Biography
Henry S. Foote, the son of Richard Helm Foote and Catherine (Stuart) Foote, was born in Fauquier County, Virginia. He pursued classical studies in 1819 and graduated from Washington College (now Washington and Lee University). He later "read the law" and was admitted to the bar in 1823.
In 1825 he moved to the developing territory of Alabama, where he began his law practice in Tuscumbia in the northern part of the present-day state. Foote established a newspaper, and frequently lent books from his personal library. He was one of 21 local trustees who in 1830 founded LaGrange College, now the University of North Alabama. LaGrange was the first college founded in Alabama to gain a charter from the state legislature.
Foote moved to Mississippi, where he practiced law in the state capital, Jackson, and in the river towns of Natchez, Vicksburg, and Raymond, which were centers of business associated with the cotton and slave trades.
After visiting Texas, Foote wrote the two-volume Texas and the Texans; or, Advance of the Anglo-Americans to the South-west; Including a History of Leading Events in Mexico, from the Conquest by Fernando Cortes to the Termination of the Texan Revolution (1841).
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