Memphis Tennessee Genealogy – Page 2 of 3

Biographical Sketch of Paul Pinckney

Under the head of “The Press” comes the name of Paul Pinckney, one of the foremost newspaper men of the county, and editor and proprietor of the San Mateo Times. Mr. Pinckney was born in South Carolina on March 24, 1869. His early education was accomplished in the common-schools and supplemented by a course under private tutors. At fifteen, instead of going to college he decided to see the world as both his parents had passed away. Ever since this he has “been seeing the world” through the eyes of a newspaper man, serving in the capacity of both reporter … Read more

Biography of Ward Smith

Ward Smith, secretary of the Hunter-Robinson Milling & Grain Company and manager of the grain department, was born in Tullahoma, Tennessee, May 22, 1888. His father, Dr. J. Crittenden Smith, was a native of Columbia, Tennessee, and is now in business in Chicago. His father, Dr. T. C. Smith, is still living in Mt. Pleasant, Tennessee. He and his immediate ancestors in the two preceding generations were physicians. The Smith family comes of English lineage. J. Crittenden Smith was united in marriage to Ella Ward, a daughter of John H. Ward, a wholesale furniture dealer of Nashville, Tennessee. He came … Read more

Biography of Earl M. Robinson

Earl M. Robinson is one of the younger business men of Emporia, and his name at once suggests in that section of Kansas the Robinson greenhouses, which have become noted for the perfection of their cut flowers. This is a business which he had built up to extensive proportions, and its product now supplies not only Emporia but a wide surrounding territory. He is an alert and enterprising factor in business circles. Descended from the family of Robinsons that were in Virginia during colonial days, Earl M. Robinson is himself a southerner by birth and was born at Huntsville, Madison … Read more

Natchez Trace

In 1792, in a council held at Chickasaw Bluffs, where Memphis, Tennessee, is now located, a treaty was made with the Chickasaws, in which they granted the United States the right of way through their territory for a public road to be opened from Nashville, Tennessee, to Natchez, Mississippi. This road was long known, and no doubt, remembered by many at the present time by the name “Natchez Trace.” It crossed the Tennessee River at a point then known as “Colberts Ferry,” and passed through the present counties of Tishomingo, Ittiwamba, Lee, Pantotoc, Chickasaw, Choctaw, thence on to Natchez, and … Read more

Biography of John Maloy

JOHN MALOY, deceased. Although the gentleman whose name heads this sketch has “passed to that bourne whence no traveler returns,” his walk through life was characterized by so much honor and such an earnest desire to benefit his fellows and the section in which he resided, that his memory will remain green in the hearts of the many citizens of Stone County, Arkansas He was born in Bengal, County Tyrone, Ireland, and when but a lad crossed the stormy ocean to America and landed at Quebec, thence to New York, from which place he went to Memphis, Tennessee, and in … Read more

Biography of Nathan Adams Gibson

Nathan Adams Gibson has been an active representative of the legal fraternity in Muskogee for the past twenty-eight years and has been accorded an extensive and gratifying clientage. He is a native of Stanton, Tennessee, and a son of James K. and Rosa S. Gibson, the former a banker. His preliminary education was supplemented by study in Vanderbilt University of Nashville, Tennessee, which institution conferred upon him the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1888 and that of LL. B. on the completion of a law course in 1890. In the latter year he was admitted to the bar at … Read more

Biography of Jeremiah L. Seitz

Jeremiah L. Seitz is one of the pioneers of McPherson County. He came to Kansas a short time after the close of the Civil war, in which he had served as one of the youngest volunteers on the Union side. As a homesteader, farmer, public official and business man he had played a worthy and influential role in McPherson County since pioneer days. He is still active and had a good business as a collecting agent and auctioneer. Mr. Seitz was born April 16, 1847, at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, son of Jacob and Barbara (Shellebarger) Seitz. His parents were natives of … Read more

Biography of Capt. George M. Jones

Capt. Jones is the son of Henry F. and Mary (Waller) Jones, and was born in Shelby county, Tennessee, Oct. 19th, 1836.His father is still living there, aged eighty-one. His mother died in l856. George M. grew up on the farm, receiving his education at the common schools of the county where he lived. At the age of seventeen he went to Memphis, Tenn., and sold dry goods for the firm of Cossitt, Hill & Talmadge. He remained with them something over three years, receiving for his first year’s service, $75.00 and board; for the second, $100.00, and the third, … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Mrs. Henry J. Hill

(See Adair)-Emma, the daughter of William E. and Fannie L. (Wright) Dupree, was born in Tex., Dec. 13, 1888; educated at Willie Halsell College at Vinita, and the Northeastern State Normal at Tahlequah, Okla. She married at Vinita on Dec. 22, 1915, Henry J., son of Frederick W. and Catherine Hill. He was born May 5, 1885, in Asherville, Mitchell County, Kansas. They are the parents of Frederick William, born October 2, 1916, in Birmingham, Alabama; Anna Catherine, born December 25, 1917, in Memphis, Tennessee, and Henry Marion Hill, born January 28, 1920, in Vinita, Oklahoma. Mr. and Mrs. Hill … Read more

Biography of James G. Harris, M. D.

Dr. James G. Harris, a physician and surgeon of Muskogee, who is specializing in urology, was born on the 18th of February, 1889, in Muskogee county, and is a son of P. Collins and Mary A. (Davis) Harris, who were natives of Georgia and of Alabama respectively. The father served for two years with the Confederate army in the Civil war and was taken prisoner, being incarcerated for about a year. Soon after the war, owing to the fact that he was part Cherokee, he received an allotment from the government in Oklahoma, then Indian Territory, and removed to this … Read more

Slave Narrative of Lucretia Alexander

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person Interviewed: Lucretia Alexander Location: 1708 High Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 89 Occupation: Washed. Ironed. Plowed. Hoed “I been married three times and my last name was Lucretia Alexander. I was twelve years old when the War began. My mother died at seventy-three or seventy-five. That was in August 1865—August the ninth. She was buried August twelfth. The reason they kept her was they had refugeed her children off to different places to keep them from the Yankees. They couldn’t get them back. My mother and her children were heir property. Her first master was … Read more

Death of Cyrus Kingsbury

Early in the year 1820, an English traveler from Liverpool, named Adam Hodgson, who had heard of the Elliot mission when at home, visited the mission, though he had to turn from his main route of travel the distance of sixty miles. He, at one time on his sixty miles route, employed a Choctaw to conduct him ten or twelve miles on his new way, which he did, then received his pay and left him to finish his journey alone. Of this Choctaw guide Mr. Hodgson, as an example of noble benevolence and faithful trust, states: “After going about a … Read more

Slave Narrative of Jenny Greer

Person Interviewed: Jenny Greer Location: Nashville, Tennessee Place of Birth: Florence, Alabama Age: 84 Place of Residence: 706 Overton Street, Nashville, Tennessee “Am 84 y’ars ole en wuz bawn in Florence, Alabama, ’bout seben miles fum town. Wuz bawn on de Collier plantashun en Marster en Missis wuz James en Jeanette Collier. Mah daddy en mammy wuz named Nelson en Jane Collier. I wuz named atter one ob mah Missis’ daughters. Our family wuz neber sold er divided.” “I’se bin ma’ied once. Ma’ied Neeley Greer. Thank de Lawd I aint got no chilluns. Chilluns ez so bad now I can’t … Read more

Memoirs of John Pitchlynn

Peter Perkins Pitchlynn was the Choctaw Principal Chief from 1864-1866

John Pitchlynn, the name of another white man who at an early day cast his lot among the Choctaws, not to be a curse but a true benefactor. He was contemporaneous with the three Folsom’s, Nathaniel, Ebenezer and Edmond; the three Nails, Henry, Adam and Edwin; the two Le Flores Lewis and Mitchel, and Lewis Durant. John Pitchlynn, as the others, married a Choctaw girl and thus become a bona-fide citizen of the Choctaw Nation. He was commissioned by Washington, as United States Interpreter for the Choctaws in 1786, in which capacity he served them long and faithfully. Whether he … Read more

Gov. Perier and Bienville

While the English east of the Alleghany mountains were adopting active, but secret measures, to stop the progress of French colonization on the banks of the Mississippi river, their traders were meeting the French traders every where among the southern Indians, and their mutual animosity and competition causing frequent quarrels, oft terminating in collisions, in which the unfortunate Indians always became involved on the one or the other side. But the French, at an; early day had excited the animosity of the Chickasaws by failing to protect a band of their warriors who had solicited an escort from Mobile to … Read more

Biography of Thomas F. Browne

Thomas F. Browne, manager and resident vice president of the United States Fidelity & Guaranty Company of Baltimore, Maryland, which corporation he has represented in St. Louis since the 6th of May, 1911, was born in Memphis, Tennessee, a son of the late Peter Randolph Bland Browne, who was likewise born in Tennessee and became a successful merchant of that state, where he resided to the time of his death, which occurred in March, 1878, when he had reached the age of forty-eight years. His wife, Willie Etta (Feild) Browne, was also born in Tennessee and was a daughter of Dr. … Read more

Biography of Hon. Isaiah W. Hope

Hon. Isaiah W. Hope is one of the most prominent men in Malheur County today, and he has been a leader here for many years, having started in the mercantile business with his brother in an early day and building up one of the mammoth establishments of the west, while also in many lines of industry he has brought the fine talent of which he is possessed into play with the gratifying result that he has achieved a general round of success in the realm of merchant, general developer of the country, organizer of the Vale Commercial Company, promoter of … Read more

Slave Narrative of Dan Thomas

Person Interviewed: Dan Thomas Location: Nashville, Tennessee Place of Birth: Memphis, Tennessee Date of Birth: 1847 Place of Residence: 904 Jefferson Street, Nashville, Tennessee “I wuz bawn in slavery in 1847 at Memphis, Tennessee en mah marster wuz Deacon Allays. Mah mammy wuz de cook at de big house. Mah mammy d’ed soon atter I wuz bawn, en de Missis had me raised on a bottle. Marster en Missis treatus all dere slaves kindly en plenty ter eat en eve’y one wuz happy. I dunno nuthin ’bout mah daddy er whar he went. I hab no kin in dis worl’. … Read more

Biographical Sketch of S. E. Ray

S. E. Ray, dealer in dry and fancy goods, boots and shoes, etc., Charleston; was born near Montpelier, Vt., Aug. 5, 1833; in early childhood, he accompanied his parents to Geauga Co. (now Lake), Ohio; there, his father resided until his death, and his mother still resides there; at about the age of 20 years, Mr. Ray went to La Fayette, Ind., and engaged as a traveling salesman for Luce Brothers in the stationery business; and, after remaining with them four years, went to Chicago, and for about six years traveled for the well-known stationery house of Culver, Page, Hoyne … Read more

Biography of Capt. John Burgess Davis

When the great West was young the Mississippi River, as the principal gateway to it and almost the sole means of conveying its products to the out-side world was the center of commercial life. Men who followed the river were participants in stirring events and their work was fraught with an importance in the eyes of the public that we of today can little realize. To be a steamboat captain in the fifties and sixties invested the individual with a dignity as great as that accorded to the average railroad magnate nowadays. Captain John Burgess Davis earned his title when … Read more