Hezekiah William Foote
Hezekiah William Foote | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | December 17, 1813 |
| Died | January 29, 1899 (aged 85) Macon, Mississippi, U.S. |
| Occupation(s) | Attorney, planter, politician |
| Spouse | Lucinda Frances (Dade) Foote |
| Children | Huger Lee Foote |
| Relatives | Henry S. Foote (distant cousin) Shelby Foote (great-grandson) |
Hezekiah William Foote (a.k.a. Henry Foote) (1813–1899) was an American Confederate veteran, attorney, planter, slaveholder, and state politician from Mississippi.
Early life[edit]
Hezekiah William Foote was born on December 17, 1813, in Chester County, South Carolina.[1] He moved to Macon, Noxubee County, Mississippi as a teenager.[1][2][3] He studied the Law and passed the Mississippi Bar.[1]
Career[edit]
Foote raised cattle in Noxubee County, becoming the first settler to raise pedigree cattle in Mississippi.[3] Meanwhile, he started a newspaper called The Macon Intelligencer.[1] He then served as Chancery Clerk of Noxubee County and was elected as district judge.[2] He joined the Whig Party and later the Constitutional Union Party.[1] He ran and lost the election to the Mississippi House of Representatives in 1856.[1]
Foote became an ardent secessionist in favor of the Confederate States of America by 1860.[1] During the American Civil War of 1861–1865, he served as a colonel in the Confederate States Army during the Battle of Belmont and the Battle of Shiloh.[1][2][3]
Foote was elected as a member of the Mississippi House of Representatives and the Mississippi Senate.[2] He also served as president of the Farmers and Merchants Bank of Macon, Mississippi.[1]
Foote owned four plantations in the Mississippi Delta:
- the Mounds Plantation near Rolling Fork in Sharkey County, Mississippi.[2][4]
- the Egremont Plantation.[2][4]
- the Hardscramble Plantation.[2][4]
- the Mount Holly Plantation in Foote, Mississippi.[4] He acquired it in the early 1880s.[4]
Foote served as superintendent of the Methodist Sunday School in Macon, Mississippi, for fifty-six years.[1] He was one of the co-founders of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, founded as a Methodist institution, and served on its board of trustees.[1][3] He was related to Henry S. Foote, the governor of Mississippi from 1852 to 1854, who lived where the campus of Vanderbilt University was established.[3]
Personal life[edit]
Foote married Lucinda Frances Dade (1816–1856) in 1836.[1] She inherited 3,000 acres of land in Issaquena County, Mississippi.[1] They had a son, Huger Lee Foote.[4]
Death and legacy[edit]
Foote died on January 29, 1899, in Macon, Mississippi, where he was buried.[1][3] His great-grandson was Shelby Foote, the Civil War author.[1]
References[edit]
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Justin Glenn, The Washingtons: A Family History: Volume 1: Seven Generations of the Presidential Branch, Savas Publishing, 2014, p. 1895 [1]
- ^ a b c d e f g Woody Woods, Delta Plantations - The Beginning, 2010, p. 40
- ^ a b c d e f John Griffin Jones, Mississippi Writers Talking, Oxford, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 1982, pp. 37-56 [2]
- ^ a b c d e f Jim Fraiser, The Majesty of the Mississippi Delta, Pelican Publishing, 2002, p. 47 [3]
- 1813 births
- People from Chester County, South Carolina
- People from Sharkey County, Mississippi
- People from Washington County, Mississippi
- Confederate States Army officers
- Mississippi Whigs
- 19th-century American legislators
- American lawyers
- American planters
- American bankers
- Mississippi state senators
- Vanderbilt University people
- Methodists from Mississippi
- 1899 deaths
- Vanderbilt University faculty
- People from Macon, Mississippi