Alfred Phillips was born 19th March, 1806, in Cheatham County N.C., emigrated to Giles County, Tennessee, in the fall of 182_, and on the 21st of December 1828, he was united in matrimony to Polly S. Massey, daughter of Jordan Massey, who came from North Carolina a few years before. They lived together to raise a family of six children to be grown, until 3rd December, 1870 when our mother died in the triumph of the Christian faith. Our father's life was one of spirituality, temperance, industry, truthfulness and honesty. He kept steadily in view the Golden Rule, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you", and his benevolent disposition was continually tested by his preference always to receive than to give offense. As a public man he always manifested a lively cheerful and lenient temper, in manners he was firm, steady and retiring, and in habits he was a hard working man, prompt in all his dealings with his fellow man and strove to give satisfaction. In early life he was a Baptist in belief, but many years before his death he believed and upheld the doctrine of the Methodist church, and although he never attached himself to any church, yet he abstained from committing sins so common to mankind. He used no profanity or obscene language; abstained from deceitfulness hypocrisy, selfishness, covetousness, or narrow mindedness and accorded all men their just due politically, religiously, or financially.

He was of a nature too generous to accumulate wealth, and though he boasted of only a few of this worlds goods, yet he could have boasted of a fortune in the highest place based upon his character with all who knew him. Everybody was his friend. Enemies he had none. As a citizen he was a "model man", and to all appearances he was a Christian; he was a constant reader of the Bible for thirty years or more; he did not, however profess to have made his peace with his maker until a short time before his death when he averred his confidence in the mercy and goodness of God and his resignation to his will, saying that he was willing to die when it was the pleasure of the Lord for him to do so. He was sick eight weeks, confined to his bed for five the two last of which he suffered intensely, but bore it with patience and Christian fortitude, and on the turning of 18th March 1881 at 9:20 he breathed his last without a struggle, groan or movement of a muscle, Thus passed, quietly away an affectionate father, a loving husband, a trusted friend and good citizen.

His remains were interred by the side of our mother, his wife at the family burying ground on Shoals Creek, Giles County, Tennessee.

I was at my father's bedside when soul and body were separated. Sad were my thoughts and gloomy were my feelings, as the facts presented themselves that "the last link" was broken that once bound our happy family together. Mother gone! Father gone, as we confidently trust, to the abode of the blessed, whilst we; their children are scattered, some in one state and some in another, never to be re-united on earth. But, let us in our bereavement take comfort from the Christian's hope that we will come together again in this blissful eternity, if we obey the mandates of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.