Aaron S. Lanfare: Medal of Honor Recipient

The only Branford native ever to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor was Aaron S. Lanfare. So who was he? As noted in the comments of our question, Lanfare received the Medal of Honor for capturing the flag of the 11th Florida Infantry at Sailor's Creek, Virginia, on April 6, 1865. He was a First Lieutenant in Company B, the 1st Connecticut Cavalry. And he worked as a sailor both before and after the war, eventually dying in a shipwreck in 1875. That's the short version.

The long version traces back a few generations into Aaron Lanfare's family. His grandfather, Oliver (then spelled Lanphier), fought during the Revolutionary War. Oliver was also a sailor: he was master of the ship Chloe Ann, which patrolled Long Island Sound. As a child, Aaron's father, also Oliver (though the last name was occasionally then spelled Landfair), helped his mother make fools out of some of the British sailors who landed in (now Short Beach). The Landfair family decided not to abandon their home, but instead hide all of their grain (some in a well, some in the bed mattresses), their butter and important documents (buried under the ash heap in the cellar), and their pork (slaughtering five hogs and hiding the meat in the chimney, where they smoked it – disguising the fact that they were doing so by boiling lye for soap!). So clearly Aaron Lanfare had the genetics needed to be a war hero.

Before the Civil War, Lanfare worked as a merchant sailor. He was the master of Reindeer, a New Haven barque. At some point he did a favor for the British brig Dominica, because in 1860 he received the gift of a telescope from Queen Isabella. He was 37 when the Civil War broke, and he volunteered to join the First Connecticut Volunteer Cavalry Regiment. The Union was dreadfully short on cavalry, and due to some political and logistical complications, most of the Connecticut cavalry was consolidated into the Second New York Cavalry – and many of the records belonging to the First Connecticut never made it back to the regiment's home state. 

The Battle at Sailors Creek was a devastating defeat for Confederate forces, leading Lee to surrender at Appomattox 72 hours later, according to the Sailor's Creek Battlefield Web site. It was an occasion for Union heroism, as well: 57 Medals of Honor were given due to actions in that battle, and 47 were awarded for capturing Confederate flags. Lanfare, Charles H. Marsh, and Edwin M. Neville were all members of the First Connecticut who captured Confederate flags that day. 

Lanfare received his medal on May 3, 1865, the day he was mustered out of the army. The First Connecticut Cavalry was disbanded a little more than a month later. Lanfare returned to his former career, living with his family in New Haven, and he made a name for himself as a spice merchant. On a voyage to the West Indies in August 1875, when he was 50 years old, he was lost at sea. In 1984, as a memorial, a stone was placed for him in Center Cemetery, near where his grandfather Oliver is buried.