwards

Eustace Willoughby Speer was born in Columbia, South Carolina, in the year 1826, five months after the death of Thomas Jefferson and of John Adams, his life up to this writing covering three-fourths of the most wonderful century in the history of the world. He was the youngest child of Alexander Speer and Elizabeth Middleton. Alexander Speer, the father, was a son of William Speer, a solider of the Revolution of Scotch-Irish extraction, who fought with much distinction at Cowpens, Ninety-six, the siege of Charleston, the

siege of Augusta, and at "Kettle Creek", in Georgia, and was an active participant in much of the partisan warfare with which South Carolina was afflicted in the dark days of that time. His distinguished services were recognized by the Palmetto state when the war ended by a grant of fourteen hundred acres of land near the Cherokee Ford and Savannah River, in Abbeville District. There he built his home, reared his children and lived until the time of his death in 1833. A man of iron will, he held to his convictions and seems to have been impatient of change. He lived within the memory of people but recently deceased, as a sturdy relic of the Revolution, wearing the costume of the last century and accustomed to describe with interest the scenes of his wartime experiences. His son, Judge Alexander M. Speer, of the Supreme Court of Georgia, has described him as pulling down his stockings and showing the scars on his ankles by the irons worn while a prisoner of war on the British hulks.

From this pioneer patriot who was himself a man of high character and great influence, sprang a large family destined in time to actively impress themselves upon the new generations. Educated in the best schools that Carolina afforded, most of them became men of prominence and established high characters for themselves.

Alexander Speer, the father of the subject of this sketch, was born in 1790 and was trained for the bar. He early took an interest in politics and at the time of his father’s death in 1833 was Comptroller-General of the State of South Carolina. His wife Elizabeth, was of the family of Arthur Middleton, whose name appears among the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Alexander Speer is described as a man of remarkable eloquence and seems to have been early imbued with a love for the Union, which his father helped to found, a sentiment that arrayed him against nullification and with his great talents brought him forward as the champion of the Union Party against the best speakers of the times. It was the heyday of oratory, when, public journals being few and far between, men discussed the vital questions of finance and government in the open and led for or against by the power of intellectual greatness. In these contents Alexander Speer maintained himself against even such men as McDuffie, and by his influence carried the upper part of South Carolina, including Abbeville District, the home of John C. Calhoun, himself for the Union Party. Alexander Speer was a member of the legislature and associated with the legislation and development therein begun, taking a prominent part in the building of the South Carolina railroad as a member of the legislative committee. This was the second railroad in the United States; and he it was who superintended on the banks of the Congaree a test of the comparative power of a steam engine and a pair of horses, it being contended by the "enemies of progress" as our railroad friends still call them, that upon roads equally good the team could outpull an engine. The horses went down and have never recovered their lost prestige.

Eustace Speer, the subject of this sketch, was then a child of about 4 years of age, and when one reflects on what has transpired in this country since that momentous contest between the animals and the yet new candidate for public favor, between the horse of flesh and blood and the "iron horse’ (I wonder if there is where the nickname was born), the imagination is almost overwhelmed, That contest on the banks of the Congree developed into a pitched battle, and with the white vapor streamers as foam upon his flanks, with his eye ablaze and fire in his nostrils, the "iron horse" has crossed continents, conquered distances and knit the nations together. The vital principle that moved him has revolutionized all industries, upset governments, changed every map and given birth to the Puck who was to "put a girdle round the earth". It has added states and nations and islands to the Union, made homes for untold millions and burst asunder the bonds of all men who were not free. The expansion in the little cylinders and the expansion which gives the stars and stripes to new breezes and the distant islands of the sea are one and the same in their analyses. The little boy who, is possible, witnessed that memorable contest on the banks of the Congaree, should he live another year, may see, it renewed upon a larger scale.

When the fight of the nullifiers against the laws of the United States had arrested by the formidable determination and decided action of "Old Hickory", a great deal of the bitterness which marked the period and its politics survived, and on account of this Alexander Speer moved into Georgia. It was about this time that, in all likelihood weary on the contentions of men and realizing the vanity and falseness of life, he turned his thoughts to things spiritual, became a convert to religion and a preacher of the Methodist faith. He came not poor, but possessed of considerable means, and made his home in Culloden, Monroe County, purchasing there a large body of land and building upon it a residence which is perhaps yet the finest and most attractive one there.

It was from such ancestry, strong, forceful men developed in the fierceness of war and the contentions of great principles, that Eustace Speer sprung. At Culloden he found an atmosphere and surrounding well adapted for that mental growth which was in time to influence for good so many of the new generation in his adopted state and to leave its impress upon her history. At Culloden, what was probably his first great sorrow came to him in the death of his mother. His father was to survive her more than twenty years and to set him a remarkable example of labor and intellectual activity. The time came when Alexander Speer was to return to his native state. He went not as a politician, not as an industrial agent, but to fill the pulpit of the largest church in Charleston, sent there by the Methodist Conference, which once embraced several states, with Georgia. It was Alexander Speer, too, who preached the first commencement sermon at Emory College, Oxford. When Justice Lamar was invited to deliver the annual oration there two or three years before his death, he made up his discourse largely of quotations from three addresses he had heard while a boy at Oxford, an oration by George F. Pierce-afterwards bishop-a sermon by Bishop Soule and the commencement sermon delivered by Alexander Speer.

Think what an impression these men must have been capable of making upon the bright minds about them! Think of carrying in one’s mind for half a century the lines of a commencement sermon and a memory of the speaker so clear that his manner and the fire of his oratory lived again when the words were spoken! Alexander Speer was in 1836 pastor of Mulberry Street Methodist Church in Macon. The parsonage was then a four-room log house standing on the site of the present Academy for the Blind. Eustace Speer, then but a boy, witnessed the sale of the lots where now stand the residence of Mr. R. H. Plant, Mr. T. D. Tinsley and others fronting on College Street, and which by the way brought $50.00 each. He also witnessed the laying of the cornerstone of Wesleyan College on the same street. His father was greatly interested in this institution and his two sisters, Eleanor and Margaret, were among its first graduates. The former became the wife of Dr. Dudley W. Hammond of Macon, and the latter of Mr. M. P. Stovall, a wealthy cotton merchant of Augusta. Perhaps no man living has so many old memories of Macon. Dr. Eustace Speer recalls the scenes attendant upon the departure of troops from Macon on steamboat to go to the Indian war, and the conversion under his father’s preaching of Gen. Napier, probably the founder of the Macon family by that name, and in those days an old man. His change of heart was regarded as a remarkable evidence of the power of the Word.

The elder brothers and sisters of Eustace received superior educational advantages, but he did not go to college. By private study, he won the degree of Master of Arts from Emory and that of "D.D." from the University. In Culloden he was at school with such men as James M. Smith, Thomas M. Norwood, Judge Trippe and many others who made that little Georgia village famous. There were five schools at Culloden in those days and the atmosphere was decidedly classical. The girls were taught by Professor Darby, who afterwards became widely advertised as the inventor of "The Darby’s Prohylactic Fluid". And in those days the boys were allowed to come to Macon on great occasions, stopping in Mrs. Godfrey’s four-room "hotel" three miles or more from the city. The name survives there yet.

When 19 years of age, Eustace Speer was married to Miss Annie, a daughter of the Rev. Geraldus King and grandniece of Rufus King, Vice-President of the United States; and in a short time thereafter he began his life work as a minister in the Methodist Church. Five years ago this couple celebrated their golden wedding. What labor, what devotion to duty, what charity, what ministry, what unselfish love of fellow-man lie between the two weddings God along knows!

The first appointment of the young preacher was on the Jasper circuit, as it was then called. The pathway of the young preacher was not an easy one. There were prominent and influential men in Monticello, infidels. Nothing daunted, however, he fought the good fight. And while he preached, riding the primeval forests to his appointments, the brave wife at home, a helpmeet in truth, taught school in the village of Hillsboro within sight of the birthplace of that Benjamin H. Hill whose mighty intellect was to reflect so much credit upon Georgia, and who in after years became the unchanging friend of the young preacher. The last letter penned by the great Georgian’s tremulous had was addressed to "Dr. Speer."

The next change in the life of the Rev. Mr. Speer removed him to the Decatur Circuit, which included Atlanta’s present site. He preached twice a month in a little frame school house that stood at the junction of Pryor and Peachtree Streets precisely where now stands the Methodist Church. This was probably in 1846 or ‘47 and the building was then the only church in Atlanta. It was used as a school house during the week.

And now the young preacher was making a strong impression upon the old heads of the Georgia Conference. They were confronted then by a condition of affairs at Athens, the seat of Franklin College, that sorely tried the hearts of those good men. It is likely that traditions of those wild days live in the families of many of my readers. The college was prosperous, but the student body was composed of a large number of wealthy and sometimes reckless youngsters, sons of the old Southern aristocracy. The conduct of these students had grown to be a scandal in the eyes of the brethren, and after due reflection, Conference sent to them our young theologian. This was in 1850. The disorder which greeted his first appearance soon disappeared before his eloquence, and it was not long beggar the boys were his devoted friends. No year of his ministry was ever more profitable, and many friendships made there have lasted through life.

In 1853 the subject of my sketch was sent to Mulberry Street, Macon. He remembers his entrance into the Lanier, between the two lions, where, in 1865, the writer saw Jefferson Davis pass under guard. In 1854 Macon had the yellow fever epidemic. The young preacher stuck to his post and face the danger manfully. There were times when he returned from the bedside of the dying with the marks of the disease, in its last stages, upon his clothing. Here, as elsewhere, he endeared himself to all classed, and, though a half century has fled since he passed into other fields, there are citizens who recall every feature of his benignant face, the erect and dignified figure, the nobleness of his bearing, the splendor of his rhetoric, and the loving tenderness of his ministry.

His advancement was rapid. He passed on to Columbus, Augusta, Athens again, Savannah, Americus, LaGrange and Atlanta, saving souls and building up the church of his fathers. At times he served as presiding elder. In 1874 he was elected by the trustees as Professor of Belles Letters and English Literature in the University of Athens. and held this position for eight years. There are hundreds of men in Georgia and the South, many of them middle-aged, whose ability as thinkers, speakers, and writers attest the excellence of his training. Such men as McClendon of Thomasville, Denmark of Savannah, the late W. Y. Atkinson and J. R. Lamar of Augusta attest the power and purity of his training and have never lost an opportunity to express their affectionate gratitude to their former teacher. Among the men who received training in English Literature from him are John Temple Graves, Hon. W. H. Howard, Hon. W. H. Fleming, Hon. Clark Howell, Hon. Pleas. Stovall, Hon. A. R. Lawton and Hon W. A. Dodson president of the Senate. Since that time Dr. Speer has lived in Athens. He had been admitted in early life to the bar by act of the General Assembly of Georgia, and has always evinced a fondness for the study of law in general education. Shortly after his resignation as professor at Athens he was appointed by Justice Woods Master in Chancery in the United States Courts and thereafter Justice Pardee renewed his appointment. To the duties of this new station he has brought a patience of investigation and clearness of logic and a learning remarkable in one whose life had not been devoted to the study of law. His natural aptitude for law, however, and his powers as reasoner were conspicuous. Gen. Toombs pronounced his ability for clear statement as exceeded only by Judah P. Benjamin’s. In Politics he is, as was his father before him, a consistent Union man, and ever was. His understanding of the constitution was that of Hamilton, Marshall and Webster. When Georgia seceded he was pastor of the Methodist Church in Americus, and when the brethren come to remind him that the parsonage was the only house in town not illuminated, he said sadly to them: "You had better be in sackcloth and ashes". But while his convictions seemed to lead him toward the federalist construction of the constitution, he has in no sense departed from his fealty as a Southern man and to all lawful movements which were and are essential to keep the control of our local affairs in the hands of the intelligence and patriotism of section.

Dr. Speer is the last of his father’s children to survive. His oldest brother, Dr. Algernon Sidney Speer, moved to Florida fifty years ago and planted the famous Speer grove near Sanford, and which has ever since been a source of revenue to his family. His second brother, Alexander Speer, died but recently. He was Judge of the Superior Courts of Bibb and Flint Circuits and Judge of the Supreme Court of Georgia. He was the eldest member of the Macon Volunteers in ‘61, and the company’s secretary when the Volunteers and Floyd Rifles with two other Georgia companies, went as the first Southern troops in Virginia and Norfolk, but was soon appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of the Forty-sixth Georgia Regiment. His memory is revered by the people and the bar of his native state. All others, too, of his brothers and sisters have passed into the great silence.

Among the kinsmen of our eminent divine who have attained honorable position in life is his son Hon. Emory Speer, who represented this state in congress and who has been for many years Judge of the Untied States District Court.

Crowned with the white garland of age, the little boy who came out of Carolina and into the Georgia hills has approached life’s tallest peak. Looking he has seen a life of unbroken triumphs,