USA > Tennessee > A history of Tennessee and Tennesseans, the leaders and representative men in commerce, industry and modern activities, Volume V > Part 5
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GEORGE DAHNKE. In Union City, Dahnke enterprise and energy has become so intimately intertwined with the business and civic activities within the last two decades that the most casual review of the business life of the city would be incomplete without reference to the Dahnke brothers.
George Dahnke started out to make his own way when thirteen years old without money, and came a stranger to Union City as a journeyman baker, and has worked his way up until today he is at the head of about all the important industries of the county, and by big odds is the most prominent and active business man of the state.
Mr. Dahnke is a native of Nashville, Illinois. He was born Sep- tember 29, 1866, a son of H. F. and Katherine (Benner) Dahnke. His youthful days he spent in clerking in his native town, and from clerk- ing he turned his attention to the bakery business. This he followed at Nashville until 1887, and landed in Union City, October 8, of that year, a journeyman baker. He worked three months; at the end of which time he bought out the establishment where he had been em- ployed, opening a restaurant and bakery. In 1888, he added a confec- tionery department to his growing business, which has kept pace with the progress of the times, and the Dahnke cafe has a conspicuous place in the activities of Union City.
In 1900, when the Dahnke-Walker Milling Company was organized he was made its manager, and has since continued at the head of the firm with the result that at this writing the Dahnke-Walker Milling Com- pany is not only the largest concern of its kind in Obion county, but it ranks among the largest in Tennessee. The plant covers about five acres on the Mobile and Ohio Railroad and has a capacity for turning out fourteen hundred barrels of flour and meal per day. The best and latest improved machinery is installed, a force of fifty hands are em- ployed, a capital of fifty-thousand dollars is used in carrying on the business, and the company's trade extends to territory in the states of Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and in fact all of the south- eastern states. An approximate estimate of the grain shipped by the plant would be about two thousand cars. In addition to this mill the
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company has another of equally large capacity where coarse feed is ground.
The ice company was organized in 1891 and operated at a loss, and came to the end of its resources in 1896. In that year the stock was sold to George Dahnke and brother for less than half its original value. and George Dahnke then became president and manager of the com- pany, a position he has since retained. This ice plant has a capacity of two thousand tons storage, and manufactures fifteen tons of ice per day. The present company is known as the Union City Ice & Coal Com- pany, several years ago dealing in coal. The plant covers an area of two acres.
Another important industry which Mr. Dahnke promoted is the Union City Cotton Gin. which was established in 1908, and is doing a prosperous business. A conspicuous fact about Mr. Dahnke is his ability as a reorganizer. He has taken a number of concerns in this vicinity, recognized as complete failures, and has injected life and vi- tality into them, until they have all become very successful under his direction. Mr. Dahnke is a director in Union City Canning Company, the Third National Bank of Union City, the Obion Land & Improve- ment Company, and the Obion County Fair Association.
A year ago at the meeting of the Business Men's Club, Mr. Dahnke proposed that they get an expert soil doctor to increase the average vield of grain per aere. He was appointed a committee of one to organize the proposition. which he did, as more fully explained in later paragraphs, was made president of the resulting organization. wrote to all the leading agricultural colleges in the United States, and finally succeeded in getting an expert to take charge of the technical end of the business. This was the first county in the state of Tennessee to have such an organization, and Mr. Dahnke was the man whose original enterprise accomplished the deed. He is the leading factor and director of the Obion River Drainage Company, formed for the purpose of re- claiming about fifty-seven thousand acres of the most fertile land in Obion county, by a system of leveeing and drainage, the undertaking including the straightening the channel of Obion river. One of the drainage districts has been organized, its bonds sold, and the work well toward prosperous completion.
Socially Mr. Dahnke affiliates with the Masonic order, the Independ- ent Order of Odd Fellows, and the Knights of Pythias, and the Benevo- lent and Protective Order of Elks. He is, as already mentioned, one of the influential members of the Business Men's Club of Union City. and is at the present time its president. His religious creed is that of the Lutheran church, and in politics he is a Democrat, but has never assented to become a candidate for office. Mr. Dahnke was married November 25, 1891, to Miss Eleanor Hoffman. They are the parents
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of eight children, namely: Catherine, Louise, Mary, Helen, Nellie. Ruth, Marjorie, and George Jr., all of whom are at home.
From the preceding paragraphs it will be understood that Mr. Dahinke is a man of very exceptional ability. He is one of those who possess "life and leading" and whose services are indispensable in twentieth century progress. As an addition to the somewhat formal biography already written. the value of this article will be enhanced by the following estimate of his work and influence, written by one who has observed the career of Mr. Dahnke and his public spirited activity, and is thus in a position to judge and appreciate this forceful business leader.
Mr: Dahnke comes of stout old German stock, and he possesses in his make-up and general character the many notable qualities that have made Germans potent factors in the history of civilization. We note that Mr. Dahnke is what he is. He is frankness personified. We do not believe there is a particle of insincerity or hypocrisy in him. Because of this and because of his veracity. his unusual. we might truthfully say, his extraordinary determination of character, he is recognized as the soul and center of Union City's business interest. He is presid- ing officer of the Business Men's Club, and has been for several years. He enjoys the profoundest confidence of the business man. He is con- stantly revolving in his mind some worthy plan for benefitting Union City and Obion county. He is big and broad enough to work not only for Union City, but for all of Obion county. He is a self-made man. He came to Union City a few years ago, a penniless young stranger. His favorite saying is that a man's business is no bigger than the man him- self. He established a bakery and cafe. Humble as this business was. he gave it prestige and honor and dignity, and gave Union City an institution that is one of its brightest and most successful ornaments- the justly famous Dahnke Cafe.
He acquired a majority of the stock in a run-down. dilapitated ice factory, and he overhauled and revamped it, stamped it with the stamp of success. and fine executive ability and made it, too, one of the lead- ing institutions of Union City. He next bought a leading interest in an unsuccessful flouring mill proposition. He overhauled this business, he made a patient. exhaustive. laborious analysis of what had caused its failure. He modernized the machinery. he made a practical study of grain, and the Dahnke-Walker Milling Company is the product of his labor, one of the most successful milling enterprises in the middle west or in the south.
Mr. Dahnke, as the president of the Business Men's Club. was the first to suggest the advisability and the possibility of "curing" the "sick" soil of Obion county. He it was who was first heard to mention the constantly increasing yield of wheat and corn year by year. It was Mr. Dahnke who made the call for the farmers to meet and effect
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organization and secure funds for the employment of a soil doctor. The meeting of farmers was held in the court house of Obion county, and the organization was made the Obion County Agricultural Improve- ment Association. Mr. Dahnke in recognition of the deep interest he had shown in soil improvement was by the farmers assembled, elected president of the association. Mr. Dahnke put his shoulder to the wheel and used his personal influence to bear upon the concern, inducing the farmers to assist in getting up the needful funds. He also came into touch with the great national organization that had been effected to bring about soil improvements, and increased crop production. All his efforts were crowned with success. The money was made up, the agricultural expert secured, and Obion county put in line with the foremost and most aggressive counties in the United States. Mr. Dahnke secured a visit from the famous D. Ward King, and as a result of Mr. King's teachings the compulsory use of the King Road-drag has been incorporated into the road law of Obion county.
But, perhaps, Mr. Dahnke's greatest work was the part he took in the creation of several drainage districts in Obion county, in Obion river valley. When others doubted and quibbled and found fault, Mr. Dahnke with serene confidence and unwavering faith and fidelity held firmly to the absolute feasibility of the draining plan. This enterprise, too, has been crowned with success, the bonds have been negotiated, and work will at an early date begin on the drainage of one district, the forerunner of other drainage districts, whose reclaiming will add millions of dollars to the resources of Tennessee. This brief sketch will, we believe, fully suffice to show that Mr. Dahnke is not only a live-wire as a business proposition, but a broad, useful, public spirited citizen.
CAPT. CHAS. SANDERS DOUGLASS, A. B., A. M. Prominent among the educators of Tennessee is Capt. Chas. Sanders Douglass, who for twenty-five years has been superintendent of the city schools of Gallatin and in various other relations has been a prominent and influential factor in the educational affairs of this state for over forty years. This long identification alone is ample evidence of his efficiency in educational work and of his character and standing as a man. The Douglass family trace their lineage to the bold, sturdy Scotch-Irish stock. Firm and dauntless, loyal, conservative and honorable, are the characteristics that marked this race in the mother country, traits that were not lost by emigration and residence in this land of freedom and adventure. Back in the colonial period three brothers emigrated from their native Scot- land to the United States, one locating in middle Tennessee, another in Virginia, while the third settled in North Carolina. Stephen A. Doug- las, the American statesman and politician, was descended from this connection. From the North Carolina ancestor was descended James Douglass, born in North Carolina in 1762, who was the grandfather of
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Capt. C. S. Douglass of this review. In young manhood he came to Tennessee, where he married in 17 -. He passed away in this state in 1851 at the venerable age of eighty-nine years. His son, Col. Young Douglass, was born in Sumner county, Tennessee, in 1805 and followed farming up to his marriage in 1834 to Benetta Rawlings, after which he took up merchandising. Later he returned to agricultural pursuits and was quite successful in that line of endeavor until his death in 1865. He was captain of one of the first military companies organized in Sumner county and it was from this connection that he received his familiar appellation of Colonel Douglass. Benetta (Rawlings) Douglass was born in Sumner county, Tennessee, in 1813, a daughter of Dr. Ben- jamin Rawlings, who was a pioneer physician in middle Tennessee. She passed away in 1849, the mother of six children, the third of whom is Capt. C. S. Douglass of this review. After her death Colonel Douglass married Mrs. D. Killebrew, nee Green.
Capt. Chas. S. Douglass was born in Sumner county in 1839. His preliminary education was received in the country schools of this county and his collegiate training was received at Central University, Danville, Kentucky, from which institution he was graduated in 1860 as a Bachelor of Arts. The degree of Master of Arts was conferred on him by the same institution in 1884. After completing his literary education he took up the study of law, but soon discontinued it, however, for at the opening of the war between the states at about that time his fealty to the South was promptly evinced. He was one of the organizers of Company H of the Thirtieth Tennessee Infantry, and in the beginning was at once commissioned adjutant, with the title of first-lieutenant. At the battle of Fort Donelson in February, 1862, he was captured and taken to Camp Chase, from whence he was later transferred to John- son's island, being held as a prisoner seven months. On his release he returned to the Confederate service as captain of Company H of the Thirtieth Tennessee Regiment, Army of Tennessee; and having lost most of his company was afterward appointed an adjutant general, in which capacity he served during the remainder of the war. Besides the action at Fort Donelson, he participated at Jackson and Raymond, Mississippi; at Chickamauga and Missionary Ridge in Tennessee; at Resaca, Georgia, and in all the other engagements of the Western army under Hood and Johnston. At the battle of Jonesboro he was wounded in the left arm and had a horse shot from under him. Throughout the whole of his service he exhibited the highest of soldierly qualities. At the close of the war he returned to Sumner county, where on July 23, 1865, he wedded Susan Graham, who was born in Sumner county in 1846 and is a daughter of Dr. Alexander Graham. The two children of their union are: Ada, who became the wife of Dr. C. W. Meguiar, now president of the Kentucky examining board in dentistry, and Charles Clair Douglass, who resides in California.
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In 1871 Captain Douglass, together with Prof. C. W. Callender, organized the Sumner high school in Hendersonville, Tennessee, but two years later Prof. Callender was elected superintendent of public instruc- tion in Sumner county and for seven years thereafter Captain Douglass continued alone as principal of the school. During that time he also filled the unexpired term of another instructor in a male seminary at Gallatin. In 1880 he was elected superintendent of public instruction in Sumner county, and in 1884 and 1885 he was also principal of the normal school at Gallatin. He was yet serving as county superintendent when he was elected superintendent of the city schools of Gallatin in 1888, a position that he has now held continuously for twenty-five years. Further mention of his position in public esteem in Gallatin is barely necessary in this connection, for this long service alone speaks more eloquently than words in this respect. He is a member of the Ten- nessee State Teachers Association, has served as its vice-president and as a member of its executive committee, and in 1883 was president of that body. He has served nineteen years as a member of the state board of education, was president of the board one term, and was a member of the committee that adopted the first uniform text books for the state; he also was the first president of the Teachers and Officers Association of Tennessee. He was for twenty years conductor of State Institutes.
In political sentiment he is a staunch Democrat, and in 1878 was a candidate for the state legislature but was defeated by eighteen votes. As a Confederate veteran he became a charter member of Donaldson Bivouac, of Gallatin; was its president one term, and has been its secretary seventeen years. He and his wife are members of the Metho- dist Episcopal church, south, at Gallatin, and he is now serving his second year as president of the County Sunday Schools. As a citizen, soldier and educator he has lived up to high ideals and his life and services have been those of one of the most worthy of Tennesseeans.
THOMAS W. HUNTER. Superintendent of public instruction in Sum- ner county, Thomas W. Hunter is an educator who upholds the highest standards of efficiency in the school service of the county. To gain his own education he went in debt, and he advanced to a place of influence in relation to the public welfare through his own vigorous efforts. It has been his endeavor in his present work to guide the young people of the county to the channels of state education, the facilities which in his own boyhood. he was so painfully in want of. Mr. Hunter is one of the leading educators of northern Tennessee.
A native of Sumner county. he was born on a farm September 3. 1875, a son of Thomas M. and Ellen ( Wallace) Hunter, both of whom were natives of Sumner county. the father born here in 1853 and the mother in 1856. Both families have been long identified with this sec-
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tion of the state. The maternal grandfather, whose name was Duncan Wallace, was born in Sumner county. On the paternal side, the founder of the Hunter family in Tennessee, was the great-grandfather of the present superintendent of public instruction. His name was Lewis Hunter, a native of Virginia, who when a young man came into Ten- nessee and thus established the family in this locality. His opposition to slavery caused him to leave his slaves behind in Virginia, they being turned over to his brother. A son of Lewis Hunter was also named Thomas M., who was born in Sumner county and spent all his life there on a farm. Two of his sons, named Frank and Lewis, were soldiers in the Civil war, and Frank rose to the rank of brigadier-general. Thomas Miller Hunter, the father, was reared and educated in Sumner county, where he and his wife have spent all their lives, and their home is now on the old farm in the Eleventh district, where his grandfather settled on first coming from Virginia. Farming as a vocation has been rea- sonably successful to him and along with a fair degree of material prosperity he has also enjoyed the thorough esteem of his fellow citizens He and his wife were the parents of five children, four of whom are now living, and Thomas W. is the oldest. Both parents are members of the Methodist church, the father being a Democrat, and they have lived quiet and unassuming lives, taking a considerable interest in church affairs, but otherwise not participating largely in the public affairs of their community.
Thomas W. Hunter was educated in the Tullatuskee College at Beth Page, Tennessee, and he continued his studies at Hartsville, this state. His career as teacher had already begun before he finished college. His first school was at Gumwood, Macon county. where he taught for a time, then was engaged by the directors in Sumner county, where he taught five months in the year and spent five months in furthering his own education. In 1910 occurred his election to the office of superintendent of public instruction for the county, and during the past two years he has made a notable record in improving methods and securing the systematic cooperation of all parties concerned, which is a factor of the greatest importance in facilitating the perfect service of local schools.
Mr. Hunter has also been known to the citizens of this county as a merchant, having been associated with his brother in 1903-9 in a store, but in the latter year he sold his interest to his brother Though start- ing his career in debt for his education he has long since put himself even on that score and has acquired from year to year a gratifying increase of material prosperity.
Mr. Hunter was married December 28. 1897, to Miss Ollie Smithson, a daughter of M. Smithson. a farmer of Sumner county. Mrs. Hunter died in 1906. leaving one son named Dewey. now in school. In 1909 Mr. Hunter was united in marriage with Mary L. Montgomery, a daugh- ter of James Montgomery, a native of Sumner county and in former
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years a lawyer, and also a soldier during the Civil war. Mr. and Mrs. Hunter are the parents of one child, William Hutchison, now two years of age. Mrs. Hunter is a member of the Cumberland Presbyterian church, and he belongs to the Methodist church. His fraternal affilia- tions are with the Masonic order, belonging to Beach Camp Lodge No. 240, A. F. & A. M., at Shackle Island, Tennessee. In politics he is a Democrat.
EDWARD ALBRIGHT, lawyer and editor of the Sumner County News at Gallatin, represents two of the old and respected family connections of Sumner county, Tennessee, the Albrights and the Guthries, both of which have been established here well toward a century and have given to Tennessee men and women of sterling worth. The Albright family originated here with Thomas Albright, a native of North Carolina who removed from there to Kentucky, thence to Tennessee, and finally be- came a resident of Illinois, where he passed away. One of his sons is John W. Albright, the father of Edward, a Confederate veteran of the Civil war and a well known farmer citizen of Sumner county. . John W. Albright was born in Kentucky in 1843 and came to Sumner county, Tennessee, when a child. He was but a youth in his teens at the opening of the Civil war, nevertheless he spent four years fighting bravely for the Southern cause, and as a member of Company I of the Twenty- fourth Tennessee Regiment he served in the battles of Shiloh, Perry- ville, Murfreesboro and all of the principal engagements of the Tennessee campaigns, but was never wounded or captured. After the close of the war he returned to Sumner county and took up the vocation of farm- ing, which he has since followed, residing on the farm which has been in the family since 1796. In fraternal associations he is a Mason and has served as master of his lodge. Politically he is a stanch Democrat, and in an official way has served as a justice of the peace. He wedded Caldonia Guthrie, who was born in Sumner county, Tennessee, in 1850 and is a daughter of James I. Guthrie, a native of North Carolina and one of the early settlers in Sumner county, Tennessee. She is a mem- ber of the Presbyterian church. John W. and Caldonia (Guthrie) Albright have three children living, namely: Edward Albright of this review; Oscar Albright, who assists in the management of the home farm; and Clemmie, who is now Mrs. Luther Franklin and resides in Sumner county.
Edward Albright, a native of Sumner county, was born August 18, 1873. He was educated at Cumberland University, Lebanon, Tennessee, from which institution he was graduated in law in 1898. For eight years thereafter he was an active practitioner at the Gallatin bar and still continues in that line of professional labor, but since 1907, at which time he purchased the Sumner County News, he has given the major portion of his attention to the management of this publication
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and to his editorial duties in connection therewith. As a writer of considerable ability, he is exceptionally well qualified for this line of professional activity, and in this connection it may be mentioned that he is the author of Early History of Middle Tennessee, that is con- sidered a work of much merit and has been well received. The Sumner County News was established in 1897, is a weekly publication and is now circulated to about 2,000 subscribers, being one of the most success- ful papers of Sumner county. Democratic in politics, under the able management of its editor it wields a strong influence in the political affairs of Sumner county, but while Mr. Albright thus gives stanch support to his Democratic friends he has never himself been a candidate for official honors. He is a member of the Knights of Pythias and has been chancellor commander of his lodge for the last four years.
RUFUS L. ROCHELL. In a work of this character, it is eminently proper that due notice be given to those men who, beginning life with small capital and under adverse circumstances, build for themselves a business and a reputation as men of sterling worth through the exercise of their talents and industry. Instead of waiting and wishing for oppor- tunities, they accepted conditions as they arose, overcame obstacles and won success, and their examples are worthy of emulation by the young men of the present and future generations. Rufus L. Rochell, one of the leading grocers of Troy, Obion county, is a native son of Tennessee, having been born in Weakley county in 1853, and is the fifth of six children born to James H. and Nancy (King) Rochell, both members of old Tennessee families. James H. Rochell was a farmer in Weakley county prior to the Civil war. When that great conflict began he cast his lot with the South and served for the greater part of the contest as a soldier in the Confederate army. The exposure and hardship incident to military life so undermined his health that he died soon after leaving the army, and the subject of this sketch was called upon to contribute to the support of the widowed mother and the other members of the family. He managed to secure the rudiments of a good English education, but the greatest assets of his life have been a strong physical constitution and a determined will, both of which have been of incalculable benefit to him in the great battle of life.
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