MARSHALL COUNTY, TN - BIOGRAPHIES - Thomas Wesley Brents
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THOMAS WESLEY BRENTS. D. D. and M. D. Thomas Brents, Sr., was born in the
"Blue-grass State" and there married Jane McWhorter.  They resided in teh
State until 1800, and then came to Marshall County, Tenn., and spent the
remainder of their lives in agricultural pursuits.  The father, although not
an educated man, was a man of remarkable intellectual powers, superior to many
of his associates in that particulat.  He and wife were not professed
Christians, but they inclined to the Methodist Episcopal faith.  He was an
old-line Democrat and died at the age of sixty-two.  The mother lived to be
fifty-six years old.  Thomas Wesley, our subject, was born in Marshall County,
February 10, 1823. His early days were spent on a farm and in seeking an
education in the old dirt-floor schoolhouse of early days, where the three
"R's" were supposed to be sufficient for an education. Before attaining his
twenty-first birthday he had never seen a grammar, but notwithstanding the
many disadvantages under which he labored, he conceived the idea of gaining a
better education, and began a course of private study, often burning the
midnight oil in furtherance of his plans. He followed pedgoging about for
years and became a disciple of Esculapius and attended the Eclectic Medical
College, of Memphis, Tenn., the Medical School of Nashville, and finally
graduated, in 1855, from the Reform medical College of Georgia, and was chosen
demonstrator of anatomy, and later became professor of anatomy and surgery and
held that position until the breaking out of the war. Owing to ill health he
gave up his practice and moved to the country and devoted much of his time to
the ministry, having started in that calling in 1850. He had acquired a
thorough knowledge of Latin and his ministerial labors called for a knowledge
of the Greek language, which he immediately began mastering. In 1841 he wedded
Angeline Scott, who died in 1857, leaving five small children. Late in the
same year he married Mrs. Elizabeth (Taylor) Brown, who bore him four
children, two of whom are professional men: T.E., a physician, and John, a
lawyer.  Dr. Brents moved to Burrit in 1874 to educate his children in Burrit
College, where three of the graduated. In politics he is conservative, not
having voted since 1856. For fifty-five yeras he has been a citizen of
Marshall County, and whether as a physician, a professor or a minister of the
gospel he has few equals and fewer superiors.


Surnames: Brents, Brown, McWhorter, Scott, Taylor
Source:  " The Goodspeeds History of Tennessee, 1886."