Winston, P. H. (Patrick Henry), 1820-1886

Patrick Henry Winston was a prominent lawyer of Windsor, N.C. The Williams family of Bertie and Martin counties, N.C., included H. S. (d. 1858?), Samuel (d. 1855?), Joseph J. (d. 1865?), John P. (d. 1860?), and William A. K. (fl. 1861-1873). Winston was counsel for William A. K. Williams and executor of the estate of Joseph J. Williams.

Patrick Henry Winston, lawyer of Windsor, N.C., was born in Franklin County in 1820. After attending Wake Forest College, he taught school in Bertie County, N.C., and then studied law in Washington, D.C., at the University of North Carolina, and later under Judge R. B. Gilliam in Oxford, N.C. For many years a prominent lawyer in Windsor, he held several political positions. Winston served Bertie County in the state legislature between 1850-1851 and 1854-1855; sat as a judge in the state court of claims during the Civil War; and served on the North Carolina Council of State from 1862 to 1864, being elected its president in 1864. Moving back to his native Franklin County toward the end of the war, he was a member of the state constitutional convention from that county in 1864. Winston later returned to Windsor, where he practiced law until shortly before his death in 1886. Winston had five children: Patrick Henry, Jr. (1847-1904); Francis D.; George T. (fl. 1930); Robert (fl. 1838); and Alice.

William A. K. Williams (fl. 1861-1873) was a cotton planter in Bertie County, who, in his capacity as executor of the estate of John P. Williams, employed the legal services of Winston. Before his death, John P. Williams had been the executor of the estate of H. S. Williams. John P. Williams's uncle, Colonel Joseph J. Williams, a cotton planter in Martin County, N.C., served as executor for the estate of Samuel Williams. Patrick Henry Winston acted as executor for Joseph J. Williams's estate. These papers do not suggest the relationship between Patrick Henry Winston and the other Winstons noted here.