Well, I gave you four choices last week: John Buford, Napoleon Bonaparte Buford, Abraham Buford II, and Buford T. Justice. If you are a Smokey and the Bandit movie fan, you quickly eliminated Sheriff Buford T. Justice played by Jackie Gleason. The other three names were all Civil War generals. Will the real General Buford please step forward? The question was posed to me by Joe Dungan weeks ago. Sorry, Joe, I don’t have a short answer for you. This is one case in which Google will only parrot what has already been in print. It all starts with “The History of Buford, Colorado,” which appears to be the oldest published source. It is a well-researched book. I will quote author Ricki Buckles from page 9. “In the researching of how Buford came by its name, the only information to be found was located at the White River Museum. This is what was stated there: ‘The town of Buford in Rio Blanco County was named for the Confederate General by Mrs. Cloherty, a local school teacher, from a history book her classes was studying at the time’.” In the next paragraph, Buckles states, “The Confederate General was John Buford.”
I was unable to reach the author for an explanation, but I think Buckles made a reasonable guess. Mrs. Cloherty would have been reading a Civil War history book written around 1890. Most books would have been written from a Yankee perspective. As they say, history is written by the winner. John was the most famous Buford general (Union) among the three. Buckles’ book was used for source material for the Buford School application to the Colorado State Register of Historic Properties and later repeated on the internet. I did find Buckle’s original source material in the White River Museum files. It was not dated and there was no mention of who wrote it. Mrs. Cloherty is attributed for naming the school. Buford’s first name was not mentioned, only “Confederate General.” Now we come to the * (asterisk, like the sports historians love to confuse us with).
There were three General Bufords who served in the Civil War. Two were half-brothers and the third was a cousin of the other two. All served as officers before the Civil War. John Buford was a famous Union general at Gettysburg. Napoleon Bonaparte Buford was also a Union general. Cousin Abraham Buford II chose to serve with the Confederates. The Civil War divided many families. So, which one is ours? If Ellen Cloherty was reading about a Confederate general Buford, that could only be Brigadier General Abraham Buford II, CSA. Soon after naming its first school, Buford, the upper White River area opened its first Post Office in May 1890 as the Buford Post Office. At one time, the Buford Post Office was located at the Cloherty ranch. Mrs. John P. Cloherty was Postmistress. John was already settled in the North Fork in 1889. In 1890, John went back to St. Louis to marry Miss Ellen Devine and bring her back to Colorado. Mrs. J. P. Cloherty was probably not the first teacher at the new school house but may have been the second. She came to Colorado in 1890 and the White River School District was organized in May of 1889. She died in 1897 soon after the birth of her second son, John Junior. John Patrick Cloherty, senior, sold the ranch two years later and returned to St. Louis with his remaining son, Richard. In the 1900 census, they were living with his sister-in-law, Celia Devine.
I talked to Tom Tucker of Buford. As a young man, Tom ran the Buford store and had many conversations with the “old timers” who stopped in. These were also people Buckles used for her research on the upper White River histories. Tucker tells me that the Buford name origin was never discussed, it just was Buford. He and I came to the same conclusion — the oral histories just grow like hunting stories until somebody puts them in print and they become fact. The kids who were in the old school house with Mrs. Cloherty are all gone. So, was it really a General Buford who had no ties to the upper White River? Union General John or Confederate Abraham? My bet is on Abraham Buford. But we don’t know! Tom suggests we just make up our own colorful story, get it in print and rewrite our own history. Were there any astronauts who were named Buford? Maybe we could use Buford T. Justice after all.
By ED PECK – Special to the Herald times
