Cabaniss, Septimus Douglass, 1815-1889

Septimus Douglass Cabaniss, the prominent Huntsville attorney perhaps best remembered for his role as executor for the estate of Samuel Townsend, was born December 18, 1815, in what would later become Madison County, Alabama. His parents, Charles and Lucy Ingram Cabaniss, moved from Lunenburg County, Virginia, to the Huntsville area in 1810. Cabaniss was their 12th child, born a year after his brother Charles Pines Cabaniss, who would later become a successful agent for the Bell Factory in Huntsville, Alabama. Septimus Cabaniss's early education was conducted at the Greene Academy in Huntsville. After completing his primary studies, he attended the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He graduated from UVA in 1835, after which he returned to Huntsville to read law under local attorney Silas Parsons. Cabaniss was admitted to the Alabama Bar in 1838 and then commenced practicing law in Huntsville, where he would remain a prominent member of the legal community until his death in 1889.

An examination of his legal papers shows that he concentrated on civil matters, particularly the settlement of estates, almost from the inception of his legal career. After completing his apprenticeship under Silas Parsons, he began to practice law with a series of men who would become some of Huntsville's most prominent attorneys of the period. It is difficult to establish who Cabaniss was formally partnered with during his formative legal years, but he clearly worked alongside Silas Parsons and his partner Arthur Hopkins through the 1840s. In 1851, he formed a legal partnership with Robert Coman Brickell, who later served as chief justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama from 1874-1884.

In 1858, Cabaniss left his lucrative practice with Brickell and Leroy Pope Walker (grandson of Huntsville founder LeRoy Pope) to concentrate on the settlement of the Samuel Townsend estate. Mr. Samuel Townsend, a wealthy Madison County planter, left a will leaving the bulk of his fortune to a selection of his slaves--many of whom were his children--and providing for their eventual manumission. The Townsend estate was sizeable and complicated in nature; overseeing the activities of these heirs, as well as the litigation involved in probating the estate, was a time-consuming endeavor.

Political aspirations may have also influenced Cabaniss's decision to leave his practice, as he was a member of the Alabama state legislature from 1861-1863. There is some speculation that Cabaniss served as a colonel in Confederate Army intelligence during the Civil War, but his name is not listed on any regiment rosters for the state of Alabama. He was active in Confederate causes during the war; an 1865 letter written from Colonel A.A. Russell to Major James Monroe Mason refers to S.D. Cabaniss as the "inspector of conscription" whose "contrary influence" hindered the addition of some 1500 soldiers to General Nathan Bedford Forrest's army. Despite his intention to focus exclusively on the Townsend settlement, Cabaniss resumed practicing law in 1865 after the conclusion of the Civil War. The Confederate government had frozen the Townsend estate in 1861; thus, nothing could be accomplished regarding distribution until 1867. After the war, he formally partnered with fellow attorney Frances P. Ward and continued to serve as executor of the Samuel Townsend estate while handling other fiduciary relationships and legal matters. He maintained an active legal practice in Huntsville, the bulk of which concerned estate law, until his death in 1889.

S.D. Cabaniss enjoyed at least one notable family connection in Alabama legal circles. He married Huntsville native Virginia Shepherd on June 20, 1843. Her brother, Yale graduate John Wesley Shepherd, was a member of the Bar of the Alabama Supreme Court and served as the official reporter of its decisions for many years. His publication "Shepherd's Digest of the Alabama Reports" was popular among the 19th-century legal community and remains a valuable historical resource today. Cabaniss's wife, Virginia Shepherd Cabaniss, lived in Huntsville from October 1, 1824 to March 21, 1907. Of the 12 Cabaniss children, only 6 would live to maturity: the Reverend Charles Eugene (1846-1938); Lucy Cabaniss Roberts (1851-1931); Septimus Douglas, Jr. (1853-1910); Frances (Fanny) S. (1856-1937); William M. (1860-1890); and James Budd (1861-1903). Septimus Jr., Charles, and Lucy were the only children of S.D. Cabaniss to marry. Lucy married B.L. Roberts and lived most of her adult life in Gainesville, Alabama. Charles and Lucy had three children: Virginia, Richard (father of Frances Roberts, donor of the papers), and Ellen. Charles Eugene Cabaniss, a graduate of Sewanee University who became an Episcopal minister, married Lucy Spotswood. The couple had one son, Robert Bolling Cabaniss, and two daughters, Mary and Elizabeth. Reverend Cabaniss served in many parishes around the United States, including Illinois, Texas, and South Carolina. Septimus Cabaniss, Jr., married Katherine Darst and moved to San Diego, California, where he resided until his death. The couple had no children. In 1903, James Budd died, and his sister Fanny Cabaniss superseded her brother as circuit court clerk of Madison County and served in that position for 41 years. Fannie used the initials F.S. Cabaniss, as it was unusual for a woman to hold the position of circuit court clerk at that time.

A member of the Democratic Party, Septimus Cabaniss also enjoyed a brief political career and a lifelong interest in party politics. He was elected the first register in chancery for Madison County, serving from 1839 to 1843. He also held the position of assignee in bankruptcy from 1841-1843. Later, Madison County citizens elected him as a member of the Alabama state legislature, where he served from 1861-1863. A religious man, Cabaniss was an Episcopal and an active member of the Church of the Nativity in Huntsville. He also served as president of the Northern Bank of Alabama and chairman of his local Democratic Party and was on the board of the Huntsville Agricultural and Mechanical institute. He died on March 30, 1889, while on a trip to Bartow, Florida, an area that he had previously invested in and where his son Septimus Douglass Jr. had once tried to cultivate an orange grove.

Sources: The S.D. Cabaniss Papers; Thomas McAdory Owen's History of Alabama and Dictionary of Alabama Biography (Spartanburg, South Carolina: The Reprint Company Publishers, 1978); Frances Roberts's An Experiment in Emancipation of Slaves by an Alabama Planter (University of Alabama, 1940); James Record's A Dream Come True: The Story of Madison County and Incidentally of Alabama and the United States (Huntsville, 1970); The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1893); and with additional genealogical information provided by Nancy

From the guide to the Septimus D. Cabaniss papers MSS. 0252., 1820-1937, (W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library, The University of Alabama)