Bio: W. P. Belcher, Bossier Parish La
Source: Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Northwest Louisiana
The Southern Publishing Company, Chicago & Nashville,  1890

Submitted by: Suzanne Shoemaker



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     W. P. BELCHER is accounted a successful planter of Bossier Parish, and
deservedly so, for all his operations have resulted profitably.  He was
born in Abbeville District, S. C., in 1833, being the eldest of seven
children-six sons and one daughter-born to Robert E. and Mary (Norwood)
Belcher, the former being born in Abbeville District in 1811, and his wife
in the same place a few years later, their deaths occurring there in 1851
and 1845, respectively.  The father was a lawyer and planter and a son of
Rev. Washington Belcher, a Virginian by birth, who afterward went to South
Carolina, where he died, having followed the calling of a Baptist minister.
 His wife, formerly Miss Mary Bennett, was born in Maryland and died in
South Carolina, also.  The Belchers were of English descent, and were among
the early settlers of New England, one of whom was one of the colonial
governors of Massachusetts.  The maternal grandfather, Williamson Norwood,
who was also of English descent, was born and died in Abbeville District,
S. C., and although he was reared in poverty he became one of the
wealthiest planters of his district by his own efforts.  The subject of
this sketch, although reared on a farm, was given excellent educational
advantages, and graduated form the South Carolina University at Columbia in
1855.  He then spent a short time in Kansas, after which three years were
devoted to the cotton business in Augusta, Ga., at the end of which time he
returned to his home.  When the first gun was fired in the late war he
joined Capt. J. M. Perrin's company, First South Carolina Infantry, State
Troops, and was at the fall of Fort Sumter, and after three months' service
he came to Arkansas, but soon after returned and joined Company D, Seventh
South Carolina Infantry, and served with the Army of Northern Virginia
until Nov. 1861.  In January, 1862, he came to Louisiana, and the same
month of the following year he became a member of Company F, Fifteenth
Arkansas Regiment of Infantry, and was captured at Port Hudson after a long
siege of fighting.  After being paroled and exchanged he joined what was
known as William Harrison's Cavalry, with which he served until the close
of the war as quartermaster-sergeant, surrendering in Mansfield in May,
1865.  In February, 1862, he was married in Arkansas to Miss Ella S.
DuBose, daughter of Dr. E. E. and Caroline DuBose, natives of South
Carolina, from which State they moved to Alabama, thence to Arkansas, where
they resided until their respective deaths.  Mrs. Belcher was born in
Glennville, Ala., and died in 1865, having borne one son, Robert E.  After
the war they resided in Arkansas for three years, but afterward made their
home in different parts of Northwestern Louisiana.  In 1874 he rented a
part of his present farm, and is now the owner of 657 acres, it being one
of the most fertile farms on Red River, and all of which he has earned
since 1874, as he came here with only $120.  He has over 500 acres cleared
and raises from 350 to 400 bales of cotton annually.  He is one of the
substantial planters of the region, and is truly a self-made man.