GEN. ERNEST COLDWELL was born at Shelbyville, November 12, 1858. He was educated at Shelbyville and at Carbondale, Ill. After reading law two years in his father’s office he was licensed, by Judge Robert CANTRELL and Peter TURNEY, to practice. In September, 1882, he was appointed special revenue collector, under A. M. HUGHES, Jr. While a law student he was secretary of the Middle Tennessee and Bedford County Sunday-school Associations. He is a director in the Bedford County Agricultural Society, a director and secretary of the Bedford County Stock Breeders’ Society and Register and a director and secretary of the Eakin Library Society. He was appointed, May 21, 1881, on Gov. Alvin HAWKINS’ staff, with the rank of brigadier-general. In 1884 he was elected Representative from Bedford County to the Forty-fourth General Assembly of Tennessee, overcoming a Democratic majority of 600 by 226 majority, he being a firm and outspoken Republican. His mother, nee Mary HENDERSON, was a lady of versatile accomplishments and of marked firmness of character. She was born in New York, was raised in Ohio and died in Tennessee in 1874, fifty-three years of age.
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.