a large and lucrative practice in the several counties in the 7th and 8th Judicial Districts.
Mr. Dillard is a man of imposing personal appearance, great simplicity and geniality of manner, and remarkably courteous, especially to the younger members of the legal profession, who always receive from him the heartiest sympathy and encouragement and entertain for him a respect and admiration amounting often to the warmest affection. He has always been decided in his political views, and a faithful member of the Democratic party, though never a partisan nor an aspirant for political preferment.
Mr. Dillard is an elder in
the Presbyterian Church at Greensboro, and a gentleman of unimpeachable
character and
Hamilton Henderson Chalmers; at present Associate Justice (1878) of the Supreme Court of Mississippi, was born in Rockingham County, N. C., Oct. 15th, 1835. He is the son of Joseph W. Chalmers, and Fanny Henderson his wife, a niece of Chief Justice Leonard Henderson. Joseph W. Chalmers resided in Halifax County, Va., but Hamilton was born at the residence of his maternal grandfather in North Carolina. Shortly after his birth, the father removed with his family from Virginia, first to Tennessee, and subsequently to Holly Springs, Miss., where Hamilton grew to manhood. Joseph W. Chalmers, soon became one of the foremost lawyers of his adopted State, and was successively Chancellor and elected State Senator, being the successor in the Senate of Hon. Robt. J. Walker, upon the accession of the latter to the Secretary-ship of the Treasury. Senator Chalmers died at the early age of forty-six years, and was cut off in a career which bade fair to make his name illustrious in the annals of Mississippi. Hamilton, his second son was graduated at the University of Mississippi 1853, read law at Jackson in the law office of his relative, Hon. O. C. Glenn, then Attorney General, and one of the most brilliant orators in the State. He resided for a short time in New Orleans, and there studied the civil law and was admitted to the bar. On the outbreak of the civil war he returned to Miss., and during the war served upon the staff of his brother, Gen. J. R. Chalmers, and of Gen. P. B. Starke Settling in Hernando, Miss., at the close of hostilities, he devoted himself with great vigor to the practice of his profession and rose rapidly to its front rank. He was an ardent and active participant in the politics of the period, and though seeking no office became a prominent leader in the Democratic party of the State. Upon the accession of the Democracy to the control of the State in 1875, in obedience to the almost unanimous wish of the bar of his section, he was appointed to his present seat upon the Supreme bench at the early age of forty, being, with the exception of Judge Starkey, the youngest man who ever occupied the position in Miss. Judge Chalmers married Emily H. Erwin, daughter of Sidney Erwin and Caroline Carson, his wife, of Burke County, North Carolina, and is thus by marriage connected with two of the most prominent and extensive families of Western North Carolina. His older brother, Jas. R. Chalmers was a general officer of great distinction in the Confederate army and is now (1878) a prominent and influential member of Congress from Mississippi.
[On Jan. 4th, 1885, Judge Chalmers died, at Jackson, Miss.--Ed.
James R. Dodge died at the residence of his daughter, Mrs. Chalmers Glenn, in Rockingham County, on the night of February 24th, 1880. He was bright and cheerful to the last, and though in good health and spirits, for the
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