James F. Lauck was born on October 10, 1830 in Brook County, VA. Lauck was admitted to the bar in 1857 and went on to practice law in Franklin, KY in 1861. He served in the 33rd Kentucky Volunteer Infantry as Lieutenant Colonel. He served for two years as the Legislature of Kentucky while serving as Lieutenant Colonel. Lauck moved to Gallatin, TN in 1865 where he worked as a merchant and served as Engrossing Clerk in the TN House of Representatives. He was elected Chancellor of the Seventh Division of TN in 1867. The following year, Lauck moved his family to Kansas and he resumed practicing law. He married Mary E. Harris in Franklin, KY in 1857 and the couple had six children together. Lauck died in Coffeyville, KS on June 9, 1896.

William Gannaway "Parson" Brownlow (1805-1877) was an influential East Tennessee minister, journalist, and governor. In 1838 he became owner/editor of an Elizabethton newspaper popularly known as Brownlow's Whig. His newspaper, which, on the eve of the Civil War reached nearly eleven thousand subscribers across the nation, moved to Knoxville in 1849. The Parson was a prominent spokesperson for the Whig Party and a staunch defender of the Union. After Tennessee left the Union, Brownlow continued speaking out against the Confederacy. He was eventually jailed in Knoxville and later expelled from the Confederacy for his anti-secession editorials. After traveling on a speaking tour throughout the North, the Parson returned to Knoxville with the Union troops in the fall of 1863, continuing to rail against the Confederacy and secession. In March 1865, Tennessee Unionists chose Brownlow to succeed Andrew Johnson as governor of Tennessee. After two terms as Tennessee's Reconstruction-era governor, Brownlow, in 1869, was chosen to represent the state in the U. S. Senate. He served only one term before returning to Knoxville, where he died on April 28, 1877.