My father, Hon. William Heiskell, was a Marylander by birth, at Hagerstown, but his parents moved to Virginia in his very early years, so that he was always considered, and so considered himself, a Virginian, where he had a large family connection. After his maturity as the years went by, he was very successful in a financial way and became the owner of slaves and lands. He was a member of the Virginian Legislature and of the Virginia Constitutional Convention, and his influence was pronounced and Statewide in that Commonwealth. Prior to the Civil War, two of his brothers, Frederick and Daniel Heiskell, having moved to Tennessee, he followed them, and located on the Little Tennessee river, in the land of the Cherokees, on a large plantation, where he lived the usual life of a slave-holding planter of ante-bellum days. When he came to Tennessee there was not a railroad in the State, and he and his brother Frederick devoted several years, in conjunction with others, to arousing a public sentiment that would materialize in the construction of railroads. At that time Chattanooga was a town of about 1,000 inhabitants, Knoxville about 2,000, and the population of Eastern Tennessee, from Bristol to Chattanooga was small and very much scattered. Other parts of Tennessee, while a little more advanced, was not very much so. The real development of all parts of Tennessee came after the railroad era began.

The State, under the Constitution of 1834, was authorized to lend its credit in the shape of bonds to promote railroad construction, and in the eastern part of the State, the Hiwassee Railroad Company was chartered, and the aid of the State loaned to its construction; but somehow, for one reason or another, the road had mishaps and drawbacks and discouragements to the extent that public opinion concluded that it would be best to transfer the interests of the State in that railroad Company to the East Tennessee and Georgia Railroad Company, which was designed to extend from Knoxville to Chattanooga; and so in the Legislature of 1847 it became an acute question before that body whether the State's interest in the Hiwassee Road should be transferred to the East Tennessee and Georgia Road. Frederick S. Heiskell was a member of the State Senate from Knox County, and was one of the active supporters of the bill to make the transfer, which was passed on February 4, 1848. In 1849, William Heiskell was a member of the House of Represents from Monroe County, Tennessee, and supported additonal legislation for the East Tennessee and Georgia Railroad. That went into active and successful construction, and was completed to Knoxville in 1854, and from about the year 1849 or 1850, he was a director in the East Tennessee and Georgia Railroad and so remained until that road was consolidated with the Tennessee and Virginia Railroad, extending from Knoxville to Bristol, Tennessee, a distance of 130 miles, under the name of the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railroad. He then became a director in the consolidated road and remained such until about a year before his death, when, by reason of bad health, he had to cease connection with all business enterprises whatever. The consolidated road extended the full length of the valley of East Tennessee, from Bristol to Chattanooga, a distance of 242 miles, through one of the most beautiful, picturesque and wealthy valleys in the world.

The Knoxville and Kentucky Railroad, extending from Knoxville to Caryville, Tennessee, was one of the roads that received state aid, and was in part constructed before the Civil War, and my father was a director in that road, but when he became such I cannot certainly state, but it is certain that he was a director after the Civil War when Col. Charles M. McGhee was President, and he remained a director until he resigned on account of ill health as in the case of the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railroad. The Knoxville and Kentucky Railroad is now a part of the Southern Railway, which extends from Knoxville to Jellico on the Kentucky State Line.

He was an original charter Trustee of Hiwassee College in Monroe County, the incorporation of which by the State Legislature he championed while a Representative in the Legislature in 1849 and 1850. The bill incorporating the college charter passed February 8, 1850.

At the time of his death and for a number of years before, he was a Trustee of the University of Tennessee, and also President of the Board of Trustees of Hampden Sidney Academy, in the City of Knoxville.

He was Speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1865, and it was during this period that the Legislature offered a reward of $5,000.00 for the apprehension and delivery of Gov. Isham G. Harris to the civil authorities of the State. At this writing, 1920, fifty-three years after this reward was offered, very few persons know that such action was ever taken by the Legislature, and none born since can appreciate the exceeding bitterness of those days between the champions of the North and the supporters of the South. Vast and seemingly incurable antagonism existed, not only between the sections and political parties, but between individuals and families, and it was out of this condition that the reward was offered for Gov. Harris as follows:

"REWARD FOR GOV. HARRIS."

"Resolved by the General Assembly of the State of Tennessee, that the Governor of this State is hereby authorized and instructed to offer a reward of $5,000.00 for the apprehension and delivery of Isham G. Harris to the civil authorities of the State. He shall fully describe said fugitive from justice and cause publication to be made for three months or longer, as he may deem proper, in one newspaper in each of the three grand divisions of the State, and in papers published at Richmond, Virginia, Raleigh, North Carolina, Savannah, Georgia, Little Rock, Arkansas, New Orleans, Louisiana, and publish these preambles and resolutions with his proclamation. Passed May 1, 1865. William Heiskell, Speaker of the House of Representatives. Samuel R. Rogers, Speaker of the Senate."

Gov. Harris was never captured pursuant to this resolution, so the reward was never paid.

I think my father was the most consistently honorable man I ever knew. He died crowned with years and with not a spot of dishonor upon a long life's record. His grand integrity was without blemish or flaw. He held public office and in a sense was a politician, but not of the usual kind. He submitted every question to the supreme test of honor as a man, and of the general welfare as a public official. Always bold, outspoken and candid, he never knew the meaning of hypocrisy, trickery or dissimulation, and no charge of this kind was ever made against him either in public or private life.

He held to the principle that this government is an "indestructible union of indestructible States" before the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Texas vs. White, ever, announced such a constitutional principle. Being a large slaveholder, he naturally would have been expected to side with the seceding South, and thereby protect slavery as an institution; but he was a Jacksonian Democrat when it came to the preservation of the Union, and he placed the Union above slavery, even at his own great loss, and above every other consideration. Now that the passions of the war have passed away, it is probable that there is not a sane mind in America who wishes that two Republics had been constructed in this Western World, a free Republic of the North and a slave Republic in the South. It took great courage, the most perfect patriotism, and vast unselfishness for the slaveholding Union men in the South to support the union cause. They did so, with the result which they could easily foresee of practically reducing themselves to poverty. Such an illustration of devotion to principle was never exceeded before in all the written annals of mankind.

But while he believed in an "indestructible union" he was just as strong a champion of "indestructible States," so that after the war was over, and the reconstruction of the South was undertaken by Congress in its revolutionary and unconstitutional way, Col. Heiskell's voice and influence was thrown against these measures, and a number of them were declared unconstitutional, even by the Supreme Court of the United States as then constituted. He did not live to see all of his views in regard to "indestructible States" vindicated by the Supreme Court, but he did live to see the Supreme Court check that tide of destruction in the alleged reconstruction of the South, which, if permitted to roll its full length along, would in great measure have wiped out State lines, and powers.

When Mayor Gaynor.of New York, died, the New York World said in effect that he "narrowly missed being a great man." riting now, many years after my father passed across the border in the long ago, I feel that the New York World's eulogy on the Mayor of New York can be applied to that honorable, patriotic, great, incorruptible character whose name heads this chapter, Honorable William Heiskell—he narrowly missed being a great man—if he missed at all.

Source: Andrew Jackson and Early Tennessee History by S.G. Heiskell. In two volumes, vol. 1, second ed. Nashville, 1920.
S.G. Heiskell was the son of William and Julia Gahagan Heiskell, and he dedicated this work to his father and mother.

Tennessee the Volunteer State 1769–1923: Volume 2
SAMUEL G. HEISKELL.

William Heiskell, the father of Samuel G. Heiskell, was a wealthy slave owner, a prominent business man and a representative citizen of his state by reason of his active and important connection with public affairs. In business he was not only well known as owner of a plantation operated with the aid of his slaves but he was also a director and assisted in promoting the building of the railroad from Knoxville to Chattanooga. He likewise served as one of the directors of the East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia Railroad and was interested in other railroad enterprises, whereby various sections of the country were opened up to settlement and development. As a political leader, too, he was well known, serving as a member of the Virginia constitutional convention, also as a member of the Tennessee house of representatives and as a speaker of the assembly in 1865. The cause of education likewise profited by his support and championship and served for some time as a trustee of the University of Tennessee. A life of great usefulness was closed when he passed away in 1871, honored and respected by all who knew him.

The Mitchell Bible shows that William Heiskell married Elizabeth Davis Mitchell on 6 September 1813. She died on 3 July 1850. Elizabeth Davis Mitchell had a sister, Polly Mitchell, who married Abraham B. Trigg.

Elizabeth and Polly were the daughters of Elizabeth King Mitchell and John Mitchell. Elizabeth King Mitchell was the sister of William King, millionaire landholder and owner of the [in progress]