Pryor Lea

Early life Lea was born in what is now Grainger County, Tennessee, but was then part of Knox County, the son of Major Lea and Lavinia (Jarnagin) Lea. He attended the former Greeneville College (now Tusculum College), after which he studied law. He fought in the Creek War as a major under Andrew Jackson in 1813, and clerked for the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1816. He married Maria Kennedy on October 6, 1818. They had four children, Abraham, Julia, Centhia, and James Kennedy. His second marriage was to Minerva Heard, and his third was to Mary Perkins.

Lea was appointed to the Board of Trustees of East Tennessee College (the forerunner of the University of Tennessee) in 1821, and later served as the board's secretary. That same year, he was appointed United States Attorney for Eastern Tennessee.

Congress

A supporter of Andrew Jackson, Lea was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1827, defeating fiery anti-Jacksonite Thomas D. Arnold by a vote of 3,688 to 3,316. He again defeated Arnold in a hotly contested election in 1829, winning 4,713 votes to Arnold's 4,496. Arnold charged Lea with voter fraud, but the House Committee on Elections found no evidence of irregularities, and Lea was allowed to take his seat. He served in the Twentieth and Twenty-first congresses, from March 4, 1827, to March 4, 1831. He was narrowly defeated by Arnold for a third term in 1831, 4,935 votes to 4,702. He voted in favor of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, describing the House debate on the bill as "one of the severest struggles that I have ever witnessed in Congress." He frequently clashed with fellow Tennessee congressman Davy Crockett, with Crockett calling Lea a "poltroon, a scoundrel, and a puppy," and warning they would fight if they ever crossed paths.

In 1830 he gave a speech on a bill to construct a "National Road" from Buffalo, New York to New Orleans.

Later life

During the mid-1830s, Lea developed an interest in railroad construction, which many East Tennesseans viewed as a solution to the region's isolation. He was secretary of an 1836 Knoxville convention that mapped out the proposed Louisville, Cincinnati and Charleston Railroad.

Lea was a founding trustee of the University of Mississippi.

Both Albert and Pryor Lea supported the Knights of the Golden Circle, a secret society which planned to invade Mexico and Central America and establish a massive slave empire around the Gulf of Mexico. They pitched the society's plan to Governor Sam Houston in 1860, but Houston rejected the plan, and ordered the Texas Rangers to break up the Knights' assemblies.

Lea was a delegate to the Texas Secession Convention, which met in Austin in January 1861 to adopt an Ordinance of Secession, leading to eventual Texas membership in the Confederacy. He was elected to the Texas Senate later that year, serving a single term.