White Republicans in Todd County
Profiles of Three Lawyers who did not become Political Leaders

Todd County had a strong Whig tradition before the Civil War, but that did not lead to a strong Republican tradition in the decades after. In another story, we explore the many reasons why the Republican Party failed to take root in Todd County. In this story, we explore the lives of the only three lawyers who voted Republican between 1868 and 1874:

• Jeptha Gordon Hollingsworth
• Hazel G. Petree Jr.
• John Henry Lowry

Their lives, lack of activism, and bad fortune help us understand the absence of Republican political leadership in Todd County. Their involvement in slavery and lack of interest in engaging black men go a long way to explain why the Republican Party was never competitive in Todd County.

Coming Together over Concerns about Lost Property

During the Civil War, Hollingsworth, Petree, and Lowry had joined with four other prominent residents, including local dentist Elisha B. Edwards, in a petition to General Lorenzo Thomas, the Union Army Adjutant General, asking him to investigate claims that Union recruiters were illegally enrolling African Americans into the US Army. After the Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in the confederacy (but not Kentucky), many black men in southern Kentucky fled across the border to Union Army recruitment offices, including one in Clarksville, Tennessee, just 10 miles south of Todd County.

The seven petitioners described themselves as “loyal citizens” of the United States. They explained that, in the previous year, “several hundred slaves have left their [Todd County] owners” and were now congregated in Clarksville. Their central concern was about lost property:

[O]wners have received no compensation for the slaves and the State no credit for such as have been enlisted in the army.

They requested Thomas order Tennessee Marshalls to “seize” escaped slaves (at the request of the owner) so that they could be enlisted in Kentucky, which would enable owners to receive compensation.

In this petition, the elite men of Todd County did not recognize that slavery had ended or should end. The most favorable interpretation of the actions of Hollingsworth, Petree, and Lowry is that they were seeking to tamp down secession and anti-black sentiment by compensating owners for perceived losses.

Nonetheless, these three lawyers were loyal to the Union, prominent in the community, and the only lawyers to vote Republican through 1874. They were the most likely candidates for Republican leadership in the County in the 1870s. These three could have formed the backbone of a Todd County Republican Party. Instead, two of them eschewed politics and one had their career cut short by injury. The dentist, Edwards, was left to quietly run the Republican Party organization.

Jeptha Gordon Hollingsworth: A Complacent and not Deeply Dedicated Republican

Jeptha Gordon Hollingsworth is the first of our three Republican lawyers. Hollingsworth was from an old Virginia family, firmly committed to slavery, that settled in Todd County in 1821. His nephew, John G Hollingsworth, enlisted in the Confederate Army at age 17. In 1850, Jeptha owned three women.

The Civil War appears to have brought surprisingly little change to Jeptha’s life. He did not serve in the War (perhaps because he was a little on the older side, aged 39 in 1861). In 1870, he lived near Elkton in the same house that he had lived in in 1850. He was still working as a lawyer, like he was in 1850. He still had black domestic help, though, instead of enslaving three women, he employed one as a domestic servant. Other than remarriage after the death of his wife, Louisa, there was surprisingly little change in his life before and after the War.

Perhaps reflecting the support for slavery within his family and the limited impact of the War on his life, Jeptha limited his Republicanism to voting in two elections in 1868: for R. T. Baker in a special gubernatorial election in August and for Ulysses S. Grant for President in November. He did not vote in those first elections with black men: he was absent in 1870, 1872, and 1874. He did not become an outspoken Republican, but a quiet, complacent one who dropped out of politics before black men could vote.

Hazel G. Petree: Avoiding Politics Until Old Age

Hazel Garland Petree was another Republican lawyer. The Petree family had a history of public service, were not involved in tobacco farming, and were closely tied to the most prominent anti-slavery family in the county. But, like most well-to-do families in Todd County, they were enslavers (of as many as 28 people).

Hazel’s father, Hazel Graham Petree, a farmer who migrated to Todd County from South Carolina, served on the Todd County court and was (in 1841) briefly a state representative. He likely served in the Kentucky Legislature as a Whig, but we don’t know that for sure.

The Petree family was closely linked to the Bristow family, the most anti-slavery family in the county. Hazel Garland practiced law with Frances Marion Bristow and Hazel’s brother, Richard T., practiced law with Bristow’s son, Benjamin Helm. Hazel eventually became partner in the practice with Bristow and took over the firm upon Frances’ death. Cementing the closeness of the families, Hazel married Frances’ daughter in 1854.

Practicing law enabled Petree to become one of the wealthiest men in the county by 1881. Despite his connections to anti-slavery activism, and a thriving legal practice, Petree did not involve himself in politics other than by voting until after he retired.

Voting among Democrats

Hazel voted in Elkton in three of the elections for which we have found preserved pollbooks: the 1868 presidential election; the 1869 state election; and the 1870 special congressional election. He voted Republican in each. Hazel also voted in the 1874 congressional election, although we do not know for sure that he voted Republican as that election was conducted using the ballot (not oral voting).

While Hazel did vote Republican, he did not assist in the mobilization of black voters. In the April 1870 special election, the first election in which black men could vote, Hazel was at the polls early: He was the third voter of the day in Elkton, voting among other members of Elkton’s professional class: doctors, tailors, store owners, and hotel keepers. He was the first Republican vote of the day, but he voted alone, apparently not bringing in any other Republican voters and not seeking to mobilize the black vote.

Engaging in Politics Late in Life

Hazel remained in Elkton until his death in 1900. At age 70, in the last decade of his life, he turned to politics. Hazel was a Todd County delegate to the Kentucky Constitutional Convention of 1890-91 and was elected to the Kentucky Senate in 1891 as a Republican.

From the records, Hazel does not appear to have been connected to other Republicans in Todd County or any sort of organization until his retirement in the late 1880s. This is a far cry from the role of William R. Sellers, a young Republican lawyer in Garrard County, who was closely involved with the county Republican machine and worked with other Republicans to bring black voters to the polls in the August 1870 election there.

Lacking Youthful Exuberance

Petree, like Hollingsworth and Lowry, was not young at the time the 15th Amendment came into force. Aged 50, 47, and 38, respectively, in 1870, the more advance age of these men is important to explaining the lack of youthful exuberance and energy for politics they demonstrated after the Civil War. Their formative political years saw the failure of political action: Whigs and Unionists desperate to avoid secession and war but unable to do so. As a result of these experiences, Petree in particular, likely lacked the enthusiasm and optimism for politics needed to organize a Todd County Republican Party.

John Henry Lowry: A Promising Organizer’s Life Cut Short

John Henry Lowry was a dedicated Republican and aspiring politician. Of the three Republican lawyers in the county, he showed the most promise as the one to deliver Republican organization and competitiveness in Todd County. Lowry’s career was hindered by a horse-riding accident in 1866, which left him partially paralyzed and in a wheelchair. As the result of another accident, which completely paralyzed him, Lowry died in 1876 at age 44.

Had Lowry not met with such misfortune, the Republican Party might have been stronger in Todd County. However, it is unlikely that the Republican Party under his leadership would have evolved into an election-winning cross-racial alliance of the sort Democrats feared. While Lowry moved from ambivalence to activism for African American freedom and rights, he showed no interest in engaging black voters.

Lowry had a long history of running for office (but only occasionally winning). In 1858, he was elected county attorney as a Know Nothing, a populist and anti-immigration movement that tried to remain neutral on slavery. Four years later, in 1862, he was elected to the Kentucky state legislature on the Union ticket. In 1865, he ran for Congress, in the Kentucky 3rd District, as a Republican and lost to Democrat and Garrard County native Henry Grider. When he ran again, in the April 1870 special election, he repeated that performance, losing to Democrat Joseph H. Lewis.

Over the course of the 1860s, Lowry’s views on slavery and African American equality evolved. In 1863, Lowry and like-minded “Union men,” including Francis Marion Bristow and Jeptha G. Hollinsworth, organized a public meeting to oppose President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. His views changed, and, when he ran for Congress in 1865, his campaign made it clear he now endorsed the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery. In 1866, he endorsed the impeachment of President Johnson and “the reconstruction policy of Congress,” which included the 1866 Civil Rights Act and the 14th Amendment extending US citizenship to African Americans. In 1874, Lowry “most zealously” argued before a hostile Democratic Party audience in favor of resolutions denouncing the Ku Klux Klan and imploring the Democratic Party to stop its “reign of terror.”

While his views on African American freedom changed, there is no evidence that he seriously considered engaging African American men politically in a cross-racial Republican Party coalition. Newspaper reports do not suggest he ever campaigned or even spoke before black audiences or that he transported or accompanied black men to the polls.

As was customary, Lowry abstained from voting in the election to which he was a candidate (the April 1870 special election). But he did vote in Elkton in three other partisan elections for which we have found preserved pollbooks: August 1869, November 1870, and August 1872, as well as in the November 1874 congressional election. In each he voted Republican. He was often the first (or second) man to declare his vote on the day. Perhaps this reflected necessity for a partially paralyzed man in a wheelchair, but it may also be a measure of his commitment to the Republican Party and partisan politics. (It should be noted that, in the nonpartisan Justice of the Peace election for Elkton in May 1871, Lowry was the 281st voter of the day).

In the November 1870 congressional race, Lowry was the first voter of the day in Elkton. Lowry voted Republican, against Lewis, the incumbent to whom he had lost just a few months earlier. Lowry does not appear to have brought any black men to the polls. The next three Republican voters were white men. Indeed, the only white political leader who voted with and among black men was dentist Elisha B. Edwards, who quietly served as the Todd County Republican Party Chairman for three decades.

Lowry’s brother, Squire, voted just 10 voters after he did, for the Democratic incumbent, Lewis. Family loyalty had reigned supreme earlier that year, when Squire, a Democrat, declared his vote for his brother over Lewis.

In the 1874 congressional election, John H. Lowry was once again the first voter of the day. Presumably voting Republican, he cast his ballot not with a group of like-minded black voters but in the presence of Democrat office holders including the county court clerk, Sam Perkins (the third voter of the day), and the County Judge, James D. Christian (the seventh voter of the day).

Lowry died less than two years later. With his death was lost and opportunity to turn Todd County Republican. The Republican movement was without leaders for decades and the Democratic Party would dominate Todd County consistently until the 1980s.