Reuben Saffold, born September 4, 1788 in Wilkes County, Ga., migrated with his wife, Mary Evelyn Phillips, to the Tombigbee settlement in the Mississippi Territory in June of 1813 . He represented Clarke County in the state House of Representatives and was a delegate to the Alabama state constitutional convention in 1819. He was elected to the Alabama Supreme Court in 1835 and served as chief justice from 1835 until 1841. He built his home, called "Belvoir," in Pleasant Hill, Dallas County, in 1825, and was buried there upon his death on February 15, 1847. "Belvoir" is listed on the Alabama Register of Historic Places.Four of the seven sons of Reuben and Mary Evelyn Saffold occupied positions in the public life of Dallas County and Alabama. Benjamin Franklin Saffold held several of the same offices his father had held, but under vastly different circumstances. A Democrat before the Civil War, Benjamin Franklin Saffold was an organizer of the Dallas County Republican Party after the war. He was mayor of Selma from 1867-1868, and a delegate to the state constitutional convention from 1868-1874. He also was a justice on the State Supreme Court.
Additional information about Reuben Saffold and the Saffold family.
Source: Vivian Price Saffold, msaffold@earthlink.net. Vivian is the author of The History of DeKalb County, GA 1822-1900 published December 1997.
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Copyright © 1998 by B.J. Smothers. All rights reserved.