Show GEORGIAS CHIEF JUSTICE Vchlavements of a fountain Boy Hon b Logan E Blockley Special Correspondence ATLANTA March 17 The central figure on the supreme bench of Georgia when that honorable body is in session ses-sion is so marked and distinctive that it would attract attention anywhere Chief Justice Bleckley is far above the average height of men erect not stout with the head face and beard which illustrate this sketch Perhaps there is no man in Georgia certainly not at the bar who is better known throughout through-out the state neither is there one who I stands higher in the regard and confidence of ho people Ho looks sago and patriarchal but is withal full of fine rich humor a jurist well stored with legal lore a subtle logician but as modest and unostentatious a man as you would meet between the poles To this and his profession which leads not to such bril liant paths as the sword and pen is due the circumstance that his fame is not greater beyond be-yond the limits of his native state Judge Bleckley was born in 1827 at the base of the Blue Ridge in Rabun county At 11 years he commenced f com-menced to write 1 In 43 and 44 he clerked in a Tym country dry goods storewith intervals i of teaching a three i months school In flip the latter year he h i read the first line 1 p fin Blackstone hav v i n g previously 7J however addressed i a jury in behalf of j r a 3q He pursued pur-sued his legal CHIEF JUSTICE BLECKLKY studies without as sistance as there was t hen not a lawyer in the count In 48 IK came to Atlanta This story is related as the history that step The Western and Atlantic railroad a valuable property built and still ownpd by Georgia was then operated by the state Young Bleck hey learned up in Ilabun that the bookkeeper of the road had died Considering himself a competent bookkeeper which he was in fact he immediately addressed a coiiiimmiciion to the governor acquainting him of his qiull ications and stating that he would be down on a certain train and at a certain hour to tale the position At that hour he presented himself at the executive office and said he had come to go to work The governor looked him over and asked I Are you the young man who wrote me that letter from Eabun I am sir Well I have kept the place for you This may be merely a legend but after coming to Atlanta Judge Ble kley was appointed ap-pointed secretary and bookkeeper of the Western and Atlantic railroad a responsible position which he filled acceptably for three years when Governor Towns appointed him one of the secretaries of the executive de partment At the close of tho year Governor Towns term expiring Bleclcley thought he was threatened with consumption and went back to his mountain home to die but when spring came he had gained forty pounds He then returned to Atlanta to practice law The year following he was elected solicitor general of the Coweta circuit cir-cuit then a very large one In 1857 he married mar-ried Miss Haralson of La Grange daughter of Gen Hugh Haralson Another daughter I married Gen John B Gordon now gay mol of Georgia who was at one time associated with Bleckley in the law practice I Judge Bleckleys military career was brief I and uneventful He was opposed to secession as an original measure but acquiesced when South Carolina seceded In ISttl he entered camp as adjutant and inspector of a brigade but soon after went with a cavalry company to Virginia At the end of the year his health failed so that he was discharged In Go and jj be was one of a state commission for the government of the to draft a code This was a fruitless and rather freedmen undertaking It is recorded erratic commissioners with of the that one some of the old notions still in his head insisted inserted that every be nrovWJ sisted that a negro ingoing about be required to carry I pass In 1875 Judce Bleckley was appointed an associate justice of the supreme court bv Governor Smith His decisions while on thf bench were remarkably sound in law or iginal unique often quaint and humoions They run through the reports of that perico rich warm and sparkling But being pre eminently an honest man ho always dreaded to go on record with a decision not tborouelil studied and the consequent close appliratio brought on mental and physical exhaustion and in 1880 tired of mind and broken in health he resigned Alarmed about his health he took to the woods again as he expressed it He built a cabin on Screamer mountain at an altitude I of 3000 feet in sight of his old home and there lived and roughed ita hermitunt I he regained his health A few months I ago I on the death of Chief Justice Jackson he wa I appointed to the vacancy until the summer I session of the general assembly Averse to office he was reluctant to go upon the benc again and it is not believed he will accept I election from the legislature although he may have it if he will C A NILES |