Background
Avery was born in Hardeman County, Tennessee on November 11, 1819, the son of Nathan and Rebecca Jones Rivers Avery.
Avery was born in Hardeman County, Tennessee on November 11, 1819, the son of Nathan and Rebecca Jones Rivers Avery.
He attended the common schools, graduated from old Jackson College near Columbia, Tennessee in Maury County. He studied law and was admitted to the Barometer
They had three children, William Thomas, Harry Edwin, and Emma Blythe. He was elected as a Democrat to the Thirty-fifth and Thirty-sixth Congress. He served from March 4, 1857 to March 3, 1861, but he was not a candidate for renomination in 1860.
During the Civil War, Avery served as a lieutenant colonel in the Confederate Army.
He was a clerk of the criminal court of Shelby County from 1870 to 1874. He resumed the practice of law in Memphis, Tennessee.
Avery accidentally drowned in Ten Mile Bayou in Crittenden County, Arkansas, opposite Memphis, on May 20, 1880 (age 60 years, 193 days). He is interred at Elmwood Cemetery in Memphis, Tennessee.
In 1843, Avery was a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives.