Goodspeed's Biography
JAMES W. DEADERICK

James W. Deaderick, ex-chief justice of Tennessee, at Jonesboro, was born there November 25, 1812, the son of David and Margaret (Anderson) Deaderick, the former born in Winchester, Va., in 1756, the son of German parents. When eighteen years of age he was paymaster in the Continental war. He then soon came to East Tennessee and was the first merchant in Jonesboro, and became wealthy and died in 1823. He represented Washington County in the Legislature at an early date, and his strict integrity made him highly esteemed. The mother was born in Delaware. Six of her brothers were officers in the Revolution, and one, Joseph, became the first Federal judge appointed for Tennessee, and two others became Congressmen. She made her home with her sister in this county, where she married. She died in 1856 in Jonesboro. By the father's previous marriage, he had one child, Dr. W. H., a well-known physician in East Tennessee, who died at Athens. Our subject, the youngest of six children, was reared in Jonesboro, and afterward entered Washington College and when about sixteen spent two years in East Tennessee University at Knoxville. He also attended Center College, Danville, Ky., and in 1832 returned to Jonesboro and married. He then became a merchant at Cheeks Cross Roads for eight years, and then returned to Jonesboro and read law under Judge Lucky and was admitted in 1845. In 1851 he became a Whig representative in the Legislature, and after the war resumed practice. In 1870 he was elected to a place on the supreme bench, and at the death of Judge Nicholson was made chief justice and re-elected in 1878. After two terms he voluntarily retired in 1886 and returned home to Jonesboro. In 1832 he married Adaline, a daughter of Dr. Ephraim McDowell, the first physician to introduce ovariotomy, and to whose memory the physicians of Kentucky erected a monument at Danville, May 14, 1879, and published a memorial of him. Our subject has had ten children, but one deceased. His wife is a granddaughter of Gov. Shelby, of Kentucky.