To the Readers of the Alabama Historical Quarterly: (The Alabama Historical Quarterly, Vol. 07, No. 03, Fall Issue 1945)
I am releasing another section. No. 3, of my article “Colbertians.” I hope it will be possible for me to add one more section but I am sure there will still be many interesting people whom I cannot include. In addition to those to .whom I expressed thanks in the preface (See No. 2 Vol. 7) I wish to acknowledge my appreciation to Mr. James Carloss of Elkmont; Mrs. J. F. Craig, Jasper; Mrs. William Malone and Mrs. W. D. Brotherton, Cherokee; Mrs. Emma Scruggs and Miss Mattie Guy, Tuscumbia; and there are probably others who deserve to be mentioned in this connection whom I cannot at this moment recall. Mr. Woodruff Delony gave me quite a bit of information. I was at his house on August 6, 1946, which incidentally, was his eighty-sixth birthday, and had a long conversation with him. Since then this venerable citizen of Leighton, has passed away. He was a son of Dr. Edward B, Delony. I hope to write more about the Delony family in some future issue of the Quarterly. Sept 4, 1946 R. L. JAMES
ISAAC E. YOUNG, OBITUARY
From North Alabamian & Times, March 16, 1871, edited at the time by Joseph Shackelford and F. D. Hodgkins.)
“Our Community was startled Saturday last about 5 o’clock P.M. by the sad intelligence that Isaac E. Young, apparently in the prime of life a few minutes before, was no more; having been suddenly attacked while in conversation with some friends by an apoplectic stroke, and within ten minutes thereafter his immortal spirit took its flight. Never has it been our duty to chronicle so startling an event, or one which threw so sudden a a gloom over this community. We could scarcely realize that he, with whom we had a few minutes before, been in friendly converse, he who was one of our nearest and truest friends, lay before us a silent corpse. Language is inadequate to describe our feelings, and to attempt it would be a mockery. “
ISAAC E. YOUNG was one of the oldest, most enterprising and staunchest citizens of this community, having as early as 1841 settled in this place, and by dint of perseverance and skill in his business, accumulated quite a handsome estate. He was ever ready to extend the hand of charity to a worthy subject and liberally subscribed to every enterprise of a public nature that would be of benefit. To the churches he was liberal in his donations, to his friends he was kind and true, he was ever kind-hearted and liberal to the fullest extent in a proper cause, but abhorred meaness and hypocricy in any shape, and if he had enemies it was from this peculiar characteristic, from his out spoken and frank nature. Isaac E. Young was in the true sense a public benefactor, and as such was appreciated by the good and true; he wished only for that which was rightfully his own, he desired nothing more, and lived in accordance with that sublime and proper rule ‘do unto others as you would be done by.’ In his death this community has lost one of its best citizens, his wife an affectionate husband, and his friends and the order to which he belonged have sustained a loss which is irreparable.
Of his life as a Christian it is not our province to speak, but with Christian charity, we throw a mantle over his foibles, and relying on the dispensation of a wise and merciful Creator, trust that he will be permitted to dwell with the sanctified and redeemed. He was buried Monday at 3 o’clock P.M. The services at his residence were conducted by Rev. B. N. Sawtelle, pastor of the Presbyterian church, in an able and touching manner … . We have never seen so large a concourse attend a funeral in this place, and as an evidence of the estimation in which he was held it is gratifying to us to state that quite a number of the citizens of Florence, together with a large number of the order of Odd Fellows of Florence, came over on a special train and took their place in the funeral procession, and assisted in the services at the grave. The procession moved in the following order: Tuscumbia Cornet Band, Order of Odd Fellows, Hearse, carriages, citizens on foot and on horses. From two until four o’clock P.M. all business houses were closed throughout the city.
“We learn that the Hon. Wm. B. Wood delivered a well-merited and pathetic eulogy on the deceased in the Lodge of Sorrow held by the I. 0. 0. F. in this place on the occasion, in which he stated he had long known the deceased, who years ago assisted in conferring the degree upon him (the speaker)
“George E. Young, brother of the deceased, organized in 1847, Franklin Lodge, No. 24, I. 0. 0. F.”
Isaac E. Young came from Washington, D. C. and was a carriage maker. Miss Leftwich, in Two Hundred Years at Muscle Shoals tells of his making a carriage which won a prize at the county fair in Tuscumbia and was purchased by Mr. Guy of near Tuscumbia who paid $1200 for it. In time of the war, a Federal officer took the carriage from Mr. Guy and had it sent to his home in the North.
Isaac E. Young’s wife, Mrs. Priscilla Young, is said to have been a very devout lady. She was, according to her obituary, born in Raleigh, N. C. May 15, 1816 and died in Tuscumbia, April 11, 1883. She came to Tuscumbia from Virginia in 1835 and was married to Mr. Young on Sept. 29, 1842. She was a member of the Presbyterian Church over 45 years.
There was an Andrew V. Young “a native of Washington city” buried in Tuscumbia’s Oakwood Cemetery who was born April 5, 1801 and died in Tuscumbia Feb. 19, 1853. His grave is marked with a gun and his dog. I suppose most likely he was Isaac E. Young’s brother.
