To: KYF
Subject: Reed.William.Decatur.1815.Jefferson.BIOS




William Decatur Reed February 15 1815 - May 30 1858 
Jefferson County KyArchives Biography

Author: H. Levin, Lawyers and Lawmakers of Kentucky 

WILLIAM DECATUR REED was born February 15, 1815, near Danville, now Boyle county, then Lincoln county, Kentucky, and died on the 30th day of May, 1858, at Louisville, this state.  
In our age of refined reason and enlightened liberty, the lives of the virtuous great who have lived and are interred in our state exhibit the most attractive models for our emulation, for they have ennobled and blessed the state and nation. Few have been fraught with greater import for the advancement of the good of mankind than that of William Decatur Reed.
He was descended from sturdy Scotch-Irish stock on his father's side, his great-grandfather Reed having emigrated from Belfast, Ireland, to Pennsylvania in the early part of the eighteenth century. He was a linen manufacturer and is said to have established the first linen looms in that state. He was a kinsman of Governor Joseph Reed, of Pennsylvania, the secretary and stanch supporter of General George Washington, who served on his staff without pay, refusing the promotion to generalship offered him by his commander-in-chief. History records that he was approached by the English commissioners with an officer of 10,000 guineas and high preferment under their government if he would use his good offices toward bringing about a cessation of the war and the submission of the colonies, and that he, in response, made this noble and famous reply: "I am not worth purchasing, but, poor as I am, not all your king's gold and power could swerved me from my duty to my country," an answer which aptly illustrates one of the chief characteristics of the Reeds--that of strict integrity and adherence to duty and right. The family came to Kentucky from Virginia, to which state the son of the first Reed had emigrated, between 1775 and 1780, and settled on the fine lands about four miles from Danville, at what is put down on Filson's first map of Kentucky as "Reeds." Here the grandfather of William D. Reed built a brick house, known later as Reed's Mansion--probably the first erected in Kentucky, of brick burned on the premises; it stands today, 1896, with the bullet marks of the Indians'
rifles, received while its inmates were repelling attacks of the savages--a mute monument of the heroism of its early builders. In this home Jonathan Reed, the father of the subject of this sketch, was born and resided until his marriage to Annie Gaines, whose father was of English descent and of the earliest pioneers into Kentucky, having emigrated from the state of Virginia in the latter part of the eighteenth century. William D. Reed was left an orphan in early boyhood, and was reared in the home of his sister Letitia, the wife of Judge Paul J. Booker, near Springfield, Kentucky. He was sent to Center College, Danville, Kentucky, and there received a good academical education. On reaching his maturity, and coming into possession of his estate, being desirous of seeing and knowing his country better, he journeyed by stage and on horseback through the settled parts of both the United States and Canada. With his intellect broadened by these travels, and with an ambition to make a place for himself in the world, which to him was of greater extent than the county and state in which he lived, he returned to his home to begin the serious work of life. He had determined 
upon the law as his profession and entered the office of Hon. Ben. Chapeze, of Bardstown, Kentucky, one of the brightest minds and most indefatigable workers at the bar; later he attended the Transylvania University at Lexington, taking there the law course, and, when fully equipped by careful study, was admitted to practice in the courts, and settling at his old home, Springfield, he entered at once on the business of his life, the pursuit of his honorable profession. He at once secured a footing and became one of the most active practitioners in the circuit. His diligence and sober, intelligent application and faithful honest work in the interest of his clients made and kept them his friends and steadily increased their number. His interests and professional business grew with astonishing rapidity, and in 1841 he determined to removed to Frankfort, where the court of appeals offered to his genius an ample field and more congenial and more lucrative practice than the circuits. There he entered into partnership with Hon. Charles S. Morehead, one of the leaders of the state bar at that time, who was in 1855 and 1859 elected governor of the state.
In 1844 he was appointed by Governor William Owsley to the office of secretary of state. In 1846 he was elected a member from Franklin county to the state legislature. In 1852 he sought a still broader field for the practice of his profession and moved to the metropolis of his state, Louisville, where he entered into partnership with Judge Owen G. Cates, which relationship continued until a few years before he was compelled to abandon active work by his last illness, with which he was attacked in January, 1857. On taking up his residence in Louisville, he entered at once into a lucrative practice, his reputation being well established throughout the state, of which he was a prominent factor in both the political and social life. Mr. Reed took a laudable interest in national politics and was an elector for the Democratic party in the electoral college which chose James Buchanan president and John C. Breckinridge vice president. He foresaw that the telegraph, then a new invention, was destined to fill an important place in the business world, and the wondrously beneficial influence its development would have on the general welfare of the country.
He was one of the original projectors of the Southwestern Telegraph Company, which owned its existence to his perseverance and faith in the usefulness and practicability of the invention of Morse to utilize electricity on wires as a means of communication in the world of business.
To those of our own day it may appear strange that the feasibility of so doing could have been doubted, but such was the ignorance and superstition of 1852 on that subject that the erection of poles and stringing of wires was supposed to work such an injurious result as to deprive the farmers of much-needed rains, and, like the Indian, who opposed the laying of railroads, and the Chinese of more recent years, the farmers of the south and the southwest were violently prejudiced against the innovation of the telegraph with its poles and wires, and fought the erection of the line in the courts and in the fields. Mr. Reed became greatly interested in the development of this wonderful agency of civilization, and to his foresight and courage, more than to that of any other, the establishment of this pioneer company was due. It was through his earnest advice and solicitation that his friend, Dr. Norvin Green, who afterward became president of the consolidated companies, under the name of the Western Union Telegraph Company, took an interest in the enterprise, in which Mr. Reed, with unbounded faith in the success of the company, had made a liberal investment of his means. He had also secured the co-operation of his brother-in-law, John M. Sharp, and was with him among the largest stockholders, evidencing his faith by risking his own means when others were invited to make investments. He was the secretary and attorney for the Southwestern Company, and traveled over all of the states through which its lines passed, securing protecting legislation for the property of the corporation. It was while engaged in this labor that he was one of the passengers on an ill-fated steamer which sank in the Mississippi in the early part of January, 1857, and, being exposed without shelter to the inclement air and the snow and rain of winter, he contracted neuralgia, which, after a confinement of eighteen months to his house and bed, resulted in his death. Although a practicing lawyer at the Louisville bar for only five years, he secured a most lucrative clientage, his fees for the last twelve months of his career amounting to over ten thousand dollars, which for a Louisville lawyer in 1856--before the day of railroad receivership and sales--was a very liberal income. He left an estate, which, when closed, returned to his heirs over one-fourth of a million dollars, the result of his own individual effort in his profession and from his investments. His personality may be summarized as one of great individuality, forcefulness and perseverance being predominant factors. Of sterling integrity and high purpose, every act of his life was but the stepping stone to something greater. There seemed no limit to the possibility of what he might have accomplished but for the interposition of death at the early age of forty-three years. He was married in 1839 to Jane Maxwell Sharp, only daughter of Colonel Solomon P. Sharp, of Frankfort, Kentucky, whose biography appears in this volume. Mrs. Reed partook largely of the characteristics of her father, a loving and kindly disposition, with great force of intellect and industry and with power that enabled her to devote her life assiduously to the rearing of her family,--five boys and two girls. Mrs. Reed and four of her sons are still living. Of the sons, P.
Booker, Leander Sharp and William D. Reed were successively receivers of the Louisville chancery court for fifteen years, and the last is still the incumbent of that responsible office. P. Booker Reed was mayor of Louisville from 1885 to 1887; Solomon S. Reed is a farmer in Oldham county, Kentucky; and Jonathan Duff Reed is a member of the Louisville bar. THe family connections through the paternal and maternal sides extend to the line of Augustine Washington; Honorable James G. Birney, the first candidate for the presidency of the United States on the Abolition ticker; Honorable Thomas B. Reed, United States senator for Mississippi; and Dr.
Louis Green, president of Center College, Danville. An uncle, John Reed, was for about forty years clerk of the county and circuit courts of Washington county, Kentucky, and it was during his term that the license for marriage of the mother and father of Abraham Lincoln, on June 10, 1806, was issued from that office. 


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