William Wallace Screws

William Wallace Screws (1839–1913) served as the 19th Secretary of State of Alabama from 1878 to 1882.

Biography He was born on February 25, 1839, at Jernigan, Barbour, now Russell County, Alabama to Benjamin Screws and Mourning Jones Drake.

He received his education in the village schools in Glenville, Alabama until he was sixteen. He did not go to college and instead read law under Thomas H. Watts. He was admitted to the Montgomery County Bar on June 15, 1859, and entered the practice of law. Screws ended the war as major serving on the staff of Gen. James T. Holtzclaw.

Later life After the war Montgomery Advertiser publisher Samuel Graham Reid, Sr., hired Screws as an associate editor in July 1865 and then in November of the same year sold him a half interest in the newspaper. For the next forty-eight years Screws maintained to a varying degree an editorial connection with the Advertiser.

He died August 7, 1913, at Coosada, Alabama.

Governor Thomas G. Jones pronounced in his eulogy for William W. Screws the following,

Family On April 25, 1867, he married Emily Frances and they had four children.