DAFFAN, LAWRENCE AYLETT (1845-1907). Lawrence Daffan, Texas railroad official and Confederate soldier, was born on April 30, 1845, in Conecuh County, Alabama, to John Warren and Mary Julia (Jones) Daffan. The family moved to Montgomery, Texas, in 1849. Daffan first worked carrying the United States mail between Montgomery and Washington-on-the-Brazos in 1859 and 1860. In 1861 he enlisted in the Confederate Army as a private and was sent to Virginia, where he served under Capt. John William Hutcheson as a member of Company G, Fourth Texas Regiment, Hood's Texas Brigade.^qv He fought for the Confederacy in numerous engagements, including the battles of Second Bull Run and Antietam. He was captured at Lenore Station, Tennessee, on November 19, 1863, and was confined at Rock Island Prison, Rock Island, Illinois, until June 19, 1865. He reached his home in Navasota on July 6, 1865.

In October 1865 Daffan entered the service of the Houston and Texas Central Railway. He served first as brakeman, then advanced to passenger conductor, trainmaster, superintendent of the Second Division, and finally general agent of transportation, the position he held at the time of his death. Daffan was a lifelong Democrat and Baptist. He was also a member of the Ku Klux Klan,^qv a Knight Templar, a Shriner, and a charter member of the Houston Elks Lodge. He married Mollie A. Day of Brenham on January 23, 1872, and they had six children, including Katie L. Daffan.^qv Daffan died at his home in Ennis on January 28, 1907, and is buried there in Myrtle Cemetery.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Katie Daffan, My Father As I Remember Him (Houston: Gray and Dillaye, 1907?).

Andrea Ivie Webb