Wickliffe, Col. John C.

Submitted by Mike Miller

Col. John C. Wickliffe comes of a family of able statesmen who have served in the councils of Kentucky, Louisiana and the Union. He is now a resident of the city of New Orleans and is able and earnest in his advocacy of what he thinks best calculated to promote the interests of the city and his country. He was born in Lexington, Ky., on the 21st of August, 1854, and is a son of Col. John Crepps and Ellen Hunt (Curd) Wickliffe, both of whom are now residents of Bardstown, Ky., of which city the father is a native. He (the father) is a talented attorney of Louisville, Ky., and in public and private life has ever held good repute as a worthy and representative citizen. Owing to his knowledge of law and to his well-known devotion to his state, he was elected a member of the Kentucky legislature in the fifties, in the councils of which body he showed himself to be possessed of brilliant reasoning powers and of incorruptible honor. During the lamentable war between the North and South he served as lieutenant-colonel of the Ninth Kentucky infantry, C. S. A., and was a tried and true soldier to the cause he espoused. He served for some time as circuit judge of his state, and during the administration of President Cleveland he was United States district attorney of Kentucky. He is a son of Charles A. Wickliffe, ex-governor of Kentucky, and ex-member of congress and postmaster-general under President Tyler, and also a member of the peace commission which met in Washington in 1861 to avert the impending war. Col. John Curd Wickliffe, the immediate subject of this sketch is a nephew of Hon. Robert C. Wickliffe, ex-governor of Louisiana. It is worthy of note that when Robert C. Wickliffe was governor of Louisiana, his father, Charles A., was governor of Kentucky and that the subject of this sketch was serving as district attorney of Louisiana at the same time his father was serving in a like capacity in Kentucky. The paternal grandfather was also a commissioner of the United States in negotiating arrangements for the annexation of Texas, receiving his appointment from President Polk. The maternal grandfather was Richard Curd and the maternal great-grandfather was John W. Hunt, of Lexington, Ky.

One of the latter's sons, Francis K. Hunt, was a distinguished lawyer of Lexington, while still another brother, Thomas H. Hunt, was treasurer of the New Orleans exposition and was one of the building committee that erected the Cotton exchange at that place. He and Richard Curd were members of the firm of Hunt, Curd & McCauley, of New Orleans and Liverpool. Gen. John H. Morgan was a first cousin of Colonel Wickliffe's mother. Col. John C. Wickliffe was educated in the preparatory department of the Transylvania university, of Lexington, Ky., which institution he attended from 1862 to 1865 but the following year removed with his father to Florida, three years being spent in the local schools of that state. At the end of this time his father returned to Bardstown, Ky., and after attending the public schools of this city for one year he, at the early age of fifteen years, began teaching school as a temporary pursuit, which calling he followed for ten months, in Nelson county. In the meantime he took up the study of law and in January, 1871, was appointed deputy clerk of the county court and clerk of the quarterly court of Nelson county.

In May of the same year he was appointed a cadet to West Point, but was found to be two months under the required age--seventeen. The following August he was reappointed to fill the vacancy occasioned by his own ineligibility and being of the proper age he was admitted on the let of September, 1871. He remained at West Point until January, 1873, when he was found deficient in discipline and his resignation was asked for. He had 101 demerits and 100 were the limit allowed. He resigned, returned to Kentucky and was reappointed deputy county clerk of Nelson county in February, 1873, also having charge of the recorder's division of the county.

He continued to serve in this capacity until December, 1877, when, at the request of his father-in-law, he removed to Nicholasville, Ky., and assumed the agency of the Cincinnati Southern railway at that place. While acting as deputy clerk he had been reading law and in 1878 he was admitted to the bar after which he practiced his profession in addition to discharging his duties of railway agent, acting as local attorney for the road until 1881. In March of that year he resigned his position and removed to Louisiana, locating first at Colfax, Grant parish, where his comprehensive knowledge of law and the soundness of his views secured him almost immediate recognition as an able attorney. In 1884 he was nominated by the democratic convention to the office of district attorney of the Twelfth district of Louisiana, composed of the parishes of Grant, Rapides and Avoyelles, his election being secured in April of that year. After serving his full term he declined to again make the race for the office. In 1888 he was a candidate for the democratic nomination for the judgeship of the same district, but was defeated, after which he was nominated by the republican convention for the same office, but refused the nomination. On the 1st of August, 1888, he removed to New Orleans, where he has since made his home and practiced his profession. Besides this he has given some attention to journalism, and in February, 1889, took a position as editorial writer on the staff of the "Daily News." In July, 1889, he was made editor-in-chief of that paper, but severed his connection with it on the 30th of August of that year, and after the establishment of the "New Delta" May 12, 1890, he accepted the position of associate editor, the duties of which he still ably discharges, at the same time practicing his profession--the law. He was one of the seven gentlemen who inaugurated the fight against the Louisiana State Lottery company in May, 1890, and who founded the Anti-lottery league of the state. He is a member and secretary of both the democratic anti-lottery state executive committee and the state campaign committee and a member at large of the democratic state central committee.

In politics he is a democrat of the Jefferson-Jackson school, and has always been interested in local, as well as in state and national politics. His speeches on the stump evince all the vim, fire and eloquence of the typical Kentuckian and are of the most convincing order. He is in favor of tariff reform and free silver and does not hesitate to express his convictions. He is a member of the Episcopal church and socially is a member of the A. F. & A. M., and in 1885 was unanimously elected junior grand warden of the Grand lodge of the state, but was compelled to decline the honor for the reason that he was not eligible as he had never served as master of a lodge. He is senior warden of George Washington lodge, No. 65, of New Orleans. Colonel Wickliffe was one of the three men selected by the citizens of New Orleans to lead them in executing the Italians on March 14, 1891. Just after the murder of Chief-of-police D. C. Hennessy, Colonel Wickliffe was appointed by the mayor of New Orleans a member of the committee to ferret out and prosecute the murderers and ascertain if the Mafia existed in New Orleans, and the result is well known to the public. While at Nicholasville, Ky., he was captain of a company of Kentucky state guards, and while at Colfax, La., he was captain of a company of Louisiana militia. In May, 1884, he was commissioned colonel in the Louisiana militia, but this position resigned in June, 1888, although he is an honorary member of the battalion Washington artillery and of Battery B, Louisiana field artillery, both of New Orleans, and of Company 4, Third regiment of the Missouri National Guards of Kansas City, which company is a part of the G. A. R. Colonel Wickliffe is a printer by trade, having learned that art in the office of the "Nelson county (Ky.) Record" of Bardstown, while he was deputy clerk of that county.

On the 23d of December, 1875, he was married to Miss Sallie Roane Mattingly, of Bardstown, Ky., by whom he has three handsome and promising sons. Mrs. Wickliffe is the great-granddaughter of Patrick Henry, the Revolutionary patriot. Colonel Wickliffe is tall, stalwart and of "distingue" appearance. He is a fluent and interesting conversationalist and inherits many of the brilliant oratorical powers of his worthy progenitors.

Biographical and Historical Memoires of Louisiana, (vol. 2), pp. 454-455. Published by the Goodspeed Publishing Company, Chicago, 1892.