USA > Kentucky > Biographical cyclopedia of the commonwealth of Kentucky > Part 102
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Judge Short has been one of the most active, public spirited men of the new and flourishing city of Pineville, and with all of the duties of a large
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law practice, presiding in the City Court as occa- sion requires, looking after his real estate inter- ests and fostering his newspaper enterprise, he is one of the busiest men in the mountain district of Kentucky. But he has the brains, with push, pluck and persistence, and will succeed in any undertaking.
He was married in 1871 to Sue Reno, daughter of J. E. Reno of Greenville, and has a family of seven children: Lizzie, Annie, Reno, Lucy, Mamie, Kate and Adeline. Judge Short and his family are members of the Methodist Church.
TSHAM MARION WILFORD, proprietor of I the Wilford Mills, one of the substantial insti- tutions of Mayfield, son of Robert Wilford and Ada Aliza Randolph, was born in Trigg County, Kentucky, July 20, 1832, and after his school days was a farmer in Graves County until 1881, when he purchased the Wilford Mills in May- field from his brother, N. Green Wilford, and in 1885 his son, Robert O., became interested with him in the milling business. Having devoted his life to the quiet and peaceful pursuits of the farm- er and miller, he has not sought prominence or political preferment, though his Democracy has never been questioned. He has been more con- spicuous in church matters than in politics, hav- ing been a life-long member of the Baptist Church and a faithful attendant upon its ordinances. He owns a large farm of valuable land in Graves County and is still interested in its cultivation. No man stands higher in the community, and he is known all over his section as a man of integrity, unswerving honesty and devotion to principle.
Mr. Wilford was married September 5, 1858, to Jincy Olivia Perry, daughter of O. H. Perry of Graves County. She died February 8, 1885, leaving six children, five daughters and one son: Robert Oliver, now in business with his father; Emma, widow of Henry Clay Gardner (who died March 25, 1896, leaving three children, Tracy, Agnes and Robert); Lula Green, wife of U. N. Graham of Mayfield; Rosa Lee, Bessie and May.
Mr. Wilford was married (second) to Mrs. Owen, nee Melton, November 18, 1887, and has one son by this marriage, Ben Wilford.
Robert Wilford (father) was born in North 38
Carolina in 1810; was quite young when he came to Trigg County with his father, Isham Wilford, who died soon after coming to Ken- tucky; his mother married (second) William Armstrong. Robert became a trader and stock- raiser, making frequent trips to the New Orleans market to sell his stock. He was married in 1831 to Ada Aliza Randolph, who was born in Trigg County in 1816. He died February 8, 1846, and she died on the same day of the same month in the following year. Their children were three sons and three daughters: Isham Marion, Na- thaniel Green, James David (killed at the battle of Shiloh in the Confederate army), Robert Jas- per, Eliza Jane and Mary Emeline, both de- ceased, and Melinda Frances, wife of Henry A. Rives.
The Wilfords are of Irish ancestry, but it is not known when the progenitor came to this coun- try. Mr. Wilford's maternal grandfather, Wil- liam Randolph, was a native of Virginia, who came to Trigg County early in the century and was a farmer, after clearing his land. He was twice married, his first wife being a Widow Cam- eron. His family consisted of two sons, David and Alexander, and three daughters. He died in Trigg County in 1847. He belonged to the distinguished Randolph family of old Virginia.
D ANIEL BRECK, civil engineer of Louis- ville, son of Rev. Robert L. Breck, was born in Richmond, Kentucky, July 27, 1861, and grad- uated from Central University in 1880. He went to Leadville, Colorado, and spent some time in prospecting and hunting before taking a post- graduate course in the California University, con- cluding in 1883. He made a special study of civil engineering in both of these universities, and while in California built a sea wall at San Luis Obispo; assisted in the construction of a rail- road from Port Harford, Cal., and also a railroad in Oregon; returned to Kentucky and accepted a prominent position in the engineering depart- ment of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Com- pany with headquarters in Louisville; promoted to roadmaster on the Short Line Division; from that to superintendent of the Owensboro Divi- sion, and is at present in the office of the president
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of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company at Louisville.
His father, Rev. Robert L. Breck, D. D., was born in Richmond, Kentucky, May 8, 1827, and after graduating from Center College at the age of seventeen years, he attended Princeton Col- lege, New Jersey, graduating from the theological seminary and has since received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Princeton College.
He preached his first sermon in the old church on "Woodburn Farm" in Woodford County, since which time his name and work have been identified with the history of the Presbyterian Church and with Center College and Central University as one of the leading ministers in the church and as an educator of young men; was moderator of the General Assembly when the sec- tional division took place; took an active part in the historic events of those stirring times; was the prime mover in the organization of Central University and was its first chancellor, wielding a great influence and occupying a prominent place in ecclesiastical bodies and especially in the edu- cational work of the church.
Daniel Breck is a grandson of Judge Daniel Breck, a member of Congress and judge of the Court of Appeals of Kentucky; a great-grandson of Major-General Green Clay of the War of 1812; also a great-grandson of General Levi Todd of the Indian Wars. His ancestors were intimately connected with the early history of Kentucky.
R ODNEY HAGGARD, Judge of the Clark County Court, son of Augustine L. and Lou Ann Mullins Haggard, was born in Clark Coun- ty, Kentucky, October 3, 1844, and educated in the common schools of the county and in the high school at Winchester.
At the age of seventeen he began teaching. When the war between the states broke out he dismissed his school and joined the Buckner Guards in Kirby Smith's command. He was a recruiting officer and raised a company, of which his uncle, Gordan C. Mullins, was elected cap- tain and himself lieutenant. This was the first company raised for Chenault's regiment of John H. Morgan's command, and Judge Haggard was with this command until Gen. Morgan was cap-
tured in the Ohio raid, at which time he was in command of the remnant of the regiment, all his superior regimental officers having been killed, wounded or captured. He was then a prisoner on Johnson's Island until the close of the war. During his active service in the army he took part in a number of engagements, among which were the battles of Richmond, Kentucky; Hartsville, Tennessee; Green River Bridge, Mills Spring, West Liberty, Lebanon and a number of fights in Indiana and Ohio, and in fact was in all of the battles in which Morgan's command was engaged during his service with it, and was a gallant soldier.
After the war, not being twenty-one years of age, he resumed his work, studying and teach- ing school alternately until August, 1866, when he was elected sheriff of Clark County. This was the first regular election after the war, and the first at which he had ever voted; he was the youngest man who ever held that office in the state of Kentucky and the first to settle his ac- counts with the auditor for each year. In 1870 he was re-elected and began the study of law under Chief Justice James Sympson of Winches- ter and obtained license to practice his profession from the judge of the Court of Appeals; subse- quently graduated from the Louisville Law School, was admitted to the bar in March, 1873, and has ever since his admission to the bar en- joyed a lucrative practice, being engaged upon one side or the other of all important cases in the county. In 1880 he was elected without op- position to the state senate from a district com- posed of Clark, Bourbon and Montgomery Coun- ties, and served as senator for four years; made a splendid record as legislator, having introduced the act creating the State Board of Equalization, the act equalizing and extending exemptions, to require county attorneys to assist commonwealth attorneys in prosecutions in Circuit Courts and many other important measures, all of which still remain upon the statutes. He was elected county judge of the Clark County Court in 1893 to fill an unexpired term, and in 1894 was re- elected for the full term, and is now serving in that capacity. He has been the attorney for the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad Company for fif-
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teen years and attorney for the Kentucky Cen- tral Division of the Louisville & Nashville Rail- road for twelve years. He is an able judge and an upright, trustworthy citizen and in whom the community places unbounded confidence. His natural qualities of sturdy, reliable manhood are enforced by the strong prestige of an honorable and honored ancestry. He has always been an active, unflinching Democrat, and his election has always been as the nominee of that party. He is a public speaker of much ability and his time and means have been freely given in the in- terest of his party.
He was married in February, 1868, to Mary E. Baldwin of Clark County, daughter of Lieuten- ant W. W. Baldwin, who was killed on the Con- federate side in the disastrous fight at Green River Bridge, July 4, 1863. Her mother was Mary A. Eades Baldwin. They have seven liv- ing children: Leland, Frank Hunt, Annie Mil- dred, wife of J. W. McFarlin; Mary Rodney, John Henry, Rodney and Benjamin Wheeler.
Augustine Lewis Haggard (father), son of David T. Haggard of Albemarle County, Vir- ginia, and Patsy Adams Haggard of Clark Coun- ty, Kentucky, but originally from Virginia, was born in Clark County, June 3, 1820, and was edu- cated in the common schools of that county.
He held successively the offices of justice of the peace, judge of the County Court, clerk of the Clark Circuit Court and master commissioner of the Clark Court of Common Pleas. He took a great interest in public affairs and was an active Whig until that party was merged into the Re- publican party, when he became a Democrat. He was a man of strong native ability and a phi- lanthropist whose active benevolence was the out- come of religious principle, consequently he was very prominent in church work and his judg- ment much depended upon in church affairs, as well as in political circles. He divided his time between Winchester and his country home until he died, December 19, 1895, at his home six miles from Winchester. He is buried at Mt. Olive Cemetery on the Muddy Creek Turnpike Road, where three generations of the family are resting; himself and wife, his father, mother, grandfather and grandmother lie buried side by
side. Nathaniel Haggard and wife, Elizabeth Craig Haggard, the great-great-grandfather and mother of Judge Rodney Haggard, are buried in a lot on the Boonesborough pike, two miles from Winchester and seven miles from Boones- boro.
John Haggard (great-grandfather), son of Na- thaniel Haggard and Elizabeth Craig Haggard, was born in Albemarle County, Virginia, and married Mary Shepard.
Nathaniel Haggard (great-great-grandfather) came from Virginia to Kentucky when it was a wilderness and built a house two miles from the present site of Winchester, seven miles from Boonesboro. It is of hewn cherry logs and has portholes for defense in case of attacks from the Indians. That property and house have been in the possession of the male members of the family from pioneer days until the present time. All his ancestors have been Christian people and, like himself, members of the Baptist Church, and are of Scotch and English blood. Judge Hag- gard is now in the prime of life, full of mental and physical vigor, and has the promise of a bright future before him.
T 'YLER W. McATEE, one of the leading busi- ness men of Owensboro, son of Benjamin L. McAtee and Margaret Wilson, was born in Bardstown, Kentucky, November 19, 1849.
Benjamin L. McAtee (father) was born in Montgomery County, Maryland, February 14, 1799; removed to Nelson County, Kentucky, in 1812, and was educated in the Bardstown schools; became a stage line contractor and ran a line of stage coaches between Louisville and Nashville and between Louisville and Crab Orchard, known as the Easton & McAtee Stage Line. He sold his interest in these lines and retired to his farm, situated within a mile of Bardstown; went south to enlist in the Confederate army in 1861, but was compelled to return on account of feeble health, and died in 1862. He married Margaret Wilson in 1841, and they had four children: Benjamin L., Mary, Emily and Tyler. Mr. Mc- Atee was a man of very generous disposition and used his large means liberally, dispensing hospitality lavishly and lending a helping hand
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whenever he could do a kind turn for a friend or neighbor. He is remembered as one of the most useful citizens-a representative man of his times. His father was a native of Scotland, who came to America about the beginning of the War of the Revolution and served in the Colonial army.
Tyler W. McAtee attended the common schools of Nelson County and Cecilian College in Har- din County, before entering the St. Louis Uni- versity, from which he was graduated in June, 1870. He began his successful career as a clerk in the store of Spalding & Carlisle at Bardstown, where he remained for eleven years. In 1881 he formed a partnership with Phillips Bros. at Owensboro, the firm being known as Phillips Bros. & McAtee, which is now one of the leading business houses of that city. He is largely inter- ested in other enterprises in Owensboro, being a director in the Bank of Commerce, secretary of the Owensboro Woolen Company and stock- holder in the Owensboro Wagon Company; is a Knight Templar in Masonry; a member of the Southern Presbyterian Church, and a citizen of influence and good repute.
Mr. McAtee was married in 1878 to Sallie Rountree, daughter of R. H. Rountree. She was educated in Bellwood Seminary in Jefferson County, and is one of the most accomplished ladies in Owensboro society. They have three daughters: Margaret, Wickliffe and Elizabeth.
A
LEXANDER JOHN ALEXANDER, son of Hon. Robert Alexander and nephew of the late Sir William Alexander of England, was born October 7, 1824, at Woodburn, his father's estate in Woodford County, Kentucky. He went to England and completed his education at Trin- ity College, Cambridge, and afterwards spent some little time in the routine of a counting house to prepare himself for practical business details before returning to America. In 1849 he re- turned to Kentucky and for a number of years- during the lifetime of his brother, Robert Aitche- son Alexander, then owner of the ancestral es- tate at Woodburn-he lived in Chicago, where he still has large financial interests. At the death of his brother he inherited the Woodburn estate and the great Airdrie estate of Scotland, the lat-
ter having passed by the Scottish law of entail to Sir William Alexander of England, and at Sir William's death, by the same law of entail, the estate came into the possession of Robert Aitcheson Alexander of Woodford County, Ken- tucky, the income from said estate amounting at one time to one hundred thousand dollars an- nually. The mineral products of Airdrie estate have been much reduced in late years, but they still yield a handsome annual income.
Mr. Alexander is an extensive breeder of race and trotting horses, and his private sales of blood- ed stock average yearly from seventy-five to a hundred thousand dollars, and yet he is in no sense a turf man, no entries on race courses ever being made by him personally or by proxy. He is a genuine lover of blooded stock, delighting in the occupation, and ambitious to keep up the well- merited fame of the Woodburn establishment.
The extensive blue grass acres at Woodburn, laid off in the artistic old English style in groups of trees here and there on the emerald sward and picturesquely beautiful in alternate light and shadow, have been for many years associated with many of the most famous names of Kentucky's blooded stock. Among the famous trotting and racing horses which have led lives of luxurious ease at Woodburn stock farm may be mentioned Lexington, purchased by Robert Aitcheson Alex- ander from Richard Ten Broeck for $15,000; Scythian, an imported famous English horse; Asteroid, King Alphonso, Australian, Glen Athol, Belmont, Woodford, Mambrino and Harold. In addition to the above mentioned famous racers and trotters and others which have since become known to fame was the stock of Southdown sheep, amounting often to eleven hundred head.
In 1873 the present owner of Woodburn, at a large stock sale in New York, paid $27,000 for the Tenth Duchess of Oneida, a calf of six months, and $19,000 for the Seventh Duchess of Oneida, a yearling. He has had extensive deal- ings with English stockraisers and in reality is one of the greatest stockbreeders of America, that factor being equally important with the agri- culturist for the healthy physical and mental de- velopment of the masses.
Mr. Alexander is a man of culture, dignified
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and courteous in manner, but without the slight- est ostentation in life or character. He is un- swervingly honorable in his business dealings, and his private life is absolutely stainless, his nat- ural bent of morality being strengthened by strong religious principle. He is an elder in the Southern Presbyterian Church, and recently made a most munificent donation to the Theo- logical Seminary at Louisville in connection with that body and intended as a memorial of a be- loved and promising son, deceased. He is a man of delicate health, and it is to be regretted that a more vigorous constitution has not supported his broad, energetic spirit.
He was twice married; first to Lucy Hum- phries, daughter of David Humphries of Wood- ford County; and second to Miss Fullerton of Chillicothe. They have five living children.
Hon. Robert Alexander (father), second son of William Alexander and his wife, who was a Miss Aitcheson of Airdrie House, Scotland, was born in 1767 near Edinburgh, and educated at that place. He came to America and settled in Woodford County, Kentucky, before the state was admitted to the Union. After being edu- cated at the University of Edinburgh and while young, he went to France, where he met Ben- jamin Franklin, and acted as his private secretary. He came to this country in 1785 (his father hav- ing preceded him), and in 1791 bought the es- tate of Woodburn in Woodford County, embrac- ing twenty-seven hundred acres of the blue grass region, from the heirs of General Hugh Mercer, who had obtained it as a military grant from Virginia.
Hon. Robert Alexander was a man of broad, enterprising spirit, ready to serve his state in any capacity and deeply interested in its welfare and prosperity. He was a member of the Kentucky River Company, the first company chartered by the state for the improvement of rivers. When the first bank of Kentucky was chartered in 1807, lie was made president of it, and also served in the board of directors. He was appointed to survey and fix the western boundary line be- tween Kentucky and Tennessee lying between the Tennessee and Mississippi rivers; and found that those who had settled the eastern part of the
line had made a miscalculation, thereby depriv- ing Kentucky of valuable territory. In 1795 he was elected to the state senate, being re-elected and serving with distinction in that body. He was one of the most thoroughly educated men of his day, but entirely unostentatious and pre- ferred a quiet home life.
He married the daughter of Daniel Weisiger of Frankfort. They had five children: Lucy, the wife of J. B. Waller of Chicago; Alexander John; Mary, wife of H. C. Deeds of London, England; William, died in childhood, and Rob- ert Aitcheson, late proprietor of Woodburn Stock Farm. Hon .- Robert Alexander died from in- juries received in a fall at Frankfort in 1841.
William Alexander (grandfather) was a native of Edinburgh, Scotland, where many of his ances- tors had lived, and where, in the seventeenth cen- tury, his father (the great-grandfather of A. J. Alexander) attained to the dignity of lord pro- vost of that city. His first wife was Miss Aitche- son of Airdrie House, Scotland, and belonged to a family of considerable wealth and distinction in Lanark and Renfrew Shires in the west of Scotland. After her death he came to the United States and was married, the second time, to Miss Laport. He died in 1819 at the age of ninety on his son's estate of Woodburn in Woodford County. His eldest son, by his first marriage, Sir William Alexander, was a lawyer of very high standing and was elected to the bench as one of the barons of the Court of Exchequer, and knighted for distinguished services rendered the crown. He was never married.
R ICHARD L. EWELL, a leading lawyer and Christian minister of London, son of Thomas M. Ewell and Miranda Fox, was born in Knox County, Kentucky, January 26, 1833. His father was born in the same county, where he married, and soon after the birth of the subject of this sketch went West to seek his fortune and was never heard from again.
Leighton Ewell (grandfather) was a native of Virginia, where he married and then came to Kentucky and joined the early settlers of Knox County ; was sheriff of the county in 1830; re- moved to Ray County, Missouri, and died there
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in 1842, aged about sixty-five years. He was related to General Ewell of Virginia, a distin- guished officer in the Civil war.
Miranda Fox Ewell (mother) was born in Knox County, Kentucky, April 30, 1816, and died in Laurel County, March 17, 1888. She was a mem- ber of the Baptist Church and was chiefly noted for her piety and goodness of heart.
Benjamin Fox (maternal grandfather) was born near Richmond, Virginia, and was stolen by the gypsies when a child and was never recovered or identified by his relatives. He was one of the earliest settlers of Knox County, where he lived until 1836, when he removed to Davis County, near Gallatin, Missouri, where he died in 1839, leaving a very valuable estate, considering the times and the peculiar experiences of his earlier years.
Richard L. Ewell attended school for a period of six months and fifteen days all told, but he was of a studious turn of mind, and with a thirst for knowledge he pursued his studies, reading by the traditional torch-light, and picked up a fair English education. Reared on a farm, he fol- lowed that occupation, which he understood bet- ter than any other, until the call for soldiers; and in October, 1861, he enlisted in the Union army, as a private in Company H, Twenty-fourth Regi- ment Kentucky Infantry, and served throughout the war, or until January 31, 1865, when he was mustered out of the service in Covington, hav- ing never lost a day from duty. In the later part of his service he was a Lieutenant, but for the most part he served in the ranks.
Returning to his home in Laurel County, he re- sumed farming, which he followed for one year; and in 1866 was elected clerk of the Circuit Court and in 1867 was elected County Clerk and per- formed the duties of both offices until 1874.
In the meantime he had read law and in Sep- tember, 1874, he was admitted to the bar and made an argument in a murder case the same term in which he was sworn in as an attorney. And thus he began his career as an attorney-at- law-in the forty-first year of his age-in which he has been highly successful. His practice has steadily grown until he is one of the best known lawyers in Laurel and adjacent counties. He also
has a valuable practice in the United States Courts and in the Kentucky Court of Appeals.
In 1890 Mr. Ewell was superintendent of the census in the Sixth Kentucky District. He is associated with his son-in-law, James D. Smith, in the practice of law, and they are largely inter- ested in real estate transactions and are the own- ers of fifteen thousand acres of fine timber and coal lands in Kentucky.
Mr. Ewell has been a member of the Christian Church since 1859 and a preacher in that denomi- nation, having preached the gospel at all times and in all places within his call, and in this work of love for the Christian religion he is as dis- tinguished as he is as a lawyer. He has never used tobacco or taken a drink of whisky and is a strong advocate and example of temperance. In politics he has been an uncompromising Repub- lican since the organization of that party.
Mr. Ewell was married, first, in 1853 to Bur- netta Watkins, daughter of Luke W. Watkins of Missouri. She died March 1, 1865, leaving three sons and two daughters: America A., wife of James D. Smith, attorney-at-law of London (part- ner); Dr. Silas W. Ewell of Carroll County, Mis- souri; Alice, wife of Robert M. Jackson, cashier of the First National Bank of London; James A. Ewell, publisher and editor of two newspapers in Ritsville, Washington, and Richard R. Ewell, a farmer in Laurel County.
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