Sanford Marion Loyd, 1836-1907

Sanford M. Loyd was born in Lincoln County, Tennessee in 1836. The younger brother of my great-great grandfather Isham James Loyd, Sanford and his eight siblings moved to the Pine Springs area of present-day Lamar County, Alabama around 1842 or 1843 with their widowed mother, Charity.

Sanford married Margaret Catherine Stone, daughter of Tilmon Stone and Elizabeth Boyd, on February 17, 1859.

In May 1862, Sanford enlisted in the Confederate Army in Monroe County, Mississippi. He was captured in Vicksburg in 1863 and discharged in 1865. In a letter dated September 25, 1862, brother Isham, who was serving in the same Confederate unit as Sanford, wrote home: "Sant is not doing well." In another letter to his wife, dated October 15, 1862, Isham noted "I saw Sant day before we left Baldwin. He was right sick and I never heard anymore of him until about 2 days after the fight, I happened on him right in the road. He had been able to make the rounds." Upon Sanford's capture at Vicksburg, he signed an oath. "I will not take arms against USA."

Below is Sanford's confederate marker at his grave.

In the 1900 census, Sanford can be found in Itawamba County, occupation "potter." When he applied for his civil war pension in 1904, he indicated that he was living in the Whitney community and working as a potter when his health allowed. [Sanford was brother to William Payne Loyd who lived in Itawamba County and patented his pottery grave markers.]

Sanford died in 1907 and was buried in Ebenezer Cemetery near Red Bay, Alabama. Catherine, Sanford's widow, applied for his pension in 1908 while living near Rara Avis in Itawamba County, not far from Ebenezer Cemetery. She later moved to Red Bay to be near her daughter, and died there in 1920.