Dean of American college presidents, he served as president of Jacksonville State Normal-State Teachers College from 1899 to 1942 and, during an educational renascence in the South, was in the forefront of the Alabama educational system. He was also president of 1st National Bank from 1934 to 1942. He married Anne Rowan Forney in 1897, daughter of General John H. Forney and Septima Sexta Middleton Rutledge.