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JOSEPH JOHN ALSTON
BIOGRAPHY and GENEALOGY
(1835 -1908)
Clarke County, Alabama
Joseph John Alston, businessman, was born May 15, 1835, at Grove Hill, Clarke County, the son of William Williams and Mary Haywood (Burgess) Alston; grandson of Lemuel J. Alston; great-grandson of Samuel Alston, one of three brothers who came from Wales and settled in Halifax, N. C., in colonial days.
Samuel Alston moved to South Carolina and located near the little town of Greenville, the seat of a law school, where William Williams Alston received legal instruction preparatory to his graduation from the law school at Columbia. Two brothers of the English branch of the Alston family, cousins of their Welsh predecessors, were also early settlers of South Carolina. Among the South Carolina members of this family were Washington Alston, poet, and artist, Gov. John Alston who married Theodosia Burr, and Gov. Robert Francis William Alston.
Joseph John Alston was prepared in the common schools of Clarke County. He established a boot and shoe manufactory at Selma which he conducted up until the outbreak of hostilities in 1861. He enlisted in an artillery company among the first volunteer troops of Alabama and was assigned to duty at Fort Morgan. He was subsequently given the command, with the rank of captain, of a company of infantry.
At the close of the war, Mr. Alston whose property had been confiscated entered the real estate business. He moved to Tuscaloosa and continued his business there. In1870, he was living with his family in New Orleans, Louisiana but returned to Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
He married Louisa Josephine Jones, (1835 NC- May 1899) daughter of Charles Bimns Jones of Petersburg, Virginia. (b. July 5, 1798- 1844) and Caroline Montgomery (Dubrut?) Jones; and granddaughter of George Hamilton (b.March 1, 1775) and Eliza (Wright) Jones; gr-granddaughter of Revolutionary War Soldier, Col. John ‘Hellcat” Jones (b.Feb 14, 1755 – Jan 11, 1793) and Elizabeth (Binns?) Jones.
Their known children were:
- Louisa Josephine Alston (Nov. 1, 1862, Selma, AL – Sep 13, 1942, Tuscaloosa, AL) m. Charles Neville Maxwell, Sr, of Tuscaloosa;
- Caroline “Caddie” Alston (b. 1857 AL)
- Samuel Fitts Alston, (Jan 6, 1859-Jan 11, 1922 Tuscaloosa, AL) secretary and treasurer of the Tuscaloosa and Castle Hill Real Estate and Manufacturing Company; married his cousin, Fanny Fitts, Aug 2, 1883, at Christ Church, Tuscaloosa, She was born Aug 10, 1860 -died Jan 30, 1949 .Birmingham, Alabama. She was the daughter of James Harris Fitts, Jr. They are buried in Evergreen Cemetery, Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
- George Jones Alston, (Jan 24, 1869, New Orleans, LA-Oct 22, 1940 Tuscaloosa, AL ) who was a senior member of the firm of Alston & Maxwell, jewelers, of Tuscaloosa. He married Eugenia Searcy Maxwell Apr 3, 1894, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
- Mary Hamilton Alston, (b. 1869 AL) a graduate of Tuscaloosa Female College;
- Henry Alston
Joseph John Alston died October 15, 1908, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
SOURCES
- History of Alabama and dictionary of Alabama biography, Volume 3 By Thomas McAdory Owen, Marie Bankhead Owen
- Ancestry.com Mills Family tree
- SAR MEMBERSHIP 68485 -for Samuel Fitts Alston
- 1870 US census New Orleans; 1860 US census Tuscaloosa, AL
- Southside Virginia Families, Volume I By John B Boddie, John Bennett Boddie
- Alabama Deaths and Burials, 1881–1952.” Index. FamilySearch, Salt Lake City, Utah, 2009, 2010
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