USA > Tennessee > A history of Tennessee and Tennesseans, the leaders and representative men in commerce, industry and modern activities, Volume V > Part 33
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38
H. A. DAVIS. Superintendent of the Nashville Railway & Light Company, Mr. Davis is one of the prominent railway and construction engineers of the South, and has been identified with a number of large consultation corporations in various states. He began his career in New York state as a stationary engineer and his natural ability and devotion to the profession which he had taken as a vocation have brought him into prominence. Mr. Davis was born in Oswego, Oswego county, New York, April 3, 1866, a son of Samuel A. and Esther (Parks) Davis, both of whom were natives of Oswego county, the former born there in 1838 and the mother in 1845. The mother now resides with her son H. A. at Nashville. The Davis family came originally from Wales, and was founded in this country by the great-grandfather, Abijah Davis. The paternal grandparents were H. M. and Mary A. (Wilson) Davis, both natives of Vermont, and the former being a prosperous farmer who moved to New York state after his marriage and spent the balance of his life in Oswego county. The maternal grandfather was Nathaniel
1480
TENNESSEE AND TENNESSEANS
Parks, who married a Miss Holly. Nathaniel Parks was a native of New York state and a carpenter by trade. The Holly family were very prom- inent in both New York and Michigan. Samuel A. Davis was a farmer but also followed the profession of engineer and millwright, and pros- pered in all his undertakings. He and his wife represented different religious faiths, he being a member of the Adventist church and his wife a Methodist. In politics he was a Republican. There were three children in the family, two of them are now living, and the son, George H. Davis, is a mechanical engineer in New Orleans.
Hiram A. Davis attained most of his early education in a country and high school at Oswego, New York, and was little more than a boy when he began learning all there was to the trade of stationary engineer. When he was nineteen he married Miss Isa May Outwater, a daughter of William H. Outwater. Her father, who was born and reared in New York, was one of the most prominent men of Niagara county and known not only as a pioneer fruit grower in that section, but also as a leader in the temperance cause. It is said that he did more for the promotion of temperance than any other individual in the county. He did much to promote fruit growing on a commercial basis and was influential in many ways in his community. Mr. and Mrs. Davis have two children. Lucy Eudelpha is the wife of Warren A. Holstead, the latter being superintendent of Glendale Park in Nashville. Lloyd E. is now attend- ing school, living at home with his parents in Nashville. Mr. and Mrs. Davis worship in the Baptist church and he is affiliated with Masonry in the Scottish Rite Consistory and the Mystic Shrine. In politics he is independent.
After his early career as a stationary engineer in New York he was given charge of a power house at Long Island City, that being at the time one of the largest power houses for the generation of electricity in the entire country. After this experience he accepted a place as super- intendent of equipment on the New Orleans & Carrolton Railway in New Orleans. He had practical management of the entire mechanical department of the road and continued there for five years, being pro- moted to the place of manager before the road was sold. Mr. Davis came to Nashville on December 5, 1902, his mission here being to construct the power house for the electric light and power system. During this work he was taken sick and was confined in a hospital for one year. On recovering he was given the position of superintendent of the Nashville Railway & Light Company, and now has charge of that important local corporation.
WILLIAM N. HOLMES, M. D. An ex-president of the Tennessee State Medical Society and a practitioner of thirty-five years' standing, Dr. Holmes would be conceded by both the profession and laity a foremost place in ability and success in the field of general medicine as well as in
1481
TENNESSEE AND TENNESSEANS
surgery, in which his special forte lies. Besides his professional promi- nence, Dr. Holmes has a place in Tennessee history, due to the more than a century residence of the Holmes family in the state, and its varied relations with the substantial welfare of both state and nation.
William N. Holmes was born in west Tennessee at a little town named Holmes, January 27, 1854. The history of the family in America begins with John Holmes, who came to America with Oglethorpe about the middle of the eighteenth century. By profession he was a civil engineer and helped that philanthropic colonizer to lay out the city of Savannah, Georgia, and he died while living in Georgia colony. This civil engineer was in the fifth generation from Dr. Holmes. The next in line was James Holmes, who reached the rank of colonel in the Revolutionary army and settled in North Carolina, where he remained until his death.
After James Holmes came John Holmes, grandfather of Dr. Holmes, who was one of the early settlers in west Tennessee, and it is said that he did more to civilize that country than any other early pioneer. He was owner of large landed estates and possessed a large amount of wealth for his day. He died in February, 1851, having been born Jan- uary 30, 1777. He came to Tennessee in 1806.
The parents of Dr. Holmes were John R. and Eliza Day (McAlexan- der) Holmes. The latter was born in Virginia in 1815, and died in 1872, and was a daughter of James McAlexander, a native of Virginia, who brought his family to Tennessee in 1838, locating in western Tennessee, where he was one of the big farmers of his time. His father came from Ireland in 1770 and became a large and wealthy planter of Virginia, and gave patriotic service to the colonies during the Revolutionary war. John R. Holmes was born in Bedford county, Tennessee, in 1815, and died April 21, 1884. He was reared on a farm and when five years of age moved out to west Tennessee, where his father had taken up a large tract of land. He spent the rest of his life in that portion of the state. He and his wife were the parents of eight children, among whom the doctor was the seventh, and is now the only one living. The father and mother were members of the Presbyterian church, in which he was an elder and a very active worker. In politics he was a Democrat.
William N. Holmes received his education in the common schools in west Tennessee, and later took his collegiate course at Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, where he was graduated in 1877. He began to study medicine in 1878, taking his first course of lectures in Cincinnati in 1879. He spent eight years in practice as a non-graduate, returning to Cincin- nati, and graduating M. D. in 1888. He was in practice at Clarksburg. Tennessee, for three years, after which he returned to his private farm. which he bought and improved and during his residence there practiced for six years. His next location was at Milan, Tennessee, where he was engaged in practice for thirteen years, and in 1901 moved to Nashville. Since then he has been in active practice in this city, and enjoys a very
1482
TENNESSEE AND TENNESSEANS
large and high class patronage. Though his practice is general, he is especially well known as a skillful surgeon. He performs his operations in different hospitals of the city, and has never been known to lose a case in surgery.
Dr. Holmes was married in 1880 to Margaret E. Learned, a daughter of E. B. Learned of Dresden, Tennessee, a prosperous tobacco manufac- turer of that city. The six children born to the doctor and wife are mentioned as follows: Margaret M., who is a teacher of expression in Martin College at Pulaski; John L., a resident of Phoenix, Arizona; William J., also in Phoenix, where he is in the real estate business; Lysander P., an assistant health physician in the city of New York; Sue Day, a graduate of the Ward Seminary, and now living at home; and William N., Jr., in school in Nashville. The family worship in the Presbyterian church. Dr. Holmes belongs to all the medical societies and associations, and for four terms has been chosen president of the Tennessee State Medical Society. He is affiliated with Masonry and with the Knights of Pythias, and is a Democrat in politics. He is pros- perous, and holds a high rank in the citizenship of Nashville, and it is an interesting fact that at the beginning of his career he had to acquire his own education and taught school for a number of terms in order to pay his way.
LELAND HUME. To start as a roustabout employe of a grocery house at two dollars a week and eventually rise to the place of vice-president of one of the largest public utility corporations in the South, is an achievement demanding exceptional qualities of individual character. It is not the melodramatic success of Wall street nor of the western gold field. There is something solid, genuine and unimpeachable about such a performance. It begets confidence and admiration. On the way up from the lowly start to the goal there is no place for blundering ineffi- ciency or vacillating decision; anyone with a casual knowledge of Amer- ican industrialism is sure that no weakling could get far in such a race. The following modest sketch is perhaps the more effective because the details of this advancement are only suggested.
Born in 1864, Leland Hume spent his childhood in the city, and when a boy attained his first regular employment as roustabout for the Orr Brothers' grocery store at the nominal wage of two dollars a week. There he trained for the larger career which was being nursed in his ambition. Some years later he became identified with the Cumberland Telephone Company, and has been in the telephone business ever since, being now vice-president of the Cumberland Telephone Company. When he first went into the business it was a very small and largely local concern, but since then has grown to a corporation with an investment of thirty-two million dollars. Mr. Hume started in the telephone business with three associates, each of whom is a powerful figure in financial life of
1483
TENNESSEE AND TENNESSEANS
Tennessee. The first was James E. Caldwell, president of the Fourth and the First National Banks. Another was T. D. Webb, vice-president of the Fourth and First National Banks, and the third was John W. Hunter, assistant comptroller of the state of Tennessee.
Mr. Hume acquired his education, and has depended upon his own resources ever since he entered business. He went through the public schools of Nashville, and later attended Vanderbilt University. Mr. Hume married Miss Marie Louise Trenholm, a daughter of Dr. George A. Trenholm of Charleston, South Carolina. He and his wife are the parents of three children, namely : Alfred, William and Georgia.
Mr. Hume is a director in the Tennessee Bank & Trust Company and in the Cumberland Telephone Company; is active in the Sons of Confederate Veterans; and is president of the Tennessee Sons of the American Revolution. He was the first president of the Nashville Board of Trade and one of its present directors, and is a member of the Com- mercial Club, the Golf Club and the Country Club. He has membership in the board of education and is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias.
AMos L. EDWARDS. Now engaged in the land business and in coloni- zation work on a large scale, with offices in Nashville, Mr. Edwards first gained a place as one of the successful educators of Tennessee. Thirty- five years old, his career has been one of exceptional activity and suc- cessful enterprise.
Amos L. Edwards was born in Weakley county, Tennessee, August 19, 1878, a son of William A. and Elizabeth (Howell) Edwards. Grand- father William A. Edwards was born in North Carolina, came to Ten- nessee in 1835, locating in Dickson county, where he spent his career as a farmer. The maternal grandfather, Jasper Howell, was a Virginian by birth, coming to Tennessee in an early day, and following the pur- suits of agriculture. William A. Edwards, the father, was born in Dickson county in 1838, and died in 1909. His wife, who was born in Weakley county in 1850, now resides on the old homestead. The father had his early education in Dickson county, and moved with his parents to Weakley county when he was fifteen years of age. He was known as a substantial farmer, he and his family were members of the Cumberland Presbyterian church, and he was affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. In politics he was a Republican, and served as magis- trate and on the school board, and other minor offices. There were six children in the family, four of whom are living: Matilda, who married J. W. Pope, a farmer of Weakley county; John A., who lives on a farm in Weakley county; Amos L .; and B. D., who is a farmer in Weakley county.
Amos L. Edwards, outside of his common school training in Weakley county, is largely self-educated, having paid his own way through col- lege and university. He attended the McFerrin College at Martin, Ten-
.
1484
TENNESSEE AND TENNESSEANS
nessee, and in 1905 was graduated from Vanderbilt University. For several years he was actively identified with educational work. He had charge of the Howard Female College in Gallatin for two years, and for a time was head of the American University at Harriman, Tennessee, also for one year being head master of the Cumberland City Academy. He continued as a teacher until 1910, at which time he engaged in the timber land business, establishing an office in the Stallman building at Nash- ville. He sells land all over the South, and has conducted several suc- cessful colonization enterprises in different directions. Mr. Edwards is the owner of a Louisiana plantation, and also a farm in west Tennessee.
In 1905 he married Miss Vetress Ramer, a daughter of Dr. D. W. Ramer, who has been for many years a leading physician of Robertson county. Mr. Edwards is a member of the Baptist church, is affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Modern Woodmen of America, and was a charter member of the Vanderbilt chapter of the Phi Kappa Sigma. He has gone through all the chairs in the Modern Woodmen and filled all the offices in the lodge of the Odd Fellows except that of Noble Grand. In politics he is an independent Republican.
LEWIS KEMP GRIGSBY. As secretary-treasurer and general manager of the Lebanon Cooperative Medicine Company, Lewis Kemp Grigsby has made rapid strides on the way to financial independence, and occu- pies a place of no little prominence in Lebanon, not because of his business success alone, but because of his many excellent qualities of heart and mind and his sterling citizenship as well. He is the represen- tative of two of the oldest southern families extant, and his family, on the paternal and maternal sides, have borne distinguished parts in the making of history from colonial days down to the present time.
Born in Winchester, Clark county, Kentucky, on August 30, 1875, Lewis Kemp Grigsby is the son of J. V. and Mary C. (Robinson) Grigsby, both of whom were born and reared in Clark county, that state, which has represented the home of the family for many genera- tions. The father was born there in 1826 and died in 1908, at the fine old age of eighty-two. He was long identified with the extensive farming industries of his state, and in later life came to Wilson county, Tennessee, when he introduced short-horn cattle into the county for the first time in the history of the state. The date of his settlement here was in 1887, and Tennessee represented his home from then until the time of his death. He was a son of Lewis Kemp Grigsby, born in Clark county, Kentucky, where he spent his entire life. The mother, Mary C. Robinson, was a daughter of Thomas H. Robinson, who was born in Jefferson county, Kentucky, and there spent all his life. He at one time owned an immense body of land in the state of Louisiana and when he died had an estate valued at $90,000. J. V. and Mary Grigsby became the parents of six children, of which number three are living-
L. 16. rigsby.
1485
TENNESSEE AND TENNESSEANS
today, and of that number L. K. was the youngest born. They were members of the Christian church, and were known for fine and stanch members of the community that knew them, and when they died were mourned by a large circle of friends.
Until Lewis Kemp Grigsby was twenty-one years old he lived on the home farm, attending school in the nearby schools meantime, and later graduating from the commercial department of the Cumberland Univer- sity. When the Spanish-American war came on he enlisted in the First Tennessee Volunteer Infantry and served for nineteen months with his regiment. After the war and his return to his home community, he engaged in the mercantile business in which he continued until 1904, then came to Lebanon and became identified with the drug business. He continued thus until 1912, at which time he organized the Lebanon Cooperative Medicine Company, and engaged in the manufacture of liver medicines. The product of this concern finds a ready market throughout the southern states, and the plant is steadily increasing its output to meet the ever-increasing demands of the trade. It is predicted that this concern will soon take rank with the largest patent medicine establishments in the south. In the management of the plant, Mr. Grigsby has displayed unusual business acumen, and has incontrovertibly proven himself to be possessed of exceptional merit as a business man.
In addition to his interest in this enterprise, Mr. Grigsby has acquired ownership of some four hundred and fifty acres of cotton land in Mississippi, with business houses in Birmingham, where he is extensively interested as a stockholder in one of the more important banking in- stitutions of that city. He also has banking interests in Watertown, Tennessee, and is a director in the Cedar Croft Sanitarium, Lebanon, Tennessee. He has interested himself in oil stock and other investments of a like nature in Texas, and is financially interested in the Union Bank & Trust Company of Lebanon, Tennessee; he is also secretary and treasurer and a controlling stockholder in the Cherokee Glove Manu- facturing Company of Lebanon, Tennessee.
Mr. Grigsby is a member of the Christian church, in which his par- ents reared him, and he is a member of the Knights of Pythias, in which he is past chancellor and master of the exchequer, and is now a trustee of the order as well. He is president of the Lebanon Business Men's Association and a director of the Lebanon National Bank. As a Demo- crat, he has always taken an active part in the labors of the party, but has never aspired to public office.
On July 4, 1907, Mr. Grigsby married Miss Lizzie Wheeler, the daughter of Dr. Thomas C. Wheeler, a physician of Wilson county for years. He was long a prominent Mason of the county, and was a veteran of the Civil war, serving in the Sixteenth Tennessee Regiment as sur- geon throughout the long period of hostilities. He saw much of the horrors of war, and himself was wounded at Perryville, and was cap-
1486
TENNESSEE AND TENNESSEANS
tured and held as a prisoner of war in Rock Island prison for some months. He died in 1909, and was known to be one of the wealthy men of the community at the time of his demise. He was the son of Nathaniel Wheeler, who served in the Indian wars, and the grandson of another Nathaniel Wheeler, who gave valiant service to the cause of the colonies in the Revolutionary war.
To the union of Mr. and Mrs. Grigsby two children have been born- Mamie Gates and Bessie Kelton.
THOMAS NEAL IVEY. In 1910 at the General Conference of the Meth- odist Church South, Thomas Neal Ivey was chosen to the position of edi- tor of the Christian Advocate at Nashville, the official organ of the Church. Mr. Ivey is one of the ablest men of the Church South, has given seventeen years of his life to editorial labors, and has been in the min- istry since 1888. Thomas Neal Ivey was born at Marion, South Carolina, May 22, 1860, a son of Rev. G. W. and Selina R. (Neal) Ivey. The family origin is traced back to Ireland, from which country, about the middle of the eighteenth century, two brothers came to American soil, landing at Norfolk, Virginia, whence from those two ancestors the large membership of the present family of Ivey in America is descended. The grandparents of Mr. Ivey were Benjamin and Elizabeth (Shankle) Ivey, both of whom were born in North Carolina, the former being a farmer and spending all his career in his native state. He lived during the Revolutionary period of the colonies and gave service to the Ameri- can cause as a soldier. The maternal grandparents were James and Elizabeth (Moore) Neal, who were also natives of North Carolina, the former having been a successful merchant. The Neal family also came from Ireland.
Rev. G. W. Ivey, the father, was born in North Carolina in 1828, and died in 1902. His wife was born in 1830 and is now living at States- ville, North Carolina, at the age of eighty-three. The father had a com- mon school education, and when a young man took up the work of the ministry, which he followed for fifty-three years. He preached in North and South Carolina, and held charges at Lenoir, Morganton, Newton, Statesville, Clinton and Leasburg. He possessed along with his strong faculties of heart and mind and a thorough devotion to the church a number of quaint characteristics. He was very witty, and was very popular among his people and his advice was as acceptable in secular affairs as in religion. He would go to church to preach in any kind of weather and attended his duties strictly whether anyone else followed him or not. He and his wife were the parents of nine children, six of whom are still living. The father was a Democrat and belonged to the Masonic order.
Thomas Neal Ivey received his collegiate education at Trinity Col- lege in North Carolina, where he was graduated A. B. in 1880, and A.
1487
TENNESSEE AND TENNESSEANS
M. in 1882. In 1896 the degree of D. D. was conferred upon him. His early career was spent in teaching. He was principal of the Shelby high school in North Carolina from 1880 to 1883, and principal of the Oak Institute at Mooresville, North Carolina, from 1883 to 1888. Successful though he was as a teacher, his ambition was to follow in his father's profession, and having carried on his theological studies, he entered the active work of the ministry in 1888. During the succeeding years he was pastor of several charges, at Lenoir Station, North Carolina, in 1888; Roxboro, North Carolina, from 1888 to 1892, and Wilson, North Carolina, from 1892 to 1896. His career as an editor began with the North Caro- lina Christian Advocate, published at Greensboro, with which paper he remained from 1896 to 1898, and was then editor from 1898 to 1910 of the Raleigh Christian Advocate. As already stated he was chosen editor of the Christian Advocate at Nashville, the general organ of the church, in May, 1910. His relations with the church have been many. He was a member of the last four quadrennial General Conferences, a delegate to the Ecumenical Conference at Toronto in 1911, vice-president of Southern Methodism of the Federal Council of the Church of Christ in America. He was a trustee of Trinity College, North Carolina, of the Methodist Orphanage at Raleigh, and a member of the National Edito- rial Association. He is a Democrat in politics, and an active Mason, having been grand chaplain of the Grand Lodge of North Carolina for two years. He belongs to the Kappa Sigma fraternity, his home Chapter being the Eta Chapter at Trinity College. Since 1896 Mr. Ivey has been editor of the Southern Methodist Handbook, the annual year book of the Methodist Church South. He is author of "Bildad Akers: His Book."
Mr. Ivey was married in North Carolina August 8, 1883, to Miss Lenora Ann Dowd, a daughter of James C. Dowd, a North Carolina farmer. The four children of their marriage are: Mrs. Sam P. Norris, of Raleigh, North Carolina ; Ruth C., at home; Neal D., of New Orleans, and Margaret P., in school in Virginia.
JOHN LEWIS KIRBY, of the Book Editors' Department of the Metho- dist Episcopal church South, was born, reared and educated in the city of Nashville. He is the only son. of John Moody Kirby, a native of Wilson county, Tennessee, but from his twelfth year a resident of Nash- ville. The father died when the son was less than eleven years of age, and before finishing his fourth year at the Academy of Gossett & Webb. the lad found it to be imperative that he should fit himself to aid in the maintenance of his mother and five young sisters. He chose the printer's art, of which he readily acquired an expert knowledge under the able tutelage of the well remembered Anson Nelson and others. During his apprenticeship, which endured for five years. the opportunity for pur- suing his academic studies was eagerly improved, and his interest in an active literary life began to develop.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.