Christopher C. Spears, coroner and ex-sheriff of Hawkins County, was born four miles east of Rogersville August 17, 1840, son of D. A. and Mary (Parks). The father was born in Hawkins County about 1811, and died in Hawkins County in 1860. The mother was born in Maryland in 1814, and died in Hawkins County in March, 1887. They were married in Hawkins County and settled permanently in the county. the father was a farmer, and was an old line Whig. The father and mother were worthy members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. South. Subject is the third of eight children. He received a good education in his youth, which was finished at McMinn Academy, and located at Rogersville, His education was interrupted by the breaking out of the civil war between the States, and in the spring of 1861, he entered the Confederate States service, enlisted in company K, Nineteenth Regiment Tennessee Infantry, and was received into the western army. Subject took part in the battles of Shiloh Church, Murfreesboro, Baton Rouge, La., and from Dalton to Atlanta, etc. He returned home in May, 1865, after an absence of four years. Upon reaching home he commenced to engage in the farming interest, and continued up to 1870, at which time he was duly elected high sheriff of Hawkins County, and was successively elected to the same office in 1872 and 1874. In 1872 he was an independent candidate, and defeated the nominee of both political parties. He was also an independent candidate in 1874. It seems about this time there was a change in his politics, for in 1878, he was the nominee of the Republican party for circuit court clerk, and was elected. He served one term of four years, and was re-elected to the same office in 1882. January 1, 1887, he was elected coroner by the county court, and still holds this office. September 27, 1870 he married Miss Sideria M. Bean, born at Abingdon, Miss., in 1849. They had no children. Both are worthy members of the Methodist Episcopal Church South.

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