American politician
William Harris Hardy
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![](//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/WH_Hardy.jpg) W.H. Hardy (circa 1900)
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Born
| (
1837-02-12
)
February 12, 1837
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Died
| February 17, 1917
(1917-02-17)
(aged 80)
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Nationality
| American
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Alma mater
| Cumberland University
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Known for
| Founder of
Hattiesburg
,
Laurel, Mississippi
, and
Gulfport, Mississippi
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Spouse(s)
| Sallie Ann Johnson (1860-1872)
Hattie Lott (1874-1895)
Ida V. May (1895-1917)
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Children
| 12
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Parent(s)
| Robert W. Hardy
Temperance L. Toney
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William Harris Hardy
(February 12, 1837 ? February 17, 1917) was an
American
businessman who founded the
Mississippi
cities of
Hattiesburg
,
Laurel
, and
Gulfport
.
Early years
[
edit
]
Born to Robert W. and Temperance L. (Toney) Hardy in Todds Hill (in
Lowndes County, Alabama
) on 12 February 1837,
[1]
William Harris Hardy attended country schools and eventually
Cumberland University
in
Lebanon, Tennessee
for three years, withdrawing before graduation due to contraction of
pneumonia
. Following his convalescence, Hardy agreed to a cousin's proposal to start Sylvarena Academy,
[2]
a boys' primary school affiliated with the
Methodist Church
. During his year at Sylvarena in
Flowers, Mississippi
, Hardy
read law
, and when he departed the Academy in 1856 for
Raleigh, Mississippi
, was able to easily pass the
Bar
. In 1858, he opened his own law practice. In 1859, he met, and in 1860, he married Sallie Ann Johnson, with whom he had six children (Mattie, Willie, Ellen, Elizabeth, Thomas, and Jefferson Davis) before her death in 1872.
[3]
Service and career
[
edit
]
Civil War service
[
edit
]
In 1861, Hardy raised Company H of the
16th Mississippi Infantry Regiment
, of which he was elected Captain. He served with this unit until October 1862, when illness forced his resignation. In April 1864 he was appointed an Aide de Camp by General Argyle Smith, in which capacity he served until the end of the war.
[4]
[5]
New Orleans and Northeastern and Alabama Southern Railroads
[
edit
]
In 1868, Hardy became involved in a plan to build a
railroad
from
Meridian, Mississippi
to
New Orleans, Louisiana
: the
New Orleans and Northeastern Railroad
(NO&NERR). He later became General Counsel for the company, although his legacy with that railroad centers on two things in particular: Hardy's engineering work to construct the bridge spanning
Lake Pontchartrain
and his efforts to secure funding once the road went into receivership during the economic
Panic of 1873
.
In 1870, Hardy worked sporadically with his brother-in-law and board of directors member, Milton Lott, on the
narrow-gauge
Alabama Southern Railroad. Hardy's work there ended in much the same way as his involvement in the NO&NERR, he eventually secured partial funding from the British banking house of May before departing the railroad and ending his official involvement in 1873.
[6]
Hardy's increasing involvement in the day-to-day operations of the NO&NERR, eventually as that road's General Counsel, necessitated a move to Meridian, Mississippi in 1873. While on a business trip to
Mobile
he met Hattie Lott, and they married in 1874. Hattie moved to Meridian soon after; she had three children (Lena Mai, Lamar, and Toney) with Hardy before her death in 1895.
[7]
Gulf and Ship Island Railroad
[
edit
]
![](//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/42/WilliamHarrisHardy_HistoricalMarker.jpg/200px-WilliamHarrisHardy_HistoricalMarker.jpg)
The coup Hardy achieved in overseeing completion of the Pontchartrain Bridge and securing funding to complete the NO&NERR brought a measure of regional fame. Railroad men (and those who wanted to be) throughout
Mississippi
courted him for their boards of directors. In 1880, Hardy joined longtime railroad financiers and fellow
Confederate
veterans,
William Clark Falkner
and
William Wirt Adams
, to revive and revise the lapsed charter for the narrow gauge Ship Island, Ripley, and Kentucky Railroad.
With Fallkner's support, Hardy accepted the presidency of the Gulf and Ship Island Railroad in 1887, pending revision of that road's line to "some point on the
Gulf of Mexico
", and its change to
standard gauge
. An apocryphal tale says that while involved in surveys for the New Orleans and Northeastern Railroad, Hardy came up with the idea of a north-south railroad from the
Mississippi Gulf Coast
to
Jackson, Tennessee
. While Hardy did not devise the entire railroad route on his own, he did make several important modifications to the lay of the line by changing the coast terminus and the route to cross his NO&NERR at a point he named "Hattiesburg," in honor of his wife, Hattie. Hardy determined
Mississippi City
, the
county seat
, was too far east of the natural deep-water harbor protected by
Ship Island
and proposed a new city,
Gulfport
, as the revised terminus.
[8]
Throughout his long involvement with the Gulf and Ship Island, Hardy lobbied investors and financiers throughout the north, west, and
Europe
to bring their capital to his project; eventually, the reality of
Reconstruction
economics got the best of him. His questionable use of the state's convicts, under the lease of Jones S. Hamilton, brought his first dose of bad press when a state commission, tasked with investigation of the convict lease system, revoked the company's lease in 1888. Also in that year, two of the railroad's most vocal supporters (William Falkner and Jones Hamilton) were involved in politically motivated assassinations. The final blow came with a financial collapse; Hardy's efforts to secure financing could not counter a wholesale panic, and the Gulf and Ship Island went into receivership in 1896.
[8]
Public service
[
edit
]
William H. Hardy Monument in Gulfport, Mississippi
Although the Gulf and Ship Island Railroad changed hands to
Joseph T. Jones
, Hardy remained involved as a board member until 1899. His election to the
Mississippi State Legislature
in 1895 kept him at the
State Capital
in
Jackson
enough to make involvement with the railroad less possible.
While in Jackson, Hardy met and married his third wife, Ida V. May, with whom he had three children, William H. Jr., Hamilton Lee, and James Hutchins. In 1905, Hardy served as
circuit court
judge for the second district (covering south-central Mississippi). When the district split in 1906, Hardy remained as judge for the newly created coastal district until his semi-retirement in 1909. For the next eight years, Hardy maintained law offices in Gulfport, Mississippi with his son Toney.
Hardy died of a heart attack at his home in Gulfport, Mississippi, on February 17, 1917, five days after his 80th birthday.
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"Lauderdale County -- Captain W. H. Hardy"
. Retrieved
August 8,
2016
.
- ^
Lives of Mississippi Authors, 1817-1967
. Univ. Press of Mississippi. 1981.
ISBN
9781617034183
. Retrieved
August 8,
2016
– via Google Books.
- ^
"M380 Hardy (William H. and Sallie J.) Papers"
. Retrieved
August 8,
2016
.
- ^
No compromise with principle: Autobiography and biography of William Harris Hardy. 1946. American Book-Stratford Press, New York. 344 p.
- ^
Grimsley, Reagan L. (2013).
"William Harris Hardy and the American Civil War"
.
The Primary Source
. 32 : Iss. 2, Article 5 – via Digital Commons.
- ^
May 9/13, 1868 and August 17/25, 1870 letters to Sallie Johnson Hardy. McCain Library and Archives, University of Southern Mississippi
- ^
Grimsley, Reagan (2016).
"Reorienting the Piney Woods: rural and urban change in south Mississippi, 1830?1910" in Rural?Urban Relationships in the Nineteenth Century: Uneasy neighbours?
. Routledge.
ISBN
9781134796762
.
- ^
a
b
William Harris Hardy Papers, University of Southern Mississippi.
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