Biography - Paul Lawrence

DR. PAUL LAWRENCE is one of the very foremost of the professional men of Bossier Parish, and is a physician of acknowledged merit throughout this region. He was born in Lowndes County, Miss., in 1839, being the son of David and Susan (Riggs) Lawrence, both of whom were born in South Carolina, he in 1800, and she about ten years later. Their marriage took place in their native State, and from there they moved to Mississippi, where Mrs. Lawrence died when Paul was a lad. Mr. Lawrence was married again, and in 1849 came to Bossier Parish, where he followed the occupation of a farmer and was a local Methodist minister until his death, which occurred in 1865. He was a member of the A. F. & A. M. at Minden, and was a son of Nathaniel Lawrence, a South Carolinian who died in Mississippi when over eighty years of age, being of Irish descent. The Doctor is one of two sons and two daughters, and in addition to assisting his father on the home farm in his youth he attended Fillmore Academy, and in the winter of 1860-61, was an attendant of the medical department of the University of New Orleans. At the breaking out of the war he left this institution to join the Confederate army, and enlisted in Company B, Nineteenth Louisiana Infantry, Army of the Tennessee, and was at Shiloh, Chicamauga, where he was wounded in the shoulder at Dalton, and at New Hope Church, where he lost his right leg in May, 1864, and was soon after taken to relatives in Mississippi, where he remained until the summer of 1865, at which time he returned home and resumed the study of medicine. In 1867 he graduated from his former alma mater and at once began practicing near his old home in Bossier Parish, in which locality he won the confidence and respect of all who know him. He was married in 1870 to Miss Mary J., daughter of William P. and Harriet Haughton, the former a South Carolinian and the latter born in Tennessee. They removed first to Mississippi, and about 1846 or 1847, settled where the town of Haughton now is. Here he died in 1856, and his widow in 1878, both Methodists, and he a farmer and teacher by occupation. Mrs. Lawrence was born on the farm on which she is now living, being the mother of two sons and seven daughters. The Doctor is the owner of 1,300 acres of land in two tracts, the most of which he has earned by his own efforts, and his residence is handsome and comfortable. He and wife are members of the Methodist Church, and socially he belongs to the K. of P., Friendship Lodge No. 13, of Haughton. The Doctor has a younger brother, Thomas H., who served in the same company and regiment that he did during the war, and escaped without a wound. He is now a farmer in Fanning County, Tex.

Contributed 29 Aug 2020 by Norma Hass, extracted from Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Northwest Louisiana, published in 1890, pages 136-137.