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Saturday, May 19, 2012
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You are here ::PoliticsMayors of MemphisW. L. Clapp
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W. L. Clapp

Born: 1851

Died: After 1898

W. L. Clapp was born on April 15, 1851.  He left his parents in 1867 to attend the University of Mississippi from which he graduated in 1872.  Clapp entered the study of law under the tutelage of his father, the honorable J. W. Clapp and crossed the bar in 1874.  Clapp remained a major figure in the various legal firms of his father and in 1878 became the chairman of the executive committee of the Democrat County Comittee.

In 1886 he was elected handily to the speaker of the House of the Tennessee State Legislature.  Clapp had a very distinguished tenure as speaker of the house.  In 1874 he married Miss Lamira M. Parker of Memphis and fathered four children by her.  He was an officer of the Chickasaw Guard and President of the Tennessee Club.  He served as mayor of Memphis from 1895-98.

During the war he was chief of the Produce Loan for the Confederacy, receiving his appointment from President Davis. Since 1867 he has practiced law in Memphis. He was elected to the State Senate in 1878 without his knowledge that he was a candidate. He was several terms a member of the Mississippi Legislature, and was a member of the Confederate Congress.



  
Here the history of Memphis is presented.  From the Chickasaw to the great New Madrid earthquake of 1811 on to the land's purchase by John Overton and Andrew Jackson, followed by incorporation and Civil War occupation.  Picking up with the yellow fever followed by the surrender of the city charter and the tenure of the former city as a taxing district of Shelby County and the state of Tennessee.  We continue Memphis history into the days of Crump and the progressive era when the city would be made to conform to order.  Memphis history is rich with time, music and commerce.  From the blues of Beale Street to Elvis Presley and Sun Records the City of Memphis been enriched by transporation, cotton, mules and hardware; bridge openings to celebrate and the sorrows of the 1968 Sanitation Strike which culminated in the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Memphis has persevered through pain and has been anything but dull.  This is our story...
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