Georgia and Georgians - the Digital Library of Georgia

GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS 3077ings and was foreman of many of its grand juries. One of his sons, Hudson A.Jenkins, a younger brother of the late Judge Jenkins, was at one time speakerof the Georgia House of Representatives. Judge Jenkins' mother was adaughter of Irby Hudson, who was for six years speaker of the House of Representatives and at one time grand master of the Masonic Fraternity ofGeorgia.Less than sixteen years of age when the strife between the North andthe South threw its shadow over the pursuits and activities of peace, "WilliamFranklin Jenkins left home and school, and before his sixteenth birthday wasenrolled in the Twelfth Georgia. Volunteer Regiment. This regiment was attached to the Army of Northern "Virginia, and he shared in the glory of themen who followed Stonewall Jackson in his wonderful Valley Campaign. Inthe ranks of the army that followed that great leader there was no better private soldier than W. F. Jenkins. At the second battle of Manassas he wasseverely wounded, and while lying between the lines received a second wound,one leg being shattered by a shell, from which injury he suffered the rest of hislife. After nearly a year he was able to return to the service, and then becameordnance sergeant of the Doles-Cook Brigade, in which capacity he continueduntil the end of the war. He declined the offer of a position as courier on thestaff of General Lee, preferring to remain with old comrades.With the close of the war he resumed his interrupted education, spent oneyear at Eatonton, and then entered the law department of the University ofVirginia, where after two years he was graduated with honors. One of themost eminent law teachers in America, Dr. John B. Minor, in a letter to afriend written a few years after Mr. Jenkins left the university, said: "I canspeak only of his student life; but certainly few young men have gone out withhigher promise of eminent usefulness, whether regard be had to his ability,his accurate and actual knowledge, his sustained industry or his exemplaryconduct."Admitted to the bar "at Eatonton, he began practice in September, 1868,and his ability and character won almost immediate recognition. In 1873 thepeople of his county sent him to the General Assembly and he was again electedin 1884. It is said that his first election was probably due to the service herendered as chairman of the executive committee of the Young Men's Democratic Club during the period of Reconstruction. He also served as the firstmayor of Eatonton as a City and was the first chairman of the board of Commissioners of the county. For many years he was chairman of the countyboard of education and a trustee of the Eatonton public schools. He was atrustee of the Soldiers' Home in Atlanta, and for years commander of theR. T. Davis Camp of the United Confederate Veterans. The Camp of Sonsof Confederate Veterans of Putnam County bears his name.In 1886 the Legislature elected him judge of the Superior Courts of theOcmulgee Circuit, and he was re-elected in 1890 without opposition. A fewyears later President Cleveland's Secretary of the Interior, Hoke Smith, offeredhim the position of assistant attorney-general of the United States for theDepartment of the Interior, but he declined, since the position entailed a longabsence from home and family.Judge Jenkins was married in 1870 to Miss Leila Head, of WebsterCounty. She' and three children survived the death of Judge Jenkins. Thechildren are: Rev. J. W. R. Jenkins, a minister of the Baptist Church, nowliving at Zebulon; W. F. Jenkins (Jr.), recently elected as judge of Court ofAppeals; and Miss Carrie Jenkins.HON. W. FRANK JENKINS (II), of Eatonton, Putnam County, Georgia,who has been recently elected as one of the judges of the Courtof Appeals of Georgia, is the son of the late Judge W. F. Jenkins, of PutnamCounty, and Leila (Head) Jenkins, who was reared in Webster County,