Rev. Thomas Young Abernethy, Methodist minister, was born October 13, 1851, at Spring Hill, Marengo County; son of William Henry Abernethy (1828-1911) and Susan Rebecca (Grayson) Abernethy, (1833-1913) the former also a native of Spring Hill. Rev. Thomas Y. Abernethy’s father was a practicing physician for sixty-three years, local medical examiner for the Confederacy, and on account of being a cripple was debarred from active service.
Rev. Abernethy was the grandson of Rev. Thomas Smith Abernethy and Martha (Lucy) Abernethy, and of Young Grayson and Emeline (Moore) Grayson, all of Marengo County. He was the great-grandson of Henry Abernethy and Rebecca (Frith) Abernethy, who with the former’s father, John Abernethy, immigrated from Scotland to Brunswick County, Va., and of William James Grayson and Susan (Williams) Grayson.
He received an old field school education and read medicine prior to hearing the call to preach. He taught school for three years in Wilcox County before receiving his license with the itinerant Methodist ministry, 1873, in which he has served for forty-three consecutive years. He was for fifteen years a circuit rider, fifteen years on stations and eight in districts. He was secretary of the Conference mission board for a number of years; was a Mason and a Democrat.
Rev. Abernethy married: April 19, 1876, to Lizzie Johnson, (b. Nov. 15, 1852 – Aug. 10, 1915) daughter of J. Leslie Johnson and Margaret Elizabeth (Bradley) Johnson, of Johnson’s Wood Yard, Monroe County; granddaughter of John Johnson and Mary Ann (Leslie) Johnson, and of John Bradley and Margaret (Munnerlin) Bradley. The Johnsons and Bradleys were of Irish origin and moved from South Carolina to Alabama in 1816.
Their children were:
Thomas Young Abernethy, Jr.
Lizzie J. Abernethy, m. Earnest Henry Archibald , Castleberry;
Mysie Abernethey, m. William Ray Chesser, Pensacola, Fla.;
Florence Almira Abernethy, m. Walter Richards Bennett, Pensacola, Fla.;
Mary Owen Abernethy, Camden;
William Henry Abernethy, m. Lilly Belle Triggs, Spring Hill;
Floyd Lamar Abernethy, Flomaton;
Rufus Gautier Abernethy of Tuskegee.
Rev. Thomas Young Abernethy died March 25, 1935 in Pensacola, Florida and is buried in Flomaton Cemetery in Escambia County, Alabama near his parents and wife Lizzie. Her last name is spelled Abernethy as well as many of his children’s names.
SOURCES
History of Alabama and dictionary of Alabama biography, Volume 3 By Thomas McAdory Owen, Marie Bankhead Owen
Reverend T.Y. Abernethy, the old-set minister of the Alabama Methodist Conference, died at his home in Pensacola Monday. He joined the conference in 1873 in Selma and the records show that he never missed a conference roll call. The deceased was for four years presiding elder of the Prattville District – Prattville Progress death notices March 28, 1935
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