Adams, Wallace Holly

Submitted to the Archives by Mike Miller
Date: Jan. 1998

Adams, Wallace Holly, attorney-at-law, and member of the well known law firm of Modisette &Adams, Jennings, Jefferson Davis parish, La., was born at Minden, Webster Par., Louisiana., July 2,1880; son of William Henry and Aurelia (Taylor) Adams, the former a native of Edgefieldcounty, S. C., and the latter of the state of Georgia, from which commonwealth she removed withher parents to Louisiana. At the beginning of the Civil war, William Henry Adams, the father,then seventeen years old, enlisted as a member of the AlbanyHussars cavalry, C. S. A. Hiscommand was promptly ordered to the front, and in the course of his experiences he took part inthe Maryland and Pennsylvania raid and the battle of Gettysburg, and was twice wounded. He served to the close of the war. In 1871 he located in Webster Par., Louisiana., and there for a timeengaged in farming, but later became a contractor and builder at Minden.

The Adams family came originally from Ireland to the United States, locating in South Carolina, from which state theLouisiana branch of the family removed to Georgia. William Henry Adams' mother, previous toher marriage was a Miss Wallace, and her family came from Scotland to South Carolina, from which latter locality the paternal grandmother's branch of the family removed to Georgia. Thematernal grandmother, Mrs. Sarah Taylor, was a great-granddaughter of a Mr. Duffel, whoserved as a m ember of Gen. George Washington's personal bodyguard, and in that capacity was present at the surrender of Gen. Cornwallis to Gen. Washington, at Yorktown. Mr. Duffel personally told Mrs. Sarah Taylor of this, as well as imparting much other information regarding his service under Washington, and Mrs. Taylor, in turn, furnished Wallace Holly Adams with this information.

The subject of this sketch was one of three children born to his parents, but the other two, a sister and a brother died in infancy. His half-brother, Dr. M. Herbert Adams, a successful dentist, also lives in Jennings. He attended the public schools of the locality in which he was born, and later Jeff Davis college, at Minden, La. In 1899 he entered the Louisiana Industrial institute, at Ruston, from which he graduated in 1902 with the degree of bachelor of industry. During the succeeding 5 years he engaged in the fire insurance business at Jennings,employing his spare time in the study of law under the direction of J. H. Heinen and Charles R.Cline.

In Sept., 1907, he entered the law department of Louisiana State university, from which hegraduated with the degree of LL.B. in the class of 1909. Immediately following the completion ofhis professional education he began the practice of law at Jennings, where he has since remainedand devoted his undivided attention to legal practice. In June, 1913, he became associated with J.O. Modisette, under the firm name of Modisette & Adams, and this firm has remained unchangedto this time and is enjoying a most gratifying and rapidly-increasing practice, both members of thefirm having the fullest confidence of the people of the community and each being personally heldin high esteem throughout a wide of friends and acquaintances. Mr. Adams has been affiliatedwith the Democratic party since beginning to exercise the elective franchise.

He is a member ofthe Missionary Baptist church, and also the Free and Accepted Masons, Order of the Eastern Starand the Kappa Sigma fraternity. At this time Mr. Adams is unmarried. Source: Louisiana: Comprising Sketches of Parishes, Towns, Events, Institutions, and Persons, Arranged in Cyclopedic Form (volume 3), pp. 20-21. Edited by Alc