Francis Bartow Lloyd (1861-1897) is remembered primarily for Sketches of Country Life: Humor, Wisdom, and Pathos from the "Sage of Rocky Creek," a posthumous collection of his syndicated newspaper columns depicting rural life and featuring his alter-ego Rufus Sanders. Lloyd was a politician, a talented newspaperman, and an accomplished orator who spoke all over the South. Lloyd was murdered at age 36 in a case that drew media attention from across the state.

In 1882, Lloyd moved to Selma, Dallas County, to work as a reporter for the Morning Times and soon became city editor. While living in Selma, Lloyd, a skilled orator, created a sensation with a speech to the Medical Association of the State of Alabama; many of his friends cited that speech as the event that led to his involvement in politics. In 1886, he took a job as a reporter at the Montgomery Advertiser, again moving up quickly to the position of city editor. That same year, Lloyd married Lily Carter, with whom he had four children. In 1890, Lloyd was elected state representative for Montgomery County for the 1890-91 session.


Lloyd's life was cut short when he was murdered on August 25, 1897, by John A. Gafford, who accused Lloyd of a licentious relationship with Gafford's sister. Lloyd's death was reported in newspapers across the state. Gafford never denied killing Lloyd, and his first trial resulted in a guilty verdict and death sentence. The decision was appealed to Alabama's Supreme Court and resulted in a verdict of not guilty because of self-defense after evidence showed that a revolver was found near Lloyd's body at the time of the murder.
After Lloyd's death, his wife, father, and a family friend gathered his Rufus Sanders columns for publication. The resulting book was sold by subscription and apparently did not sell well enough to support the widow and children. Within a year of Lloyd's death, his wife advertised their property for sale in the Greenville Advocate.
Lloyd created a notable literary output during his brief lifetime. Although comparisons between Hooper's Simon Suggs and Rufus Sanders can be made, the character of Rufus Sanders is of a more congenial sort than Hooper's trickster. He is the old, homespun uncle who has lived to see Alabama change from a wild frontier to a more ordered society after Reconstruction. Through those experiences, Sanders guides his readers in the rights and wrongs of life as he sees them.
Additional Resources
Figh, Margaret Gillis. "Bartow Lloyd, Humorist and Philosopher of the Back Country." Alabama Review 2 (April 1952): 83-99.
Additional Resources
Figh, Margaret Gillis. "Bartow Lloyd, Humorist and Philosopher of the Back Country." Alabama Review 2 (April 1952): 83-99.
Lloyd, Francis Bartow. Sketches of Country Life: Humor, Wisdom, and Pathos from the "Sage of Rocky Creek." Birmingham, Ala.: Press of Roberts and Son, 1898.
Williams, Benjamin Buford. A Literary History of Alabama: The Nineteenth Century. Rutherford, N.J.: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 1979.