de Spain, Major Cassius, I: A perennial, yet peripheral, figure in Yoknapatawpha County. Father of Manfred de Spain, he served as a major in the Confederate Army. In Absalom, Absalom!, he was sheriff in 1869 when Wash Jones killed Thomas Sutpen along with Jones' own granddaughter and great-granddaughter. Soon after, he bought and restored the fishing camp along the Tallahatchie River where Jones had been living. In Go Down, Moses, he was the host for the annual hunting trips, including the one in which Old Ben, the bear, is killed. He later sold most of the property to a lumber company. In "Barn Burning" and The Hamlet, a disagreement with tenant farmer Ab Snopes over a soiled rug led to his barn being burned down. He appears also in Intruder in the Dust, The Town, The Mansion, The Reivers, and "A Bear Hunt." In addition, a Major de Spain who is grieving over the wartime death of his son is depicted in "Shall Not Perish."

Excerpt from : William Faulkner on the Web

http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~egjbp/faulkner/glossaryd.html