Saturday, August 04, 2012

Doctor Hugh William Caffey.

Dr. H. W. Caffey died at his home, in Verbena, Chilton County, Ala., on October 15, 1919, aged eighty-six years.  He was the oldest child of Hugh Patrick and Jane Caroline (Dunklin) Caffey and was born near Lowndesboro, Lowndes County, Ala., on February 2o, 1833. His father removed to Montgomery in 1836, and on his death, in 1847, the family went to Collirene, in Lowndes County, where Hugh Caffey grew to manhood. At eighteen years of age he united with the Bethany Baptist Church, and during the years since he had held important connections with his Church, of which he was ordained deacon in 1859. He graduated in medicine at Charleston, S. C, in 1855, and in January, 1856, he was married to Miss Jerusha May Rives, daughter of Green Rives, of  Collirene.

His wife died in September, 1861, leaving a son and two daughters. On April 18, 1862, Dr. H. W.  Caffey enlisted as a private in Company G, 44th Alabama Infantry, Capt. Thomas C. Daniel, with Col. James G. Kent in command of the regiment, which was sent immediately to Virginia. Dr. Caffey was then detailed to work in the hospital at Drewry's Bluff, and when his regiment went to Maryland he was sent with the sick to Richmond, where in the fall of 1862 he was promoted to assistant surgeon with the rank of captain. Failing to get approval of his request to be assigned to service with his regiment, he served until the end of the war in the surgeon-general's department and was paroled at Salisbury, N. C, after the surrender of Joseph E. Johnston's army.

Returning home, Dr. Caffey took up the practice of his profession and the management of his farm. His second wife, who survives him, was Miss Alabama Gordon, a daughter of Maj. Francis Gordon, of Gordonsville, Ala. They were married October 25, 1865, and to them were born three sons and one daughter, all living. He was county superintendent of education of Lowndes County from 1868 to 1871 ; Worshipful Master of Masonic Lodge, 1870; Chairman Lowndes County Democratic executive Committee, 1872 to 187s; Judge of Probate and County Court Lowndes County, 1880 to 1886.

Removing to Verbena, Ala., in December, 1886, Dr. Caffey united with the Baptist Church there and was made deacon.  In late years he had been a member of the Chilton County Board of Revenue, Chairman of the County Confederate Pension Board, and a member of the Board of Control of the
Confederate Soldiers' Home at Mountain Creek, Ala., and he was also justice of the peace of Chilton County for ten years.  There was no U. C. V. Camp convenient for him to join, but Dr. Caffey was always ready and willing to help his old comrades or their widows and orphans, and many of them owe their pensions to his work in getting up their records. Next to his Church, there was nothing he enjoyed more than being with the "boys of the sixties."

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