William Clark Falkner
William Clark Falkner (July 6, 1825 or 1826 - November 6, 1889) was a soldier, lawyer, politician, businessman, and author in northern Mississippi. He is most notable for the influence he had on the work of his great-grandson, author William Faulkner.
Although born in Knox County, Tennessee, Falkner lived with his family in Missouri and Pontotoc, Mississippi before settling at the age of 17 in Ripley, Mississippi. He served in the Mexican War and, when the American Civil War broke out, he raised a company of men and was made colonel in the Second Mississippi Infantry of the Confederate Army. Later, however, he was demoted in an election of officers and never regained a prominent role.
During Reconstruction, he was active in rebuilding northern Mississippi and founded the Ship Island, Ripley, and Kentucky Railroad Company. On November 5, 1889, he was shot by William Thurmond, a former business partner, after having just been elected to serve in the Mississippi legislature. He died the next day.
Falkner was also an author, writing novels, poems, a travelogue, and at least one play. His most famous work was a novel entitled The White Rose of Memphis, a murder mystery set on board a steamboat of the same name. This work was popular enough to be reprinted several times in the late 19th and early 20th century.
As a child, Falkner's great-grandson William Faulkner is reported to have said, "I want to be a writer like my great-granddaddy." Whether or not young William actually said this, the elder Falkner served as the model for the character of Colonel John Sartoris, who appeared in the novels Sartoris (1929) (reissued in an expanded edition as Flags in the Dust (1973)) and The Unvanquished (1938) as well as a number of short story|short stories. Thus, Colonel Falkner is the inspiration for an integral part of the history of Faulkner's fictional Yoknapatawpha County.