Dresden Enterprise Apr 24 1896 - The Illustrated Edition Part 10 "B.B. Edwards"

This is the tenth in a multi-part series featuring the April 24 1896 edition of the Dresden Enterprise.  If you missed the previous posts you can find them here: part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, part six, part seven, part eight, part nine.

On a distant branch of the Moran family tree you will find the Edwards family.  Benjamin B. Edwards was born about 1830 in Dresden, Tennessee.  Date of death is unknown but it was after 1900 because he appears in the 1900 Census.  He was just one of many children born to Thomas Cotton Edwards and Pauline Bransford Bondurant.  His first wife was Martha Morilla Cotton (1836-1857).  After her death he married Hugh Alzira Sutton (1840-death unknown).  Alzira and Benjamin several children: Martha M (1861-?), Latham (1863-?), William C. Edwards (1866-?), Paulina (1867-?) Nathan (1868-?) and Benjamin (1874-?).  

His occupation in 1850 was "student". In 1860 he is still living at home with his parents and he is an attorney. In 1870 he and Alzira have their home and 5 children.  The 1880 Census lists his occupation as Clerk of the Chancery Court.. He is a Circuit Court Clerk in 1900.

Several of their children move to Gainesville Texas.   We have a picture of their sons Will and Nate. 

Will and Nate Edwards, ca 1890

In addition to Benjamin Edwards I've written a post about his nephew James Thomas Edwards.  He was part of the Edwards family that moved to Gainesville.  James Thomas Edwards married Josie Lee Gardner, daughter of a well know Weakley county person, John Almus Gardner of Gardner's Station and his wife Agnes Hunter Cowardin (a Moran cousin). 

B.B. Edwards

Our present clerk and master was born here in Dresden in 1830  in the same residence he now occupies and received a most liberal education here at home.  At the age of eighteen he began teaching school, continuing two terms.  Forty-seven years ago he became a disciple of Blackstone, his preceptor being Hon. Emerson Etheridge.  In 1851 he was admitted to the bar to practice law and for years enjoyed a fine practice--until, in fact, he was appointed clerk and master, which position he has held for twenty-one years.  he is a most scholarly gentleman, and always has a tender regard for the feelings of others.  He and Mr. Etheridge are the only lawyers living here now who practiced in those early days, and neither of them is practicing at this time.  he raised a large family of children who have made honored and useful citizens, but today each has found a home elsewhere, and Mr. Edwards and his wife are passing their declining years alone.  Theirs have been model lives.  Mr. Edwards is a member of no church, but holds in high esteem any organization having as its object the betterment of the human race.  In politics he is a Democrat, and while he has never been an offensive partisan, he is still a good party man.

The complete list of links in this multi-part series:
part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, part six, part seven, part eight, part nine, part ten, part eleven, part twelve, part thirteen, part fourteen, part fifteen, part sixteen, part seventeen, part eighteen, part nineteen, part twenty, part twenty-one, part twenty-two, part twenty-three.