Appalachian Figures
When Knox Countians talk about their “distinguished men,” the list usually starts with Governor Flem D. Sampson, federal regulator Walter G. Campbell, and a quiet lawyer who once sat in the United States Senate. In a single lifetime William Abner Stanfill went from Barbourville’s Union College classrooms to Hazard’s coal company boardrooms to a brief spell on the floor of the Senate in Washington.
His name rarely appears in national histories. Yet county archives, government records, and a handful of photographs show a mountain attorney who sat at the crossroads of law, coal, and mid twentieth century Republican politics. For Barbourville, Hyden, and Hazard, that story is part of how Appalachian communities connected themselves to statewide and national power.
This article traces Stanfill’s journey from Knox County boyhood to Perry County power broker and caretaker United States senator, then back again into the quieter world of law offices and church boards.
From Barbourville Schoolrooms to a Law Degree in Lexington
Federal biographical records and a mid century Kentucky biographical volume agree on the basic outline of his early life. William Abner Stanfill was born in Barbourville, Knox County, on January 16, 1892, the son of merchant Joshua Faulkner Stanfill and Laura (often rendered Lura) D. Faulkner.
He attended local public schools and Union College in Barbourville, studying there from the elementary grades through college level work. In 1912 he graduated from the law department of the University of Kentucky in Lexington with the Bachelor of Laws degree, was admitted to the bar that same year, and began practice in his hometown.
The sesquicentennial “History of Kentucky” places his parents firmly in the Knox and nearby Tennessee countryside. Joshua F. Stanfill was born just over the state line in Campbell County, Tennessee, in 1866, and spent his life as a merchant. Laura D. Faulkner was born in Knox County in 1869. Both were eventually buried in the Barbourville cemetery, tying their son’s later fame back to the town where he started.
Building a Mountain Law Practice in Hyden and Hazard
After a short period practicing in Barbourville, Stanfill followed the expanding coal economy deeper into the mountains. Local and regional sources agree that he opened an office in Hyden in 1915, then moved on to Hazard in 1916, where he would spend the bulk of his career.
In Hazard he joined first the firm of Faulkner, Stanfill and Faulkner and then, after 1925, the partnership of Craft and Stanfill. A mid century biographical sketch of him in the sesquicentennial state history describes that Hazard firm as legal adviser to roughly eighty percent of the corporations located in Perry County. In practical terms, that meant coal companies, utilities, and banks. When those corporations needed contracts drawn, taxes disputed, or property lines defended, the cases often carried the name “W. A. Stanfill” on the brief.
On July 17, 1917, he married May Begley of Hazard, linking his Barbourville and Hyden ties to a prominent Perry County family. The couple made their home in Hazard while he built the practice that would make him one of eastern Kentucky’s best known corporate attorneys.
Court reports from the period show him straddling old and new Appalachia. In one Kentucky Court of Appeals case, “H. C. Faulkner & Son, of Barbourville, and W. A. Stanfill, of Hazard” appear together as counsel, a reminder that the Barbourville networks that shaped him remained intertwined with his Perry County work.
Bank Boards, Church Boards, and Republican Politics
Stanfill’s influence in Hazard went far beyond the courtroom. The state biographical sketch emphasizes his civic and institutional roles: director of a Hazard bank, leader in Rotary, and active Mason. It also notes his service on Methodist educational and charitable boards, including the board of Morehead State Teachers College and the Kentucky Children’s Home.
Those positions show how closely the region’s business elite tied together coal money, church work, and higher education. A man who spent his days drawing up corporate charters might spend his evenings in a Methodist committee meeting or a Morehead board session, deciding on scholarships and building funds.
Politically, he rose through the Republican organization at a time when Kentucky was still predominantly Democratic. By the mid 1940s he chaired the Kentucky Republican State Central Committee, making him the party’s chief strategist in a state where Republicans were usually the minority. That role put him in close contact with Governor Simeon Willis, the Ashland lawyer who won the governorship in 1943 as a Republican in a Democratic era.
For Knox County and Perry County alike, this meant that one of the key figures in state level Republican strategy had grown up on the banks of the Cumberland and built his prosperity amid the company offices of Hazard.
A Short Term in the United States Senate
When U.S. Senator Albert “Happy” Chandler resigned on November 1, 1945 to become Commissioner of Baseball, Kentucky suddenly had a vacant seat in the Senate. Under state law the governor appointed a temporary replacement.
On November 19, 1945, Governor Willis chose his party chairman. Contemporary federal documents record that “William A. Stanfill, Republican, of Hazard, Ky.” presented his credentials in Washington and was sworn in as senator for Kentucky’s Class 2 seat. The Congressional Record for November 23, 1945 prints the formal certificate from Kentucky and the notation that he had taken his oath.
Official Senate reference works and the Senate’s online “Kentucky Senators” list show how brief that tenure was. The Senate manual’s chronological roll lists him as serving from November 19, 1945, to November 5, 1946, with the notation “By gov., to fill vac.” The same table records John Sherman Cooper as his elected successor beginning November 6, 1946.
A separate Senate page on appointed senators notes that Stanfill did not seek election in the 1946 special race. Contemporary Kentucky commentary from the Knox Focus, looking back on Willis’s governorship, likewise remarks that the governor appointed Stanfill to finish Chandler’s term and that he served until a successor was chosen, without entering the race himself.
In other words, he was a caretaker. His job was to keep a mountain lawyer in the seat until voters decided who should hold it long term.
During that year in Washington he served on at least one standing committee, Post Offices and Post Roads, as shown by a 1946 committee letter from Senator William Langer of North Dakota that prints “WILLIAM A. STANFILL, KY” among its membership list on the official letterhead. That single piece of stationery is a small but concrete primary source tying him to the infrastructure debates of the late war and early postwar era.
Modern political science databases such as VoteView have coded his roll call votes for the 79th Congress, allowing researchers to track how a Hazard corporate lawyer aligned himself with national Republican positions during his short term. The underlying data rest on the daily pages of the Congressional Record.
Back to the Mountains, Then on to Lexington
When the 1946 special election came around, Republicans turned to another mountain figure, John Sherman Cooper of Pulaski County, to run for the full term. Cooper won and took office the day after Stanfill’s appointment expired, creating one of the smoother handoffs in Kentucky’s sometimes turbulent political history.
Stanfill, by all accounts, was content to return to the work he knew best. Contemporary political references and later summaries note that he resumed his law practice in Hazard rather than seeking further elective office.
In the years that followed he gradually shifted his base of operations to Lexington, joining many eastern Kentucky professionals who moved north and west as coal economics and transportation patterns changed. Biographical references and modern political directories list Lexington as his place of death. He died there on June 12, 1971, at the age of seventy nine, and was buried in Hillcrest Memorial Park.
For older residents of Hazard and Barbourville, however, his memory remained tied to downtown law offices, bank board rooms, and Sunday services rather than to the quiet cemetery on the edge of Lexington.
Photographs, Letters, and Traces of a Mountain Senator
Unlike national figures who leave behind dozens of boxes of personal papers, Stanfill survives in the archives mostly through scattered pieces. The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress notes that the University of Kentucky’s Special Collections Research Center holds three items dated 1946 in various collections. These are likely letters or documents that crossed his Washington desk during his Senate service.
The John Sherman Cooper papers and related oral history interviews at the University of Kentucky include references to Stanfill’s brief term, usually as part of the story of how Cooper came to hold the same seat. Those records capture the way Kentucky political insiders remembered him, not as a rival, but as a temporary placeholder who kept the Republican claim on a Senate chair warm while the party prepared an electoral campaign.
Photographic traces appear in several places. The U.S. Senate Historical Office holds an official portrait, reproduced on its website, which likely began life as a mid 1940s studio photograph. The Lexington Herald-Leader’s photographic archive reportedly includes a group image showing former Senator Stanfill standing with Senator Cooper, Attorney General Eldon Dummit, and the state highway commissioner, a visual reminder of the tight circle of mid century Kentucky Republican leadership.
At home in Knox County, the Knox Historical Museum’s compiled contents for its magazine The Knox Countian notes that “The Barbourville Story, Parts 9 and 10” includes a photograph of U.S. Senator William Abner Stanfill alongside other distinguished local figures such as Governor Flem D. Sampson, Walter G. Campbell, Dr. Allan D. Tuggle, and Rear Admiral Richard B. Tuggle. That lineup places him literally in the picture of Barbourville’s civic pride.
In the twenty first century, a Hazard based radio station even turned his image into a local history guessing game. WSGS featured an old photograph labeled only as a “mystery person” and invited listeners to identify him. When the answer was revealed, the station explained who William Abner Stanfill was, sketched his career from Barbourville to Hazard to the U.S. Senate, and congratulated listeners who recognized the former senator.
For historians, that radio contest and the Knox County photo spread illustrate the same point. Stanfill may be obscure in national politics, but he lingers in local memory as one of the mountain professionals who carried small town names to big offices.
Why William A. Stanfill Matters for Appalachian History
From a distance, William Abner Stanfill can look like a footnote. He served in the United States Senate for less than a year, left behind no signature legislation, and did not seek a full term.
Seen from Barbourville and Hazard, his story looks different. It connects Union College classrooms, Hyden’s courthouse, and Hazard’s coal company offices to the marble floors of the Capitol. It shows how a Knox County merchant’s son could, through education and law, become a central figure in both Perry County’s corporate world and the state Republican apparatus.
His career also reminds us that Appalachian influence on national politics has not come only through populist movements or protest. Sometimes it has arrived in the form of careful corporate attorneys who sat on bank boards, chaired party committees, and quietly took a seat in the United States Senate when a vacancy opened.
For modern readers in Knox and Perry counties, Stanfill’s life raises questions still worth asking. How did coal company law firms shape regional politics? What did it mean for a lawyer whose clients included most of the corporations in a single mountain county to chair a statewide party and then step into a Senate seat, even briefly? And how should we remember figures whose political work was real but deliberately low profile?
In the end, his legacy may lie less in the handful of roll call votes he cast than in the way his name appears in local photo spreads and museum contents lists, standing beside governors, admirals, and federal commissioners as proof that a small Appalachian town could send its sons into the highest reaches of government.
Sources and Further Reading
Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, entry “STANFILL, William Abner,” including research note on papers in the University of Kentucky Special Collections. Bioguide
“A Sesqui-Centennial History of Kentucky,” vol. 4, biographical sketch “WILLIAM ABNER STANFILL,” for details on his parents, education, Hazard law practice, corporate clients, civic roles, and Republican Party leadership. Internet Archive+1
Official Congressional Directory, 79th Congress (January 1, 1946), entry for “WILLIAM A. STANFILL, Republican, of Hazard, Ky.,” summarizing his biography and Senate service. GovInfo
Congressional Record, 79th Congress, November 23, 1945, printing of Kentucky’s credentials and the notation that William A. Stanfill had taken the oath as senator to fill the vacancy caused by Happy Chandler’s resignation. Congress.gov
“Senators of the United States, 1789–1992” and later Senate Manuals, chronological list entries for William A. Stanfill, confirming service dates from November 19, 1945, to November 5, 1946, “By governor, to fill vacancy.” GovInfo+1
U.S. Senate, “States in the Senate: Kentucky Senators,” and “Appointed Senators (1913–present),” for his status as an appointed senator who did not seek election and the succession from Chandler to Stanfill to John Sherman Cooper. U.S. Senate+2U.S. Senate+2
“Biographical Data: William A. Stanfill,” Who’s in Power, for consolidated dates of birth and death, party affiliation, service dates, and place of death. whosinpower.com
Knox Historical Museum, compiled contents for The Knox Countian, Volume 25, Number 3 (2013), description of “The Barbourville Story, parts 9 and 10” including a photograph of “U.S. Senator William Abner Stanfill” among Barbourville’s “distinguished men.” Knox Historical Museum+1
WSGS, “Mystery Person #10: William Abner Stanfill, United States Senator from Hazard,” for a concise local summary of his life, law practice, appointment to the Senate, and later years. WSGS