William D. Bloxham - Early Life and Career

Early Life and Career

Bloxham was born on a plantation in Leon County, Florida, the son of William and Martha (Williams) Bloxham. His great-grandfather had migrated from England to manage George Washington's plantation and his grandfather endured adversity due to the War of 1812. His father was from Alexandria, Virginia and moved to Leon County to run a plantation in 1825, becoming one of few white settlers in a Native American-dominated area. The elder William served in the Seminole Wars. Martha Bloxham was born in Twiggs County, Georgia and moved to Florida as a child.

The younger Bloxham went to county school in Florida before being sent to preparatory school in Virginia at age 13. For the next seven years, he attended Virginia schools including Rappahannock Academy where his teachers included eventual U.S. Senator William Mahone. Bloxham graduated from The College of William & Mary in 1855 and acquired a law degree from the college. He was admitted to the Florida Bar but, when his health declined, he travelled to Europe and chose the more active life of a planter when he returned. In November 1856, he and Mary C. Davis travelled to her home city of Lynchburg, Virginia to be married.

Bloxham became interested in politics and actively campaigned for James Buchanan in the 1856 presidential election. In 1861, he was elected to the Florida House of Representatives without opposition. With the Civil War raging in 1862, Bloxham organized a company of infantry from Leon County which he commanded for the duration of the war. After the war, he staunchly opposed Reconstruction and, using his popularity as a speaker, was a leading voice among Florida Democrats. He served as a Presidential Elector for the Horatio Seymour/Francis Preston Blair, Jr. Democratic ticket in the 1868 election.

Read more about this topic:  William D. Bloxham

Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or career:

    In the early forties and fifties almost everybody “had about enough to live on,” and young ladies dressed well on a hundred dollars a year. The daughters of the richest man in Boston were dressed with scrupulous plainness, and the wife and mother owned one brocade, which did service for several years. Display was considered vulgar. Now, alas! only Queen Victoria dares to go shabby.
    M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)

    The detective novel is the art-for-art’s-sake of our yawning Philistinism, the classic example of a specialized form of art removed from contact with the life it pretends to build on.
    —V.S. (Victor Sawdon)

    Whether lawyer, politician or executive, the American who knows what’s good for his career seeks an institutional rather than an individual identity. He becomes the man from NBC or IBM. The institutional imprint furnishes him with pension, meaning, proofs of existence. A man without a company name is a man without a country.
    Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)