Overstreet, John W.

Deafened at age 14 from typhoid fever; graduate of the Kentucky School for the deaf. One source says he served in the Union army (state militia) during the American Civil War, but this is apparently a confusion between hearing father and deaf son, as the son was only 14 years old mid-war in 1862. After the War, worked in his father's store as clerk and assistant, moving up to postmaster. Inherited the business on his father's death; also ran a farm, was a newspaper correspondent, a mechanic, and an inventor. Married Sallie E. Knight in 1871; she only lived a few years after. Remarried in 1881 to Lizzie Crutchfield.