Richard Cleveland Drew

Richard Cleveland Drew, Sr.
Judge of the Second Circuit Court of Appeal in Shreveport, Louisiana
In office 1911 – March 1913
Judge of the 2nd Judicial District of Bossier and Webster parishes
In office May 29, 1882 – June 2, 1900
Preceded by	R. B. Taylor
Succeeded by	John T. Watkins
In office December 8, 1904 – March 4, 1911
Preceded by	John T. Watkins
Succeeded by	John N. Sandlin
Personal details
Born	April 17, 1848 Overton community Webster Parish Louisiana, USA
Died	December 21, 1919(1919-12-21) (aged 71) Minden, Webster Parish
Resting place	Minden Cemetery
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Katie Roberta Caldwell Drew (married 1880–1919, his death)
Children	Harmon Caldwell Drew Richard Cleveland, Drew Jr. Allyn Sidney "Skeet" Drew Miss Katie Cleveland Drew Thomas Caldwell Drew Waddy Thompson Drew Miss Mary Sarah Drew
Alma mater	Homer College
Profession	Lawyer
Religion	Presbyterian

Richard Cleveland Drew, Sr. (April 17, 1848 – December 21, 1919), also known as R. C. Drew, was a judge of the state district and circuit courts, based in Minden in northwestern Louisiana. The Drew family was among the original 19th-century settlers of the future Webster Parish, of which Minden is the parish seat. The first Drew arrived in 1818 in the Overton community on Dorcheat Bayou.

Background

Drew was born in rural Webster Parish to the former Sarah Jessie Cleveland (1828–80) and Richard Maxwell Drew (1822–50), an attorney, district judge, delegate to the Louisiana state constitutional convention of 1845, and state representative from 1848 until his death,^[1][2] at the age of barely twenty-eight.^[1][3]

Richard Maxwell Drew is interred at an abandoned cemetery in Overton. His epitaph on his tombstone, which was damaged several years ago by a dozer operating in the area, reads: "His public and private virtues have survived his death and will endure when this dumb marble shall have faded."^[4][5]

R. C. Drew was educated at the former Homer College in Homer, the seat of Claiborne Parish. He read law under A. B. George and was admitted to the bar in 1872 at Monroe, Louisiana. He was a member of the Masonic lodge.^[6]

Family

In 1880, R. C. Drew married the former Katie Roberta Caldwell (October 15, 1859 – December 5, 1936), a native of Plain Dealing in northern Bossier Parish and the daughter of Colonel and Mrs. Thomas J. Caldwell, who were originally from South Carolina.^[7] Katie Caldwell was educated at a female seminary in Paris in northeastern Texas.^[6] R. C. and Katie Drew had seven children, including Harmon Caldwell Drew, a district and circuit court judge who served on both benches from 1930 to 1945. R. C. and H. C. Drew remain the only father/son combination to have served as a judge on both state district and circuit courts in Louisiana.^[6] Their other children, all but one of whom died before the age of sixty, were Allyn Sidney Drew (1897–1956), Richard Cleveland Drew, Jr. (1885–1950), Katie Cleveland Drew (1887–1908), Thomas Caldwell Drew (1891–1940), Waddy Thompson Drew (1894–1941), and Mary Sarah Drew (1904–55).^[8]

Thomas Caldwell Drew, a soldier in World War I, was seriously injured by German poison gas and never fully recovered. Mary, the youngest of the Drew children, had Down's syndrome. Neither of the two Drew daughters married.^[6]

Katie Cleveland Drew was a piano student at Cincinnati Conservatory. While home for the Christmas holidays she became ill with influenza and died on December 23, 1908.

A sister and brother-in-law of Katie Caldwell Drew died in the 1918 flu pandemic. Their two orphans, Will and Katie Hall, were reared by R. C. and Katie Drew.^[9]

Judicial tenure

R. C. Drew's youngest son, A. S. "Skeet" Drew, was the first judge of the Minden City Court, having assumed the position in the late 1920s. R. C. Drew, Jr., also a judge, died two months after the passing of his brother, Harmon Caldwell Drew.^[6] A Drew has served in a judicial capacity in Webster Parish (created from Claiborne Parish in 1871) with comparatively little interruption since 1882.^[10] R. C. Drew served as a district judge from 1882^[11] to 1900 and again from 1904 to 1911.^[10] Drew's tenure on the circuit court extended from 1911 to March 1913.

In 1898, Judge Drew was a delegate to the Louisiana Constitutional Convention, as had been his father to the earlier conclave held in 1845.

Drew's uncle, Thomas Stevenson Drew, the governor of Arkansas from 1844 to 1849, had also been a delegate to that state's 1836 constitutional convention.^[12]

Death

Faded Richard C. Drew tombstone in Minden Cemetery

Drew died in Minden at the age of seventy-one. He is interred beside his wife in the older rear section of the historic Minden Cemetery.

R. C. Drew's grandson was the Minden City Judge and State Representative R. Harmon Drew, Sr., a delegate to the most recent state constitutional convention held in Baton Rouge in 1973–74. One of R. C. Drew's great-grandsons is the Circuit Court of Appeal Judge Harmon Drew, Jr., also of Minden but based at the Shreveport court.

References