Jefferson County, Alabama Biographies

Jefferson County, Alabama Biographies

The following biographies were extracted from: Jefferson County and Birmnigham, Alabama: Historical and Biographical, 1887, Author: John Witherspoon Dubose.

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WILLIAM N. MALONE is a native Alabamian, and was born in New Limestone September 8, 1856. His birthplace is the county seat ofLimestone County, one of the finest portions of North Alabama. His father, James M. Malone, is a descendant of Virginia stock, but came to this State at an early date. His mother is an Alabamian by birth, and her maiden name was Jane Matthews.

Our subject attended the schools at his home until attaining his fourteenth year,. and then entered the Athens College, and went steadily to school for two years, or until he was sixteen years old, and then embarked in active life by accepting a clerkship in the general merchandise store of George Mason & Co., in Athens. He gave them eight years of faithful service, and then made a venture which has proved to him a most fortunate one. It was at this time that he came to cast his lot in Birmingham, and his history from this time onward has been gratifying and very successful. At the first, he formed a copartnership with W. Mason in the retail grocery business, and at the end of the year Mr. B. F. Roden was added to the firm, and the new firm style was known as Roden, Mason & Malone. One year from the time of the formation of this firm, Mr. Roden bought out his partners' interests. Mr. Malone then formed a copartnership with Mr. T. P. Wimberly, under the firm name of Wimberly & Malone, and engaged in the wholesale grocery trade. This was among the earliest houses to engage in this branch of trade in Birmingham. It continued for several years, and had a successful experience, when the firm was dissolved, and Messrs. Adler bought Mr. Wimberly's-interest, and subsequently formed the present copartnership with Morris and Albert Adler, of Baltimore, the new house being known as Adler, Malone & Co. This firm shares as extensive a trade as any in this city, and this, like many other instances, serves most admirably to show the worth of Birmingham's young men as the progressive factors of her present and future greatness.

Mr. Malone has not confined his energies to commercial life alone. Since his life here he has looked after the management of a large farm he owns in Limestone County . While he does not denominate himself a real estate dealer in the strict sense of the term, yet, to the extent that he has given it his attention, he has been very successful, and owns some valuable property in the city.

Mr. Malone belongs to the Knights of Pythias, and is a member of the M. E. Church, South.

FERGUS W. McCARTHY was born in Cole County, Missouri, November 29, 1858. His father, Fergus W. McCarthy, died when our subject was an infant. His mother's maiden name was Miss T. E. O'Grady. She went to Vicksburg, Miss., in 1860, and lived there until August 3, 1863, and then came to Montgomery, Ala. He commenced going to the Catholic parish school there when nine years old, and continued, without intermission, until October, 1871, and then went to Spring Hill College, near Mobile, Ala., an institution under the supervision of the Catholic Fathers, where he took a classical course and graduated in July, 1878.

He was occupied in various ways until December, 1881, and then joined an engineering corps engaged in surveying the Georgia Pacific Railroad, now one of the most important lines running into Birmingham. He was next timekeeper on the First and Sixth Residencies, from December 1, 1881, to May, 1883, and then rejoined the engineering corps, and acted in double capacity of roadman and draughtsman for three months.

Shortly after this he accepted the responsible position of bookkeeper for the Coalburg Coal & Coke Company, September 11, 1883, and retained it until his resignation on the 10th of February, 1887. The business of the company increased tenfold during his connection with it, and his duties made it incumbent upon him to pay out the wages of several hundred men every month. He discharged his trust with satisfaction to his employers.

Mr. McCarthy is now in the employment of an abstract company in Birmingham,. and no doubt, will here, as elsewhere, signalize himself for faithfulness to duty.

Mr. McCarthy was married November 9, 1884, to Miss Christina Stein, of Coalburg, Alabama.

He is a member of the Catholic Church. Mrs. McCarthy is a member of the Presbyterian Church.

In March, 1887, he was appointed, by Governor Seay, circuit clerk of Jefferson County. This is but another just recognition of his capacity.

JAMES H. MCCARY is a representative of the class of educated Alabamians of the new era. Born March, 1862, when the war between the States was in its earliest stages, his whole life has been spent under the social influences into which he has so largely entered to shape.

Mr. McCary is a native of Chilton County, Alabama, the son of James F. and E. M. McCary, nee Lily. After passing through the common schools he completed his studies in the Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical College at Auburn. For six years thereafter he was employed as clerk in the Hotel Jackson, at Blount Springs. In September, 18S3, he came to Birmingham, to engage as clerk in the Relay House. In 1884 he entered mercantile life in Birmingham as a grocer. In 1886 he formed a partnership with E. L. Higdon in the wholesale fruit and produce line. This business has been distinguished by rapid growth. The firm occupy a large and handsome building on Morris Avenue, the leading wholesale street, and perhaps the best in its line in the South. They do a large and increasing business along the trunk lines of railroads leading out of the city.

Mr. McCary is one of the directors of the Birmingham National Bank, owns valuable real estate in Birmingham, and blocks of many of the best local stocks in the market. He owns valuable agricultural lands in the Valley of the Mississippi, situated in the State of Mississippi. He is a Knight of Pythias, and a worker in the Methodist Episcopal Church Sunday school, of which church he is a member.

HENRY UPSHUR McKINNEY was born inLexington, Kentucky, November 2, 1839. He was of a Scotch-English descent. His father, James G. McKinney, emigrated from Virginia at an early period, and merchandised for many years in Lexington. His mother, Eliza Churchill, was a Kentuckian. Henry lived in Lexington until he was nine years old, and then went to Elizabethtown, Kentucky, with his mother, and lived there until he was twenty-one. His education was attained there, and terminated when he was sixteen years old. His first independent work was in- the county clerk's office at Elizabethtown, copying deeds and other papers, and he then acted as agent for an important stage line between Louisville and Nashville. Stages were the sole and only-means of travel in that part of the country at that day. He worked for this line one-and a half years, and then secured a position as route agent with the Adams Express Company, on the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, and ran between these cities for one-year, and was then ticket agent for the Louisville & Nashville Railroad in Louisville for one and a half years, or until the war broke out. He enlisted in Company G, Eighth Kentucky Regiment, Confederate Army, as a private. His colonel was H. B. Lyon, a brave and courteous gentleman. Young McKinney was at first elected a lieutenant, and subsequently captain of his company. He took part in the battles of Coffeeville and Fort Donelson, and was surrendered on February 14, 1862, at the surrender of the fort. After several months imprisonment he was brought to Vicksburg; and exchanged. He rejoined his command, and was at the battle of Baker's Creek, the Big Black, and Vicksburg. He was in the seven days' fight around Jackson, Mississippi. In all these engagements his brigade commander was General Lloyd Tilghman, and his division commander General Loring. He fought under General N. B. Forrest, from Blue Mountain, Calhoun County, on the Selma, Rome & Dalton Railroad down to Selma. From that point he continued on to Jackson, Mississippi, where his command surrendered. In evidence of and high testimonial to the loyalty and devotion to duty of his regiment, it need only be mentioned that at the commencement of the war-it numbered twelve hundred men, and at its close the ranks had dwindled to sixty-three by deaths and disabilities incurred in the service.

He married, in 1864, Miss Lulie Richardson, of Brandon, Mississippi. She was a. daughter of Mr. Wm. H. Richardson, of that town, and a near relative of Colonel Edmond Richardson, who was the largest individual cotton planter in the world. The close of the war found him penniless, with a young wife to provide for. An amusing occurrence of the strange working of events may be recited. The first ten cents of legal money, as well as the first money he obtained after the war, was given to him by a Federal soldier. In June, 1865, he went to Kentucky, and after remaining with his relatives some months, returned to Mississippi, and brought with him a part of a cargo of bagging and ties, which he sold at a considerable profit. Subsequently he engaged in farming for a year and a half, and then secured a position in a general merchandise house in Brandon, where he remained thirteen and a half years. After this he became a commercial traveler for four years, and in 1884 settled in Birmingham. Mr. McKinney has served on the city police force of Birmingham, and was elevated to the important and responsible position of city clerk May 6, 1886. Mr. McKinney has three children—Mary S., William R., and Florence L.

He is a member of the Masonic order and Knights of Pythias, and he and Mrs. McKinney are members of the Episcopal Church.

JOSEPH MCLESTER was born inNorth Port, Tuscaloosa County, Ala., July 27, 1848. His father came to Alabama in the early history of the State, from North Carolina, and settled in North Port. His mother, whose maiden name was Jane Simonton, also came from the same State when quite young.

At the time of the birth of the subject of our sketch, Alabama was in a prosperous condition, and his particular locality was one of the most highly favored portions of the State, both as to its temporal affairs and as to its people, who would have adorned any locality as being possessed of all those characteristics which constitute a highly refined and cultivated population. North Port, his home, was separated from Tuscaloosa by the Black Warrior River. The latter place was then, and always has been, noted for its-educational institutions, and its name has been synonymous, almost from the founding of the town, with the highest standard of learning. Both these towns are at the head of steam navigation.

His father was a merchant, and has always conducted a prosperous business, and carried on a trade with the interior for a distance of over a hundred miles.

Joseph attended the high schools of Tuscaloosa, and when not engaged in his studies clerked in his father's store. He prepared himself for college and attended the University of Alabama, then in Tuscaloosa. He was a cadet at the university when it was burned up, with its magnificent library, by the Federal forces, under General Croxton, in 1865.

In the year 1866 he entered the Washington and Lee University, at Lexington, Va. This institution was then under the administration of General Robert E. Lee. Joseph graduated in 1869, after taking a three years' course. After returning home he clerked in his father's store three years, and then was assigned to a position in the First National Bank of Tuscaloosa. He became cashier of the bank and treasurer of the Alabama Insane Hospital for a period of eight years.. In the discharge of the duties of -this position he acquitted himself with marked ability. His duties were highly responsible, and he proved himself worthy of the trust.

In the fall of 1881 he gave up his position and came to Birmingham and engaged in the grocery business, purchasing Mr. J. M. Maxwell's half interest in the house of J. M. Maxwell & Co. The Rev. J. A. VanHoose was the company of the firm. The new firm is known as McLester & VanHoose. This was the second exclusively wholesale grocery house established in Birmingham, and as to the volume of business it transacts it can be said that it stands second to none.

Mr. McLester was married to Miss Nannie Somerville, a niece of Judge Somerville, of the Alabama Supreme Bench, some years since. She, like himself, was a native of Tuscaloosa, and belongs to one of the oldest and most highly respected families in the State.

This union has been an exceedingly happy one. Mr. McLester is the father of several children, and his home, one of the most charming in the city, is the seat of great domestic happiness. No young merchant in this city looks out upon a more encouraging future.

FRANK C. MOREHEAD, President of the National Cotton Planters' Association of America, was born September 18, 1846, atFrankfort, Ky., and comes from one of the most prominent American families. His father was Charles S. Morehead, Governor of Kentucky, and a distinguished leader of the peace conferences called at the outbreak of the secession movement. Frank C. Morehead left school at fifteen years of age to join a Kentucky cavalry organization coming to the Confederate Army. Subsequently, he entered the Confederate Navy as midshipman. He remained in active service on the James River until the close of the war. For gallant and meritorious conduct he was recommended by General Lee for promotion to the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the army, and was personally complimented by his great chieftain.

The celebrated commercial convention, which assembled at Memphis in 1869, elected him, in his twenty-second year, one of its vice-presidents, and immediately upon its adjournment he started to Europe, by appointment of the convention, to initiate an effort to build up direct trade between the leading commercial countries of the Western Continent and the Southern States. In the first flush of manhood Frank C. Morehead thus consecrated his wonderful energies and high ability to the New South. The London Post pronounced his speech at Manchester to be a revelation. He made many other speeches in other places. The wondrous resources and capabilities of the South had been before unheard of. By this veteran of the war of the Old South they were unfolded to the world.

Ten years later, the negro exodus to Kansas startled the entire lower Mississippi Valley. In the period of this excitement the Mississippi Valley Cotton Planters' Association was organized. Its object was to promote a healthy revolution in agriculture, by which greater reliance upon machinery, and less upon cotton, should be cultivated. Colonel Morehead was made vice-president. In 1881 the convention met at Memphis, and was enlarged into the National Cotton Planters' Association of America. Colonel Morehead was then elected president, and has been each year re-elected.

He was a prime mover in the Atlanta Exposition of 1882; he was the projector of the World's Fair and the Cotton Centennial; he was the founder of the Planters' Journal, through whose columns both of those inestimable blessings to the South were materialized. Coming to Birmingham he appears as the president of the Planters' Journal and Southern Iron Worker Company, which publishes the three handsome industrial journals, elsewhere noticed as already engaged in the widest range of usefulness to the growth and prosperity of Alabama and of the South.

Colonel Morehead inherited large landed interests from his father in the cotton region of the Mississippi Valley. But his natural place in society is that of a leader of great social and industrial organizations and enterprises. Consequently he has not been known by personal devotion to agriculture. He is now devoting much thought to the Cotton States' Field Contest for 1888, a project of measureless import to Southern agriculture.

He is president of the Royal Insurance Company, of Birmingham , elsewhere noticed in these pages, and his influence for good in the social life of the city is distinguished.

GEORGE M. MORROW is one of those whose life, in a local sense, has more than the usual interest attaching to it, from the fact of his life-long residence in Jefferson County, and he is one who has reaped the full measure of the development that has characterized his native county.

He was born in Elyton, Alabama, the 20th of August, 1846. His father, Hugh Morrow is a native of Warren County, Kentucky and came to Alabama when quite a young man, and settled in Jefferson County, and is still enjoying a vigorous and hearty old age at his home, near Trussville. The mother of the subject of this sketch, Margaret Holmes, is a native Alabamian, and, like her husband, is still living at a very advanced age, though her years rest lightly upon her.

George Morrow received his early education in the common schools of his native county, and until sixteen years old attended school at Elyton, where he enlisted in the Confederate service in 1863, in Company F, Seventh Alabama Cavalry, and served with it until the winter of 1864, and was then transferred to the famous cavalry brigade under command of General Joseph Wheeler, and while serving in this command was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant, maintaing himself by gallant and faithful conduct in this position until the great struggle, the like of which has rarely been paralleled in the history of nations, was brought to a close. When he returned home he attended school one year at Elyton, and then began the regular study of medicine, under Dr. Joseph R. Smith. This study was kept up by young Morrow for one year, and he then attended the Miami Medical College, of Cincinnati, Ohio, until his graduation in the spring of 1868, and at once began the active practice of the profession at Asheville, remaining there until 1871, when he came to Elyton, and practiced there until 1878. From this time dates the most momentous step of his whole life, as from it came the most responsible and extended relations in which he had hitherto been an actor. It proved to him the flood-tide that led on to fortune. It was in this year that he came to Birmingham, and in company with Dr. F. D. Nabers embarked in the wholesale and retail drug business. This has always been, and still is, Birmingham's most extensive and most successful drug house, and no better evidence of the business merit of the firm, personally and individually, could be asked. Dr. Morrow has been an ardent believer from the beginning in this city's destiny, and showing his faith by his works has reaped an abundant harvest, which, as the years speed by, goes on, increasing in an enlarged and gratifying ratio.

In personal characteristics he is noted for the kindness of heart, the simplicity and cordiality of manner, the sincerity of profession, and the unpretending warmth of friendship and frankness of conduct so characteristic of his whole stock.

Dr. Morrow was first married in November, 1868, to Miss Mary E., daughter of Dr. Joseph and Mrs. Margaret Smith, of Elyton. To this union was born one child--Margaret J. Mrs. Morrow died in 1873.

Dr. Morrow was married the second time in May, 1874, to Miss Susie, daughter of O. S. and Malinda Nabers Smith, also residents of Elyton. To this second marriage were born four children--Lucy O., Anna, Bertha, deceased, and George M., Jr.

Dr. Morrow belongs to the Masonic Fraternity, and is Master of Birmingham Lodge, No. 384, and is also Grand Junior Warden of the Grand Lodge of Alabama, and besides, is a member of the Elyton Chapter.

Both himself and Mrs. Morrow are members of the Baptist Church.

J. P. MUDD was born at Elyton in the year 1859, and is a son of the late Judge Wm. S. Mudd, whose sketch appears in the history of the Bench and Bar. His studies were commenced in the school of Elyton, and subsequently pursued at the University of Alabama, from which institution-he was graduated in 1879. He began his business career in the City Bank of Birmingham, but was forced, by ill health, to abandon that position. He then embarked in business in the crockery trade, which he successfully prosecuted for a period of three years. In September, 1885, he opened the first office in Birmingham devoted exclusively to the sale of stocks and bonds. In this field Mr. Mudd has achieved merited success, and his business has assumed large proportions, and is increasing daily with the development of this favored section. He is one of the most industrious and popular of the many young business men, and is connected with many of the large monied corporations of Jefferson County, and he is ever ready to assist and promote enterprises of substantial merit. He is a worthy descendant of several of the best known and honored families of the State.

Mr. Mudd was united in marriage, October 3, 1883, to Miss Eula Anglin, of Birmingham, and their union has been blessed with a son, Wm. S. Mr. Mudd is a member of the Knights of Pythias, and a consistent member of the Episcopal Church. Mrs. Mudd is a Presbyterian.

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