Francis Strother Lyon was an American lawyer and politician. He was a member of the United States House of Representatives from Alabama's Fifth District from 1835 to 1839.
Background
Francis Strother Lyon was born on February 25, 1800, in Stokes County, North Carolina, United States, where his father, James Lyon, a Virginian by birth, owned a large tobacco plantation. His mother was Behetheland Gaines Lyon, daughter of James Gaines, a Revolutionary soldier, and member of the North Carolina convention which ratified the Constitution of the United States.
Education
Francis Lyon was educated in the schools of North Carolina. Later he read law and was admitted to the bar in 1821.
Career
When Francis Lyon was seventeen years old he left the state to make his home with his mother's brother, George Strother Gaines, Indian agent at St. Stephens, Alabama. His handwriting, which was remarkable for its neatness and legibility, procured him employment as a clerk in the bank at St. Stephens and before long he was clerk of the court as well.
A year later he became secretary of the state Senate and held that position for eight years. In 1833 he was elected state senator, served three years, and in 1835 was elected to Congress as a Whig. He represented the Mobile district in the Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth congresses and then resumed his law practice.
Lyon was a popular lawyer. He often sacrificed a fee to settle disputes between neighbors out of court. Whenever he appeared before a jury, although he was not an eloquent pleader, he was acknowledged to be a dangerous opponent. His hair, which had turned white early in life, gave him an appearance of venerable kindliness which predisposed the jury in his favor. Added to this was his skill in cross-examination, which he conducted with such suave courtesy and careful politeness that his opponents' witnesses often became his own before they were aware of it. Although he was one of the busiest lawyers in Alabama and managed several large plantations and other interests, he always found time for public service and, in a day when good dogs and guns were a necessary part of every man's life, possessed the best in the state.
In 1846 he was appointed sole commissioner to liquidate the Bank of the State of Alabama. This institution had been organized as a bank of issue in 1823. From the beginning it was poorly managed. By 1844 it had become hopelessly involved and the state refused to renew its charter. Liquidation was a long and difficult process. Lyon was appointed member of a commission created to close up the affairs of the bank and in 1847 was made sole commissioner with extraordinary powers collect debts, take up depreciated state bonds, ascertain assets, adjust, extend, renew or exchange securities in such ways as would best serve the interests of the state. He was also to conduct all litigation arising from the liquidation of the bank and to arrange for the payment of the interest and the principal of the public debt. Rarely has a state entrusted such large powers to one man.
Although Lyon had been elected to Congress by the Whigs, as he came to accept the necessity of secession he drifted into the Yancey wing of the Democratic party. He was chairman of the state Democratic committee in 1860 and a delegate to the Charleston convention. Elected to the Provisional Congress of the Confederacy, he declined to serve, but was elected to the First Congress of the Confederate States and served throughout the Civil War. Most of his fortune was lost through heavy subscriptions to the cotton loan.
He returned to his law practice in Demopolis and became active in Democratic party politics. He was a delegate to the state constitutional convention in 1875 and was elected to the state Senate the following year.
Achievements
Religion
Francis was a member of the Episcopalian church.
Politics
At the beginning of his political career Lyon was a member of the Whig party. By 1860 he had joined the Democratic party. Throughout the Reconstruction period he was a vigorous supporter of the rights of the state against the national government.
Personality
Lyon was described as a handsome and cultivated individual who worked long but unhurried hours at practical pursuits, "a gentleman of the Old School with the energy of the New."
Connections
On March 4, 1824, Lyon married Sarah Serena Glover. They had seven children.