Greene County AlArchives Biographies.....Coleman, Thomas Wilkes 1833 - 
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 September 15, 2011, 12:06 am

Source: See below
Author: Smith & De Land, publishers

    THOMAS WILKES COLEMAN, Chancellor, is a son of James C. and Martha
(Anderson) Coleman, natives of North and South Carolina, respectively.

    Judge Coleman's grandfather, John Coleman, a planter, came from North
Carolina to Alabama in 1818, and settled near Eutaw in 1821. James C. Coleman,
his son, was also a planter, and, like his father, farmed successfully and on an
extensive scale.

    Thomas Wilkes Coleman was born at Eutaw in 1833, educated partly at Green
Springs, Ala. and graduated in classical course at Princeton, N. J., in 1853. He
read law at Eutaw under Stephen F. Hale (for whom Hale County was named), and
was admitted to the bar in 1855.

    Mr. Coleman volunteered in the Confederate Army in 1861, raised a company,
and became its captain. He was captured at the siege of Vicksburg, and, at the
battle of Missionary Ridge, was wounded by a minie ball which passed entirely
through his body, destroying his left lung, and incapacitating him for further
military duty. He recovered from his wound, however (a fact which seems
marvelous to those who know its character and extent), and resumed the practice
of law.

    Captain Coleman was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1865, and
in 1866 he was elected Solicitor for the Fifth Circuit, but was ousted by the
reconstruction performance of 1868. In 1878 he was appointed to the same office
for the Seventh Circuit by Gov. R. W. Cobb, and, in 1880, was elected to that
office by the Legislature, for a six-years term. In 1886, Captain Coleman was
again elected Solicitor for another six-years term, and in March, 1887, he was
appointed Chancellor of the Southwestern Chancery Division of Alabama, by Gov.
Thomas Seay.

    Judge Coleman's life has been a busy one. In politics, he has always been a
staunch Democrat. He lost a fortune by the war, but has made for himself a name
and a place among his people, which might well be envied by the most fortunate
of the land. He was heartily opposed to the idea of secession and war from its
earliest inception, but when the issue was made, he threw his entire influence
with the cause of his people.

    The Judge was married in 1860, to Miss Frances J., daughter of Samuel J.
Wilson, and of a family very prominent in their locality and in the Presbyterian
Church, and has ten living children, six sons and four daughters. One of the
sons, E. W. Coleman, is practicing law in Texas: another, T. W. Coleman, Jr.,
graduated at the University of Alabama, in 1885, taught school two years, and is
now taking a law course at the University of Virginia.

    Judge Coleman is a Presbyterian of the old school, and an elder in that
church. He is also a Royal-Arch Mason.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

Northern Alabama: Historical and Biographical
Birmingham, Ala.: Smith and De Land
1888

PART III.
HISTORICAL RESUME OF THE VARIOUS COUNTIES IN THE STATE.
COTTON BELT.


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