JAMES W. C. MITCHELL, a merchant of the Twenty-fourth District of this county, was born January 29, 1842, son of T. F. and Margaret (Binkley) Mitchell. The father was a native of North Carolina, and in early life immigrated to Alabama and settled in Huntsville, where he was married. He was the father of eleven children: Sarah A. (deceased), John (deceased), Mary, Martha, James W. C., Joseph (deceased), Robert H., Bates. Nancy, Logan and Elizabeth. Joseph Mitchell was killed in the battle of Franklin and was buried at Columbia.
Our subject’s father is still living at the advanced age of eighty-six. James W. C. Mitchell was reared on the farm, given an education in the country schools and when in his eighteenth year entered the Confederate Army in the Thirty-seventh Tennessee Infantry; was in the battles of Perryville, Chickamauga, Atlanta, Murfreesboro, Franklin and others, and was wounded twice. After the war he came back to this county and has since that time resided here.
In 1873 Miss Catharine Bomar became his wife. The results of this union were four children: Oscar L., James W., Bibbie B. and one not named. In 1875 Mr. Mitchell went into the mercantile business in the Twenty-fourth District, and in 1881 went into the distillery business at the same place, making about sixty-five gallons of whisky per day, and is doing a $3,000 business.
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.