My Genealogy Hound

W. D. Gold, clerk and master of chancery court, editor of The Record and lawyer, was born in Smith County, in 1847. He is the son of Pleasant and Constance (Gwaltney) Gold. The father, of English origin, was born in 1806, in Culpeper County, Va., and when fourteen he came to Wilson County, Tenn., with a sickly brother and four or five small sisters to care for, orphans. Here he was largely engaged in sawing lumber by whip-saw, and rafting it down to Nashville. In 1844 he bought a farm near Gordonsville, and from 1856 to 1870 he with his brother was merchandising, and speculating in tobacco a few years after. He died in 1876. The mother, born in 1812 in Smith County, is still living with her two younger sons. Our subject, one of seven children, graduated at New Middleton College (co-educational) in 1870. He taught five months’ school in his 1869 vacation, and after graduating was principal of Liberty Masonic Academy, Tennessee, for twenty-five months. In 1873 he began the study of law under Hon. W. S. De Witt, Carthage, now of Chattanooga. Admitted to the bar the same year, he acquired a reputation for accuracy in chancery court proceedings. He devoted his entire time to practice until appointed clerk and master of chancery by Judge Crowley in 1877, since which he has held the office. He began his editorship in 1883. The Record is now one of the newsiest local papers in the State, with a weekly issue of 1,344 copies, and constantly increasing subscriptions, was practically a dead paper when he took it, issuing 600 copies free with no subscription list. Printed entirely at home, it now receives outside news by telegraph, and in its politics conservative and Democratic. In April, 1876, he married Willie Cullom, daughter of Mrs. V. A. Cullom, and born in Wayne County, Ky., in 1852. They have four children: William L, Marie, Virginia N. and Leslie J. Mr. Gold is a member of the Missionary Baptist Church, while his wife is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church South.