My Genealogy Hound

JAMES M. BUCKNER was born in Davidson County, Tenn., August 20, 1840. His father, James Buckner, was a Virginian by birth, and his mother, Minerva Cook, was a native of Tennessee and a sister of Judge William Cook, of the supreme bench of Tennessee. James M. Buckner was the youngest of five children born to them, and was born after the death of his father, which occurred in January, 1840, in Mississippi. James M. attended school at the Mount Juliet Academy in Tennessee, and when sixteen years old went to Cadiz, Trigg Co., Ky., and became a salesman in a dry goods house, where he remained until 1864, when he went to New York City and engaged in the tobacco business. He soon after became a partner in the wholesale dry goods house of Miller, Gardner & Co., at Evansville, Ind., from whence he came to Paducah in 1867. Since the latter date he has been constantly in the tobacco trade, in which he is a pronounced leader, having handled in a single year tobacco to the value of $2,167,000. He has been associated with various other dealers in Paducah, and the style of the firm is now James M. Buckner & Co., of which he has the entire management. Mr. Buckner was first married to Miss Bettie Torian, of Christian County, Ky., who died in 1862, leaving one daughter, Julia, wife of Jacob Spears, now of Florida. His present wife, to whom he was married in 1872, Miss Bettie Murrell, a daughter of S. F. Murrell, of Paducah. This union has been blessed with the following children: Pearl, Murrell, James, Mary and Blanche Buckner. Mr. Buckner is a member of the Masonic fraternity, K. of H., and of the Christian Church.