Capt. William L. Armstrong, merchant and farmer, was born at his home in Stony Point, July 3, 1837, the son of William and Mary (Young) Armstrong, both of Irish origin, and natives of Hawkins County. The father was born in 1791, and died in August, 1860; the mother was born in 1792, and died in 1868, and both spent their lives in their native county. The father was a farmer, and an old line Whig, and he and his wife were Presbyterians. The grandfather, William, a native of Augusta, Va., built where our subject now lives, the first brick residence in the county, and here the great-grandfather also lived and died, who came from Virginia, and was among the first settlers of Hawkins County. Our subject, the youngest of seven children – three living – finished his education at the Piedmont (VA) Institute and the Roanoke (VA) College. When twenty-two years of age he married Sallie C. Buren, who was born in 1843. To this union five sons and seven daughters were born; one of the latter being deceased. One son, William, is the fifth male of that name in this family line. He came into possession of the old homestead, on which he settled in 1860, and, until he added the mercantile trade to his pursuits a few years since, he devoted his attention to farming. In 1861 he enlisted in Company G, Thirty-first Tennessee Infantry, as a private, and soon became captain. From 1862 he was on staff duty under Gens. Jackson and Vaughn, until he returned home in the spring of 1865. Our subject is a Democrat, and he and his wife are Presbyterians.

Transcribed by Betty Mize from Goodspeed’s History of Tennessee, 1886.