Thomas Marcum was born September 13, 1843, in Breathitt county, Kentucky, in a stately mansion on his father’s farm overlooking the Kentucky river. His paternal ancestors emigrated from England long prior to the Revolutionary war, and settled in Pennsylvania, and from thence some of them moved to the colony of Virginia. Many of them became soldiers in the Virginia Continental line in the war of independence, and achieved honorable distinction. His grandfather, Thomas Marcum, was the friend and companion of that noted explorer and pioneer Daniel Boone, with whom he crossed the mountains and settled in the fertile wilds of eastern Kentucky, where Alfred Marcum, the father of the subject of this sketch, was born in a block-house, amidst the exciting and stirring scenes of Indian warfare. His great-grandfather married a Cherokee lady of three-fourths Indian blood. His father was a self-made, self-educated man, and attained local eminence as a mathematician, physical giant and esteemed citizen.

Mr. Marcum claims to have made a good hand on the farm until nineteen years old, but the assumption is uncorroborated, and without additional testimony I do not feel justified in embracing his conclusion on this point, on general principles--- such a rara avis is likely to be better at anything else than general farm work; in fact, and in the nature and fitness of things, it is almost certain that he was a conspicuous failure as a farm boy. In 1862, when he was eighteen years old, and six feel high, with a plug hat balanced on his head at an angle of thirty degrees from perpendicular, his father sent him on one of his finest horses in a hurry to a neighboring village on an errand, and never saw either him or horse any more until the war was over. He fell in with a recruiting officer for the Federal army, listened to the animating music of drum and fife until he was electrified, and he at once became a Federal soldier, and a good one, and was made first field sergeant because of his conspicuous height. The boy had plenty of the soldier’s courage, and at the battle of Perryville was promoted to the ofiice of orderly sergeant for gallantry. In 1865 Governor Bramlett appointed him colonel of the Eighteenth Kentucky militia. After the war he attended the common schools of the vicinage, taught school awhile and educated himself, and is, in every sense of the term, a self-made man. He studied law two years, part of the time under the supervision of John H. Riddell, whose sister Kitty he afterward married. He was admitted to the bar at Jackson, Kentucky, in the fall of 1867, and was very soon afterward appointed circuit court clerk of Owsley county, to fill an unexpired term of two years. In 1869 he moved to Hempstead county, Arkansas, and for one year acted as prosecuting attorney pro tem. of the ninth circuit. In 1871 he moved to Fort Smith, where he has continued to reside, being chiefly engaged in the criminal practice in the Federal court. Mr Marcum has never been an office seeker, but is an enertic, effective and untiring worker for his brother democrats whenever his services are needed in the field or on the rostrum. When he is piloting a lawsuit through the legal breakers, no matter how desperate his cause may appear, his adversary may well be on the alert for a cyclone. To illustrate: The following episode occurred in the Federal court at Fort Smith in the fall of 1885, during the progress of an interesting trial . A Cherokee Indian defended by him was on trial, charged with the larceny of a very large fat pork hog. A large number of witnesses, of both sexes, were in attendance, and were about equally divided, for and against the prisoner. The parties were all from the neighborhood of Lightning Creek, in Going Snake district, Cherokee nation, and in general makeup and personnel appeared to be far above the average Indian. When the government concluded the evidence in chief the proof appeared to be overwhelmingly against the prisoner, and Judge Clayton, then district attorney, twirled his fob-chain and with a confident and complacent smile, said : “ The government rests.” At this juncture several attorneys, including the author, called Mr. Marcum aside, and very patronizingly advised him to withdraw the plea of not guilty, and throw his client on the mercy of the court. “ B_d_m_d if I do,” was the characteristic reply, “this is a case of mistaken hog-identity.” At this intimation we knew something racy was in reserve, and hung up our coats and laid down our papers, and telephoned the judge of the State court, then in waiting for us, that we were unexpectedly detained for several hours at the Federal court, and to pass our cases until we could get there. Mr. Marcum's mouth very much resembles Henry Clay’s, but is somewhat larger than the noted vocal organ the distinguished Kentuckian carried through life. It is an important and accommodating factor, and readily responds in the affirmative when called to embrace either ear, and when truth and logic and law fail, this celebrated mouth often leads the forlorn hope and snatches victory from the over-confident adversary. Five good looking witnesses for the defense testified in Creek, through the medium of an interpreter, that the hog in question was twenty years old; that they had known him from the day he was pigged on Lightning Creek; that he was lean and lank, and was of that almost extinct species known as shad-bellies and razor-backs, with proboscis long, keen and sharp, so much so that he was often seen to poke it in the neck of a quart bottle and drink buttermilk therefrom; that the defendant killed the hog, not to eat or appropriate, but to rid himself of a long standing nuisance.

The auditory was large, and, from the dignified judge to the humblest Indian in the room, was convulsed with laughter. After silence was partially restored, Mr. Marcum gave his facial ornament. a double shuffle, leaned over the table and said patronizingly to Judge Clayton: “ The defense rests, judge; have you anything in rebuttal from Lightning Creek or Going Snake district ? ” Judge Clayton tried to stem the roaring tide which had so unexpectedly set in against and overwhelmed him, but his effort was a futile as a whisper would have been to stay the tide of Niagara. Marcum’s reply was the crystallization of satire, though he tried not to transcend the limits of serio-comic criticism. Verdict, not guilty. Every juror who sat in that case will admit today that he did not believe one word of “Marcum’s testimony,” as they put it, and will roar with laughter at the mere mention of the case.

On another occasion in the State court he assisted the State’s attorney in the prosecution of a Choctaw Indian charged with the commission of a felony, the crime depending (under the peculiar phraseology of the statute) on the Indian’s knowledge and ability to understand and speak the English language. The author defended the Indian. Every detail going to make out the offense was clearly proved, except the Indian’s knowledge of our language; that point was entirely overlooked by the prosecution.

Mr. Marcum opened the argument by stating that he was embarrassed, greatly embarrassed, to divine or think of any defense whatever on which his hardy and robust friend could base a defense; that every fact was admitted, and nothing in extenuation or mitigation had been offered by the defense, and he facetiously said, “but there are exceptions and departures from all general rules, and it has been wisely said that ‘fools step in where angels fear to tread.’ I have offered to submit this case without argument; the offer was declined; no argument can be made, when, as in this case, law and fact are undisputed. If the gentleman does, or can, offer any thing worthy of consideration or reply, the prosecuting attorney will attend to it,” and down he sat. Such an admixture of humor, spicy wit, bold and derogatory assumption was enough to stir up ridicule and sarcasm. And the author, in reply and defense, said : Burke never uttered a more profound aphorism than when he said “ he who too hastily criticizes the follies and frailties of mankind blasphemies his God,” and the squirrel-headed gentleman from the black-jack flats and whip-poor-will ridges of Kentucky shall have the benefit of the admonition ; and I am content to say that, at least on this occasion, he seems richly endowed in that unquestioned bliss which breeds and dwells in profound ignorance. I admit the force of the gentleman’s quotation, and that it has been wisely said that “ fools step in where angels fear to tread,” but insist the jury shall make the application. I then read the statute, the peculiar phraseology of which had entirely escaped the gentleman’s attention, and dwelt on the fact that the proof of the Choctaw’s knowledge of the English language was conspicuously absent. This fell on my friend like a cyclone in a hay-field, and but for the frailty of juries and the versatility of his mind, he never could have recovered ; he was much agitated, and offered the prosecuting attorney $50 for his place in making the closing argument, which was granted, without reward. Then the author knew he would receive “a Roland for his Oliver.”

Mr. Marcum commenced his reply by saying, “ my big-bellied friend from the pennyroyal regions of Tennessee has gone scalping through the black-jack flats of Kentucky where I was raised and has whooped me up very lively, he imagines. Now, gentlemen, you are honest, fair-minded men, and want nothing but what is right. Listen to me; I will put him to flight in two words; “ at this he pulled out a one hundred dollar bill, and offered it to the author if he would upon honor state whether the Choctaw could speak the English language, and thus open up the proof for the benefit of the closing argument on a point fatal to the prosecution if the jury regarded the evidence. The proposition was declined ex necessitate rei, and the jury found from this circumstance that the Choctaw could speak English. Mr. Marcum is a very fine criminal lawyer, and when necessary in discussing either law or fact he is a close, logical and forcible reasoner, and he never tires his audience. But if the author were to say he knows nothing about civil law, simply because he never devoted his attention to that branch of law, he would resent and controvert the imputation, and for this reason we decline to discuss him in that light. He is brother-in-law to B. F. Rice, ex-United States senator from Arkansas, also to M. W. Benjamin, a prominent lawyer at Little Rock. All of these gentlemen married sisters – Misses Riddells of Kentucky.