Reed was born in 1849 in Rockdale County, Georgia, according to some sources[2] although others have him as coming from Alabama, including Mildred Lewis Rutherford[3] and possibly Joel Chandler Harris, if Harris, "his inseparable friend and editorial associate"[4] at the Atlanta Constitution, indeed wrote Reed's entry in the Memoirs of Georgia.
[5] 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.
[10] 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.
[11] 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.