My Genealogy Hound

Capt. W. J. Lyle, an influential citizen and farmer of the Second District, was born in March, 1832, in Montgomery County, Tenn., and is the son of Thomas H. Lyle, who was born in Smith County, April 2, 1807, but lived from childhood in Montgomery County to the time of his death, February 22, 1850. For a number of years he was deputy sheriff and tax collector of Montgomery County. Our subject’s mother, Margaret M. Wilkerson, was born April 28, 1807, in Sumner County, and died aged seventy-nine. He was of Scotch-Irish ancestry. For three years before his father’s death he was a confirmed in valid, and the support of the family devolved upon Capt. Lyle; he remained on the farm until he was twenty-five, when he removed to Haywood County and was salesman for Alexander, Black & Co. Two years later the firm sold out and he received a position as book-keeper for Stewart & King, cotton and commission merchants of Memphis, and a year later he went to Mansfield, Henry County, and took charge of a dry goods house and cotton factory for W. H. Thompson; but after a year the excitement over the war decided Capt. Lyle to return to Haywood County, where he soon after made up a company, of which he was captain, and went into the service soon after the battle of Shiloh, but was soon discharged on account of ill health; since then he has farmed very successfully. In 1867 he was elected deputy sheriff and continued in that office until 1876, when he was elected sheriff, and held the office until 1880, when he was elector, from the Ninth Congressional District, of the Republican party, against T. E. Richardson, of the Democratic party of Dyer County, and G. B. Hisk, of Gibson County, for the Greenback party. August, 1882, he was elected trustee of the county and served one term; also made the canvass for Congress in 1882, with Rice and Pierce of Obion County, and was defeated by 4,700 votes, his opponent not carrying the party vote by 3,500. In 1884 he was elected to the State Senate, from the Thirtieth Senatorial District, over W. B. Claybourne by 900 majority. Capt. Lyle married October 9, 1856, at Dancyville, Sarah V., daughter of Oliver and Elizabeth Alexander. They have had ten children: Addison A., Thomas O., Gray W., Susan Lillian, Lizzie D., W. Jesse, Willie N., Fred W., Otis and Ruth. Capt. Lyle is a self-made man; he has acquired his money and his education by his own efforts. He is a man of large influence in his county, is a Republican, a Master Mason, a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, and of the K. of H. and the A. O. U. W.