Luther J. Glenn
A Not So Odd Fellow
As an early and founding resident of what became Atlanta, Georgia, Luther J. Glenn did it all. The native of Sandersville, Washington County was born in 1818. Like many forward thinking men of his death, Glenn decided to hang out his shingle in front of his law office in the infant city of Atlanta.
Growing up in a prominent and wealthy family, Glenn attended the best private schools and entered the University of Georgia at the tender age of seventeen. As a member of the Phi Kappa Society and , the salutatorian of his senior class, Glenn boosted his social standing by taking the hand in marriage of Mildred Cobb, sister to the valedictorian, T.R.R. Cobb.
Luther Glenn first practiced in Henry County, Georgia. His relationship to the Cobb family, especially to another brother-in-law, Howell Cobb helped to launch his practice. Howell Cobb served the United States and the Confederate States in many high ranking positions from Governor of Georgia, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Secretary of the United States Treasury, and as a general in the Confederate States Army.
Glenn became a top lawyer in North Georgia. His talent and personality led him a seat in the Georgia Senate representing Henry County. Later he served as the Secretary of the Georgia Senate. When a Constitutional Convention was called in 1850, Henry countians chose Glenn to help form a new state constitution.
At the beginning of the second half of the 19th Century, Glenn removed to the burgeoning city of Atlanta as one of the new town’s few attorneys. First elected as Mayor of Atlanta in 1858, he was re-elected for a second term the following year.
As war with the North became inevitable, Luther Glenn sought out and volunteered his services to his homeland. In December 1860, the voting men of Fulton County and Atlanta chose Luther Glenn to represent that county in the Georgia Secession Convention at the state capital, then in Milledgeville. After Georgia seceded from the Union, Glenn was appointed a commissioner to the Secession Convention in Missouri, a critical state to the success of the Confederacy.
Glenn enlisted in the Confederate Army, but quickly rose in rank. As a member of his brother-in-law’s (T.R.R.) Cobb’s Legion, Glenn commanded Company C. In one of the first major battles of 1863. Lt. Colonel Glenn was badly wounded in the critical Battle of Chancellorsville. Glenn was sent home to Atlanta, but continued to served the Confederacy as the post commander when he surrendered the remaining Confederate troops of Atlanta to Col. Beroth B. Eggleston of the 1st Ohio Cavalry on May 3, 1865.
Glenn returned to the legislature in 1872 after the end of Reconstruction, this time as a state representative from Fulton County.
On the private side of his public life, Luther Glenn became an icon as a member of
International Order of Odd Fellows Grand Lodge of Georgia. First initiated in 1848, Glenn served in the Odd Fellows for more than three and one-half decades. Within five years, Glenn was elected to represent the Georgia Lodge in the Grand Lodge of the United States of America. After the Civil War, Glenn returned to the U.S. Lodge in 1869.
During his nine-year term the nation’s Grand Lodge, Luther Glenn was a top member, serving on a myriad of committees.
Glenn’s leadership qualities convinced his fellow Odd Fellows that he was worthy of the position as Deputy Grand Shire in 1878. His successful tenure as Deputy Grand Shire led o his unanimous election as the Grand Shire at the 1880 Convention in Toronto, Canada.
Glenn’s success was based his business expertise, his legal skills, and his leadership in the military. His judgment was rarely questions by the Sovereign Grand Lodge.
After finishing his final term in the Grand Lodge, Luther Glenn was forced into not seeking re-election because of his declining health.
With nothing left for this remarkable 68-year-old man to accomplish, Glenn returned to Atlanta where he died on June 9, 1886.
Glenn was eulogized by those who loved and admired him the most.
One wrote, “Past Grand Sire Glenn possessed the qualities of a noble manhood, was an Odd Fellow in spirit and in truth; warmhearted, genial, courteous, as brave as a paladin of old and as tender as a woman, no one ever vacated the chair of Grand Sire with warmer and more devoted friends. Of ample proportions and majestic form, his person was an index to his mind, for he was a broad-gauged, liberal-minded man with no element of littleness in his nature. Lovable and loving, “faithful to his country and fraternal to his fellow-man,” it may be truly said of him as was of another one of nature’s noblemen, that “ None knew him but to love him, none named him but to praise.”
Luther J. Glenn was buried in the Oconee Hill Cemetery in Athens. Glenn’s son, John Thomas Glenn, served two years as mayor of Atlanta to become the first father and son to serve as Mayor of Georgia’s capital city.
Comments