State Web Site

Higher Office(s) Served: Senator

Military Service: Army

War(s) Served:  Civil War

SAMUEL D. MCENERY was born in Monroe, Ouachita Parish, Louisiana on May 28, 1837. His education was attained at Spring Hill College in Alabama, at the U.S. Naval Academy in Maryland, at the University of Virginia, and at the State and National Law School in New York, where he graduated in 1859. During the Civil War, he served in the Confederate Army in a volunteer regiment called the Pelican Greys, later attaining the rank of lieutenant. After his military duty, he was admitted to the bar in 1866 and established his legal career in Monroe, Louisiana. McEnery entered politics in 1879, serving as the lieutenant governor of Louisiana, a position he held until 1881. On October 16, 1881, Governor Louis Wiltz passed away, and McEnery, who was lieutenant governor at the time, assumed the duties of the governorship. He was elected to his own full term on April 22, 1884. During his tenure, the Sunday Law was sanctioned, railroad progression was authorized, and a new workday law was enacted that limited women and children to a ten-hour work day. After losing his 1888 reelection bid McEnery secured an appointment as associate justice of the Louisiana State Supreme Court, a position he held until 1897. He also served as a member of the U.S. Senate from 1897 until his death in 1910. Governor Samuel D. McEnery passed away on June 28, 1910, and was buried at the Metairie Cemetery in New Orleans.

Sources:

Biographical Directory of U.S. Congress

Dawson III, Joseph G. The Louisiana Governors: From Iberville to Edwards. Baton Rouge: Lousiana State University Press, 1990.

Encyclopedia Louisiana

Louisiana Secretary of State: The Governors of Louisiana

The Political Graveyard

Sobel, Robert, and John Raimo, eds. Biographical Directory of the Governors of the United States, 1789-1978, Vol. 2, Westport, Conn.; Meckler Books, 1978. 4 vols.