Joshua Bennett Pratt, M. D., Union Co., AR., then Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana
Submitted by Mike Miller

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Joshua Bennett Pratt, M. D.  Since coming to Louisiana Doctor Pratt has combined plantation management and farming with the practice of his profession as a physician and surgeon over an extensive rural territory in Natchitoches Parish.  His home is ten miles south of Natchitoches, in Ward 9 of the parish of that name.  His house is just opposite the Cane River bridge.

Doctor Pratt was born at Hillsboro, Union County, Arkansas, December 13, 1877, a son of J. T. and Minnie (Dearing) Pratt, his father a native of Union County, Arkansas, and his mother of Pittis County, Arkansas.  She was born in l857 and he in 1855.  J. T. Pratt was both a farmer and merchant at Hillsboro, Arkansas.  The only public office he ever accepted was member of the school board.  These parents had a family of seven sons and one daughter: Joshua Bennett, the oldest; H. C. Pratt, deputy sheriff of Union County, Arkansas; Mrs. G. A. Murphy, of Natchitoches, Louisiana; S. T. Pratt, a school teacher in Union County; H. T. Pratt, who has farming and oil interests in Union County; Henry Waterson, a Union County farmer; Smead Pratt, of Eldorado, Arkansas, and W. C. Pratt, who graduated in dentistry from Tulane University, is practicing his profession at Natchitoches.

Joshua Bennett Pratt grew up in a rural section of Union County, Arkansas, attended local schools and completed his literary education in the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.  In May, 1905, be graduated from the Medical Department of the University at Little Rock.  He had taught school several summer vacations while getting equipped for his professional life, and as a boy and young man had gained considerable experience working on the farm and in his father's store.

Prior to graduating in medicine Doctor Pratt married Miss Lou May Murphy, daughter of R. C. Murphy, of Natchitoches, Louisiana.  She is a graduate of the Louisiana State Normal College and was a teacher before her marriage.  They have three children:  Charles J., the oldest, a graduate of high school, is taking advanced work in the Louisiana State Normal and is manager of his father's plantation.  He also belongs to the Louisiana National Guard, having attended two training camps at Camp McAllister at Alexandria, received the marksman's medal and was one of those selected to attend Camp Perry, Ohio, in 1924.  The daughter, Mattie, aged sixteen, is a member of the class of 1925 in the Louisiana State Normal College.  The son, Jared Sanders, was born in 1911 and is now in high school.

Doctor Pratt and his family are members of the Natchitoches Baptist Church.  For two years he has been chancellor commander of the Knights of Pythias Lodge, and is a member of the various medical organizations.  He is a director of the Louisiana State Farm Bureau and the Parish Board of Agriculture, and gives much attention to his farm and live stock, though burdened with a general medical practice.

A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), pp. 364-365, by Henry E. Chambers.  Published by The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 1925.