Living a Legacy

Liz Ragland '10 has ties to '94 graduate (1794, that is)

March 20, 2007

Liz Ragland '10 holds the original minutes of the Belles Lettres Society that list her ancestor Randal McGavock (class of 1794) as a member of the debating team that included Roger Brooke Taney.

Liz Ragland '10 is majoring in French and studio art at Dickinson College but is a living reminder of early American history.

Ragland, of Columbia, Md., is a descendant of Randal McGavock, a 1794 graduate who frequently debated on campus with his friend, Roger Brooke Taney, class of 1795. Taney would go on to become chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and, in 1857, write the majority opinion in the infamous Dred Scott case.

McGavock had a fulfilling life, certainly one that was less controversial than Taney's. Fairly or not, Taney secured his legacy with Dred Scott by ruling that American blacks, whether or not they were slaves, were "beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect."

Ragland learned of her Dickinson connection to McGavock from her father, Stuart Ragland III, a genealogy buff who traced his family roots to southwest Scotland and Ireland.

"I thought it was really amusing," said Ragland, who is McGavock's great-great-great-great-great granddaughter. "My father joked that I should have included the legacy in my application." Ragland's father also told her that McGavock and Taney were friends, a relationship confirmed by Belles Lettres Society archival records at the Waidner-Spahr Library.

Belles Lettres Society member

"Fortunately for our knowledge of Randal, he joined on September 24, 1791, the Belles Lettres Society, one of the college literary organizations which dominated Dickinson undergraduate life for over a century," historian J. Roderick Heller III wrote in a 1988 research paper on McGavock, which is available in the library's Archives and Special Collections.

Belles Lettres Society minutes show that McGavock and Taney were avid debaters and that McGavock was late on more than one occasion to the debates—and even was fined once for not having a legitimate excuse for his tardiness.

On August 31, 1793, the organization's president allowed Taney and McGavock to select the next debate topic. They chose "Were the French justifiable in beheading Louis the 16?" After researching the topic during the next two weeks, the debaters met on Sept. 14 and aired their views. The judges unanimously agreed that the "French were justifiable in their conduct." In March 1793, they debated "Whether is (sic) the war now carrying on against the Indians just or not." The debate was described in the minutes as "warm" and was followed by a recommendation by debater William Adams, seconded by Taney, that no vote be taken.

"McGavock spoke for the affirmative and, since his father and brother had engaged in expeditions against the Shawnees, and his grandmother and uncle had been killed and scalped, we can imagine that McGavock spoke with feeling," Heller surmised.

Even emotionally draining topics were debated without rancor. "It would have been a very formal setting," said college archivist Jim Gerencser '93 as he and a visitor analyzed the meticulous handwriting in the yellowed, fragile Belles Lettres Society minutes.

Neither Taney nor McGavock participated in the May 3, 1794, debate on the topic "Ought women to participate in the government of a state or nation." (They ought not, the debate judges, all men, ruled unanimously.) They did, however, use their formidable debating skills to ponder the burning issue of July 20, 1793: "Whether do the puerile palpitations & fluttering fondness of boys and girls generally prevent the exercise of a pure and generous passion."

House scene of Civil War bloodbath

After college McGavock moved to Nashville, where he practiced law and helped his brother David, who held the powerful position of registrar of the Land Office from 1806 to 1838. According to Heller, McGavock's role "appears to have been one of quiet exercise of power in a society where land holdings, and legal proceedings related to land, were the principal avenues to wealth and prominence. His governmental influence was augmented by the McGavock family's social influence and successful land acquisition."

In 1811, McGavock married Sarah Dougherty Rogers, daughter of Revolutionary War veteran John Rogers. McGavock served as mayor of Nashville from 1824 to 1825, then moved to Williamson County, Tenn., where he built Carnton, a mansion on 2,000 acres.

McGavock died in 1844. Twenty years later, a Civil War battle took place in McGavock's Grove, which left an enduring imprint on Carnton mansion. Dying and wounded soldiers were brought to the house throughout the night of Nov. 30, 1864. By dawn, the mansion was drenched in blood, and five Confederate generals lay dead on the back porch.

Liz Ragland, who recently posed for a photograph with some of the college's documents regarding McGavock, said she is impressed by her family's historic legacy, but for now is focused on the present.

"I'm sure when I'm older I'll be more interested in that," she said.