Baldwin County AlArchives Biographies.....William H. Gasque December 6 1811 - 0000
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Ann Anderson alabammygrammy@aol.com May 11, 2004, 7:38 pm

Author: Brant & Fuller (1893)
    WILLIAM H. GASQUE, retired probate judge and business man of Baldwin county,
and residing at Daphne, Ala., was born in the town of Saint Stephens, Washington
county, December, 6, 1811, but at the age of two-years was taken by his parents
to Monroe county, Ala., where he grew to manhood. In 1831, he settled in Baldwin
county, where, in 1835, he was elected clerk of circuit court and clerk of
county court, served four years, and then was re-elected; just before the
expiration of his second term he was elected to the state legislature, and
served through the term of 1842-3. In 1852 he was appointed as an assistant in
the sheriff's office, and served until 1854, when he was appointed an assistant
in the United States marshal's office at Mobile. In, 1858 he was made mailing
clerk at Mobile, which position he held until the close of the Civil war when,
in the spring of 1865, he was appointed one of the revenue assessors of the port
of Mobile, of which office he was relieved in 1868. In the fall of the same year
he was appointed judge of probate of Baldwin county, and filled that office to
the entire satisfaction of the citizens until November 3, 1892, when he retired
to private life. During Mr. Gasque's twenty-four-years' incumbency of the
probate judgeship he witnessed many changes for the better in Baldwin county.
When he took his seat the county was in debt $5,500, to which was to be added
the liabilities of two successive defaulting sheriffs. The people of the county
were poor, and during court term the jurors were compelled to use their
certificates as collateral. This the judge resolved to obviate by borrowing
$1,000 on his personal account and applying the amount to the relief of the more
pressing wants of these indigent jurors. In 1888, a movement was made toward
building a new court house, and through the strenuous exertions of the judge the
project was carried out at an expense of $10,000. On the completion of the
edifice, so much needed, the county found itself in debt to the amount of
$2,800, and again the judge used his personal responsibility to secure the
amount. The county is now, however, free from debt. While in office the judge
was successful in securing many pensions for the survivors of the war of 1812,
and freely gave of his own means toward the building of church and school
edifices and the maintenance of charitable institutions.

   Judge Gasque is a son of Samuel and Mary (Godbold) Gasque. Samuel Gasque, of
Huguenot descent, was born in Marion district, S. C. In 1810 he came to Alabama
and passed two years at Saint Stephens in Washing-ton county, where he died in
April, 1812. Mrs. Mary (Godbold) Gasque was also born in Marion district, S. C.,
was married in her nineteenth year, and bore Mr. Gasque two children. In 1815
she was joined in marriage with Silas Morgan, to whom she bore five children,
and died in 1832. Judge Gasque has never married, and is the last survivor of
his family. He is now eighty-two years of age, and although he has twice had the
yellow fever and once had the confluent small-pox, he is well preserved and full
of vigor, bearing the appearance of a man of fifty. He recalls many incidents of
pioneer life and some of quite a thrilling character. He was living at Saint
Stephens when the Indian massacre at Fort Mims took place, in 1813, in which
many settlers lost their lives and during which the parents of the judge were
obliged to conceal themselves in the forest for several days and nights. Baldwin
county has reached its present development under his eyes, and much of its
advancement is due to his personal exertion. The judge was made a Mason in 1844,
when he entered Mobile lodge, No. 40. He is a dyed-in-the-wool democrat and cast
his first presidential vote for Andrew Jackson and his last for Grover Cleveland.



Additional Comments:
from "Memorial Record of Alabama"


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