City: Memphis
OLIVER, Joseph N., business man; born Newark, N. J., Aug. 14, 1828; received primary education in the schools of Newark, N. J.; he left home and went to New York at an early age where he engaged as an apprentice in a hat manufactory, at which business he continued until he was twenty-four years of age, with intervals of travel both in America and abroad; in 1853 he went to Cincinnati and took charge of a hat store; six years later he formed a partnership with Samuel D. GREAR, a wholesale produce dealer and grocer of Cincinnati, and in 1860 a branch of this house was established in Memphis; in 1862 the firm was dissolved and the business discontinued; he then went into the retail grocery line as head of the firm of J. N. Oliver & Co.; this firm continued until 1869, when he organized the firm of Oliver, Finnie & Co., wholesale and retail grocers; in 1887 the company was incorporated as the Oliver-Finnie Grocery Co., strictly wholesale; he is now president of the Memphis Cold Storage Warehouse Co.; married Ella GREAR in 1860; member of the Second Presbyterian church, Memphis, Tenn.
Source: Who’s Who in Tennessee: A Biographical Reference Book of Notable Tennesseans of To-Day. Memphis: Paul & Douglas Co, 1911.
