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Cival War Veteran; Company C, 17th Tennessee Infantry
Martha Lucinda Mallory was born on November 5, 1862,in Haywood County, Tennessee, near Friendship, in western Tennessee. She was the third of four daughters born in Franklin, Tennessee, Williamson County, in "Middle" Tennessee. Her parents were married on September 17, 1846, and went to live on land owned by his father in Haywood County in western Tennessee. He was a farmer, I'm sure. Four daughters were born to them. When "Mattie" Mallory was 16 years old, her teacher at the school near her home was an attractive man named Solomon Columbus Meadows. He was ten years older than she was, tall, with dark hair and hazel eyes. She was small, with curly auburn hair and brown eyes. They fell in love, but her mother would not consent to her marriage until she was older. Her father apparently was ill at that time, and died the following year. After her husband's death, Catharine Mallory moved to the town of Friendship, and it was there, on December 22, 1870, that Martha Lucinda Mallory and Solomon Columbus Meadows were married. That marriage lasted forty-four years.
Solomon Columbus Meadows was born on October 15, 1842, in Spring Place, near Lewisburn, in Marshall County, Tennessee. He was one of thirteen children born to Wolomon and Lucinda Davis Meadows. His parents were born in 1800 and 1803, in Kentucky. Solomon Meadows was a farmer, but Solomon Columbus was educated to be a teacher. He was 15 years old when the Civil War began, and along with the other young men in Marshall County he enlisted in Company C, 17th Tennessee Infantry. The 17th Tennessee was involved in a number of battles in Kentucky and Tennessee. At some point during the war, he became a scout for General John Bell Hood, Confederate Commander of the Army of the Tennessee. When he returned home from the war in 1865, he took a teaching position in Cornersville, Tennessee, not far from his home. He stayed there two years, then moved to Chestunut Bluff, in Haywood County, in western Tennessee. It was there that he fell in love with 16 year old Martha Lucinda Mallory, one of his students. Two years later , when she was 18 years old, they married at the home of her mother in Friendship, Tenneesse, on December 22, 1870.
Following their marriage, the couple moved to Kenton,Tennessee, north of Memphis. He was the principal of a school called the "Male and Female Academy". Their first child, John William Meadows was born on March 11, 1872. The following year they moved back to Friendship, and Solomon Columbus started his own school. Three more sons were born to them, and a daughter, who died in infancy. In 1889, the family moved to Wichita Falls, Texas, where he continued to teach, and where John William graduated from school with a teachers certificate. So far as I know, he never became a teacher. He took a job as bookkeeper for a lumber company in Abilene, Texas, and was later transferred to Rockport, Texas. The rest of the family soon followed him there, and Solomon continued to teach in the Rockport, Port Lavaca area until his health failed. By that time, all the other boys had left home and were working in other areas of the state, and were married. John William never married, and assumed the responsibility of caring for his parents. Around 1900, when he moved to Spur, Texas, as bookkeeper for the Musser Lumber Company, his parents moved with him. They lived there until their deaths, and were buried in the cemetery there.
Solomon Columbus died in Spur on March 9, 1914, he was 72 years old. Martha Lucinda Meadows died February 11, 1938. She was 85 years old.
Submitted by Pauline Meadows Bourdon
NEWS OF THE WEEK--The Rev. T. H. FEAGIN, a leading Baptist preacher, of Texas, was killed by lightening while conducting a revival meeting at China, Texas. He had just called upon sinners to repent. An indictment charging murder in the first degree has been returned against C. B. MEADOWS, the Fort Worth, Texas engineer, held as as a suspect in the Houston's alleged trunk murder mystery.
1908 THE STATES GRAPHIC VOLUME 40---NUMBER 31 FRIDAY JULY 10, 1908 BROWNSVILLE, TENNESSEE
S. C. Meadows died Tuesday at the home of his son, J. W. Meadows and the remains were interred Wednesday in the Spur cemetery. Mr. Meadows had been in ill health a number of years, and on account of his ill health and the infirmities of age the father and mother were persuaded by their son to come last year from their home in South Texas to Spur where he could care for and administer to them in the declining days. J. W. Meadows is a worthy son, and to he and his mother we extend our sympathy and condolence in this bereavement.©The Texas Spur, March 13, 1914
From the scrapbook of Lillian Grace Nay, transcribed by Linda Hughes
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