Transcribed from Goodspeed’s History of  Tennessee from the Earliest Time to the Present; Together with an Historical and a Biographical Sketches of from Twenty-Five to Thirty Counties of East Tennessee, Besides a Valuable Fund of Notes, Original Observations, Reminiscences, etc., etc. (Chicago and Nashville:  The Goodspeed Publishing Co., 1887), pp. 962-987.  See footnote below for on-line access.

Judge John B. HOYL, retired attorney of Cleveland, was born in McMinn County, May 27, 1828, and is the son of Rev. T. L. and Anna (FAGAN) HOYL. The father was born in North Carolina, and the mother in Virginia; both came to Tennessee in early life, and were married in McMinn County in 1825. His chief occupation was farming, but he was a local Methodist Episcopal minister. In 1857 he came to Bradley County, where the mother died in 1858. The father moved to Georgia soon after, and died in 1871, being sixty-nine years of age. In this family were seven children — six sons and one daughter. One of the boys, L. C., is a lawyer of Georgia; one, J. D., a physician of Alabama. The second child, our subject, was raised on the farm, and received his early education in the common schools. At the age of seventeen he entered Holston College, and graduated in 1848. He then read law under Hon. George W. ROWLES, of Cleveland, and was admitted to the bar in 1850. He first practiced at Benton, Polk County. In 1855 he came to Cleveland, and formed a partnership with his old preceptor two years. In 1862 he went out in Capt. A. M. BEAGLE’s company, and soon after was transferred to Gen. VAUGHN’s staff as brigade commissary. After his surrender at Vicksburg, and after a parole of fifty-one weeks, he joined VAUGHN in Virginia. At the close of the war he came back to Cleveland and practiced until 1870, when he was chosen circuit judge of the Fourth Judicial Circuit, holding the office eight years. In 1857 he married, Martha L. GILL, of Tennessee, by whom four children were born, all of whom died in infancy. In 1872 his wife died. In 1884 he married Mrs. Gussie PARKER, who was born in Texas, but raised in East Tennessee, and by her had one child who died in infancy. He and his wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. Politically he is a Democrat.

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This biography was transcribed by Sherry Pollard. We thank her for transcribing all the Goodspeed’s biographical sketches.

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