Layton L. Bankston, Tangipahoa, then Washington Parish, Louisiana Submitted by Mike Miller ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ************************************************ Layton L. Bankston. The fiscal affairs of Washington Parish are being effectively administered by the present parish treasurer, whose name initiates this paragraph. Mr. Bankston owns and operates one of the fine farm estates of this parish, and has loyal and constructive interest in all that concerns the communal welfare. Mr. Bankston whose official headquarters are at Franklinton, judicial center of the parish, was born in Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana, September 2, 1867, and is a representative of a family that was founded in America in the early Colonial period. His paternal grandfather, Simeon C. Bankston, was born in South Carolina, in 1796, and died on his homestead place near Amite, Louisiana, in the year 1877. Simeon C. Bankston was a young man when he voyaged down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers on a flat boat and took up a homestead farm near Amite, Tangipahoa Parish, where he developed a productive farm and proved a substantial and valued citizen who ever commanded high popular esteem in the community that continued to represent his home until the close of his long and useful life. His wife, whose family name was Coats, was born in Philadelphia. Pennsylvania, and passed the closing years of her life on the homestead near Amite. The original American representatives of the Bankston family came from Ireland and settled in South Carolina prior to the War of the Revolution. Leslie Bankston, father of the treasurer of Washington Parish, continued his residence in Tangipahoa Parish during the entire course of his life, his birth having there occurred in April, 1832, and he having been one of the venerable and honored native sons of that parish at the time of his death in 1917. As a young man he purchased a farm property five miles northeast of Amite, and there he continued for many years his extensive and successful activities as a progressive agriculturist, the while he was influential in public affairs of local order, he having been for one term chairman of the Tangipahoa Parish Democratic Committee and having long been an active worker in behalf of the party cause. He was a loyal and valiant soldier of time confederacy throughout the course of the Civil war, and in later years was actively affiliated with the United Confederate Veterans, besides having maintained affiliation with the Masonic Fraternity. Both he and his wife were members of the Baptist Church. Mrs. Bankston, whose maiden name was Tabitha Magee, was born in Washington Parish, in 1840, and her death occurred in 1916. Dora, eldest of the children, resides on her home farm near Amite and is the widow of Malone M. Hendry; Martin Luther is one of the substantial exponents of farm industry near the old home in Tangipahoa Parish; Wilkes owns and has active management of the old family homestead; Layton L., of this sketch, was the next in order of birth; and Simeon C. is a successful farmer near Amite. Private schools in his native parish afforded Layton L. Bankston his youthful education, and he continued his association with the work and management of his father's farm until 1-me had attained to the age of twenty-seven years. He then purchased his present homestead farm, three miles southwest of Franklinton, Washington Parish, where he has a well improved estate or 640 acres and where his energetic and well directed operations have gained him precedence as one of the progressive and substantial representatives of farm industry in this parish. Mr. Bankston has been influential in the local ranks of the democratic party. He served from 1901 to 1904 as assessor of Washington Parish, under Gov. W. W. Heard's administration, also served as registrar of voters for Washington Parish in time period of 1909-12, and in 1916 he was elected treasurer of the parish, in which office he is now serving his third consecutive term, the year 1924 having recorded his re-election for another term of four years. In the World war period Mr. Bankston was active in advancing local patriotic drives in support of government loans, Red Cross work, etc., and made his individual contributions mark up to the full measure of his resources available for such application. He and his wife are zealous members of the Bethel Baptist Church. The year 1896 recorded, in March, the marriage of Mr. Bankston and Miss Cornelia Russell, daughter of Oscar S. and Ida (Bankston) Russell, who still reside on their farm near Amite, Tangipahoa Parish. Hobart, first born of the children of Mr. and Mrs. Bankston, died at the age of twelve years; Thelma is the wife of William F. Carr a prosperous farmer near Franklinton; Evelyn, a graduate of the Franklinton High School, remains at the parental home, as do also Lyle L., Russell L., Eric, Oscar and Leslie, the eldest son being now an effective assistant in the work and management of the home farm. A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), pp. 33-34, by Henry E. Chambers. Published by The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 1925.