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Genealogy
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- Parents:
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- Name: Benjamin Carter Dugger
- Born: December 7, 1813
- Location: Carter County, Tennessee
- Married:
- 1) November 15, 1852 - Mary E. Campbell
- in Polk County, Tennessee
- Died: July 30, 1891
- in Fannin County, Georgia
- Buried:
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- Children:
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- Notes:
- DUGGER, HONORABLE BENJAMIN CARTER
F178 His Life and Service
(Story #1)
- "The Life and Service of Honorable Benjamin Carter Dugger"
appeared in the Blue Ridge Summit Post in June, 1889 in serial
form. The articles did not have a byline. An article written
by Elizabeth Hackney (date of writing unknown) and some of the
very faded and time-damaged clippings were given to the Fannin
County History Book for this article on the life and service
of a colorful state legislator from Fannin County by his great,
great grandson, J. Fred Taylor, Sr. Descendants of Benjamin Carter
Dugger are these great, great grandchildren: J. Fred Taylor,
Sr. Blue Ridge; Anna Zella Taylor Parris, Alcoa, Tennessee; C.W.
Kiker, Jr., Cadman Robb Kiker, and Dugger Paul Kiker of Blue
Ridge: Mrs. Pearl Gilliam Queen, Mrs. Dorothy Gilliam Thomas
of Blue Ridge; Lawrence and Leabon Gilliam, both of Michigan;
C.H. Kiker, Sr., Roy Kiker, Ruth Kiker Johnson, Gusta Kiker,
and Lucille Kiker Harris.
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- The following is from the Elizabeth Hackney story:
- Wearing a coonskin cap and red flannel hunting shirt, carrying
a stuffed wildcat skin, two heads of cabbage, some specimens
of copper and iron ore, minerals and marble, and carrying a jug
of blockade "Joy Juice," Benjamin Carter Dugger appeared
before the Georgia Legislature in 1874, representing Fannin County.
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- Benjamin Carter Dugger, the eccentric mountain sage, to whom
this section of North Georgia owes much, he having been a leading
factor in securing the Marietta and North Georgia Railroad, now
the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, through untiring efforts
to have legislation enacted, to secure a charter, and from time
to time to have that charter amended, was the object of much
amusement to other members of the Georgia legislature. but at
the same time he was held in high esteem by those same members
for no man ever dared question Ben Dugger's honesty of purpose.
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- On December 13, 1818, Benjamin Carter Dugger was born in
Carter County, Tennessee, a county which was the birthplace of
a galaxy of noted men: Honorable Nat Taylor and his distinguished
sons, Governor Robert L. Taylor and Governor Alfred A. Taylor,
R.R. Butler, and A.H. Pettibone. Ben's childhood days were passed
near Taylorsville, Tennessee, where nothing of importance transpired
to indicate an unusual public career for this eighth son in a
family of thirteen boys and seven girls. Ben was born while his
father was serving as a lieutenant under General Andrew Jackson
in the War of 1812.
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- The Dugger Family was of Scotch descent. The name in Scotland
was McDugger. The McDuggers, Camerons, McDonalds and Davidsons
were famous Scotch clans when the House of Brunswick was elevated
to the throne of Great Britain in 1714. When the Pretender landed
in Scotland in 1715, these clans rallied to his support, a rebellion
broke out, and the Pretender was proclaimed King of Great Britain.
The Duke of Argyle, at the head of the British Army, attacked
the Earl of Mars and the Pretender at Dumblain and routed them.
Thus the clans were broken up and the cause of the House of Stuarts.
These clans hated the House of Brunswick as intensely as they
loved the Stuants. They fled to America and settled in Pennsylvania.
Honorable Simeon Cameron was a descendant of the Cameron Clan
and an ancestor of Ben Dugger.
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- The Duggers moved from Pennsylvania to North Carolina and
then to East Tennessee. There the subject of this sketch was
born. Of his boyhood and early young manhood, he liked most to
relate hunting experiences in the wild lands of that mountain
section, when there were no government foresters banging around
to tell men which tree they could fell for camp fires, for this
was a game country where freedom abounded. The sky was the limit
for hunters and fishermen. His life in the open cultivated his
love of the natural and sincere and left him with no artistic
or poetic tendencies. Pioneer spirit was in his blood and as
he was independent physically, so mentally he burst through the
tyranny of inherited belief and by many sterling qualities of
both mind and heart, rose from obscurity to a noble, useful,
progressive and patriotic representative of the people of his
beloved mountain section. a people who revere his memory because
in life he was human in every ounce of his great frame, and in
every impulse of his generous spirit.
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- (Note: Inscriptions on tombstones in the Dugger Cemetery
near Butler, Tennessee, give these names and birth and death
dates of Ben Dugger's ancestors Mary wife of J.F. Dugger, was
born June 19 1817, and died April 17,1903. Jacob F. Dugger, born
March 10, 1812, died September 3, 1888. Mary Engle, wife of John
Dugger, Sr. 1785-1869, "The Mother of the 20 Duggers."
and John Dugger [dates indecipherable from photo].)
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- by J. Fred Taylor, Sr.
- DUGGER, HONORABLE BENJAMIN CARTER
- F176 Political Career: 1868-1874
- (Story #2) [PICTURE]
- Honorable Benjamin Carter Dugger and his wife, Mary E. Campbell
Taylor Dugger
- The first political campaign of Benjamin Carter Dugger was
waged in the year 1868 when he was a candidate for Justice of
the Peace in Flint Hill District. his opponent being Cyrus Cook;
both were Republicans. The Union League, which was then in existence,
decided to be neutral and the result of this election was a tie,
so there had to be a new race and in this one the League nominated
Dugger and Cook ran as an independent, resulting in the election
of Dugger by a majority of only six votes. His first venture
in politics having been successful, in 1870 he entered the race
for state representative of Fannin County, with William Franklin,
William Humphrey, J.C. Cutcher and David Schuler as opponents.
That campaign was a most interesting one. On the third day of
the election, the Democrats, seeing they could not elect their
candidate, proposed to support Dugger if he would support democratic
measures, but this he steadfastly refused to do. The same proposition
was made to Franklin and he accepted it and was elected by a
very small majority.
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- Dugger was again nominated by the Republicans for representative
of this county in 1872 and received a majority of one hundred
and fifty-five votes over the Democratic candidate, Thomas H.
Trammel. On January 8, 1873, he took his seat for the first time
in the Georgia Legislature. Thus the generous qualities of a
radiant personality ceased to be merely loyal, and Ben Dugger
was soon recognized as a Republican leader in the Georgia Legislature.
It is said that he was an object of much ridicule to his brother
legislators. In fact, they said he was the ugliest man their
mischievous eyes had ever gazed upon, and through his ignorance
of the ways of city life, they often lured him into most ludicrous
scrapes. By the end of the first session, however his associates
came to recognize in him a philosopher who entered into the discharge
of every duty with firmness and one whose nature was kindly and
full of gentlemanly instinct.
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- Once when General John B. Gordon, Alexander H. Stephens,
Benjamin H. Hill, and Herbert Tilden were all democratic candidates
for United States Senate, and the race was very close, several
attempts were made to secure Dugger's vote, even to the extent
of offering to bribe him, which offer he refused with contempt,
but he was too magnanimous to ever expose publicly those who
made the attempt to buy his vote. He nominated Amos T. Akerman,
who received fourteen votes, due to Dugger's influence. General
Gordon was elected, as is well remembered.
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- During this session, he endeavored to secure legislation
for his own section of the state, but because of prejudice against
him and his constituents, he was unable to secure the passage
of his bills, which, in almost every instant, were reported unfavorably
by the committees to which they were referred.
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- In 1874 he was again elected representative of Fannin County
by a majority of eighty votes over two democratic opponents,
Andrew H. Morris and Samuel H. Ralston, and his opposition at
this session of the legislature was about as severe as at the
first During his second term, Honorable A.O. Bacon and Colonel
Thomas Hardeman were candidates for Speaker of the House. Dugger
supported Hardeman who was elected. It was at this session that
he took the lead in support of a bill to amend the charter of
the Marietta and North Georgia Railroad, which then extended
from Marietta to Murphy, North Carolina, and had opened up the
great marble, mineral and timber resources of the mountain section.
This road now extends from Atlanta to Knoxville, Tennessee, and
is a part of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad system. When
he went into the House to make his argument for the bill, he
wore a coonskin cap, a red work shirt, homemade homespun trousers,
and carried a stuffed wildcat skin, two heads of cabbage, some
specimens of iron and copper ore from the great Ducktown, Tennessee
copper mining basin, samples of marble, and a jug of blockade
whiskey to show the products of his section of the state.
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- It is of interest to note that Dr. Dugger secured $500.00
for a Peabody School to be established at Morganton at the 1872
legislative session. He was aided in this behest by Honorable
John A. Jervis, Senator from the 41st District.
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- by J. Fred Taylor, Sr.
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