Thomas L. Clingman

       Thomas Lanier Clingman was born in Huntsville, Surry (now Yadkin) County, N.C. on July 27^th, 1812.  His father was Jacob Clingman, a local merchant and the son of a German immigrant; and his mother was Jane Poindexter, who had French and Scottish ancestry, along with a Cherokee great-grandfather.  Jacob Clingman died when Thomas was four years old, and he was raised and taught by his mother and her brother, Francis Alexander Poindexter.  In 1929 Clingman entered the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and graduated with high honors in 1832.  Clingman then studied law under William Alexander Graham, but just as he was about to enter the practice in 1835 he was elected to the House of Commons of North Carolina.  On his defeat for reelection in the Legislature in 1836 he moved to Asheville, Buncombe County to practice law.

          In 1840 he was elected to the State Senate of N.C. for one term.  While serving there he advocated the building of railroads and internal development, a position favored by western North Carolinians; the eastern counties of the state opposed this because of the rise in taxes that it would cause.  In 1843 he was elected to the United States Congress as a member of the House of Representatives.  He remained a member of Congress with the exception of one term until 1858, the 35^th Congress, and held the position of Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs.  Clingman was an able speaker who took partisan views against the democrats.  His speech on the failure of Henry Clay’s run for president was so strongly against Democrats that it led to a duel between himself and Democrat William L. Yancey of Alabama in 1845. Both duelers’ shots missed each other and afterwards apologized to one another.  He had excellent attendance at the House of Representatives, supposedly not missing a single day.

In 1847 Clingman began to move away from the Whig party and more toward the Democratic Party with its support of southern interests.  Though many of the mountain population did not own slaves they supported the legitimacy of slavery and resented northern interference.  He did not support John C. Calhoun’s move for a sectional party in Congress, a Democratic movement.  Clingman opposed the Compromise of 1850, voting only for the Fugitive Slave Law, and in 1852 he and thirteen other southern Whigs left the party when it refused to accept the final compromise measures and the Fugitive Slave Law.  In 1854 he voted for the Kansas-Nebraska Act and continued to support the rights of the southern states until the beginning of the Civil War.  He was appointed Senator to Congress in 1858 when Asa Biggs retired from the post.  Clingman did not openly support succession until after the failed Crittenden Compromise of 1861.

He was elected to the Senate again for the year of 1861, but with the coming of the Civil War he withdrew with the other southern members in January.  In May 1861 he was sent as a commissioner to the Confederate Congress to assure them that North Carolina would participate in the rebellion.  He entered the army in August as a colonel and in May 1862 was appointed brigadier-general in command of the 8^th, 31^st, 51^st, and 61^st North Carolina infantry.  He remained in this post throughout the war, despite severe injury in 1864, and surrendered in April, 1865, along with Gen. J. E. Johnston. 

After the end of the war Clingman hoped to return to the Senate but was unable to because of his wartime participation.  He still regularly attended Congressional sessions and he was a delegate to the 1868, 1872, and 1876 National Democratic conventions.  He was also a member of the North Carolina Constitutional Convention of 1875.  Clingman continued to speak in favor of development in western North Carolina and returned to his scientific studies.

Clingman made many contributions to the sciences of geology and mineralogy and brought to light many facts about the mountains of North Carolina.  1855 he explored and measured the highest point of Black Mountain.  In 1858 he debated with Elisha Mitchell over who had been the first to climb and measure the highest point in the Eastern United States.  Eventually Mt. Mitchell was declared the tallest mountain and Clingman’s name went to another mountain in the Black Mts.  The argument accidentally led to Mitchell’s death when he was caught in a storm on the mountain and fell. Through his survey work Clingman spread the knowledge the North Carolina was a site to find diamonds, rubies, platinum, corundum, and various other rare minerals.  He also opened the mica-mines in Mitchell and Yancey counties. 

Clingman also worked in other sciences, receiving two patents for electric lighting.  His work did not prove significant, but did provide the idea of zirconia as incandescent substance to other inventors.  He practiced law, promoted the medicinal qualities of tobacco, working in land speculation, and wrote and lectured on religious as well as scientific matters.   Though he was known for his intellectual pursuits he was also known to have a bad temper and a habit of talking to himself.  He courted several women throughout his life but never married.  In the 1890’s Clingman’s health deteriorated and he was under the care of his relatives.  He died on November 3^rd, 1897 in the Morganton, N.C., state hospital, and is buried in the Riverside Cemetery in Asheville. 

  Bibliography 

Arthur, John Preson.  Western North Carolina:  A History 1730-1913.  Raleigh, NC:  Edwards & Broughton Printing Co., 1914 

Carnes, Mark C., and Garranty, John A., editors.  American National Biography, Volume 5.    New York:  Oxford University Press, 1999.  

Fiske, John, and Wilson, James Grant, editors.  Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volume 1.  New York:  D. Appleton & Co., 1888-1889.  Reprint.  Detroit:  Gale Research, 1968. 

Lanman, Charles.  Biographical Annals of the Civil Government of the United States.  During its first century; from original and official sources.  Washington, DC:  James Anglim, 1876.  Reprint.  Detroit:  Gale Research, 1976. 

Powell, William S., ed.  Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, Volume 1.  Chapel Hill, NC:  University of North Carolina Press, 1979.

Dictionary of American Biography; Jeffrey, Thomas.
‘Thunder From the Mountains: Thomas Lanier Clingman and the End of Whig Supremacy in North Carolina.’ North Carolina Historical Review 56 (October 1979): 366-95.
Kruman, Marc. ‘Thomas L. Clingman and the Whig Party: A Reconsideration.’ North Carolina Historical Review 64 (January 1987): 1-18.