Benson Goff: Early Settler and Merchant of Texas (1847–1898)
By: Margaret Swickheimer Phelps
Revised by: Brett J. Derbes
Published: January 1, 1995
Updated: July 8, 2023
Benson Goff, early settler and merchant was born on March 18, 1847, to Salathiel and Margaret Flesher Goff in Jackson County (now Wirt County), West Virginia. The family moved to Tarrant County, Texas, around 1855 and settled in Goliad County by 1862. He served in the Confederate Army as a private of Company F, Mann's Regiment, Texas Cavalry, which is also known as Bradford's Regiment, and took the Oath of Amnesty at Victoria, Texas, in 1865. By 1869 he lived in DeWitt County, where he married Laura Jane Doggett on February 1, 1870. He and his wife raised five daughters and one son. He worked as a wagoneer carrying freight inland from the port of Indianola. Mr. and Mrs. Goff and his parents were the second family to settle in Perdido and helped form the community. He became the first postmaster on February 25, 1873. Goff owned the general store, which was built from rock quarried nearby and known as the Rock Store. He registered his cattle brand with the Goliad County Courthouse on June 6, 1879. The whole town of Perdido moved in 1890 to be near the newly constructed railroad, and as the new location was close to the Fannin battleground, the town's name was changed to Fannin. Goff was the postmaster in Fannin until 1898, when he was shot and killed on Easter Sunday by Edwin Pitts, a local merchant and suitor of his daughter. Goff's seventeen-year-old son, Walter, then killed Pitts. Goff was buried at Live Oak Cemetery in Fannin.
Bibliography:
Dallas Morning News, April 11, 1898. El Paso Herald, April 14, 1898. Bruce A. Glasrud, ed., African Americans in South Texas History (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2011). Goliad County Historical Commission, The History and Heritage of Goliad County, ed. Jakie L. Pruett and Everett B. Cole (Austin: Eakin, 1983).
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The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this entry.
Margaret Swickheimer Phelps Revised by Brett J. Derbes, “Goff, Benson,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed March 09, 2026, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/goff-benson.
Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
TID:
FGOLV
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- January 1, 1995
- July 8, 2023
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