Muscogee County GaArchives Biographies.....Francis D.  Peabody November 24 1854 - Unknown
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Author: Memoirs of Ga., Vol. II, 1895

Memoirs of Ga., Vol. II
Published by the Atlanta Historical Society in 1895
Pages 626-627


Francis D. Peabody, a noted lawyer of Columbus, Ga., was born on his father’s 
farm near that city, Nov. 24, 1854, and was the youngest of nine children of 
Charles A. and Frances Harriet (Williams) Peabody.  His parents were born in 
Connecticut – his father in Bridgeport and his mother in Hartford – but came to 
Georgia and settled in Columbus in 1833.  Mr. Peabody was prepared for college, 
by that distinguished educator, Prof. Otis D. Smith, in one of the famous “old 
field schools” of the day.  His attendance upon school though was irregular, as 
he was often called upon to help get the crop “out of the grass.”  At fourteen 
he was compelled to stop school and to go regularly to work on the farm.  For 
three years he made a regular and steady “hand”, doing all kinds of work done 
on a farm; but he specially liked to plow, and could do more plowing in a day 
than any man on the farm.  At seventeen he rented his father’s farm and stock, 
and made a fine crop, much to the amusement, and somewhat to the astonishment 
of his father, who was rather disposed to predict a failure at the beginning of 
the season.  At eighteen he entered the State Agricultural and Mechanical 
College of Alabama, at Auburn, where his old teacher had preceded him in the 
capacity of professor of English, which he afterward exchanged for 
mathematics.  Here the struggle of his life began.  Full-grown physically, his 
limited text-book learning almost all forgotten in his four years of farm-toil, 
he presented the anomaly of reciting side by side in the lowest class of 
college with little fellows that hardly reached his shoulders.  But though illy 
prepared in text books, his life had been spent in an intellectual atmosphere; 
his father and mother both being people of culture and wide reading, and what 
the boy had unconsciously absorbed, now stood him well in hand; and the brawn 
that came to him from his out-door life backed up the demands made on it by his 
unremitting study.  He was graduated in 1876 with the first honor of his 
class.  Before graduation he had already secured a position as teacher of 
mathematics and tactics in a private military school in Hopkinsville, Ky.  Here 
he remained three years, making a marked success as a teacher.  During this 
time he read law at night and on Saturdays reciting to Judge Champlin, who 
kindly took an interest in his studies, and was admitted to the Kentucky bar 
before the close of his school term in 1879.  In June of that year he went to 
St. Louis, Mo., and when the law school of Washington University for that year 
was formed, he entered both junior and senior classes, and before the end of 
the term stood an examination in open court for admission to the St. Louis 
bar.  During his attendance at law school he earned the money to pay his 
expenses by teaching a night school.  Thus single-handed and alone, without one 
dollar of help from any source, he fitted himself for his life calling.  Early 
in 1881 Mr. Peabody returned to Georgia and married Miss Myrtice Nelms of 
Griffin, daughter of the late Judge William Nelms of that place.  It was his 
intention at that time to locate in the far southwest; but taking a visit with 
his bride to his aged parents at the family homestead, they persuaded him to 
locate in Columbus.  This decision he has probably never had cause to regret, 
for his rise at the bar has been rapid, and his position sure.  He has been 
identified more or less with all the public enterprises of his city, and is 
known, not only as a sound lawyer of ability, but as an enterprising and 
progressive citizen.  Mr. Peabody has never held public office, nor aspired to 
do.  In 1892 he consented to stand as an alternate presidential elector on the 
democratic ticket, which ticket he has never failed to vote since attaining his 
majority.  In 1894, owing to his keen interest in educational affairs, and 
because of his peculiar fitness for the place, he was appointed a member of the 
Board of Educators in Columbus, where he has since done faithful and efficient 
service.  In 1895 Mr. Peabody was elected by the City Council of Columbus as 
Corporation Counsel for the City of Columbus, a position of great 
responsibility and importance.  It is a matter of pride with him that his 
earnings have all been expended in the upbuilding and improvement of his native 
town. 


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