History of Columbus, (Lowndes County) Mississippi United States of America

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Biographies:

William Taylor Sullivan Barry, representative, was born at Columbus, Miss., Dec. 12, 1821. He was graduated at Yale in 1841; studied law, and engaged in practice in Columbus. He was a representative in the state legislature, 1849-51, and speaker of the house in 1855; was elected a representative in the 33d congress from Sunflower county, and was a delegate to the Democratic national convention in 1860, withdrawing with other slave-holding members. He was president of the state secession convention in 1861; a member of the confederate provisional congress from February, 1861, to January, 1862, and became colonel of the 35th Mississippi volunteers in 1862. He took part in the defence of Vicksburg and in the Georgia campaign, and was captured at Mobile, April 25, 1865. He died at Columbus, Miss., Jan. 29, 1868.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

Blewett Lee, lawyer, was born near Columbus, Miss., March 1, 1867; son of Stephen Dill Lee and Regina (Harrison) Lee. He was graduated from the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Mississippi, B.S. in 1883; studied at the University of Virginia, 1883-85; was graduated from Harvard university, A.M. and LL.B. in 1888, and studied at Leipzig and Freiburg, Germany. He was private secretary to Justice Horace Gray in 1890; and practised law in Atlanta, Ga., 1890-93. He was a professor in the Atlanta Law school in its first faculty; and was elected professor of law in the Northwestern university, Chicago, Ill., in 1893, in which city he also practised his profession. He was married, Feb. 9, 1898, to Frances, daughter of John J. and Frances (Macbeth) Glessner of Chicago, I11. He was elected a member of the American Bar association in 1894. He is the author of various articles in legal journals.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

William Cooke, senator, was born in Virginia in 1747; son of Abraham Cocke; grandson of Stephen Cocke; great-grandson of Thomas Cocke; and great-great grandson of Richard Cocke, who came to Virginia prior to 1632 and was a member of the house of burgesses from Henrico county in that year. In company with Daniel Boone he explored the territory afterward known as East Tennessee and Western Kentucky. In 1776 (see Ramsey's History of Tennessee), with four companies of Virginians, he had a fierce battle with the Indians at Cocke's Fort, Tenn., in which the Indians received a crushing defeat. In 1796 he was elected by the legislature of Tennessee one of the first U.S. senators from that state. He drew the short term commencing Dec. 5, 1796, and served till the close of the first session of the 5th congress, July 10, 1797, when he was succeeded by Andrew Jackson. He had previously been very prominent in the convention which framed the first constitution of Tennessee. He was again elected to the U.S. senate in 1799, serving until March 4, 1805, when he was appointed judge of the first circuit. Removing to Mississippi he was elected to the state legislature, and in 1814 President Madison appointed him agent for the Chickasaw nation. He fought in two wars, served in the legislatures of four states (Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Mississippi) and in the senate of the United States. He was founder of the University of Tennessee, a trustee of Greenville college, and an incorporator of Washington college. He died in Columbus, Miss., in the eighty-first year of his age and was buried there under a tombstone erected to his memory by the state of Mississippi. The date of his death is Aug. 22, 1828.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

Lee Meriwether, social reformer, was born in Columbus, Miss., Dec. 25, 1862; son of Minor and Elizabeth (Avery) Meriwether. His father was a lawyer and his mother the author of "The Master of Red Leaf," "Black and White," "The Ku Klux Klan," "My First and Last Love," and other books. He was educated in the public schools of Memphis, Tenn., to which place he had removed with his parents in childhood, and in 1880 established with his brother, Avery Meriwether, the Free Trader at Memphis, which they conducted until 1883. In 1885-86 he visited Europe, and toured the country from Gibraltar to the Bosphorus on foot for the purpose of studying the condition of workingmen and the effect of the Protective tariff. He was appointed by Secretary of the Interior Lamar to write a report on the "Condition of European Labor," which was published in the annual report of the U.S. bureau of labor in 1886. He served as a special agent of the U.S. interior department, 1886-89, and was employed in collecting data concerning labor in the United States and Hawaiian Islands, and in 1891 in visiting the island prisons of the Mediterranean. He studied law in the office of his father at St. Louis, Mo., 1890-91; was admitted to the bar in 1892, and settled in practice in St. Louis in 1893. He was labor commissioner of Missouri, 1889-90, and again, 1895-96. He was married, Dec. 4, 1895, to Jessie, daughter of A. F. Gair, of Brooklyn, N.Y. He was the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for mayor of St. Louis in 1897, and in 1901 he was the candidate of the Public Ownership party for the office. He claimed to have been counted out by means of a partisan election law, and he was credited with 31,000 votes, as against 33,000 for the Republican nominee. He is the author of: A Tramp Trip: How to See Europe on Fifty Cents a Day (1887): Afloat and Ashore on the Mediterranean; The Tramp at Home; A Lord's Courtship; An American King; Miss Chunk, and various reports.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor