Augustus Mixer Mayo, Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana
Submitted by Mike Miller


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Augustus Mixer Mayo, president of the Mayo Title Company of Lake 
Charles, is one of the most representative men of Calcasieu Parish, and 
one whose activities in business, religious and civic circles are varied 
and effective, and whose influence has always been exerted in behalf of 
high ideals.  He was born in Saint Landry Parish, Louisiana November 
4, 1839, the oldest son of Claudius and Sue Amanda (Mixer) Mayo, 
both of whom were born in Saint Landry Parish, where she died in 
1878, and he died in Lake Charles in 1903.  They had six children born 
to them.  Claudius Mayo enlisted, at the outbreak of war, in the 
Eighteenth Louisiana Infantry, and was elected second lieutenant of 
Company B, in 1862, and continued with that organization and rank 
during the remainder of the war.  Following the declaration of peace he 
engaged in the drug store business until about the year 1879, when he 
became deputy clerk, and clerk of the Supreme Court at Opelousas, 
Saint Landry Parish, in 1892 he came to Lake Charles, and from that 
year until his death he remained in the insurance business.  As a Mason 
he lived up to the dictates of his conscience, and was an honorable 
gentleman.

Educated in the private schools of Opelousas, and the public schools of 
Saint Louis, Missouri, Augustus Mixer Mayo grew to manhood under 
the care of a watchful father and mother.  From 1880 to 1887 he served 
as deputy clerk of Courts of Calcasieu Parish, and then in the latter year 
he organized his present title business, of which he has since been 
president, and has through it rendered a most effective service to the 
people of Lake Charles and Calcasieu Parish.  Mr. Mayo belongs to the 
Rotary Club and the Association of Commerce of his home city.  He 
was one of the organizers of the Louisiana Title Association, which he 
has served as president, and in 1907, in Chicago, he assisted in 
organizing the American Title Association.  Through Ezekiel Mixer he 
belongs to the Sons of the American Revolution.  Well known in 
Masonry, he has been advanced through the Blue Lodge, Chapter, 
Council and Rose Croix, eighteenth degree of the Scottish Rite, and has 
been master of the Blue Lodge.

It is in church work that Mr. Mayo has been especially active since he 
joined the Methodist Church at the age of nine years.  Since 1892 he 
has been superintendent of the Sunday school continuously, and for 
many years he has been active in the Calcasieu Parish Sunday School 
Association, and has been active as president of the Louisiana State 
Sunday School Association.  Upon three separate occasions he has 
represented his conference at the general conference of the Methodist 
Church as a lay delegate, and is recognized as one of the most 
influential Methodists of this part of the state.  He is also active in other 
movements and during the late war operated through the Young Men's 
Christian Association.

Mr. Mayo was married at Lake Charles to Maria Knapp, born in New 
York State, but, reared in Iowa.  She has assisted her husband in his 
Sunday school work and in his title and abstract business, and is very 
active in church work, being also a Methodist.  Mr. and Mrs. Mayo 
have two children, namely:  Seamen Augustus, who is associated with 
his father in business, was married an has a daughter, Ward Ella; and 
Rev. Claudius Herman, a minister of the Methodist Church, married. 
and has five children:  Claudius Augustus, Herman Francis,  Helen,  
Minnie Ruth, and  Emma Lissa.


A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), pp. 286-287, by Henry E. Chambers.  
Published by The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New 
York, 1925.