Son of William Madison Daniel, Sr and Margaret Minor de Graffenreid; Husband of 1) Florence Russell Stratton married 3/30/1892 in Clarksville, TN; and 2) Minnie E. Benedict married 5/1/1919 in Memphis, TN. Father of Fontaine de Graffenreid, Jr; William Madison; Frances Watkins; Thomas Stratton; Margaret de Graffenreid; Susie Belle; Horace Lacy; Mary Helm, Samuel Henry and Florence Russell.

Tennessee, The Volunteer State, 1769-1923, Vol. 4
"Rev. Fontaine D. Daniel, pastor of the Chelsea Avenue Presbyterian church at Memphis, was born on a farm near Franklin, Tennessee, December 3, 1867. His father, William M. Daniel, was likewise a Tennessean by birth and a son of Spencer Daniel, who came to this state from North Carolina. The Daniel family has long been represented in America and many of its members have been prominent in various walks of life. The late John W. Daniel of Virginia was for an extended period United States senator from that state and was a kinsman of William M. Daniel. The latter was for many years a well known lawyer of Clarksville, Tennessee, where he passed away in the fall of 1921, at the advanced age of eighty-four years. He served in the Tennessee state senate for two terms and was once a candidate for the democratic nomination for governor against the late Bob Taylor. He exerted a widely felt influence over public thought and action and his labors were a potent force for progress and improvement in public as well as in private affairs. He married Margaret de Graffenreid, who was of Swiss and French descent and among her ancestors in the maternal line were members of the McLemore and Fontaine families, both very numerous and prominent in Tennessee. Mrs. Daniel passed away about ten years ago, her death occurring on the 3d of November, 1912, when she was sixty-five years of age.

Fontaine D. Daniel was reared at Clarksville, Tennessee, and educated in the Southwestern Presbyterian University at that place, an institution soon to be removed to Memphis. He won his degree of Bachelor of Philosophy in 1886, while in 1897 his Alma Mater conferred upon him the Master of Arts degree and in 1904 he gained the degree of Bachelor of Divinity. He was twenty years of age when he entered upon the study of law in his father's office and later was admitted to the bar but after a brief period devoted to the practice of the profession he was appointed to the office of clerk of the circuit and criminal courts of Montgomery county. He occupied that position most acceptably for nine years and then resumed the private practice of law in connection with his father, under the firm style of Daniel & Daniel. While serving as clerk of the courts he was also owner and editor of the Evening Daily Times of Clarksville for a period of two years. In the meantime he was carefully considering his duty and his opportunities in life and had determined to fit himself for the Presbyterian ministry. Accordingly, he entered the seminary at Clarksville in the year 1902 and completed his course there in 1904. He was ordained to the ministry on the 29th of May in the latter year and took up the active work of the church as supply pastor in the Hermitage church at Nashville, to which General Andrew Jackson had once belonged. Later he served the West Nashville Presbyterian church, with which he remained until 1908 and then for four years he was pastor of the Presbyterian church at Linnville, Tennessee. From 1912 until 1918 he served churches at Okolona and at Pontotoc, Mississippi, and on the 3d of March, 1918, he became pastor of the Chelsea Avenue Presbyterian church of Memphis, the only Presbyterian church in North Memphis, known widely as the "Old Brick church" erected in the '50s, it having been the first brick church built in Memphis. In 1890, at the biennial conclave of the Kappa Sigma fraternity at Baltimore, he was elected chief national officer of that fraternity and served as such for two years. He is still a member in good standing and he likewise has membership with the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Dr. Daniel has been married twice. On the 30th of March, 1892, he wedded Florence Stratton of Nashville, who passed away in 1917, leaving nine children, eight of whom are living: William M., who is manager of the transit department of the Federal Reserve Bank in Memphis; Frances; Thomas Stratton; Margaret; Susie Belle; Horace Lacy; Sam Henry; and Florence. The last three are at home. On the 1st of May, 1919, Dr. Daniel was married a second time, Miss Minnie Benedict of Memphis, but a native of Ohio, becoming his wife. They have an interesting little daughter, Jane Evelyn, three years of age. Dr. and Mrs. Daniel have a wide acquaintance in Memphis, occupying an enviable position in those social circles where true worth and intelligence are received as passports into good society.

Gifted by nature with strong intellectual force [p.16] Dr. Daniel would undoubtedly have made a name for himself at the bar but a conscientious purpose prompted him to enter upon the wider work of the church, in an effort to promote those forces which endure beyond this life. The high principles of the Christian religion he has taught now for a number of years with good effect, the churches over which he has had charge growing steadily under his guidance, while his influence for good in the communities in which he has lived has been widely felt."