TN-DATA-L Archives

Archiver > TN-DATA > 2005-10 > 1130644424


From: Archives <>
Subject: Tn-Montgomery Co. Bios (Byrd)
Date: 30 Oct 2005 03:53:44 -0000


Montgomery County TN Archives Biographies.....Byrd, John A. (Sr.) 1845 -
************************************************
Copyright. All rights reserved.
http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/copyright.htm
http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/tn/tnfiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Joy Fisher October 30, 2005, 3:53 am

Author: Will T. Hale

JOHN A. BYRD, SR. AND JOHN A. BYRD, JR. The Byrd family has been identified
with Tennessee fully a century, and its career has been marked by that
distinctive achievement and influence which are the chief factors in social
prominence. The grandfather and father, respectively, of the men named above was
John C. Byrd, who was born in Tennessee in 1815, and the family name and
fortunes had keen established here some years before that.

John C. Byrd, who married Elizabeth Herring, also a native of this state, was
a trader and also followed the occupation of house carpenter. Although past
middle age when the war came on, he enlisted in 1861 in Company A, of the
Fiftieth Tennessee Volunteers, and continued in the service until November,
1862. He was captured at Fort Donelson, where he was kept some time. After his
exchange he started home and died on the way. Politically he was a Democrat. His
wife's father was Spirus Herring, one of the early settlers of Tennessee and for
many years engaged in farming.

Of these parents John A. Byrd, Sr., was born on November 2, 1845, at New
Providence, Tennessee. Reared and educated in Montgomery county, he was only a
boy at the time of the Civil war, but as statistics show it was largely the
youth of both North and South that composed the great armies of that war. He
became a member of the cavalry, serving in the Eighth and Twelfth Consolidated
Regiment of Kentucky Cavalry, under the leadership of the gallant General
Forrest. In one of the many skirmishes in which he engaged he was severely
wounded and captured, and was kept eighteen months in the Federal prison at Rock
Island, Illinois.

After the war he worked as a farm laborer two years, spent a similar period
in Padueah, Kentucky, and then returned to Montgomery county, where he bought a
farm. As a progressive farmer and one who has acquired most of his prosperity
through his own efforts and good management, he has had few superiors in this
part of the state. For a number of years tobacco has been his special crop and
he also has raised a large amount of stock. His farm in Montgomery county
consists of four hundred and fifteen acres, and is one of the best in the county.

In 1874 he married Miss Helen O'Neal, daughter of John and Elizabeth
(Britton) O'Neal, a well known family concerning whom more information will be
found in the sketch of W. A. 0 'Neal, elsewhere in this work The only child of
Mr. and Mrs. Byrd is Dr. John A., Jr. The father and mother are both members of
the Methodist church, and he is a Democrat.

Dr. John A. Byrd, Jr., who is a successful dentist at Clarksville, was born
in Dotsonville, Tennessee, October 13, 1886. His early education was obtained in
the public schools of his home neighborhood and at Auburn, Kentucky, after which
he located in Clarksville and went into the livery business. After a year he
moved to Nashville and continued in the same line two years. He then entered
Vanderbilt University and spent three years in study in the dental department,
until his graduation as D. D. S. in 1909. For two years following his office was
in Nashville, where he built up a fine practice, and would have remained there
but that his father's failing health made it advisable for him to return to
Clarksville, where he opened his office on October 11, 1911. He is one of the
rising men in his profession, and is a member of the state and national dental
associations. He is a Democrat in politics, is affiliated with the Clarksville
Elks lodge, and is a member of the Cumberland Presbyterian church.


Additional Comments:
From:

A history of Tennessee and Tennesseans : the leaders and representative men in
commerce, industry and modern activities
by Will T. Hale
Chicago: Lewis Pub. Co., 1913


File at: http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/tn/montgomery/bios/byrd264nbs.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/tnfiles/

File size: 4.3 Kb


This thread: