Anthony D. Sayre

Anthony Dickinson Sayre (April 29, 1858 – November 17, 1931)[1][2] was President of the Alabama State Senate (1896-97) and a justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama from 1909 to 1931. Sayre's daughter was Jazz Age socialite Zelda Sayre, the wife of novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Biography

Born in Tuskegee, Alabama to parents Daniel Sayre and Musidora Sayre (née Morgan), his parents were early settlers in Alabama who moved from Ohio (father) and Tennessee (mother). He was the nephew of Senator John Tyler Morgan, the second Grand Dragon of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan.[3][4][5][6]

After two years of private school, Sayre enrolled in Roanoke College in Virginia. He returned to study law under Judge Thomas Mann Arrington (1829-1895). In 1863 T.M. Arrington was a Lt. Col. in Vicksburg, MS in the Confederacy. In 1880s Judge Arrington was trial judge in Montgomery.[7] In 1880, Sayre was admitted to the bar.

For the next thirty years, he represented cities and counties in various capacities. He had served as clerk of the city court from 1883 to 1889, Montgomery County's representative in the state legislature from 1890 to 1893 and state senator from 1894 to 1897. He had served as president of the State Senate during his second term. He resigned from the Senate when in 1897 he was elected Montgomery city court judge, to which he was re-elected in 1903.

State Supreme Court

In 1909, Associate Justice James R. Dowdell became Chief Justice and Sayre was appointed by Governor Braxton Bragg Comer as associate justice. He served for the next 22 years. He was considered to be anti-death penalty[8] and anti-formalist.[9] Zelda Fitzgerald wrote in her semi-autobiographical Save Me the Waltz that Sayre was remote and distant.[10]

Personal life

Sayre married Minerva "Minnie" Buckner Machen, daughter of Willis Benson Machen and his third wife, the former Victoria Theresa Mims, of Eddyville, Kentucky on January 17, 1884, in Lyon County, Kentucky. They had eight children (three of whom died in infancy), including Anthony Dickinson Sayre Jr.[11] and Zelda Sayre (the wife of novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald).

He was a Democrat.[2] Sayre died November 17, 1931, at age 73.

References
  1. Tate, Mary Jo (2007-01-01). Critical Companion to F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work. Infobase Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4381-0845-2.
  2. State of Alabama, Department of Archives and History (1915). Alabama Official and Statistical Register. The Brown Printing Company. p. 50 – via Google Books.
  3. Davis, Susan Lawrence (1924). Authentic History Ku Klux Klan, 1865–1877. New York. pp. 45, 56, 59 – via Internet Archive. General James H. Clanton of Montgomery was the first Grand Dragon of the Realm of Alabama Ku Klux Klan, and continued in this capacity until his death, when General John T. Morgan was elected in his place, and served until 1876. The Ku Klux Klan in 1877 was led by General Edmund W. Pettus as Grand Dragon of the Realm.
  4. Bowers, Claude G. (1929). The Tragic Era The Revolution After Lincoln. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Riverside Press. p. 310 – via Internet Archive. On his death the mantle [of Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon] passed to General John T. Morgan, who later became one of the most distinguished of Senators and statesmen.
  5. "Rogers' Voice and Thad Stevens". The Montgomery Advertiser. Montgomery, Alabama. February 4, 1960. p. 4. Retrieved April 19, 2023 – via Newspapers.com. The first leader of the Klan in this state was Gen. James H. Clanton, for whom one of our fine towns is named. And on his death, the leadership passed to Alabama's Gen. John Tyler Morgan.
  6. Svrluga, Susan (February 22, 2016). "Calls to change U. of Alabama building name to honor Harper Lee instead of KKK leader". The Washington Post. Washington, D.C. Retrieved April 19, 2023. [John Tyler Morgan was] a former senator who was a Confederate general and a leader of the Ku Klux Klan.
  7. Page v. State, 69 Ala. 229 (1881) (trial judge T.M. Arrington); https://www.nps.gov/vick/learn/historyculture/31st-alabama-infantry.htm
  8. Davis v. State, 88 So. 868 (1921) (dissent by Sayre).
  9. Bishop v. Alabama Farm Bureau Cotton Ass'n, 110 So. 711 (1926) (dissent by Sayre).
  10. Zelda Fitzgerald, Save Me the Waltz (Scribner, 1932).
  11. "Alabama Authors". Archived from the original on 2008-05-09. Retrieved 2021-05-22.
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