John N. Pharr
| John Newton Pharr
(Louisiana sugar planter and Republican politician) | |
|---|---|
| Born | March 19, 1829 Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, USA Lived in Berwick in St. Mary Parish, Louisiana |
| Died | November 21, 1903 (aged 74) Louisiana Resting place: |
| Spouse | Henrietta Clara Andrus Pharr Children: |
John Newton Pharr, known also as Captain Pharr (March 19, 1829 – November 21, 1903),[1] was a sugar planter and lumber baron from Berwick in St. Mary Parish, who in 1896 was the Republican-Populist fusion candidate for governor of Louisiana. He was defeated by the establishment Democrat Murphy James Foster, Sr. (1849-1921), who won a second term as governor and was the grandfather of later Republican Governor Mike Foster, also of St. Mary Parish. Pharr's campaign was directed by Lewis Strong Clarke, a neighboring Republican sugar planter.[2]
Background
Of Scotch-Irish descent,[3] Pharr was born in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, near Charlotte.[1]
Political life
Pharr was sixty-seven at the time of the 1896 gubernatorial election. He may have actually gained a majority of votes cast, having won twenty-six of the then fifty-nine parishes(five more were later added), with his greatest strength in north central Louisiana and the Florida Parishes to the east of the capital city of Baton Rouge. With the assistance of the Regular Democratic Organization, a New Orleans political machine,[4] Foster officially received 116,116 votes (57 percent) to Pharr's 87,698 ballots (43 percent). The election, however, was characterized by considerable fraud which benefited Foster and widespread violence to suppress African-American turnout. At that time, blacks voted solidly Republican. A clear accounting of the election results is probably not possible.[5]
Pharr appealed to the Louisiana legislature to correct the fraudulent tabulation, but the Democratic lawmakers demurred. He had said that he would seize the governorship by force if the legislature confirmed the existence of voter fraud.[1]
Subsequently, as governor, Foster signed off on the new Louisiana Constitution of 1898 (replaced in 1921), which implemented a variety of voter registration requirements that would "disenfranchise blacks, Republicans, and white Populists." William Wright Heard (1853-1926), a native of Union Parish in north Louisiana was easily elected as the Democratic nominee for governor in 1900.[6] The Democratic nomination by that time had become tantamount to election in the "Solid South." All of these categories of voters had overwhelmingly supported John N. Pharr, and similar coalitions gained governorships and/or congressional seats in several southern states. The new constitution ensured that Louisiana would become a one-party state for the next six decades.
After Foster's reelection in 1896, Louisiana general elections were non-competitive; the only competition took place in Democratic primaries. Voter rolls were sharply reduced by the new initiatives, and blacks and other groups were excluded from the political system. The white-controlled legislature established segregation enforced by Jim Crow laws.
Henry Newton Pharr
In 1908, Pharr's 37-year-old son, Henry Newton Pharr, a mechanical engineer and manufacturer, sought the Louisiana governorship as a Republican, but he gained just 11.1 percent of the vote against the Democrat Jared Young Sanders, Sr. (1869-1944), a shell of the support that his father had received twelve years earlier in the 1896 contest against Foster. Henry Pharr for a number of years was a director of the State National Bank of New Iberia, Louisiana, and was a former president of the Louisiana - Rio Grande Sugar Company and the Louisiana - Rio Grande Canal Company, which at one time owned eight thousand acres and which, in 1910, built the city of Pharr, named for Henry Pharr, located in Hidalgo County in south Texas. Pharr has a population of some eighty thousand.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 John Newton Pharr. Findagrave.com. Retrieved on January 3, 2020.
- ↑ Clarke, Lewis Strong. Louisiana Historical Association: A Dictionary of Louisiana Biography. Retrieved on January 2, 2020.
- ↑ Henry Newton Pharr (1955). Pharrs and Farrs: With other descendants from five Scotch-Irish pioneers in America, also some other Farrs and miscellaneous data. amazon.com. Retrieved on January 3, 2020.
- ↑ "Governor Murphy James Foster" in Encyclopedia Louisiana, retrieved on December 28, 2009.
- ↑ Henry E. Chambers, History of Louisiana, Vol. 2 (Chicago: American Historical Society, 1925), pp. 15-16.
- ↑ Louisiana Secretary of State, "Biosketch of William Wright Heard," accessed December 28, 2009.
