Felix W. Earnest, postmaster, was born in Greene County, Tenn., September 18, 1832, the son of Col. Henry and Kittie (Reeves) Earnest. The paternal great grand-parents and two children, came from Germany to America about 1738, but the parents died on the ocean, leaving the boy and girl orphans at Norfolk, Va., the former being bound to a Mr. Stephens, of Virginia, whose daughter he married, and then moved to North Carolina, and about 1777 became a pioneer of what is now Greene County, Tenn. But one family was west of him on the north side of the Unaka Mountain. They had to depend on the forts for safety. They had five sons and five daughters, who averaged a life of seventy-five years. Henry, the father, was born in 1772, and two of his brothers served in the Revolution, and was with Sevier in the Battle of King's Mountain. Henry was a farmer and merchant, and was a colonel of mounted infantry in the Indian wars of 1812 and 1813, and our subject has a letter written to his father on June 5, 1813, at Washington, D. C., by John Rhea, Congressman from Tennessee, inquiring of the exploits of Gen. H. Dearborn, commander-in-chief on the American forces under President Madison. He was in the Legislature under Gov. Blount's administration, when the seat of government was at Knoxville, Tenn. He reared a large family and died in November, 1849. The mother was born in Cocke County, Tenn. Our subject was educated at Tusculum College, and engaged in merchandising in Georgia for a time, and about 1858 entered the law office of Judge J. C. Gaut, at Cleveland, Tenn. reading until he was admitted in 1860. He then practiced at Blountville, Tenn., until 1870, and then removed to Jonesboro. In 1885 he received his present position, and 1863 was elected to represent the First Senatorial District in the Legislature, while absent from home in the army, and was again elected to that position in 1872. In 1862 he enlisted in Company E, Sixty-first Tenenssee Infantry (Confederate), and was made quartermaster with the rank of captain, and afterward beacame quartermaster of the brigade. In 1855 Eva T., a daughter of Maj. J. L. Burts, became his wife. She was born in 1833 in Washington County; five of their six children are living. Our subject has been a Methodist since boyhood, and a member of almost every quarterly district, annual and general conference for thirty years, and was a member of the Baltimore Centennial Conference of December 1884. A very interesting letter in regard to the family's early connection with the Methodist Chruch by him is given in Dr. J. B. McFerrin's History of Methodism in Tennessee."
R. L. Gillespie, the subject of our sketch, is a farmer in the Second Civil District of Washington County, Tenn., and was born in Greene County, Tenn., June 27, 1831, and is the son of Col. Allen and Sarah (Sims) Gillespie. The father was a native of Pennsylvania, born about 1865, and was the son of George Gillespie, a native of Ireland. The father was an early settler of East Tennessee, and was a soldier in the war of 1812; his father was a Revolutionary soldier, and was a farmer by occupation. He was a great man for sport, and was universally a respected citizen. The mother of our subject was a native of Pennsylvania, and was the daughter of William Sims, a native of Ireland. She was the mother of six sons and six daughters, and our subject is the youngest of the family, and was reared on a farm and educated at Washington College and Tusculum College. His education is pratical, and he is a man of decisive character and opinion, and is practical and successful in business, and devoted the early part of his life in trading, but in the latter portion of his life has been a farmer. In 1859 he was married to Maria Brown, daughter of Enoch Brown, of Jonesboro, Tenn. Ten children have blessed this marriage, of which two sons and five daughers are living. Our subject is a memeber of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. He is a self-made man, and is industrious and enterprising, and a well-respected citizen.
W. B. Glaze, farmer, was born in Washington County, Tenn., in November, 1818, the son of Lawrence and Elizabeth (Humphreys) Glaze, the former a native of this county and a very extensive farmer, who was esteemed by all who knew him. He died in Washington County at the age of sixty-five. The mother was born in Carter County, the daughter of Elijah Humphreys, who became the mother of eight sons and three daughters. She was a noble, christian woman, of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church faith. She died aged sixty-four years. Our subject grew up with the advantage of a country home and school life, and in his early days was a successful trader in the Southern and Western States. He has since been devoted to farming. In 1848 he was married to Elizabaeth, a daughter of James Clark, of Cocke County, Tenn., whose parents were of English and French descent. Our subject has four sons and three daughters. He is also a member of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. The grandfather, Lawrence, and his wife were natives of Pennsylvania and England respectively, the former of English descent. They moved to Washington County, Tenn., when the country was settled by the Indians, and had many stirring adventures with them, until by treaty they were moved from the country. The wife of our subject and eldest daughter are deceased. Our subject has been a man of remarkable strength and energy, and in his early days had many struggles in his efforts to success. He now lives near Limestone, Washington County.
J. L. Grant, a prominent citizen and furniture manufacturer at Johnson City, of the firm of Johnson City Furniture Company, was born in 1847 in Massachusetts. He received a good common school education, and when of age began life for himself. He first learned the stereotypists' trade in New York City, which he followed three years. He then engaged in farming for four years in New Jersey, and then engaged in the lumber business thirteen years in Pennsylvania. He then came to Johnson City and engaged in the manufacture of sash and blinds with his son, the firm name being Grant & Son. In May, 1886, the Johnson City Furniture Company was organized. The company has enjoyed unparalleled success, not being able to keep up with the orders, even. The aim of the company is to make it the largest furniture manufactory in the country. They employ at present forty hands, and are enlarging the capacity as rapidly as possible. Mr. Grant began life for himself, a poor man, and, by his untiring energy and splendid practical business ability, has become quite comfortable fixed. He was married in 1878 to Miss Cora L. a daughter of N. H. Briggs, a native of Connecticut, but at present residing in Pennsylvania. To Mr. and Mrs. Grant three children have been born: Raymond, Mary and Winnie. Mr. and Mrs. Grant are members of the Presbyterian Church, and Mr. Grant is a Prohibitionist in Politics. He was elected city clerk by a rousing majority, but owing to the pressure of outside duties, did not accept the office. He is the second of five children of Elihu and Amanda M. (Gifford) Grant, natives of New York and Massachusetts, respectively. He served as city clerk at Tiverton, R. I., for many years, and was a minister of the gospel in the Methodist Episcopal Church, and a professional accountant. He commanded Company C. Third Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, during the late war, and served nine months. He was a "bedfellow" of Gen. Grant at West Point, where he was attending school. He was a son of Charles and Hannah (Hines) Grant, natives of New York and Pennsylvania, respectively, who afterward moved to Michigan, where they died, being among the earliest settlers of St. John, Clinton Co., Mich. Mr. Grant commanded a company in the war of 1812, and when he died he was ninety years old. He was a son of Charles Grant, who commanded a company in the Revolutionary war. Mrs. Amanda Grant was a daughter of Zacheas Gifford, a native of Massachusetts, where he lived and died. He first learned and followed ship-carpentering but later in life followed farming. He was a very devoted Christian worker in the Baptist Church. He weighed 300 pounds, and died, seventy years old. Mrs. (Weighty) Gifford lived to be ninety-two years old.
John Fuller Grisham, a prominent farmer in the Eleventh District, was born October 31, 1822, in the locality where he has since resided. He began life for himself when eighteen years old. He first engaged in farming. He then taught one term of school at Blue Springs, Bradley Co., Tenn., and one term in Cherokee County, Ala. From there he moved to McMinn County, and in the fall of 1842 he moved back to Washington County, and engaged in farming the following three years; he then followed blachsmithing and school teaching during the next ten years. He was elected justice of the peace in 1860 by the largest majority given any man in the Twelfth District, himself a Whig, and in a District three-quarters Democratic. He was appointed county court clerk, and afterward elected to the same office, and served in all as couty court clerk thirteen years and four months. While serving as county court clerk he was elected as justice of the peace of the Fifteenth District, and served six years. He was a strong Union man during the late war, and is Republican in politics, but was cradled a Whig. He began life for himself, a poor man, and what he is now worth is the fruit of his own industry and practical business ability. He owns a fine farm of 160 acres, where he resides, and besides has given considerable to his children. He was married April 3, 1842, to Miss Louisa Matilda, a daughter of Elijah Carroll, a native of Grainger County, Tenn., but an old resident of Cherokee County, Ala. He was a soldier in the war of 1812 under Gen. Jackson. He afterward moved to Missouri, where he died. To Mr. and Mrs. Grisham six children have been born: George E., killed by accident, was educated at Richmond, Va.; James M., Mary E. (now Mrs. Jacob Bacon), Martha E. (deceased), Amanda E. (now Mrs. Julius A. Stafford) and John A. Mr. and Mrs. Grisham are members of the Christian Church. Mr. Grisham has been a member for about forty yers, and has been a ruling elder about thirty years. He is the fifth of ten children of George and Mary Boone (Hoss) Grisham, natives of the Eleventh and Twelfth Districts of Washington County, respectively. Mr. Grisham was elected the first justice of the peace after the new constitution in 1835, and served six yers. He is a soldier in the war of 1812, in two campaigns. He followed farming, and was a very active Christian worker in the Christian Church, being the first man who ever advocated the Christian Church doctrine in this part of the county. He was a ruling elder in the church about fifty years, and was also a minister of the gospel in the same church. He was a son of John and Nancy Grisham, natives of Maryland, and when quite young came with their parents to Washington County, Tenn. He was a farmer by occupation, and a member of the Christian Church. Mrs. Grisham was an educated lady, and was a very active member of the Baptist Church. They were of English descent. Mrs. Mary Boone Grisham was a daughter of Peter Hoss, a native of Washington County. He was a son of Jacob Hoss, a native of Virginia. Mr. John Grisham was a son of Thomas Grisham, a native of Maryland. Mr. J. F. Grisham represented Washington County in the Legislature one term, being elected by a handsome majority.
Capt. S.T. Harris. The subject of this sketch is one of the leading citizens of Johnson City, and was born at Dandridge, the county seat of Jefferson County, Tenn., March 23, 1842. He was reared and educated in the above place, attending Maury Academy, where he obtained a practical education. During the fall of 1862, in order to escape conscription, he refugeed to Kentucky, not, however, before conscription papers had been served on him by the Confederate authorities. He was an ardent supporter and outspoken friend of the Federal Government, and was commissioned captain to recruit a company, which he succeeded in doing the same year in Nicholasville, Ky., which company, with himself as captain, was assigned as Company D to the Third Union Regiment of Tennessee Volunteer Calvary. Proceeding to Lexington, KY., he was at once ordered to return to Tennessee on recruiting duty, and in following orders dropped in with Carter's raiding party, which burned the bridges at Union (now Bluff City), Tenn. Having orders to proceed to Sevier county, he then started to that point, but was betrayed and captured in Washington County, January 1, 1863, and carried to Knoxville, placed in irons, and confined in jail. Belonging, as he did, to an influential family, who had taken a strong standing for the Union, the Confederates wished to make an example of him, and in a short time after his capture an attempt was made to try him as a spy, but the evidence was so very weak that that plan was abandoned, and he was then tried as a deserter from the Confederate Army, the ground being taken that he had been conscripted, though he had never been ordered into camp, or received pay or emolument, and also that, the State of Tennessee having seceded, his allegiance was due to that State. On that flimsy and shallow pretext he was court-martialed, and sentenced to be shot. About that time Frank Battle, son of Joel A. Battle, of Nashville, State treasurer under Gov. Harris' administration, was captured by his company, and word was at once dispatched under a flag of truce to the Confederates, that if Capt. Harris was executed, young Battle's life would be forfeited, he having been captured under similar circumstances. Accordingly sentence was suspended, but he was held in irons under close confinement at Knoxville, for about six months, during which time he made an unsuccessful attempt to escape, and but for the bad aim of the guards would have lost his life, as no less than eleven shots were fired at him, one soldier taking cool and deliberate aim at the daring prisoner. But Providence interfered, and the cap on the gun of the guard merely snapped without discharging the load. At the end of about six months he was escorted through the streets of Knoxville in irons to the depot, and conveyed thence to Columbia, S. C., where for nineteen months he was held in confinement, all the time being kept in irons, with a guard in his cell. While Sherman was on his march to the sea, and just before reaching the vicinity of Columbia, a prominent Confederate soldier was captured, and having been condemned to death by the Federal Army, his friends at once communicated with our subject's father, telling him if he would intercede for the life of the Confederate prisoner, an exchange would be arranged for his son. The father at once proceeded to Washington, sought an interview with President Lincoln, in which the desired effect was reached, and just before Sherman got to Columbia, our subject was taken from prison, with a number of others, and started on the way for exchange under the fire of Sherman's shells. The desire to kill him was still strong, however, and the irons were not removed from him, and he was started out on foot to travel a number of miles, so weak he could scarcely stand, and so hampered with the irons that he could not step farther than fifteen inches at a time. After proceeding about five miles, he removed the shackles. An order was then given for the prisoners to advance double quick, and our subject being too weak to obey refused. The officer in charge then ordered him shot, but the soldiers refused to obey. He then proceeded on his way, being half carried by two companion prisoners, to Winnsboro, N. C., where he wanted water which was denied him, and was forced to give $5 for a drink; was paroled there, and from that point went to Charlotte, N. C.; was there branched off to Goldsboro, and after being kept in the courthouse of that place for two days and a night was started out under a flag of truce in the night for East Bridge, near Wilmington, the latter place having been captured by the Federals three days before. The trip was made in a box car, and he arrived with others at their destination, weak, cold and half-starved, more dead than alive, and was once more in the midst of his soldiers. The arrival of the prisoners was most affecting. They were given a warm welcome, and as the poor fellows crawled and scrambled to the old flag and hugged its folds, laughing and crying in a delirium of joy, it was a sight to make the strongest hearts bleed. He next went to Wilimgton, and thence to Annapolis, Md., by ship, where he remained until his discharge, and then returned to Knoxville, and later to Dandridge, having passed through enough to kill an ordinary man and try the courage and fortitude of the most rugged, and reduced by ill treatment, starvation and sickness to almost a skeleton, from which his health was injured so that he has never recovered. In 1869 he purchased a farm in Washaington County, and removed thereto, but in the spring of 1886 removed to Knoxville; the same fall he removed to Johnson City, and is now one of the most prominent, influential and wealthy citizens of that flourishing town. He is a man of pure principles, progressive and enterprising, and enjoys the esteem of all who know him. He is at present engaged in no regular line of business, but is quite wealthy, and is a director in the Mechanics' National Bank of Knoxville. In July, 1865, he was united in marriage to Sarah E. Hoskins, who was born at New Market, Tenn., January 8, 1846, the daughter of George C. and Charlotte T. (Moody) Hoskins. To this union three children have been born, all of whom are dead. He was engaged to his wife while in prison at Knoxville, and was visited by her while in confinement at the jail in that city, and on the day on which he was to have been executed. Evin Harris, the great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was a native of England, who immigratd to America during William Penn's time, and located in the vicinity where Harrisburg, Penn., now stands and for whom that city was presumably named. He immigrated to South Carolina, and thence to Tennessee, at a very early date, and located in what is now Grainger County, of which he was one of the pioneers, and for whom Harris District in that county was named. He stood high in his county, and the Harris family were classed as one of the leading ones of that locality. He married Miss Stewart, of South Carolina, and to that union was born Isaac, the grandfather of our subject, who was born in Harris District, Grainger County. He, like his father, was one of the leading farmers of Grainger County, and married Rebecca Smith, who was also born in Harris District. To this union six children were born, of which William, our subject's father, was the eldest, he being born February 10, 1814. He was reared on the farm until his thirteenth year, and acquired a practical education in the district schools. At the above age he went to Strawberry Plains, Tenn., and entered the store of Mr. McBee, and later clerked for Ai Thornburgh, at New Market, Tenn. He next entered the store of Shadrack Inman, at Dandridge, where after clerking for a number of years, he married his employer's daughter, and engaged in business with his father-in-law's nephew, Shadrack Inman, now of Atlanta, Ga., who is the father of the Inman's, of New York City, who have made great reputations as financiers and capitalists. Until 1856 he was associated in business with his brother, T. Harris, at Dandridge, and at that time he entered the Dandridge Bank as cashier, and was connected with that institution until it was merged with the Ocoee Bank, of Knoxville, when his connection with the same ceased entirely. Upon the occupation of Knoxville by the Federals during the war, he being an avowed Union man, went through the lines to that city. His wife soon joined him under a flag of truce, and then went to Missouri. Going to New York he quietly engaged in speculating, and amassed considerable money. Returned to Knoxville in 1863, and engaged in merchandising, and continued until the close of the war, and then returned to Dandridge and died August 20, 1884. He was a man of more than ordinary financial ability, and met with phenominal success in all business enterprises, accumulating considerable wealth. Harriet M., the mother of our subject, was born in Dandridge, February 10, 1824, and is the daughter of Shadrack and Sarah (Henderson) Inman, a niece of Robert Henderson, the noted Presbyterian minister of East Tennessee. To this union three children were born, of which our subject is the only one living.
J. J. Hunt, one of the prominent young merchants of Jonesboro, Washington Co., Tenn., was born seven miles northwest from Jonesboro, December 17, 1853, and is the son of Samuel M. and Elizabeth (Ellis) Hunt. The father was born on Buffalo Ridge, about a mile from the place where his son was born, in 1812, and was the son of Jesse Hunt, who was a native of Virginia, and immigrated to Tennessee, and settled in Washington County, where he and wife lived an extremely long and useful life, one reaching the ninety-fifth, and the other the ninety-sixth birthday. Samuel, the father was a farmer by vocation, and a man of some prominence in his county, and served as justice of the peace the greater portion of his life. He was a member of the Christian Baptist Church, and died March 14, 1868. The mother was born on Boone's Creek, seven miles northeast from Jonesboro, in 1817, and is the daughter of William and Netitia Ellis; she is a religious and pious lady, a member of the Christian Baptist Church, and now makes her home with a daughter, Mrs. William C. Hale, in Washngton County. Our subject was reared on the farm of his parents, and was educated at Boone's Creek Seminary, in sight of the spot where Daniel Boone killed the "bar," and the tree upon which he recorded that fact still stands in sight of the school building After leaving school he entered the merchandising establishment of James H. Dosser & Co., of Jonesboro, as clerk, where he remained for five years, and then on May 5, 1880, he established his present hardware business. He has one of the most complete stocks of hardware, and one of the best arranged store-rooms to be found outside of the large cities, and is meeting with deserved success. On May 5, 1886, he also engaged in the drug business in Jonesboro, and is now carrying it on in connection with his hardware store, though in separate buildings, he has a large line of drugs and fancy goods, carrying upward of $18,000 of stock, and does an annual business of $35,000. He is a public-spirited and progressive young citizen, full of enterprise and spirit, and has always taken an interest in an encouraged all worthy public enterprises, and is also an advocate of public schools and churches, and is a member of the Methodist Church. He has been very successful through life, and now at the age of thirty-two years is at the head of two prosperous mercantile establishments, and is regarded as one of the substantial citizens of Jonesboro, and stands high in the esteem of the public.
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