Rownd, Marcus Carter

Marcus Carter Rownd; Livingston Parish, Louisiana
Submitted by Mike Miller

The name Rownd has some distinguished associations at the bar of Eastern Louisiana. and the family that has borne it has been in the state for several generations. Marcus Carter Rownd is one of the loyal representatives of the name, with home at Springfield, in Livingston Parish.He was born on the old Carter plantation, two miles west of Springfield, September 27, 1884. He is a great-grandson of William Rownd, a native of Snowhille, Maryland, and one of several brothers who took part in the war for independence. He served as a private in the Maryland Continental Line. One of his brothers was a surgeon in the Revolutionary forces, another a petty officer on the brig "Defiance" under Commodore Decatuer, and still another a lieutenant in the American army. William Rownd for some years after the close of the Revolution moved out to Ohio, where he spent his last years.

His son, William Scofield Rownd, was born in Ohio, and was a boy when his mother brought her family south down the Ohio River on a flatboat to Baton Rouge and settled in St. Helena Parish. He married a native girl in that parish, Miss Hodges, and subsequently moved to Livingston Parish, where he was a farmer and also surveyor by profession.William B. Rownd, son of William Scofield Rownd, was born in Livingston Parish, January 17, 1846, and was a resident of his native parish all his life. He learned the technique of surveying, and was parish surveyor for many years. His chief business was farming and timber operations.

For a number of years he held the office of assessor of the parish, was a democrat, and was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1913. During the war between the states he entered the Confederate army as a member of Company B of the Third Louisiana Cavalry, but subsequently was transferred to Barlow's Battery after his horse had been killed, since he could not afford to replace it. He went into the army in 1863, at the age of eighteen, and served for the remainder of the war, being paroled from a hospital at Lauderdale, Mississippi, in May, 1865. He was a very active member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and was a Mason.

He died in the Presbyterian Hospital at New Orleans February 15, 1920. though his home was in Springfield. His wife was Tullia Carter, who was born at the old Carter farm in Livingston Parish, and died there December 24, 1884. She was the mother of three children, Marcus Carter being the youngest. The daughter, Grace Amanda, lives at the homestead, two miles west of Springfield. The older son is Judge William Scofield Rownd, also a lawyer, who served as a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from 1908 to 1914, and from 1914 to 1920 was judge of the Twenty-fifth Judicial District of Louisiana.

Marcus Carter Rownd was only a few weeks old when his mother died. He grew up in his native parish, was liberally educated, at first in private and Public schools, and subsequently studied law for two years at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, and attended for one session in 1911 the Chicago Law School. He was admitted to the bar June 4, 1912, and since then has been steadily engaged in a law practice in Livingston Parish. He does a general practice, but has been especially noted in the criminal branch. His home is at Springfield, where he owns a comfortable home on Main Street, and he also is a part owner in the old homestead and has investments in other farming and timber lands in the parish.

Mr. Rownd represents the third generation of the family in the profession of surveying. He was surveyor of the parish from June, 1909, until the fall of 1912, when he resigned. From 1916 to 1924 he was chairman of the Democratic Executive Committee of the parish, and in 1907-08 was deputy sheriff under Sheriff W. L. Smart. For the past six years he has been a member of the Parish School Board.

His war record began with volunteering in 1917. He was trained at Camp Nichols, New Orleans, being put in Company I of the First Louisiana infantry, remaining there until September 4, when he was transferred to Camp Beauregard, at Alexandria, with the same regiment. On October 29, 1917, the regiment was broken up and he was then assigned to Company G of the One Hundred Fifty-fourth Infantry, remaining at Camp Beauregard until July 31, 1918. He was a private, was promoted to corporal, and on December 21, 1917, was made sergeant. From Camp Beauregard he went to Camp Stuart, Virginia, July 31, 1918, sailed for France August 6, 1918, landed at Brest August 18, 1918, and from Brest went to Quincy, France, remaining in that area with the Thirty-ninth Division until November 4, 1918. Following that he was at St. Aignan until January, 1919, when he was transferred to general headquarters at Chaumont, France, in the personnel section of Foreign Decorations until March 26, 1919, and soon afterward he sailed from Le Havre, arriving in New York April 28, 1919, and was honorably discharged from Camp Mills, Mitchell Field, Long Island, May 2, 1919.

Mr. Rownd married, July 30, 1913, at Ponchatoula Louisiana, Miss Frances Campbell, daughter of Frank J. and Mary (Mullens) Campbell, now deceased. Her father was a brick manufacturer. Mrs. Rownd was liberally educated, attending the State Industrial Institute at Lafayette and the State Normal College at Natchitoches. Five children have been born to their marriage: Marcus Carter, Jr., born May 23, 1914; Mary Amanda, January 29, 1916; Annie Laurie, December 19, 1917; William Buckner, February 29, 1920; and Lillie Carter, on August 1 1921.

A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), pp. 183-184, by Henry E. Chambers. Published by The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 1925.