Robert E. Buckner, farmer and stock dealer, was born where he now lives, May 25, 1860, the son of William P. and Nancy (Smith) Buckner, the former born near Maynardville July 15, 1823, and deceased at Tuscumbia, Ala., June 17, 1877, while on a business trip. He was a successful farmer and fruit grower, and inventor of the Self Adjusting Wagon Brake. The mother, born in Union (then Grainger) County, May 2, 1824, died August 20, 1880, and both were Missionary Baptists; they married October 28, 1841. Our subject, the youngest of six children, was educated at Mossy Creek College, and clerked in his father’s store until the latter’s death, since when he has been a farmer. January 6, 1886, he married Emily, a daughter of Josiah Kelley, of Clay County, Ky. She is a Missionary Baptist, and he a Republican.
Source: History of Tennessee Containing Historical and Biographical Sketches of Thirty East Tennessee Counties. Illustrated, pp. 1146-1152. Published: Chicago and Nashville: The Goodspeed Publishing Co. 1887.
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