Not only is Hon. Pitt Henslee variously prominent in financial affairs in Dickson, but he is the present incumbent of the highest local office in the gift of the city, an honor which he well deserves for his many services to the municipality.
Mayor Henslee is a son of Dr. J. T. Henslee (1838-1895), the latter a Kentuckian by birth, a graduate in medicine at Vanderbilt University, a practitioner at Hollow Rock, Tennessee, and in Dickson County, besides three years’ professional activity in Texas. He was a Baptist, a Mason and a Democrat and had served in youth as a Confederate soldier under General Forrest. He married in 1870, Miss Mary Lipe (1852-1873),a native of Carroll County. They were the parents of but one child—the son of whom we now write as Mayor Henslee. Dr. Henslee’s second marriage was with Miss Dora Pickler of Hollow Rock, and three children have in the succeeding years been born to them.
It was on August 18, 1871, that Pitt Henslee was born in Carroll County, Tennessee. After his elementary education in the public schools of Dickson, he studied in Bethel College at McKenzie, and for one year—because of troublesome eyesight—was a student in the School for the Blind, at Nashville.
Mr. Henslee is possessed of a gift for mercantile and other commercial operations. He is the president of the Henslee Dry Goods Company; he is a director of the Cumberland Valley National Bank of Nashville; he is associated with the S. G. Holland Stove Company of that city. But his greatest financial achievements have been in connection with the First National Bank of Dickson, of which he was first president and founder. Its capital is rated at $50,000; its surplus at $11,000; and its average deposits at $250,000.
Another line in which he has shown his unusual ability is that of publishing a local newspaper. As president and manager of the Dickson County Herald, he has been responsible for the virile character of that eight-page sheet of news and editorial exposition. Mr. Henslee is a Democrat in politics and has been honored by his constituency with election to the Tennessee legislature, the date of his period of service being from 1899 to 1912. During his incumbency special chancery and circuit courts were established in Dickson. It was on September 12, of the latter year that his townspeople evinced their confidence in him and their esteem for him by electing him the next mayor of Dickson.
They mayor’s home is graced by the presence of Susie Spencer Henslee, his wife. Mrs. Henslee is a daughter of the Reverend Samuel Spencer of Spencer Mill. The date of her marriage to Pitt Henslee was 1899. In the ensuing years a small son, named Lipe, has been born to them.
The Baptist Church is the religious denomination with which the mayor and his wife are formally connected and to which they give their special support, Mr. Henslee being one of the trustees of this church. The members of four different secret societies also claim his fraternal interest; these are the Independent Order of Odd Fellows—Harmony Lodge; the Ancient, Free and Accepted Masons—Number 468 Dickson; the Modern Woodmen of America and the Junior Order of United American Mechanics. No citizen of Dickson, public or private, is the object of greater esteem or warmer friendship than the successful, but kindly and genial Pitt Henslee.
Source: Hale, Will T, and Dixon L. Merritt. A History of Tennessee and Tennesseans: The Leaders and Representative Men in Commerce, Industry and Modern Activities. Chicago: Lewis Pub. Company, 1913. Volume 5.
