Biography - W. M. Abney

W. M. ABNEY is an honorable and useful member of society residing in Bossier Parish, La., and as he was born here on March 2, 1846, he has a large circle of friends and acquaintances by whom he is respected and honored. His parents, Asbury A. and Catherine (McDade) Abney, passed from life in this parish in 1866 at the age of forty-nine and in 1857 at the age of thirty, respectively, he having been born in the Palmetto State, and she in Alabama, their marriage taking place in the latter in 1844. They moved the following year to Bossier Parish, and here he was chosen to represent the people in the State Senate and for fully ten years he was active in public life, being for a number of years clerk of the district court. He was admitted to the bar in Shreveport, and until his death followed this calling and merchandising in Bellevue, and was very successful in both. He was a heavy loser by the war and did not live long enough afterward to regain what he had lost. He served one year in the late war as lieutenant in the Thirteenth Louisiana Battalion, and for some time was the Trans-Mississippi Department. He was a self-made man in every sense of the word, was a man strictly honorable in all his dealings, and was looked up to and respected by all who knew him. After the death of his first wife he married again, his second union being to a sister of his first wife, her death occurring in Red River Parish. Mr. Abney was a Methodist, an R. A. M., and inherited the French and English blood of his parents. The subject of this sketch was the eldest of six children and although he was given good advantages for acquiring an education, he left school to enter the Confederate army, having been an attendant for six months in the military department of the State University of Louisiana at New Orleans. In March, 1864, he joined the Eighth Louisiana Cavalry and was a faithful soldier to the cause he espoused until the final surrender. In April, 1865, he was transferred to the ordnance department, afterward to the engineers' department. While in the ranks he was in several skirmishes, among which may be mentioned Mansfield and Monett's Ferry. Soon after the close of the war he commenced the study of medicine under Dr. Cook, of Bellevue, and in 1866-67 attended the medical department of the State University, and again entered this institution in 1887-88, graduating in the latter year. He practiced his profession until 1869, when he gave it up on account of ill health and began keeping books for M. W. Sentell & Co., at Collinsburg, remaining in their employ four years, and farmed the balance of the time until 1887, when he entered college, as above stated, and since graduating has practiced his profession with success. In 1884 he became a member of the police jury of Ward 3, and has since continued as a member. He is quite well fixed, financially, and is the owner of 400 acres of land near Collinsburg, a considerable portion of which is under cultivation. In 1872 he was married to Miss Susan T. Marks, a daughter of Nicholas Marks. She was born in this parish and she and the Doctor are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. The former is trustee board, and is a Democrat, politically. Socially he is a member of the K. of P. and belongs to the A. F. & A. M.

Contributed 29 Aug 2020 by Norma Hass, extracted from Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Northwest Louisiana, published in 1890, pages 123-124.