GENEALOGICAL ABSTRACTS FROM REPORTED DEATHS
THE NASHVILLE CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE, 1885-1886
By Jonathan Kennon Thompson Smith
Copyright, Jonathan K. T. Smith, 2002ADDENDA
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I
Refer from January 9, 1886, JAMES E. BAILEY.
TENNESSEE, THE VOLUNTEER STATE, 1769-1923, by J. T. Moore, volume 2, Nashville, 1923, pages 26-27:
JAMES E. BAILEY.
James E. Bailey was born In Montgomery County, Tennessee, August 15, 1822, and died at Clarksville, in that county, December 29, 1885. He was of Scotch-Irish ancestry. The father, George Bailey, was for forty years Clerk of the Circuit Court of Montgomery County. He gave his son a liberal education at Clarksville Academy, and in the University of Nashville, of which Dr. Lindsley was then President.
James E. Bailey was admitted to the bar in July 1842, being then twenty years of age. In 1853 he entered public life as a member of the Legislature, and was one of the principal supporters of the policy of internal improvements. In politics he was a Whig and adhered to that party until its dissolution. In the controversies preceding the war he was an earnest Union man, as were his distinguished neighbors, Cave Johnson and John F. House, and these three were elected, in convention to pass on the question of secession. The convention was not called, however, and when Tennessee left the Union he, like many others who had opposed the movement, went with her and espoused the cause of the South. He was appointed by Governor Harris a member of the State Military Bureau, whose duty it was to organize and equip the State troops After a few months' service in this capacity he raised a company among the young men of Montgomery County and was elected Captain. His company was attached to the Forty-ninth Tennessee Infantry, and he was shortly afterwards elected Colonel of that regiment. He was captured at Fort Donelson, and was carried as a prisoner of war to Fort Warren, where he remained until exchanged in the fall of 1862. He rejoined his regiment at Vicksburg, Mississippi, and commanded it until the Spring of 1863. At this time his health failed, and he resigned the command of the regiment, and was made a member of the military court of the corps of General Hardee, which position he held until the end of the war. After the surrender he returned to Clarksville and resumed the practice of law.
In 1874 he was a candidate before the Democratic convention for Governor, but was defeated by James D. Porter. He served twice as special Judge upon the supreme bench of the State, and probably might have had the position permanently if he had desired it. In January, 1877, after a long and hard-fought contest, he was elected to the United States Senate to fill the unexpired term of Andrew Johnson. In the Senate Mr. Bailey at once took rank as one of the ablest lawyers in that body. It is related by one who claims to have heard the remark, that when Senator Thurman heard that Bailey had been defeated for re-election to the Senate, he said: "What fools the people of Tennessee are, when they have a Senator like Bailey, not to keep him."
At the expiration of his term as Senator, he was defeated for re-election, mainly on account of divisions in the Democratic party on the question of settling the State debt. He belonged to what was known as the "State credit," or high tax faction of the party, and to the persistent residuum of that party, which in 1882 was known as the "Sky- blues."
Toward the close of his services in the Senate, his health began to fail, and he died December 29, 1885.
Mr. Bailey was one of the best-balanced men, and one of the most thorough and competent lawyers this State has produced. He was not a brilliant man, but had a sound, strong, clear mind, a cautious method, and habits of incessant application. He was a close and careful reasoner, and always conscientious, so that he is said to have been a strong advocate in a good case, but not very efficient in a bad one. He was a ready worker as well as a persistent one, and therefore accomplished much. In every respect he was a clean and upright man, not a party leader, but a student, and a scrupulous thinker, weighing carefully every question presented to him, and lacking the "one-sidedness" that seems to be a condition, to successful political leadership; not a successful politician, because having reached a conclusion, he adhered to it, and would not compromise. By his personal purity and dignity, and by his ability as a lawyer, and his clear and forceful methods of expression, he acquired and held the esteem and respect of the Senate. He was not aggressive like his colleague, Senator Harris, nor so well equipped in political tact and experience, but as a perspicuous and conscientious reasoner and debater, and as a lawyer, he won a highly honorable place in the Senate, when it numbered among its members such strong men as Edmunds, Sherman and Thurman.
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II
Refer to December 11, 1886, Rev. A. B. ROZELL
Goodspeed's HISTORY OF TENNESSEE (Williamson Co., Tenn.), 1886, page 1006:
ASHLEY B. ROZELL may be mentioned as a prominent farmer and stock grower of Williamson County, Tenn., was born in the Palmeto State June 11, 1802, and is a son of Solomon and Mary Rozell, who were born in Maryland and North Carolina, respectively. They were married in North Carolina in 1800, and immigrated to this State about 1804 and located in Williamson County, but soon moved to West Tennessee where they remained several years, afterward moving to Shelby County, locating near Memphis, where both father and mother died. To them were born six children-five sons and one daughter- named Ashley B., Yerbie P., Rufard A., Martha D., Blackman L. and Claybion W. Our subject received a common school education and always followed the occupation of farming. In 1821 he became a minister of the gospel in the Methodist Episcopal Church, and was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Tennessee Conference until 1833. Since that time he has been a local minister and is widely known in the State. In 1828 he was married to Margaret M. Rolston, who was born in 1809, and the daughter of Maj. Alexander Rolston. She died in 1830, and in 1832 he wedded Henrietta S. Burnett born in 1810, daughter of Brooken Burnett, of Rutherford County. They have five children: Mary T., Logan D., Ruford B., Martha C. and Ashley B. Mrs. Rozell died in 1846, and for his third wife Mr. Rozell took Martha A. Chambers. She is a daughter of Thomas and Nancy Chambers, of Virginia, and was born in 1823. To them were born four children: William R., Henrietta, Lockie B. and Lizzie B. The family are all members of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, and their early ancestors were among the first families that settled in the State. They are of French descent. Mr. Rozell has been quite prosperous, and in 1865 located on his farm of 420 acres of valuable land, known as the Mount View stock farm.
MEMPHIS DAILY APPEAL, Aug, 28, 1856
SOLOMON ROZELLE died near Memphis, August 26, 1856, one of the pioneers of west Tennessee; first settled in Henderson County, Tenn. but in 1829 or '30 moved to Shelby County; died at "a very advanced age." Left wife and several children.
Buried in Elmwood Cemetery, Memphis, Tennessee, these data taken by the present writer from the ROZELL tombstone:
SOLOMON ROZELL born December 25, 1777; died August 26, 1856
His wife, MARY ROZELL born October 11, 1779; died June 6, 1864
III
Refer to February 13, 1886, MARTHA HANKS BUCK
President Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth president of the United States, wrote, "Thos. Lincoln was born Jan. the 6th A. D. 1778 and was married June 12th 1806 to Nancy Hanks who was born Feb. 5, 1784." She died October 5, 1818. (LINCOLN COLLECTOR, by Carl Sandberg, New York, 1960, page 106) These were his parents.
It is likely that the person(s) who submitted Martha Hanks Buck's obituary believed that she was a first cousin, or near relative of President Lincoln but this was not the case. Because Lincoln's mother, Nancy, was an illegitimate child of a woman named Lucy Hanks this limb of his ancestry has often been confusedly reported. The most authoritative account of the Hanks family from which President Lincoln descended (HERNDON'S INFORMANTS, by D. L. Wilson and R. O. Davis, Chicago, 1998, pages 779-783), as researched by Paul H. Verduin, gives no account of a Richard Hanks. The president's great-grandfather, Joseph Hanks (1725-1793) lived in Richmond Co., Va. where he was "a plantation overseer and tenant farmer" and moved to Mercer Co., Va. in 1784, apparently where his daughter, Lucy, became the mother of Nancy Hanks Lincoln by an unknown man. IF Martha Hanks Buck was related to President Lincoln it would have been quite distantly.
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