Goodspeed Biographical Listings for Shelby County, Tennessee: Joseph Brown Heiskell

The third part of Goodspeed's History of Tennessee gathered biographical sketches of notable county residents alongside the general and county-level histories. This page preserves the Shelby County biographical listings, centered on the entry for Joseph Brown Heiskell, one of the more nationally significant figures with ties to Memphis in that collection.

Joseph Brown Heiskell was born November 5, 1823, in Knoxville, Tennessee, the son of newspaper publisher Frederick S. Heiskell and Eliza Brown Heiskell. He served in the Tennessee State Senate during the 32nd General Assembly, from 1857 to 1859, representing Hancock, Hawkins, and Jefferson counties as a member of the Whig Party.

During the Civil War, Heiskell supported the Confederacy and served in the Confederate Congress, representing Tennessee's 1st district in the Confederate States House of Representatives from 1862 to 1864. After the war, he went on to serve as the eighth Attorney General of Tennessee, holding that office from 1870 to 1878.

Heiskell later settled in Memphis, where he died on March 7, 1913, at the age of eighty-nine, and was buried at Elmwood Cemetery. He was married twice, first to Sarah McKinney in 1846 and later to Lucy Watkins in 1891. His entry in Goodspeed's biographical listings connects Shelby County to a career that reached the highest levels of both state and Confederate government.

Records in This Section

28 records

Archive Details

Source: Goodspeed's History of TN, 1887
Featured entry: Joseph Brown Heiskell
Category: Biographical