Oliver P. Temple. The latter was born in Greene County, Tenn., near Greeneville College, January 27, 1820. After attending the old field schools in the neighborhood until he was fourteen or fifteen years of age, he entered Greeneville College, then Tusculum College, and finally Washington College, all in East Tennessee, from the latter of which he was graduated in 1844.
In September, 1846, he was licensed to practice law, haying studied in the office of Robert J. McKinney, afterwards an eminent member of the supreme court of the State. In 1847, ten months after obtaining his law license, at the age of twenty -seven, he be- came a Whig candidate for Congress against Andrew Johnson, and after a heated canvass of three weeks, the usual majority of Mr. Johnson in the district was reduced from about 1,500 to 314 votes.
In 1848 Mr. Temple moved to Knoxville, where he became the partner in the practice of law with the Hon. William H. Sneed, one of the ablest lawyers of his day. In 1850, in conjunction with Col. Charles S. Todd, of Kentucky, and Hon. Robert B. Campbell, of South Carolina, he was appointed by President Fillmore, under a special Act of Congress, a Commissioner to visit the Indian tribes in the territories then recently acquired from Mexico, to inquire into their wants and complaints, and negotiate treaties and conciliate them by presents. In 1851 he was married to Miss Scotia C. Hume, daughter of David Hume and Eliza Saunderson, his wife, both natives of Scotland. In 1860 he served as Elector on the presidential ticket of Bell and Everett, and cast his vote for them in the Electoral College. In November of that year he made the first Union speech delivered in Tennessee after the election of Mr. Lincoln. During the exciting times of 1861 he was prominent as a Union leader and speaker, and remained true to the Union throughout the civil war.
In July, 1866, Mr. Temple was appointed Chancellor of the Chancery Division in which he lived; and by virtue of this appointment and a subsequent election, he held this office for twelve years. In 1874, by virtue of an appointment by President Grant, he was a visitor at the Military Academy of West Point. In 1881-85 he was postmaster at Knoxville. In 1885 he retired from the bar and all active duties. In 1897 he published a book entitled "The Covenanter, the Cavalier, and the Puritan," and in October, 1899, when within four months of eighty, he published a history entitled " East Tennessee and the Civil War." He has another work on the same subject within three months of completion, but its publication in his lifetime, or at all, is problematical.
In addition to the foregoing, Mr. Temple has been a trustee of the University of Tennessee for forty-five years.
