Richard F. Lipscomb was born in De Soto County, Miss., March 24, 1856, and is
the oldest of four sons born to John T. and Caroline W. (Nowell) Lipscomb, and
is of Scotch descent. Our subject’s mother was a daughter of Prof. F. H.
Nowell, who was president of the Semple Broadus College, at Center Hill,
Miss., where he died in 1860. He was a native of Virginia. The father was
also a Virginian, and when a boy moved with his parents to Huntsville, Ala.,
and the first year of the war they moved to De Soto County, Miss. He enlisted
in the Confederate Army, and was an officer in Forrest’s command, and was in
the battle of Fort Pillow. He served until the close of the war, and is now
living near Huntsville, Ala. Our subject’s mother was a Virginian, and died
near Huntsville in 1869. Richard F. was raised and educated on a farm, and
engaged in farming until 1880, when he began merchandising at Henning, Tenn.,
in the firm of Lipscomb & Bro., but in May, 1886, the store and contents was
destroyed by fire, and he has since been engaged in the livery business, in
connection with farming, owning 100 acres of land six miles south of Ripley,
Tenn., on the Newport News & Mississippi Valley Railroad, giving special
attention to stock raising. Mr. Lipscomb is a Democrat, and cast his first
presidential vote for Gen. Hancock. He was married in Madison County, Ala.,
November 30, 1881, to Miss Dora M. Harris, daughter of T. B. Harris, an
extensive planter before the war. During the war Mr. Harris was shot in battle
through the lungs, and died from the effects of it. Mrs. Lipscomb was born in
Marshall County, Ala., in 1861. They have three children — Richard F., Mary
H. and Rose. Mrs. Lipscomb is greatly esteemed in the community in which he
lives.

Goodspeed’s Biographies of Lauderdale Co., TN