William B. McClure

Contributor: Pat M. Mahan

WILLIAM B. McCLURE, probate judge of Lauderdale county, was born near Lexington, November 27, 1854. He is a son of James I. and Sarah E. (Smithson) McClure, the former of whom was born in South Carolina, in 1833. He was the son of William McClure. Mrs. Sarah E. McClure was born in east Tennessee in 1836 and was the daughter of Hezekiah P. Smithson. About 1835 the McClure family came to Alabama and located in Lauderdale county. About one year later William McClure died. James I. McClure was reared on the farm. During the war he served in the Sixteenth Alabama infantry, and died May 5, 1882. His widow still survives. They were the parents of ten children, only two of whom are now living. William B. McClure was the eldest of the family. He was reared on the farm and attended the common schools. In 1877 he began teaching, and taught until 1883. In 1880 he was elected magistrate of the Lexington precinct, and in 1884 he was elected tax assessor of the county. He was re-elected in 1888, and served in all, in that office, eight years. In 1892 he was elected probate judge of the county and took charge of the office on November 1, of that year. His general vocation has always been that of farming, and he now owns a farm in the Lexington beat, about twenty-one miles northeast of Florence. He was married in 1871 to Miss L. McGee, daughter of Jacob McGee of Lauderdale. To their Marriage have been born nine children. Judge McClure is a member of the farmers' alliance. He is, in every sense of the word, a self-made man. He owes his present position entirely to his own efforts. He began life with only a common education, and no patrimony, and now he is well off and highly respected.

Source: Memorial Record of Alabama. Vol. II. Brant & Fuller. Madison, Wis., 1893. p. 361