Transcription contributed by Martie Callihan 29 January 2005

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This eminent orator, statesman and wit was born in Bourbon County,. Ky., July 29, 1794. He was the son of Judge Matthias Corwin, and, in 1798, came with his father to a farm near Lebanon, The ancestors of Thomas Corwin had moved from New Jersey to Pennsylvania, and thence to Kentucky. They had long lived on Long Island, N. Y. The original ancestor of the family in America came from England about 1630. David Corwin, an uncle of Thomas, claimed that his family was of Welsh origin, which may have been suggested by the fact that there is a town named Corwen in Wales. The statement has often been published, and, among other works, in the American Cyclopedia, that the family came originally from Hungary. This extraction seems to have been suggested by the similarity of the name to that of the Hungarian King, Matthias Corvinus. Thomas Corwin, in 1859, wrote to Rev. E. T. Corwin, author of the "Corwin Genealogy," that he had in his possession several letters showing the connection of the family with the Hungarian Corvinus, and that, at the time he read them, the account struck him as quite probable. He added: "I could never bring myself to feel interest enough in the subject to withdraw me from necessary labor long enough to enable me to form even a plausible guess as to the persons who might have been at work for ten centuries back in the laudable effort to bring me nolens volens into this breathing world on the 29th of July (a most uncomfortable time of the year), in the year of grace 1794."

A full account of the early life and education of Thomas Corwin, by his schoolmate and fellow law student, is appended to this sketch. A summary of the leading events in his life will here be given. Commencing the practice

Mr. Corwin began his public life as a supporter of the administration of Monroe. In 1824, he supported Henry Clay for President; in 1828, he supported John Quincy Adams. He was afterward a firm supporter of the Whig party. After the rise of the Republican party, his views on the slavery question, which then agitated the country, continued to be in unison with those formerly advocated by him as a Whig, and differed considerably from those both of the Republican and the Democratic party. He was, however, elected to Congress in 1858 and in 1860 by the Republicans.

The reminiscences of Gov. Corwin, quoted below, give more information concerning the early life and education of "the Wagoner Boy" than anything yet given to the public. They are extracted from a paper read by A. H. Dunlevy at a meeting of the members of the bar held in the court house in Lebanon soon after the death of Gov. Corwin:

"I first met Thomas Corwin at a school taught by my father, about one-half mile west of where I now stand, in the summer or autumn of 1798. He was then about four years old, and I a few months older. I then, of course, at this tender age of him and myself, saw nothing remarkable in him. I always understood that he learned with great ease and rapidity, and remember to have heard that he acquired a perfect knowledge of the whole alphabet the first day he came to school. We did not. however, long continue together in that school, and as we lived some three miles apart, we had little more intimacy than a mere acquaintance for several years afterward. Our parents, however, belonged to the same church, and the two families were always intimate. In the winter of 1800, or about that time, I again attended a school in which Mr. Corwin acquired nearly all the school education he ever had the opportunity

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"From that time, he had a strong desire for the advantages of a liberal education. But his father was poor, the owner of a small farm only, had a large family to support, and had concluded that he could make a scholar of but one son, and that was the elder brother, Matthias, called after himself. Matthias, therefore, was kept at school, and Thomas on the farm. To young Tom Corwin, as he was then and all his life familiarly called, this was a severe trial of filial duty; but he submitted patiently and labored hard and assiduously on the farm and business connected with it Wagoning for our merchants, from Cincinnati, in certain seasons of the year, was an important part of the neighboring farmers' business. The roads were then merely tracks through the woods, with few bridges, and, in the new and fresh condition of the soil, often became deep and almost impassable. For mutual aid, in these trips, it was common for five or six teams to go together, and young Thomas Corwin generally drove his father's on these occasions. It was here he first acquired the name of 'wagon boy.' He drove his four-horse team with great skill, and; as these wagoners camped at night in the woods together, this young wagon boy, by his ready wit and humor, contributed greatly to their entertainment when about their camp-fires, as well as on their tiresome journeys. It was, said, too, if any team stalled in the deep roads of that day, as was not uncommon, Corwin's skill in managing a team was called into requisition to get out of the difficulty.

"In the war of 1812, when Hull's .disastrous surrender at Detroit exposed the whole northern frontier of Ohio to the combined attack of British and Indian forces, it became necessary to hurry an army to our outposts with all speed and without the possibility of furnishing supplies. In this emergency, it is known how rapidly Gen. Harrison hurried up a little army raised in Kentucky on the spur of the occasion and marched with unparalleled rapidity, all the way by land, to the relief of Fort Wayne, then besieged by a strong British and Indian force. The brother of Thomas Corwin—Matthias, before named— commanded a company, of which I was a member, in the Ohio Division of that little army, on which, now that Hull had surrendered all under his command, depended the defense of the Ohio and Indiana frontier, extending some four hundred miles, and embracing in its lines many strong and warlike savage tribes. Under these pressing circumstances, the farmers of Ohio were appealed to for teams and provisions to be carried to this now quite large military force,

"Mr. Corwin continued on his father's farm until the year 1814, when he entered the Clerk's office of this county, then under the charge of his brother Matthias, who had before been admitted to the bar. This step was preparatory to the study of the law, and the next year, he and I together entered the law office of the late Judge Joshua Collett, of delightful memory, as pupils under his direction. From that time until our admission to the bar, in May, 1817, we were much of the time companions day and night; for more than twenty years, we were constantly, at the bar and in all the associations of life, together, and I think I knew Thomas Corwin better than any other man outside of his own immediate family.

"It was a common custom, in the early settlement of this county, at least, to have debating societies, as then called, during the winter seasons, in almost every neighborhood. Lebanon had one almost from its origin, and when I first came to town to board, in 1809, all the men of talent, whether professional or not, were members of one of these debating clubs, and when Mr. Corwin and I commenced the study of the law, we entered one of these societies. Here Mr. Corwin very soon attained such pre-eminence as to give it more than usual attraction, and he gained for himself a high reputation for youthful eloquence. These societies formed almost the only recreations of this young law student. He seldom attended those youthful parties so common then and now, but confined himself to his studies with an ardor and industry unusual even in that day. By this persevering industry, he not only read the usual course of law prescribed at that time, and which was more extensive than has been required in later years, but he made himself master of English history, and, in a good degree, of the English prose and poetic classics.

"At the May term of the Supreme Court, in 1817, we applied for admission to the bar. It was then the practice of the court to examine applicants themselves, in their presence, though they frequently called on members of the bar to take part in asking questions. For this purpose, we were taken into a large room of the principal hotel of the place, in the evening, after adjournment of the court, and there, to my surprise, I found quite a gathering of ladies and gentlemen, who had come to witness the examination. Mr. Corwin's reputation had brought them there. Under these circumstances, the examination was a thorough one, and we were subjected to a severe ordeal. But Mr. Corwin at least passed it with triumph. His first speech before court was made soon after this, and was a pledge of his future distinction at the bar.

"From this time on, Mr. Corwin was so well known here as to require no further remark from rne. His genial temper, his kind and gentlemanly deportment at the bar, at all times and under all circumstances, you all know or have fully understood from others His liberal encouragement and generous aid to young men in the pursuit of knowledge, and especially toward students of the law, had no limit, but embraced all who manifested a desire for the acquisition of knowledge, and he had the great pleasure, during the last thirty years of his life, of seeing many of his pupils distinguishing themselves at the bar and in high places of public confidence. Many of them have been called away from the scenes of earth long before their tutor, but there still remain of the alumni of Gov. Corwin's law office a number almost equal to those of a respectable college.

"Mr. Corwin came to the bar, as it now looks to me, in an auspicious time.

"Here, perhaps, I ought to stop, but I cannot forbear on this occasion to say some things more in reference to the character of this remarkable man. The world, judging from his speeches so widely published, judging from his long public life and attainment to so many high places, has no doubt set him down as a man of great ambition. But if he was more than ordinarily such, I never discovered it. It is possible I may have overlooked this trait in his character and judged him by too humble a standard. In our early reading, we much admired and often repeated poetic quotations, and among them, Seattle's Progress of Genius, one stanza of which I have often thought of since as strikingly depicting my own and the fate of many others of his early companions in our pioneer boyhood, but which, in his case, so eminently failed of truth. That stanza reads thus:

Yet Thomas Corwin, contrary to all the conditions of the poet, however true in general, did overcome all opposing difficulties—even "poverty's unconquerable bar "—and ascended those giddy heights until he stood calm and erect in that very temple of fame which shines so bright but at such unattainable heights to the millions who in every age attempt to reach it. But Mr. Corwin was not ambitious in the common acceptation of the term. The ruling passion of his heart was not so much distinction as to be useful—to be great as to be good. I know the world has not thus read him. His bluntness of manner at times, his severe invective at others, and his denunciation of whatever he deemed wrong, in public or private life, in government or in law, often impressed the stranger as having a sternness and severity of disposition which never belonged to him. He, indeed, possessed a heart of great tenderness, and his prevailing desire was to do good. He would not harm any one—but benefit all; and any attempt to injure or oppress, on the most limited scale, or

"No, Mr. Corwin was not ambitious in the common sense of that term— and in the midst of all his success, his soul often sickened at the tinsel of worldly honors by which he was surrounded, and he looked upon the whole as mere shadows. ' What shadows we are and what shadows we pursue!' was the exclamation of an eminent man before him, and such was his estimate of human greatness for many of the last years of his life."