Alonzo Dunavant, a prominent farmer of Lauderdale County, was born in
Williamson County, Tenn., July 12, 1826. His father was born in Amelia County,
Va., and when eighteen years of age came with his parents to Tennessee. He was
a soldier in the war of 1812, and was in the battles of Horse Shoe and
Emuchfau and New Orleans; was married about 1818 to Miss Margaret T. Giddings.
She died without children, and he married Miss Sarah B. Ried, and twelve sons
and two daughters were born to them, our subject being the fourth child. A
portion of this family were born on Little Harpeth River, where the father
settled a few years after his second marriage, and moved to West Tennessee in
1833, settling near Double Bridges, where he died in 1869. The mother of our
subject was born in Sumner County, Tenn., in 1802, and died in 1856. Alonzo
Dunavant was raised on the farm, and secured a common school education, and
has made farming his chief business. He married in Lauderdale County, November
30, 1853, Mary E. Mitchell, daughter of Zachariah Mitchell, a prominent
farmer. Five sons and a daughter were born to them, four now living: Margaret,
Eudora, James F., John V., and William A. D. Mrs. Dunavant was born in Middle
Tennessee January 2, 1832, and died January 1, 1886. M. Dunavant belongs to
the Methodist Episcopal Church South, as his wife did also. He is a stanch
Democrat; cast his first presidential vote for Gen. Taylor. He owns 380 acres
of land and raises grain, stock and cotton. The farm is near Double Bridges,
eleven and one-half miles north of Ripley, Tenn., and has a splendid residence
on it. Mr. Dunavant is one of Lauderdale’s substantial citizens.

Goodspeed’s Biographies of Lauderdale Co., TN