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WILLIAM MACE HARRISON
Vol. 3 p. 1209
Book has photo

To William Mace HARRISON, a resident of Muskogee for more than a
quarter of a century, belongs the distinction of having tried the
first case in the United States Court in the Indian Territory. He has
been engaged in practice here since 1889, and during this time has
been associated, during various periods, with some of the ablest
attorneys in the state, while his personal reputation has grown and
extended, so that he is accounted one of the leaders of the Oklahoma
bar, a recognition that led to his appointment, in 1914, to his
present office of United States probate attorney at Muskogee.

William Mace Harrison was born at Monticello, the county seat of
Drew County, Arkansas, August 27, 1854, and is a son of William Mace
and Permelia (FAIRCHILD) Harrison. His father was born and reared on
the eastern shore of Maryland, and came of Revolutionary stock and
English ancestry. He began life under rather inauspicious
circumstances, for he was a cripple and the son of poor parents, but
through assiduous private study gained a good education, and through
perseverance over came the obstacles which lay in his path and
eventually rose to prominence and independence. The years passed in
hard, unending study finally gained for him a teacher's certificate
and he entered upon his career as an educator, gradually drifting to
Vicksburg, Mississippi, where he secured a position as clerk in a
mercantile establishment. Later he removed to what is now Drew
County, Arkansas, and there took up his residence at a little hamlet
bearing the picturesque name of "Rough-and-Ready." Upon the
organization of Drew County, William Mace Harrison, Sr., removed to
Monticello, the county seat, and there lived for many years. He had
not ceased to study with the acquiring of his teacher's license, but
had applied himself to gaining a knowledge of the law, and soon after
locating at Monticello took the examination and was admitted to
practice in the courts of Arkansas. He rapidly rose in his
profession, attracted to himself a lucrative business, was next
honored by election to the office of judge of the Circuit Court, in
which he served for many years, and was finally elevated to the high
office of justice of the Supreme Court of Arkansas. Thus the poor,
uneducated, crippled boy grew through the force of his own efforts
into a many reaching one of the most distinguished positions with
which an honored profession could reward him. Truly a lesson may be
found in his career. Prior to the beginning of the Civil War, Judge
Harrison had been elected to the Senate of the state, and was one of
the few members of that body who counseled Arkansas remaining with
the Union. During that period of the great conflict that followed, he
was known as a Union man, and when the war closed he joined the ranks
of the republican party. When he believed that that organization,
because of its policy during the reconstruction period, had become
corrupt, he transferred his support to the democratic party, with
which he continued to act until the time of his death. It was as a
democrat that he was elected judge of the Circuit Court, but it was a
republican governor who appointed him to a vacancy on the Supreme
bench of Arkansas, an appointment which was not political, but which
came as an appreciation of his conscientious labors, and a thorough
belief in his fitness for the office and his knowledge and erudition.
While a member of the Supreme Court, Judge Harrison removed to Pine
Bluff, Arkansas, in 1869, and resided there until the time of his
death, in 1900, in that city, he being then eighty-two years of age.

His wife died in 1897. Of their children, five sons and two
daughters, two are deceased, one son and one daughter.

William Mace Harrison of this review was fourteen years of age when
his parents removed to Pine Bluff, and his education came from St.
John's College, a Masonic School, at Little Rock, and the University
of Arkansas. In 1880 he was graduated from law at the University of
Virginia, and it is interesting to note that one of his classmates
was Woodrow WILSON, who was to become President of the United States.
Mr. Harrison practiced law at Pine Bluff, Arkansas, until 1887, in
which year he removed to Sherman, Texas, but after about two years
there changed his place of residence to Muskogee, where he resumed
the practice of his calling in the spring of 1889. In Muskogee he has
been associated with several lawyers in the practice of his calling,
as partners, including G. W. PASCO, Z. T. WALROND, Judge John R.
THOMAS and Judge F. L. MCCAIN. Under an appointment from President
CLEVELAND, Mr. Harrison served as United States commissioner, and
during that time was located at Cameron, in the Choctaw Nation,
Indian Territory. On February 26, 1914, he was appointed United
States probate attorney at Muskogee, and still retains this position.
While residing at Pine Bluff, Arkansas, Mr. Harrison served as city
judge and as assistant prosecuting attorney. In politics he is a
democrat. Mr. Harrison is a past grand chancellor of the Knights of
Pythias, and is well known in that order, having helped to organize,
in 1890, the Grand Lodge of Knights of Pythias in Indian Territory.
He is a Presbyterian, as are the members of his family.

In 1887 Mr. Harrison married at Holly Grove, Arkansas, Miss Margaret
DIAL, daughter of Capt. J. H. DIAL, a prominent planter of Eastern
Arkansas. Three children have been born to this union, of whom one is
deceased, the survivors being: Jere Fairchild, an expert electrical
engineer, now connected with the Carolina Electric Light and Power
Company, at Raleigh, North Carolina; and William Mace III, who is
fourteen years of age and a student in the public schools of
Muskogee, Oklahoma.

Typed for OKGenWeb by Jacque Hopkins Wolski, November 3, 1998.