Stewart, William

Submitted by Mike Miller

William Stewart, a native of Mississippi, was born in 1851 to Noland and Mary Jane (Reneau) Stewart, who were also Mississippians. The father came to Louisiana in 1856 and began planting in the parish of West Feliciana, in which business he was quite successful. In 1862 he enlisted in the Fourth Louisiana infantry as an independent private, and after a few months' service was discharged on account of ill health. He was afterward commissioned first lieutenant of an independent company and was a participant in the engagement at Baton- Rouge. William Stewart had every advantages in his youth, but after the war was for some time a student in Centenary college (some two years) and after a short time spent in Mobile, Ala., returned to that school, which he attended for another year. Immediately following this he engaged in planting in Mississippi, then kept books for the firm of Worthington Brothers for eight years, after which he embarked in the same business for himself in Mississippi. He was then traveling agent for the Refuge Oil mill of Vicksburg for four years, but since 1881 has been a cotton planter of Louisiana. He is managing a tract of land comprising 2,200 acres, about three-fourths of which is under the plow and a part of which was formerly the Erin plantation. He handles about 300 bales of cotton annually, and on his property has a good steam cotton-gin and gristmill and a plantation store. He takes considerable interest in local politics and is now a candidate for the position of parish sheriff, and should he be elected will without doubt make a faithful and efficient officer. Socially he is a member of the K. of P. and the I. O. O. F. He was married in 1878 to Miss Riggs, of Emneville, Ind., by whom he is the father of four children: Riggs, Noland, Foster and an infant. Mr. Stewart is quiet and unassuming in demeanor and is very social and amiable in disposition, his manly worthy traits of character winning him many friends.

Biographical and Historical Memoires of Louisiana, (vol. 2), p. 407. Published by the Goodspeed Publishing Company, Chicago, 1892.