William P. Gillenwaters, a prominent lawyer of the Rogersville bar, was born in Effingham County, Ill. in July, 1842, and is the son of John and Elizabeth (Surgoin) Gillenwaters. The father’s descendants are not known, but were either German or English. The mother was of French descent. Both were native of Hawkins County, Tenn. Dates of birth not known. The father died in Illinois in the latter part of 1843, at about fifty years of age, and the mother died four months after the death of the father, at about forty-four years of age. They were married in Hawkins County, where they lived some ten years, and then went to Illinois where they died as above stated. The father was an old line Whig, and both father and mother were worthy members of the Methodist Church. Our subject is the ninth of eleven children, and before he was two years old his parents died, when he was brought to Hawkins County, and raised by a grandmother, Sugoin. At the age of fifteen he found himself forced to make his way in life by his unaided efforts. He began for himself by working one year in a saddler’s shop, at Surgoinville, Hawkins County. He had resolved on securing an education, and after working one year is the saddler’s shop, he went to the farm, where he could have more time for study. After working one year on the farm, at $5 a month, he went to Strawberry Plains, and with his small earnings and by working on Saturdays and vacation, he was enabled to attend school ten months, after which he was qualified to teach. He then alternately taught and went to school in the States of Indiana, Illinois and Tennessee, until he had mastered all the sciences and some of the languages. He read law while he was teaching, and after his return from the West, he gave one year to the study of law, and was admitted to the bar at Rogersville in 1865, and since that date his name has been on the roll of Tennessee attorneys. He is better known as a criminal lawyer, and the reputation he had made in this particular course is, perhaps, unequaled by that of any other lawyer in this section of the State. He is an ardent Republican, and has been prominent in that political party for the last then years. In 1880, he was on the Garfield and Arthur electoral ticket, and twice, when Dr. Wight and Hawkins were nominated, our subject lacked only a few votes of getting the nomination. On May 6, 1865, he married Miss Amanda E. Sexton, a cultivated lady, and born in Clay County, Ill., in 1843. There have been born to them five children, three sons and two daughters. Our subject and wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church (North).

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