Mrs. LURTON was the daughter of the late Dr. Benjamin Rush OWEN and Mrs. Katherine Kennedy Howard OWEN, both of Lebanon, Wilson County, Tenn. Dr. OWEN was a learned and distinguished physician, who fell an early victim to his devotion to his professions, dying in early manhood from an attack of cholera, with which he came in contact in the line of duty. Mrs. LURTON’s mother was the daughter of Jacob and Sarah Kennedy HOWARD. Mrs. HOWARD was the daughter of Judge John KENNEDY, of Greenville, and a granddaughter of Surgeon General Samuel KENNEDY, of the Revolutionary Army. While Mrs. LURTON was still a young child, her mother married James M. SAFFORD, Ph.D., then a professor in Cumberland University, Lebanon, and afterwards professor of geology for twenty-five years in Vanderbilt University, Nashville, and for forty years State geologist.
On September 17, 1867, Miss OWEN became the wife of Horace Harmon LUFTON, a young lawyer of Clarksville, Tenn. Mr. LURTON subsequently rose to distinction, filling at various times the places of Chancellor, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Tennessee, Chief Justice of the same court ; and in 1893 he resigned the latter office to accept an appointment from President CLEVELAND as a Circuit Judge of the United States in succession to Judge Howell E. JACKSON. Judge LURTON is now the presiding judge of the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. In 1900 the University of the South conferred on Judge LURTON the degree of D.C.L.
Four children were born to Mr. and Mrs. LURTON – two boys and two girls. Of these, Leon Owen LURTON and Katherine Howard LURTON are dead. Mary LURTON, the surviving daughter, has been twice married. Her first husband, Robert J. FINLEY, died a little more than one year after their marriage. In April, 1902, she married Hon. Horace Van DERVENTER, of Knoxville, Tenn., where the young couple now reside. Horace H. LURTON, Jr., the surviving son, is at present secretary to his father as Judge of the Court of Appeals.
Being descended from Revolutionary soldiers on both her paternal and maternal sides, Mrs. LURTON has taken much interest in the Daughters of the American Revolution, and is now regent of Campbell Chapter, Nashville. She is a devoted Christian woman and an earnest member of the Episcopal Church. Through her marriage to Judge LURTON, who was a confederate soldier, and her relation to others who wore the gray, Mrs. LURTON is an active and interested member of the Daughters of the Confederacy.
In addition to the patriotic societies mentioned, Mrs. LURTON has long been a member of the Hermitage Association, a society of the first ladies of the State, who have devoted themselves to the care preservation of the Hermitage, the venerated home of General JACKSON.
In addition to membership in a number of purely social clubs, Mrs. LURTON has exhibited her interest in education and general culture by her membership in the Vanderbilt Ladies’ Aid Society, the Craddock Circle, the Review Club, and the Philharmonic Musical Society. Ever interested in every good work, she has long been a manager of the Nashville Woman’s Exchange.
Though Mrs. LURTON has ever regarded her duties as a mother, wife, and home keeper as commanding her first service, she has not been unmindful of her social duties; and in the society of Nashville no one is more regarded for refinement and culture and all other womanly graces than the subject of this sketch.
Source: Gilchrist, Annie S. Some Representative Women of Tennessee. Nashville: McQuiddy Print. Co, 1902.
