Jones County Texas Archives - Rev J. David Crockett *********************************************************** Submitted by: Dorman Holub Date: 19 January 2020 Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/tx/jones/jonestoc.htm *********************************************************** The Stamford AmericanVolume 10, Number 38Friday, December 29, 1933Rev. J. David Crockett of Stamford is relative of the famous Davy CrocketChris L. AdairOver in the southeast part of Stamford lives Rev. J. David Crockett, a near kinsman of the famous ÒDavyÓ Crockett, whom both Tennessee and Texas delight to honor. This aged pioneer Methodist minister, who last March celebrated his 80th birthday, by praying, preaching and singing to the tune of ÒSavior More Than Life to Me,Ó a hymn of his own composition, ÒWill They Miss Me When IÕm Gone,Ó over the Sam Morris radio, is a poet and prose writer of no small ability. He has written and published one book on the doctrines of his church and perhaps could write an even larger volume on the part he has played in the making of history of Texas. It is doubtful if any person living in Texas today has collected more authentic knowledge about the famous Davy Crockett than his preacher namesake at Stamford.David Crocket was not the rollicking, uncouth, illiterate back woodsman that many authors seem to think he was. He sprang from a noble Norman family famous in that part of France 750 years ago, for its warriors, scholars, statesmen and diplomats. One branch of the family migrated to Scotland about the time the Plantagenets, and has produced many celebrities. About the time of Louis XIV, one of the Crocketts, while in command of that monarchÕs body guard, met and married the beautiful Louise de Saix, aunt or great-aunt of the celebrated Lafayette. Being Protestants, the young people fled to Donegal, Ireland, when the Eldest Nantes was repealed one of their numerous sons married Sarah Stewart of the Irish branch of that royal Scottish family whose blood and name are borne by so many famous Americans. Early in the 18th century this young couple migrated to Pennsylvania and they and their descendants took part in several Indian and Colonial wars and the two wars with Great Britain. This noble family is closely related to the Seviers and Cormacks of Tennessee and many of the bluest-blood Virginia families. mark Twain was proud of his relation to ÒDavyÓ Crockett. A man with 25 generations of such blood back of him would naturally take to education, polish and good company, regardless of his lack of schooling and previous poverty. Even intellectual Boston warmed to this knight of the forest and many educated Northerners regarded him as fit Presidential timber.J. David Crockett was born in or near Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and during the great battle there, his grandfatherÕs fortune was literally swept away by gunfire. However, young DavidÕs parents brought him to Texas and the year before the Civil War and as a boy he herded sheep near the present site of Ennis in Ellis county. He grew to manhood during the decade following the Civil War - the hardest 10 years Texas ever saw - and at 25 was attending Marvin College (now defunct) at Waxahachie, where in 1878 he listened to a commencement sermon preached by Rev. R.H. Adair, then Methodist pastor at Hillsboro, and father of the writer.CrockettÕs first appointment was in Comanche county where j.W. Cotrell, later famous as a Texas Ranger, was one of his stewards. The young preacher turned the elder Cotrell out fo the church for drinking and swearing but just the same the younger man gave Crockett a fine pair of trousers to wear at his wedding. The young ministerÕs salary was but $130 that year so he went ahead and married the daughter of Rev. J.W. Hunton who had taken (the later) Bishop Seth Ward into the church. The next year as a married man, Crockett collected $250 salary and never at any time drew as much as $900 a year salary although the couple raised eight children. But he sold books, medicine, organs and taught vocal music to supplement the salary.After conference was over the Crockett into their two-horse buggy and drove away to the new appointment at Williams Ranch near Goldthwaite in Mills county now stands, only Mills county did not exist. And oh what a place for a young preacher to bring his new-made wife, for that place was so tough that a two-mile jog was put into the Brownwood-Lampasas road so as to get that much farther from the ranch. In quick succession soon after they moved there came two horrible murders, and then Crockett met Òthe bully of the townÓ who came to break up the meeting, and tamed him so well that good order thereafter prevailed and as a reward for the job Crockett got a fine suit of clothes. They nearly got a mule drowned while crossing the Colorado to hold a meeting, but a cowboy roped and saddle-horned him to the bank. This ranch for years was the center of operations of the dreadful Higgins-Horrell vendetta which took such a toll of life and property.Next year Crockett was sent to the Leon Valley, then famous all over Texas for murders, robberies and lynchings. Temple, then new and rather inclined to be tough on account of its large railroad, cowboy and immigration population, but Crockett held a meeting, made converts, and so started Methodist in that rich and populous Bell county city. Crockett had many famous people for members, and converts, among them being Lych Davidson, Jim Ferguson, and Miram Wallace, now known as ÒMa.Ó Crockett started Methodist at Temple, Troy, Gosbeck and many other places now known as Ògood appointments.Ó He is not the kind of man to talk about sacrifices he has made for the cause of Christ, but says if he could start life over again he would rather start as a Òcircuit riderÓ than any other calling he could choose.One of his Bell county, members was J.W. Caldwell, killed by a cave in of a buried treasure hole, but as a young man just after the fall of the Alamo he helped carry the Òbabe of the AlamoÓ and its mother to a place of safety. on his Breckenridge circuit, one of the local preachers, James P. Stevenson, was believed to have preached the first Protestant sermon in Texas. One murderer, a dancing master, any number of atheists, and two men drunk, he numbers among his converts who Òstuck.Ó One of the drunks was a depot agent about to lose his job but soon after his conversion he was promoted, and his pay nearly doubled.And this is just a start, for time and space forbid a full account of this remarkable manÕs memories of his younger days spent in fighting evil in one of the wildest and most romantic regions on the face of the earth. But if popular interest warrants it we will have more about Rev. Crockett in a future issue of the American, so if you like it, just say so with phone calls and postal cards, and weÕll try to do better next time.