PART III
                   ========
   
            BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES
            =====================
 
             BROWNSTOWN TOWNSHIP.
 
JUDGE RALPH APPLEWHITE, the son of James and
Mary (Reagan) Applewhite, natives of South Carolina and
North Carolina, respectively, was born January 19, 1826, in
Union County, Miss. His father fought under Gen. Jackson at
the battle of New Orleans, and was conspicuous for his many
acts of bravery. At the age of five the subject of this sketch
moved with his parents to what was then called the "Indian Pur-
chase," and settled in, Carroll County, Miss. The county at that
time was almost a dense wilderness, and was inhabited by the
Chickasaw and Choctaw Indians, who were preparing to migrate
to the Indian Territory west of the Mississippi. In this wild
pioneer life young Applewhite entered and grew up amidst all
these surroundings. His early advantages for an education were
quite limited. He attended school in an old log schoolhouse
where the principal theory was practically and at times forcibly
taught that to spare the rod is to spoil the child - the rod was
rarely spared. When about seventeen years of age he attended
a select school in Natchez, Miss. In the spring of 1844 he went
to Hanover College, in Jefferson County, Ind., and remained
there for about two years. While at college he met and courted
the lady who afterward became his wife. In 1846 he returned
to Natchez, Miss., and studied law under Col. Lewis Sanders. In
the fall of 1846 he entered the senior class in the law department
of Louisville (Ky.) University, from which institution he grad-
uated March 1, 1847. In March, 1847, he married Miss Jo-
sephine Brandt, at Hanover, Ind., and, to her the Judge owes much