Ancestors

Daniel Clifton

Daniel Clifton was born on 15 November 1843 in the part of north Florida that became Baker County, west of Jacksonville; his grave memorial gives 5 November. His death certificate names his parents as John Clifton and Sallie Huff. His memorial gives them as John Albert Clifton and Sarah Goff Clifton and credits him with brothers and sisters John Albert, called Jack, Lucy, later Mrs. Butler, Francis Marion, Phoebe, later Mrs. McLane and Mrs. Vrooman, Hamilton and Robert Lee Clifton. He was known as "Little Dan."

He served the Confederacy in Company H of the 2nd Florida Cavalry. The 2nd Florida Cavalry patrolled the interior of the state against Union raids from the coast, and it fought at Olustee in 1864 and at Natural Bridge in 1865. By 1860 he was living in Volusia County, aged 16.

His first wife was Elizabeth Cowart. Their daughter Ellen M. was born about 1868 and Alice Louise on 30 June 1872. Elizabeth died in 1876. In June 1880 the census found Daniel at Emporia, in Volusia County, with his daughters Adeline, Alice, Ida and Ellen. In 1884 he married Mary "Mena" Knight, born in 1864. Their children were Evan (1885), Elmer Hugh (1893), Elton H. (1898) and Pearl Reail (1904). In 1910 Dan and Mary Clifton were living at Spring Garden, in Volusia County, with Elton, Mary and Evan.

Daniel Clifton was a farmer. He died at De Leon Springs on 21 September 1925, aged 81, of angina pectoris with arteriosclerosis. His son Evan gave the details for the certificate. He was buried the next day in Lake Dias Cemetery at De Leon Springs. His grave carries a white cross marked "Daniel Clifton, 1843 to 1925, H Co, 2 Fla Cav, CSA."

His company was Captain J. J. Dickison's. John Jackson Dickison, a planter from Ocala, raised Company H of the 2nd Florida Cavalry in 1862 and became the best known Confederate cavalry leader in Florida, called the Swamp Fox. In May 1864 his men ambushed Union vessels on the St. Johns River near Palatka and captured the gunboat Columbine. It was one of the few times in the war that troops on land took a warship. Daniel said he served until April 1865 and was discharged in Alachua County when the war ended.

In 1909 he swore that he had been wounded in the left arm and shoulder. By then his left side was paralyzed, and his doctor wrote that his hand was of no use and his leg badly crippled. The State of Florida paid him a Confederate pension from 1906 until he died. His second wife, Mary Knight, was Polish by birth, and their marriage license of 1884 gave her name as it was spelled and pronounced in Polish.

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Cite: Heirology, "Daniel Clifton (1843-1925)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/daniel-clifton-1843-1925-13b82d.