My Genealogy Hound

HON. R. P. McCLAIN, attorney at law, of Lebanon, Tenn., is a son of John A. and Minerva (Ross) McClain, and one of their ten children. He was born February, 1838, in Wilson County, and received his rudimentary education in the academies of his native county, and afterward entered the Cumberland University as a junior at the age of twenty, graduating in June, 1860. In 1861 he enlisted in Company H, Seventh Regiment Tennessee Infantry, and in 1862 was given a position in the quartermaster’s department. In 1862 he was made paymaster in A. P. Hill’s division, and held the position until the close of the war. From 1866 to 1867 he studied law in Cumberland University, graduating at the latter date. February 26 of the same year he married Hettie McKenzie, daughter of Alexander McKenzie. Mrs. McClain was born in Illinois in 1842, and is the mother of four children: Jennie, Minnie, Alexander and Hettie. Mr. McClain first practiced his profession with A. Vick as partner, continuing until 1870, when he was appointed deputy clerk of the county court, succeeding his uncle, J. S. McClain, who had been clerk for forty years in succession. He held the position, by re-election, for eight years. In 1875 he was elected to the lower house of the State Legislature, and from 1876 to 1883 was clerk and master of the Chancery Court of Wilson County. Since then he has practiced law. In 1875 he and his brother. J. T., became proprietors of a drygoods store, and since 1884 the firm has been known as McClain Bros. & Co. They keep a general line of goods and occupy eight rooms 100 feet long. Mr. McClain has been a leading man of Lebanon for the past twenty years, and is a shrewd business manager and successful financier. The father, John McClain, was of Scotch-Irish descent and was born in Tennessee in 1807. He was a farmer and the possessor of 400 acres at the time of his death in 1867. The mother was of Scotch descent, born in Wilson County in 1809.