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 79
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MEMORIAL RECORD OF ALABAMA.
probably a Virginian by birth and reared a large family. Mr. William H. Warren was the third of a family of six sons and one daughter, viz. : Sidney A., was a physician, served in the Thirty-third Alabama Infantry and died in 1862 at Mobile; Lizzie, wife of H. D. Goynes; William H. Warren; Benjamin F .; Frances M., deceased; Erasmus L .; Jesse J. William H. Warren at sixteen years of age joined the Eighteenth Alabama infantry, company A, and went to Mobile, but was soon discharged on account of being too small or too young, but in the fall of 1862 he enlisted again, reached the army during the Chickamauga battle and fought at Missionary Ridge, at Lookout Mountain and at Dalton, where he was taken sick, and sent to the hospital at Atlanta for thirty days. He then returned home, remaining till fall, when he rejoined his command and was in the battle of Nashville and on the retreat to Mississippi and on to Mobile and was in the siege of Spanish Fort. He then went to Meridian in Mississippi, where his regiment surrendered. He was wounded twice during the war. After the war he remained at home till 1871. In January of that year he married Sally, daughter of John and Nancy Fleming, the former of whom was born in Warren county in 1810 and the latter in Columbus county, Ga., in 1811. In 1851 they came to Coffee county, Ala., where Mr. Fleming is still living, Mrs. Fleming having died in 1881. Mr. Fleming has been a farmer all his life and is now one of the oldest men in Coffee county. He has served as tax assessor and collector in both Georgia and Alabama. Mrs. Fleming's father, James Watson, was also a Georgian but came to Coffee county in an early day. He lived the life of a farmer and died here during the war. Mrs. Warren was born in Harris county, Ga., and is the mother of ten children all of whom are living. Mr. Warren since his marriage has lived near and at Clintonville, except one year in Pike county. He owns nearly one thousand acres of land in four tracts. Four hundred acres of it are covered with fine pine timber. He has a small farm and a fine home at Clintonville, where he has lived for five years; he has followed farming all his life and for five or six years he was also engaged in merchandising at Clintonville. He has accumulated nearly all his property through his own efforts, inher- iting only a small amount. While he is not a politician he is enthusiastic and liberal in the support of his party.
WILLIAM B. WISE, lumberman and general merchant at Penn post- office, four miles southeast of Elba, was born near Elba, May 10, 1848. He is a son of Harron and Mary (Davis) Wise, the former of whom was a native of Georgia, and the latter of South Carolina. When quite young they came to Alabama and married in Montgomery county, where Mrs. Wise lives, about sixty-eight years old. Mr. Wise followed farming all his life, and in 1869 he and his son, William B. Wise, established a saw and grist mill on the present site, which they operated together until the father died, in 1882, at the age of sixty-one. He was a member of the Primitive Baptist church, was an honest, industrious and capable man,
PERSONAL MEMOIRS-COFFEE COUNTY. 685
and when the war came, had a good property, which was mostly swept away. Early in 1861 he joined company E, Fifty-fourth Alabama in. fantry, was captured at Island No. 10, and spent about six months at Camp Douglas. He was at length exchanged and continued then in active service most of the time until the close of the war. After the fall of Vicksburg he was one of those not subject to parole, and so furnished a substitute in the person of his son, William B., for about three months. The son was then but fifteen years old. At the end of three months he again returned to his command and fought in the battles around Chatta- nooga and in other battles; but in the spring of 1864, at the beginning of the Georgia campaign, William B. again took his father's place in the ranks, and fought bravely on that campaign to Resaca, where he was shot through the groin, and was taken to the hospital in the blind school building at Macon, Ga., where he remained from April to July, during which time his life was frequently despaired of, he having taken measles soon after arriving at the hospital. In July he came home and was not again fit for active service during the war. Soon after, he was wounded his father returned to the command and fought through the rest of the campaign until near Atlanta, when he was captured and held a prisoner until just before the time of the final surrender. Although he was in many severe battles, yet he was never wounded nor sick enough to go to the hospital. He was one of a large family born to Harron Wise, who was probably a native of Georgia, where he was raised and married, but came to Coffee county in the twenties. He settled in the woods about sixteen miles below where Elba is now situated, at what is known as Holly's Ferry. Here he improved a farm, but later he removed to near where Elba now is. He died in 1862, and his widow about 1866. He was in the Indian war of 1836, and had seven sons in the late war, viz. : George W., of Geneva; Traverse, who was killed at Shiloh; Frank- lin. who lost an arm, and is now living in Texas; John V .; Andrew Jackson, both now of Coffee county; Floyd, who was in a Florida regi- ment, now deceased, and Harron. The grandfather, Daniel Wise, also came to Alabama with his son, and the three generations lie buried in the family burying ground. Isaac Davis, the maternal grandfather of W. B. Wise, was probably a native of South Carolina, where he married, and at a very early day came to Alabama, settling first in Montgomery county, and later in Coffee county, where he died about 1868. His widow died in 1891, aged about eighty-six. They had a family of three sons and ten daughters; all the sons served in the late war, viz .: William T., killed at Perryville, Ky., a member of the Thirty-third Alabama; Levi, who was in the army of Virginia, now of Coffee county; Sampson, who was in the Tennessee army, and died in the hospital. William B. Wise is the oldest in a family of three sons and one daughter, viz. : William B., Isaac Franklin, died when four years old; Joseph W., of Coffee county; Mary, wife of William Rushing. In 1866, when but eighteen years
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old, W. B. Wise married Sarah Melissa. daughter of Edmund and Elizabeth Cody, who came at a very early day from one of the Carolinas to Coffee county, where Mr. Cody died before the war. His widow is still living, aged about eighty years. Mrs. Wise was born in Coffee county, and is the youngest of six children. At the death of his father, in 1882, W. B. Wise, purchased the interests of the other heirs, and has since conducted the business in which he and his father were partners, alone, and with remarkable success, conducting the largest business of any man in the county. The capacity of this mill is about 5,000 feet of lumber per day. In the mill and on the farm about ten men are usually employed. The farm contains about 1,800 acres of land. For the past three years he has also had a general store, in which he does about $10,000 worth of business per annum. He is one of the most thorough- going business men in the county, in fact in southeastern Alabama, and all the property he now has he has obtained through his own efforts. In 1890 he established Penn postoffice, and has since been postmaster. While he always does his part toward the support of his party, he re- frains from active participation in politics, and devotes his undivided attention to his business; and it is to this that he attributes his success.
COLBERT COUNTY.
EDWARD BERTON ALMON is one of the prominent attorneys of Tuscum- bia, Ala., and is a member of the law firm of Kirk & Almon, was born at Moulton, April 18, 1860. He is a son of George W. and Nannie (Eu- bank) Almon. He was reared on a farm and attended the common schools until he was about seventeen years of age, at which time he entered the state normal school at Florence, graduating from that institution, and also graduating in 1883 from the university of Alabama. He began the study of law with his brother and was admitted to the bar at Bel Green, Franklin county, in 1884. He practiced there one year and then located at Tuscumbia and practiced alone until 1886, when he formed a partner- ship with James T. Kirk, under the firm name of Kirk & Almon, which is one of the leading law firms in north Alabama, and enjoys a lucrative practice. Mr. Almon has been identified more or less with politics, and has served as chairman of the democratic executive committee of Colbert county. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity, of the Knights of Pythias, and of the Knights of Honor, and is also a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, south. Mr. Almon's father, George W. Al- mon, was born at Pulaski, Tenn., in 1817, and came to Alabama in 1822, and settled in Lawrence county. Here he received a common English education, and followed farming for a livelihood. His wife was born in Huntsville, Ala., in 1822, and is the daughter of Thomas Eubank, a native of Virginia. Edward B. Almon was married December 13, 1887, to Miss Luie Clopper of Tuscumbia, and has two children, Lottie and
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Louise. Mr. Almon was nominated in 1892 by the democratic party for state senator from the thirty-first senatorial district, composed of Colbert, Franklin and Marion counties, and in the election in August was elected by a majority of 1,090 votes, carrying each one of the counties. His opponent was a Kolb or Jeffersonian democrat, and the canvass was a spirited one, extending over thirty days. Mr. Almon canvassed the entire district, and carried Colbert county, which had usually gone re- publican, by 500 majority, that having previously been its usual republi- can majority, and was recognized as one of the ablest, best and most popular men in the Alabama senate.
MAJOR E. L. BICKLEY, one of the prominent and well known business men of Tuscumbia, Ala., proprietor and senior partner of the firm of Bickley & Raiford, the largest hardware store in the city, was born in Clinch Valley, Scott county, Va., Jnne 30, 1843. He is a son of Chas. W. Bickley, who was born May'16, 1798, at the old Bickley Mills homestead in Castles Woods, Russell county, Va. His father, Charles Bickley, came from eastern Virginia, was the son of John who was the son of William Bickley, who was the first of the Bickley family to settle in America, at Williamsburg, Va., in 1670. He was a knight of the garter of North- amptonshire, England. Charles Bickley the grandfather was a soldier in the Revolutionary war, and his son Chas. Wesley, the father of the subject of this sketch, though but a beardless boy of fourteen, volunteered his services for the war of 1812. After the wars were over he remained in Castles Woods with his father until 1823. He went to Scott county and bought what is yet known as the Bickley homestead in Clinch Valley, promising $1,500 for about 500 acres of river bottom land, made a cash payment of $400 (about all he was worth) and had five years' time granted him in which to pay the deferred amount, his neighbors predicting that he had simply lost or would have to forfeit his first payment, as it would be impossible for him without any operative capital to meet his obligations. He knew no such thing as failure, however, and went to work, built him an humble cabin, felled the timber, and made a fair crop, the first year. On March 16, 1825, he married Miss Mary P. Burdine, who was born in Russell county, Va., February 16, 1809. She was the daughter of Rev. Ezekiel Burdine, an itinerant Methodist preacher, who from the year 1809 to 1812 traveled a circuit, the territory of which now, constitutes the whole of the Holston conference. Charles Wesley, with his new-made bride, returned to their new home on the Clinch, March 20, 1825. Realizing their situation, surroundings and obligations, they met the issues of life as a reality, and with their united efforts and labors they were enabled to and did meet the obligations in the purchase of the home, discounting the last note a year before it was due. They were the parents of eleven children, nine of whom lived to maturity, and seven of whom are still living, four sons and three daughters. Both were consist-
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ent members of the Methodist Episcopal church, south. Politically the father was an uncompromising democrat of the Breckinridge wing. After accumulating a competency for old age and seeing the children (all living) self sustaining, the mother died of diphtheria, December 29, 1866, and the father remaining at the old liome with his son until May 17, 1880, when he passed from earth to his reward. The eldest of their children, Chas. Washington, was born July 3, 1827, and went west in 1852, was married to Miss Laura R. McFarland of Jackson county Mo., November 1, 1857. They had born unto them the following named children: Otelia, Charles D., Leroy Hopkins, Laura Emmagene, Willie. E., Katie L., Jennie, Oscar, Paralee, and Hettie. At Pikes Peak and other points in the Rocky mountains his healthi was impaired and he came back to Alton. Ill., and from thence back to the Old Dominion; he is still living near the home of his youth. Nancy Elizabeth, born May 28, 1829, married to Col. James H. Godsey, an attorney at law of Prestonburg, Ky., September'6, 1853; they afterwards moved to Platte City, Mo., where they lived until the opening of the Civil war. Col. Godsey raised and organized the Fourth regiment, Missouri infantry, which he commanded under General Price and was killed in the battle of Osage, Kan., in 1863. Mrs. Godsey with her sons Willie and James returned to the old home, April, 1865, where she remained with her parents until May 18, 1868, when she married John W. Banner, of Russell county, Va., and is still living at St. Paul. Her oldest son, W. E. Godsey, of Spring Valley, Ala., is an employee of the B., S. & T. R. R. company: his brother, James H., Jr., is engaged in stock raising in Taz- well county, Va., and the younger brother, and only child of J. W. Ban- ner. is with his parents on the farm. The third child, Martha J., was
born December 1, 1831. Was married to Rev. W. P. Queen of the Hol- ston conference; they raised two children, both girls. Mr. Queen was the representative of Scott county in the senate of Virginia at the time of his death. Mrs. Queen with her youngest daughter, Mattie, is still living at the Queen homestead, near Hagan Sulphur Springs. The fourth child was Mary Ann Eliza, born September 20, 1834, and died March 20, 1843. Emily Burdine and John Hopkins (twins) were born February 1, 1837. Emily died August 31, 1871. John H. was living at old Estillville (now Gate City) in 1861, with Col. H. A. Morison; he volunteered and went out with Capt. H. Clint Wood's company of infantry, Col. Samuel J. Fulkerson's Thirty seventh regiment, twelve months Virginia troops, Confederate States army, was with Stonewall Jackson at Laurel Hill, Mt. Arry, Gettysburg, Chancellorsville, after which he was transferred to cavalry, and commanded company C, Thirty-fourth battalion Virginia cavalry until the close of the war. Was married to Miss Rhoda Thomp- son, of Ryecove, Scott county, Va., January 10, 1867. They had born unto them the following named children, viz .: Anna Bell, Mary Ellen, Charles W. Lee, William Elbert, Clarence, Myrtle and Grover Cleveland.
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PERSONAL MEMOIRS-COLBERT COUNTY.
They still live at the old Bickley homestead on the Clinch, and the land that his father bought, in 1823, for three dollars per acre is now worth fifty dollars per acre. The captain established a postoffice in connection with a lucrative mercantile business at the old home. Henry Powel was the seventh child, and born February 10, 1840, died April 20, 1840. Elbert La Fayette was the eighth. Margarette Minerva Ellen and Joseph Welling- ton were twins, born February 21, 1846. Ellen was a gentle, loving christian child, professed religion and joined the Methodist church, south, when but a girl and lived a consistent, cheerful member of the same; died in the triumphs of faith in the Saviour she had so early learned to love, and had so faithfully served, which was the greatest delight and joy of her short earthly life. She died May 24, 1870, leaving the saviour of her life, both precept and example, as a rich legacy, to her bereaved and sorrowing brothers, sisters and a host of other relatives and friends. Joseph W. being the youngest son, had some advantages more than his elder brothers, his education was more liberal, finishing up at Emory & Henry college. He was married to Miss Mary E. Petty, late of Texas (at the time of Cuba), May 24, 1874, they subsequently made their home in Virginia at the old homestead until about the year 1877, they removed to Alabama, where they now live at Hunter, having with the aid of General Joseph Wheeler, M. C., established this new postoffice, of which J. W. Bickley was the first postmaster appointed, and has served the office as such ever since. He has also run a general supply store in connection with a farm. They have a family of six children: the eldest, Miss Leila E., is about grown; second daughter, Miss Elberta, and Mary A .; George W. L., the first son was named for his kinsman, Dr. George W. L. Bick- ley, late of Baltimore, Maryland. Dr. G. W. L. Bickley, it will be remem- bered, was the originator and organizer of the order of Knights of the Golden Circle, about the year 1848, with the purpose of invading Mexico and making himself emperor of the same; he however failed to carry his scheme of conquest; notwithstanding the organization had reached a formidable point numerically, he was betrayed and his plans and purposes exposed. He wrote a history of Tazewell county, Va., in 1852, where he was living at that time, and was president of the Jeffersonville Historical society, he also published a work on Botany, besides writing a number of novels and other miscellaneous matter of journalism. The fourth and last daughter is Josephine, and the baby boy Seldon Preston Hopkins, who is now six years old. The youngest daughter, eleventh and last child of Charles W. and Mary P. Bickley, was Melissa Catharine, born April 18, 1848. She was married to the Rev. J. M. Massey, of the Holston confer- ence, November 5, 1868; they now live at Dungannan on the Clinch, Mr. Massey having located, studied and gone into the practice of medicine. They had only one child, a daughter, Ellena, who married John Hagan, son of the Hon. Patrick Hagan, of southwest Virginia fame and notoriety as a lawyer and capitalist. We now come back to the proper and central
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subject of this sketch, viz., the early life- training, education and personal character of Elbert Lafayette, fourth son of Chas. Wesley and Mary P. Bickley. His early training in the home of his parents so impressed him as to develop, and establish in his character the principles of industry, economy, prudence and piety. Inheriting the most potent features of his father's character, with strong convictions, and indomitable energy of purpose, he as it were forged his way, and built character from his boy- hood. School facilities were very poor, and the most schooling he got was by walking about three miles to an old log school house, and this through snow and slush. After having made a full hand on the farm through the crop season, which he always did, leading the hands of the plantation from the age of twelve until he was grown, in the fall of 1855, on a camp-meeting occasion in Castles Woods, he joined the Methodist Epis- copal church, south, and has lived an acceptable member ever since. He was at Stony Point academy at school the winter of 1861 -- 2, and in the spring he felt an impulse to go into the Confederate army, and with the ap- proval of his parents left home in March, 1862, going out as special courier with Maj. Ben F. Bradley, Humphrey Marshall's brigade-was in the first. battle at Princeton in West Virginia; the following May was with Gen. John H. Morgan at Perryville and Hickman, Ky. ; in Bragg's campaign the following fall. He was kept in West Virginia along the mountain passes most of the year 1863, having been transferred to Col. V. A. Witcher's Fifty-fourth Virginia cavalry, and was with Gen. Joseph Wheeler through Tennessee and Alabama. Thence back to Virginia under Gen. Preston, serving as adjutant of the Thirty-fourth battalion, Virginia cavalry. An attack having been made on the garrison at Winfield, W. Va., Maj. McFarland was run in and hemmed behind the block house with half a dozen other men-and cut off from the command. Adjt. Bickley planned and led a charge upon the garrison in the night, and succeeded in liberat- ing Maj. McFarland, losing Lieut. J. L. Williams and two or three other men. For this Maj. Bickley was presented with a beautiful sword which he yet has and prizes very highly. After the surrender of the Confederate States of America, Maj. Bickley returned to the old home, spent the sum- mer of 1865 in agricultural pursuits, and, not being satisfied with his education, he resolved to go to school one more session, which he did, at the Rye Cove academy during the winter of 1865-66. Leaving school he spent two years with Col. H. A. Morison at Estillville (as clerk in a dry goods store), and from thence with Dickenson & Alderson, in Rus- sell county, where he was given general control of their mercantile busi- ness, until the year 1869, when he engaged in the stock business, and after going east with and selling a drove of cattle in London county, he returned to the southwest and continued his journey, passing the old home with the purpose of visiting his uncle, Joseph Bickley, at Indian- apolis, Ind. Stopped off at Tuscumbia, Ala., and visited a cousin, T. B. Bickley, of Spring Valley. While there he met and was introduced to-
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Miss Sue Jackson, daughter of James and Sarah (Hodges) Jackson, whom he subsequently married February 14, 1871. Returning to Virginia with his bride they spent one summer and in the succeeding fall returned to Alabama, locating in what is now Spring Valley, in Colbert county. Here he opened and established a niercantile business, which he runs success- fully in connection with agriculture; he also, through the assistance of Maj. Joseph A. Sloss, member of congress, of his district, established a postoffice, the first the community had ever had. Remaining at Spring Valley until 1888, he then removed to Tuscumbia, where he erected a handsome residence where he now lives. Mr. Bickley was raised to the master's degree in Free Masonry by Catlett lodge, No. 34, at Estillville, Va., in 1866, and took the degrees as a Knight of Honor about the year 1875, and in 1889 was made a Knight of Pythias by Colbert lodge, No.12, and of which he is now the V. C. C. Mrs. Bickley, whilst delicately con- stituted, and almost an incessant sufferer, has borne it all patiently, and has been truly a helpmate to her husband temporally and spiritually. Her life has been a benediction to him and we might say to all with whom she has come in contact. With no children of their own they have adopted a niece, Miss Katie L., daughter of his elder brother, C. Wash- ington Bickley, having taken her when but a child of six or seven. She is much the same as if their own, educating her in the Deshler female insti- tute, Tuscumbia, and finishing in the Huntsville female college. She is the pride of the household and truly an affectionate, dutiful child-the staff and comfort of her uncle and aunt-as they pass down the stream of time.
ARCHIBALD HILL CARMICHAEL, attorney-at-law and solicitor for the district composed of Colbert and Lauderdale counties, was born in Dale county, Ala., June 17, 1864. He was reared in Dale county and received his early education at the common schools of that county. He then at- tended the university of Alabama, entering the university in 1882 and graduating from both the academic and law department in 1886. During the session of the legislature of 1886, he served as engrossing clerk of the house. In 1878 he had served in the office of probate judge of Dale county and then upon the election of his father as state auditor of Ala- bama he served as his clerk for two years. During that time he read law, and after leaving college in 1886 he was admitted to the bar in Sep- tember, of that year, in Henry county. In March, 1887, he located in Tuscumbia and began the practice of the law, meeting with gratifying success. During the sessions of the house of 1888-89 and 1890-91, he was assistant clerk of the house. In 1891, upon the creation of the district court for Colbert and Lauderdale counties, he was elected solicitor of the district for the term of two years and was re-elected, without oppo- sition in 1892: Mr. Carmichael was married in January, 1890, to Miss Annie Sugg, of Tuscumbia, daughter of T. H. Sugg, deceased. The father of Mr. Carmichael is Judge Jesse M. Carmichael of the third
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