Putnam County Biographies

WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERS, lawyer, was born October 17, 1826, at Eatonton, Putnam County. Ga., and died July 6. 1881, at Auburn. Ala.; son of James McCoy and Martha Jones (Alexander) Chambers, the former also a native of Putnam County, Ga., who lived at Eatonton until 1839, and then removed to Columbus, Ga. The father was a man of broad learning, high culture, strikingly handsome In person and filled positions of great usefulnens In the state. In society and In the church. For many years he was asociate editor of the Soil of the South, a loading agricultural journal, and before the War of Secession was a constant contributor to Harper's Magazine and other leading periodicals. He was a son of Henry and Mary Chambers, the former migrating from Virginia to Georgia about the time of the Revolutionary war. His ancestors came from England and were Immediately related to the distinguished family to which Sir William and Sir Robert Chambers, onspicuous In political and literary history f England, belong. The town of Chambersburg, Pa., was settled by three brothers, one of whom later went to Virginia and from that brother the Georgia and Alabama Chambers families are descended. William Henry Chambers' maternal grandparents were William and Elizabeth Alexander, who lived in Putnam County, Ga., and for many years before their deaths in Russell County. Ala. The Alexander ancestors came from Ireland some years before the Revolutionary war and were recipients of magnificent royal favors In Virginia grants or land. The city of Alexandria, Va., received its name from that family.
William Henry Chambers received his early education In the common schools of Eatonton, Ga., and the Manual Labor School at Covington, Ga. He was graduated at Emory College. Oxford, Ga., In 1845. receiving the A. B. degree and taking first honors In his class; later he attended the Law School of Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., graduating there with distinction In 1847. He Immediately began the practice of law in Columbus, Ga.. and rapidly rose to a high position In his profession. In 1854 he removed to Eufaula, Barbour County, Ala., and became associated In practice with Gov. John Eli Shorter and Col. Eli Shorter, under the firm name of Shorter. Chambers & Shorter, which had a large and lucrative practice until the War of Secession called them Into different fields of service of the Confederate government. After only a few years' residence In Barbour County he was elected to the state legislature, serving In 1859 and 1863. He was a life long Democrat and always active In promoting the party's welfare. After the War of Secession, upon retiring to his plantation in Russell County, he was elected to the state senate from the district then composed of Russell and Lee Counties. At the first call for volunteers he raised a company, "The Pioneer Guards," of which he was commissioned captain, at Eufaula, and promptly left for the front. Due to the loss of an eye he had to retire from the active service. He was a Mason; an Odd Fellow; and a member of the Methodist Episcopal church. South; always Identified with its movements, serving In the capacity of steward, trustee and Sunday school superintendent and many times a delegate to annual and general conferences.
     Mr. Chambers was one of the most polished scholars of his day In the state. While not the author of books, he was a constant contributor to papers and periodicals. During the first three years of his practice In Columbus, Ga., he was editor of The Sun, an aggressive Democratic paper In the midst of a Whig constituency. For several years during his residence in Eufaula, Ala., he was editorial contributor to the Eufaula Times, and for many years while residing on his estate In Russell County was editor In chief of the Southern Cultivator, published In Montgomery County. For the last few years of his life he was professor of English literature and agriculture In the Alabama polytechnic institute at Auburn. He was a safe, conservative, conscientious counselor, an orator of force and eloquence, a lawyer of conspicuous ability and success at the bar, an earnest and ever active Christian, a gentleman of the highest refinement. In all the domestic and family relationships a perfect type, a man without guile. Married: May 19, 1847, to Anne Lane Flewellen, a daughter of Dr. Abner Holloway Flewellen, who was of Welsh parentage and lived in Columbus, Ga.. was a well educated man of broad culture and attained a high position In his profession. Children: 1. James Henry, of Atlanta, Ga., m. Mary Flournoy Abercromble; 2. William Lea, of Washington, D. C, m. Laura Ligon Clopton; 3. Porter Flewellen, of New York city, m. Alice Ely; 4. Martha Alexander, of Atlanta, Ga.. m. William Henry Alexander; 5. Robert Jones, of Montgomery, Ala., m. Ella Peet; 6. John Barbour, of St. Louis, Mo., m. Byrd Baker. Last residence: Auburn, Ala.
[Source: History of Alabama and Dictionary of Alabama Biography, By Thomas McAdory Owen, Marie Bankhead Owen, Published by The S. J. Clarke publishing company, 1921; Transcribed by C. Anthony ]

Hon. John Samuel Reid
No family in Putnam County has merited a higher place in general esteem on account of individual and collective worth and usefulness than that of Reid, of which the member mentioned above is now serving with admirable efficiency in the office of probate judge. Judge Reid is a Confederate soldier, and after the issues of the war were decided spent many years as a farmer and business man in Putnam County. He is now living at a good old age in Eatonton and has devoted a number of years to the public service, formerly as a member of the Legislature, and now in the wise and careful handling of the chancery matters that come before his jurisdiction.

John Samuel Reid, was born at Eatonton in Putnam County, Georgia, December 21, 1839, a son of Edmund and Elizabeth (Terrell) Reid. His mother was a cousin to Governor Joseph Terrell of Georgia and a daughter of Richmond and Kitty (Butler) Terrell. The Terrell family has a widespread membership throughout the South, and has been almost equally prominent in Virginia, Georgia and Texas. The Reid family came from Pennsylvania to North Carolina and to Georgia. It was established by the great-grandfather of Judge Reid, Samuel Reid. This "ancestor, Samuel Reid, came from the Northern part of Ireland or Scotland about the middle of the eighteenth century, and first settled in the Piedmont region of Pennsylvania. Some time during the Revolutionary war he raised a company and led it as captain in numerous skirmishes and engagements. Previously he had been a member of the Mecklenburg Convention which framed the original Declaration of Independence. He was prominent as a planter. The grandfather, Alexander Reid, was born in North Carolina, was reared and educated there, and became a farmer and slave owner. He was one of the early settlers of Hancock County, Georgia, and in 1806 moved to Putnam County, where he continued his activities as a planter and owned a large retinue of slaves. He served one term in the State Legislature, and was an active state's rights democrat. His death occurred at the age of sixty-three, and his wife passed away in 1860 at the same age.

Edmund Reid, father of Judge Reid, was the fifth among ten children. He was born in 1802 and died in 1881. As a young man he read law in Putnam County, but gave most of his attention to the business of planting. He sent five sons to the Confederate army.. Prior to the war he was a strong Union man, but after secession he did all in his power to promote the interests of the Confederacy. In 1855 he was a member of the Legislature, and his life was an important contribution to the upbuilding of Putnam County. His wife died in 1882 at the age of eighty. The family were all members of the Presbyterian Church. The eight children of Edmund and Elizabeth Reid were: Captain Richmond A. Reid, who served in the quartermaster's department of the Twelfth Georgia Regiment until the end of the war and died in Putnam County in 1881; James S., who was a lieutenant colonel of the Third Georgia Regiment, later a farmer in Morgan County, and died there in 1885; Ann C., wife of Maj. W. A. Wilson, lives in Morgan County, Georgia; Mary Frances is the widow of Judge Thomas G. Lawson of Eatonton; William T., who served in the Twenty-second Georgia Battalion of the State Troops, was a farmer in Putnam County until his death in 1912; the next in order in the family is Judge Reid; Edward T. Reid was killed at the Battle of McDonald, Virginia, while in the Twelfth Georgia Division;' Susan is the wife of P. W. Walton of Madison, Georgia.

Judge Reid spent his youth on his father's plantation in Putnam County, attended the public schools of Eatonton, and before the war was a student in the Georgia Military College at Marietta. At the age of twenty-one he enlisted in Company B of the Third Georgia Regiment, Wright's Brigade, and was present in a number of notable engagements in Virginia and elsewhere. He was severely wounded September 17, 1862, at Sharpsburg, Maryland, and was again wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg on Cemetery Heights, where he was left lying on the field and was taken prisoner. He was sent to Johnson's Island in Lake Erie and was held a prisoner there until the close of the war.

With the close of the war came the duties of peace in a devastated country, and for twenty-five years he was successfully identified with farming in Putnam County. In the meantime civic honors came to him, and in 1880 he was elected to the State Senate and in 1886 sent to the Lower House of the Legislature. While in the Legislature he proved a strong but generally conservative influence, and was more interested in the quality of legislation than in the quantity. In 1906 he was elected ordinary or probate judge, and his administration of that office has been characterized by a tendency to settle disputes among heirs without resorting to costly litigation, and in this office as in all other relations he has won hosts of friends and admirers.

Judge Reid is a Jeffersonian democrat, and is a member of the Methodist Church. In 1866 he married for his first wife Louise Dennis of Putnam County, daughter of William Dennis. Mrs. Reid died in 1879, the mother of five children, three of whom died in infancy. One of the survivors was Dr. E. Hunter Reid, who graduated from the Baltimore Dental College and was connected with the Georgia State Sanitarium when he died. William Dennis Reid, the only one living of the first marriage, is a scholar and educator, graduated A. B. from the Georgia State University, took his master's degree at the University of Wisconsin, and has also pursued post-graduate studies in Columbia University at New York. In 1881 Judge Reid married Miss Mary Johnston, who was born in Texas, a daughter of William and Mary (Reece) Johnston. Mrs. Reid died in 1910, without children.
Source: "A Standard History of Georgia and Georgians" by Lucian Lamar Knight, 1917 - Submitted by Brenda Wiesner

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