George Henry Clinton Explained

George Henry Clinton
Birth Date:Date of birth missing
Birth Place:Natchez, Mississippi, USA
Residence:St. Joseph, Tensas Parish
Louisiana, USA
Death Date:Date and place of death missing
Resting Place:Unknown
Office:Louisiana State Representative for Tensas Parish
Term Start:1908
Term End:1912
Preceded:Harrison Stewart
Succeeded:John Murdock
Office2:Louisiana State Senator for Concordia and Tensas parishes
Term Start2:1912
Term End2:1916
Preceded2:Charles C. Cordill
Succeeded2:Frank L. Guthrie
Office3:Louisiana State Senator for Concordia and Tensas parishes
Term Start3:1920
Term End3:1924
Preceded3:Frank L. Guthrie
Succeeded3:Clifford Cleveland Brooks
Norris C. Williamson
Occupation:Chemist
Lawyer
Alma Mater:Chamberlain-Hunt Academy
Louisiana State University
Party:Democrat

George Henry Clinton was a chemist, lawyer, and Democratic politician from St. Joseph in Tensas Parish in the northeastern Mississippi River delta of the U.S. state of Louisiana.

Clinton was born in the late 1860s in Natchez in western Mississippi. His father was a native of East Feliciana Parish, one of the Florida Parishes of southeastern Louisiana. The senior Clinton served in the Confederate Army and became the district attorney for the Louisiana 6th Judicial District, based about St. Joseph, Tallulah in Madison Parish, and Lake Providence in East Carroll Parish. Clinton's mother was part of the Briscoe family of Claiborne County, Mississippi.[1]

Clinton attended school in New Orleans and at the Chamberlain-Hunt Academy in Port Gibson, Mississippi, before he graduated in 1889 from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. Clinton worked as a sugar chemist in Louisiana, Cuba, and Mexico. In 1898, he began his legal practice in St. Joseph. Clinton served on the LSU Board of Supervisors.[2]

He was a state representative from 1908 to 1912, having served alongside the cotton planter Samuel W. Martien of Waterproof in southern Tensas Parish.[3] He was twice a state senator, from 1912 to 1916 and again from 1920 to 1924.[4] Clinton also served on the Louisiana Board of Appraisers and was a director of the East Louisiana State Hospital. He was a member and president of the Tensas Parish School Board, based in St. Joseph, and a delegate to the 1913 and 1921 state constitutional conventions.[2]

Nothing is known of Clinton after he left the state Senate in 1924. He is not buried in Legion Memorial Cemetery in Newellton nor is he listed at Natchez City Cemetery, the resting place of most whites in St. Joseph until the middle to late 1940s.

Notes and References

  1. Frederick W. Williamson and George T. Goodman, eds. Eastern Louisiana: A History of the Watershed of the Ouachita River and the Florida Parishes, 3 vols. (Monroe: Historical Record Association, 1939), pp. 1373-1375
  2. Book: James Matthew Reonas, Once Proud Princes: Planters and Plantation Culture in Louisiana's Northeast Delta, From the First World War Through the Great Depression. Baton Rouge

    Louisiana State University Ph.D. dissertation, December 2006, pp. 263-264

    . July 19, 2013. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20130921054752/http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-11082006-162523/unrestricted/jmreonasdiss.pdf. September 21, 2013.
  3. Web site: Membership of the Louisiana House of Representatives, 1812-2012: Tensas Parish . legis.la.gov . July 14, 2013 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20131004235758/http://www.legis.la.gov/legisdocs/members/h1812-2012.pdf . October 4, 2013 .
  4. Web site: Membership in the Louisiana State Senate, 1880-2012. legis.state.la.us. July 15, 2013. April 4, 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190404072507/http://senate.la.gov/Documents/Membership/Documents/SenateMembership1880ForwardRevisedMar2011.pdf. dead.