JUDGE S. C. PADELFORD is a distinguished member of the bar at Cleburne, having broad and comprehensive knowledge of jurisprudence together with an ability that enables him to sink personal prejudices and opinions into the labors of a profession to which life and liberty must look for protection. He was born in Copiah county, Mississippi, but was reared in Hinds county, that state, his parents being T. D. and Sarah (Burton) Padelford. His father, a resident of Mississippi, in which state he was born, lived and died, became a well known planter and slave-holder there. His wife was likewise a native of that state.
In his parents’ home Judge Padelford spent his youth and his early educational privileges were supplemented by a course of study in the University of Mississippi at Oxford, form which institution he was graduated with the class of 1873. In the meantime he had taken up the study of law and after thorough preliminary reading was admitted to the Mississippi bar in 1874. He sought a field of labor in Texas, coming to Cleburne in the same year and opening an office for practice here. His professional career is not unlike that of most lawyers who enter the ranks of legal fraternity to compete with men of greater years and experience. Advancement at the bar is proverbially slow, but Judge Padelford demonstrated his skill and ability to cope with intricate problems of law and also gave proof of his unfaltering fidelity to his client’s interests. His advancement therefore was sure and certain because he had as a basis of his success broad knowledge, an analytical mind, keen discernment and strong reasoning powers. Owing to these qualities he has worked his way steadily upward until he is now the peer of the ablest practitioners of law in Texas. His reasoning is cogent, his deductions logical and in the application of a legal principle to the point at issue he is seldom, if ever, at fault. He has served as special district judge at various times and in April, 1905, was appointed by Governor Lanham to act as special judge on the supreme branch at Austin in a case in which one of the supreme judges was disqualified. In his private he was for twenty-one years associated as a partner with Judge William A. Poindexter, now retired, the firm being Poindexter & Padelford. Judge Padelford is now alone and he has a large and satisfactory practice in all the courts, both state and federal, and is in possession of one of the largest and most valuable law libraries of Texas, with the contents of which he has intimate knowledge.
Judge Padelford was married to Miss Minnie Beard, a native of Alabama, and they have two children, Paul and Grace. The judge hold membership in the Methodist church and is a student of those questions which are to the statesman and man of affairs of deep interest, questions relating to the welfare, progress and substantial improvement of county, state and nation. He has done able service for the city in many lines that have proved beneficial and moreover he is actively connected with a profession which has important hearing upon the progress and stable prosperity of any section and one which has important bearing upon the progress and stable prosperity of any section and one which has long been considered as conserving the public welfare by furthering the ends of justice and maintaining individual rights.
Source: B. B. Paddock, History and Biographical Record of North and West Texas (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Co., 1906), Vol. II, pp. 53-54.