submitted by: Robyn

        PHARR, John Newton, planter and manufacturer, was born in Mecklenburg county, N. C., March 19, 1829, son of Elias and Martha Caroline (Orr) Pharr. The first of his family in America was Walter Pharr, a native of Scotland, who came to America about 1765, settling in Mecklenburg county, N. C. His wife was Sarah Bryan, and their son Henry, who married Margaret Bain, was the grandfather of the subject of this sketch. The family is a prominent one throughout North and South Carolina, arid has been chiefly represented by Presbyterian ministers, lawyers and farmers. Mr. Pharr received a public school education. On account of business reverses of his father, who was a cotton planter, he was compelled to leave school much to his regret, for he was very efficient in mathematics and history, and was ambitious to secure a college education at Yale. His family removed to Tennessee in 1843, and in the following year to Mississippi. At the age of twenty-one the son went to Louisiana, which became his permanent residence. Here his ability soon made him a prominent figure as the owner of steamboats, saw-mills, timber lands and sugar plantations. At the time of his death he was said to be largest private owner of sugar plantations in the state. At the outbreak of the civil war he enlisted and served in the Confederate cause, and losing all of his slaves and other property, he began a second time at the bottom of the ladder with no less courage than he had shown when a younger man. He was interested in steamboat lines plying between Morgan City and St. Martinville and Abbeville when the Morgan road, (now part of the Southern Pacific railroad) ran only to Morgan City on Berwick bay. He was also the senior member of the lumber firms of Pharr & Gall at New Iberia, La., and Pharr & Williams at Patterson, La. For a number of years he took an active part in politics, and in 1896 was elected governor of the state on the Republican ticket, though the Legislature refused to go behind the returns and he was not seated. Prior to the formation of the Sugar Planters' Republican party, known as the " Lily Whites," he had been a Democrat on account of the negro question. It was admitted by his opponents in an editorial of the "Times-Democrat " that he carried twenty out of the twenty- five white parishes, although a Republican candidate did not receive a majority in a single black parish of the state according to the Democratic returns. Mr. Pharr was married Aug. 11, 1868, at New Iberia, La., to Henrietta Clara, daughter of Lewis Andrus of Opelousas, La., and had six children, of which John Andrus, Henry Newton and Eugene Albertus survive. He died at Berwick at his Fair View plantation home, La., Nov. 21, 1903.

                                                         

       PHARR, Henry Newton, planter, engineer and manufacturer, was born in New Iberia, La., July 19, 1872, son of Capt. John N. and Henrietta Clara (Andrus) Pharr, and a direct descendant of Walter Pharr, a native of Scotland, who came to America in 1765, settling in Mecklenburg county, N. C. The latter's wife was Sarah Bryan, and from them the line of descent is traced through their son Henry and his wife Margaret Bain, and their son Elias and his wife Martha Caroline Orr, who were the grandparents of the subject of this sketch. The family have been prominent through North and South Carolina, counting among its members many prominent Presbyterian ministers, lawyers and farmers. Mr. Pharr's mother is of French and Spanish descent. In 1879 J. N. Pharr removed with his family to Morgan city, La., where he had invested in a sugar plantation, and there his home "Fairview" still exists as the family homestead. Henry N. Pharr attended private school on the plantation until 1886, when he went to New Orleans in order to avail himself of the advantages of the cotton exposition, and while there attended, with his older brother, Soulés Commercial College for three months. In the fall of the same year he entered the preparatory department of the Centenary College, where he won the declamation medal of his first year. He was graduated A. B. in 1892 with the highest honors of the class. After graduation he spent one season in his father's Glenwild sugar factory, as assistant chemist. In February 1893 he entered the mechanical engineering department of Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn. There he completed a four years' course in three and a half years, being graduated in 1896 with the degree of B. E. Besides making a good record as a student, he enjoyed great popularity among his fellows, look-considerable interest in athletics and in his senior year was manager of field sports. He was a member of the Southern order of the Kappa Alpha fraternity. Upon his return to Louisiana in June, 1896, he superintended for three years operations of the large Osgood dredge in digging canals and building levees on his father's properties on the Bayou Boeuf. Meanwhile he acted as assistant superintendent in the Glenwild sugar factory during the "grinding" or winter months. In 1900 he took active charge of the Orange Grove plantation and factory in Iberia parish, where he has since resided. By economic and conservative management, he developed an antiquated 250 ton sugar-house into a modern 700 ton factory. This he accomplished without the expenditure of a large sum of money at one time, making the factory pay for its own improvements each year. Mr. Pharr is an extensive purchaser of sugar cane from the small growers of his parish and has, by his straightforward and honest business methods gained the implicit confidence of everyone with whom he has business relations. Being a practical mechanical engineer, he gives his personal supervision to the details of his factory work, as well as the general management of the agricultural part of the business. In politics Mr. Pharr is a Republican, and in 1900 he was one of the legislative candidates for St. Mary parish, being nominated by the Republican, Democratic, and Independent fusionists. In 1904 the Republicans of the third congressional district of Louisiana unanimously nominated him to be their candidate, though this action was against his wishes. He polled the largest vote of any Republican candidate in the state. He also accepted the nomination of his party for governor of the state in 1903 in response to unanimous request of the party leaders. Although realizing that the Democratic primaries had practically decided the governorship in advance, Mr. Pharr made a strenuous and notable campaign in advocacy of reforms in economic and moral issues. He polled about 12 per cent, of the total vote, which according to the law entitles the Republican party to representation at the polls for the next four years as the only political rival of the Democratic state party. During the campaign Mr. Pharr declared for a white Republican party in the stole but for seeming political expediency towards the national party, the majority of the leaders insisted upon the election of several negro delegates to the national Republican convention in Chicago. As Mr. Pharr had expressly pledged the party against such action, he withdrew with a number of his friends, and severed his official connection with the state organization by resigning as a member-at-large from the state central committee. Mr. Pharr is a director of the State National Bunk of New Iberia and of the Iberia, St. Martin's and Northern railroad. He is a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. He is prominent in church and temperance circles, being a member of the official board of the Methodist church in New Iberia. After the death of Capt. Pharr in 1903, Mrs. Pharr and her three sons consolidated most of the property under the firm name of J. N. Pharr & Sons, of which Mr. Henry N. Pharr is vice-president. He was married in 1898 to Anna, daughter of Courtland Smith, of West Feliciana parish, La., and has one son, John Newton Pharr.




                                                            




                                                                                              
Source: National Cyclopaedia of American Biography