My Genealogy Hound

Hon. Isaac M. Steele, the oldest lawyer of Lauderdale Co., is the son of David and Elizabeth (Jetton) Steele. The father was born in Ireland in 1763, and the mother in Mecklenburg County, N. C., in 1773. He came to America when about twenty-seven years old, and located in North Carolina, where they were married in 1795, and soon after moved to East Tennessee, where they remained until they died. Four children were born to them. Our subject alone survives. Both parents were strict members of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, but after Mr. Steele died she joined the Methodist Church. In politics he was a Jeffersonian Democrat; by trade a double-coverlet weaver, being skilled in the trade, and he also farmed on a small scale. Though a laborer, he was a man of fine mind and of fair education, and died in 1812, the mother surviving until 1849. Our subject was born March 7, 1805, in Knox County, Tenn., and is of Irish descent on the father’s side, and Scotch-French on his mother’s; was raised on a farm, and received a very limited education, but at the age of twenty-one he commenced teaching, and taught for several winters, working on the farm during the summer. In 1829 he married Jane Hadley, who was born in North Carolina January 5, 1811, and of eleven children born to this marriage four sons and two daughters are living: Stephen H. and David P. are doctors; Thomas, a lawyer. Mr. Steele is not a church member; his wife is a Presbyterian. In 1840 he was elected county court clerk, serving also as deputy circuit clerk, and the duties of these positions not being arduous, he commenced the study of law, which had been a desire of his for many years. In 1844 he was made circuit court clerk, and was admitted to the bar the same year. In 1848 he was again elected county court clerk, and practiced his profession in adjoining counties, and has made law his chief field of labor. In 1855 he was elected to the State Senate. He was a Whig until 1856, but has since been a Democrat. In 1857 he moved to Covington, Tenn., and lived there for seventeen years, then returned to Ripley. He has been a licensed practitioner at the bar for forty-two years, and, although advanced in years, still attends to consider able business, and is held in high esteem.