Walker County AlArchives Biographies.....Shields, John B. 1840 - 
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 September 13, 2011, 2:31 pm

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

    JOHN B. SHIELDS, Probate Judge of Walker County, son of Dr. Milton and
Priscilla J. (Bradson) Shields, was born at Marshall's Ferry, in Granger County,
Tenn., August 25, 1840. He attended an old field school in that neighborhood
until about fifteen years of age, when he went to Greeneville College, East
Tennessee, and pursued his studies there for two years. He next studied medicine
for two or three years, and upon the breaking out of the war became first
lieutenant of Company I, Fifty-ninth Regiment Tennessee Confederate Infantry.
This regiment was captured at the siege of Vicksburg, but was paroled at once,
and thereafter mounted as cavalry under Gen. J. C. Vaughan (since the war a
Congressman). His brigade made a campaign into Maryland in 1864, under Gen.
Early. After the raid into Maryland they went into East Tennessee and Western
Virginia. He then commanded the company as captain. He was engaged at the battle
of Grand Gulf, siege of Vicksburg, Baker's Creek, Piedmont, Morristown, Bull's
Gap, Monocacy Junction, Md., Winchester and many others. After Lee's surrender
he went into North Carolina and joined Joseph E. Johnson's army, but surrendered
at Athens, Ga.

    After the war he went into mercantile business at Newnan, Ga., and remained
there eighteen months. During this time he married and returned to his native
place in East Tennessee in 1866. He found his home entirely desolate, and his
first business was to rebuild the old house and re-establish the homestead.
After accomplishing this he clerked two years at Morristown.

    In 1868 he moved to Wolf Creek, then the terminus of the Cincinnatti,
Cumberland Gap & Charleston Railroad, as merchant and railroad station-agent. In
1871, he moved to Carroll County, Ga., to superintend the Georgia Paper
Manufacturing Company. (His childhood had been largely spent in his father's
paper-mill.) In 1873 he moved to Walker County, re-fitted Long's Mill, on Black
Water Creek, and became a merchant and miller there. After three years he sold
out that interest to B. M. Long, moved to South Lowell, and ran a steam saw and
planing-mill, which he conducted individually for two years. He still owns an
interest there as a member of the firm of Shields & Cartter.

    His old homestead in Tennessee has been in the possession of his family for
sixty years, and it has been very recently discovered that the place contains a
ledge of solid marble of many different colors, beautifully variegated, and more
than 300 feet thick.

    The Judge's residence is properly at South Lowell, which was once a
flourishing village (six miles from Jasper), but is now neglected and dead.

    Judge Shields was elected to the Legislature in 1878 on the Greenback
ticket, by a majority of twenty-eight votes, but was counted out. In 1884 he was
again elected to the Legislature on an Independent ticket, and served in 1884
and 1885. In the year 18866he was elected Probate Judge of Walker County, and is
still the incumbent of that office.

    Judge Shields was married September 19, 1866, in Carrollton, Carroll County,
Ga., to Miss Carrie E., youngest daughter of Judge John Long, who was a native
of Tennessee, and served as judge, legislator, and in other offices, for more
than twenty-five years. He settled in Carroll County in 1826, when the county
was full of Indians, and reared a family of four sons and three daughters. One
of these sons, B. M. Long, of Cordova, is one of the most prominent and
influential men in Walker County, and pays more taxes than any other man in the
county.

    Five children have been born in Judge Shield's family, all of whom are
girls. Their names are: Nannie P., Lily Lou (now dead), Carrie May, J. Maud, and
Johnnie B. The Judge is a member of the Masonic fraternity, and of the
Presbyterian Church. His wife is a Methodist.

    Milton Shields, the Judge's father, was a son of James Shields, and of Irish
descent. He was born in Greene County, Tenn., in 1804, and died in Sevier
County, Tenn., December 20, 1866. He owned paper-mills at Marshall's Ferry and
at Middlebrook, near Knoxville, and was interested in an iron furnace. He made
the writing and printing paper that was used throughout this country fifty or
sixty years ago, and shipped it here down the Tennessee River. This paper was at
first made by hand, and one sheet moulded at a time.


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.
MINERAL BELT.


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