William Clark Falkner (July 6, 1825 or 1826 – November 6, 1889) was a soldier, lawyer, politician, businessman, and author in northern

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

. He is most notable for the influence he had on the work of his great-grandson, author

William Faulkner William Cuthbert Faulkner (; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where Faulkner spent most o ...

Family background

He was born in

Knox County, Tennessee Knox County is located in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 census, the population was 478,971, making it the third-most populous county in Tennessee. Its county seat is Knoxville, which is the third-most populous city in Tennessee. ...

, to Joseph Falkner (or Forkner or Faulkner) and Caroline Word (or Ward). Both Caroline's paternal grandfather Charles and his brother Cuthbert died during the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

while serving under the command of George Washington. Her father Thomas Adams Word moved the family to Georgia in 1812. Caroline's sister Justianna Dickinson Word married John Wesley Thompson, who in 1834 was arrested for killing a man during a fight. He was acquitted, and afterwards moved with Justianna to Ripley, Mississippi. Thompson eventually became a

district attorney In the United States, a district attorney (DA), county attorney, state's attorney, prosecuting attorney, commonwealth's attorney, or state attorney is the chief prosecutor and/or chief law enforcement officer representing a U.S. state in a ...

, and later a district judge, in Mississippi. William Clark Falkner lived with his family in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri and Pontotoc, Mississippi, joining the Thompsons in Ripley in 1842. In 1847, he married Holland Pearce. Their only child John Wesley Thompson Falkner, named after WC's uncle, was born in 1848. Holland died in 1849. Elizabeth Houston Vance (1833–1910) became his second wife in 1851. They were the parents of eight children: *William Henry Falkner (1853–1878) - son *Willett Medora Falkner Carter (1856–1918) - daughter *Thomas Vance Falkner (1859–1861) - son *Lizzie Manassah Falkner (1861–1861) - daughter *Fannie Forest Falkner Dogan (1866–1929) - daughter *Effie Falkner Davis (1868–1957) - daughter *Alabama Leroy Falkner McLean (1874–1968) - daughter *Unknown (died young)

Military service

He served in the

Mexican–American War The Mexican–American War, also known in the United States as the Mexican War and in Mexico as the (''United States intervention in Mexico''), was an armed conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848. It followed the ...

as First Lieutenant of the 2nd Regiment of Mississippi Volunteers. When the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and t ...

broke out, he raised a company of men and was made colonel in the Second Mississippi Infantry of the

Confederate Army The Confederate States Army, also called the Confederate Army or the Southern Army, was the military land force of the Confederate States of America (commonly referred to as the Confederacy) during the American Civil War (1861–1865), fighti ...

. Later, he was demoted in an election of officers; and formed a unit known as the 1st Mississippi Partisan Rangers. He never regained a prominent role in the Confederate Army, but he was forever known as "Colonel Falkner" or just "The Old Colonel" after the war.

Later life and death

During

Reconstruction Reconstruction may refer to: Politics, history, and sociology * Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company *''Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Unio ...

, he was active in rebuilding northern Mississippi and founded the Ship Island, Ripley, and Kentucky Railroad Company. The first station on the line north of Ripley was located in what is now the community of Falkner. On November 5, 1889, he was shot by Richard Jackson Thurmond, a former business partner. The motive for the shooting was believed to have been a lingering grudge dating back to their partnership. Falkner had just been elected to serve in the Mississippi legislature. He died the next day.

Literary works

Falkner was also an author, writing novels, poems, a travelogue, and at least one play. His most famous work was a novel entitled ''The White Rose of Memphis'' (New York, G. W. Carleton & co.; 1881), a murder mystery set on board a

steamboat A steamboat is a boat that is marine propulsion, propelled primarily by marine steam engine, steam power, typically driving propellers or Paddle steamer, paddlewheels. Steamboats sometimes use the ship prefix, prefix designation SS, S.S. or S/S ...

of the same name. This work was popular enough to be reprinted several times through the early 20th century, selling over 160,000 copies. Partial source: Mississippi Writers and Musicians *{{} *The Life and Confession of A. J. MacCannon, Murderer of the Adcock Family (1845) *{{cite book, title=The Siege of Monterey: a Poem. , date=1851, isbn=9780452006461, oclc=18810792, last1=Faulkner, first1=William *{{cite book , title=The Spanish Heroine: A Tale Of War And Love , date=1851, isbn=978-1-167-19015-5, oclc= 4405424 *The Lost Diamond (1867) *{{cite book, title=The White Rose of Memphis, date=1881 , isbn=978-1-5309-4539-9, oclc=1086801486, last1=Falkner , first1=William C. *{{cite book , title=The Little Brick Church , date=1882 , isbn=978-0839805502, oclc=221914635, last1=Falkner , first1=William Clark *{{cite book , title=Rapid Ramblings in Europe , date=1882 , isbn=978-1330930946, oclc=945914487, last1=Falkner , first1=William C. *{{cite book , title=Lady Olivia, a novel , date=1895 , isbn=9780452006461 , oclc=38617650, last1=Faulkner , first1=William

Influence

WC Falkner's oldest child John Wesley Thompson Falkner was the father of Murry Cuthbert Falkner. Murry's oldest child was Nobel laureate author

. As a child, William (who later changed his surname to Faulkner) reportedly said, "I want to be a writer like my great-granddaddy." The elder Falkner served as the model for the character of Colonel John Sartoris, who appeared in the novels '' Sartoris'' (1929; reissued in an expanded edition as ''

Flags in the Dust ''Flags in the Dust'' is a novel by the American author William Faulkner, completed in 1927. His publisher heavily edited the manuscript with Faulkner's reluctant consent, removing about 40,000 words in the process. That version was published as ...

'', 1973) and '' The Unvanquished'' (1938), as well as a number of short stories. Thus, Colonel Falkner is the inspiration for an integral part of the history of Faulkner's fictional

Yoknapatawpha County Yoknapatawpha County () is a fictional Mississippi county created by the American author William Faulkner, largely based upon and inspired by Lafayette County, Mississippi, and its county seat of Oxford (which Faulkner renamed "Jefferson"). Faulk ...

. Faulkner's short story "Knight's Gambit" (in the 1949 collection

Knight's Gambit ''Knight’s Gambit'' is a 1949 short story collection by American author William Faulkner. Including the titular story, the book collects six of Faulkner’s stories about attorney Gavin Stevens, who also takes a leading part in his novel ''Int ...

) has been viewed as including a commentary on Falkner's ''The White Rose of Memphis'' (1881).{{Cite journal, last=Kalfatovic, first=Martin R., date=1987, title=Faulkner's Knight's Gamibit, url=https://repository.si.edu/bitstream/handle/10088/2074/Kalfatovic_Explicator_1987.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y, journal=The Explicator, volume=45, issue=3, pages=47–48, doi=10.1080/00144940.1987.9938682

Bibliography

*{{cite book , last1=Gresset , first1=Michel , last2=Scharff , first2=Arthur B. , title=A Faulkner Chronology , date=1985 , publisher=University Press of Mississippi , location=Jackson, MS , isbn=0-87805-229-1 , url=https://archive.org/details/unset0000unse_e0j3 *{{cite book , last1=Hamblin , first1=Robert W. , last2=Peek , first2=Charles A. , title=A William Faulkner Encyclopedia , date=1999 , publisher=Greenwood Press , location=Westport, CT , url=https://archive.org/details/williamfaulknere0000unse_z3k0 , isbn=0-313-29851-3 , url-access={{dead link, date=July 2021 *{{cite book , last1=Williamson , first1=Joel , title=William Faulkner and Southern History , date=1993 , publisher=Oxford University Press , location=New York , isbn=0-19-507404-1 , url=https://archive.org/details/williamfaulkners00will

References

{{Reflist

External links

* {{Gutenberg author , id=Falkner,+William+C.+(Clark) , name=Clark Falkner * {{Internet Archive author , sname=William Clark Falkner , birth=1825 , death=1889 * {{Find a Grave, 5383, access-date=2008-10-19 {{William Faulkner, state=collapsed {{Authority control {{DEFAULTSORT:Falkner, William Clark 1820s births 1889 deaths People from Knox County, Tennessee 19th-century American railroad executives American military personnel of the Mexican–American War 19th-century American novelists American travel writers Assassinated American politicians Deaths by firearm in Mississippi Confederate States Army officers Businesspeople from Mississippi Members of the Mississippi Legislature People from Ste. Genevieve, Missouri People from Pontotoc, Mississippi People murdered in Mississippi Male murder victims People of Mississippi in the American Civil War William Faulkner 19th-century American poets American male novelists American male poets People from Ripley, Mississippi American male non-fiction writers Writers from Missouri Writers from Mississippi 19th-century American politicians