George W. Cross, a prominent lawyer of Manchester, Tennessee, was born in Anderson County August 31, 1849. He is the son of William and Jane (Black) Cross, both of English descent and natives of Anderson County. The former, born in 1810, is still living; the latter, born about 1820, died February 26, 1885. Married in 1836 the elder Cross-engaged in farming. He is a democrat, and sympathizes with the Cumberland Presbyterian Church of which his wife was a member.
Our subject, the fifth of eight children, was educated chiefly at Cumberland University, at Lebanon, Tennessee, and the military school of Knoxville, Tennessee, from which he graduated in 1874. After three years’ teaching in Decherd and Salem, Tennessee, in September 1877, he took ten months at Vanderbilt University Law Department, and the professor granted him license to practice. Since 1878, when he came to Manchester, he has become one of the most successful lawyers of Coffee County and among the ablest in this section.
January 17, 1882, he married Beulah Hickerson, born in 1861, the daughter of Judge W. P. Hickerson. She was a cultured lady. Her death occurred July 24, 1885. Mr. Cross is a decided democrat.
