USA > Alabama > Memorial record of Alabama. A concise account of the state's political, military, professional and industrial progress, together with the personal memoirs of many of its people. Volume I > Part 103
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and was for thirty years a member of the vestry of St. Paul's church, Selma. The facts of this are sketch taken from the memoir contributed by Dr. B. H. Riggs to the transactions of the State Medical association for 1878.
HUGH S. D. MALLORY .- During the colonial period two brothers, named Mallory, came from England and settled, one in Virginia and the other in a colony further north. From the former has descended H. S. D. Mallory, whose great-grandfather was a soldier in the war of the Revolution. A son of this patriot-warrior, named Uriah, was married in Virginia, and to him was born in Madison county, Va., a son named James, who was married to Miss Ann Darby, a native of Orange county, Va., and of Scotch-Irish descent, and in 1832 came to Alabama, where the father engaged in planting in Talladega county until his death, which occurred in August, 1877, at the age of seventy years; the mother is still living at an advanced age. They were the parents of five sons and five daughters, of whom H. S. D. Mallory is the third to the youngest. Hugh S. D. Mallory was born on his father's plantation in Talladega county, Ala., February 6, 1848. His education was acquired in the high school, and later at the Male institute of Talladega, this was supplemented by an attendance at the university of Alabama until the burning of that institution, when he entered the university of Virginia, studied during 1866-67-68, and graduated with the degree of B. L. in the last named year. In January, 1869, he settled in Selma, and was admit- ted to the bar the same year-or as soon as he had attained his majority. His career as a lawyer has been one of uninterrupted success, and as a citizen he has received the utmost confidence of the residents of the city. He has served two terms as magistrate and two years as mayor. He has been president of Selma Bar association four or five times, and is a mem- ber of the Dallas Bar and State Bar associations. He was one of the organizers of the Home Real Estate and Loan company, of which he is president, 'and also one of the organizers of the Selma & Cahaba Valley Railroad company, and has ever been one of Selma's most active and enterprising citizens. For five years he was superintendent of education for Selma and is, at present, the president of the board of trustees of the Alabama State Colored university, of which the governor of the state and the state superintendent are ex-officio members, the entire board being prominent citizens of Alabama and democrats. He is a Knight Templar, a member of the I. O. O. F., and past grand dictator of the Knights of Honor; is a member of the Legion of Honor and of the Na- tional Union. For a number of years he has been chairman of the Dallas county democratic executive committee, and has several times been a delegate to state conventions, and is an active member of the democratic state executive committee. A deacon in the Baptist church, he is also superintendent of the Sabbath school and moderator of the association.
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In October, 1872, Mr. Mallory was happily married to Miss Luta Mooe,r daughter of Dr. C. B. Moore, of Summerfield, Dallas county, the result of the union being the birth of six children.
MARCUS J. MEYER, liveryman at Selma, Ala., was born in Mobile, Ala., November 19, 1849. His parents were Joseph and Hannah Siegel Meyer, the former of whom was born near Eissinger, Germany, and mother at Jeckling, Germany. They were married in New Orleans, and after living a year or two at Mobile, they removed to Benton, Ala., where they lived until 1862, when they removed to Selma. Here the mother died in 1875, aged forty-five years, and the father in 1890, aged seventy- four years. They had three sons and one daughter, one of the sons being dead. Marcus J. Meyer's father was a merchant up to within seven years of his death. He came to the United States in 1842, and on coming to Selma embarked in general merchandising. Though he came to the country a poor young man, he succeeded so well that he became inde- pendent and left his family a creditable estate. He was a successful business man and highly respected. He was considered the father of the congregation Mishkan Israel, as it was at his house that the congrega- tion was organized. He was its president for over fifteen years, and besides held prominent offices in other Hebrew societies. Had he not declined, he might have continued in these several positions until his death. So much and so generally was he regarded as the founder of the congre- gation Mishkan Israel, that a special chair was provided for him near the pulpit in the church, which chair he occupied for years before his death, and for thirty days after he passed away his chair was draped appro- priately with mourning. He was both a Mason and an Odd Fellow for years. He was a member of the Selma city council and was regarded as a live and progressive citizen. Few men had more friends and fewer enemies than he. Marcus J. Meyer was reared in Benton and in Selma and he received most of his education in the latter place, being about twelve years old when his parents moved there. He also attended school in Mobile, and Montgomery, and the Central institute near Wetumpka. After thus securing a fair literary eudcation, he spent much time in his father's store, and there gained a great deal of practical business exper- ience. He became a partner with his father under the firm name of Joseph Meyer & Son, which continued up to the time of his father's retirement from business. At this time Mr. Meyer embarked in the livery and sale stable business on his own account in Selma, in which business he has since continued. He is also very extensively engaged in the live stock business, and has made sales averaging of over $200,000 worth in the year. He has thus become a very successful business man, and that he is well thought of in the community is proven by the fact that he has been three times elected a member of the city council, and is now filling a four years' term. He is also chairman of the most im- portant committee, that on streets and lighting. He is a master Mason
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and an Odd Fellow. He is a member of the Knights of Pythias, of which he is past-chancellor; is a member of the Elks; of the Improved Order of Red Men; of the Ancient Order of United Workmen; of the I. O. B. B .; of the Kashershelbazzel; of the Iron Hall, and is vice-president of the congregation, Mishkan Israel. He takes an active interest in politics and is a member of both the city and county democratic executive com- mittees, and has been a delegate to the state democratic convention. He is also a director of the bank of Selma. He was married in 1877 to Miss Helen Meyer, daughter of M. Meyer of Selma, a well known merchant of that city. By this marriage he has two children, Hannah and Florette.
JAMES NEWTON MONTGOMERY was born in Limestone county, Ala., August 20, 1827. His parents were James and Mary (Steele) Montgomery. The former was born in Mecklenburg county, N. C., and was of Scotch- Irish extraction. Mrs. Mary Montgomery was born in South Carolina, though her father was born in Ireland. She was reared in South Caro- lina. Mr. Montgomery's father was twice married, his first wife being a Miss Shields, whom he married in Tennessee, and by whom he had one son and one daughter. After her death her husband married Miss Steele in Limestone county, Ala. To their marriage were born six children, four sons and two daughters, the mother dying when James Newton Montgomery was about three years of age, and the father some twenty years later. James Newton Montgomery was reared on a farm, assisting his father, who was a farmer by occupation, but who maintained a work- shop on his farm where he made chairs and flax wheels. J. N. Mont- gomery received what was called an old field school education, his time in boyhood being allotted, the summers to farm work and the winters to attendance at the old field schools. He started out in life for himself at the age of twenty-one, and going to Pulaski, Tenn., secured a posi- tion cutting stone, at which trade he worked for two years. He then went to Columbia, Tenn., where he engaged in the same business for a similar period. In January, 1852, he came to Selma, when that now pros- perous town was but a small village. For three years he worked at marble-cutting as a journeyman and then at the same trade for one year in Montgomery. In 1856 he began business in Selma, as a marble dealer, and continued in that business up to the time the war broke out, when he left his growing business in the charge of an employee and in Septem- ber, 1861, entered, as a second lieutenant, the service of the Confederacy, in company B., Twentieth Alabama regiment of infantry. In June of 1863, he was promoted to be first lieutenant of his company at Fort Gib- son, Miss. In 1863 he received a gun-shot wound in the right arm, in con- sequence of which he was retired in 1864 and assigned to conscript post duty in Shelby county, Ala., where he continued until the end of the war. He then returned to Selma and has there continued his marble business ever since, his son W. R. Montgomery, becoming a partner in
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the firm in 1889. J. N. Montgomery & Son are dealers in all kinds of Italian and American marble, and imported and native granites of all kinds. They employ artistic workmen and turn out very satisfactory work, being both practical workmen and therefore well able to judge of the quality of the work done by their men. In November, 1857, Mr. Montgomery married Miss Minerva Ferguson, who was born and reared in Selma, Ala., and to their marriage five childern have been born, three of whom are now dead. Mrs. Montgomery died in 1878. Mr. Montgom- ery is a member of the Cumberland Presbyterian church, a master Mason and a member of the Knights of Honor.
HENRY DANNELLY MOORE, D. D., was born at Abbeville, S. C., October 13, 1838. His father was Rev. James Moore, who was born at Charleston, S. C., and who was a son of James Moore, a native of north Ireland who came to Charleston in the early portion of his life and died there. Rev. James Moore was born December 24, 1799, and died in Abbe- ville, September 2, 1863. He grew to manhood in Charleston, and was educated there. He married Miss Ann Fisher, a native of Liverpool, England, who came to the United States with her parents, who first settled in Norfolk, Va., but later removed to Charleston, S. C., where they died. She was born in 1800, came to this country in 1812, and became the mother of thirteen children. One daughter and four sons lived to maturity, viz .: Joseph, Anna, William, Edwin and Henry Dannelly. The parents of these children removed to Abbeville, S. C., where the mother died, August 29, 1862. In 1830 Rev. James Moore was ordained a minister in the Methodist Episcopal church, and when that church was divided, in 1844, adhered to that part of it now known as the Methodist Episcopal church, south, and remained in its ministry until his death. He and his wife were people of marked characteristics. He was whole- souled, large hearted and hospitable, and his memory is revered in the history of Methodism in South Carolina. His wife was a pure and devout woman, and both she and her husband were for many years highly useful and highly esteemed citizens of Abbeville, and they may be said to have been the founders of the Methodist church in Abbeville. Dr. Moore grew to manhood at Abbeville, and after taking a preparatory course of study, he was sent to the South Carolina Military academy at Columbia in 1853, and later to the Military academy at Charleston. In December, 1857, he was admitted to membership in the South Carolina annual conference of the Methodist Episcopal church, south. He was at first assigned to the Union circuit, and in 1861 he was at the town of Manning, S. C., where his military education was brought into use in drilling soldiers, who entered the Confederate army. In July, 1863, he went into the army from Sumter station, of which he was then in charge, as chaplain of the Twelfth Alabama infantry, in which position he remained until the close of the war. In 1865, he was transferred from
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the South Carolina to the Florida conference, and while a member of this conference served as preacher in charge of the Albany, Ga., station until 1869. While at Albany he became a member of the south Georgia conference. In 1869, he was elected president of Levert Female college at Talbotton, Ga., remaining there until July, 1872, when he was elected president of the Alabama Conference Female college, at Tuskegee, Ala. His membership was then transferred to the Alabama conference, in which he was presiding elder during 1876, 1877 and 1878. From 1879 to 1882, he was in charge of the First Methodist Episcopal church, south, of Mobile. Ala., and while in this charge the degree of D. D., was conferred upon him by the state university at Tuscaloosa, Ala. From 1883 to 1887, he was in charge of the Methodist Episcopal church, south, at Prattville, Ala., and from January, 1887, to January, 1890, he had charge of the First Methodist Episcopal church, of Montgomery,, Ala., the only Methodist church in that city. In January, 1891, he took charge of the Selma Methodist Episcopal church, south, where he has since remained. He has been married twice, first, in 1859, to Miss Carrie B. Thomason of Orangeburg district, S. C., by whom he had two daughters and two sons. He married for the second wife, in July, 1874, Miss Caroline Tait, of Wilcox county, Ala., a daughter of Hon. Felix Tait, by whom he has four children. He is a royal arch Mason, and also an Odd Fellow. In 1878 he was delegate from the Alabama conference to the general conference of the Methodist Episcopal church, south. He has been a regular correspondent of the press of his church, and is now in charge of the Epworth league department, of the Alabama Christian Advocate. To whatever work he has been called by his church, whether as educator or pastor, he has faithfully and successfully performed the duties imposed upon him. He is one of the ablest men in the church in Alabama, and has had charge of the most important churches in the state.
JOHN TYLER MORGAN, United States senator from Alabama, was born at Athens, Tenn., June 20, 1824. He received an academic education, chiefly in Alabama, whither he came as an emigrant when nine years old, and settled in Calhoun county. He read law in the office of William P. Chilton, and was admitted to the bar in 1845. In 1855 he moved to Dallas county, located first in Selma, then in Cahaba. He formed a partnership with Hon. William M. Byrd, and maintained this connection until the latter was raised to the supreme court bench. In 1860 he was named as one of the electors at large on the Breckinridge-Lane electoral ticket, a ticket that carried in Alabama. In his canvass as an elector he laid the foundation of his reputation as an orator of the first rank. In 1861 he was elected a delegate from Dallas county to the state convention that passed the ordinance of secession, and still further increased his fame among Alabamians as a debater, by his speeches in that body. He joined the Confederate army in May, 1861, as a private in company I,
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Cahaba rifles, and when that company was assigned to the Fifth Ala- bama regiment. under Col. Robert E. Rodes, he was elected major, and was afterward elected lieutenant-colonel of that regiment. He was com- missioned in 1862 as colonel, and raised the Fifty-first Alabama regiment. He was appointed brigadier-general in 1863, and assigned to a brigade in Virginia. He resigned. however, to rejoin the regiment he had assisted in raising, its colonel having been in the meantime killed in. battle. In 1865 he was again appointed brigadier-general and was then assigned to an Alabama brigade that included his regiment. He returned to Selma after the war and resumed work in his profession, and at once entered upon a large practice. Being nominated as a presidential elector at large in 1876, he again canvassed the state, and renewed the spell he had cast over men's minds sixteen years before. As a result of his splendid canvass he was elected, the ensuing winter, a member of the United States senate, defeating Hon. George S. Houston, who was then governor of the state. Senator Morgan was re-elected in 1882 and again in 1888. His term of service will expire March 3, 1895. In the senate, Gen. Morgan is confessedly a leader, and an eminent one. . He is a great student, an indefatigable worker, and has a power of argument and statement that is fairly amazing. If he has any weakness it is the readi- ness with which he pours out the wealth of his ideas on all the leading subjects mooted in the senate. In the matter of the Behring sea dispute with England, he spoke for four days, and there is probably not in the annals of congress a finer example, than this speech, of sustained untir- ing application of mind to a master subject. He recalls by his readiness and copiousness the great lights of the senate in older times, and he exceeds them all, as any great senator of to-day must in the wider knowledge and broader scope of vision necessary to fairly weigh and judge the immense and multiform national interests of the United States. Senator Morgan was appointed by President Harrison, in 1892, one of the representatives of the United States to present the case of our gov- ernment to the board of arbitration, a compliment of an unusual kind to a member of an opposing political party, and one that attests the sen- ator's great acquirements as a lawyer and a statesman. In February, 1893, he proceeded to Paris on this mission.
ANDREW JACKSON MULLEN, one of the oldest citizens of Selma, and one of the most highly respected for his estimable character and the eminent usefulness of his career, was born in Alabama in 1825. His parents were John and Mary Mullen, who came from South Carolina, settling in Alabama, at an early day, near Tuscaloosa. The father was a farmer by occupation, but after living in the vicinity of Tuscaloosa for some time he built a flat boat, on which he took his family to Mobile, and there died. His widow went on with the rest of the family to New Orleans, and there she died of yellow fever. One of the sons, John Mul- len, went to sea and was not again heard from, and another, James
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Mullen, returned to Tuscaloosa and there died a few. years later. Andrew Jackson Mullen, and his younger brother, Dr. Henry F. Mullen of Selma, were placed in an orphans' home, at New Orleans; later a sister, Mrs. Sarah Benton, living at Columbus, Ga., went to New Orleans, took the two brothers out of the orphans' home, waited at Montgomery for the Indians to be removed from the vicinity of her home, and later, when on her way to Columbus, Ga., the stage broke down and she had to carry the younger brother of Andrew J. in her arms, he being only a child. The weather was cold, and the roads were muddy, and on account of the exposure she took sick and not long afterward died at Columbus. Another brother, Eli Mullen, was a resident of Birmingham, Ala., for about fifteen years, and died about 1891, at the age of seventy-six years, having attained a position of considerable prominence, and having won the respect of the entire community. Andrew J. was bound out to a certain harness maker at Columbus, Ga., named James S. Norman, with whom he remained about one year, learning but little of his warden's trade. While yet in his teens he left Mr. Norman, and went to Mont- gomery, where he began boating, at which he continued three years, quit- ting at New Orleans. He then went to Columbus, Ga., after learning at New Orleans the brick mason's trade, and worked for a time with his brother at Columbus at the brick layer's trade. He then went to Tusca- loosa, and later still, in 1850, came to Selma, where he has since remained. As a brick mason and builder he has erected many large and important buildings, private and public, including the Dallas academy building, the academy of music building, and others at Selma, besides others at Marion, Tuscaloosa, and other places. Although left an orphan at an early age. and baffled by hardships in various forms, he has yet succeeded in amassing a considerable fortune, and in building up for himself a character beyond reproach, no man standing higher to-day for honesty and integrity than he. He is a member of the Baptist church, as is also his entire family. He has been twice married, his first wife being Miss Lucy Montague, who lived but a short time, and his second wife being a sister of his first. Her name was Ann Judson Montague. By the second wife who yet survives, he has one son, Leonard, and one daughter, Annie. Mr. Mullen is a master Mason, and an Odd Fellow. While his life has been one of hardship it has also been of usefulness, and he is now honored, respected and happy, having an excellent and orderly family, and the esteem of the entire community.
RICHARD MARSHALL NELSON, president of the Commercial bank of Selma, Ala., and president of the American Bankers' association, is in all probability one of the most able, if not the ablest, of the financiers of the south. Mr. Nelson had made an honorable record in the various spheres and relations in life, but it is as a business man that he is most widely known and appreciated. Whether as an officer of the several financial institutions with which he is identified, member of the Bar association
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chairman of boards and committees, member of the court of county rev- enues, vestryman, trustee of the public schools, or what not, he is prom- inently a man of affairs, of which it may be truly added. none of them, to his sense of duty, has seemed too small for careful attention, and none of them, to his facile grasp, has been too large for easy mastery. Richard M. Nelson was born in Wayne county, N. C., in 1843, of highly respected parentage, being a son of Rev. Charles J. Nelson, of the Baptist church, Goldsboro, also a native of North Carolina and of north of Ireland ancestry. When a lad of sixteen, Richard M. was appointed a cadet at West Point by President Buchanan, but at the outbreak of the Civil war his southern patriotism was aroused and he resigned his cadet- ship to take up arms in behalf of the Confederacy, and served in her army from May, 1861, until the close of hostilities, chiefly as captain of ordnance. On the restoration of peace he studied law and was admitted to the bar by the supreme court of North Carolina in 1866. The same year, he came to Alabama and settled at Selma, where he formed a law partnership with Joseph F. Johnston (now president of the Alabama National bank of Birmingham) under the firm name of Johnston & Nelson, and until January, 1878, was engaged in prosperous practice. On account of his already recognized financial ability he was at that date chosen president of the Selma Savings bank, at that time the oldest incorporated bank in central Alabama. Since then he has been the head of the insti- tution, the name of which was changed, in 1880, to that of the Commer- cial bank of Selma. In 1881, Mr. Nelson became president of the Loan company of Alabama, at Selma, the pioneer company of the kind at the south and doing a most extensive business in farm loans. In 1875, Mr. Nelson was appointed by President Grant United States commissioner for the state of Alabama, to the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia, and was a member of the finance committee; he was deputy from the diocese of Alabama to the several general conventions of the Protestant Episcopal church of the United States, which sat, respectively, at Balti- more in 1871. at Boston in 1877, at New York in 1880, at Philadelphia in 1883, at Chicago in 1886; again at New York in 1889; and at Baltimore in in 1892. He was also one of the deputation to the synod of Canada appointed by the general convention in 1883. For years he has been an active member of the American Bankers' association, and in 1878 was elected to its executive council, and was annually re-elected until 1891, when he was elected first vice-president, and at its seventeenth annual convention, held at New Orleans in December of the last-named year, was elected president. After several years' service as chief of ordnance on staff of the major-general, commanding the state militia, he, in 1890, suc- ceeded to the command of the fourth congressional district, with rank of brigadier-general. The marriage of Mr. Nelson took place at Selma, in 1868, to Miss Ella Hines, step-daughter of Hon. Thos. J. Portis, now of St. Louis, Mo. Mr. Nelson had the misfortune to lose his wife in
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