Benedict, William S.

 Submitted by Mike Miller

William S. Benedict, born in Gainesville, Sumter county, Ala., is the son of Philip and Catherine (Endt) Benedict, descendants of the earlier settlers dating back to 1732. Philip Benedict, his father, served in the Black Hawk war, under General Scott, and lived to see the Alleghany country outgrow the north Atlantic states, dying in 1888. His mother, now aged seventy-eight years, has seen the country grow from a wilderness into rich land supporting great cities and enjoying all the luxuries of the nineteenth-century civilization. Mr. Benedict graduated from the boys' high school of New Orleans in the year 1857, and entered into commercial business. In the year 1863, on his return from a long tour on account of his health and for instruction, he was appointed as a deputy prize commissioner for the port of New Orleans during the war, in the United States district court, and at the same time made a deputy clerk of said court attending to the general duties of that office during each successive administration, until December 1, 1865. During this period of time he employed his leisure moments in the study of law, and after a careful examination by the supreme court of the state of Louisiana, was admitted to practice therein and received his certificate under date of May 31, 1865. He deemed it proper, further, to attend a course of the University of Louisiana in its law department, and on April 2, 1866, likewise received its diploma, in the meantime attending to the active practice of law for Messrs. Durant & Hornor, as their chief assistant, between December, 1865, and July, 1866, when he took charge of the entire business of said firm. In July, 1866, he formed a copartnership with the son of Mr. Charles W. Hornor, of the firm of Durant & Hornor, same continuing for fourteen years with a practice amounting to almost one-fifth of that of the entire bar. At that date, each partner having a sufficiency, thought to retire, and such agreement was made of separation, to attend to the interests of the old firm, mutually, and such others as either should be pleased to enjoy. In politics Mr. Benedict is independent, regarding the interests of the state as above all things, but is somewhat confirmed in his convictions as to the state having in any manner repudiated any part or portion of its indebtedness to the people of the world, and trusts this may be obviated in days to come. He never held office, and has withstood the inducements held, out to him on more than one occasion to enter official life. In Masonic circles he is known as a past-master of Orient lodge, now Perfect Union No. 1; as a past grand high priest, of Orleans chapter No. 13; and past prelate of Delta commandery. Mr. Benedict was married August 11,1870, to Miss Jane West, daughter of Charles W. Hornor, then of New Orleans, and now of Washington, D. C. To their marriage two children were born-Percy S. and Jessie Hornor. The former graduated with honors from Tulane University in the summer common law class of 1890 at nineteen years of age, and won first honors, the same year in a class of ninety-three students at the University of Virginia. He was admitted to practice in the United States courts at once, where there being no age qualification required, had to wait to attain legal age, under the Louisiana constitution, to be admitted by the supreme court of his own state. Associated with his father in the meantime, he gives promise that the honors won in youth will increase and his practical path through life will be without tarnish.

From Biographical and Historical Memoires of Louisiana, volume 2, p. 283.