CAPT. PAFFORD PASSES AWAY
Courier
February 28, 1907
Capt. J. W.
Pafford died at 1 o'clock Saturday at hi home in the southwestern portion of
the city, after a serious illness of seven weeks duration. Though everything
that medical skill and careful, tender nursing could exert, was done for
him, he gradually grew weaker until the end. Capt. Pafford was about
sixty-seven years of age and was born and reared in the state of Virginia, a
state, every foot of whose soil is stained with the blood of heroes. At the
outbreak of the Civil war he enlisted under the "Stars and bars," and for
four years, with those thousands of Southern sons, followed that stainless
banner as a "pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night." He was
under the leadership of Stonewall Jackson until that "weird genius of the
battlefield" fell in the flush of brilliant victory on the blood-soaked
plains of Chancellorsville.
In the
fall of 1870 Capt. Pafford emigrated from the Old Dominion state to Texas
and settled near Weston. Later he removed to Rhea Mills and about ten years
ago moved to this city. Capt. Pafford has been married three times. His
first wife was Miss Jennie McClure, whom he married in Virginia and who died
after their removal to Texas. His second wife was Mrs. Martha Duncan and
after her death in this city he married Mrs. Kate Yeager who survives him. He is also survived by one child, a daughter,
Mrs. Ella Hedgecoxe, wife of Walter Hedgecoxe of Ponder, Denton county, and
she has been here for several days attending her father's bedside. Capt.
Pafford served four years as sheriff of Collin county, from 1898 to 1902,
and discharged the duties of the office with all that high courage and
honest devotion to duty which ever characterized him as a youthful soldier
upon a score of hard fought battlefields. He was a consistent member of the
Cumberland Presbyterian church, a true and honored Odd Fellow, and a member
of J. W. Throckmorton Camp U. C. V.
Funeral services
were held at the Cumberland Presbyterian church Sunday morning at 10 o'clock
conducted by the pastor, Rev. C. L. Dickey. Burial at Walnut Grove cemetery
Sunday afternoon at 1 o'clock.
