REV. A. G. DINWIDDLE, D. D., was born July 13, 1840 in Montgomery County, Tenn. His father, William Dinwiddle, was born October 15, 1810 in Kentucky. He was by profession a local minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church South, and was also a farmer. He died April 4, 1872. The mother, nee Mary Cole Alexander, was born in Kentucky, June 15, 1814, and it yet living in Montgomery County, Tenn.
The subject of this sketch was reared on a farm and received fair early educational advantages. He was principally education under Prof. L. E. Duke, of Chapel Hill, N. C., then conducting an academy at Asbury, Montgomery Co., Tenn. At the age of nineteen he engaged in the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, and has since been so engaged. He joined the Tennessee Annual Conference in October, 1859, and was appointed junior preacher to the Wesley Circuit, where he remained one year. Thence in 1860 he was appointed junior preacher to the Dover Circuit, and at the close of that year he was ordained deacon by Bishop Early. His third year’s work was on the Bellefonte Circuit in northern Alabama and on November 19, 1861, he was married to Miss Rachael Odil, of Columbia, Tenn.
In 1862 he was appointed to the Trinity Station, Alabama. After the war, in 1865, he was appointed to the Sante Fe Circuit, in Maury County, Tenn. Thence, in 1866, he was appointed to the Duck River Circuit, which pastorate he held two years. In 1868 he organized the Bulleoka Institute and was appointed principal of the same, also retaining the appointment of junior preacher on the Duck River Circuit. In 1869 he was relieved of the pastoral charge and appointed to the full principalship of the Culleoka Institute which he held until May, 1870. In October following he was appointed to the Savannah District and remained there four consecutive years. He then took pastoral charge of Pulaski Station for four years. Thence he was appointed to Cedar Hill, Robertson, Co., Tenn., for one year. In 1879 he was appointed to the Lebanon Station, which he held until 1882, when he was appointed to the Murfreesboro Station, and June 7, 1885, received the honorary degree of D. D., from the Soule College of Murfreesboro. In October, 1885 he was appointed to the Shelbyville Station, where, as elsewhere, he has enjoyed great success in his work. He has a family of five children: Emma, Willie H., Mary B., Maggie L., and Frank G.
Transcribed by Kathryn Hopkins
Goodspeed Publishing Co. History of Tennessee from the Earliest Time to the Present: Together with an Historical and a Biographical Sketch of Maury, Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson, Bedford & Marshall Counties, Besides a Valuable Fund of Notes, Reminescences [Sic], Observations, Etc., Etc. Easley, S.C.: Southern Historical Press, 1988.