Willard Humphrey Utz, Madison Parish, Louisiana Submitted by Cheryl Bearden 5/7/2008

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Willard Humphrey Utz - Madison Parish, Louisiana 

W. H. Utz is a native of Madison parish, where he was born in 1860. He is a son of Gabriel Utz, 
who was born in Virginia in 1813. He was of German descent. Gabriel was reared and received a 
common-school education in Virginia. He started out for himself when about twenty-one or twenty-two 
years of age, coming to Mississippi, where he managed a plantation for Mr. George Humphrey, in 
Claiborne county, for two or three years, then coming to Madison parish, where he remained 
during his lifetime.

For about eleven years after coming to Madison parish he managed a place for Mr. Humphrey at Dalkeith, 
after which he purchased Nebraska plantation, consisting of 900 acres fronting on the river, which he 
has greatly improved, about 600 acres of it being now under cultivation. When he purchased it it was 
nearly all forest land. He died in 1884.
 
He was married in 1857 to Miss Martha P. Abbe, a native of Massachusetts, who was born in 1839, a daughter 
of Lyman R. and Asenath (Twiss) Abbe, both natives of Massachusetts. To Gabriel Utz and wife were born 
four children, named: Lyman R. Utz, who died in infancy; Willard Humphrey, our subject; Martha Belle, 
wife of John W. Carpenter, a merchant in Rankin county, Miss., and Miss Annie Viola. Our subject was 
educated at Lanesboro, Mass., attending school there for four years. He then attended a year at 
Gallatin, Tenn., and afterward took a course at Poughkeepsie, graduating in 1879.
 
At the age of sixteen he was obliged to take charge of his father's plantation. He was married in 
March, 1891, to Miss Columbia Sevier, a native of Claiborne county, Miss., who was born in 1870, a 
daughter of Andrew Sevier, an accountant of Claiborne county, now of Madison parish, La.

Source: Louisiana Biographical and Historical Memoirs, Vol. 2.  Chicago, ILL, USA: Goodspeed, 1892 pp. 428-429.