r. a. blanDford
The photo on the left is an image of 17-year-old Captain R.A. Blandford of Co. G, 8th Kentucky Cavalry Regiment in uniform. He was imprisoned at Camp Douglas, Illinois. He escaped and was captured again. See Link |
The photo on the right is an unverified image of Blandford. This photo came from the Blandford family. It has not been proven yet to be Richard A. Blandford.
However, the older man in this photo is a very close likeness to the photo on left. You be the judge. |
If you have a picture or know of a picture of this I.O.O.F. Past Grand Master please CONTACT US
Photos above of
Rebecca J. Blandford (Fisher) 1852-1938 Wife of R. A. Blandford They had three daughters |
There is an interesting webpage 'Descendants visit Blandford' that outlines R. A. Blandford's final legacy. He died in 1916 and was buried in an unmarked grave. He had many accomplishments in life as well a tragedy. In 1870 R. A. Blandford helped establish the Odd Fellows University in Bryan, Texas. He became the Principal of the school. Later on in life he engineered the construction of the railroad from Savannah to Springfield in 1906-07. The most important thing in life is to have made a difference. We can say that R. A. Blandford definitely did do that.
His tragedy had to do with being accused of embezzlement in Austin, Texas during 1881. As to the embezzlement charge, it is believed that he may have used some faulty bookkeeping, or may have inappropriately moved funds between different businesses, but it is not believed he took funds for himself. Richard had three businesses he was juggling at the same time while devoting a lot of time to the I.O.O.F. He went to the national SGL meeting in Baltimore as the Texas I.O.O.F. representative at end of 1879 or early 1880. He was an agent for the Widow and Orphans Fund Life Insurance Co., Secretary/Treasurer of the Austin Building and Loan Association, and partner in the Welsh and Blandford Real Estate Co. His wife Rebecca Fisher (daughter of the "Mother of Texas") and three daughters were well into Austin society. But in 1879 his oldest daughter died in a tragic fire accident and his drinking problems intensified. We do not know exactly what happened regarding the embezzlement, but because of the charges and trial, he left his family and fled to Mexico, twice. When he returned in 1895, he was essentially exonerated. He suffered from alcoholism and later in life tuberculosis which finally ended his life. For the final 21 years of his life, he resided in a single room at the Catholic hospital. During that time he built railroads and other civil projects. He wrote letters to his two surviving daughters and mailed them books which he had read, but he died alone and destitute with no family in Savannah. He was well respected there, and the six pallbearers at his funeral were among the most prominent Catholics in Savannah. In Savannah he never owned property or accumulated wealth. The Effingham Herald article mentioned on this website tells some of his accomplishments in Savannah. There was a memorial service in April 2015 for Richard A. Blanford. Three of his descendants were there. As mentioned above, he had been buried in the Catholic Cemetery without a marker, and the location was lost. Even so a War Veterans' marker was obtained and they placed it in the Confederate Memorial section of the same Catholic Cemetery in Savannah, GA. (see image of marker to the right) Contributor: Jim Sickel, PhD Savannah, GA |
Inscription
Founded 1870 by Odd Fellows Lodge. Housed in a 2-story frame building. Taught drawing, English, French, German, Greek, Latin, music, philosophy, geometry, trigonometry, science, surveying, penmanship. Had primary to young adult students, attracted here from an 80-mile area. Records do not show planned orphanage ever operated. Funds came chiefly from tuition fees. During 5-year career, school taught future Texas leaders. The building was sold (1875) to W.W. and B.L. James and Mrs. V.D. Eaton, for Bryan Academy. It housed St. Joseph's Church 1876 to 1903. |
Blandford's 1872 Grand Lodge Session Speech
Blandford's Personal Tragedy
click to enlarge or increase your zoom level.
Presentation at Confederate Memorial Day Program Catholic Cemetery,
3:00 PM Sunday, April 19, 2015, by James B. Sickel, PhD
Thank you, Elizabeth, for inviting me to speak this afternoon. It is truly an honor to be here, and I am sincerely indebted to you for your role in recognizing Richard Blandford at this ceremony and for obtaining the cemetery marker that will permanently place his name here in Savannah. His recognition in our city is long overdue. Today we honor all veterans of our Armed Forces who answered the call to serve. Richard Blandford, whose mortal remains are buried under these hallowed grounds, was one of those individuals. His legacy lives on through his descendants seated here today and in the many civil engineering projects which he completed in Savannah and the surrounding counties. For the last 32 years of his life, Richard devoted himself to our fair city and county. But each one of you here today has a similar story about the men and women, your ancestors, who built this great nation that we now enjoy. If they were fortunate enough to have survived that Great War which tore apart our nation, and they lived into the twentieth century, then they, like Richard, witnessed the birth of the telephone, the radio, automobiles, electrification and airplanes. By sweat of effort, dedication, energy, love of God and family, they built this nation into the greatest nation on earth. It is just and appropriate that we remember and honor them all. When I began researching Richard Blandford’s life several years ago, I thought that my work would not be complete unless I could discover if he had left any descendants. But his work here in Savannah left no clue about a family. He obviously had none here, for he always lived in boarding houses while employed by the county, and after resigning his county position in 1895 he moved into the St. Joseph’s Infirmary at the NW corner of Habersham and Taylor streets. Perhaps he was ill and sought solace at the infirmary. Or as a devout Catholic, perhaps he enjoyed the company of the nuns and nurses, or perhaps it was the food. For whatever reason, he resided at the infirmary in an upstairs room for the remaining 21 years of his life and eventually died there. When the infirmary expanded into the St. Joseph’s Hospital and installed telephones, his business phone number 292, and his listed address, 324 Taylor St., was the hospital. In the 1900 and 1910 US Census, he is listed as a boarder at the hospital. The few people today who had ever heard of him only knew of him as R. A. Blandford, for that was how he signed his work. No one knew if he had a family or what he may have done before coming to Savannah, or where and how he learned civil engineering. He appeared to be a mysterious man with no past. Fortunately, in 1911, the editor of the American Catholic Who’s Who sent forms to the Cathedral and Raphael T. Semmes (president of Semmes Hardware Co) distributed and collected them for the editor. Richard filled in the following information: “BLANDFORD, Richard Abner: Railroad engineer; b. January 19, 1845, Bloomfield, Nelson County, Ky.; descendant of the old Catholic families of Maryland, his grandfather, Walter Blandford, having emigrated from that state to Kentucky, with a Catholic colony, in the year 1795; ed. common schools of Kentucky, but before completing his course, joined the Confederate army under Gen. John H. Morgan, the noted Confederate raider; was captured in 1863 on Morgan’s raid into Ohio and was confined in prison at Camp Douglas, Chicago; escaped two months later but was recaptured just outside the prison walls and was then confined in a “Dungeon” in the prison, from which, about a month later, he and twenty-five others succeeded in escaping by digging a tunnel from the dungeon under its walls and the walls of the prison; succeeded in making his way back to the Confederate lines in Tennessee, but was again captured, some five months before the close of the war, while on a scout in Kentucky, and remained a prisoner until his final parole in 1865; went to Mexico, where he entered the service of the Engineer Corps of the Imperial Mexican Railway, in which he continued until the downfall of Maximilian in 1867; wandered to Texas, and taught mathematics in a college at Bryan for nearly five years, subsequently engaging in the real-estate and insurance business, in which he continued for nine years. Until 1884, Mr. Blandford was again in the service of the Engineer Corps of the Mexican Central Railway and the Mexican Government, at which time he returned to the United States, and for over twenty-five years has been employed as chief engineer or engineer in charge of several railroads in the State of Georgia, with the exception of a period of some seven years (1888 - 95), when he was in charge of the public works at Chatham County, in which Savannah is located. Member of the St. Vincent de Paul Society; Knights of Columbus; the local Catholic Library Association; and the U. S. Catholic Historical Society of New York. Address: Savannah, Ga.” The American Catholic Who’s Who. 1911.Now there was a clue to his past, where and when he was born, his Civil War activities, how he may have learned railroad engineering, and the fact that he had lived in Bryan, Texas. But still no clue about a family, and he only mentioned his grandfather Walter Blandford. At least this was a start. Bloomfield, Kentucky, in Nelson County, is 33 miles SE from Louisville and 10 miles NE from Bardstown, on the northwestern outer rim of the Bluegrass region known for its fine bourbon and fast horses. Richard’s father, Thomas Abner Blandford, was a cooper and wagon maker, and his mother was Elizabeth Anderson. Richard had an older brother, Thomas Walter who was a school teacher, and two younger sisters, Mary and Lucy. In September 1862, Richard and a number of his close friends joined Col. Leroy Cluke’s 8th Kentucky Cavalry under the command of then Col., but soon to be general, John Hunt Morgan. Col. Cluke was regarded as a highly disciplined, demanding, professional commander and his men were considered some of the best trained, most professional cavalry in the southern forces. Their daring exploits and audibly recognizable version of the Rebel Yell earned them the title “The War-Dogs.” Within a period of barely half a year, they had engaged enemy forces in over two dozen battles and “minor skirmishes.” In one battle, part of Morgan’s command was caught in a bad situation with union infantry, artillery and cavalry. Col. Basil Duke was in command at the battle line but had earlier ordered the 8th Cavalry to destroy a bridge. When things heated up he sent a messenger to recall the 8th but was not sure when they might arrive. As it was later reported: “Just as things were looking darkest, however, the crew manning the 6-pounder … thundered into view. Better yet, a defiant yell emitted by the troopers of the 8th Kentucky told Duke that “Cluke’s war dogs” were at hand.” In June of 1863, Gen. Morgan, hand-picked nearly 2500 men, and, apparently against orders, decided to take the fight to the north. Over the next 46 days they rode over 1000 miles from Sparta Tennessee through Kentucky, across the Ohio River into Indiana and east through Ohio where they were finally defeated and captured. They crossed the Ohio River at Brandenburg and over the next two weeks created havoc through Indiana and Ohio in the longest, fasted, and most useless cavalry raid of the war. The infamous “Ride of Three Thousand” insured Morgan’s name in the history books, but it got most of his men killed or captured. Only about 300 escaped back to the Confederacy. When Morgan’s attempt to escape by crossing the Ohio River at Buffington Island on July 19th failed because of overwhelming Union forces with gunboats raking the river with grape shot, Morgan took his men deeper into northern Ohio. That night, when capture looked eminent, Morgan took 700 of his men, including Col. Cluke’s 8th Ky, and Blandford, through a dense forest up a narrow bridal path and escaped. The next morning as Richard was fighting and riding hard through a forest his horse was killed under him and he took a spill which rendered him unconscious. When he recovered consciousness he found himself alone in the wood except for the dead. He made his way to the river, but before he could cross he was captured by seasoned troops of the 9th Ohio Infantry who were beating the bush looking for rebels. He was then sent to Camp Morton, Indiana and then Camp Douglas, Illinois. Col. Cluke died in prison at Johnson’s Island. The 8th Ky Cavalry was never reconstituted. After Richard escaped from Camp Douglas he joined Gen. Hylan B. Lyon’s cavalry in Tennessee. Gen. Lyon was another of the Kentucky gentleman generals, and from a wealthy plantation family in western Kentucky. He could ride and he could fight and he led his men on extraordinarily successful missions with little loss of life, to his own men anyway. In December of 1864 Gen. Lyon was ordered to take his cavalry and raid the Union supply lines in western and central Kentucky, to destroy railroads and supplies in an attempt to relieve the pressure on Gen. Hood’s army in Nashville. In many of the towns of Kentucky, Union forces had stored war supplies guarded by small garrisons, and they often used the central courthouses as headquarters and barracks. Lyon’s cavalry would sweep in like a swarm of hornets and route or capture the Union garrison, disarm the soldiers, burn the courthouse and the supplies they didn’t themselves need, parole the captured men and then ride off after dark in different directions so that the Union army never knew where they might strike next. They burned railroad bridges and depots and at least seven courthouses. One reporter called Gen. Lyon the “courthouse burnin’est general in the Confederate Army.” Richard was promoted to Captain and led a forward scout into Mt. Washington just 15 miles NW from his home when he was captured on Christmas Day, 1864, and sent to the Louisville prison. He was charged with being a Guerrilla, which carried the death penalty by hanging. His rank of Captain was never officially recorded, and some say the leader of every Guerrilla band was called Captain. Fortunately for Richard the prison was in Louisville not very far from his home, and letters and sworn affidavits of support arrived stating he was not a guerrilla but a respected Confederate soldier who had never committed nor supported activities of the Guerrillas. To the contrary, he had attempted to protect citizens from the Guerrillas. Although he claimed he had orders on him when he was captured, the arresting soldiers said he did not. Things looked pretty bleak at first because the Union officials were set on hanging as many Guerrillas as they could in an effort to stop their murderous activities. Somehow Richard survived his ordeal while a number of his acquaintances in prison and in service, including Marcellus Jerome Clarke, aka Sue Munday, and Henry McGruder, both of whom it was reported had been seen with Richard in Bloomfield and Bardstown, were hanged for unspeakable crimes as Guerrillas. One favorite tactic of the Guerrillas was to dismantle a railroad track and when the train derailed the Guerrillas would attack killing, often in cold blood even after disarming Union soldiers, and then robbing anyone who had valuables. One affidavit from the conductor on the Bardstown to Louisville train claimed that Richard forced him to stop by firing over his head, then telling him not to go any farther because the track had been torn up. When Richard was released from the Union prison in Louisville on June 13, 1865, he was ordered to return for trial when called. But Richard, like many former Confederate soldiers, including Gen. Lyon, chose to seek his fortunes in Mexico, being invited to do so by Maximilian who desperately needed competent men to help bolster his fledgling and fragile monarchy. At the age of 20, and primarily trained as a cavalry warrior, Richard was hired by the Imperial Mexican Railway which was building a railroad connecting the coastal city of Veracruz to Mexico City through some of the most rugged mountain terrain ever attempted by rail. Some of the finest engineers in the world worked on this railroad. The survey and railroad work crews were constantly harassed by Juarez supporters and banditos, so it is most likely that Richard was at first hired for his skills with gun and horse. He had no engineering training, other than on-the-job training at digging a tunnel. He knew how to destroy bridges but had never built one. However, being an intelligent, personable, honest young man eager to learn, he likely was favored by one of the engineers and may have served as an apprentice while developing surveying and engineering skills during his two year employment, skills which he applied after he took up engineering in Savannah. When Richard reached Bryan, TX in 1867, there was an active brotherhood of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, a benevolent fraternity whose motto is Friendship, Love and Truth, and their command is to "visit the sick, relieve the distressed, bury the dead and educate the orphan.” Richard must have committed himself to the cause because by 1868 he had helped the IOOF build a college in Bryan and he was the principal and mathematics professor. December 22, 1868 Richard married Rebecca Luce in Bryan. The following year they had a daughter. Rebecca died March 6, 1870 and the daughter died within the year. One must assume that Richard was an autodidact, teaching himself both engineering and mathematics. Later that year the music teacher in the college caught his eye. This music teacher was Rebecca Jane Fisher, daughter of Rebecca Gilleland Fisher (in some circles referred to as the “mother of Texas”). Rebecca Jane and Richard married on Richard’s birthday, January 19, 1871. When the school closed due to financial difficulties they moved to Austin. Richard advanced through the ranks of the IOOF rapidly, achieving the highest rank in Texas in 1875 when he was elected to the office of Most Worthy Grand Master of the Texas IOOF, a one year appointment. In Austin Richard was quite the entrepreneur, selling life insurance for the Widow and Orphans Life Insurance Company, starting a real estate business under the name Walsh & Blandford, and co-founding the Austin Building and Loan Association for which he was treasurer. He continued serving as Past Grand Master in the IOOF and in 1880 represented the Texas Lodge at the international meeting in Baltimore. Richard seemed to have it all, highly respected as a businessman, high office in the IOOF, and now a family with three beautiful daughters, Elizabeth, Mamie and Fannie. But as vicissitudes always seem to arrive when everything looks the brightest, tragedy struck. First his eldest daughter Lizzy died in an accidental fire while carrying embers and catching her dress afire. Then the insurance company became financially insolvent and his Building and Loan Association ran into financial difficulties. Richard, seeing greener pastures in Mexico, left his family in Austin in 1881 and once again worked for the Mexican Railroad until he arrived in Savannah in 1884. It is most likely that he perfected his engineering skills while in Mexico on this second occasion. Richard Abner Blandford lived a colorful life and a life of service to others. Although he held important, well paying positions, apparently he never owned property in Savannah nor did he accumulate wealth. He was an avid reader of the latest technical books and novels and was a member of the Catholic Historical Society and the Catholic Library Association and regularly attended mass at the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist where he rented a seat in Pew Number 44. He was an honorable, well respected man, and he certainly left his mark on our fair city. In later years Richard suffered from tuberculosis, a disease which ravaged many here in Savannah in the first half of the 20th Century, and which was recorded as the cause of his death October 24, 1916, at the age of 71. Obituaries appeared in the Savannah Press and the Morning News which reveal his respected position here: The Savannah Press, Wednesday, October 25, 1916, page 9: “BLANDFORD FUNERAL: Deceased was County Engineer who started Chatham Drainage System. The funeral of Major R. A. Blandford, who died yesterday, will be held tomorrow at 9 o’clock from the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. Rev. Father Kane will conduct the services. Interment will be in the Cathedral Cemetery. Major Blandford was at one time county engineer and in that office gave splendid service. It was under his direction the drainage system of Chatham county was first put under way. … . As a civil engineer he ranked very high and was employed by various railroads and other large corporations. He did a good deal of work for the Seaboard Air Line Railroad on the Hutchinson’s Island improvements. He came to Savannah from Texas.” Savannah Morning News, Thursday, October 26, 1916, page 3, added this: “….Maj. Brandford [sic] was also supervising engineer in the work of remodeling the exterior of the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. The pallbearers will be William Kehoe, James Leonard, Thomas F. Walsh, Jr., James B. Copps, Victor G. Schreck, Frank X. Beytagh. The pall bearers were prominent Catholics in the city, most of whom are buried in this cemetery. When Richard died, he was again destitute which is why he was buried in “free ground” in this cemetery without a marker to indicate his final resting place. And this of course is why we are remembering him today. When Elizabeth discovered that another Confederate veteran was buried in this cemetery in an unmarked grave, she remedied the situation, as she is noted to do, by ordering this marker stone which she will unveil shortly, thus fixing Richard Abner Blandford’s name in history here in Savannah. Thank you Elizabeth. Thank you distinguished guests. Thank all of you for being such an attentive audience. And thank you Richard Blandford for your service to your country and to Chatham County.
Biography Sources:
"United States Census, 1850," database with images, FamilySearch (FamilySearch: Sign In), Richard Blandford in household of T A. Blandford, Nelson County, Nelson, Kentucky, United States; citing family 637, NARA microfilm publication M432 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).
"United States Census, 1850," database with images, FamilySearch (FamilySearch: Sign In), Richard Blandford in household of T A. Blandford, Nelson County, Nelson, Kentucky, United States; citing family 637, NARA microfilm publication M432 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).