MAGOFFIN, JOSEPH (1837-1923).
Joseph Magoffin, El Paso mayor and civic leader, was born in Chihuahua, Mexico, on January 14, 1837, the son of María Gertrudis (Valdez) and James Wiley Magoffin. He attended public school in Independence, Missouri, where the family moved in 1844; Lafayette Institute in Lexington, Kentucky; and Wyman High School in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1856 he joined his father at Magoffinsville, the site of present El Paso, Texas, where the elder Magoffin had settled after the Mexican War. The Magoffins were supporters of secession and during the Civil War Magoffin served on the staff of General Henry H. Sibley in the New Mexico campaign, served in Virginia and fought in the battle of Seven Pines, and was made commissary general of the Confederate forces west of the Mississippi River. In October 1864 he married Octavia MacGreal in Houston; they eventually had one son and one daughter. After the war, they spent about a year in St. Louis with Magoffin's brother-in-law, Charles C. Richardson, then moved to El Paso. Magoffin worked as a bookkeeper until 1873, when he succeeded in regaining the property confiscated from his father during the Civil War. In 1875 he built an adobe house in the Territorial style, which is now the Magoffin Home State Historic Site. Established as one of El Paso's leading landowners, Magoffin took a prominent role in civic affairs. In 1873 he was one of the incorporators of El Paso.