St. Tammany Parish Biographies

St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana

Thomas Cargill Warner Ellis, jurist, was born at Covington, St. Tammany parish, La., Nov. 26, 1836, son of Ezekiel Parke and Tabitha Emily (Warner) Ellis, and brother of Ezekiel John Ellis. He began his education in his native place, and completed his preparation for college at the T. F. Jones Academy at Clinton, La., whither his father had removed in 1845. he was graduated at Centenary College, Louisiana, with class honors in 1855, and after reading law in his father's office and at the law department of the Louisiana University, was admitted to the bar in 1858. He began practice at Amite City, La., where in November, 1859, he was also elected district attorney, holding the office until after the out break of the civil war. During the period of hostilities he served in the Confederate army, having attained the rank of captain at the final surrender. He then returned home to resume his profession, forming a later partnership with his brother, E. John Ellis, and speedily became a leader at the bar. He figured in many notable cases during the next few years. In November, 1865, he was elected to the state senate, and although the youngest member of that body, was appointed on several important committees. The passage of the reconstruction measures in 1867 placed the control of public affairs in the hands of negroes and adventurers, who outnumbered the intelligent voters of the state. In the ten years' struggle against these intolerable conditions, Mr. Ellis took an active part both as a member of important committees and as a writer in the public press. He was the author of a petition to congress and of an appeal to the people of the Union, which was adopted by the Louisiana state convention in 1876. Meantime he was a director of the New Orleans "Democrat" and became its associate editor with Col. Robert Tyler. In 1874 he was tendered and declined the Democratic nomination for congress from the 6th district. In 1877 he removed to New Orleans, where he continued in active practice until his appointment to the bench of the civil district court in July, 1888; he is now (1901) serving on his second term in this position. During his first term he was active in the campaign against the Louisiana state lottery, and was a member of the state anti-lottery executive committee. In 1894 he was a member-at-large of the state constitutional commission. On the death of Prof. Henry E. Miller, Judge Ellis was elected, in March 1899, to succeed him as professor of constitutional law, admiralty, and of jurisdiction and practice of the U. S. courts in the law department of Tulane University, New Orleans, La. In addition to numerous able articles on public questions, Judge Ellis is preparing a memoir of his brother, E. J. Ellis, to be published with his works and speeches. He was married, Oct. 15, 1857, to Martina Virginia, daughter of Judge William R. Hamilton, of Clarke county, Ala., who died in 1891, leaving three sons and three daughters. His sons are: Dr. John H. Ellis, of Kentwood; Dr. T. C. W. Ellis, of Newellton, and R. S. Ellis, attorney, of Amite City. submitted by: Vicki Hartman

Ezekiel John Ellis, congressman, was born at Covington, La., Oct. 15, 1840, son of Ezekiel Parker and Tabitha Emily (Warner) Ellis. His father, who was a distinguished lawyer and judge, was a descendant of an old Virginia family, though a native of Georgia and long a resident of Louisiana. The mother of our subject was a descendant of several prominent colonial and revolutionary families, her father, Thomas C. Warner, being colonel of militia under Gen. Jackson at New Orleans, and for many years a probate judge in South Carolina. Ezekiel was educated in the public schools, at an academy in Clinton, La., and at Centenary College, Jackson, La. He studied law in his father's office and at the University of Louisiana (now Tulane), receiving the degree of B. L. in 1861. Becoming a lieutenant in the 16th Louisiana infantry, he served in the battle of Shiloh, was promoted captain, later took part in the battles of Perryville, Murfreesboro, Chickamauga and Missionary ridge; was captured in the last named engagement; he was held and remained a prisoner until the close of the war. On his return home he began law practice with his father; later formed a partnership with his brother, T. C. W. Ellis, and in 1869 removed to New Orleans. In 1868 he was an alternate elector on the ticket headed by Seymour and Blair. In November, 1874, he was elected to the 44th congress, serving, by re-election, until March, 1885, when he resigned, taking up the practice of his profession in Washington, D. C. He was chairman on the committee of the Mississippi levees, and was a member of those on appropriations, Indian affairs, elections and privileges. He made notable speeches on the levee system, Indian affairs, the negro question, the national quarantine and health bill, and on various subjects relating to fortifications, torpedoes and heavy ordinance. In 1880 he was chairman of the committee conducting the nomination of Gen. W. S. Hancock, and in the succeeding campaign addressed many audiences in northern and western cities. Although an active Democrat, he was in no sense a partisan. On June 29, 1869, he was married to Josephine, daughter of Henry Chamberlain, of Natchez, Miss., and a great-granddaughter of Thomas McKean, of Delaware, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. They had one daughter, Lilian, wife of John L. Emerson, of Titusville, Pa., and two sons, Thomas Stephen and Harry Eugene, both lawyers of New Orleans, the former a captain of infantry in the war with Spain. Mr. Ellis died in Washington, D. C., April 25, 1889. submitted by : Vicki Hartman

Evans, Thomas Marshall

Evans, Thomas Marshall, who is engaged in the practice of his profession in Gulfport, Harrison county, may consistently be designated as one of the founders and builders of the progressive city which has been evolved from the little village of about 500 population which represented the town at the time when he took up his residence here, less than a decade ago. Mr. Evans was born in Americus, Jackson county, Miss., July 13, 1862, and is a son of Wesley G. and Susan (Carter) Evans, both of whom were likewise born in this State, the former in Greene county. Wesley G. Evans was numbered among those loyal men who donned the gray uniform and went forth in defense of the Confederacy when the Civil war cast its dark pall over the national horizon. He became a member of Company B, Stead's battalion of Mississippi volunteers, and during his term of service was principally engaged in skirmishing with his command in Mississippi and Alabama. While thus battling for the cause of the South he was elected to the legislature of his State, from Jackson county, and resigned his place in the ranks to assume the no less important duties of the office to which he had been chosen. He followed the vocation of farming, timber getting, and saw milling during the greater part of his active career and was also a minister of the gospel in the Methodist Episcopal church, South, preaching in southeast Mississippi for more than sixty-five years. Both he and his wife are now deceased and are buried in Coalville cemetery, near Gulfport, Miss. Thomas M. Evans was born during the climacteric epoch of the Civil war and his boyhood days were passed under the conditions of the period of "reconstruction," when uncertain governmental and civic policies were in evidence here as elsewhere throughout the South. He, however, was able to secure such educational advantages as were offered by the public schools of the time, showing a marked predilection for study and making the best use of his opportunities. In his youth he was identified with farming and with the lumber industry, but in the meanwhile he determined to prepare himself for a wider sphere of endeavor. He accordingly took up the study of law at home, applying himself with diligence and marked power of assimilation and availing himself of such preceptorage as could be secured in directing his technical reading. He continued to be concerned with other lines of work until April 11, 1890, when he passed the examination which gained to him admission to the bar of his native State, said examination having been conducted before Judge Sylvanus Evans, of Enterprise, Miss. He began the practice of his profession at Purvis, Marion county, where he remained a short time and then located in Poplarville, Aug. 1, 1890, remaining there engaged in practice until 1893, when he removed to Scranton, where he continued his professional endeavors until 1896, passing the ensuing two years in Mississippi City. In the fall of 1898 Mr. Evans took up his abode in the embryonic city of Gulfport, which, as before intimated, had at that time about 500 inhabitants. Here he became one of the pioneer representatives of his profession, and in his office was held the first meeting of the mayor and board of aldermen of the newly chartered city. At this meeting he was elected city attorney, serving three years and being then re-elected, in 1901, for a second term of equal duration. He was one of the incorporators of the First National bank of Gulfport, which absorbed the business of the Bank of Gulfport, of which he had likewise been one of the organizers. In all that has touched the prosperity and best interests of the city, Mr. Evans has manifested an insistent and helpful interest, and he is regarded as one of its most loyal and public-spirited citizens, while he also holds precedence as one of the leading lawyers of Harrison county, retaining a representative clientage and commanding the esteem of all who know him. For five years he was a member of the board of education, in which capacity he did much to forward the interests of education in Gulfport. On the first Monday of January, 1907, he was elected to and assumed the duties of the office of police justice of the city of Gulfport, Miss., for the two ensuing years. He is an active worker in the ranks of the Democratic party and is an able advocate of its cause, while fraternally he is identified with the Masonic order and the Knights of Pythias. He was one of the organizers of the Twenty-fifth Avenue Methodist Episcopal church, South, of whose first board of trustees he was a member, as was he also of the building committee which had charge of the erection of the present attractive church edifice. On Dec. 17, 1891, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Evans to Miss Cora A. Abney, daughter of Dr. Henry C. and Sarah (Slade) Abney, of Poplarville, this State. Mrs. Evans was summoned into eternal rest, at Mosspoint, Jackson county, in 1894, and is survived by one child�Leah Abney. In March, 1895, Mr. Evans wedded Miss Mary C. Abney, daughter of Jessie M. and Sarah (Crosby) Abney, of Covington, La., and the three children of this union are: Stephen Glenn, Murcer Griffin and Mary Susan. [Mississippi: Contemporary Biography Edited By Dunbar Rowland, 1907 � Transcribed by Therman Kellar]

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