Frank McGloin

Francis Patrick ​“Frank” McGloin (22 Feb 1846, Gort, County Galway, Ireland — 30 Aug 1921, East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, USA) was an Irish-American jurist, editor and writer whose one and only novel, Norodom, King of Cambodia: A Romance of the East (1882) dealt with Cambodia and its history.

A fervent catholic, Frank McGloin studied in public schools of New Orleans and at St. Mary’s College in Missouri, served in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War — captain of one of the four companies of the First Louisiana Regiment, or ​“Louisiana’s Own” as it came to be called -, and was elected Judge of the Court of Appeals of New Orleans in 1880. He was the editor-in-chief of The Holy Family, a Catholic periodical of New Orleans. 

On 11 Apr 1922, one year after his death, one of her two daughters with Alice Olivia Kleinpeter McGloin (1848−1929), Frances Helen McGloin Chilton (1879−1922), took her own life at her parents’ house. The obituary stated she spoke several languages, had lived several years in Japan with her husband, St. John Poindexer Chilton (1874−1918), and was a suffering from an incurable illness.

Publications

1. The Conquest of Europe [poem], New York, Lippincot, 1874.
2. Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Various Courts of Appeal of the State of Louisiana. New Orleans, F.F. Hansell, 1881, vol. 1 and New Orleans, F. McGloin, 1884.
3. Norodom, King of Cambodia, A Romance of the East. New York, D. Appleton, 1882.
4. The Light of Faith: A Defence, in Brief, of Fundamental Christian Truths. New Orleans, 1905.
5. The Mystery of the Holy Trinity in Oldest Judaism. Philadelphia, McVey, 1916.

Photo: East Baton Rouge Parish cemetery, 2020.