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JEFFERSON DAVIS GAFFORD
BIOGRAPHY AND GENEALOGY
(1861 – 1904)
Butler and Pike county, Alabama
Jefferson Davis Gafford was for twenty years the clerk of the probate court of Pike county, and a respected resident of Troy, Alabama. He was born near Greenville, Butler county, Alabama, Aug. 12, 1861. His father, Jeremiah Daniel Gafford, son of Grant and Martha (Murray) Gafford, who lived at Greenville Post office, seven miles east of Greenville, Alabama, was born in Lowndes county, Alabama, and served in the Confederate army as a private in Company H, First Alabama Infantry. He died in Montgomery, Ala., Feb. 21, 1890.
His father, Grant Gafford, grandfather of J. D., served in the War of 1812 and lived to be ninety-four years old. He was born in Ireland and came to America when a boy. Jeremiah D. Gafford’s wife, Sarah Ann (Stubbs) Gafford, was the daughter of John and Nancy (Adams) Stubbs; the latter was born in Scotland but came to America when a girl, living afterward with her husband at Adamsville, S. C. Mrs. Gafford, in 1904 was sixty-three years old and lived with her son, Jefferson D. Gafford.
Jefferson D. Gafford was educated in the Greenville high school, where he studied under Rev. Dr. Henry Urquhart and Dr. A. M. Crum, LL.D. He subsequently took a special college preparatory course in mathematics under Professor Casey in Montgomery, Ala. He read law in the office of Judge J. C. Richardson, of Greenville, for almost three years, and was admitted to the bar on Feb. 28, 1883, but never made a specialty of the active practice of law, preferring to devote his attention to the duties of clerk of probate, which he entered upon in the same year that he was admitted to the bar. This office he held continuously since that time, with the exception of about nine months, when he was engaged on special legal work.
He was a Democrat. He was county solicitor of Greenville county from 1883 to 1888, and since then accepted legal employment only in special chancery matters. He was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church South and belonged to the Knights of Pythias, having held the office of keeper of records in the Troy lodge, No. 86.
He was married on Oct. 25, 1893, to Veturia Blanche McBryde, and had one son in 1904, a bright boy, nine years old, named Jeremiah McBryde Gafford. Mrs. Gafford was the daughter of William Julius and Anna M. (Braggert) McBryde, who lived in Troy, Alabama, for over half a century. Mr. McBryde was a Baptist minister in good standing, an attorney-at-law and a representative in the State legislature. He was a Democrat of the old school and stood high in the opinion of all who knew him.
Jefferson Davis Gafford died July 19, 1904 and is buried in Oakwood Cemetery, Troy, Pike County, Alabama. He son died Jan. 18, 1914 and his wife died Nov. 29, 1930.
SOURCES
- Notable Men of Alabama: Personal and Genealogical, Volume 1 edited by Joel Campbell DuBose
- Find A Grave Memorial# 5868390 # 5868392 # 5868383
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