LACY, BENJAMIN BURTON (1827–1876). Benjamin Burton Lacy, farmer, Confederate soldier, and state representative, was born in Alabama on April 18, 1827. Burton immigrated to Texas in the late 1840s, settling in Panola County and engaging as a farmer. Benjamin Lacy married Pernecy Holland at Centennial on September 12, 1848. This couple had five sons and two daughters. By 1860 Lacy had achieved a moderate level of prosperity, claiming $250 in personal property. At the outbreak of the Civil War Lacy volunteered for service in the Confederate Army, joining Company A of the Eighth Texas Cavalry, sometimes known as Terry's Texas Rangers, as a private. Lacy was taken prisoner in Louisiana and remained in Federal custody until his parole at Shreveport on June 20, 1865. Upon his release he returned to his homestead at Centennial where his wife had died on February 16 of that year. Lacy remarried to the widowed Pheriba Jane (Rushing) Hendricks on January 14, 1866. This couple had one son. In 1870 Lacy won election as representative for Panola to the Twelfth Texas Legislature. Lacy died in Panola County on January 29, 1876, and was buried there at Old Carthage Cemetery.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Kathryn H. Davis with Linda E. Deveraux and Carolyn E. Ericson, Panola County, Texas, in the Civil War (Nacogdoches: Ericson, 2001). Leila B. LaGrone, ed., History of Panola County (Carthage, Texas: Panola County Historical Commission, 1979).
