My Genealogy Hound

Capt. William L. Bromley, postmaster and an early citizen of Waynesboro, Tenn., was born in Wayne County June 26, 1827, and is one of seven children born to the marriage of John Bromley and Edith Hurst, natives, respectively, of Virginia and North Carolina. John Bromley, grandfather of our subject, located in Wayne County in 1818, having located in Giles County the previous year. His son, John, married and reared his family in Wayne County, and followed a farmer’s life, being one of the successful agriculturists of his day. He died in the Third District July 26, 1850. The mother lived until March 30, 1884, having attained her seventy-seventh year. William L. spent his early days on his father’s farm, and secured but a limited education in the primitive subscription schools of his day. At the age of twenty-two he began tilling the soil on his own responsibility, and continued that occupation until the breaking out of the war, when he enlisted in the Confederate Army, Company I, First Tennessee Cavalry. In 1862 he was chosen captain of Company F, Ninth Tennessee Battalion of Cavalry, and served in this capacity until the close of the war. He then resumed farming, but in 1869 engaged in the general merchandise business as clerk at Flat Woods post office. In February, 1876, he came to Waynesboro, where he has since been very successfully engaged in the general merchandise business. The firm is composed of himself and R. C. Martin. In October, 1885, he was made postmaster of Waynesboro, and has been a competent and highly satisfactory office-holder. The captain is an unswerving Democrat in politics, and is a Royal Arch Mason.