Freshwater, William

William Freshwater; Christian Co., ILL., then Livingston Parish, Louisiana
Submitted by Mike Miller

William Freshwater has been a schoolman in Louisiana for over twenty years, connected with a number of public schools and colleges as a teacher, and his present duties are as principal of the high school in Denham Springs, Livingston Parish.Mr. Freshwater was born in Christian County, Illinois, April 17, 1876, descended from a family that came from England to Virginia in Colonial times. His grandfather, David Freshwater, was a native of Virginia, and as a young man moved to Delaware County, Ohio, where he spent the rest of his life.

William W. Freshwater, father of the Louisiana schoolman, was born in Delaware County, Ohio, November 30, 1837, was reared there, acquired a college education and, going out to Illinois, he married in Christian County and for a great many years was engaged in the real estate and insurance business. In 1884 he removed to Fairfield, Illinois, and is now living practically retired at Morrisonville, in that state.

He was a Union soldier in the Civil war, is a republican and a member of the Baptist Church. William W. Freshwater married Amazete Leachman, who was born in Christian County, Illinois, in August, 1841, and died at Fairfield, November 4, 1901. They had a family of five children, William being the youngest. Thomas Leachman, the oldest, was a bank cashier and died at Cisne, Illinois, in 1919, at the age of fifty years; Elizabeth is the wife of George G. Harbert, a rural mail carrier at Morrisonville, Illinois; Bernice is the wife of 0. E. Peppard, an architect at Missoula Montana; and Eugene D. is postmaster at Fairfield, Illinois.William Freshwater attended public school at Fairfield, graduating from high school in 1895. He continued his education in Hayward College at Fairfield, where he completed the commercial course in 1897 and the normal course in 1898. He has given over a quarter of a century to the work of teaching and administering schools. Three years were spent in country districts in Illinois and for one year he was a teacher in the Fairfield High School, and he spent one year as principal of the Burnt Prairie High School.

In 1902 he came to Louisiana, his first year in this state having been spent as a teacher in a private school at Lutcher. He was for one year principal of the high school at Independence, one year traveled for the International Correspondence Schools, with headquarters at Baton Rouge; for three years was principal of the high school at Moreauville, one year as high school principal at Montegut, and then was principal of the high school at Evergreen until 1921. During 1921-23 Mr. Freshwater was principal of the high school at Zachary, and in the fall of 1923 he came to Denham Springs as principal of the high school. He has the public schools of this community under his supervision, with a staff of ten teachers and an enrollment of 375 pupils.In connection with his regular school work Mr. Freshwater attended and taught in the State Normal School at Natchitoches for six summer sessions, and in the summer of 1920 was a teacher in the Louisiana College at Pineville. He also spent several summer sessions in Louisiana State University, which gave him the degree Bachelor of Arts in 1922.

He is a democrat, a member of thc Denham Springs Baptist Church, Denham Springs Lodge No. 297 of the Masonic Order, Zachary Chapter of Royal Arch Masons, and is a member of the Louisiana State Teachers' Associations.Mr. Freshwater has proved himself a capable business man as well as an educator. He is a stockholder in the Citizens Building and Loan Association of Baton Rouge, in the LaSalle Fire Insurance Company of New Orleans, the Farmers Bank of Cottonport, and owns a farm of fifty-one acres of valuable land at Evergreen, Avoyelles Parish, and has his home on a little farm of fifteen acres of choice land adjoining Denham Springs on the west.He married at Moreauville, Louisiana, November 6, 1918, Miss Julia Lacour, daughter of Marceline A. and Marie Louise (Gremillion) Lacour. Her mother lives at Moreauville, where her father, now deceased, was a planter. Mr. and Mrs. Freshwater are the parents of five children: Dorothy, a student in the Denham Springs High School; Bill and Julia, twins, also Richard, are pupils in the grammar grades; and Thomas.

A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), pp. 190-191, by Henry E. Chambers. Published by The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 1925.