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son has come to my notice worth relating. In the early years of his practice it is said he prosecuted in Roane County a slander cause. B. was accused by V. with having stolen his sheep and at all times and places in season and out of season V. would ball! like a sheep at В. В. finally could stand this treatment no longer and naturally consulted Mr. John son by whom it is supposed he was told that he had a good cause and so confident was he

that he would pro secute the cause for half the recovery. The case was fought pro and con with great vim and was argued at great length. Finally the ver dict was handed in "one cent damages." Thereupon in the hush incident to the interest of the cause among the people in the crowded court room, V. in his home spun clothes arose and walked over to Mr. Johnson and handed him one cent, remarking in his drawling homespun style, " Here Mr. JAMES F. Johnson is your money — I don't want an execution — I un derstand you are to get half." Judge Johnson has been for forty years a prominent member of the Baptist Church and has frequently presided at the associations of this church. While now sixty-five years old, he is in his prime and bids fair to give to the State many years more of usefulness. Among those who in their young manhood took a distinguished place in the affairs of State is the subject of this sketch. Judge Patton was the youngest man who

ever sat upon the Supreme Court of our State and one of the youngest on the Supreme Bench of any State. He was of distinguished ancestry and showed in his ability and success in life the stock from which he came. He was born September 19, 1843, in Richmond, Virginia. He was the son of the Honorable John M. Patton, who was for many years one of the acknowledged leaders of the Virginia bar. His mother was Peggy French Wil liams, a woman of rare beauty, gentle disposition, and of su perior culture and ac complishments. On his father's side he was a great grandson of General Hugh Mercer, the hero of Princeton in the American Revolu tion of 1776, and on the mother's side of Major John Wil liams and Captain Philip Slaughter, of ficers of that war, who fought at Brandywine and Germantown. He was also descended from Pierre Williams, ser PATTON. geant at law of Lon don, England. Judge Patton's school life was spent in and about Richmond. He was a student of Hanover Academy, presided over by Col onel Lewis Coleman an accomplished scholar. While here, his father's death in 1858, left him with the gravity of life's problems con fronting him at an early age. He retired with his mother and her family to their coun try seat in Culpepper County, Virginia. Soon the Civil War came and at its outset, although only eighteen years of age, he cast