J. M. CUNNINGHAM, M. D., is a native of Marshall County, Tenn., born June 17, 1849, and is the second of six children of S. D. and Elizabeth (Armstrong) CUNNINGHAM, who are now living in Marshall County.
Our subject spent his early days in tilling his father’s farm, remaining until eighteen years old, at which time he entered the high school at Lewisburg, then under the supervision of Calvin DORNAL, and paid his own way for about three years, his father refusing to pay his tuition. He entered the Medical College of Nashville in 1871, and during the vacation in the summer of 1872 he taught school to enable him to take the course of lectures in the fall, which he did, and graduated in the spring of 1873. He began practicing his profession in April of that year at Bedford post office, seven miles west of Shelbyville, where he has successfully continued up to the present date.
June 14, 1876, he married Lizzie T. LOCK, daughter of James LOCK. This union has resulted in six children: Vera C., Clare G. (deceased), Ewing B., Hattie S., Lillie R. (deceased) and Horace L. Dr. CUNNINGHAM is a Democrat in politics, and he and wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church South.
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.