GEORGE W. PARSONS was born in 1821 in the State of Tennessee. His father, G. W. Parsons, was born in Virginia in 1788 and came to Tennessee in 1807, and here married our subject’s mother, Margaret Fisher, in 1809. They became the parents of thirteen children — four daughters and nine sons. The father was a farmer and millwright by trade, and served in the war of 1812. He died in 1842 and the mother in 1854.
Our subject began farming for himself at the age of twenty years, and in 1843 purchased part of his present farm, which he has increased to 247 acres. In 1857 he was elected justice of the peace of his district and held the office until 1870. In 1882 he was again elected, and has held the office up to the present time. He has been a director of the Shelbyville & Unionville Pike for the past twelve years, and is a stockholder in the same. He is well known throughout the county and has been a member of the Lutheran Church since 1849. He belongs to the Masonic lodge, No. 315, and in politics is an old Whig-Democrat.
He was married in 1843 to Elizabeth Allison, who was born in Tennessee in 1825 and is the daughter of Robert and Elizabeth (White) Allison. To them were born these children: Mary F., born in 1844; Anna L., born in 1846; Michael F., born in 1850; William J., born in 1848 and died in 1866; Volney S., born in 1852; Sarah E., born in 1854; Cynthia J. born in 1856; John C., born in 1860; Safrone A., born in 1862; George N., born in 1865, and Bunie C. born in 1868.
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.