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Lemuel Flewellyn Rainwater

Lemuel Flewellyn Rainwater was the son of Pinkney F. Rainwater and his wife, Sarah Eskew Rainwater. In 1922 or 1923, he ran for and won a seat in the Mississipi State Senate. This victory occasioned his being included in “The Mississippi Official and Statistical Record, 1924-1928” which supplies this biography:


Lemuel Flewellyn Rainwater Lemuel Flewellyn Rainwater, Senator from the 33rd senatorial District, was born at Stone Mountain, DeKalb County, Georgia, April 2, 1848. His father, Pinkney Ferron Rainwater, was born at Anderson, South Carolina, but lived at Alpharetta, Milton County, Georgia, where he was a merchant and for several years judge of the county court. Senator Rainwater’s paternal grandfather, Job Rainwater, was a Baptist minister who moved from Anderson South Carolina to Georgia in 1820. Senator Rainwater’s mother was Sarah A. (Eskew) Rainwater, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Richardson Eskew of Stone Mountain, Georgia.

At the outbreak of the Civil War both Senator Rainwater, who was fifteen years of age, and his father who was fifty-two, volunteered for service in the Confederate Army and both served throughout the war. Senator Rainwater was a member of Company E, 27th Georgia Battalion.

After attending the public schools Senator Rainwater read law in the office and under the guidance of General Edward C. Walthall at Grenada, Mississippi. He was admitted to practice in 1874 and has ever since practiced law at Sardis, Mississippi. A lifelong Democrat, he has been active in the councils of his party, having served for twelve years as the Chairman of the Panola County Democratic Executive Committee, two terms as the mayor of Sardis and as State Senator from 1896 to 1900. He was elected to the State Senate a second time in 1923 (see campaign flyer).

Senator Rainwater is a member of the Baptist Church, Superintendent of the Sunday School of his church and for forty-seven years Clerk of the church. He is a Mason and a member of the Knights of Phyias. In 1886 as Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Anti-Saloon League in Panola County, Senator Rainwater led the fight against the saloon and carried the county by an overwhelming majority for prohibition under the local option act.

On January 6, 1876, Senator Rainwater was married to Laura S. Jones at Courtland, Mississippi. Mrs. Rainwater’s father, James H. Jones, was the sheriff of Panola County. Senator and Mrs. Rainwater have their home at Sardis, Mississippi. They have six children, Edward Walthall, James I., Irl Chevis, Hall (Mrs. Joseph R. Wells), Cary (Mrs. Louis H. Carlyle) and Jennie.

Credits
Campaign flyer supplied by Michael V. Rainwater.

Sources
400: The Mississippi Official and Statistical Record, 1924-1928, Department of Archives and History, Dunbar Rowland, LLD, State Historian, publ. 1928, Brandon Printing Company, Nashville, TN. Profile of Lemuel F. Rainwater, pgs 165-166, found only in the 1924-1928 edition. PDF


© 2018 Susan Chance-Rainwater
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