The Lafferty Boys
from Pioneers and Makers of Arkansas, 1908The Lafferty boys from 1815 to 1830 were the leaders in all good works. The eldest boy, John Lindsey Lafferty, was a noted pioneer of Van Buren County. He was born February 20, 1794. In 1836 he contested the seat of W. W. Trimblein the constitutional convention and was successful. He was in the legislature of 1838-40, and was the first county judge of Van Buren County.
In 1862, in that most trying legislature when John Harrell was speaker and Alden M. Woodruff clerk, he represented Van Buren again. He then joined Colonel T. D. Merrick's Tenth Arkansas Regiment and marched with General Bragg. He died before the war was ended in his seventy-fifth year,leaving a splendid family of children, whose descendants are among the prominent men and women of the State.
Judge John Lindsey Lafferty was certainly married once and he may have been married three or four times. The evidence points to several marriages. His first wife was Lucinda Bagley, to whom he was married in 1817, who died after giving birth to a son, Vaughn Burr Lafferty, who lived for many years with his grandfather, Asher Bagley, in Saline County. His other sons were Wesley Rufus, George Lorenzo, John Redman,Henderson Green, Austin Dallas and Alfred Wright. John Redman died in California in 1872; the others are all dead, excepting Alfred Wright, now living in Brownsville, Cleburne County, Arkansas. Their mothers' names are unknown to me.
Vaughn Burr Lafferty, married Eritha McCaleb of Hickman County, Tennessee, a granddaughter of that other old pioneer, Joseph Hutcheson, of Saline County, Arkansas. Vaughn Burr Lafferty settled in Dallas County, where for years he was the neighborhood peacemaker and advisor. Born in Arkansas, he lived on its soil eighty years, dying on Christmas Day in 1898. Vaughn Burr Lafferty learned surveying under Henry W. Conway, possessed most excellent judgment, was a good debater and a strong States' rights Democrat. He was prominent with Simon P. Hughes in the early Grange movement. He was born August 16, 1818, in Independence County and was married on April 3, 1842. His wife was the daughter of John McCaleb of Saline County, Arkansas, and was born in Hickman County, Tennessee, January 30, 1819, and died August 18, 1872, being buried at Holly Springs, Arkansas, where a suitable stone marks her last resting place. She was known to be an excellent Christian woman. V. B. Lafferty died December 25, 1898, at Lester, Arkansas, where for fifteen years he had been merchant, postmaster and justice of the peace. He is buried in Greenwood cemetery, Camden, Arkansas, and his grave is marked with an appropriate stone. The sons of V. B. and Eritha Lafferty were:
1. Lafayette Samuel Hempstead Lafferty, born January 29, 1843, and who died at New Madrid, Missouri, February 11, 1862, a member of the 12th Regiment Arkansas Volunteers,C. S.
2. John McCaleb Lafferty, born in Dallas County, Arkansas, February 10, 1845. He was a Confederate soldier, a comrade of Ex-senator Jones, a physician for fifteen years at Chidester, Arkansas, and for the last twenty-four years connected with the United States railway mail service. He married January 12, 1871, Nancy Minerva Hairston, who was born at Holly Springs, Arkansas, August 15, 1848, a daughter of James and Mary (Vaughn) Hairston, both natives of Fayetteville, Tennessee.Their children were: (1) Mary Eritha Lenora Lafferty,born October 4, 1875, married December 22, 1903, Dr. Jeter Lafferty Rushing, and had one child, Mary Elizabeth, born October 19, 1906; live at Chidester, Arkansas; (2) John Yandell Lafferty, born October 14, 1879, married Bessie Phillips in March, 1904, and had one child, John Lewell, born January 17, 1905; John Yandell Lafferty holds a responsible positionin the baggage and express department of the Iron Mountain Railroad and is located at Little Rock; (3) Vaughn Elbert English Lafferty, born April 23, 1881, A. B. of Hendrix College, physician, now holding responsible position in Charity Hospital at New Orleans, Louisiana.
3. Druzilla Jane Lafferty, born March 9, 1847; married James Rufus Brazeale March 19, 1871, and died September 1,1900. James Rufus Brazeale, son of Benjamin Franklin Brazeale,was born in Ripley County, Mississippi, April 10, 1838,and died June 3, 1895; Druzilla Jane and her husband were both members of the Methodist Church, South, and are both buried at Sardis Church in Dallas County, Arkansas; he was a farmer and a Mason. Their children were: (1) Isabelle Eritha, born February 11, 1872; married January 5, 1896, London L. Knight, and have three children, Vaughn Alberta, Eritha Elizabeth and John Felix; live at Fordyce; (2) Mary Eliza Ann, born July 25,1874; married February 14, 1901, William David Hall, and became the mother of two children, Martha Druzella and Cora Mildred; live at El Dorado.
4. Eritha Elizabeth Lafferty, born March 1, 1849, and died September 19, 1859.
5. Sarah Elender Lafferty, born May 10, 1851; married Alexander Tolbert Nailor in October, 1876, he died in December,1879, leaving no children; his wife married Maston Decatur Fletcher of Lonoke County, Arkansas, in December, 1881,who died February 5, 1905; she died October 4, 1901; they were members of the Christian Church and are buried at Hamilton post office in Lonoke County; the children by the last marriage were: (1) Lloyd Lafferty Fletcher, born May 18, 1883; a farmer married and lives near Stuttgart, Arkansas; (2) Anna Gertrude Fletcher, born June 25, 1884, married November 10, 1901,to Benjamin Franklin Leonard, a farmer of Lonoke County; now living near Hillsboro, Texas, with two children, Lloyd Decatur and Cleo Gertrude; (3) Kathleen Fletcher, born May 9,1886; married November 21, 1907, to William Orr Whitlock, a farmer near Hillsboro, Texas; (4) Arky Vaughn Fletcher,born in August, 1891, and is still unmarried.
6. Vaughn De Kalb Lafferty born December 31, 1853; physician, zealous Sunday school worker and lecturer; member Masonic fraternity and of the Methodist Church, South; represented Saline County in the Legislature of 1888 and died March 1, 1891. He was buried at Bryant, Arkansas. Unmarried.
7. Mary Mariah Lafferty, born March 29, 1856, and died December 30, 1872.
8. Arky Burr Lafferty, born April 3, 1859; married November 9, 1879, James Oliver Reinhardt, who died in September 1887, without issue; the widow married on October 28, 1890, James Wilkinson Hopper, a locomotive engineer, born in New York City, September 6, 1839, and for many years connected with the Iron Mountain and Texas Pacific Railways; he died March 12, 1906, and was buried in Greenwood cemetery, Camden,Arkansas.
John Lindsey Lafferty was nearly seventy years of age at the time of his enlistment in the Confederate army--a magnificentage and a magnificent cause combining to round out his eventful life. It is said that at the battle of Shiloh, Judge John Lindsey Lafferty was chosen to carry the flag at the head ofthe regiment,--and that running some twenty or thirty paces ahead, he would turn about ever and anon to cheer his comrades forward. The Stars and Bars were a glorious incentivebut the long flowing white locks of this grand old man made a most picturesque figure and inspired his comrades to the loftiest deeds of daring. His descendants are entitled to look upontheir ancestor with the most fulsome pride and Arkansans ofall shades of opinion will certainly justify them.
Another son of John Lafferty, the pioneer, was Jacob Binks Lafferty, who in 1825 married a daughter of old Colonel James Miller of Miller's creek, Independence County, and a sister of ex-Governor W. R. Miller. Binks had a daughter who married twice, her last husband being Rev. William Atchley Maplesof Carroll County.
Another son, Henderson Lafferty, married in 1825 a daughter of that other pioneer, Colonel Craig of Greenbrier. He was one of the greatest of the early Arkansas Methodist preachers, and possessed many of the characteristics of his uncle, Eli Lindsey.
Another son, Austin F. Lafferty, married in IndependenceCounty and reared a family.
The youngest son of the pioneer was Lorenzo Dow Lafferty, commonly called "the Rover." He went to Texas and there published a book entitled "The Life and Adventures of Lorenzo Dow Lafferty," which was published by a New York house, and dealt largely with the romance of early Arkansas life. He married Elvira Chriswell and had children; Martha,Matilda Jane, Sarah, Eliza, Eva, Margaret, Francis, Burwell,Dow and Albert Glenville.
The boys of old John Lafferty were an honor to his name, and stand as monuments to the sturdy virtues of the widow Lafferty. The Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts never turnedout a more honorable, a more vigorous, a more patriotic set of boys than came from the old Lafferty cabin on the barrens of Independence County.
When honors are fairly divided John Lafferty of Lafferty's creek, the hero and pioneer, will be entitled to a full share; and the Widow Lafferty, the great Methodist mother of the barrens,will be crowned with laurels.
John Lindsey Lafferty, in marrying Lucinda Bagley, married a daughter of a soldier, then drawing a pension, who had served in the First regiment of the New Jersey Continental Line. The descendants of John Lindsey Lafferty are thus doubly tied to patriotic ancestry. Asher Bagley died in what is now Saline County, and his daughter, Lucinda Lafferty, died in Van Buren County on April 23, 1840, in her thirty-ninth year. John Lindsey Lafferty also served in the Eighth Arkansas legislature in 1851.
Also see Lafferty for more information.