John Sidney Killen

John Sidney Killen (February 5, 1826 – December 28, 1903)^[1] was a pioneer farmer and cattleman from Claiborne and Webster parishes in northwestern Louisiana, who served in the Louisiana House of Representatives for Claiborne Parish in 1871^[2] during the term of the Reconstruction Governor Henry Clay Warmoth.

Biographical sketch

Killen was in office only for a year, when he was succeeded by Frederick North. By 1874, W. W. Carloss, who had fought in the Siege of Port Hudson in 1863 had become the representative for Webster Parish, and two men named "Morland" and "Price" were representing Claiborne Parish.^[2]When Webster Parish was carved from Claiborne in 1871, Killen's farm fell within Webster Parish some ten miles to the north of the parish seat of Minden.

A native of Darlington County in northeastern South Carolina, Killen came to Louisiana in 1849. In his late thirties, he fought with the Minden Rangers in the American Civil War.^[3] He and his wife, the former Sarah Ann Monzingo (1828–1913), a native of Houston County, Georgia,^[4] had four sons, all of whom died before the age of twelve and most earlier and four daughters who lived into adulthood.^[3] The oldest Killen daughter, Louisa Parrott Killen Culbertson (1850–1947), was the paternal grandmother of Floyd D. Culbertson, Jr., a lawyer in three states who from 1940 to 1942 was the mayor of Minden.^[5] The third daughter, Nora Killen Stewart (1859–1922), was the wife of William G. Stewart,^[6] a farmer, public official, and president of the Webster Parish School Board for whom the former William G. Stewart Elementary School in Minden was named.^[7]

Killen, who was Southern Baptist, is interred with other family members at the historic Minden Cemetery.^[1]

References