Reed was born in 1849 in
Rockdale County, Georgia, according to some sources although others have him as coming from Alabama, including
Mildred Lewis Rutherford and possibly
Joel Chandler Harris, if Harris, "his inseparable friend and editorial associate" at the
Atlanta Constitution, indeed wrote Reed's entry in the
Memoirs of Georgia. His biography in
Memoirs of Georgia claims he was born in
Wilcox County, Alabama, and grew up in
Montgomery; he moved to Atlanta with his parents in 1859. The
Civil War was an interruption to his education, and he spent two years working in a bookstore. He published his first story at age 15, and throughout his life wrote hundreds of stories and sketches. He passed the bar before he turned 21 and briefly worked as a solicitor. He turned to journalism, first editing two country newspapers, and worked for a variety of papers in and around Atlanta as well as some national newspapers. Reed was the editor of
History of Atlanta, Georgia (D. Mason & Co., 1889), a book considered a building block for
Franklin Garrett's authoritative history of the city. He was a colleague of Joel Chandler Harris at the
Atlanta Constitution, where he worked since 1883. Reed wrote short stories as well. Reed's wife was Kate Shaver, the daughter of the Reverend David Shaver. David Shaver was a Baptist preacher, born in Virginia around 1815 and married there at Lynchburg, who moved to Atlanta with his family in 1867, his wife dying in
Augusta in 1893. Shaver was the editor of the Atlanta
Christian Index for over 28 years. Reed's brother-in-law, Addison Hill Shaver son of David, was born in
Hampton, Virginia, went to
Mercer University, and became a newspaperman in 1876; working for many newspapers including the
Atlanta Constitution and, after marrying Lula McCord in 1890, becoming the editor and proprietor of the
Dalton Argus (serving
Dalton and the surrounding
Whitfield County) in 1892. Reed died in 1903. ==References==