Biography

There is a fa­ther-son pair, both named Nel­son Gil­reath, and it is un­cer­tain which is the song writ­er.

The co­py­right no­tice on Will You Meet Me at the Foun­tain? reads Co­py­right, 1894, by Nel­son Gil­reath, Car­ters­ville, GA. The 1894 date in­di­cates the au­thor is the man whose tomb­stone reads Nel­son Gilreath, Sr., lived from 1868–1936, bur­ied in Mal­a­koff, Tex­as (Find­a­grave rec­ord).

Unfortunately, he has no known son named Nel­son, mak­ing the Sr. title ques­tion­a­ble. His fa­ther, al­so named Nel­son, is bur­ied in Car­ters­ville, Geor­gia, but died in 1889 (shown by both tomb­stone and news­pa­per obit­u­a­ry), too ear­ly for the 1894 co­py­right (Find­a­grave rec­ord).

We con­clude that Nel­son the young­er is prob­ab­ly the song writ­er, though we are op­en to ev­i­dence show­ing oth­er­wise.