Georgia and Georgians - the Digital Library of Georgia

2980 GEORGIA AND GEORGIANSThe schools at Norwood afforded to A. E. Massengale his early educationalprivileges, and in 1889 he entered Emory College, at Oxford, in which wellknown Georgia institution he was graduated in 1893. Thereafter he wasassociated with his father in the mercantile business at Norwood from 1895until 1907, in which latter year he assumed the position of traveling salesman for a Chattanooga, Tennessee, wholesale house, which he continued torepresent through Georgia, Florida and South Carolina, for a period of threeyears. Thereafter he was a traveling representative for the Ford Flour Company, of Nashville, Tennessee, until 1913, when he engaged in the cotton business in an independent way, with headquarters in Warrenton. About one yearlater he retired from this line of enterprise to assume the duties of his presentoffice, that of county clerk, to which position he was elected in the autumn of1914, for the regular term of two years. This preferment not only attests hispersonal popularity in his native county but also his effective service as astanch advocate of the principles of the democratic party. He was electedand served as mayor of the Town of Norwood in 1908. He is a Master Masonand is affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the "Woodmen of the World, and the Sigma College fraternity. Both he and his wifehold membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.At Culverton, Hancock County, Georgia, on the llth of September, 1895,was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Massengale to Miss Minnie Allie Waller,daughter of John W. Waller, a representative citizen of that county. Mr.and Mrs. Massengale became the parents of five children, and most pitiableand tragic was the death of three of the number, Lucille, aged three years;T. E., aged five years, and Christine, seven years, all of whom succumbedto diphtheria within a period of five days, bringing sorrow into the homeof the devoted parents. All of these children died in April, 1904, and thetwo surviving children are Mayme and John Alfred, the former of whomwas born in 1903 and the latter in 1905. Both are attending school and bothwere born at Norwood, Warren County.V-lJOHN T. GRANT. Among the many countries of the old world thathave contributed of their best to America, Scotland has long held the gratitude of the United States, for surely no land could produce men of worthiertype than have, for generations, come hither from that land, bringing withthem their physical sturdiness and intellectual ambitions. From Scotlandcame the Grants now represented in Georgia, their first pause being in Virginia. They took part in the great revolutionary struggle and afterward adjusted themselves to conditions as became a frugal and thrifty people interested far more in schools and churches and in the arts of peace than in furthermilitary affairs.Of this family, Daniel Grant, a native of Virginia, was the founder of thename in Georgia, shortly after the close of the Revolution removing to WilkesCounty. He was a man of broad view, and was the builder of the first schoolhousein Wilkes County as well as of the first Methodist Church edifice. Daniel Grant was the great-grandfather of Col. John T. Grant, who becameknown as Georgia's pioneer railroad builder. The parents of the latter wereDaniel and Lucy (Crutchfield) Grant.John T. Grant was born December 13, 1813, near Grantville, GreeneCounty, Georgia, and he was reared in Greene County and at Athens, in ClarkeCounty. He was afforded advantages in an educational and social way, quitecommon to the sons of planters in those days in that section, and when prepared by tutors, entered the Georgia State University and was there graduated in 1833. He had very definite ideas as to his choice of career, railroadbuilding in all its branches offering him a field satisfying to his energy, enterprise and foresight. In those days it was a very different matter than atpresent, to open up new commercial enterprises, especially with the North,