Gen. A. J. NEFF, is a native of Preble County, Ohio, his birth occurring November 30, 1825. His parents were Virginians, the father from Botetourt and the mother from Greenbriar. When our subject was twelve years old, he removed to Indiana, where he lived until 1884, when he came to Blount County, Tenn. From 1851 to 1855, he served as prosecuting attorney of the circuit court, and in 1856 and 1857 was a member of the Indiana Legislature. In 1862, he entered the Union service as Major, and for meritorious conduct, was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel, and Colonel by Gov. O. P. MORTON of Indiana, and to Brevet Brigadier-General, by President Andrew JOHNSON. From 1871 to 1875 he was a member of the State Senate of Indiana, and for twelve years has been engaged in journalism, first with the Manchester (Indiana) Journal. And second with the Greencastle (Indiana) Times, and lastly, in June, 1884, he established the Maryville Times, of which he is yet owner and manager.
For twenty-five years he has been a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1852 he was united in marriage with Miss ANN H. CHAFFEE, whose father came from Connecticut, and mother from New York. She has presented her husband with seven children – six boys and one girl. Two sons are the proprietors of a daily paper in Kansas City; one is a minister in Missouri, and has been stationed two years in Kansas City, and four years in St. Louis; one is a professor of modern languages in the De Pauw (Ind.) University, and one is city editor of the Maryville Times. Three yet reside with their parents. Mrs. NEFF has long been connected with a number of benevolent institutions, such as the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, Women’s Foreign Missions, etc.
Source: Goodspeed Publishing Co. History of Tennessee from the Earliest Time to the Present: Together with an Historical and a Biographical Sketch of from Twenty-Five to Thirty Counties of East Tennessee. Chicago: Goodspeed, 1887.