William O. Lofland

Born: 1824

Died: After 1880

William O. Lofland was born in Kentucky in 1828.  He pursued a number of business interests after marrying his wife Emily J. Clark in 1846.  The couple had four children that lived to be adults.  There were at least two that died in infancy.

Lofland became mayor in a time that author James Cortese (The Bluff City, Spectator Books,1978) describes thus, "Memphis was overrun with "carpetbaggers", [this term refers to Northerners who came south just after the Civil War seeking political positions] bewildered negro freedmen and drifting adventurers.  The city debt was growing, Ku Klux Klan rode, yellow fever broke out in 1867 and several big fires raged."

Lofland served from 1866 to 1868.  These were poor years of painful radical reconstruction.  Some upside for Lofland was that Memphis was able to once again become the county seat, regaining it from Raleigh after almost 40 years.  Also, Lofland had the singular honor of owning the first flour mill in Memphis.  He became active in Memphis government during the Civil War when he acted as the city's comptroller, ostensibly to balance the city's books.  It is not clear if he helped to raid the coffers, but he certainly did not balance the budget.

Although he had owned businesses and held positions Lofland never truly achieved success or wealth in a general sense.  He followed his daughter Emily to California when her husband, J. S. Roberson moved there.  Robinson, a book keeper introduced Lofland to some mining investors, but Lofland proved to be a failure at mining.  Throughout the rest of the documented history of his life he lived of the kindness and charity of others.  He was often borrowing money from Roberson and the 1880 census shows him living with the couple as a boarder. 

Note:  I have altered the birth date for Lofland from the generally accepted date.  This is based on the 1880 Federal Census.