Malachi A. Cummings was born July 12, 1854. He is of Irish and Scotch origin. His grandfather, Joseph Cummings, of Irish descent, emigrated from near Richmond, Va., to this State over 100 years ago. He served in the Revolutionary war and was with Washington at the surrender of Cornwallis, and his maternal grandfather, William Dunny of Scotch descent, came from Kentucky to this State, both settling at a place now known as Cummingville in Van Buren County, then White County. His grandparents lived to an extreme old age. His father, W. B. Cummings, was born May 11, 1810, and filled the different offices of sheriff, circuit court clerk and county judge in his county with credit and honor. After the war he read law and in 1868 was admitted to the bar, and died October 22, 1884. Malachi was raised on the farm and after working through crop times, would go to school in the neighborhood in the fall. He received his principal education at Burritt College, paying for his tuition part of the time by sweeping the college building. In 1875 he attended the law school of Cumberland University at Lebanon, Tenn., and graduated in 1875, and was duly licensed to practice in all the courts of Tennessee. While attending the law school he received the honor of representing the Philomatian society as orator at the commencement exercises. After staying at Spencer and Sparta awhile he permanently located at Sparta, where he is now engaged in the practice of his profession.

Source:   Goodspeed Pub. Co. History of Tennessee from the Earliest Time to the Present; Together with an Historical and a Biographical Sketch of the Counties of White, Warren, Coffee, DeKalb, and Cannon, Besides a Valuable Fund of Notes, Original Observations, Reminiscences, Etc., Etc. Nashville: Goodspeed Pub. Co, 1887.