CONFEDERATE BIOGRAPHY: THOMAS J. JENNINGS - Nacogdoches, TX

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Submitted by Mary Love Berryman - marylove@tyler.net
7 September 2001
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TEXANS WHO WORE THE GRAY by Sid S. Johnson

THOMAS J. JENNINGS.

Thomas J. Jennings, of Tyler, was born in Shenandoah County, Virginia, 
Oct.20, 1801, but was chiefly reared and educated in Kentucky being 
graduated with first honors from Transylvania University in 1824.  
Jefferson Davis was one of his classmates.  He was admitted to the 
bar in Tennessee in 1827 and practiced there, removing in 1840 to 
the Repub­lic of Texas and locating in Nacogdoches. He formed a 
co-partnership with Col. William B. Ochiltree which continued until 
Col. Jennings was in 1852 elected Attorney General of the state.  He 
was re-elected in 1854.  In 1857 he was elect­ed to the legislature 
from Cherokee county, and in 1861 was chosen a member of the Secession 
Convention.  He entered the Confederate Army soon after, but a stroke 
of paralysis incapacitated him for active field service and he retired 
to his plantation.  In the fall of 1864 he removed to Tyler where he 
again entered active practice, for awhile with Hon. Franklin N. Gary 
and later for a few years with Hon. B. T. Selman.  In 1878 he removed 
to Fort Worth, Texas, where he died Sept. 23, 1881. His son, Hyde 
Jennings, was a prom­inent lawyer in Fort Worth, and his son Thos. R. 
Jennings is an attorney in Nacogdoehes.  Col. Jennings' wife was Mrs. 
Sarah G. Mason, the only daughter of Major Hyde of Nacogdoches. They 
were married in January, 1844.