1. William Gannaway "Parson" Brownlow was an American newspaper publisher, Methodist minister, book author, prisoner of war, lecturer, and politician who served as the 17th governor of Tennessee from 1865 to 1869 and as a United States Senator from Tennessee from 1869 to 1875.
Parson Brownlow returned to Tennessee in 1863 and in 1865 became governor with support of the US Army behind him.
Parson Brownlow aligned with the Radical Republicans in the state, supporting President Lincoln's Civil War and Reconstruction era policies and spent much of his term opposing the policies of Conservative Republicans.
Joseph Parson Brownlow, an itinerant farmer, was born in Augusta County, Virginia in 1782 and died during 1816 in Blountville, Tennessee and Catherine Gannaway followed three months later, leaving William orphaned at the age of 10.
The first Parson Brownlow forebear in Virginia was William Parson Brownlow, who was born in Magherafelt, Ulster in 1709 and emigrated to Virginia in 1731.
At age 18, Parson Brownlow went to Abingdon where he learned the trade of carpentry from another uncle, George Winniford.
In 1825, Parson Brownlow attended a camp meeting near Sulphur Springs, Virginia, where he experienced a dramatic spiritual rebirth.
Parson Brownlow applied to join the travelling ministry, and was admitted that year by Bishop Joshua Soule.
In defending his Methodist Church and its early leaders, Parson Brownlow, took such debates to a whole new level, attacking not only Baptist and Presbyterian theology but the character of his rival missionaries.
In 1828, Parson Brownlow was sued for slander, but the suit was dismissed.
In 1831, Parson Brownlow was sued for libel by a Baptist preacher, and ordered to pay his accuser $5.
Parson Brownlow married a younger Eliza Ann O'Brien during 1836 in Carter County, Tennessee, where the two resided in her hometown of Elizabethton.
Parson Brownlow began working as a clerk managing her family's O'Brien Furnace, which was located along the banks of the Doe River at Valley Forge about four miles southeast of Elizabethton.
Parson Brownlow cut his teeth in the newspaper business during 1838 writing for the short-lived Elizabethton Republican and Manufacturer's Advocate, initially under its editor William Gott.
Brownlow partnered with the Elizabethton newspaper publisher, Mason R Lyon, and as the editor within their partnership, with the agreement that Brownlow would receive one-third of the new profits from the Tennessee Whig.
Parson Brownlow had brought along Valentine Garland along as a new business partner within his Jonesboro Whig enterprise.
In 1845, Parson Brownlow ran against Andrew Johnson for the state's 1st District seat in the US House of Representatives.
Parson Brownlow supported Whig policies such as a national bank, federal funding for internal improvements, developing industries within northeast Tennessee, and a weakened presidency.
Parson Brownlow called Andrew Jackson the "greatest curse that ever yet befell this nation," and attacked Jackson's supporters, the Locofocos, in his 1844 book, A Political Register.
Parson Brownlow blamed this act on Knoxville's newspaper interests, who feared his competition.
Parson Brownlow joined the Sons of Temperance in 1850, and promoted temperance policies in the Whig.
Parson Brownlow quarreled with the radical Southern Citizen, a pro-secession newspaper published by businessman William G Swan and Irish patriot John Mitchel, and on at least one occasion, threatened Swan with a revolver.
Smith, editor of the Abingdon Virginian, accused Parson Brownlow of having stolen jewelry at a camp meeting.
Parson Brownlow denied the charge, and accused Smith of being an adulterer.
At a meeting of the Methodists' Holston Conference that year, Smith tried unsuccessfully to have Parson Brownlow expelled from the church.
Parson Brownlow stated that most Methodists were descended from Revolutionary War loyalists, and accused the Methodist Church founder, John Wesley, of believing in ghosts and witches.
Parson Brownlow argued that while it was common in Wesley's time for people to believe in ghosts, he provided evidence that many Presbyterian ministers still believed in such things.
Parson Brownlow derided Ross as a "habitual adulterer" and the son of a slave, and accused his relatives of stealing and committing indecent acts.
Parson Brownlow quickly fired back with The Great Iron Wheel Examined; Or, Its False Spokes Extracted, published that same year.
The challenge was initially accepted by Frederick Douglass, but Parson Brownlow refused to debate him because of his race.
At the debate, which took place in Philadelphia in September 1858, Parson Brownlow stated in his opening argument:.
Parson Brownlow argued that secessionists wanted to form a country governed by "purse-proud aristocrats" of the Southern planter class.
Parson Brownlow endorsed his friend, pro-Union candidate John Bell, for president in 1860, and in September of that year, interrupted a pro-Breckinridge rally in Knoxville to spar with the rally's keynote speaker, William Lowndes Yancey of Alabama.
When South Carolina seceded following Lincoln's election in November 1860, Parson Brownlow derided the state and its "miserable cabbage-leaf of a Palmetto flag" as being descended from British loyalists, thus giving it an affinity for the aristocratic types that would govern the proposed Southern Confederacy.
Knoxville's Democrats tried to counter Brownlow by installing radical secessionist J Austin Sperry as editor of the Knoxville Register, touching off an editorial war that lasted throughout much of the year.
Parson Brownlow called Sperry a "scoundrel" and a "debauchee," and mocked the relatively small circulation of the Register.
In May and June 1861, Parson Brownlow represented Knox County at the East Tennessee Convention, which unsuccessfully petitioned the state legislature to allow East Tennessee to form a separate, Union-aligned state.
On October 24,1861, Parson Brownlow suspended publication of the Whig after announcing Confederate authorities were preparing to arrest him.
Parson Brownlow was escorted to Nashville, and crossed over into Union-controlled territory on March 3,1862.
In Philadelphia, publisher George W Childs convinced Brownlow to write a book, Sketches of the Rise, Progress, and Decline of Secession, which was completed in May 1862.
Parson Brownlow returned to Nashville in early 1863, and followed Ambrose Burnsides's forces back to Knoxville in September.
Parson Brownlow spent a portion of 1864 attempting to reorganize his church's Holston Conference and realign it with the northern Methodists.
Parson Brownlow was nominated for governor by a convention of Tennessee Unionists in January 1865.
Parson Brownlow later strengthened this law to require prospective voters to prove they had supported the Union.
Parson Brownlow tried to impose fines for wearing a Confederate uniform, and attempted to bar Confederate ministers from performing marriages.
Parson Brownlow's successor signed it and the amendment was ratified.
Parson Brownlow's opponent was Emerson Etheridge, a frequent critic of the Brownlow administration.
Forrest suggested that a proclamation of Parson Brownlow called for shooting members of the Klan.
Forrest and twelve other Klan members submitted a petition to Parson Brownlow, stating they would cease their activities if Confederates were given the right to vote.
Parson Brownlow rejected this and set about reorganizing the state guard and pressing the legislature for still greater enforcement powers.
In October 1868, prior to the election, Parson Brownlow discarded all registered voters in Lincoln County.
Parson Brownlow, believing Klan intimidation to be the reason for their defeat, rejected the votes from Marshall and Coffee counties, allowing Tillman to win, and rejected the votes from Fayette and Tipton counties, allowing Smith to win.
Parson Brownlow dispatched five state guard companies to occupy Pulaski, where the Klan had been founded.
Parson Brownlow remained a divisive figure for decades after his death.
Journalist Steve Humphrey argued that Parson Brownlow was a talented newspaper editor and reporter, as evidenced by his reporting on events such as the opening of the Gayoso Hotel in Memphis and Knoxville's 1854 cholera epidemic.
The Capitol Committee of the Tennessee General Assembly removed the official portrait of Governor Parson Brownlow that had only been briefly installed during April 1987 within the Legislative Library of state capitol building, upon the recommendation of Democratic Tennessee state Senator Douglas Henry.
Parson Brownlow married Eliza O'Brien during 1836 in Elizabethton, Tennessee.
Parson Brownlow's father was 25 years older than her mother; James O'Brien and three of his brothers operated iron mines in East Tennessee.
Eliza O'Brien Parson Brownlow lived at the family's home formerly on East Cumberland Avenue in Knoxville until her death in 1914 at the age of 94.
Parson Brownlow served as an adjutant general in the state guard during his father's term as governor.
Walter P Brownlow, a nephew of Parson Brownlow, served as a US congressman from Tennessee's 1st district from 1897 until his death.
James Stewart Martin, another nephew of Parson Brownlow, served as a US congressman from Illinois in the mid-1870s.
Parson Brownlow served a tumultuous 3-year term as Knoxville's city manager in the 1920s.