Robert Allen Hurt, clerk and master of the chancery court was born in the city January 3, 1858; son of Robert Bailey and Susan Allen (DeBerry) Hurt, natives of Halifax County, Va., and Madison County, Tenn., respectively. The father came to Carroll County, Tenn., when a boy, about 1830, and six years later located in Madison County. He soon after moved to Nashville, where he clerked in a mercantile and cotton establishment until he was of age, then returned to Madison Co., married and located on a plantation, which he managed successfully the remainder of his life. During the war he was one of Gen. Beauregard's most active aids with the rank of Major. After the war he was a bond and stock broker, and an enterprising citizen of the county. He was instrumental in bringing the I. C. and NI. 0. Railroads through Jackson. He was a Whig before the war, and in 1859-60 represented his county in the Legislature. In 1875 he was a member of that body as a Democrat. He died August 30, 1881, of cancer, his death being universally regretted throughout the county. Robert A. was reared to manhood in Jackson and Madison Counties. He secured a good education in West Tennessee College, later known as the Southwestern Baptist University of Jackson. He followed farming and clerking one year and continued in the former until 1882, and from that time until January, 1886, was deputy clerk and master of the chancery court, and at the latter date became clerk and master. Mr. Hurt is a Democrat of the younger and more progressive school. He is a member of the I.O.O.F., and the Methodist Episcopal Church South. His maternal grandfather, Matthias DeBerry, won great notoriety as sheriff in breaking up gambling institutions at an early day, also lawlessness and robbery. He was sheriff at the time the noted John A. Murrell was captured.

Goodspeeds History of Tennessee