John Smith Young is the sixth of thirteen children born to Dr. John Y. Young and Eliza Henry Jones. Though born in Raleigh, North Carolina, he grew up on family cotton plantations in the frontier borderland area of Fayette County, Tennessee, and Marshall County, Mississippi. Circa 1847, following the death of John's older sister, Cornelia, Dr. John Y. Young moved his family westward to several locales in southern Arkansas. In the early 1850s, John attended Washington Male Seminary in Washington, Arkansas, where his older brother, Edwin Young, was on the faculty. John studied classic literature in their original languages—Greek, Latin, French, and English. Thereafter, Young attended Centenary College at its original location in Jackson, Louisiana, and graduated in 1855. He studied law, was admitted to the state bar, and started his career as an attorney-of-law in Homer, Claiborne Parish, Louisiana. The 1860 United States federal census lists John S. Young as an attorney in Homer. On August 21, 1861, Young enlisted in Louisiana's 31st Infantry to serve in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. He rose to the rank of lieutenant.
Later life
After the war, Young returned to his law practice and married Mattie Hamilton, with whom he had all his children. He was elected or appointed to several public offices: in 1870, a parish judge; in 1872, a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives, and in 1876, a state judge. In 1878, Young was elected as a Democrat to Congress to replace the deceased John E. Leonard for the final four months of the congressional term. Young chose to not run for reelection. He traveled back to Louisiana, and practiced law in Monroe, Louisiana, and then Shreveport, Louisiana. Young's first wife, Martha Hamilton Young, died in 1891. From 1892 to 1900, Young was twice elected and served as Caddo Parishsheriff. Five years after being a widower, Young married a widow and Mattie's cousin, Frances Rhoda Hodges. At age 66, Young finished his second term as sheriff and returned to practicing law in various capacities for several more years in Shreveport. He died at age 81 in Shreveport, Louisiana and is buried in Shreveport's Oakland Cemetery, Section 6, Lot 7.
