Goodspeed's Henry County Biographies - O surnames
Richard H. Ogburn, farmer
and breeder of Jersey cattle, was born in Montgomery County,
Tenn., in 1840, and is one of a family of nine children, six of
whom are living. The father, John Ogburn, was born in Virginia
about 1798 and was of Scotch-Irish extraction. He received a
common-school education, and emigrated to Montgomery County with
his parents when but a child. When about thirty years of age he
married Caroline, a native of North Carolina, born in 1808, and
the daughter of William Hunt. She is now living in Montgomery
County. Mr. Ogburn was a man of good business ability and at the
time of his death was tobacco inspector at Clarksville. He was a
prominent member of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, and
died in 1854. Our subject received a good common-school and
business education, and when about eighteen years of age entered
a mercantile house at Clarksville and acted as clerk for one
year. He then purchased the stock and engaged in the business on
his own responsibility till 1860, when he sold his stock. In
June, 1861, he went to Mississippi, and during the same year
joined Company A, First Kentucky Cavalry, Confederate Army, and
at the end of one year’s service was mustered out, after which,
owing to ill health, he did not rejoin the ranks. For some time
after the war he engaged in mercantile pursuits at Lafayette,
Ky., and then returned to his old home and resumed his farming.
January 6, 1871, he married Ellen J., daughter of Gen. James T.
and Jane B. (Tharp) Dunlap, of Nashville. He was at that time
living in Montgomery County tilling the soil, where he now owns
two fine farms of 400 and 500 acres each. In 1877 he came to
Paris and purchased a residence half a mile east of town, where
he has since resided. He is extensively engaged in the breeding
of registered Jersey cattle, and this is the most extensive
enterprise of the kind in Henry County. For the past two years
Mr. Ogburn has been connected with the Paris Rolling Mills. In
politics he is a Democrat, and cast his first presidential vote
for H. Seymour. He is a Mason and he and his wife are members of
the Methodist Episcopal Church South. Mrs. Ogburn was born in
Henry County in 1847.
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