WAUPACA REPUBLICAN POST

June 3, 1909

 

            ADJT. T.L. JEFFERS DIES SUDDENLY AT THE HOME.

 

Fourteen Years Held Office of Adjutant.

Proud of the G.A.R.

Had Severed Membership with all Civic Societies.

 

            Friday evening the news came to this city of the death of Adjt. T.L. Jeffers at the Veterans’ Home of neuralgia of the heart.  Though he had been poorly for the past three weeks, his death was a great surprise to all.  Mrs. Jeffers was in the city on that day to procure a pair of soft shoes for him as he had planned to go to work the next day, and she found on her return that he was in a critical condition and hastened to summon the Home physician.  The end came before night fell.

            A very impressive military funeral was held on Monday, Memorial Day, with interment in Lakeside cemetery.  He had often said if he could choose the day for his funeral it would be Memorial Day in which day he had ever manifested great interest and whose services were to his generous and impulsive nature truly a festival of the dead.

            The large number who gathered to do him honor and the profusion of lowers that decked the casket testify to the respect and high esteem that he enjoyed in the community in which he so long lived.

            Talford Jeffers was born in Henderson, Jefferson county, N.Y., February 24, 1845, and died at the Veterans’ Home, where he had been Adjutant for many years, May 28, 1909.

            Mr. Jeffers sailed on the great Lakes for the Union Steamboat Company of Buffalo, as clerk on one of their boats when he was a young boy.  He left the boat when only seventeen years to join the army, enlisting August 9, 1862, in Company E, Tenth New York Artillery, and was transferred to the U.S. Navy April 11, 1864, and served until the end of the war.  While there were many who were misrepresenting their age, and made other misrepresentations to evade the army, Mr. Jeffers added a year to his age in order to join the ranks and fight for his country.

            After the war was over he returned to Buffalo and took a position which was being held by his father, as chief steward for the Union Steamboat Company and he held this position until he came to Waupaca in October, 1879.  In August, 1868, he was married to Miss Adelaide B. Allen of Pierrepon Manor, N.Y.  On arriving in Waupaca he engaged in business at once, introducing the egg pickling business, which proved successful under his management for several years, and has been a success in other hands ever since, making a good market for eggs and distributing thousands of dollars in the locality.  He was among the first to become interested in the potato business and under the firm name of Jeffers & Penney was a large shipper.  He was identified with several enterprises in Waupaca and his influence as a business man was felt not only in this city but throughout the surrounding country; commanding as he did the confidence and respect of all with whom he had dealings.

            He moved from Waupaca to Alexandria, Ind., where he obtained large property holdings during the excitement caused by the discovery of natural gas.  He and his partners, with other promoters,  “boomed” Alexandria and the place grew rapidly to a city of 11,000 inhabitants. Many large factories were induced to locate there owing to cheap land and what appeared to be abundant fuel, some factories so large they employed 1,000 men, and the smallest not less than 300.  Everything looked decidedly promising when on the eve of apparent unprecedented prosperity came the awful panic of 1892-5. It came too soon for Mr. Jeffers and his associates, and instead of reaping a rich harvest he and his friends were caught in the terrible financial whirlpool and went down in disaster.  He had played an important part in the building up of Alexandria and would have made a grand success, financially, except for conditions arising over which he had no control.  To those who have been intimate with him it is known that he grieved more because of the loss of his friends whom he advised to “get on the wagon of prosperity” than for his own loss.

            After the panic Mr. Jeffers returned to Waupaca and received the appointment of adjutant at the Veterans’ Home, which office he held, serving faithfully up to the illness which caused his death.  No better man could have been selected to this office, for his experience as chief steward for the Union Steamboat Company made him an excellent accountant, and he was naturally systematic; his army experience, wherein he had suffered hardships when only a young man, not only filled him with sympathy for the aged veterans, but instilled in him profound regard for all those who risked their lives, endured privations and fought to preserve the Union.  The officer of rank and humblest man who carried a musket were alike to him.  He was naturally a peacemaker; a general benefactor in every community in which he lived.

            He had withdrawn from civic societies but was proud of his membership in the G.A.R., and his funeral services conducted by his Post were intensely impressive.

            Sometimes men of considerable business experience who meet with extreme reverses find avenues through which they regain a foothold.  Mr. Jeffers has always been on the alert, notwithstanding his duties as adjutant, and left nothing undone that might again restore to him his comfortable financial standing.  But with all his efforts, and the efforts of some close friends working with him, nothing responded.

            This was a strain upon his proud spirit as well as a menace to his health.  Unless one receives encouragement after years of hard struggling the heart will fail.

            Mr. Jeffers leaves a wife, one daughter, Mrs. W.B. MacArthur, of Antigo, one brother, E.B. Jeffers, of this city, and two sisters, Mrs. Caleb Sheaver, of Janesville, Wis., and Mrs. Sanborn now at her brother’s home.