JUDGE T. N. STANFORD.
To Cartersville Lodge, No. 63, F. & A. M.

The undersigned committee appointed to prepare and present to this lodge a memorial of our late Brother Stanford respectfully submit the following report:

Theopholus Newton Stanford was born in Newton county, Georgia, Feb. 4, 1830.  At the age of nineteen, his father’s family removed from Newton to Bartow county, than called Cass.  Here the greater part of Brother Stanford’s life was spent.

On December 29, 1853, he was married to Miss Mary Jane Baker, a daughter of the late Jesse Baker, Esq., who lived in Pine Log, in this county.  Mrs. Stanford died in December, 1885.  Brother Stanford never remarried.

When the tocsin of war sounded its terrible alarm throughout our southland, he became a confederate soldier and, as one of Wheeler’s cavalry, fought under the Stars and Bars.

He was in General Joe Johnston’s army and took part in the bloody fighting during the memorial retreat from Chattanooga to Atlanta.  He surrendered with his command under Gen. Johnston at Jonesboro, North Carolina, April 26, 1865.

Soon after the war he was made a Mason in Pine Log lodge of shipful (sic) Master.  Removing to Whitfield county in 1875, he was affiliated with Dalton lodge while there.  In 1885, he moved back to Bartow and took up his residence in Cartersville lodge and remaining such until his death, November 19, 1900.

Brother Stanford related to the writer the following incident: “During the war, when the army to which he belonged was on the march and the rivers were swollen from excessive rain, one of his fellow soldiers was swept down stream by the surging billows and in imminent danger of drowning.  Brother Stanford heard this soldier give a cry which he did not understand, having never heard anything like it before.  At once, a sturdy Tennessean leaped into the raging waters, though the act seemed certain death to both, and managed to save the drowning man.  Brother Stanford learned that both the rescuer and the rescued were Masons though personally strangers to each other.  Brother Stanford was not then a Mason; but on seeing how one stranger risked his life for another because they were both Masons, he became deeply impressed and resolved to become a Mason if he could.  This he did as soon as possible after the war closed.  For many years Brother Stanford was a member of the Methodist church whose doctrines and principles he thoroughly believed.  Indeed, it was characteristic of him to believe strongly what ever he believed at all.  He was a man of deep conviction. Resolute in maintaining his views, open and frank in confessing them.  He would not “bend the pregnant hinges of the knee, that thrift might follow fawning.”

For a number of years before his death he was justice of the Peace.  In this office he exhibited a clear discernment of legal principles, quickness of perception, readiness of decision and an uncompromising resolution to decide according to the principles of justice without the regard to legal technicalities or meritorious surroundings.  For weeks before his passing away he was enfeebled, and the end came gradually and by almost imperceptible graduations of weakness.  Thus this upright citizen, faithful church member and loyal Mason, passed from labor to refreshment.

We would not lift the veil [through] which the public gaze.  But we may properly record the fact that in all the relations of the hearthstone he was loving tender and true.  Those who would see the vacant chair and miss the pressure of the father’s hand know better than we what a void his absence leaves in their hearts.

In obedience to his wishes his body was buried by Cartersville Lodge in Oak Hill Cemetery, with Masonic honors.

And now, in commemoration of his virtues and in token of our respect and affection for his memory, we do present to our lodge this sincere and truthful tribute to his virtues as a man and a Mason.  We recommend that this memorial be spread upon our records and published in our local papers; and that a copy be furnished the family of our departed brother “whose loss we deplore and whose memory we revere.”

A. W. Fite, Chairman.
R. W. Murphy
John W. Akin
February 19, 1901.