My Genealogy Hound

Robert N. Irvine, merchant, of Dresden, Tenn., was born in 1828 in Buckingham County, Va. His father, Samuel Irvine, was of Scotch-Irish descent, and was born in the same county and State as his son, in 1802. He was also a merchant and held county offices for upward of twenty years. His father, Walter Irvine, was a native of the Emerald Isle, and when a young man came to the United States and became a merchant of Jamestown, Va. Samuel, in 1824, married Catherine Jones and in 1833 came to Weakley County, Tenn., and followed merchandising. He became the owner of 500 acres of land, and as he was a man of fine intellect and business capacity, was elected clerk of the circuit court of Weakley County in 1844, and held the office until his death in 1863. He was highly honorable in every respect and led an exemplary and useful life. His wife was born in Nottoway County, Va., in 1808, and died in 1882. After Mr. Irvine’s death she married James McDaniel, who is also dead. There were six children in the Irvine family, three of whom are living: Benjamin D., a miller, of Dresden; Samuel, who farms the old home stead, and our subject, who was educated in the neighboring schools and Dresden. At the age of twenty he began clerking in Dresden and at the age of five years he and a brother bought the general merchandise store of Isaac Winston and began business for themselves. In 1856 Robert N. purchased the entire stock of goods, but in 1861 moved to Paducah, Ky., where he remained until 1865, when he returned to Dresden and reopened a store, and here has since remained. April 20, 1853, he married Nannie Winston, who was born in Virginia June 11, 1835, and by her became the father of five children: Clarence B., Annie (wife of Dr. R. R. Winston), Walter and William G. (who died December 14, 1879, while attending the literary department of the Vanderbilt University at Nashville) and Mattie Lee. In 1858 and 1859 he was engaged in the manufacture of tobacco, and the two following years ran the stage line from Hickman, Ky., to Camden, Tenn. Since 1876 he has dealt in leaf tobacco. He is a Democrat and Mason, and his wife and two daughters are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church South.