William Polk (colonel) - Legacy

Legacy

• Despite the long and distinguished life of Colonel William Polk, his memory has been over-shadowed by that of his presidential cousin. Nevertheless, the town of Polkville, North Carolina is named for him, as is Polk County.

• Polk Correctional Institution (originally Polk Youth Institution), opened in 1997 near Butner, North Carolina, is a North Carolina maximum-security prison for men aged 19–25. The original Polk Prison was built in 1920 on the grounds of Camp Polk, a World War I U.S. Army tank base in Raleigh. The facility is named for Colonel William Polk.

• There are conflicting sources regarding the town of Polkton. Some allege that it is named for William, others that it was named for Confederate Leonidas L. Polk, who founded the town.

• There are also conflicting theories regarding the name of Polk County, Tennessee. Some assert that the county was named for President Polk, but others believe it was named for William, who had owned property there.

David Swain, the governor of North Carolina at the time of Polk’s death, said:

He was a contemporary and personal friend of Andrew Jackson, not less heroic in war, and quite as sagacious, and more successful in private life. It is known that Colonel Polk greatly advanced the interests and enhanced the wealth of the hero of New Orleans by information furnished him from his field notes as a surveyor, and in directing Jackson in his selection of valuable tracts of land in the State of Tennessee; that to Samuel Polk, the father of the President (James K. Polk), he gave the agency of renting and selling his (William’s) immense and valuable estate in lands in the most fertile section of that state; that as President of the Bank of North Carolina, he made Jacob Johnson, the father of President Andrew Johnson, its first porter; so that of the three native North Carolinians who entered the White House through the gates of Tennessee, all were indebted alike for the benefactions, and for promotion to a more favorable position in life, to the same individual, Colonel William Polk.

--David Swain, quoted by William H. Polk.