William Washington Vance

William Washington Vance, also known as W. W. Vance (1849 – February 16, 1900), was a lawyer and politician in his adopted U.S. state of Louisiana.^[1]

Biographical sketch

Vance was born in Cokesbury in Greenwood County in western South Carolina. His father, J. K. Vance, a military officer, was a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives prior to the American Civil War. Vance received a bachelor's degree from the University of Edinburgh in Edinburgh, Scotland,^[1] where he was a member of the Chi Phi fraternity.^[2]

Vance studied law privately in Abbeville in western South Carolina. In 1879, he relocated to Bellevue, then the parish seat of Bossier Parish in northwestern Louisiana, where he established an extensive law practice. He won a special election for the Louisiana State Senate, then District 21^[1] and including Bienville, Bossier, Claiborne, and Webster parishes, to succeed John C. Vance,^[3] who resigned after five years in office. It is unclear how or if William Vance is related to this John C. Vance, but they were not brothers. John Vance was six years the senior of William Vance and was born in 1843 in Abbeville County, South Carolina, but it is unclear if William Vance had any association with Abbeville prior to 1870.^[4] William Vance served in the Senate from 1886 to 1892^[5] and was also during the latter part of his tenure the assistant to state Attorney General Walter Henry Rogers. In 1892, Vance assumed his terminal position as the private secretary to two-term Governor Murphy J. Foster, Sr.^[1]

In 1857, a bruise which would not heal developed on Vance's leg. Despite an amputation, cancer spread, and he died in 1900, three months before Foster left the governorship and was soon headed to the United States Senate. Vance was survived by his widow of only eight years, the former Sidney Ballard, a native of New Orleans, and two young children. He is interred at Magnola Cemetery in Baton Rouge.^[1]

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