Reverend Lafayette Washington Duke  (Known as L. W)

L. W. was the 7th of 9 children born to Joel Emerson Duke and Martha Ellen Pugh.  

 

The children were:

1.  WILLIAM JASPER (CSA) DUKE  1828 – 1900
2.  CLARIMOND ELIZABETH DUKE 1831 – 1921
3.  JANE ANN MARTHA DUKE  1838 – 
4.  JAMES A DUKE  1838 – 1916
5.  MARY ELLEN DUKE  1839 – 1922
6.  WALTER NEWTON (CSA) DUKE 1840 – 1922
7.  LAFAYETTE WASHINGTON DUKE  1843 – 1925
8.  FERDINAND R. DUKE  1848 – 1925
9.  JAMES HENRY DUKE  1845-1925

L. W. was born in Turnbull, Monroe County, Alabama April, 25, 1843.  In 1858 he professed his religion and was baptized by the Reverend L. W. Lindsey at Concord Baptist Church in Buena Vista, Monroe County, Alabama.

He answered the call of his State and entered the Confederate army in 1861 at 18 years of age at Pineville, Alabama.  His regiment, The Fifth Alabama Infantry, was on advanced picket line and was among the first to open fire on the enemy at Farrar’s Crossroads near Alexandria, Virginia, a few days prvious to the first Battle of Manassas.  He was in nearly all the hard battles in Virginia and was seriously wounded at the battle of Gaines Mills.  He was taken prisoner at the Battle of the Wilderness on May 5, 1864 and thus remained imprisoned for the duration of the war.  On August 15, 1864, he was transferred to the notorious federal prison at Elmira, New York.
 
 On October 3rd 1867 L.W. married Susannah E. Garlington Owen, the widow of Hugh G. Owen.  He being a casualty of the afore mentioned conflict.  They were married at the plantation home of Josiah Garlington located near Black’s Bluff on the Alabama River in Wilcox County, Alabama.
Susannah E. Garlington was born in 1839 in Wilcox County, Alabama, the daughter of Josiah Garlington and Elizabeth Packer Davis.  Josiah and Elizabeth had come to Alabama from Berkeley County, South Carolina after the death of his father.  Elizabeth’s father (Abel Davis) and brothers also made the trip to Alabama probably all travelling together around 1818.  Abel died in 1828.  The Garlingtons of South Carolina were originally from Virginia where they  intermarried with the Tidewater aristocracy.  Susaannah was a direct descendant of Col. William Ball and Edwin Conway.  Col. Ball was George Washington’s grandfather while Edwin Conway was James Madison’s great grandfather.  All the Garlingtons in this country descend from the one immigrant Garlington in the 1600s.  Decendants of L.W. and Susannah are eligible for membership in tha

DAR, SAR, Jamestowne and the National Society of Washington Family Descendants hereditary societies.

On February 4, 1858, Susannah married Hugh G. Owen Jr., the son of the Reverend Hugh G. Owen Sr. who had also hailed from South Carolina. Hugh Jr. was born  around 1835 in Wilcox County and enlisted for the Confederate cause at Mobile, Alabama on April 19, 1862. He was a private in Company C of the 42nd Alabama Infantry Regiment and was captured on October 5, 1862 at Hatchet Bridge  during the battle of Corinth, Mississippi, and was paroled on October 14, 1862 at Bolivar, Tennessee.  He was part of the forces defeated at Vicksburg and was paroled again there on July 4, 1863.  On  November 24, 1863 his name appears on a list of casualties in the engagement on Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, where he was captured a third time by the U. S. forces.  An amputation was required for a fractured femur from which he never recovered.  He died in the United States General Hospital in Chattanooga on December 3, 1863, leaving behind Susannah as a young widow at 24 years of age.

In 1870 L. W. was ordained at the Concord Baptist Church and started on his Ministry career.  He preached at Buena Vista, Monroeville, Burnt Corn and for ten years at Claiborne Alabama.
Susannah’s father, Josiah, was deceased by December, 1871 and her mother had predeceased him by at least ten years according to an Alabama State Supreme Court case in which L. W., Susannah and Josiah were parties to.

In Dec 1882, L. W., Susannah, and family including his mother made the move to Falls County, Texas where L. W. had a calling at the Baptist Church in Reagan.  There in Falls County in 1883 his mother passed away.  On July 2, 1886, Sarah A. Garlington, Susannah’s older, unmarried sister who had also come with the Duke family to Texas passed away.  Susannah passed away    January 3rd 1889.  They are all buried in the Covington Cemetery at Blue Ridge (Near Reagan), Texas.

After Susannah’s death in January of 1889, L. W. took over the Pastorate at Calvert, Texas and in that same year was elected Moderator of The Waco Baptist Association.  In that same year in May, L. W. married Sue M. Granberry, daughter of Judge John Granberry of Mississippi.  She was born in Homer, Angelina County, Texas on March 2nd, 1863.  Sue is buried next to L. W. in Waco, Texas  

In 1891,  L. W.  moved on and became the Pastor in Mexia, Texas where he became involved with the Limestone County Confederate Veterans Association.  While serving in Mexia, L.W. was appointed to the Board Of Visitors at Baylor University.  By 1910 we find L. W. in Smith County, Texas and in 1920 he was in Rockdale, Milam County, Texas.

L.W. retired and lived in Waco Texas.  In the summer of 1923 L. W. was involved in a car accident but had recovered enough to visit his son, W. B. Duke in Oklahoma.

L. W. passed away July 26, 1925 and is buried in Waco, Texas.  His 2nd wife, Sue, passed away on March 7, 1937 while visiting her son in Beaumont, Texas. 

To L. W. and Susannah were born Six children:

One child not listed on any census presumably died as an infant
1.  Martha "Mattie" June DUKE   1870 – 1954
2.  William Brutus Duke   1873 – 1939
3.  Edward Lafayette Duke 1874 – 1943
4.  Sudie E Duke  1876 – 
5.  Clara Duke   1878 – 1951
To L. W. and Sue M. Granberry were born three children
6.  Bertie "Bert" Parker Duke   1890 – 1971
7.  Lou F "Loutee" Duke  1891 – 1985
8.  Marvin Eldridge Duke   1899 – 1957