DeWitt Clinton Frey was born on September 3, 1845, in Robertson County, Tennessee, to Thomas Jefferson Frey and Elizabeth Farthing. His father was a farmer who owned $3,300 of real estate and $1,150 of personal property in 1860. The family moved to Montgomery County sometime in the 1850s, and Frey attended school there. He apparently avoided Confederate military service during the Civil War. Frey married Martha A. Goodman in Robertson County on January 28, 1869, and they had at least four children: James, born around 1871; Minnie, born around 1873; Emmett, born around 1875; and Claude, born around 1880. Frey worked as a farmer in Montgomery County, and in 1870, he owned $600 of personal property. He remained in Montgomery County for the rest of his life, and he died there of a “Gastric ulcer” on November 18, 1919.