By Jessica Gorman
Colonel Clinton Henry Ardis was born 3 February 1828 in Edgefield, South Carolina. About 1846, his parents moved the family to Louisiana, settling at Mt. Lebanon. He first worked as a clerk before opening his own store in Minden around 1849.
In 1850, Col. Ardis was married to Harriet Hamilton in Madison County, Mississippi. They had six children, William Matthias, Mary Lou, Clinton Henry II, Jackson Bryan, Penelope E., and Annie Banks. Of the six, only three lived to adulthood. Their first child, William Matthias was born 5 October 1851 and lived only four months. Clinton Henry II was born 4 April 1855 and was a year and a half old when he died. The couple’s youngest child, Annie Banks, was born 29 September 1861 only a year old at her death.
On 10 March 1853, the town of Minden was incorporated by act of the Louisiana legislature. Town officials were to be elected in May. Col. Ardis was one of the five original alderman of the town and, while a lack of primary sources makes the specific timeline and circumstances unclear, he temporarily served as mayor until an elected mayor was installed. That election was held in May 1854.
At the outbreak of the Civil War, C.H. Ardis sold his business in Minden to serve on the staff of Governor Thomas Overton Moore and General Henry Watkins Allen as Chief of the Clothing Bureau and Military Store-keeper. After the war, he resided in Minden before relocating to Shreveport in 1873.
In 1880, he opened Ardis & Co. and quickly became one of Shreveport’s leading merchants. Ten years later, Ardis & Co. was doing over half a million dollars in business annually. Not only was Col. Ardis known for his business acumen, he was also a philanthropist.
In 1896, Shreveport was in need of new public school buildings and the funds to build them. Col. Ardis presented a proposal. He said he would either be one of ten men to donate $1000 to build a $10,000 building or one of thirty to build a $30,000 building. He was so sure that there were at least 30 men who could easily afford to contribute that he made a list. As the donations came in, the names and amounts were published in the newspaper but those donations were well below the $1000 mark. In the end, a voluntary tax was levied to provide the funding for the new school buildings.
In 1902, Col. Ardis again stepped up to inspire the generosity of his fellow businessmen by pledging $1000 to the construction of the Business Woman’s Home. This would provide a boarding house for the women who worked in the city. That same year, he gave $3000 to build Ardis Memorial Baptist Church in Bossier City. That $3000 donation grew into what is today First Bossier.
Colonel Clinton Henry Ardis died at his home on Milam Street in Shreveport on 16 February 1906. His funeral was held at his home and conducted by Dr. Penick of the First Baptist Church of Shreveport who described Col. Ardis was follows:
“He was a very humble man in his estimate of himself. There was nothing vain-glorious in his life. He tried to do his duty as it was disclosed to him day by day. His religion was a program of living.
He planned to use his talents for God’s glory and the good of his fellow man.
He carried into his religion the same thoughtfulness he put into his business.
He was a man of intense convictions, but these were not the result of the visitings of untrained impulse, nor of blind untutored predjudices. They were the conclusions of careful and thoughtful investigation, supported by a strong and courageous determination to do his duty irrespective of the opinions of others.”
“He was broad and all embracing in his charities. He needed not that someone should go to him and tell him his duty. His pastor always found him ready to respond to every call of his church for enlarged benevolence, and in many instances found that he had planned to do things out of his own private means which he thought would be good and hasten the conquest of the kingdom and glory of Christ. He was a generous helper of the needy. His tender sympathy went out in gushing streams to the widow and the orphan.”
The parts that stand out to me are his “strong and courageous determination to do his duty irrespective of the opinions of others” and that “he needed not that someone should go to him and tell him his duty.” Those words speak volumes. Our modern society seems to have lost a sense of duty.
I don’t like to theorize about people, but I can’t help but feel that the evidence shows that Col. Ardis was a man who understood what it means to give of himself for no other reason than because it was his duty. We could use a lot more of that.
I am a firm believer in duty. I believe that we collectively have a duty to care for our community, for its history, for its burial grounds, for the agencies and organizations that serve it. We should care for these things for no other reason than for their own sake.
Following the funeral, a special train transported the remains of Col. Ardis to Minden for burial. He was interred in the Ardis family plot located in the oldest section of the Minden Cemetery. May we do our duty to care for his final resting place and of all those buried there and in all our cemeteries.
(Jessica Gorman is Executive Director of the Dorcheat Historical Association Museum, Webster Parish Historian, President of the Minden Cemetery Association, and an avid genealogist.)