William Clark Falkner (July 6, 1825 or 1826 – November 6, 1889) was a soldier, lawyer, politician, businessman, and author in northern Mississippi. He is most notable for the influence he had on the work of his great-grandson, author William Faulkner. Family background He was born in Knox County, Tennessee, to Joseph Falkner (or Forkner or Faulkner) and Caroline Word (or Ward). Both Caroline's paternal grandfather Charles and his brother Cuthbert died during the American Revolutionary War while serving under the command of George Washington. Her father Thomas Adams Word moved the family to Georgia in 1812. Caroline's sister Justianna Dickinson Word married John Wesley Thompson, who in 1834 was arrested for killing a man during a fight. He was acquitted, and afterwards moved with Justianna to Ripley, Mississippi. Thompson eventually became a district attorney, and later a district judge, in Mississippi. William Clark Falkner lived with his family in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri and Pontotoc, Mississippi, joining the Thompsons in Ripley in 1842. In 1847, he married Holland Pearce. Their only child John Wesley Thompson Falkner, named after WC's uncle, was born in 1848. Holland died in 1849. Elizabeth Houston Vance (1833–1910) became his second wife in 1851. They were the parents of eight children: William Henry Falkner (1853–1878) - son Willett Medora Falkner Carter (1856–1918) - daughter Thomas Vance Falkner (1859–1861) - son Lizzie Manassah Falkner (1861–1861) - daughter Fannie Forest Falkner Dogan (1866–1929) - daughter Effie Falkner Davis (1868–1957) - daughter Alabama Leroy Falkner McLean (1874–1968) - daughter Unknown (died young) Military service He served in the Mexican–American War as First Lieutenant of the 2nd Regiment of Mississippi Volunteers. When the American Civil War broke out, he raised a company of men and was made colonel in the Second Mississippi Infantry of the Confederate Army. Later, he was demoted in an election of officers; and formed a unit known as the 1st Mississippi Partisan Rangers. He never regained a prominent role in the Confederate Army, but he was forever known as "Colonel Falkner" or just "The Old Colonel" after the war. Later life and death During Reconstruction, he was active in rebuilding northern Mississippi and founded the Ship Island, Ripley, and Kentucky Railroad Company. The first station on the line north of Ripley was located in what is now the community of Falkner. On November 5, 1889, he was shot by Richard Jackson Thurmond, a former business partner.