Phillips, Z. A., u.-1873

Z. A. Phillips was a businessman, entrepreneur, and state official in Mississippi in the nineteenth century.

Part owner of the Southern Agricultural Implement Factory, an agricultural machinery company, in Jackson, Mississippi, by 1860, Phillips was commissioned as a salt agent by the state government during the Civil War to acquire large quantities of the mineral for public and private use.

Shortly after the war, he returned to his business pursuits in Jackson, operating the Pearl River Manufacturing Company with partner Joshua Green. Philips also pursued an appointment as superintendent of the Mississippi penitentiary, acquiring that office by 1870. He mixed his state office with business, instituting Mississippi's convict leasing system and advertising the sale of manufactured goods from the penitentiary. Phillips died in 1873.

(Semi-Weekly Mississippian, Jackson, MS, June 29, 1860; Timothy B. Smith, Mississippi in the Civil War: The Home Front, 107; The Daily Mississippian, Jackson, MS, July 31, 1864; Daily Mississippi clarion and Standard, Jackson, MS, May 9, 1866; The Semi-Weekly Clarion, Jackson, MS, December 30, 1870)

Z. A. Phillips belonged to the following social groups: