My Genealogy Hound

JOE H. FUSSELL, of Columbia, Tenn., and attorney-general of the Ninth Judicial Circuit, was born in Maury County on the 12th of January, 1836, and is a son of Henry B. and Eliza C. (Kincaid) Fussell, who were born in North Carolina and Tennessee, respectively. Both of our subject’s grandfathers, John Fussell and Joseph Kincaid were among the very early and prominent pioneers of Maury County. Henry B. was reared in Maury County and removed to Columbia when our subject was six years of age, and died here December 16, 1876. He was a carpenter by trade and was an old-line Whig in politics as long as that party existed. He was one of the founders of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church at Columbia. Joe H. was educated in Columbia and graduated from Jackson College in 1855. He taught school in the preparatory department one year and then took the chair of mathematics and languages in his old alma mater. He afterward had charge of the mathematical department of the old Ravenscroft School, but had been a reader of Blackstone in the meantime, and also worked at the carpenter’s trade, which he had learned of his father, and taught school alternately, in order to secure means to enable him to complete his law studies. He read under Col. A. N. Looney, and Judges William Martin and A. O. P. Nicholson, and in August, 1860, was admitted to the Maury County bar, and practiced his profession until the breaking out of the war, when he enlisted as a private in Company E, First Battalion Tennessee, Cavalry, afterward First Tennessee Regiment, and was made first lieutenant of his company, and the last two years of the war commanded a squadron of the regiment, ranking as captain. He served four years and was with his company in 318 engagements. After the surrender of the South he was not allowed to remain in Columbia by the Federals, owing to his refusal to take the oath of allegiance and was compelled to repair to the Barrens, where he remained a year. In 1866 he resumed his law practice in Columbia, continuing until 1870, when he was elected attorney-general, and has served by re-election up to the present time. In 1882 he was nominated by what was known as the State Credit Democratic Convention for governor of Tennessee, but was defeated by the low tax element. In 1885 he was elected president of the Tennessee State Temperance Alliance. He is now the champion of the prohibition element in the State in the fight against the whisky ring. He is making the race for judge of the Ninth Judicial Circuit, subject to the August, 1886, election. Margaret Roberts became his wife in January, 1873. Mr. Fussell is a Mason, Knight Templar degree, and is Post and Past Commander of DeMolay Commandery, No. 3, of Columbia, and is Grand Commander of the State. He and wife are members of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, of which he has been ruling elder since 1856.