from Marion County, Kentucky – Biographies

The Hon. Alson Rawlings was born in 1822.  His grandfather, Henry Rawlings, was born in Maryland, from which state he removed to Virginia and thence (in 1807) to Kentucky.  He was a farmer and reared a family of three sons and two daughters, among whom was John B., the father of Alson; two sons and one daughter subsequently removed to Missouri.  Henry Rawlings continued to reside in Marion County until his death.  John B. was born in Pittsylvania County, Virginia, in October, 1779, and came to Kentucky in 1807, and located in Washington County; here he married Miss Elizabeth Hindman in 1811.  This union was blessed by the birth of four sons and five daughters:  James H., Alson, Henry H., John L, Melissa (Purdom, of Texas), Necy (Tharp, of Owensboro), Sophia (Glasscock) and Artemise (Hayes, of Marion County) and Polly (deceased).  John B. Rawlings followed farming in Marion County, where he died in 1877.  It is said of him that he was a man of strict religious principles and “after the straightest sect” – a Methodist.  He was noted for his sterling integrity and uprightness in business transactions; he never held an office or engaged in politics; his advice to his sons was “the less you engage in politics the better you will succeed in life.”  Alson Rawlings was born in Washington, now Marion County, received a good common-school education; at the age of twenty-two was made captain of militia, and six years later (in 1850) was elected colonel of the Fourth Kentucky militia, in which capacity he served for several years; he also held the office of constable from 1846 to 1849, when he resigned.  He was married in 1849 to Maria, daughter of Elijah and Margaret (Hayes) Glasscock; to this marriage were born ten children; four sons and one daughter are living, namely:  Lewis C., John W., Clement H., Robert E. L. and Fannie Lee, wife of J. C. Elder.  In 1856 Mr. Rawlings was elected magistrate in Marion County, which office he held through successive re-elections for seventeen years.  He resigned in 1878, at which time he was elected to a seat in the Lower House of the Kentucky Legislature, in which he served one term.  Mr. Rawlings’ political views are Democratic.  At the beginning of the Civil War he was commissioned a captain in the Federal Army, which, however, he did not enter, as his sympathies rather favored the Southern cause.  He takes an active part in political campaigns, but his time is given principally to his farming operations; he is the proprietor of 300 acres of land lying in Marion County, a part of the “Cloyd Patent,” settled in 1794 by his grandfather in company with the Taylors, Biggers, Crews and Thomases, of Virginia, and Tharps, of Pennsylvania.  Mr. Rawlings also owns nearly 3,000 acres lying in Scurry and Floyd Counties in Texas.  His life has been a busy one, and he has never failed to make a success of any enterprise in which he engaged; he has for some years held the office of president of the Lebanon and Rolling Fork Turnpike Company, and is a member and efficient worker in the Methodist Episcopal Church South; served as a grand juror in his county for many years, and is a Royal Arch Mason in J. L. Rawlings Chapter, No. 122.  In his official career in the House of Representatives he stood shoulder to shoulder with such men as Burnett, Dycus, Yantes, Hindman and Connor, and his voice was always raised in support of measures that seemed to be to the best interests of the Kentucky people.