William Donald Cameron
Born April 5, 1846-Died June 11, 1909
William Donald Cameron was born at Alamutcha, Lauderdale County, Mississippi April 5, 1846. He was the fourth son of Major Daniel Cameron, who was born in North Carolina in 1796, being the same year his parents emigrated from the Highlands of Scotland. His mother was Elizabeth Jane Donald, of Sumter district, South Carolina. Major Daniel Cameron, the father of the subject of this sketch settled at Alamutcha in 1832, and there raised his family of six sons and one daughter. William had the benefits of a common County school up to the civil war, when, in the latter part of the war, he enlisted in the Forty-ninth Alabama Regiment, and was in active service in the Georgia and Tennessee campaigns until the close of the war.
After the surrender he returned home to his widowed mother, who had suffered many of the deprivations of war, and had nothing left but her pineywood homestead. He, with his four brothers, plied their hands to the plow until 1868, when he was employed as bookkeeper at Lauderdale, which occupation he followed until November, 1871 when he was appointed by the late lamented McRae Mosby, Deputy Chancery Clerk of Lauderdale County, in which capacity he served until November 1875, when he was elected Circuit Clerk of said county, and has been continuously elected up to the present time in the same office.
Mr. Cameron has been active in politics since the war, ever standing firmly upon the principles of the Democratic party. And his long tenure of office evinces the confidence and loyalty of the people in his integrity and usefulness.
"He has been honored time and again with high places in fraternal organizations. For the past ten years he has held commissions as Colonel of the Uniform Rank Knights of Pythias; was elected Grand Chancellor of the Grand Lodge Knights of Pythias of Mississippi in 1895, and on the 14th day of May, 1899, he was elected by the Grand Lodge of Mississippi Supreme Representative Knights of Pythias and on the same day, the 14th of May, 1899, he was in his absence in Charleston, S. C. elected Major-General of the Mississippi Division, United Confederate Veterans.
"It can be truthfully said that "Bill" Cameron, as he is always familiarly called, has proven faithful to all of the trusts confided to him."