Hezekiah William Foote

Hezekiah William Foote was born on December 17, 1813, in Chester County, South Carolina.[1] He moved to Macon, Noxubee County, Mississippi as a teenager.[1][2][3] He studied the Law and passed the Mississippi Bar.[1]

Foote raised cattle in Noxubee County, becoming the first settler to raise pedigree cattle in Mississippi.[3] Meanwhile, he started a newspaper called The Macon Intelligencer.[1] He then served as Chancery Clerk of Noxubee County and was elected as district judge.[2] He joined the Whig Party and later the Constitutional Union Party.[1] He ran and lost the election to the Mississippi House of Representatives in 1856.[1]

Foote became an ardent secessionist in favor of the Confederate States of America by 1860.[1] During the American Civil War of 1861–1865, he served as a colonel in the Confederate States Army during the Battle of Belmont and the Battle of Shiloh.[1][2][3]

Foote was elected as a member of the Mississippi House of Representatives and the Mississippi Senate.[2] He also served as president of the Farmers and Merchants Bank of Macon, Mississippi.[1]

Foote owned four plantations in the Mississippi Delta:

• the Mounds Plantation near Rolling Fork in Sharkey County, Mississippi.[2][4]
• the Egremont Plantation.[2][4]
• the Hardscramble Plantation.[2][4]
• the Mount Holly Plantation in Foote, Mississippi.[4] He acquired it in the early 1880s.[4]

Foote served as superintendent of the Methodist Sunday School in Macon, Mississippi, for fifty-six years.[1] He was one of the co-founders of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, founded as a Methodist institution, and served on its board of trustees.[1][3] He was related to Henry S. Foote, the governor of Mississippi from 1852 to 1854, who lived where the campus of Vanderbilt University was established.[3]

Foote married Lucinda Frances Dade (1816–1856) in 1836.[1] She inherited 3,000 acres of land in Issaquena County, Mississippi.[1] They had a son, Huger Lee Foote.[4]

Foote died on January 29, 1899, in Macon, Mississippi, where he was buried.[1][3] His great-grandson was Shelby Foote, the Civil War author.[1]