LQC Lamar

LQC Lamar 1825-1893

Lucius Quintus Cincinatus Lamar II.  This is the man whom the county of Lamar is named.  Lamar was a politician and jurist.  A United States Representative and Senator, Lamar was named as Secretary of the Interior under President Grover Cleveland.  Later in his career he served as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.  A Georgia native, Lamar came to Mississippi in 1849 taking a position as a professor of mathematics at the University of Mississippi in Oxford.  After a brief stint back home in Georgia, Lamar returned to Mississippi and in 1856 was elected to the US House of Representatives.  He was active in state politics following the Civil War and even drafted the state's Ordinance of Secession.  From March 1885 to January 1888 he served President Cleveland as a part of his administrative team.  Cleveland appointed Lamar to the Supreme Court and he was confirmed January 16, 1888, serving until his death on January 23, 1893.  He is the only Mississippian to serve on the court.  Today counties in Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia are named in his honor.