Biographies of St Mary Parish

Biographies of St. Mary Parish Louisiana

SANDERS, Jared Young, twenty-eighth governor of Louisiana, ( 1908 — ) was born in the Parish of St. Mary, near Morgan City, La., Jan. 29, 1S69, son of Jared Young and Bessie ( Wofford) Sanders. His father, a sugar planter, died when the son was twelve years of age, and the flood of 1882, caused by a crevasse in the levees of the Mississippi river, swept away the plantation and left young Sanders with his mother and six little brothers and sisters wholly dependent upon him. He obtained employment in a country store in his neighborhood and continued at this and similar occupations for several years. Then he entered a printing office and learned the trade, so that to-day he is a thorough practical printer of the old school. From being an employee of the St. Mary "Banner," he became its editor m 1891, and some years later secured a controlling interest of that periodical. While editor of the St. Mary " Banner," he began reading law; was able to matriculate at the law department of Tulane University in 1891, and after being graduated in 1893, was admitted to the bar in May of that year. He formed a partnership with Placide P. Sigur, under the firm name of Sigur & Sanders, with offices in Franklin, La. This firm was changed to Sigur, Milling & Sanders, in 1896, and in February, 1901, Emile Godchaux was admitted to the partnership. Under the name of Foster, Milling, Godchaux & Sanders, it continued until Jan. 1, 1907, when he severed his connection with the copartnership and engaged in practice by himself. Mr. Sanders' political career began in 1892 with his election to the legislature as a Democrat. By reelection he served twelve years in that body, and in 1900 was unanimously elected speaker of the house, figuring in what was said to be one of the most unusual elections that ever occurred in the house. The speaker of the house, which had adjourned in 1898, was a member of the legislature of 1900, but despite this fact Mr. Sanders was given every vote on the floor, the representatives thus paying tribute to the young man who had so distinguished himself in law and politics. He continued to be speaker until 1904, when he was nominated and elected lieutenant-governor of Louisiana. The vote given to Mr. Sanders was the largest given to any of the candidates both in the Democratic primary and in the general election that followed. In April, 1908, he was elected governor, and assumed office in the following month. In his inaugural address the policies he outlined and the reforms he recommended attracted wide attention. Among the important measures enacted upon his suggestion were laws regulating the traffic in intoxicating liquors; abolishing race-track gambling; creating a game commission to conserve the birds, animals, and fish of the state; repealing the tax upon mortgages, for the purpose of encouraging the investment of outside capital in the development of the state; creating commissions to codify the civil and criminal laws of the state; amending the primary election law with a view to minimizing the opportunity and providing a punishment for fraud in the elections and a number of other important measures. Perhaps no governor of Louisiana has enjoyed a wider personal acquaintance with the people of the state. His power as an orator, and his firm grasp upon the problems that interest the masses made him one of the foremost of the younger generation of public men in the southwest. Gov. Sanders was married May 31, 1891, to Ada, daughter of J. F. Shaw of Arkansas, and has one son, Jared Young Sanders, Jr.

Source: The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography submitted by Jrice

ACKLEN, Joseph Hayes

(1850—1938)

ACKLEN, Joseph Hayes, a Representative from Louisiana; born in Nashville, Tenn., May 20, 1850; educated by private tutors; attended Burlington Military College, near Burlington, N.J., in 1864 and 1865, and was graduated from two foreign universities (École de Neuilly, Paris, and Swiss University, Vevay); returned to the United States and was graduated from the Lebanon Law School, Lebanon, Tenn., in 1871; commenced the practice of law in Nashville and later practiced in Memphis, Tenn.; abandoned the practice of law and moved to Louisiana to superintend his sugar plantations near Pattersonville (now Patterson), St. May Parish; colonel in the Louisiana Militia in 1876; successfully contested as a Democrat the election of Chester B. Darrall to the Forty-fifth Congress; reelected to the Forty-sixth Congress and served from February 20, 1878, to March 3, 1881; was not a candidate for renomination in 1880; resumed the practice of law at Franklin, La.; declined to accept the position of judge of the Federal district court of Louisiana tendered by President Hayes in 1880; unsuccessful candidate for election in 1882 to the Forty-eighth Congress; returned to Nashville, Tenn., in 1885 and continued the practice of law; chairman of the Davidson County Democratic executive committee 1886-1894; member of the Nashville City Council 1900-1904; president of the State bar association in 1901 and 1902; general insurance counsel of Tennessee 1903-1907; State warden of the department of game, fish, and forestry 1903-1913; general counsel of the National Association of Game and Fish Commissioners of the United States 1905-1912, when elected president; middle Tennessee counsel of the St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad 1907-1911; chief game warden of the United States in 1913 and 1914; author of numerous articles on ornithology, fish culture, forestry, and field sports; chairman of the State central committee on the constitutional convention 1923-1927; died in Nashville, Tenn., September 28, 1938; interment in Mount Olivet Cemetery.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present, contributed by A. Newell.

Murphy James Foster, Sr.

Murphy James Foster, Sr. (January 12, 1849 – June 21, 1921), was a Louisiana politician who served two terms as a Democratic governor of Louisiana from 1892 – 1900. His grandson, Murphy J. Foster, Jr., served as a Republican governor of the state from 1996 to 2004.

Foster was born on a sugar plantation near Franklin, the seat of St. Mary Parish, to Thomas Foster and the former Martha P. Murphy. He was educated in public schools and attended Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, and graduated from Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tennessee in 1870. He studied law at the University of Louisiana (later Tulane University) in New Orleans and was admitted to the bar in 1871.

On May 15, 1877, Foster married the former Florence Daisy Hine, the daughter of Franklin merchant T.D. Hine. She died on August 26, 1877 at age 19. In 1881, he married the former Rose Routh Ker, daughter of Captain John Ker and the former Rose Routh of Ouida Plantation in West Feliciana Parish near Baton Rouge. The couple had ten children, nine of whom lived to maturity. One was Murphy James Foster, II, the father of future Governor Mike Foster. Mike Foster is technically Foster, III, but he uses the term "Jr."

Prior to serving as governor, he was a state senator from 1880-1892. In 1892, he was elected governor as the Democratic nominee, and he had the support of the Farmer's Alliance as well.

In the 1896 general election, Foster won reelection. He defeated the Republican-Populist fusion candidate, John N. Pharr. Foster received 116,116 votes (57 percent) to Pharr's 87,698 ballots (43 percent). The election however suffered heavily from fraud in Foster's favor and a clear accounting of the election results is probably not possible.

After leaving the office of governor in 1900, he was elected by the state legislature as a U.S. senator. He served until 1913,when he was defeated. Thereafter, he was appointed by President Woodrow Wilson as the customs collector in New Orleans. He died in 1921 on the Dixie Plantation near Franklin, some nine years before his future grandson-governor was born.

Foster struggled to maintain white supremacy in Louisiana through his support of the Louisiana Constitution of 1898, which practically disfranchised blacks. He also led the fight which succeeded in outlawing the Louisiana Lottery Co. Foster fought for the interest of sugar growers and supported flood-control legislation and the regulation of railway rates. submitted by: JoAnn