The Golden Book of
Yoknapatawpha County

Born 1825–26. Friend of Bayard Sartoris (II), as deaf. Lived some three miles outside Jefferson in 1919.

Daughter of Mr Farmer, Jefferson’s jailor. Frail and workless. Sat in one of the jail’s windows, musing, hour after hour and day and month and year. Scratched her name and the date into the window pane with a diamond ring on 16 April 1861, the inscription still there in 1951. In late May 1865, married a Lieutenant who had come to take her to his Alabama hill farm he had inherited from his father, and whom she had only ever briefly seen once before, when, the previous year, they briefly looked at each other through the window as he retreated from the advancing Federal troops who would occupy Jefferson, the first words they exchanged being their marriage vows. Possibly became a farmless mother of farmers, giving birth to a dozen children, all boys, and surviving her husband, possibly became the wife of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico.

Father of Cecilia Farmer. Failed farmer. Jailor at Jefferson jail in 1861. Obtained his position through the size of his extended family and concomitant political clout.

Private in John Sartoris (I)’s regiment. Very badly wounded in their first battle. Recovered and found Jesus. Rekindled local church life together with Rosa Millard, acting as de facto minister. Methodist. Led Rosa Millard’s funeral in December 1864, despite that Mrs Compson and some other Jefferson residents had arranged for a big preacher refugeeing from Memphis or somewhere.

Famed southern horse thief during the Civil War.