from Kentucky, A History of the State, by Perrin, 1885

Marshall County

John W. Dycus is a native of Edmonson County, this state, and was born May 16, 1830, and is a son of John and Nancy (Isaacs) Dycus, who were from South Carolina.  They were among the early settlers of Edmonson County, but in 1831 came to Calloway, now Marshall County, where his father died in 1844, his widow surviving him until 1876.  The father was a farmer, but served in Edmonson County as sheriff.  Our subject worked on the farm until nineteen years of age; he then left home and learned the cabinetmaker’s trade, and was enabled thereafter to make sufficient means to supplement a common school education, by an attendance of over two years, at the Bethlehem Academy, near Princeton, Kentucky.  After teaching school twenty months in Yazoo County, Mississippi, he returned to this county in 1858, and began the study of law under Judge Philander Palmer.  In August the same year he was elected to the position of clerk of the county court for a term of four years, and was subsequently twice elected to the same position.  He had been admitted to the bar in 1860, but continued his law studies during his long service as county clerk.  In 1870 he was elected county judge for a period of four years, at the expiration of which he accepted the office of county attorney, but after serving a year in that capacity, he resigned and has since devoted his time to the private practice of his profession.  In 1879 he was elected to the State Legislature and served two years.  He has given to the temperance cause his unqualified support.  April 2, 1861, he was united in marriage to Miss Greenville Ford, of Benton.  Walter G. is the only child of this union.  Mrs. Dycus died in January, 1862, and the Judge was subsequently married to Amanda A. (Whittemore) Leigh.