My Genealogy Hound

McFADDEN & SON, merchants of Murfreesboro, Tenn. The business was begun by James S. McFadden in 1852, but was closed at the beginning of the war and resumed in 1866. For the last two years his son, Edgar S., has been his partner. He sold out his stock in March, 1885, and in September of that year established his present general merchandise store, and is making life a success financially. James S. McFadden is the oldest merchant of Rutherford County, and was born near Murfreesboro December 14, 1823, being a son of Samuel and Hollie (Posey) McFadden, natives of South Carolina. The father came to Tennessee when a boy and was reared on a farm in Davidson County. He came to Rutherford County and located on a farm where he reared his family of fourteen children, and was a successful farmer. He was magistrate of his district a number of years and died in 1852. James S. McFadden secured a fair education in his boyhood days, and at the age of eighteen came to this city and engaged as clerk in the mercantile business and worked one year for W. H. Lytle & W. R. McFadden, and then went to Milton with the latter, with whom he remained one year. He engaged in the business for himself in 1844 in Milton, following that occupation there and in Wilson County for nearly two years, and then went to Mississippi, where he remained about six years. In 1851 he returned to Murfreesboro, and in 1852 engaged in the general merchandise business, which he has continued ever since, with the exception of four years during the war, when he was badly crippled financially. March 13, 1844, he married Miss Elizabeth A. Morgan, who bore him six children, five living: Anna E., James T., Laura C., Walter M. and Edgar S. Mr. McFadden was an old time Whig, but is now a Democrat. He was not a participant in the war, but sympathized with the Southern cause. He has been alderman of the city for a number of terms, is a Mason, Knight Templar degree, and he and wife are members of the Presbyterian Church.