| Notes |
- (1) From "Taproots" by Paul R. White, p47
"Thomas Eldridge Ayres, Jr. was the son of Thomas Eldridge Ayres and Olivia Winfield Blackwell. He was born at Humanity Hall, Buckingham County, Virginia 22 June of 1974. His father died when he was only a few months old. He came to Tennessee when he was a boy (about 1888), and learned telegraphy under his uncle, Elijah Hanes Ayres, at Dresden, Tennessee. He then went to work July 1890 as Agent-Operator at Hollow Rock, Tennessee for the Nashville, Chattanooga, and St. Louis Railway, for whom he worked for many years (per letter from F. E. Carpenter, Superintendent, NC & St. L. Railway, 6 March of 1947). He was stationed at Box (now Denver), Tennessee, as railroad agent. There he met Sarah Elizabeth Rushing, known as "Sadie", and married her on 6 November of 1895 in Benton County, Tennessee. He appears as 25 years old on the 1900 census at Box, Tennessee. He was raised to Masters degree in Masonry in 1910. In 1898, together with his wife's brother, Virgil Alonzo Rushing, he organized the Duck River Grain Company. He was engaged in this business for many years, and not a few of them quite prosperous. On 10 January of 1920, he submitted the following account of his holdings:
Chicago...........$6,899,99
Notes.............$6,899.99
Accounts..........$1,777.77
Banks.............$6,234.56
Corn on Hand......$2,987.65
W. M. Sykes.........$987.65
Chowder...........$1,456.78
B. M. Bibb..........$149.83
Check on Hand........$44.53
Bonds............$23,000.00
Total............$50,428.75
During the 1920's, however, after extensive speculations on futures in the grain market, his business holdings suffered serious reverses, and he was left insolvent. He had issue by his first wife, Hanes Eldridge Ayres, Beulah Mai Ayres, Mildred Letcher Ayres.
He was divorced from Sadie, his first wife, and married, secondly, Ora Lee Warren. They were married in Nashville, Tennessee, on 3 January of 1920. They had issue, Thomas Eldridge Ayres, III.
They made their home in Hickman, Fulton County, Kentucky, prior to the time that his second marriage also ended in divorce, and he returned to Humphreys County, Tennessee, where he lived with his daughter, Beulah Mai Ayres, first at Bakerville, and then at Waverly. He died in Waverly on 15 September of 1949, and is buried in Wyly Cemetery, Waverly, Humphreys County, Tennessee, alongside his first wife.
p48-49
"In 1898, Thomas E. Ayres entered into a partnership with one V. A. Rushing, and together they organized the Duck River Grain Co. at Denver, Tenn., which has since developed into one of the most extensive grain concerns in the state. The firm handles fully 95% of the output of the county, as relates to grain and, in addition thereto, they handle all kinds of produce. The concern, all departments considered, is easily one of the biggest in this section of the state, and is conducted on a sane and solid basis which insures its continued growth in the right direction.
Thomas E. Ayres, Jr., was born in Buckingham County, Virginia, on July 22, 1874, son of Thomas E., Sr. and Olivia W. (Blackwell) Ayres. The father was born in Buckingham County on June 13, 1847, and he was a son of Mathias I. Ayres, a native of Virginia and a prominent and wealthy planter of that state. Mathias Ayres was a large slave holder, owning more than 100 slaves, and the war practically ruined him, like unto many of his class. He died shortly after the war, broken in spirit and in fortune. His son, Thomas E., the father of the subject of this review, spent his entire life in Virginia, and was educated in the University of Virginia, taking his degree of M. A. in 1871. He made his home with his father until the outbreak of the war and he was only 16 years of age when he enlisted in the 10th Virginia Artiller
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1874 - 1949 (75 years)
