Bibb, Dallas, Montgomery, Jefferson County, Alabama
Franklin Potts Glass, of Montgomery, Alabama was born June 7, 1858, in Centreville, Alabama to Benjamin F. and Caroline (Potts) Glass, a planter and businessman in Centreville, Alabama.
The early education of Mr. Glass was received at private schools of Alabama, where he was equipped for entrance to Princeton University. He completed his education at Princeton University, being graduated with honor as a bachelor of arts in the class of 1877.
He returned to Centreville and established the quite successful Bibb Blade in Bibb County, Alabama in 1880 then purchased the Daily Times of Selma in 1881. He moved to Selma in 1881. In 1885, he bought a half interest in the Montgomery Advertiser and moved to Montgomery, where he afterward assumed the management of the paper. When the property interests of the newspaper were organized into “The Advertiser Company,” Glass was made secretary, treasurer, and manager. It was the largest paper in Alabama in 1900.
The company owned and occupied a handsome three-story building en Dexter Ave., equipped with every modern improvement. This building was constructed in 1902, Mr. Glass gave the work much of his personal attention.
He was a forceful and scholarly writer, and widely informed on current affairs. The paper was an ardent espousal of conservative Democracy, and he was a lifelong Democrat.
He was a member of the board of directors of the Montgomery Commercial and Industrial Association, an organization of businessmen, and also a member of the board of trustees of the Carnegie library of Montgomery. Glass was active in church work and an elder of the First Presbyterian church cf Montgomery. He gave to the church and its organizations a loyal devotion.
On April 2, 1884, he married Mattie Ann Purnell and they lived in a comfortable country home in Cloverdale, a suburb of Montgomery in 1900 while he owned the Montgomery Advertiser. They later moved to Birmingham, Jefferson County, Alabama.
They had the following children:
Frank Potts Glass (b. 1885 Selma, Al d. Jul 1962 FL) m. Carol Woodson and he attended Princeton University and was a writer for the Freeland Newspaper in Missouri in 1930.
John Purnell Glass (b. 1886 Selma, AL d. ) m. Willie Elmore (b. 1887 – d. Jan 15, 1979) in 1908 and he was manager of an Auto Renting Co., in Memphis, Tennessee in 1930
Christine Glass (b. 1888 Montgomery, AL – d. 1977 AL) was unmarried
Louise Glass(b. 1890 Montgomery, AL d. 1978 Birmingham, AL) m. Patterson B. Marzoni – a newspaper writer in 1930
Evelyn L. Glass (b. 1892 Montgomery, AL ) m. Arthur Lee Boorse in 1917, a reporter for the Newport News
Hugh Bryson Glass (b. Jun 28,1903 Montgomery, AL – Aug. 16, 1946) was unmarried and a Research Chemist living in Anniston, Alabama in 1930 census.
In 1922, Franklin Potts Glass was an associate in publishing The St. Louis Star and was the former president of the American Newspaper Association and one of the former owners and editors of the Birmingham News. He died in Birmingham in 1934.
Franklin Potts Glass, Sr. was appointed Nov. 1913 to fill a vacancy in the U. S. Senate caused by the vacancy of Joseph F. Johnston but his seat was denied by the Senate Feb. 4, 1914, by vote of 32 to 31, on construction of the seventeenth amendment, denying the governor the right of appointment under the existing statutes of Alabama. He was President of the American Newspaper Publishers Association in 1918-20.
Franklin Potts Glass, Sr. died January 10, 1934, and is buried in Oakwood Cemetery in Montgomery, Alabama.
SOURCES
Notable Men of Alabama edited by Joel Campbell DuBose
