John T. Williams, a prominent farmer and large mill owner of Lauderdale
County, was born in Montgomery County, Tenn., June 30, 1833, and was the son
of E. W. Williams, who was a native of Virginia, and immigrated to Tennessee
when a boy, settling in Montgomery County, where he was raised and educated,
and was married to Miss A. Davis, a daughter of David Davis, a farmer of the
same county. They remained in Montgomery County until 1839, when they moved
to West Tennessee and settled in Lauderdale County. He was a blacksmith, and
followed the trade through life. He died in 1851. Our subject’s mother was
born in Middle Tennessee, and died in 1859. He received a very limited
education in school, but afterward acquired a good business education by
observation and experience. He farmed until 1871, when he engaged in the saw-
mill business. He now owns three saw-mills, with a capacity of 40,000 feet
per day, and one planing-mill with a capacity of 30,000 feet daily, two
cotton-gins and two grain-mills; the entire outfit cost $22,000. Mr.
Williams was married, in Lauderdale County, June 15, 1854, to Martha Whitson,
daughter of James Whitson, of Missouri, and one of the early settlers of West
Tennessee. Seven children were born to this marriage, six now living: James
E., John T., Mary C., William B., David A. (deceased), Oliver D. and George
Robert. Mrs. Williams was born at the present homestead March 23, 1832. Mr.
Williams was an old line Whig before the war, but is now a Democrat. With his
wife he belongs to the Methodist Episcopal Church South. He owns 2,000 acres
of land; 400 acres of it is three miles south of Ripley, Tenn., on the Newport
News & Mississippi Valley Railroad, and the rest five and a half miles west of
Ripley, on the Fulton Road. He has a pleasant home of the first tract. Mr.
Williams is a man of strict integrity, and one of the leading citizens in the
county.

Goodspeed’s Biographies of Lauderdale Co., TN