Charles Alexander was born June 5, 1862, near Prattville, Autauga County, Alabama, the son of John Loftis (b. 1839) and Martha Anne Rebecca (Hill) Alexander (b. 1838) the former born at Haynesville, Lowndes County, Alabama. John Loftis Alexander lived at Prattville and was a member of Co. K. 1st Alabama Infantry Regiment, C. S. Army.
Charles was the grandson of Peyton Smith (b. 1812-d. 1876) and Mary Puryear (Minter) Alexander, (b. 1811-d. 1884)who lived at Hayneville, and of Abner and Mary Spencer (Pegues) Hill, of near Prattville, the former a native of North Carolina, the latter born in Cheraw, S. C. Mary P. Minter’s ancestors, being Huguenots, settled in South Carolina early in the eighteenth century.
Charles was the great-grandson of Edmund Alexander, who came from Petersburg, Va., to Georgia and thence to Alabama, settled near Hayneville and great-great-grandson of William Pegues, a lieutenant in the command of Gen. Francis Marion, in the American Revolution.
Charles Alexander received his early education in Prattville academy, and his collegiate education in Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y. In 1885 he was admitted to the bar; was deputy collector for the district of Alabama, 1889-1903 and in 1904 appointed as U. S. commissioner at Attalla, Alabama a position he held for over ten years.
He was a Progressive Republican. In 1890, he was the Republican nominee for attorney general of Alabama and was a delegate to the National Republican convention of 1896 and 1900 and to the Progressive national convention of 1912.
Charles was an Odd Fellow; Knight of Pythias and an Elk.
He married June 7, 1903, at Attalla, Helen Mortimer, daughter of Robert Henry and Emelyn Johnson (Bray) Freeman, of Attalla. Her father was a descendant of Robert Freeman, one of the eighteen Englishmen who, in 1645, under Dutch authority, founded Flushing, Long Island. She was the great-granddaughter of Gen. Daniel Bray, who collected the boats in which Gen. Washington and his army, on the night of their attack on Trenton, crossed the Delaware River.
They resided in Prattville, Alabama where Charles practiced law.
SOURCES
History of Alabama and dictionary of Alabama biography, Volume 3 By Thomas McAdory Owen, Marie Bankhead Owen
