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11/21/12

BURNETT, Joshua E.

Joshua E. BURNETT, farmer and stock raiser of Fayette County, was born in Iredell County, NC, August 17, 1834, and is a son of Jeremiah and Mary (Ellis) BURNETT.  The father was born in South Carolina, September 18, 1807, and is now a resident of Fayette County, aged seventy-nine years. The mother was born in North Carolina January 20, 1810 , and is now seventy-six years old.  They moved to Tennessee in 1840 and settled twelve miles south of Somerville; two years later they moved three miles further north where they have since lived.  The father has always been a farmer; he is a Democrat, and both parents are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church South.  December 22, 1886, this aged couple celebrated their golden wedding, and over 500 relatives and friends were present.

Our subject is the second born of ten children; after finishing his education he commenced farming.  In the spring of 1861 he entered the Confederate Army, and enlisted in Company B., Thirteenth Tennessee Regiment, known as the “Macon Grays.”   Joseph GRANBERY was captain and John V. WRIGHT, first colonel.  Our subject was changed into Cheatham’s division and remained in service until the end, though a year before the war closed he was changed to FORREST’s calvary; he was in several hard-fought battles: Belmont, Mo. Shiloh, Richmond and Perryville, Ky., Murfreesboro, Chickamauga and Missionary Ridge; he was surrendered at Memphis in the spring of 1865 and returned home after an absence of four years and resumed farming.  March 22, 1865, he married Miss Adelia GARVIN, born in Fayette County, June 5, 1841.  Five sons and four daughters have been born to them; two sons are dead.  In 1866 with the assistance of  his father he bought the farm where he lives now, but has greatly increased it, now owning over 1,100 acres of good land in Fayette County.  Mr. BURNETT is a Democrat, and with his wife and three children belongs to the Methodist Episcopal Church South.  He is a generous man and one of strict integrity.

Source:  Goodspeed’s History of Tennessee, 1887. 

11/21/12

BURNETT, Wilson L.

Wilson L. BURNETT, an active farmer of Fayette County, Tenn., was born in Iredell County, N.C., September 27, 1832, and is a son of Jeremiah and Mary F. (Ellis) BURNETT.  The father was a native of Spartanburg County, S.C., and the mother of Iredell County, N.C., both of Scotch-Irish descent.  The father was born September 18, 1807, and is now a resident of Fayette County.  The mother was born January 20, 1810; they were married in 1831 in North Carolina, and moved to Tennessee in 1849, settling nine mile south of Somerville.  The father was a successful farmer, and with his wife a consistent member of the Methodist Episcopal Church South.  Our subject is the oldest of ten children. He was quite young when he moved to Fayette County with his parents, and has since then made it his home.  In 1857 his father gave him the farm where he now lives, and he has since added to it, owning now over 800 acres of good land in Fayette County and 960 acres in Pontotoc County, Miss.

December 22, 1852, he married Miss Ellen J. TOMLINSON, born in Iredell County, N.C. in 1843.  Fourteen children were born to this marriage – seven sons and seven daughters – one son and four daughters are dead.  Mr. BURNETT has always been a true Democrat, and with his wife and five children belongs to the Methodist Church and freely responds to all calls for money for the church or for charity.  In August, 1862, he entered the Confederate Army; was first in Outlaw’s battalion, but soon joined Gen. FORREST’s forces in the Fourteenth Tennessee Regiment of Calvary, the colonel being Col. Jack NEELY.  Mr. BURNETT remained until the battle of Franklin, Tenn., and was in many battles.  In 1864, after an absence of over two  years, he was paroled at Memphis and took the oath of allegiance, then returned home and resumed farming.  He is a good neighbor, an upright man, liked and trusted by all.

Source:  Goodspeed’s History of Tennessee, 1887. 

11/21/12

BOLING, George W.

George W. BOLING, one of the prominent planters of Marshall County, Miss., was born in Madison County, Ala., near Hazel Green, March 21, 1818.  He is a son of Alexander and Elizabeth (Worthy) BOLING.  The father was born in Virginia in 1790 and died in Lawrence County, Ala., January 1, 1843.  The mother was born in 1790,  in Chester County, S.C. and died in Lawrence County, Ala., in 1880.  They moved to Alabama in 1816.  The father and mother were both members of the Missionary Baptist Church, and he was a most successful farmer.  Our subject was the sixth child of eleven children. After finishing his education he commenced farming.  In 1849 he moved to Marshall County, Miss., bought land there and has since made it his home, and before the war was one of the most extensive cotton planters in the county, owning a great many slaves; his losses by the war was enormous, his slaves being freed, and the Federal soldiers burned a large quantity of cotton for him, but since then he has acquired a large estate by his energy and perseverance and owns in Fayette County and in Marshall County, Miss., over 1,600 acres of land.

Mr. BOWLING has been married three times, first to Miss Elizabeth WALTON, and by this marriage had five children; the mother died in 1856; he then married Mrs. Felicia O. KEY whose maiden name was Bowers; they had three children, and she died November 3, 1869, and our subject married Miss Laura BROOKS who died July 6, 1880, and two children were born to this marriage.  Of the ten children to the three marriages five are living. Mr. BOWLING is a Democrat.  He is not a church member but is in sympathy with the Missionary Baptist Church and a man of fine moral character.  He is a resident of Marshall County, Miss.

Source:  Goodspeed’s History of Tennessee, 1887. 

11/21/12

BASS, James W.

James W. BASS, citizen and farmer of Hardeman County, was born in Rutherford County, Tenn., July 4, 1848, and is a son of Thomas W. and Nannie P. (Avent) BASS.  The father was born in 1822, and is now living in Rutherford County near Murfreesboro.  The mother is several years younger than her husband and is still living.  In 1852, they moved to West Tennessee and lived until the war, dividing the time in Madison, Gibson and Hardeman counties.  The father entered the Confederate Army in 1862, in the Twelfth Tennessee Regiment of Calvary, and was quartermaster or foragemaster of the regiment until the war was closed; was captured and kept for several months a prisoner at Alton, Ill.  Two years after the ware he moved his family back to Rutherford County, where he has since lived and farmed.

With his wife he belongs to the Methodist Episcopal Church South.  Our subject is the second of ten children; he had a good education, and when eight years old moved with his parents to Hardeman County and has since made it his home.  After finishing school he sold goods for various parties in New Castle for eight years, and in 1875 he established, with Thomas POLK, a store in New Castle and was in the mercantile business for two years.  In 1876 he purchased the farm where he now lives, and moved to it in 1879.  Mr. BASS owns now over 1,600 acres of land in Hardeman County and in Arkansas.  December 20, 1874, he married Miss Olivia B. KENT, born in Lee County, Ark., November 26, 1856.  They have one daughter born December 7, 1879.  Our subject is a Democrat, and in August, 1882, was elected magistrate and still holds the office; he is not a church member; his wife is Roman Catholic.  He is an honest man and a kind neighbor, and exerts an influence for good in his country.

Source:  Goodspeed’s History of Tennessee, 1887. 

 

11/21/12

BAIRD, Benjamin F. (Dr.)

Dr. Benjamin F. BAIRD, a physician of Fayette County, was born in the county April 27, 1836, and is a son of Capt. Charles and Nancy (Robards) BAIRD, both natives of Robertson County, Tenn., and of Scotch-Irish descent coming from the house of Stuarts.  The father was born in 1796 and died in Fayette County in 1871.  The mother was born in 1814 and died in 1867.  The parents married in Robertson County.  In 1832 they moved to Fayette County and settled in the Fifteenth District, twelve miles south of Somerville, where they spent the rest of their lives.  The father engaged in agricultural pursuits all of his life.  For a number of years he was captain of the State militia.  He was a cultivated man and taught school for seven years when first grown; he was a kind, upright man, a loyal Democrat and with his wife a member of the Primitive Baptist Church.  Dr. B.F. BAIRD was the fourth of eight children; after receiving a good education in the fall of 1854 he took his first course of lectures at the Memphis Medical College, then returned home and practiced a year, and then returned to college and graduated in the spring of 1856, and located in Fayette County near his old home, where he soon built up a large practice and was regarded as one of the leading physicians of the county.  

In 1850 he went to Arkansas and located in Dallas County near Tulip where he practiced medicine for three years, then moved his family back to Fayette County and he entered the Confederate Army as surgeon of the Fifteenth Tennessee Regiment of Calvary in Forrest’s command and served until the war closed.  In 1865 he resumed his practice in Fayette County.  In October 1878, he moved to Hickory Valley, a little town in Hardeman County,  and continued the practice of medicine until 1885, when he returned to the Fifteenth District in Fayette County where he now lives.  Dr. BAIRD is a successful and eminent physician; he owns 350 acres of land in Fayette and Hardeman Counties.  Dr. BAIRD has been married twice, first to Julia MITCHELL, born in North Carolina in 1840 and died in Fayette County September 25, 1876; they were married November 27, 1859, and January 10, 1877, he married Julia EUBANK, born in Hardeman County November 13, 1860  Eight sons were born to the first marriage – three are dead – and two sons and a daughter were born to the second marriage; the two sons died.  Dr. BAIRD is a Democrat, and with his wife holds membership with the Methodist Episcopal Church South; the first wife also belonged to that church.   He ranks as one of the substantial, influential citizens of Fayette County. 

Source:  Goodspeed’s History of Tennessee, 1887. 

11/21/12

ANDERSON, Moses L.

Moses L. ANDERSON, a well-known and enterprising citizen of La Grange, Fayette Co, Tenn., was born in this county, July 29, 1838, and is a son of Joel and Laura G. (Roberts) ANDERSON.  The father was born in Halifax County, Va., in 1793, and died in Fayette County, July, 1841.  The mother was born in Chesterfield County, Va., in 1804, and died near La Grange in 1871.  They were married in Fayette County, Tenn., July 29, 1837.  The father in 1835 established a foundry at La Grange, but the last years of his life were spent in farming.  Politically he was a Whig and a consistent member of the Methodist Church; the mother was Missionary Baptist.  Our subject was an only child by his father’s second marriage; he had fine educational advantages, and attended school one year at the University of Virginia, and at the time the La Grange College was established, he spent two years in it, and after completing his education, he turned his attention to agricultural pursuits. 

In 1860 he bought a farm three miles northwest of La Grange, where he lived until 1878, when he moved to La Grange, but has never sold any of his land.  For twenty-five years Mr. ANDERSON has been one of the leading citizens of Fayette County and owns 2,000 acres of land in Fayette County and in Denton County, Miss., and an extensive foundry at La Grange with a large manufacturing department attached, of cast plows, and in connection with the foundry building a steam cotton gin and a grist-mill valued at $5,000.  March 31, 1870, Mr. ANDERSON married Miss Maria B.  SMITH who was born in Marshall County, Miss., July 15, 1849, and to this union one son and four daughters have been born.  Mr. and Mrs. ANDERSON are worthy members of the Missionary Baptist Church and contribute liberally to its support.  He is a Democrat and a man who does a great deal to advance the interests of his county. 

Source:  Goodspeed’s History of Tennessee, 1887. 

07/29/12

Biography: WASHINGTON, Henry Augustine (b. 1870)

Henry Augustine Washington, a leading realtor of Memphis, conducting business under the name of the Washington Real Estate Company, was born at Somerville, Fayette county, Tennessee, on the 29th of March, 1870, and is a son of Dr. James S. and Ella V. (Jackson) Washington. Through the paternal line the family is connected with the Washington family of which George Washington was a representative, and through the maternal line is identified with the same family as General Andrew Jackson. Dr. James S. Washington was born in Fayette county, Tennessee, at Newcastle, February 24, 1838, and died on the 29th of June, 1921, in his eighty-fourth year. He was a physician and surgeon, who served throughout the Civil war as an army surgeon in Dobbin’s Brigade. He had been graduated from the Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia in 1861 and had thus thoroughly qualified for important and onerous professional duties. With his return from the war he entered upon the private practice of medicine and remained strong and vigorous to almost the time of his demise. He left a large estate, which he had accumulated throughout a period of fifty-four years of medical practice. As his financial resources increased he had made investments in land. He had enjoyed a remarkable record as a physician, particularly as an obstetrician, never losing a single case in all of the half century and more of his practice. Prospering as the years passed by, he acquired valuable property holdings and one of the features of his estate was forty-three hundred acres of good farm land in Tennessee and Arkansas, of which twenty-seven hundred acres bordered the White river in Arkansas. When land values were at their height during the World war, he could have sold at two hundred dollars per acre, but he refused to dispose of a single acre, as he owed not a dollar and recognized that after all land is the basis of all values and no matter what happens to the country the man who owns good land is on the safe side. It was his rule from which he never deviated that not a dollar of mortgage should be placed upon any of his property and he advised his sons and daughters, who still own the land, to follow his example in this respect, which they have done. It was on the 24th of December, 1865, that Dr. Washington wedded Miss Ella V. Jackson of Monroe county, Arkansas, who still survives and is in excellent health, at the age of seventy-six years. She yet lives in the old home at Somerville, Tennessee, in which her son, Henry A., was born. Besides him there were four other children in the family: Dr. Clarence J. Washington, who is a dentist practicing in Memphis: Loulah, the wife of R. W. Sessums of Somerville, Tennessee; James G., also living in Somerville; and Emma, who is the wife of W. T. Cartwright of Memphis.

Henry A. Washington was educated in the public schools of Somerville and afterward pursued a commercial course in Eastman’s Business College at Poughkeepsie, New York. During ten years of his early manhood he was employed in the Peoples Savings Bank at Helena, Arkansas, holding various responsible positions and winning promotion from time to time. In 1905 he came to Memphis, where he embarked in the real estate business, which he has since followed uninterruptedly, building up a business of large and gratifying proportions. He now has many clients and has negotiated many important realty transfers. His judgment concerning realty values seems at all times of the soundest and his purchases and sales have been most judiciously made.

On the 5th of June, 1890. Mr. Washington was married to Miss Olive Oates, a native of Helena, Arkansas, and they have five children: Edith, now the wife of E. E. Bailey; Jane; Benjamin; James S.; and Ella V., the youngest, being now twelve years of age. Mr. and Mrs. Washington attend the Episcopal church, in which they hold membership and to the support of which they make generous contribution. Mr. Washington belongs to the Knights of Pythias and to the Woodmen of the World. He is fond of hunting and fishing and on one of his farms, a tract of six hundred acres in Monroe county, there is a fine fishing lake bordering his land and he there derives much pleasure in luring the finny tribe. Hunting is also good in that district and he not infrequently brings as trophies of the chase, deer and wild turkeys. He wisely mixes pleasure with business, maintaining an even balance in their relation and his friends find him a most congenial campanion on trips into the open, while his associates and contemporaries in the business world recognize him as a most alert and energetic man, ready for any emergency and for any opportunity, handling the former wisely and making use of the latter to the extent of substantially enhancing his fortune.

Source: Moore, John T, and Austin P. Foster. Tennessee, the Volunteer State, 1769-1923. Chicago: S.J. Clarke Pub. Co, 1923.

07/29/12

Biography: FALLS, James Napoleon (1841-1919)

Mr. Falls was born in Macon, Fayette county, Tennessee, on the 20th of February, 1841, a son of Gilbreath and Frances (Manees) Falls. His paternal grandfather emigrated from Iredell county, North Carolina, to Athens, Alabama, and during his stay there, Gilbreath Falls was born. From there the family removed to Somerville, Tennessee. The grandfather was one of the first of the race of hardy aristocrats who moved across the mountains and created that wonderful community from La Grange up to old Belmont and across to Bolivar. The progenitor of the Falls family in this country was Charles Falls, who came from England in 1635. The paternal great-great-grandfather fell in action during the Revolutionary war, whereupon his fourteen-year-old son, with his father’s sword, slew a Tory in the act of robbing the body. Gilbreath Falls came to Memphis in 1845 and under the name of G. Falls & Company he engaged in the buying and exporting of cotton, being active in the conduct of that business for many years. He was one of the most prominent and farsighted business men of his day and was held in high confidence and esteem in Memphis.

In the acquirement of his education James Napoleon Falls attended private schools in Memphis and later attended school at McLemoresville, Tennessee. He completed his literary course at Antioch College, Yellow Sulphur Springs, Ohio. He returned home a short time before the outbreak of the Civil war and enlisted promptly in the Bluff City Grays, later Company B, One Hundred and Fifteenth Regiment, Tennessee Infantry, and was later mounted under General Forrest. He fought from Belmont to Gainesville, with the exception of a short time after the battle of Murfreesboro, where he surrendered to be with a mortally wounded brother, but escaped immediately after the brother’s death. He received severe wounds at the battle of Shiloh.

 In 1865, upon the close of the war, Mr. Falls returned to Memphis and joined his father’s firm, then known as Falls & Cash. James Napoleon Falls was a pioneer in the cotton seed oil industry. His first mill was built in 1873 at Friar Point, Mississippi, later he erected the Valley Oil Mill in Memphis, and subsequently the Dixie Oil Mill in Little Rock, Arkansas. The Merchants Cotton Press & Storage Company was then the largest institution in Memphis and Mr. Falls was president of that concern for twenty years, being a dominant factor in its continued progress. He had the distinction of being the first man to establish a factory for the manufacture of ice in Memphis, business being conducted under the name of the People’s Ice Company, and in that connection he sunk the first artesian well in this city, where the Linden station is now located. As president of the Chickasaw Building Company he erected the Falls building, the largest exclusive cotton office building in the world.

At Walnut Bend, Arkansas, on the 8th of November, 1871, was celebrated the marriage of Mr. Falls and Miss Clara Dunn, a daughter of Dr. Lawson Biscoe and Malinda (Lewis) Dunn. To their union the following children were born: Clara Frances, now Mrs. J. Alexander Austin; Lawson Dunn; Minnie Lee, now Mrs. Rayburn Dunscomb; John William (II); and Melinda Elizabeth, the wife of William Poston Maury.

Mr. Falls’ life was an active and varied one. For four years he was a soldier in as good a company as the Confederacy boasted of, and for half a century he was a leader throughout the mid-south in business, manufacturing, financial, social and religious circles.

Source: Moore, John T, and Austin P. Foster. Tennessee, the Volunteer State, 1769-1923. Chicago: S.J. Clarke Pub. Co, 1923.

 

 

07/28/12

ALEXANDER, Samuel J.

Maj. Samuel J. ALEXANDER, an influential farmer and merchant of Macon, Fayette Co., Tenn., was born in Henderson County December 1, 1833, and is the son of John M. and Cynthia (Williamson) ALEXANDER, both natives of Mecklenburg County, N.C.  The father was of Scotish-Irish descent, the mother was of German.  The father was born December 16, 18180, and died at our subject’s home May 10, 1877.  The mother was born December 20, 1815 and died June 26, 1856.  They married in North Carolina May 5, 1831.  In early life they moved to Henderson County, Tenn., but not being satisfied there, they moved to Fayette County two years later, and settled eleven miles west of Somerville, where the father engaged in farming; he was a consistent member of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church up to the time his wife died, when for convenience he joined the Methodist Church.  Our subject was the oldest of six children.  He was educated at Macon Masonic College, and after leaving college was salesman for the firm of Dougan & White, at Macon, for two years, then bought Mr. WHITE’s interest, and from then until now has continued the business, excepting the years he was in the war.  Mr. ALEXANDER began life without means, but by his energy and business tact has acquired a comfortable estate, owning in addition to a half interest in the $4,000 stock of foods, over 4,000 acres of land in Fayette County and $2,000 worth of stock in the Vanderbilt Insurance Company of Memphis, and $550 in the Memphis & Charleston Railroad Company.  Mr. ALEXANDER has recently erected an elegant residence in Macon; it is the best finished house in the county.  October 20, 1858, he married Miss Mollie W. TOWLES, who was born in Virginia, June 12, 1841.  They have no children except an adopted daughter, who is a granddaughter of the Rev. T.L. BOSWELL, D.D., of the Memphis Conference.  In the summer of 1862 he went into the Confederate Army as private, but was soon promoted to the major and commissary of subsistence, and served in this capacity until the war closed.  He is a sound Democrat, and a very prominent member of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, and contributes very liberally to its support.  Mrs. ALEXANDER is a member of the Missionary Baptist Church, and is a woman of deep piety.  Mr. ALEXANDER is regarded as one of the most useful citizens of Fayette County. 

Source:  Goodspeed’s History of Tennessee, 1887.