THE subject of this notice was born at Maryville, East Tennessee, Sept. 7, 1808, and died at the Grigsby House, in Jefferson, Texas, at 2 o'clock P.M., on the 22d day of February, 1884, having lived more than three-fourths of a century.

We have no record of the date of his conversion, or union with the Church. His first membership was in the Presbyterian Church, New School, and he was licensed as a probationer for the gospel ministry, by the Union Presbytery of said Church, at Knoxville, Tenn., Oct. 3, 1832, at the age of twenty-four years. At the meeting of the same Presbytery, held at Maryville, Tenn., he was ordained to the full work of the gospel ministry, April 3, 1833, and was an acceptable minister in that denomination for ten years. On the 21st day of October, 1843, he was received into the Cumberland Presbyterian Church as a regularly ordained minister of the gospel. The name of the Presbytery is not definitely known, but the probabilities are that it was the Hiwassee Presbytery, as his credentials are headed Philadelphia.

On the 25th of September, 1832, he was united in marriage, by the Rev. Isaac Anderson, D.D., with Miss Eliza M. McLinn. The result of their union was six sons and two daughters. After a happy union of fifteen years, he was called to mourn the loss of his companion, who, by a fit of apoplexy, as taken from him on the 20th of June, 1847, at the age of forty years and eight days. He was married the second time to Mrs. Martha Ball, August 31, 1847, with whom he lived thirty-five years, and by whom were born unto him one son and four daughters.

In 1851 he removed from Tennessee and settled in Cass county, Texas, where he remained for thirteen or fourteen years. He then took charge of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Jefferson, Texas, and served then five years. Thence he moved to Western Texas, some time in the year 1870, where he made his home the remainder of his life; and was on a visit to see loved children and friends at Jefferson and vicinity when he closed a long and useful life.

Brother Grigsby was a strong man in the gospel ministry. He was persuasive and elegant in his language, clear in his enunciations of divine truth, convincing and powerful in his logic, and "a workman that needeth not to be ashamed." In counsel he was safe, a clear-headed disciplinarian, and a master in discussion on any topic that elicited his powers.

He was a minister of the gospel fifty-one years of his life, and was actively engaged as such, in his Master's service, until six years before his died, when declining health forced him to give up the work so dear to his heart.

For several months before his last he was almost helpless. His sufferings were great, at times intense, yet never was he heard to utter a word of complaint--patience and resignation were marked characteristics to the very last; and when the last scene came, he literally fell asleep in Jesus. His funeral services were held in the Cumberland Presbyterian church in Jefferson, conducted by the Rev. J. A. Ward, D.D., of Marshall, after which his remains were buried with Masonic honors in the Jefferson cemetery.

He has left five sons, three daughters, an aged companion, and the Cumberland Presbyterian Church to mourn their loss, but we sorrow not as those who have no hope. "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him."

May the grace and love of God support and comfort the dear aged widow and children of the one gone before, and may they all so live as to have a happy reunion in heaven.
[Source: The Cumberland Presbyterian, May 1, 1884, page 2]

[Source: Minutes of the General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 1884, page 28]