John F. Edwards was born in Virginia, May 15, 1842. He was one of the children born to the marriage of Jackson Edwards and Rebecca Mountcastle, natives of Virginia. The parents remained in their native State till 1850, when they moved to Kentucky, where the father died in 1854, and where the mother still lives. The father was a cabinet-maker, and our subject was reared at that trade. He remained with his parents to the age of fifteen, when he engaged at his trade in Kentucky till 1875, at which time he came to Houston County and engaged in saw-milling. In 1882 he came to Erin and engaged in the undertaking business, and is still interested in that trade. In the spring of 1884 he, with James Hoppes, established their present business, that of general blacksmithing, wagon-making, carpentering, etc. They run a set of machinery, including lathes, planers and saws. He was in army service for about two years in Company I, Thirtieth Tennessee Volunteers, Confederate States Army, and was in battle of Fort Donelson, as was his partner in the Federal Army. His wife, Mary F. Edwards, is a native of Todd County, Ky., and his marriage to her was celebrated November 16, 1869. Five living children now bless this union, viz.: Lula, Patterson, Eddie, Herschel and Bessie. Politically Mr. Edwards is a Democrat. He is a member of the F. & A. M. Order. He is one of the well respected and enterprising citizens of Erin and of Houston County.

Transcribed by Susan Knight Gore

Source: Goodspeed, Weston A, and John Wooldridge. History of Tennessee from the Earliest Time to the Present: Together with an Historical and a Biographical Sketch of Montgomery, Robertson, Humphreys, Stewart, Dickson, Cheatham and Houston Counties. Nashville: Goodspeed Pub. Co, 1886.