MUSCOGEE COUNTY, GA - BIOS John Francis Flournoy Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by: Carla Miles captbluegrass@mchsi.com Table of Contents page: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/muscogee.htm Georgia Table of Contents: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm Memoirs of Georgia, Vol. II, Atlanta, Georgia, Pages 612-614 Published by the Atlanta Historical Association in 1895 MUSCOGEE COUNTY John Francis Flournoy, one of the progressive, active and wide-awake business men of Columbus, Ga., was born in the village of Wynnton, a suburb of that city, on March 13, 1847. His father was John Manley Flournoy, a native of Eatonton, Putnam Co., Ga. He was a farmer all his active life, and died in Columbus, Ga., in September, 1859, at the age of forty-five years. He was a soldier in the Creek war of 1836. Josiah Flournoy, grandfather of John F. Flournoy, was born in Chesterfield county, Va., in 1789, and came to Georgia in 1797, locating in Eatonton, Ga., and died June 14, 1832. John Francis Flournoy was reared and received his earlier education in Columbus, Ga., spending one year at the university of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, and leaving there about July 1, 1864. Soon afterward he went to Mobile, Ala., with the Alabama corps of cadets, where he went into active service, remaining there about two months. He then returned to Columbus, Ga., and joined Nelson’s Georgia rangers at Florence, Ala., as a private. This company was an independent cavalry company and acted as escort to Gen. Stephen D. Lee throughout the Tennessee campaign, coming through with the army to Greensboro, N.C., where the company surrendered. Mr. Flournoy was in the battle of Chehaw, Ala., July, 1864, with Rousseau and his raiders, who were destroying the Western railway of Alabama; also the battles of Franklin, Tenn., Columbia, Tenn., and Nashville, Tenn. He had two brothers in the Confederate service, viz.: Charles Gordon Flournoy, who entered the service as a private in Nelson’s rangers in 1862. He was captured at Mechanicsville, Miss., in 1863 and held until the war closed. Josiah, who enlisted in Nelson’s rangers in 1864, at the age of fourteen, was sent home on account of his youth. After the surrender of Johnston’s army at Greensboro, N.C., John F. Flournoy, with one dollar in silver in his pocket, started to his home in Columbus, Ga., reaching there two weeks later. Soon afterward he went to a plantation belonging to his mother in Russell county, Ala., and raised cotton there until 1873 with fair success. He managed the farm for his mother, and bought it a few years thereafter. In 1873 Mr. Flournoy returned to Columbus, Ga., and together with C.C. McGehee, H.H. Epping, Sr., and Joseph Hanserd went into the cotton warehouse and commission business. This firm (Flournoy, McGehee & Co.) was dissolved about a year later, Epping and Hanserd retiring, and Mr. B.T. Hatcher was taken in, the name being retained. The firm continued four years, when H.H. Epping, Jr. and J.F. Flournoy formed their present partnership in the warehouse business under the name of Flournoy & Epping. They handle about 20,000 bales of cotton annually. In August, 1893, Mr. Flournoy, who had for several years been a director in the Chattahoochee National bank of Columbus, Ga., was made vice-president of that institution. In 1889 Mr. Flournoy and others, for the purpose of aiding the upbuilding and development of Columbus, organized the Columbus Investment company, with a capital stock of $200,000, of which he was made president. In October, 1887, he and L.F. Garrard, of Columbus, Ga., and several others organized the Muscogee Real Estate company, with a capital stock of $300,000, which company bought 750 acres of suburban territory east of the city, calling it East Highlands. Mr. Flournoy was made president of the company at its organization, and has remained so since. How well this company succeeded a brief paragraph from the “Enquirer- Sun”, a Columbus daily paper of Aug. 31, 1890, tells: “The development of East Highlands within the past year is simply wonderful. The originators of the enterprise gave the signal for the breaking of the old routine improvement plan and opened a world of progression and rapid growth, and kindled that fire and enthusiasm which has marked every successful enterprise in the recent wonderful growth of Columbus. Here, where but three years ago stood less than half a dozen old houses, are hundreds of handsome dwellings, occupied by a contented, happy and prosperous people,” etc. This company also bought a controlling interest in the Columbus Railroad company, which at that time covered only about three miles of track, sixteen-pound rail on stringers, five small cars and about twenty small mules. Today Columbus has twenty miles of the best- built and best-equipped electric street railway in the south. This is the first and the only electric street railway plant operated by electricity generated by water-power in Georgia. In 1888 Mr. Flournoy was made president of the Columbus Railroad company, and to him is Columbus indebted more than all others combined for the development of her street railway system. His pluck and energy caused to be developed at Columbus the finest electric plant south, generating electricity by water-power for the purpose of operating its street railways and for furnishing cheap power to manufacturing plants. To him also is Columbus indebted for the opening and development of the first pleasure park the citizens of that city have enjoyed. Wildwood park, near the center of the East Highlands, one of the prettiest parks in the country, stands today a monument to the endeavors of one who believed in providing innocent pleasure and amusement for the people. He was chairman of the committee of citizens which, in two weeks time in 1886, raised $150,000 for the building of the Georgia Midland road. He was made vice-president of that road in 1889. He is also a director of the Columbus Water Works company. Mr. Flournoy was lieutenant in the City Light guards of Columbus in 1886, but resigned after filling that office three months. He regularly attends the Presbyterian church, though not a member of any church. He was happily married in November, 1869, to Rebecca Epping, daughter of H.H. Epping, Sr. She departed this life in May, 1873, leaving as the fruit of that union two children, viz: John F., Jr. and Rebecca. Mr. Flournoy was again married in 1881 to Mary W., daughter of the late Walker Reynolds, of Talladega county, Ala. and by this marriage has been blessed by the birth of seven children, viz: Reynolds, Maude, Josiah, Gordon, Mary Hannah, John Manley and Walker.