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"Memorial Record of Alabama, Volume I" (Brant & Fuller: 1893), pages 553-554:

WALTER H. CRENSHAW was born in South Carolina, July 7, 1817, and died in Butler county, Ala., December 7, 1878. He was a member of the house of representatives from his county, 1838, 1840, 1841, 1847, 1861-2-3-4; was speaker
in 1861-2-3-4; state senator 1851-3-1865, and 1866; president of the senate 1865-6, and a member of the state convention of 1865, which framed the state constitution of that year. As a presiding officer he gave entire satisfaction, and as a public man, few in the south gained a more enviable reputation. He was long in public life in Alabama, and always maintained a high character for abilities and integrity. His judgment could at all times be safely trusted, and his example is worthy of all the praise due to exalted virtue and patriotism.

The following is from an obituary notice by a friend. "Judge Walter H. Crenshaw was solid rather than brilliant and possessed a mind of remarkable balance and clearness. On the establishment of the criminal court for this county in 1871, he was elected judge and discharged the duties with characteristic energy and ability. He resigned that position to accept his election as one of the codifiers of the law of Alabama, and for nearly a whole year bent his energies of mind and body to the work -- eighteen hours out of the twenty-four, and which his family believe was the producing cause of the paralysis with which he was stricken down. He seemed to retain all he ever knew; he was, as near as can be, a walking library of legal and political information of Alabama and the union. Thus has passed away one of the old land marks of Butler county, and a large contributor to the character and grandeur of Alabama, as he was a man whose character for truth, honor, integrity, was without spot or blemish and a model in social and family relations."

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