Joshua E. BURNETT, farmer and stock raiser of Fayette County, was born in Iredell County, N.C., 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 seventy-six years old.  They moved to Tennessee in 1849 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 GRANBERRY 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 absences 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 now lives, 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.