Sketches of prominent Tennesseans. Containing biographies and records of many of the families who have attained prominence in Tennessee, Part 82

Author: Speer, William S
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Nashville, A. B. Tavel
Number of Pages: 1278

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On January 12, 18H, Dr. Ross was united in marriage, at Harrodsburg, Kentucky, to Miss Lucy J. Fairman, the daughter of Richard Fairman, an ingenious and enterprising machinist and mill-wright, originally from Connecticut. Her mother was Sarah Parks. Mrs. Ross was educated at Harrodsburg, Kentucky. She is a

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very devoted and active working member of the Protes- tant Episcopal church, and a lady whose kindness of heart and many deeds of charity have endeared her to a large circle of friends.

By this marriage Dr. Ross has five children living : (1). William B. Ross, born April 17, 1841; educated at Nashville, and is now a civil engineer. He was a gal- lant soldier in the Confederate army four years, going out as a private in the famous Rock City Guards, after- ward the First Tennessee regiment of infantry, under Col. George Maney. He served in Virginia, Mississ- ippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia and Alabama ; par- ticipated in the battles of Perryville, Atlanta and Jonesborough; was wounded at Perryville, taken pris- oner several times, and came out with the ranking title of plain " Mr." He married, January 12, 1881, Miss Harriet A., daughter of Maj. Alexander Warfield, su- perintendent of several mining companies in Colorado. They have one child, Mary Christine, born Christmas, 1883. (2). Annie Ross, educated at Nashville, under Rev. Dr. C. D. Elliott, and at the Columbia (Tennessee) Female Institute; now the wife of James A. Thomas, a leading insurance agent, of the firm of Gale, Thomas & Sharpe, Nashville; has three children, James Ross, Mary Weakley and Rachel. (3). Mary Ellen Ross, ed- ucated at Louisville (Kentucky) Female College ; mar- ried James Thomas, jr., January 12, 1876, of the firm of Pendleton, Thomas & Co., wholesale druggists, Nash- ville ; has one child, Annie Lou. These two sisters married gentlemen of the same name, but not related. (4). James S. Ross, educated at Montgomery Bell Acad- emy, Nashville; is an electrical engineer. This gen- tleman organized the "Telephone Exchange " in Nash- ville, one among the first organizations of the kind in the world, and is now manager of the Nashville Elec- tric Time Telegraph company. (5). Frank Fairman Ross, born in 1862; educated in the Nashville public schools, and has been engaged with his brother in civil and electrical engineering.

Of the eleven children born to Dr. Ross, six have died. Of these, the first, Horace C. Ross, was born No- vember 3, 1811, in Frankfort, Kentucky, served in the Confederate army four years, and died in Nashville, July, 1852. He married Miss Laura Anderson, daugh- ter of Thompson Anderson, of the wholesale dry goods firm of Anderson, Green & Co., Nashville. He was educated in Nashville and was a member of the leading insurance firm, Ross, Gale & Thomas. As a Mason, he was an untiring worker, being a Knight Templar. Ile was a devout Methodist, and the Sunday-school found him a ready, punctual and zealous worker in any post to which he was called, from that of secretary and librarian to that of superintendent -- a faithful and fruitful teacher. For twelve years he was the leader of the choir at the MeKendree Methodist church, Nashville. Coming from a family of highly artistic or- ganization, in him the artistic trait took the direction

of music, and through it he became an inestimable blessing to his church. His love of music was intense, his taste highly cultivated and refined ; his musical conscience ever impelled him to give to the service of the sanctuary the best music which industrious and painstaking practice could attain.

In a memorial discourse delivered at his funeral ser- vice at MeKendree church, July 2, 1882. Rev. D. C. Kelley, D.D., paid the following beautiful tribute to his memory: " As son, few men have such a record of obedience and tenderness; as brother, none knew more gentle and unselfish devotion ; as husband, he had all of the manly devotion and unreserved self- renunciation that this sacred relation brings as its crown of earthly bliss. A thoughtful woman, warped by no peculiar relationship, said to me- to-day, ' I have never known two lives to run so harmoniously together for so many years.' As a man of business, he was trans- parently honest. He wouldmever have objected, in any matter of business, for the person with whom he dealt to see every entry on his books which could in any way throw light on the remotest history of the transaction. More than this, he might have looked back of the ledger into the heart of him who kept it, and found every motive clear in the light of the crucial Christian rule, Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Thank God for the privilege, ever and anon, of pointing the fault-finding world to a man in whom re- ligion and honesty were alike conspicuous. But, as son, brother, husband, man of business, he was subordinate to Horace Ross the Christian. More than all and every thing else, he was a Christian; it was his interest in Christianity that entered into and glorified all these other relations, and gave them their mellow tenderness and their rich beauty."

Of Dr. Ross' other deceased children, Lucy Ross, born in 1852, died in 1875; John Ross, died in his twelfth year; the other three died in infancy.

Dr. Ross affiliated with the Odd Fellows for twenty- five years, and passed all the chairs, but of late has not attended the lodge. He was also a member of the Sons of Temperance. He joined the Methodist Episcopal church in Cincinnati, at a watch-night meeting, in 1832, and has since served as class-leader and steward, and is now trustee of Elm Street Methodist Episcopal church, South, Nashville. All of his children are members of the Methodist church except William B.

The first presidential vote he cast was for William Henry Harrison, being at that time an old line Whig, but since the war he has been identified with the Dem- ocratic party.

In his earlier married life, he felt that, as the head of a family, there was a responsibility resting upon him not to be shirked. Whatever he might be able to give his children. he wished to advance them in mental and moral culture. It was his idea to bring his children as near to him as possible, and with this in view he

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made associates of them, and sought to make home the most attractive place that could be found. The wisdom of this course is seen in the fact that his children have been only a comfort to him.

As a dentist, Dr. Ross has made it a matter of con- science always to give the best service without regard to the prospect of compensation. As showing the me- thodical character of the man, it may be mentioned that he has, from the beginning of his letter writing, kept notes of letters written and received, and for many years was in the habit of preserving all letters. From Ists he has kept a diary, both for convenience of' ref- erence to his past life, and also as an heirloom for his children, that they may trace his history.

Dr. Ross stands about five feet ten inches in height, and weighs one hundred and twenty pounds, has blue eyes and an expression of benignity and clearness of character. He is slightly stooped from the long habit of bending over the dental chair. When he was a boy . tions."

he was of a somewhat timid nature, needing encourage- ment and stimulation rather than repression. He is a modest man, finding his greatest pleasure in pleasing the company in which he may be placed, and doing service rather than seeking to be a leader. The impression he make- on one is, that he is a man who wants to know his duty and is always ready to do it. He has the ap- pearance of a careful man : always busy, but never in a hurry.

Dr. William H. Morvan, who has known him inti- mately for many years, furnishes the following estimate of his character : " Dr. Ross is a Christian gentleman ; a man who has no bad traits-in short, essentially a good man. . The measure of professional and social success to which he has attained is largely due to his known honesty and integrity of purpose. The ex -: cellence of his social and professional character is the legitimate outgrowth of his-deep religious convic-

WILLIAM J. McMURRAY, M. D.

NASHVILLE.

T' HIS gentleman, whose record as a soldier, a citizen aid a physician, is at once an honor to the State and the pride of an extensive circle of friends, is justly entitled to rank among representative Tennesseans. Ile was born in the Sixteenth civil district of William- son county, Tennessee, September 22, 1812, and grew up on his father's farm. When only seventeen years old, he entered the Confederate army as a private in the company raised by Col. Joel A. Battle, the " Zollicoffer Guards," which was mustered into service, May 17. 1861, and organized. with the Twentieth Tennessee res iment, at first a part of Gen. Zollicutter's brigade. He remained in this one company and regiment till its sur render, and except when off active duty on account of his wounds, of which he received more than his share, he was with his regiment from Wild Cat, in Eastern Kentucky, to the plains of Louisiana. On the Georgia campaign of seventy five days, he was under fire sixty- five times. He was elected first corporal in 1861, next became second sergeant, then second lieutenant, at the reorganization of the Army of Tennessee, at Corinth, in May, 1862, was promoted to first lieutenant, in 1861, at Dalton, Georgia, and commanded company B of the Twentieth Tennessee regiment, as its gallant captain, C. S. Johnson, could never learn to drill.

He was in the famous charge made by Gen. Breckin- ridge's division at Murfreesborough-the command going into the engagement with four thousand six hun- dred men. of whom two thousand two hundred were lost. In that desperate battle, young MeMurray was

wounded in the left breast by a minnie ball, and left to lie all night on the battlefield, in the dead of winter. The ball passed between his heart and a Bible which he carried in his left coat pocket. From this wound he was disabled two months.

At the battle of Chickamauga, he was wounded by a piece of shell in the right groin, and was again left for dead all night on the field. From this wound he was disabled four months.

He received a third wound at Resaca, Georgia, in May. 1864. a minnie ball striking him in the left leg below the knee, which disabled him two or three weeks.

He lost his left arm in a skirmish in front of Atlanta, August 5, 1864. His armless left sleeve, armless from the shoulder down, is a silent but eloquent reminder that he has deserved well of his country, and is entitled to the praise of a brave man, cool and intrepid, doing his duty with unflinching courage.

Dr. McMurray is a tall, trim-made, handsome man, perfectly erect, and with an expression that precisely indicates his military history. He entered the army from principle, based on that pride that characterized the flower of the southern troops, and is a fine speci- men of the noble and manly young men who consti- tuted the southern chivalry, and many of whom now sleep on the plains where the flag of the South needed friends.

Ile served in Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, Lou- isiana, Georgia, Alabama and North Carolina, and took part in the battles of Laurel Bridge, October, 1861 ;

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Wild Cat; Fishing Creek, January 19, 1862; Shiloh, April 6 and 7, 1862; around Corinth, in 1862; Vicks- burg, 1862; Baton Rouge, 1862; Murfreesborough, De- cember 31, 1862, and January 1 and 2, 1863; Hoover's Gap, in the spring of 1863; Bethpage Bridge, June, 1863; Chickamauga, September 19 and 20, 1863; Rocky- face Gap, Resaca, Dallas, Pine mountain, Kennesaw mountain, Peach Tree creek, and in the various skir- mishes before Atlanta. He surrendered at Marion, Alabama, May 17, 1865. His regiment went out nine hundred and ninety-eight men strong, was recruited to one thousand three hundred, but surrendered with only thirty-four. His company, which numbered, first and last, one hundred and fifty-three, surrendered with seven men. For a fuller account of Dr. McMurray's military carcer, see " History of Davidson County," pages 457-8-9.

Up to the time of the war, Dr. McMurray had only received the limited educational advantages of a country school, his father having died when the son was only twelve years old. After the war, he studied one year and a half in the academy at Nolensville, under Prof. Joseph D. Didiot, of Paris, France, and graduated in 1867, having the honor of delivering the valedictory address. Hle next read medicine two years under Drs. William Clark and Thomas G. Shannon, and then attended two courses of lectures in the medical depart- ment of the University of Nashville, graduating Feb- ruary 26, 1869, under Profs. William K. Bowling, Paul F. Eve, Thomas L. Maddin, T. B. Buchanan, J. Ber- rien Lindsley, Van S. Lindsley and W. T. Briggs. He also had the honor of the unanimons vote of his class for valedictorian.

After graduation, Dr. Me Murray began practice three miles south of Nashville, but on January 1, 1872, moved into the city, as from the effects of his wounds he was unable to endure the fatigue of saddle practice. In 1872, he was elected jail physician for the county of Davidson, and appointed physician to all the Supreme court prisoners held for trial in the Middle district of Tennessee, and kept that position eight years through successive appointments and elections. During the first thirteen years of his practice, he only lost twelve days from his professional business. He was at one time a member of the city board of health ; at one time ( 1876) a member of the board of aldermen, and is now vice- president of the Nashville Medical Society, and is a member of the Tennessee State Medical Society. Hle is the author of the historical sketch of the Twentieth Tennessee Confederate regiment, in Dr. J. B. Lindsley's Military Annals of Tennessee, and is at this writing the efficient chairman of the Democratic executive com- mittee of Davidson county.

Financially, Dr. MeMurray has made a fine success. He started in life in 1869, with two hundred and fifty dollars less than nothing, and is now thought to be worth forty thousand dollars. Raised by a mother who always

taught him to guard well his credit, he has acted upon her good advice, and has made it a rule when he earned a dollar to have something to lay by of that dollar, i. c., never allow his expenditures to overrun his income. Five cardinal points in life he has always tried to work to: first, competency ; second, strict attention to bus- iness; third, frugality ; fourth, integrity and preservation of character; fifth, hope in the midst of direst defeat. On this line he has fought the battle of life. He has been heard to say, with filial gratitude, that he owes these principles to his mother, and, with a gallant pride, to his wife for her fine judgement, whom he has uni- formly consulted on the propriety of business invest- ment -- like Lord Brougham, who uttered the memora- ble words, " Were I about to embark in some important enterprise, my first step would be to consult a sensible woman." Dr. McMurray is fortunate in having one of those sensible women for a wife.

Dr. MeMurray's great-grandfather, of Scotch-Irish stock, was one of the early settlers of Kentucky. His great-grandmother was a Miss Kinkade, whose father was Irish and her mother Welsh. In 1790, they settled near Nashville, where the great-grandfather was killed by the Indians, in 1792. His second son, Samuel McMur- ray, married Levicy Morton, and had eight children, the eldest of whom, John McMurray, by his marriage with Miss Mary J. Still, became the father of seven children : (1). Sarah A. McMurray, died in 1863. (2). Samuel J. MeMurray, was sergeant-major of the Twenty-fourth Tennessee Confederate regiment, and was killed at the battle of Franklin, November 30, 1864, at the age of twenty-four. (3). William J. MeMurray, subject of this sketch. (4). Lucy Ellen MeMurray, wife of Wil- bam Smith, a farmer near Trenton, Tennessee. (5). John H. MeMurray, graduated in pharmacy at Nash- ville ; now a druggist in that city; married Miss Mary Morton, a daughter of George Morton, a Williamson county farmer of high standing and wealth. (6) .. Joel A. McMurray, died in 1856. (7). Thomas M. MeMur- ray, now a practicing physician at Nolensville, Tennes- see ; married Miss Sallie King, daughter of David King, who fell at Dr. Me Murray'sside, at the battle of Chick- amanga.

The Me Murray family has had many participants in every war in which the United States have been en- gaged, from the Revolutionary struggle down to the recent strife between the States. In the latter they fought exclusively on the Southern side. Of five of Dr. MeMurray's brothers and cousins, two were slain outright on the field, and the other three disabled for life. A cousin, Col. Sam. MeMurray, is now in com- mand of all the Texas State troops.

Dr. MeMurray's mother, also of Irish descent, was born near Danville, Virginia, but from the age of nine months, grew up in Williamson county, Tennessee, where she married and reared her family. She is now living at. Nashville, experiencing a mother's highest am -

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bition -- the gratitude of a son whose early training she so wisely planned, and which has made of him a success. Hler relatives, the Stills, are mostly in Virginia.

Dr. McMurray's unele, Dr. Thomas M. Me Murray, died a bachelor, in 1864, at Spring Hill, Maury county, Tennessee, where he had practiced twenty years, and had the reputation of being a most excellent physician, and the neatest man in his dress in his county.

Dr. Mc Murray married in Davidson county, October 22, 1872, Miss Fannie May MeCampbell, who was born in Nashville, November - - , 1854, but was raised ou her father's farm near the Hermitage. She is the daughter of Hon. Thomas MeCampbell, who, when quite young, was a State senator from the Knoxville district. She is paternally descended from the MeCampbells' and Andersons of Knoxville-families noted for the legal talent they have given to the bar. Mrs. MeMurray's mother, was a Miss Gowdey, daughter of Thomas Gow- dey, a wealthy jeweler of Nashville, who, in early life, was an Irish soldier, under Wellington, at Waterloo. Mrs. McMurray is a lady of fine culture, and graduated from Ward's seminary, Nashville, in 1871. By his mar- riage with this lady, Dr. MeMurray has one child: (1). Addie Morton Me Murray, born June 30, 1876.

Mrs. MeMurray is a second cousin on her father's side to the late Judge John Trimble ; a paternal cousin

to the wife of Gov. Neill S. Brown, and a second cousin of Judge Frank T. Reid, of the Davidson county cir- cuit court. Her brother, John McCampbell, is a clerk in the employ of the Louisville and Nashville railroad company. Her sister, nce Miss Mary Lou McCampbell, is now the wife of Edward Gaines, a hardware mer- chant, at Nashville. Her brothers, Thomas and Arthur McCampbell, are farmers in Davidson county. She also has a single sister, Miss Nannie McCampbell, living with her. Her aunt, Mary MeCampbell, died the wife of Enoch Ensley, a wealthy merchant and planter in Mississippi and West Tennessee, but who resided at Nashville.

In politics, Dr. McMurray is a strict Democrat, though his father and uncles were Whigs. In 1809, he became an Odd Fellow. Dr. MeMurray and his wife are Methodists, but in religion as in other matters (ex- cepting only polities), he is a liberal, independent thinker, tolerant of the opinions of others. He is a close thinker, a philosophie reasoner, a determined man, with strong faith in the ultimate issue, and of solid character. Whoever and whatever the Me Murrays have beeu, the name of the brave young Confederate lieu- tenant, the subject of this biography, will doubtless long continue to be mentioned with pride by the family as one of its most conspicuous members.

JAMES D. PLUNKET, M. D.

NASHVILLE.

T' IIIS gentleman, now in the meridian of life, ap- pears in these pages, not only as a prominent Tennessean, but as one of the most widely known rep- resentatives of the medical profession in the State. In personal appearance he is tall and somewhat slender, but of strong build, and well fitted for the activities of a busy life. He has dark hair, calm, inquiring eyes, and the look of a man of system, promptness and pru- dence. His manners are frank and easy, without ostentation, yet his character is bold and essentially aggressive.

He was born in Williamson county, Tennessee, of wealthy parentage, and received his primary education under private tutors and at academic schools. For three years, from 1854, he was a clerk in the wholesale dry goods house of Morgan & Co., at Nashville, and next spent one year with D'Arman & Co., commission mer- chants, New Orleans.

In the fall of 1859, he began the study of medicine in the office of Dr. George A. J. Mayfield, at Nashville. In 1860, he went to Philadelphia, where he became the private student of Dr. Joseph Leidy, professor of anatomy, and entered the medical department of the

University of Pennsylvania, from which he graduated, in 1863, taking his degree under Profs. Wood, Jac"son, Pepper, Agnew, Hodge and Henry HI. Smith, During his stay in Philadelphia he spent the summers as an interne in the city hospitals.

On his return home he accepted the invitation of Surgeon-Gen. Moore, to enter into the medical service of the Confederate States, as assistant surgeon ; was ou duty successively in the (Frank A. Ramsey) hospital, first, at Knoxville, and afterward at Cassville, Georgia, and then " in the field " with the Fortieth Georgia regi- ment of infantry, Gen. Stovall's brigade, and lastly with the Fifty second Georgia regiment, in the same brigade. He served until the close of the war, when he began practice, in May, 1865, at Nashville.

He is entitled to the honor of having first agitated and taking a leading part in the establishment of the Nashville Board of Health, of which, from its organi- zation, June 1, 1866, to the time it ceased to exist, in the spring of 1869, he was secretary and president.

In 1873, in view of a threatened epidemie of Asiatic cholera, which soon afterward burst in all its fury upon this community, the mayor of Nashville appointed a

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sanitary commission, composed of seven leading medical practitioners of the city, and of this commission Dr. Plunket was made president. In May, 1874, the Board of Health was reorganized and Dr. Plunket again made president. In June, 1876, he was elected city health officer, but declined the position. In 1879, he retired from the Board of Health, his private practice taking up all his time. At his instance the State Medical As- sociation petitioned the Legislature to establish the State Board of Health. In March, 1877, the bill for that. purpose passed, and Gov. James D. Porter, after ap- pointing Dr. Plunket as a member of that board, asked him to name the other " four physicians of skill and ex- perience, regular graduates of medicine, and who had been engaged in practice not less than ten years," as the law required, and he would commission them, which was accordingly done. The board, as first organized, was composed of Drs. T. A. Atchison and J. M. Saf- ford, of Middle Tennessee, E. M. Wight, of East Ten- nessee, and R. B. Maury, of West Tennessee ; and Dr. Plunket was elected president, and served as such four consecutive years, till May, 1880, when he resigned, as before, on account of the steadily increasing duties of his private practice. As president of the State Board of Health, he, in 1879, had the city of Memphis quaran- tined, on account of an epidemic of yellow fever devel- oping there, a measure that met with vehement oppo- sition from traders, and the local press in their interests but public opinion finally endorsed his action, as it re sulted in confining the pestilence to the city limits, and applauded the courage of an official, who, for the safety of the public health, did his duty at the cost of being hung and burnt in effigy by the rabble in the streets of Memphis.

Upon the motion of Dr. Plunket, then president of the State Board of Health, there was assembled for conference, at Memphis, June 30, 1879, representatives from the several boards of health in the Mississippi valley, in which eighteen States were represented. The convention resolved itself into a permanent organization as the Sanitary Council of the Mississippi Valley, and Dr. Plunket was chosen president. He is a member of the American Public Health Association, and has been twice elected a member of its executive commit- tee. He is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and in 1878, was chairman of the committee on meteorology. He is a member of the American Medical Association, and of the Medical Society of the State of Tennessee, of which latter body he was, from 1865 to 1875, the permanent secretary, and for sixteen years its treasurer. He is a member of the Davidson County Medical Society, and of the Nashville Medical Society. In 1868, he was elected to the chair of surgical anatomy in the medical department of C'um- berland University. In 1870, he was elected president of the city council of Nashville.

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Sketches of prominent Tennesseans. Containing biographies and records of many of the families who have attained prominence in Tennessee, Part 82

Author: Speer, William S Publication date: 1888 Publisher: Nashville, A. B. Tavel Number of Pages: 1278

Author: Speer, William S
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Nashville, A. B. Tavel
Number of Pages: 1278