My Genealogy Hound

Capt. Thomas D. Deavenport was born in Lawrence County September 18, 1837, son of Thomas D. and Maria P. (Lucas) Deavenport. The father, when a boy, came from Virginia to Tennessee about 1810, his father being Matthew Deavenport. They settled in Giles County, where Matthew Deavenport was a prominent Baptist divine. About 1821 our subject’s father moved to Lawrence County, where he farmed, sold goods, manufactured cotton and worked at the brick mason’s trade. He was a Jeffersonian Democrat and an influential citizen. He represented his county in the State Legislature during the forties. His death occurred in 1854, and his widow’s in 1862. Capt. Thomas D. Deavenport was reared on his father’s farm, and completed his education at Jackson College, Columbia, but left school one session before graduation, owing to his father’s death. He soon went to Kansas, where he remained during the difficulties in that State over the question of squatter sovereignty. He assisted in the Government surveys there. In 1857 he returned to Tennessee, locating in Hardin County, where he began clerking in a mercantile establishment. Later in the same year he began studying law under John S. Kennedy, at Florence, Ala. In 1858 he taught school in Lawrenceburg, continuing his legal studies, and was that year admitted to the bar, and soon began practicing. In 1861 he assisted in organizing Capt. W. P. Moore’s company of the Thirty-second Regiment, and was made lieutenant, and upon the reorganization of the regiment was promoted to the captaincy. More than once on the field he was in command of his regiment, notably at Jonesboro, Ga., where he was shot through the lungs by a minie-ball. This incapacitated him for further service. After the war he resumed his practice, and has thus continued since. Capt. Deavenport is an uncompromising Democrat. In 1870 he was a member of the Constitutional Convention, and in 1877 served with distinction in the State Senate. In 1858 he married Miss Amanda Finch, who died in 1863. By this marriage he has three daughters: Martha M., Jennie L. and Mannie F. In 1875 Mr. Deavenport married Mrs. Zuba (Dustin) Fillmore, who has presented her husband with two sons: Thomas E. and William H. Capt. Deavenport is a Mason and an adherent of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. His wife is an Episcopalian.