COUNTY TENNESSEE
A resident of Paris and a Tenneassean whose career includes seventy years of lifetime with service as
a Confederate soldier, Mr. Lankford in his generation has emphasized
the honorable characteristics and worthy social and civic faculties which
distinguished an ancestry, two generations of which before him had
their home in this state.
Alexander Hamilton Lankford was born in Carroll county, Tennessee,
on October 25, 1842. His father was Henry Lankford born in
east Tennessee, October 27, 1800, and the grandfather was Tommy
Lankford, born near Guilford, North Carolina. The founder of the
family in America was the great grandfather, a native of Ireland, but
of Scotch ancestry, who came to America when a very young man, about
1735, and located near the present site of Guilford courthouse. He was
a tanner by trade and so far as known spent all his remaining years
near Guilford.
Grandfather Tommy Lankford started west during his young manhood and settled in what is now Tennessee. During the war for independence on the part of the American colony, he rained a company of
partisan rangers, and us their captain led his company at the battle of Kings Mountain*. From eastern Tennessee he came to
that part of Humphreys county, which was later Stuart county and is now Houston
county, and there he spent the remainder of his days on the banks of White Oak River. The children were James. John, William. Henry;
Nancy, who married James Wilson; Prudence, who married William Herndon; Betsy, who married David Benton; and Fanny, who married
a Mr. Wyatt.
Henry Lankford, the latter, came to what is now Houston county,
with his parents, remained there until his marriage, in 1821, and then
with his bride who was then 16 years old set out driving in a coach
drawn by an ox with all her household and earthly possessions piled
in the vehicle, and crossed the Tennessee river and settled two and a
half miles east of the present site of McKenzie in Western Tennessee.
This portion of the state was then a wilderness. Deer and bear and
wild turkeys were found in abundance in the backwoods, and only here
and there was a space cleared for the sunlight where some pioneer
settler's cabin marked the beginning of civilization. On the tract of
land which Henry Lankford bought was situated a good spring, a most
attractive feature of a pioneer homestead. In 1822 he, with his brother-in-law, cleared a tract of land and drove out the rattle snakes and built
a bush arbor on the present site of Shiloh Church, four miles east of
McKenzie, and in September of that year the first camp meeting at
Shiloh was held and meetings have been held there each year since. He
built his first house of poles with a stick and dirt chimney, and the
floor was the beaten ground. It was in that humble home that Alexander
Hamilton Lankford was born. After clearing a small tract of land
about that homestead, Henry Lankford sold and after renting for a
while, on January 1,1852, came to Henry county, buying land a mile and
a half out from Paris. A log house of four rooms stood on the land at
the time, and was later improved and there Henry Lankford spent his
last days and died May 24, 1874.
Henry Lankford married Sarah Hamilton, who was born on Halls
Creek in Humphries county, five miles northwest of Waverly, February
26,1806. Her father was James Hamilton, who is thought to have been
born near the present site of Guilford courthouse in North Carolina.
He was a soldier of the Revolution, fighting with the Colonial arm,
both at Guilford courthouse and at Kings .Mountains. Following the
Revolutionary war he crossed the mountains to Tennessee, becoming one
of the pioneers of Humphreys county. He taught a tract of land five
miles northwest of the present site of Waverly. which was his home
several years, then he moved to Carroll county, where his death occurred.
He and his wife are both buried in the Shiloh cemetery in Carroll
county. James Hamilton married to Miss Guinn. Mrs. Henry Lankford died February 1, 1883, and the quiet grounds of Shiloh cemetery
shelter the remains of both herself and her husband. There were eleven
children in their family who reached maturity, namely: Perlina Jane;
Daniel Mason; Henry Washington; Thomas Newton; James Madison;
Sarah Fredonia; William Smith; Elizabeth P.; Alexander Hamilton;
Julia Judkins; and Flora Isabella. All the children married and all
reared families. One died at the age of thirty-nine, hut all the others
lived to a much greater age.
Inheriting the virtues of such an ancestry, Alexander Hamilton
Lankford has had a career in keeping with the substantial qualities of
the older generations of the family. He attended rural schools as
opportunity offered when he was a boy, and at an early age began
working on the home farm. With the outbreaking of the war in May
1861 he enlisted in Company I of the Fifth Tennessee Volunteer Infantry, and went with the array of the Tennessee, being attached to
Cheatham's Division, and was with his command in all its various
marches, campaigns and battles. Among the many engagements in
which he participated are mentioned the following: New Madrid
Missouri, Shiloh, Perryville Kentucky, Murfeesboro, Chicknmanga,
Missionary Ridge and in the battle of Dalton and all the engagements
against Sherman's army from Dalton to Atlanta, and was in the defense
of Atlanta, and also fought at Jonesboro. where he was seriously
wounded, and Lovejoys Station, then returned with Hood and fought
at Franklin and Nashville. At Nashville he was captured by the
Federals on December 16, 1864, and was taken to Camp Chase in Ohio,
being kept as a prisoner of war until the following March. He was
then taken to Aiken landing on the James River in Virginia, for the
purpose of exchange, but an exchange could not be effected, so that
he was paroled and furloughed, after which lie started for home.
After a long tramp through the country of about fifteen hundred miles
he arrived home May 21, 1865, just four years and one day from the
time he had gone out as a fresh volunteer.
After this long and eventful military career, he took up the quiet
pursuits of the old homestead. On his father's death he purchased a
part of the old home and resided there until 1888. He then moved
to Paris, where he bought a home on Dunlap Street, and in 1891 built
on the same street the house which he now occupies. In 1902 he began
work as a commercial traveler, which he followed for five years, finally
retiring on account of ill health. Since taking up his residence in
Paris, he has invested quite extensively in city property, and is now
one of the large owners of real estate in the city. In 1888 Mr. Lankford
was elected by the County Court assessor of Henry county and he was
unanimously confirmed in that office by popular vote at an election
held a few months later. In 1899 he took charge of the Masonic Home
at Nashville and remained there three years, and in the meantime
developed an interest in farming among the inmates of that institution.
Mr. Lankford was married December 11, 1873, to Lucy Jernigan
who was born six miles west of Paris, a daughter of Thomas P. and
Betsy (Randall) Jernigan. Mr. and Mrs. Lankford have three daughters, Hope, Grace, and Lona. Hope married Albert Eugene Risen, and
has a son named Eugene Hamilton; Grace married Clarence Jesse
Farris, and has a daughter named Elizabeth; Lona married George L.
Powers, and has two sons, George Lankford and Aleck Randall. Mr.
and Mrs. Lankford are both members of the Presbyterian church, and
he is affiliated with the Lodge, Chapter and Knights Templar Commandery of Masonry. He also belongs to the Joe Kendall Camp of
the United Confederate Veterans,
A History of Tennessee and Tennesseans by William Thomas Hale
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