Stanislaus
County
Biographies
LA FAYETTE JACKSON MADDUX
That good stock of Virginia and
Maryland which has been so potent a factor in the citizenship of the United
States produced the subject of this sketch, a prominent lawyer of Modesto,
Stanislaus County, California, an account of whose useful and busy career is
the purpose of the editors to include in this work. La Fayette Jackson Maddux was born at
Pineville, McDonald County, Missouri, August 14, 1854, and was brought to
California when he was between two and three years old. He is descended in the paternal line from
early settlers and active participants in the pioneer history of Virginia. His grandfather, George Nathaniel Maddux, was
born in Virginia and was a pioneer in Tennessee, where his life was successful
and he lived to a good old age. He
married Miss Rebecca Parker, a native of Virginia, and a daughter of Dr. John
Parker, who was born in Maryland and took a patriot’s part in the Revolutionary
War.
John Parker Maddux, a son of George
Nathaniel and Rebecca (Parker) Maddux, was born in Tennessee and went at a
comparatively early period in his life to Missouri, where he married Miss
Serena Gibson, a native of Fayetteville, Washington County, Arkansas. He became a well-to-do farmer in Missouri and
in 1855 took a drove of cattle overland to California, where he sold them to
good advantage. He returned to Missouri
and in 1857 started again across the plains to California, this time
accompanied by his wife and two children, one of them, La Fayette Jackson
Maddux, the subject of this sketch. He
located at Healdsburg, Sonoma County, where he bought a farm and acquired other
property and won success as a farmer and as a businessman. He was one of the organizers of the Santa
Rosa Bank, at Santa Rosa, Sonoma County, and the Ukiah Bank, at Ukiah,
Mendocino County; he was for many years a director of the former, and was
connected with other prominent interests.
He died in 1895, in the sixty-eighth year of his age, and his widow, a
woman of many virtues who is highly regarded by all who have the pleasure of
her acquaintance, is living, aged sixty-three years, on the family homestead
near Santa Rosa. They were the parents
of twelve children, two of whom were born in Missouri and ten in California,
and Mrs. Maddux has a sorrowful memory of the death of her second child during
the slow and perilous journey of their then little family across the plains,
which consumed six months. She remembers
too that they were ambushed by Indians at one point and narrowly escaped with
their lives. Seven of their children are
now living in California. Charles P.
Maddux is a practicing physician at Santa Rosa, where his brother, Dr. James E.
Maddux, is also located. Loretta is the
wife of Dr. Graves, of San Francisco.
Her other sons, excepting the subject of this sketch, are members of her
household near Santa Rosa.
La Fayette Jackson Maddux was
educated in the public schools and the Methodist College at Santa Rosa, and was
graduated in law at the Harvard Law School in the class of 1878. He began the practice of his profession at
Winnemucca, Nevada, where he remained about a year. In 1880 he located at Modesto, where he has
won a signal success professionally and is recognized as one of the leading men
of Stanislaus County. In 1896 he was the
candidate of the Democracy of his district for representative in the congress
of the United States. He is active and influential
in political work and his public spirit has led him to labor efficiently for
the advancement of many interests affecting the welfare of his fellow
citizens. He was appointed by Governor
Budd one of the directors of the state reform school for boys at Ione, Amador
County.
In 1879 Mr. Maddux married Miss May
Blyth Simmons, a native of Mariposa County, California, and a daughter of the
Rev. J. C. Simmons, of the Methodist Episcopal church,
South, who has taken a prominent part in making Methodist history in this
state. Mr. and Mrs. Maddux have two
children, named Parker S. and Esther, who are attending school at Berkeley,
Alameda County.
Transcribed by
Gerald Iaquinta.
Source:
“A Volume of Memoirs and Genealogy of Representative Citizens of Northern
California”, Pages 357-358. Chicago Standard Genealogical Publishing Co. 1901.
© 2010
Gerald Iaquinta.