From History of Texas, Published in 1896
T.A. Wood of Hood County is a native son of Georgia, his birth having occurred in Hall County on the 11th of August, 1842. In colonial days the Wood family was established in South Carolina, and there the father of our subject, Lorenzo Dow Wood, was born and reared. He became a farmer and followed that pursuit throughout his entire life. When he had arrived at years of maturity he married Miss Louisa Ray McCleskey, a native of Georgia. Our subject was their third son and seventh child. When he was a lad of ten years his parents removed from Georgia to Alabama, locating in what was then Marshall County, but is now Etowah County.
Upon a farm in that locality T.A. Wood lived and labored in his early days remaining with his parents until the spring of 1861, when he felt that duty called him for service in the southern army and he was not slow to respond to that call. Accordingly he joined the Twenty-eighth Regiment of Alabama volunteers, and was assigned to Captain Terpin’s Company. His service called him to Corinth, Mississippi, where he remained for about seven months, when he returned home on furlough. During his visit, he succeeded in organizing a cavalry company, and was chosen lieutenant and was transferred from the infantry to the cavalry service and attached to the Fourth Alabama Cavalry. He participated in the battle of Murfreesboro and was then on detached duty as a conscript officer and under General Pillow at Huntsville, Alabama, until the close of the war.
Returning to the pursuits of civil life, Mr. Wood carried on farming in Etowah County until 1871, the year of his arrival in Texas, at which time he purchased one hundred and sixty acres of wild timber land. This he has cleared and improved, making it a very productive tract; and as his financial resources have increased he has added to his property until his landed possessions now aggregate five hundred acres. His principal crops are cotton, corn and potatoes. In addition he is also engaged in stock-raising to some extent, making a specialty of the breeding of Clydesdale horses. He is a self-made man who has accumulated a comfortable property through his own labors. Socially he is connected with Paluxy Lodge, No. 393, F.&A.M., and in political views he is independent.
During the war Mr. Wood was united in marriage with Miss Mary Emma Bayne, a native of Virginia, but living in Blount County, Alabama at the time of her marriage. Her parents were James and Elizabeth (Moore) Bayne. Three children were born of this union: Willie, wife of L.A. Tidwell, of Hood County; Robert Irving, who died on the eighteenth anniversary of his birth; and James Austin, of Hood County. The mother was called to the home beyond in 1874, and for his second wife Mr. Wood chose Miss Sarah Ann Burton, a native of Illinois. During her girlhood days she came with her parents to Erath County, and by their death was soon left an orphan. Four children grace this marriage – Jessie Lora, Conda Cleveland, Joel Tralor and Thomas Sylvester. The parents are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.
SOURCE
History of Texas, 1896, Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Co.