Josiah "Joe" Thomas Settle (September 30, 1850 – August 21, 1915) was a lawyer in Washington, D.C., Sardis, Mississippi, and Memphis, Tennessee.

His father was the owner of the family, also named Josiah, and at the time of his birth, his master was moving the household from their former home in Rockingham, North Carolina, to Mississippi.

Nancy Ann was a slave of Azariah Graves, a North Carolina militia general in the War of 1812, and may have been a child of his or someone in his family.

As the state forbade the presence of free blacks, in March 1856, they moved to Hamilton, Ohio, although Settle kept his slaves and plantation in Mississippi and lived there in the fall, winter, and spring.

[1] He supported Grant in the 1872 presidential election and campaigned in Maryland and in his home state of Ohio.

His work at first brought him to various locations throughout the state, finally settling at Sardis in Panola County in northwest Mississippi, forming a partnership with D. T. J. Matthews.

[1] In 1882, Settle was encouraged to run for congress, but endorsed James Ronald Chalmers who ran as an independent Democrat and was awarded the seat after some controversy.

Settle was made chairman of the Republican Congressional Executive Committee and campaigned vigorously.

In 1883, the Republicans and independent Democrats again sought a joint ticket for state legislature, which Settle opposed.

[12] In 1906 he, Robert Reed Church, M. L. Clay, and T. H. Hayes founded the Solvent Bank and Trust Company at 392 Beale Street in Memphis.

[14] In 1910, he helped organize a Memphis chapter of Sigma Pi Phi along with James Carroll Napier of Nashville.

[15] In Memphis, he was a member of a circle of African American elites which included Robert Church, his daughter Mary Church Terrell and her husband Robert Heberton Terrell, Roscoe Conkling Bruce,[16] Charles F. Hookses, and Samuel A.

On March 20, 1890,[20] Settle married Fannie McCullough, director of music at Lemoyne Normal Institute.