There was that in the presence, bearing, and intercourse of Judge Baldwin that impressed one with his superiority, yet he was free, often even to abandon, affable, and always companionable. He made ready friends of strangers, and compelled by his bearing the highest respect of his opponents.
Living for many years in Sumter County, he yielded to the alluring reports which spread over the country in 1849 concerning the newly discovered Eldorado on the Pacific slope, and removed to California. Without trouble he fell into the rough and tumble conditions prevailing at that time in San Francisco, entered on a lucrative practice, and later was chosen by popular vote to a judgeship on the supreme bench of that state. He died in California in 1866.
The three most noted humorists produced by the South were Judge A. B. Longstreet, Judge J. G. Baldwin and Johnson J. Hooper. "Georgia Scenes," the chief product of Longstreet's humor, has been read for generations, and will continue to be. "Flush Times in Alabama and Mississippi," by Baldwin, is not a work of so popular a cast as the preceding one, but has humor of a rare flavor, and "Simon Suggs," the inimitable work of Johnson J. Hooper--these represent the humorists named and their best work. Each of these occupies a distinct orbit of humor, and the merit of each has been long ago established.
When Hooper saw that he was to be remembered chiefly by his "Simon Suggs," he regretted the publication, for it had in it no index to any ambition which he cherished, but was dashed off at odd moments as a mere pastime. The author desired to be remembered by something more worthy than a ridiculous little volume detailing incidents of a grotesque character and the twaddle and gossip in the phraseology of the backwoods. But if the product be one of rareness, standing apart in its uniqueness and originality, it is great and worthy, and the author deserves to be raised on a popular pedestal to be studied as a genius.
Had Hooper not written "Simon Suggs" his name would have been obscure even unto forgetfulness, and his genius unknown to the world. That which he did was apart and above the ability of others to do. Its source is not the matter to be thought of, but the production itself. At any rate, it is the work by means of which the name of Hooper will live as Alabama's chief humorist, and as one of the prominent merry-makers of the South.