USA > Tennessee > Notable men of Tennessee. Personal and genealogical, with portraits, Volume II > Part 15
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OLIVER M. HAMILTON, vice- president and treasurer of the Mem- phis Coffin Company, Memphis. Tenn., is a native of Jefferson county. Ind., where he was born in 1861, growing to manhood there and re- ceiving his education in the public schools of that section. He went to Chattanooga, Tenn., in 1883. and re- mained in that city for a number of years. In 1889 he was one of the organizers of the Willingham Sash and Door Company, and was made secretary and treasurer. The company continued as such until 1891, when it was re- organized as the Willingham Manufacturing Company. Mr. Hamilton holding the same position with the new company until 1896, when he severed his connection with it and moved to Memphis. The Memphis Coffin Company was soon after- ward organized, and Mr. Hamilton was its secretary and treas- urer for the first year, and at the end of that time was made vice-president and treasurer. He is a good business man, and has gained the recognition to which his qualifications entitle him. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church and of the Masonic fraternity.
EVERETT T. BENNETT, president of the Bennett Hard- wood Lumber Company, is one of the most prominent hardwood lumbermen in Memphis, Tenn. He was born in Boston, Mass., March 18, 1857, reared in that city, and was educated in the public schools of the Hub. He graduated from the grammar schools in 1871 and the high school, in 1875, where he com- pleted his study of books, and then entered a commercial col- lege for a business course. In 1875 he became connected with the firm of William B. Reynolds & Co., lumber dealers, and remained with that company for three years, leaving it to accept a position with a lumber firm at Kenton, O. In 1881 he represented the Reynolds Company at Nashville, in the mill and lumber business, in which they were associated with
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Jacob Schafer & Co. In' 1886 Mr. Bennett went to Fort Smith, Ark., where he superintended the purchase and classi- fication of a large lot of walnut lumber. While he was in Arkansas, Mr. Bennett handled a great deal of lumber, prac- tically walnut, and in 1887 he became manager for Cum- mings Bros. Two years later he went into the Indian Ter- ritory with a portable saw-mill, for the purpose of cutting black walnut timber for export. All this experience gave Mr. Bennett a knowledge of hardwoods that has proved invaluable in his business life at the head of his own company. In 1892 he went to Memphis, and in 1893 he and others formed a stock company, buying the interest held by John Streight in the lumber business, and organized .the Hardwood Lumber Company, of which Mr. Bennett was made manager. Three years later he purchased the entire plant and the company took the name given above. The concern was incorporated in 1901, and now has three large saw-mills, with a total capacity of 100,000 feet daily. Mr. Bennett is also a member and president of the Wolf River Towing Company. Being a thorough lumberman, Mr. Bennett is a member of the Con- catenated Order of Hoo Hoos, and is one of those to whom the order looks for a part of its entertainment when it meets for a social session, or for advice during its business con- claves. Memphis is considered the hardwood lumber center of the country, the interests of the industry are rapidly ad- vancing, and the Bennett company is one of the leading com- panies of the kind in the South.
CYRUS P. HUNT, manager of an independent brokerage office, known as the Memphis exchange, was born in that city in: 1842. He attended school and lived there until the break- ing out of the war. On May 15, 1861, he enlisted in the Confederate service, as a private of Company A, Fourth Ten- nessee, and served two years, at the end of which time he received an honorable discharge because of physical disability. He was in the engagements at Belmont, Island No. 10, Shiloh, and in numerous minor engagements. He was wounded twice. and in 1862. while on the road back to his command, he was
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captured between Holly Springs and Memphis, and held for three months in Memphis. He escaped to Canada and re- mained there for a year, when he went to New York, and remained there until the close of the war. After peace was restored he returned to Memphis, commenced as a clerk in a cotton house, and was thus engaged for two years, when he commenced buying cotton for himself. He continued to buy cotton until the latter part of 1871, when, in company with his uncle, Sam Mosby, he engaged in the wholesale grocery business under the firm name of Mosby & Hunt. This asso- ciation continued until 1876, when Mr. Mosby retired. and the firm became C. P. Hunt & Co. In 1886 Mr. Hunt disposed of his interests, started a stock farm in Shelby county, Tenn., and remained in that line for seven years. In 1893 he be- came general manager of the Mississippi Valley Cotton Com- pany, and continued as such until 1899. In the latter year he opened the Memphis exchange, in which he has been very successful. .
W. E. HOLT, a director of the Oliver-Finnie Grocery Company, of Memphis, Tenn., was born at David- son, N. C., Jan. 4, 1864. He lived there until twenty years of age, at- tending the common schools and graduating in 1883 from Davidson college. On leaving college, he en- tered the service of the Richmond & Danville Railroad Company, as a clerk in the car-record and tracing de- partment, and remained there three years. In 1887 he went to Memphis, where he took a position with the wholesale grocery firm of which he is now a stock- holder and director, being elected to the latter position in 1888. one year after his arrival in the city. He is also a director in the Continental Savings bank and vice-president of the Memphis Merchants' exchange. He is a member of the Pres- byterian church.
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JOSEPH W. KEYES, active vice- president of the Tennessee Trust Company of Memphis, Tenn., is one of the live men who have given to that city its fair fame in the commer- cial circles of the South. Mr. Keyes was born at Fulton, Miss., in 1857. and was reared in that place. He se- cured a primary education in the com- mon schools, but left school at an early age to enter the employ of a large general store in Fulton, where he kept books and rose to the position of head salesman. In 1878 he went to Louisville, Ky., as a traveling salesman for the wholesale hardware house of W. B. Belknap & Co., which occupation he followed for several years. Laying aside his "grips," he took up banking and became vice-president of the Bank of Tupelo, at Tupelo, Miss. In 1896 he left Tupelo and went to West Point, Miss., where he organized the Bank of West Point, with a paid-up capital of $50,000, becoming its cashier and manager. At the end of five years he sold his interest there and removed to Memphis, to take the position of president of the Hessig-Ellis Wholesale Drug Company, with a paid-up capital of $100,000, and also the presidency of the Home Finance and Trust Company, which also had a paid-up capital of $100,000. In 1904 the Home Finance and Trust Company merged with the Tennessee Trust Company, which gave to the Tennessee Trust Company a paid-up capital of $700,000 and a surplus of $200,000, making it the largest company of its kind in the South, except one other. By this amalgamation Mr. Keyes became the active vice-president, de- voting his entire time to its affairs. Mr. Keyes is a director in the Bank of Newton, Miss., Bank of Waynesboro, Miss., and a stockholder in several banks in Mississippi and Tennes- see, also in oil mills, cotton mills and mercantile companies. He is a self-made man of indomitable energy, determination and ambition. His career has been a successful one, because he possesses unusual qualifications as a business man and
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financier. He is a leading member of the Masonic fraternity. having been elected to all the offices of the Grand lodge of Mississippi, except one. He also held many offices in the Bankers' association, of Mississippi, including the office of vice-president. Mr. Keyes is a strong believer in Christianity and morality.
JESSE T. FORSYTH, dealer in lime and cement, in Mem- phis, Tenn., is generally regarded as one of the leaders among the younger element of Memphis business men. He was born in Cross county, Ark., in 1866, but his parents moved to Mem- phis when he was but two years old, and he cannot remember the time when he was not part and parcel of that place from its days of over-grown villagehood to the time when it became a modern city. He played about its streets, studied in its public schools, and while still a boy secured employment in one of its dry-goods stores as cash boy. He remained four years in this store, rising to a clerkship, and then obtained employ- ment with T. J. Graham, a dealer in lime and cement on a large scale. Possessed of good judgment for one so young, and being attentive to duty, he was advanced by Mr. Graham until he became his principal assistant. He remained with Mr. Graham for twelve years, and on the death of that gentleman, in 1897, he started in the lime and cement business for him- self. When he commenced he occupied one small store room and had but one delivery wagon. At the present time he has one of the large store rooms on Front street, a large ware- house on the railroad tracks and keeps several wagons busy. He is president of the Nietolene Manufacturing Company, which makes a hog cholera cure. Mr. Forsyth belongs to the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Royal Arcanum, the Improved Order of Red Men, the Woodmen of the World and the United Moderns. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, and is treasurer of the Epworth league No. I. of Mem- phis.
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JOSEPH N. OLIVER, of the Oliver-Finnie Grocery Company, is one of the successful business men of Memphis, Tenn., who has risen to high positions in the world of com- merce, by reason of energy and appli- cation, united with good business qualifications. He was born in New- ark, N. J., Aug. 14, 1828. After re- ceiving a primary education in the public schools of Newark, he left home and went to New York, where he engaged as an apprentice in a hat manufactory. He worked at hat-making in the East until twenty-four years of age, with intervals of travel, both in America and abroad. In 1853 he went to Cincinnati and took charge of a hat store. Six years later he formed a partnership with Samuel D. Grear, a wholesale produce dealer and grocer, of Cincinnati, and in the spring of 1860 a branch of this house was established in Men- phis. The coming on of the war so seriously affected the wholesale business generally in that city that in 1862 the firm was dissolved and the wholesale business discontinued. Mr. Oliver then went into the retail grocery line, as head of the firm of J. N. Oliver & Co. This firm continued until 1869. when business resumed more nearly normal conditions, which encouraged Mr. Oliver to sell his interest and organize the firm of Oliver, Finnie & Co., wholesale and retail grocers. In 1887 the company was incorporated as the Oliver-Finnie Grocery Company, strictly wholesale. The business has in- creased from the beginning, and a building on Shelby and Clinton streets was erected by J. N. Oliver and rented to the firm. It is said to be the largest and finest edifice for the pur- pose in Memphis, or in the Southern states. Mr. Oliver has proved himself possessed of an unusual business acumen and sagacity. As one who knew him, said: "Mr. Oliver is simply a wonder. In spite of his advanced age, he attends to business every day, and is a man of unerring judgment, and of the strictest integrity." He has erected several private residences
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which are ornaments to the city, and in many ways has shown a public spirit in keeping with his other qualities of mind and heart. In 1860 he married Miss Ella Grear, of Cincinnati, sis- ter of his then partner. They have no children. Mr. Oliver is a member of the congregation of the Second Presbyterian church.
A. A. ARNOLD, president of the George Arnold Company, wholesale grocers, of Memphis, Tenn., was born in St. Louis, Mo., in 1857. In 1862 the family moved to Memphis, whither the head of the family had preceded them, and in that city the younger Arnold was reared and re- ceived a limited schooling. When but nine years of age he entered a dry- goods house, as a cash boy, and re- mained there three years, rising to the place of helper in the shoe department. He then attended school for about a year, afterward going to Michigan, where he spent about a year with friends. In 1874, he commenced contracting for levees and running a commissary, and has con- tinued in those lines ever since. The firm of George Arnold & Co. was established in 1862, the senior George Arnold being the head of the company. At his death, in 1865, his son, George, succeeded to the position of manager. In 1888 the company was incorporated and A. A. Arnold became one of the stockholders and directors, and later was elected to the vice-presidency. After the death of President George Arnold. in 1903. A. A. Arnold was elected his successor and George Arnold III. was made vice-president. The company carries an immense stock of groceries, etc., which fill their great build- ing, 83×151 feet in size, and four stories high. It does a large business as a railway and levee contractors' supply house. in addition to its regular jobbing trade. It employs over fifty people in various capacities, and its goods sell in Missouri. Ar- kansas, Texas, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.
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It has the exclusive agency in the territory it covers for a number of lines of goods that are in demand with the trade. It is a cotton dealer in a large way, and has customers in every section of the cotton-growing district. Mr. Arnold is also president of the Wilson Company, dealers in wall papers and paints. in Memphis, and holds a controlling interest in the company. He also owns large farming interests in Ar- kansas. He has never married, but has been a devoted son to his mother, who is now eighty-five years of age. They live in Memphis in the winter and in the spring move to their country home, seven miles out of the city. Mr. Arnold is a member of the Episcopal church, and belongs to the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.
JAMES MONROE GOODBAR. of Goodbar & Co., wholesale dealers in boots and shoes, of Memphis. Tenn., is one of the prominent citi- zens of that place and well known among the business men throughout the South. He was born on a farm in Overton county. Tenn., May 29. 1839. When ten years of age his parents removed to Sparta, Tenn. His father. William P. Goodbar, was a successful merchant and farmer, and the son readily acquired a taste for mercantile life as well as business methods and habits. He left school at the age of eighteen and secured a position with the wholesale dry-goods house of Bransford. McWhiter & Co., of Nashville. Three years later he accompanied Col. Thomas L. Bransford and his son. John S. Bransford, to Memphis, where the three opened a wholesale boot and shoe business, the first exclusively whole- sale house of that kind in the city. That was in 1860. and the beginning of the war the following year interfered so materially with the wholesale business of the South that it was deemed advisable to close up the affairs of the firm. As soon as possible its business was wound up. and early in 1862
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Mr. Goodbar entered the Confederate army as a private in Company I, Fourth Tennessee cavalry. Shortly after he was elected second lieutenant. in August of the same year he was made quartermaster of the regiment, and served as such until its reorganization at Shelbyville. Tenn., in the spring of 1863. At that time he was assigned to the commissary department, as a purchasing agent, and during the winter of 1863-64 was sent to Florida to buy cattle. He served with that branch of the army until the close of the war, and in February, 1867. returned to Memphis, where he went into the wholesale busi- ness, this time as a member of Goodhar & Gilliland. In 1877 the firm became Goodbar & Co. and remains so to the pres- ent time. Mr. Goodbar's success is remarkable. Starting im- mediately after the war, with but little capital, he has built up a splendid business and has become a wealthy man by his energy, determination and correct methods. The firm was in- corporated in 1889 with Mr. Goodbar as president. The com- pany has two factories, turning out a superior grade of goods. Mr. Goodbar is a director in the Memphis Trust Company; in the Memphis National bank; the Chickasaw Cooperage Company; in the Little Rock Ice Company, of Little Rock. Ark., and is a stockholder in several insurance companies. He has always taken an interest in municipal affairs, and has served as a member of the common council of the city. His teri as a member of the council was during the administration of Mr. Porter as president of the taxing district, a period when the best minds of the city were called into service to perpetuate Memphis and restore her to a place among the municipalities of the state. He took an active part in the formation of the present city government, being one of a committee of seven that was appointed at a citizens' meeting to devise ways and means for getting rid of the old city charter and organizing under a new plan. In 1867, Mr. Goodbar was married to Miss Mary Morgan of Hernando, Miss., and they have two sons and a daughter. He is a member and elder of the Second Presbyterian church. and politically is a Democrat, but never seeks office.
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COL. I. F. PETERS. industrial commissioner of Memphis, and World's Fair commissioner for Ten- nessee, was born at Poughkeepsie, N. Y., July 12, 1850. In 1856 his parents moved to Chicago, where he received his early education in the public schools, and later entered coi- lege at Kalamazoo, Mich., where he remained two years. He then entered the employ of a wholesale hat house in Chicago, but in 1869 went to Memphis as clerk for Brown & Jones, coal dealers, and re- mained in their employ until 1874, when he went into the retail hat business in Memphis. In 1877 he married Miss Maggie M. Wooldrige, daughter of the late Egbert and Elizabeth Wooldrige. In 1880 he disposed of business, returned to Chi- cago and for the next five years traveled for a cracker factory. The attractions of Memphis were too strong for him, however. and in 1886 he returned to that city and organized a company known as the Peters Company, of which he was manager, crected a cracker factory and operated it. until 1891, when it was sold to the trust, though he remained for two years as manager. He was mainly responsible for the organization, in - 1889. of the Southern Cracker Bakers' association, and was made president of it, acting in that capacity until 1891, when the association was dissolved. In 1892 he was elected presi- dent of the Young Men's Business league, of Memphis, the first organized in the United States, and was its president two years. At this time he was vice-president of the Merchants' exchange .. Greatly interested in military matters, he became a member of the famous "Chickasaw Guards" in 1874, first as a private, then as a sergeant, and in 1886 was appointed adjutant of the Second regiment. By regular steps he rose to the position of major, then lieutenant-colonel, and finally was chosen as colonel of the regiment. In 1893 Colonel Peters was in command of the state troops at Coal Creek for two months during the strike. In 1895 the Veteran Chicka-
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saw Guards arranged for a competitive drill to be held in Memphis, offering prizes amounting to $17,000. Colonel Peters was appointed manager of the affair, and traveled all over the United States, inviting military organizations to take part in the encampment and awakening interest in the mat- ter. In August, 1895, as the senior colonel in the state, he commanded the Tennessee state troops and took part in the dedication of the battle-field of Chickamauga. At the close of the year he tendered his resignation as colonel of the regiment, and Gov. Peter Turney published the following order: "Col. 1. F. Peters, Second regiment, having tendered his resigna- tion on account of removing his residence from the state, he is hereby honorably discharged from the National Guard of the State of Tennessee. The state loses an excellent and valuable officer, one who was in the ranks of the first uni- formed company organized in the state after the war; rose from the ranks to the command of the Second regiment, an earnest worker at all times for the best interest of the service. It is with regret that the commander-in-chief accepts the resigna- tion of this officer, he having served long and faithfully in the National Guard." In 1896, he went to Chicago, where he associated himself with the American-Luxfer Prism Company, and as manager opened their branches in Cleveland and Pitts- burg; returned to Memphis, in 1898, as general agent for a life insurance company, and in 1901 was made commissioner of the Industrial league. While all the positions filled by Colonel Peters have demonstrated his methodical and well- trained business capacity, it is as commissioner of the Industrial league, of Memphis, that he has achieved his most signal suc- cess. Promoted to that position when there was little interest. and still less confidence, in the manufacturing outlook, he promptly began a vigorous campaign along those lines. The revolution wrought during his four years' administration has won encomium not alone in Memphis but abroad. His
familiarity with every detail respecting the advantages, facilities and resources of Memphis is simply marvelous. He has col- lected, digested and distributed them, in such systematic and attractive form as to surprise even those most familiar with the
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situation. His office has come to be known as a bureau of commercial statistics. In January, 1904, he was appointed World's Fair commissioner by Gov. James B. Frazier. The following is quoted from the Memphis Commercial-Appeal, of January 28, 1904, being an editorial published at that time : "Colonel Peters is the commissioner of the Industrial league, a man who has done more for the upbuilding of the manufac- turing interests of this city the last few years than any other citizen of Memphis. He knows more of the resources of the city and can create a greater interest in the exhibition of those resources at St. Louis than any one that could have been selected, and he is withal a gentleman of such gifts and such presence that he will grace any position in which he is placed as the representative of Memphis and of Tennessee at the great exposition."
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JAMES APPLEWHITE, vice- president of the Chickasaw Cooperage Company, of Memphis, Tenn., was born at Covington, in that state, in 1844. When about two years of age his parents removed to Shelby county, where the son was reared and re- ceived his education in the common schools. In the fall of 1861 he joined an artillery company at Decatur, Ala., but it did not go into service. Two months later he joined Company C, Twelfth Tennessee infantry, as a private, and served until captured at Kenesaw Mountain. He was sent to Camp Mor- ton, Indianapolis, Ind., and held nine months, when he was exchanged. He was in numerous engagements, among them Chickamauga, Mission Ridge, Resaca, New Hope Church, Lost Mountain, Kenesaw Mountain, etc. Prior to this he had been in the Kentucky campaign under Bragg, and was severely wounded at Richmond, Ky., and remained in the hospital there for two months. After his release from prison he rode to Greensboro, N. C., and walked from there to his home in
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Cross county, Ark., where he had gone before the outbreak of the war. In 1870 he engaged in merchandizing at Witts- burg. Ark., and remained there and at Vaundale, in the same county, until 1897, when he sold out and returned to Mem- phis. He purchased an interest in the Chickasaw Cooperage Company, and was made vice-president, which position he still holds. Mr. Applewhite is also a director in the Memphis Stove and Hardware Company, the News Publishing Company, the Crown Chemical Company, and is president of the Idlewild Grocery Company, all Memphis institutions. He is a Roval Arch Mason, a member and steward of the First Methodist Episcopal Church South, and is an ardent Democrat, but not a politician.
HENRY C. POLK, of the whole- sale grocery company of Polk, Spin- ning & Co., of Memphis, Tenn., is a product of that city and, like most of its productions, a credit. He was born in 1850, was reared in Mem- phis and educated in its schools. Upon leaving school, at the age of twenty years, he entered the employ of a wholesale grocery firm as clerk and remained with that house for twelve years, learning the business from one end to the other. In 1882 he organized the firm of Polk, Spinning & Co., doing business at 268 Front street, his part- ners being H. S. Spinning and B. A. Shepherd. The firm does business as grocers, cotton factors, dealers in wagons and farm- ing implements, in six states, and handles some 12,000 bales of cotton annually, its specialty being staple cottons. It is among the foremost business firms in Tennessee, and is in- creasing its business in an eminently satisfactory manner. Mr. Polk is a member of the Presbyterian church, and has a de- servedly high reputation as a man of probity, business ability and public spirit.
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