James Lusk Alcorn

In 1836, after attending Cumberland College, in Princeton, Kentucky for less than a year, James Lusk Alcorn left to try his hand at teaching in Jackson, Arkansas. Not finding educational instruction to his liking, he returned to Kentucky and became deputy sheriff of Livingston County, under his uncle, Sheriff Randolph W. Alcorn. His marriage to Mary Catherine Stewart took place in 1839, and produced two sons and a daughter. He got his first taste of statewide politics while serving in the Kentucky state House of Representatives in 1843. Seeking his fortune, in 1844 he packed up his young family and headed south. They settled in Coahoma County, Mississippi, where he set up his law practice and began accumulating property. Before he was finished, he owned twenty thousand acres of land. His wife Mary died in childbirth in 1849. The following year he married Amelia Walton Glover. 2 sons and 4 daughters resulted from that union.

The owner of dozens of slaves, J. L. Alcorn served as a Confederate Militia Brigadier General for 18 months during the U.S. Civil War, but reportedly hated military life and returned to his plantation. During the war, his son Henry Lusk Alcorn died while returning home, en route from Richmond, of complications from typhoid fever. His son Milton Stewart Alcorn was also a Civil War veteran, and returned from the war with a permanent hearing injury. Following the war, Milton took to drinking heavily, and later committed suicide.

While a strong believer in white supremacy, following the war, James Alcorn did support civil and political rights for African-Americans. Alcorn was founder of the Mississippi levee system and was made president of the levee board of the Mississippi-Yazoo Delta in 1858. He was principally responsible for legislation establishing the levee system which protected Mississippi with hundreds of miles of levees.

For the next three decades, he served in the Mississippi state Senate (1848-54), Mississippi state House of Representatives (1846, 1856-57 and 1865), while continuing his prosperous law practice at the law firm of Alcorn, Stricklin and Harman.

Following his resignation from Alcorn, Stricklin and Harman in 1869, he briefly served as Governor of Mississippi (1870-71), then as U.S. Senator (1871-77).

As the political landscape changed, so did Alcorn. Some considered it rather disingenuous that he switched parties as many times as he did whenever it might prove advantageous to his political career. Others argued that it was the political parties who'd abandoned their core values, forcing the moves. He was an ardent Whig as long as that political party existed, and helped found the Union Party composed of Whigs and Union-Democrats. He later moved over to the Republican Party while Governor of Mississippi and as U.S. Senator.

Following his retirement from public life, Alcorn lived quietly at his palatial plantation home. In 1879 he built the three-story, twenty-two room Victorian mansion named "Eagle's Nest" near Jonestown, in Coahoma County. In 1886, he suffered the first of a series of stokes that eventually left him confined to a wheelchair for the remainder of his life.

SEE ALSO:

Lusk's Ferry

Nathaniel Pope

History of Golconda and Pope County Illinois

 

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James Lusk Alcorn, a Senator from Mississippi; born near Golconda, Ill., November 4, 1816; attended the public schools of Livingston County, Ky., and was graduated from Cumberland College, Ky.; deputy sheriff of Livingston County 1839-1844; member of the Kentucky house of representatives in 1843; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1844 and commenced practice in Delta, Panola County, Miss.; member of the Mississippi house of representatives 1846, 1856, and 1857; served in the State senate 1848-1854; unsuccessful candidate for election to the Thirty-fifth Congress in 1856; declined the nomination for Governor of Mississippi in 1857; founder of the Mississippi levee system and was made president of the levee board of the Mississippi-Yazoo Delta in 1858; served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War as a brigadier general; presented credentials as a United States Senator-elect in 1865 but was not permitted to take his seat; elected Governor of Mississippi in 1869 and served from March 1870, until his resignation on November 30, 1871, having previously been elected Senator; elected as a Republican to the United States Senate on January 18, 1870, for the term beginning March 4, 1871, but did not assume these duties until December 1, 1871, preferring to continue as Governor; served as Senator from December 1, 1871, to March 3, 1877; unsuccessful candidate for Governor in 1873; resumed the practice of law in Friar Point; died at his plantation home, “Eagles Nest,” in Coahoma County, Miss., December 20, 1894; interment in the family cemetery on his estate.