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Dawson
County,
Georgia
A Proud Member of the Genealogy
Trails Group
Dawson
County, Georgia
Biographies
Judge R. M. Bryson. With twenty
years of experience as a lawyer. Judge Bryson has spent the last ten in
Ocilla, and during that time has also served as judge of the County
Court. He comes of a substantial family of farming people, but his own
youth was of somewhat limited advantages. and he depended upon himself
to lift his career above an ordinary plane and by his own earnings he
paid all his expenses while in college. He taught school for a time
before attending college and for two terms afterwards. Thus the
accomplishments of his career are a testimonial to his individual
enterprise and ambition.
He was born near Auraria in Lumpkin County, Georgia, May 29,
1871, a son of John H. and Caroline (Nix) Bryson. His paternal
grandfather. William Thomas Bryson, was a native of Edinburgh,
Scotland, and came to this country at the age of sixteen, locating near
Dahlonega, Georgia, where he subsequently became a well-to-do merchant.
The maternal grandfather was of Irish extraction, and the maternal
grandmother, whose maiden name was Nancy Weaver, lived to a good old
age. Judge Bryson's father was born in Lumpkin and his mother in Dawson
County, Georgia, and the former followed a career as a farmer and is
now living at the age of seventy-four in Forsyth County. During the war
he and three brothers served as soldiers in the Confederate army, and
though in many engagements he was never wounded, but toward the close
of the war was captured and was kept in Camp Douglas in Chicago for
some months. He served in Company I of the Fifty-fifth Georgia
Regiment. The mother died in 1888 at the age of forty. Of their six
children two are now deceased, and Judge Bryson was the second in order
of birth. His brother, Charles L. Bryson, also a lawyer, lives at
Jefferson, in Jackson County; another brother. Dr. L. R. Bryson, is in
practice at Oakwood, in Hall County, and a third brother, W. F. Bryson,
lives at Gainesville, in Hall County.
R. M. Bryson spent most of his boyhood on a farm in Dawson County,
where he attended the public schools, and afterwards secured means
sufficient to pay his way through the North Georgia Agricultural
College at Dahlonega. After studying law he began practice at
Dawsonville, in Dawson Count.v, but after a few months removed to
Dahlonega, where he enjoyed a successful practice until 1905. In that
year he established his home at Ocilla, and while looking after his
private practice has also served as recorder of the town and was judge
of the County Court of Irwin County for one term.
Judge Bryson is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias, a member
of the Baptist Church and in politics is a democrat. On December 23,
1896. at Dahlonega, he married Miss Lillie F. Gurley, whose parents
were residents of Union County. Judge and Mrs. Bryson have one adopted
daughter. Miss Nellie May, who was born in January, 1908. In addition
to his law practice Judge Bryson takes much interest in farming and
particularly in the intensive cultivation of the soil.
Source: A standard history of Georgia and Georgians, Volume 6 By Lucian
Lamar Knight
Marion Columbus Edwards.
More than a quarter of a century has passed since Mr. Marion C. Edwards
began the practice of law at Dawson. His success as a lawyer has been
accompanied by a large and active participation in business and public
affairs. At all times he has manifested a profound interest in those
movements and activities which represent the best in a community's
life, whether financially, socially or morally. He has been first among
those men who in the last quarter of a century have brought Dawson into
prominence among the smaller cities of the state.
A native of Stewart County, Georgia, Judge Edwards comes of a
prominent Southern family. One of his grandfathers was distinguished by
service in the Revolutionary war. The Edwards family located in North
Carolina, having come from Virginia. The family name was founded in
this country by two brothers from England, one of whom located in New
York and the other in Virginia, and the latter branch, from which Judge
Edwards is descended, was intermingled with the prominent families of
Spinks and Hornadys. Judge Edwards' father was also M. C. Edwards, and
made a notable record as captain in the Confederate army, as teacher
and county school commissioner, and also served as state senator from
Randolph County. The mother of Judge Edwards was Tommie Roquemore,
descended from the South Carolina Roquemores, who came from France to
escape the Protestant persecution following the massacre of St.
Bartholomew. Representatives of the Roquemore family have spread over
South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia and Florida.
Besides Judge Edwards two of his brothers have gained distinction
in the legal profession. E. W. Edwards is a prominent lawyer at
Valdosta, Georgia. John S. Edwards, who has given service on the Tax
Commission of Florida, recently was elected judge of the Circuit Court
of the Southern District. The oldest brother of Judge Edwards was a
successful insurance man in Little Rock, Arkansas, and was killed in a
street car accident. There are also four sisters: Mrs. S. A. Stanley, a
well known church worker at Ocala, Florida; Mrs. A. T. Buchanan, who
now holds a position in the United States service; Miss Susie Edwards,
who has gained more than a local reputation through Georgia as a
teacher of expression; while Helen Edwards, the youngest, is a writer
who uses her pen with great charm and ability and is a contributor to
several papers.
Judge M. C. Edwards was graduated LL. B. from the University of
Georgia in 1890. He had previously begun teaching school at the age of
sixteen and spent five years in that vocation. Thus he paid largely for
his higher education and has been a vigorous worker in the ranks from
early youth. While in university at Athens he was president of the Phi
Kappa Literary Society.
In 1890 Judge Edwards began the practice of law at Dawson and has
since enjoyed a large clientage in all the courts in adjacent counties.
In 1891 he edited the Dawson Journal. Much of his time has been taken
from his profession in order to look after varied and important
business and civic interests. He is now judge of the City Court of
Dawson, a position to which he was first elected in 1906, and he served
several years as city attorney. He has filled the office of judge of
the City Court for three successive terms. He is also president of the
Democratic Executive Committee, chairman of the Dawson Bar Association
and president of the Dawson School Board.
Other interests make him an important factor in financial and
industrial affairs. He has been president of the Bank of Dawson since
1911, and is one of the largest stockholders in this institution. The
bank has a capital stock of $100,000. He is also one of the largest
land holders in Terrell County. He is a director in the Dawson
Telephone Company, is a director of the Southern Timber Company, a
.$100,000 corporation whose operations are largely in the State of
Florida, and is a former director and vice president of the City
National Bank.
At one time he also held the office of judge of the County Court.
He has been a member of various literary and social clubs and has been
president of most of the organizations in which he was an active
member. Though not a member, he was reared in the Baptist Church.
On April 25, 1894, Judge Edwards married Sallie Will Pickett, a
daughter of Capt. T. H. and A. E. Pickett. Captain Pickett has been a
prominent lawyer of Dawson for many years and has also served as mayor
of that city. Mrs. Edwards' mother was a member of the Davenport
family, well known socially and politically in Georgia. Mrs. Edwards'
brothers, Smith, D. C, King, Toombs and Tom Pickett, are all prominent
men of affairs. Her only sister, Mrs. Woolsey, is the wife of T. S.
Woolsey, a professor at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, a
grandson of the former president of Yale.
Judge and Mrs. Edwards have five children: Marian, Davenport,
William, Tom Pickett and Elizabeth. The daughter Marian was liberally
educated and spent one year in Europe studying the language and is now
the wife of Mr. M. Cronin of Washington, District of Columbia, at
present democratic candidate for Congress from the Second Iowa District
Source: A standard history of Georgia and Georgians, Volume 6 By Lucian
Lamar Knight
R. M. Bryson spent most
of his boyhood on a farm in Dawson County, where he attended the public
schools, and afterwards secured means sufficient to pay his way through
the North Georgia Agricultural College at Dahlonega. After studying law
he began practice at Dawsonville, in Dawson Count.v, but after a few
months removed to Dahlonega, where he enjoyed a successful practice
until 1905. In that year he established his home at Ocilla, and while
looking after his private practice has also served as recorder of the
town and was judge of the County Court of Irwin County for one term.
Judge Bryson is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias, a member
of the Baptist Church and in politics is a democrat. On December 23,
1896. at Dahlonega, he married Miss Lillie F. Gurley, whose parents
were residents of Union County. Judge and Mrs. Bryson have one adopted
daughter. Miss Nellie May, who was born in January, 1908. In addition
to his law practice Judge Bryson takes much interest in farming and
particularly in the intensive cultivation of the soil.
Source: A standard history of Georgia and Georgians, Volume 6 By Lucian
Lamar Knight
Judge James M. Griggs
was born March 29, 1861, in Troup County, Georgia. In. 1881 he
graduated from the Peabody Normal College at Nashville, Tennessee, and
located for practice at Jackson, Georgia. Shortly afterward he became a
resident of Dawson, which was his home during the remainder of his
life. He was elected solicitor general of the Pataula Circuit in 1888,
was re-elected in 1892 and resigned in the following year to accept the
judgeship of the Superior courts of the circuit. Judge Griggs was a
delegate to the national democratic convention of 1892 and in 1896 was
.elected to Congress as a representative of the Second Georgia
District. In that capacity he served in the Fifty-fifth to the
Sixty-first congresses, inclusive, and in 190-1 and 1906 was chairman
of the democratic congressional campaign committee.
Source: A standard history of Georgia and Georgians, Volume 6 By Lucian
Lamar Knight
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