OLIVER LOFTIN, Smith County, TX

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Submitted by Mary Love Berryman - marylove@tyler.net 
18 Jun 2001
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Biographical Souvenir of the State of Texas
Containing Biographical Sketches of the Representive Public,
And Many Early Settled Families
Chicago:  F. A. Battey & Company, 1889, Vol II, p 531.

OLIVER LOFTIN, the subject of this sketch, was born in Montgomery county,
Alabama, on the 6th of September, 1828.  His father, James A. Loftin, of
Scotch-Irish descent, was a native of Georgia, and moved to Alabama soon 
after the State was admitted to the Union, settling near the city of 
Wetumpka, where he establhised one among the first trading posts of the
State and carried on quite a lucrative trade with the Indians.  He
married Mary C. Haggerty, daughter of Abel Haggerty, one of the early
pioneers of Alabama, by whom he had seven children-- Elizabeth, Oliver, 
Emily, Sarah, Abel, Susan and Alfred, of whom only two are now living.

James A. Loftin died in 1845, but his widow still survives him, being in 
her eighty-sixth year, and is now living with her son Oliver.

Oliver Loftin received only a common-school education, but subsequently
read medicine, and graduated from the medical department of the 
University of Pennsylvania April 6, 1850.  He practiced but a few years
in his native State, and, like many others, thinking a better field
existed in the far West he emigrated to Louisiana and thence to Texas,
settling in Smith county in 1854, when the county was quite a wilderness
to what it is at present, and abandoning the practice of medicine, 
devoting his time entirely to agricultural pursuits quite successfully
until 1870, when he moved to the city of Tyler, where he has since 
resided, engaging sometimes in merchandise and at others in speculation, 
with varied results.

He has had no desire nor ambition for public life and has never filled 
any public position.  He was one of the original Incorporators of the 
East Texas Fire Insurance Company, located in Tyler, and has assisted
with his means and personal efforts all railway, educational and other
worthy enterprises, whether public or private, for the advancement of
his town and county.

He was first married to Martha Sophia, daughter of Thomas Smith, of 
Chambers county, Alabama, in June, 1859, by whom he has two children -
Lillian Louisa and James Smith Loftin.  He was married to Julia L.
Mullins, widow of William H. Mullins and daughter of Samuel H. Boren.
By this marriage he has three children--Jere, Sawnie and Mary Sue.