Greene County AlArchives Biographies.....Coleman, Thomas Wilkes 1833 - living in 1893
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Ann Anderson alabammygrammy@aol.com May 26, 2004, 2:58 pm

Author: Brant & Fuller (1893)
   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. Capt. 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. W. R. Cobb,
and, in 1880, was elected to that office, by the legislature, for a six-year
term. In 1866, Capt. Coleman was again elected solicitor for another six-year
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 stanch 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:
from "Memorial Record of Alabama", Vol. I, p. 1052-1053
Published by
Brant & Fuller (1893)
Madison, WI

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