Historical Marker Dedication Ceremony for Mississippi’s oldest Law Firm to be held October 17

VICKSBURG, MS – Mississippi’s oldest law firm, Dabney and Dabney, will be memorialized with an historical marker on Thursday, October 17 at 11 a.m. outside of the law firm’s office at 1515 Walnut Street.

The Dabney law firm first began in 1794 in Virginia and continued through six generations of Dabneys and ended with the passing of Lucius B. Dabney, Jr. on August 11, 2022.

Philip Augustine Lee Dabney, who dropped Philip and signed his name “A. L. Dabney” followed his Father (Benjamin King Dabney) in the practice of law in Virginia. He was educated at the College of William and Mary at Williamsburg, VA. Later, he moved the firm to Raymond, Mississippi in 1835.

Marye Dabney, the third son of A. L. Dabney, attended The Virginia Military Institute, served in an infantry company during the Civil War, and joined his father in the practice of law at Raymond, Mississippi. He moved the firm to Edwards, Mississippi (then a thriving port on the Big Black River) and then to Vicksburg, Mississippi. In 1885, when he arrived in Vicksburg, it was the largest city in the State and was the State’s commercial and financial center. The firm is listed in J. A. Graft & Company’s Legal Directory for 1887.

“This law firm is the oldest in Mississippi because Lee Dabney, my ancestor, came all the way from Fredericksburg, Virginia, to Raymond, Mississippi, in 1835,” said Lucius B. Dabney Jr. in an interview with the Vicksburg Daily News in 2019, just three years before his death, “His son moved the firm to Vicksburg who passed it down to my grandfather Moncure Dabney. Moncure took in my father, L. Bryan Dabney, and Fred Dabney, his brother. And my father took me in.”