Strangers to Us All
Lawyers and Poetry

Fay Hempstead

(1847-1934)
Arkansas

frontispiece

Fay Hempstead, Poems
([Little Rock, Arkansas: The Democrat Printing & Lithographing Company],
Fay Hemstead, Complete Edition, 1922)

"Fay Hempstead was born November 24,1847, in Little Rock, Arkansas. He was the son of Samuel Hutchinson Hempstead, Postmaster of Little Rock and an attorney, and Elizabeth Beall Hempstead. He married Gertrude Blair O'Neale of Charlottesville, Virginia, on September 13, 1871. They had seven children. In his early youth, Hempstead was educated by private tutors. He attended St. John's College, in Little Rock, from 1859-1861. From 1866-1868 he attended the University of Virginia, obtaining a law degree. After graduating from the University of Virginia, Hempstead returned to Arkansas to practice law. In 1874 he became Registrar in Bankruptcy for Arkansas and held this position until 1881, when he was elected Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of Arkansas Freemasons, a position he held until his death in 1934. In 1908 he was named Poet Laureate of Freemasonry. This position had been held by only two other men: the Scottish poet Robert Burns (elected in 1787) and Robert Morris of Kentucky (elected in 1884). . . . Hempstead was a member of Christ Episcopal Church, where he served as Sunday School Superintendent, choir director, and lay reader. He was also a member of the Arkansas Sons of the American Revolution, in which he served many terms as secretary and registrar. Fay Hempstead died on April 24, 1934 and is buried in Mount Holly Cemetery in Little Rock." [Bio/History, Fay Hempstead Collection, Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, Central Arkansas Library System] [Hempstead's mother, Elizabeth Beall Hempstead was from Bardstown, Kentucky. See "Hon. Fay Hempstead," in Charles Wells Moulton, The Magazine of Poetry: A Quarterly Review 428-430, at 428 (Buffalo, New York, 1892)(vol. 4)]

Fay Hempstead
Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture

Fay Hempstead
Arkansas Ties-- Pris Weathers

Fay Hempstead
Masonic Poets Society

Poem

"The Lambskin Apron"

Poems

Poetry

Fay Hempstead, Random Arrows (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co., 1878) [online text]

____________, Poems (Little Rock: Allsopp & Paul, 1898)

____________, Poems ([Little Rock, Arkansas]: Democratic Printing and Lithographing Company, 1908)

____________, Poems ([Little Rock, Arkansas: The Democrat Printing & Lithographing Company], Fay Hemstead, Complete Edition, 1922) [online text]

Writings

Fay Hempstead, A History of the State of Arkansas: For the Use of Schools (New Orleans: F.F. Hansell & Bro., 1889)

____________, A Pictorial History of Arkansas: From Earliest Times to the Year 1890 (St. Louis & New York: N.D. Thompson Pub. Co., 1890)(Easley, South Carolina, Southern Historical Press, 1978)(Salem, Massachusetts: Higginson Book Co., 1998)

____________, Historical Review of Arkansas: Its Commerce, Industry, and Modern Affairs (Easley, South Carolina: Southern Historical Press, 1911)(Chicago: Lewis Pub. Co., 1911)(Easley, South Carolina: Southern Historical Press, 1978)

_____________, History of Cryptic Masonry in Arkansas (Little Rock, Arkansas: Parke-Harper Pub. Co., 1922)

Research Resources

Fay Hempstead Collection
Butler Center for Arkansas Studies
Central Arkansas Library System