Mecklenburg County NcArchives Biographies.....Pharr, John Newton 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Rosie H. Guthrie n/a January 5, 2010, 6:52 pm

Source: Cyclopedia
Author: James T. White Co.

John Newton Pharr

Planter and manufacturer - was born in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, 
March 19, 1829, son of Elias and Martha Carolina (Orr) Pharr. The first of his 
family in America was Walter Pharr, a native of Scotland, who came to America 
about 1765, settling in Mecklenburg County, NC. His wife was Sarah Bryan, and 
their son Henry, who married Margaret Bain, was the grandfather of the subject 
of this sketch. The family is a prominent one throughout North and South 
Carolina, and has been chiefly represented by Presbyterian ministers, lawyers 
and farmers.

Mr. Pharr received a public school education. On account of business reverses 
of his father, who was a cotton planter, he was compelled to leave school much 
to his regret, for he was very efficient in mathematics and history, and was 
ambitious to secure a college education at Yale.

His family removed to Tennessee in 1843, and in the following year to 
Mississipi. At the age of twenty-one the son went to Lousiana, which became 
his permanent residence. Here his ability soon made him a prominent figure as 
the owner of steamboats, saw-mills, timber lands and sugar plantations. At the 
time of his death, he was said to be the largest private owner of sugar 
plantations in the state.

At the outbreak of the civil war he enlisted and served in the Confederate 
cause, and losing all of his slaves and other property, he began a second time 
at the bottom of the ladder with no less courage than he had shown when a 
younger man. 

He was interested in steamboat lines plying between Morgan City and St. 
Martinville and Abbeville when the Morgan road, (now part of the Southern 
Pacific railroad) ran only to Morgan City on Berwick Bay. He was also the 
senior member of the lumber firms of Pharr & Gall at New Iberia, La., and 
Pharr & Williams at Patterson, La.

For a number of years he took an active part in politics, and in 1896 was 
elected governor of the state on the Republican ticket, though the Legislature 
refused to go behind the returns and he was not seated. 

Prior to the Sugar Planter's Republican party, known as the "Lilly Whites," he 
had been a Democrat on account of the negro question. It was admitted by his 
opponents in an editorial of the "Times-Democrat" that he carried twenty out 
of twenty-five white parishes, although a Republican candidate did not receive 
a majority in a single black parish of the state according to the Democratic 
returns.

Mr. Pharr was married Aug. 11, 1868, at New Iberia, La., to Henrietta Clara, 
daughter of Lewis Andrus of Opelousas, La., and had six children, of which 
John Andrus, Henry Newton and Eugene Albertus survive. He died at Berwick at 
his Fair View Plantation home, La., Nov. 21, 1903.

Additional Comments:
Source:
The National Cyclopedia 
of American Biography
Volume XIV
1910

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