Murphy J. Sylvest, Washington Parish, Louisiana Submitted by Mike Miller ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ************************************************ Murphy J. Sylvest is not only the efficient and popular principal of the high school at Franklinton, judicial center of Washington County, but is also serving (1924) as representative of his native county in the Louisiana Legislature. Mr. Sylvest was born on a plantation near Franklinton, Washington County, March 19, l892, and is a scion of the third generation of the Svlvest family in Louisiana. His paternal grandfather, Francis Sylvest, was born in Portugal, where he was reared and educated, and he was an ambitious youth of seventeen years when he came to the United States, he having thereafter been employed three years on a whaling vessel. His marriage occurred in South Carolina, and finally he came to Louisiana and established his residence in St. Tammany Parish. He operated a schooner between Mandeville and New Orleans until his removal to Tangipahoa Parish, where he became a prosperous farmer, he passed the closing years of his life with his children who were residing in Washington Parish, and was venerable in age at the time of his death. His wife, whose family name was Stevenson, was born and reared in South Carolina and she preceded him to eternal rest, her death having occurred in Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana. Edward A. Sylvest, father of the subject of this review, was born in Tangipahoa Parish, in 1854, and since his young manhood he has been successfully engaged in farm enterprise near Franklinton, Washington Parish, though he has been retired from the active management of his farm since 1921. He is a staunch democrat and he and his wife hold membership in the Baptist Church. Mrs. Sylvest, whose maiden name was Leah Wallace, was born and reared in Washington Parish, which has ever continued her place of residence. Odeal, eldest of the children, is the wife of Robert E. Baham, a prosperous agriculturist and stockgrower in Tangipahoa Parish; Idell is the wife of Isaac Corcoran, a farmer near Franklinton; Stevenson, a progressive farmer in Washington Parish, was for six months in service in an infantry regiment of the United States Army in the World war period and was stationed at Camp Nichols, near New Orleans; Mozella is the wife of Isaac Baham, a merchant and farmer in Tangipahoa Parish; Murphy J., of this sketch, was the next in order of birth; Edward E. is (1924) a student in the Bible Institute in the City of New Orleans; Grace died at the age of twenty-two years; Walter is a student in the Franklinton High School; Hammond resides on and has active management of the old home farm; Earl remains at the parental home and is attending the public schools of Pine Ridge; Junia is the wife of Moses Vineyard, of Ponchatoula; and Elva is the wife of Edward Walker a merchant at that place. The early educational advantages of Murphy J Sylvest included those of the high school of which he is now the principal, and in 1915 he was graduated in the Louisiana State Normal College at Natchitoches. At the age of twenty years he had initiated his service as a teacher in the schools of his native parish, and he was for four years principal of the high school at Pine Ridge. In 1917-8 he was principal of the high school at Moreauville and in the summer of 1918 he resigned the position of clerk in the enrolling room of the Louisiana Legislature to enter the military service of the nation in connection with the World war. His enlistment occurred June 25, 1918, and at Camp Pike, Arkansas, he was assigned to a regiment of infantry. Subsequently he was there assigned to service in the information office of the medical department, at the base hospital, and he thus continued his service, with the rank of corporal, until he received his honorable discharge, July 1, 1919. In 1919-20 Mr. Sylvest was principal of the Pine Ridge High School, and in the latter year he was elected representative of Washington Parish in the State Legislature, the high estimate placed upon his activities as a legislator having been shown in his reelection in 1924 without opposition for a second term of four years. In 1920 he became assistant principal of the high school at Franklinton, and since the autumn of 1922 he has been its principal, with supervision of the work of seventeen teachers and somewhat more than 500 pupils. In the meanwhile, with characteristic assiduity, Mr. Sylvest hind applied himself to the study of law, and in 1922 he received from Hamilton College, in the City of Chicago, the degree of Bachelor of Laws. He has been admitted to the bar of his native state and intends eventually to engage in the practice of law, though he is an enthusiast in his service in the pedagogic profession. Mr. Sylvest is found loyally aligned in the ranks of the democratic party, and he and his wife are active members of the Baptist Church at Franklinton. In the period of l921-23 he was secretary and treasurer of the local Farm Loan Association, representing the Federal Land Bank. In 1921 he was made captain of Troop G of the One Hundred and Eighth Cavalry of the Louisiana National Guard, and he retained this office until the early part of 1924. He is affiliated with Franklinton Lodge No. 101, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons. Although he resides at Franklinton, Mr. Sylvest is the owner of a valuable farm property of 120 acres, seven miles southwest of this place, and forty acres of thus tract are planted to young pine trees. August 16, 1922, recorded the marriage of Mr. Sylvest to Miss Jennie Burris, daughter of Stephen H. and Alma (Varnado) Burris. Mr. Burris was a representative merchant at Franklinton at the time of his death, and here his widow still maintains her home. Mrs. Sylvest was graduated in the Franklinton High School and thereafter was a student in the Louisiana Polytechnic Institute at Ruston. In the South Mississippi infirmary, at Hattiesburg, Mississippi, she received her diploma as a graduate nurse, and thereafter she was engaged one year in the work of her profession at the Mississippi State College for Women, at Columbus. Mrs. Sylvest is a popular figure in the social and cultural activities of her home community. A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), p. 314, by Henry E. Chambers. Published by The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 1925.