Davidson-Bedford County TN Archives Biographies.....Dudley, Robert Matthews 1858 - 
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@gmail.com October 25, 2005, 4:21 am

Author: Will T. Hale

   ROBERT M. DUDLEY. A progressive and essentially representative business man

and honored citizen of Nashville is Mr. Dudley, who is here president of the

Gray & Dudley Hardware Company, which is engaged in the wholesale trade and

which is one of the largest and most substantial concerns of the kind in the

South. Mr. Dudley is known as a loyal, enterprising and public-spirited citizen,

is thoroughly in sympathy with every progressive movement tending to foster the

civic and industrial advancement of his home city, and has been an influential

factor in local affairs aside from his business operations. He is a scion of an

old and honored Tennessee family, and the name which he bears has been closely

and worthily linked with the social and material development and upbuilding of

this favored commonwealth.



   Robert Matthews Dudley was born at Shelbyville, the judicial center of

Bedford county, Tennessee, on the 20th of May, 1858, and is a son of Christopher

S. and Louisa (Bandy) Dudley, the former of whom was born in Smith county, this

state, in 1812, and the latter of whom was born in Gallatin, Sumner county, in

1819. Christopher Dudley, Sr., grandfather of him whose name initiates this

review, likewise was born in Smith county, Tennessee, and thus it becomes

evident that the family was here founded in the early territorial epoch, when

the present state was virtually on the very frontier of civilization. About the

year 1837 Christopher Dudley removed to Illinois and numbered himself among the

pioneers of Pike county, where he passed the residue of his life and where he

died at a venerable age. In that county are to be found at the present day a

number of his descendants.



   Christopher S. Dudley was reared and educated in his native state and here

learned in his youth the trade of machinist. He did not accompany his father on

the removal to Illinois and in 1866, shortly after the close of the Civil war,

he immigrated with his family to Arkansas and settled in Jackson county, where

he turned his attention to agricultural pursuits, in connection with which he

gained definite success and prosperity, the while he was known and honored as

one of the broad-minded, enterprising and influential citizens of that section

of the state, where both he and his devoted wife continued to reside until they

were summoned to eternal rest. Mrs. Dudley was a daughter of Richard Bandy, who

removed from Tennessee to Arkansas about the year 1855 and who became one of the

pioneer agriculturists of Jackson county, that state, where he passed the

remainder of his life, as did also his wife, whose maiden name was Pierce.

Christopher S. and Louisa (Bandy) Dudley became the parents of ten children,

whose names are here entered in respective order of birth: Richard Houston,

Christopher Marion, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Julia, Harriet,

Guilford, Louisa Polk (deceased), Fannie P., and Robert M.



   Robert M. Dudley, the youngest of the children, was a boy at the time of his

parents' death and at the age of fourteen years he was taken into the home of

his eldest brother, Richard H., who was at that time a resident of Nashville,

Tennessee. Richard H. Dudley was a valiant soldier of the Confederacy in the

Civil war and after the close of the same he became one of the leading merchants

of Nashville, where he was prominent in civic affairs and held inviolable place

in popular esteem. He served as mayor of the city and was otherwise influential

in local affairs, even as he was in connection with business activities of

important order. He was here engaged in the wholesale grocery trade for many

years and was otherwise influential in business enterprises that had important

bearing upon the commercial precedence of his home city.



   After due preliminary discipline Robert M. Dudley entered Montgomery Bell

Academy, in Nashville, and in this excellent institution he gained a symmetrical

education along academic lines. At the age of twenty years he became associated

with the wholesale grocery business of his brother Richard H., who has been both

father and brother to the orphan boy, and on the 13th of June, 1877, he assumed

the position of bookkeeper in the office of the hardware firm of Dodd, Dudley &

Lipscomb, from which was evolved the present corporation of the Gray & Dudley

Hardware Company. For thirteen years Mr. Dudley represented the firm as

traveling salesman in the territory normally tributary to Nashville as a

commercial center, and through his experience in this line he fully matured his

powers as a business man, the while he became intimately familiar with all

details of the line of enterprise in which he has achieved marked success and

prestige in later years. In 1881 Mr. Dudley was admitted to partnership in the

business, and with the rapid expansion of the enterprise it was found a matter

of commercial expediency to organize a stock company. This was done in 1895, and

the business has since been conducted under the title of the Gray & Dudley

Hardware Company. Mr. Dudley has been president of the company from the time of

its incorporation and his administration has been marked by progressive

policies, careful and honorable methods and distinctive executive ability, with

the result that the concern is now one of the most extensive of its order in the

entire South and with a trade extending over a wide territory.



   Emphatically loyal and liberal in his civic attitude, Mr. Dudley has made his

influence potent in the conserving of generic progress in his home city. He has

been a valued member of the Nashville Park Commission from the time of its

organization, is an active member of the Nashville Board of Trade, and has twice

served as president of the National Hardware Jobbers' Association. In polities

he accords stanch allegiance to the Democratic party, but he is primarily and

essentially a business man and has no desire to enter the arena of so-called

practical politics. Both he and his wife are members of the Primitive Baptist

church; he is affiliated with the Masonic fraternity, in which he has received

the chivalric degrees and holds membership in the Nashville commandery of

Knights Templar; he is also identified with the local organizations of the

Knights of Pythias and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks; and he holds

membership in the Hermitage Club, the Nashville Golf Club, and the Nashville

Country Club, representative social organizations of his home city.



   In the year 1880 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Dudley to Miss Ophelia

Stephens, daughter of Rev. John B. Stephens, who was at that time pastor of the

Primitive Baptist church in Nashville, and the children of this union are Bunyan

S., Amelia, Mary Louise, Rebecca, and Robert M., Jr.





Additional Comments:
From:



A history of Tennessee and Tennesseans : the leaders and representative men in

commerce, industry and modern activities

by Will T. Hale

Chicago:  Lewis Pub. Co.,  1913





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