April AtoZ American Revolution

Posted on April 3, 2018 by Lori Crane

a2z-h-small April AtoZ Challenge

I’m late, but I’m here. I’ll get caught up the next couple days!

A is for American Revolution

IMG_20180403_184649654 I’m a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution under my grandfather Joseph Culpepper, who fought in the state of Georgia.

I am also descended from the following patriots, whose supplemental memberships I have not applied for as yet. The more I research, the more expensive my membership gets. Ouch. The following are my 5^th, 6^th, and sometimes 7^th great grandfathers:

William Crane (Crain)

William served in Pennsylvania. He was born in Ulster, Ireland in 1704 and came to America in 1732. He and his wife Jean are buried in old Hanover Presbyterian Church cemetery in Pennsylvania.

Isaac Weldon Sr

Isaac was born in 1745 in North Carolina and served in Richmond County, Georgia. His family was originally from Nottinghamshire, England and came to America in the early 1600s. At the time of the revolution, he was a 5^th generation American.

Amos C Windham

Amos was born in 1741 in South Carolina. He served as a lieutenant, captain, and major in South Carolina. I’ve traced the Windhams back to Virginia in the early 1600s, but am not sure where they came from. I suspect England.

Robert Farish

Robert was born in 1738 in Virginia. His grandfather migrated to America in 1714 from Cumberland, England. He served in Virginia.

Samuel Truss

Sam was born in 1735 in North Carolina and served in the North Carolina Militia. His grandfather was from Oxfordshire, England.

George Williamson

George served in Pennsylvania. He was born in 1748 in Pennsylvania, and his father was an immigrant from Armagh, Ireland.

Thomas Hambrick

Thomas served in Virginia. He was just a young boy at the time, born in Virginia around 1765.

Reuben Dollar

Reuben served in South Carolina. He was born in South Wales in 1755. His father died there in 1770, which may be the reason he ended up in America.

John Clearman

John was born in 1736 in Germany and arrived on the shores of NY in 1761. He served in NY and is buried in New Jersey.

John Swearingen

John was born in 1745 in South Carolina and served there. He died at the very beginning of the war at the age of 30.

Joseph Culpepper (my official patriot for the DAR)

Joseph was born in 1765 in Anson, North Carolina. He enlisted as a private in the 3^rd South Carolina Rangers Regiment. He died in 1816 in Georgia.

William Henry Blanks

William was born in Virginia in 1755 and served there. He died at the age of 68 in Georgia.

John Hill

John was born in North Carolina in 1750 and served there. He died in Georgia in 1817 at the age of 67.

Thomas Young

Thomas was born in Virginia in 1747. He served in North Carolina.

John B Rice

John was born in Bute County, North Carolina in 1755. He served for fifteen months as a Private and enlisted again for another three months as a Lieutenant in the North Carolina troops. He died in Nash, North Carolina at the age of 81.

James Rodgers

James was born in 1732 and grew up in Virginia. By the time of the war, he was living in Tennessee but there are records of some children being born in Virginia. He was in his mid-forties when the war began and I understand that he assisted the troops with shelter and food. I don’t believe he took part in being a soldier, but he is recognized as a patriot of the revolution, none the less.

Captain James Scott

James was born in Virginia around 1728. He served in Virginia. He died about age 71 in South Carolina. With a name like Scott, he’s probably from, oh, I don’t know, Scotland maybe.

William Howington

William was born in 1750 in North Carolina and served there. He died in Edgecombe, North Carolina around 1828 in his late 70s.

There are so many more I haven’t had the time to research, along with numerous uncles. I guess that makes me about as American as apple pie, with a little German shortbread, and a big shot of Irish whiskey.

07-9103A Thank you, gentlemen, and may you rest in peace. ♥

On This Day in 1852

Posted on March 19, 2018 by Lori Crane

A quiet life. An almost uneventful life. A nondescript life.

On this day in 1852, Martha Jane “Mattie” Mercer was born to Amos Windham Mercer and Amanda Sylvester. She was somewhere in the middle of a dozen kids, 8 boys and 4 girls. Her father was 52 years of age when she was born. Her mother was 23. Hmmm. The family made their home in Clarke County, Mississippi, and Mattie lived her entire life there.

At the age of 21, she married Andrew Jackson “Jack” Crane on 4 Dec 1873 and had three children: Ella Jane 1874, Minnie Lee 1878, and my great grandpa Amos Bolivar 1881.

There is nothing outstanding in the genealogy records – no loss of large numbers of family members due to war or disease, no records of still-born infants, no legal records of incarceration, no newspaper clippings, no higher education, nothing out of the ordinary. It seems she lived a quiet life in the same small town she was born into.

After 32 years of marriage, her husband died in 1905 at the age of 53. The subsequent census records show she lived with her daughter Ella, where she remained for the rest of her life. She never remarried. She died at the age of 93 on 28 Nov 1945.

She is laid to rest at McGowan Chapel Cemetery in Clarke County, Mississippi, just down the road from her home. Even her tombstone is nondescript, only referring to her at Mrs. A. J. Crane.

Rest in peace, Grandma Mattie.

mercer martha jane mattie mercer

This story brought to you by On This Day: A Perpetual Calendar for Family Genealogy

On This Day in 1828

Posted on March 17, 2018 by Lori Crane

On This Day in 1828, my 3rd great grandpa Jeremiah William Crane Jr was born.

He was born March 17 to Jeremiah William Crane Sr and Mary “Polly” Weldon in Alabama. He was the last of eight children who were born between 1798 and 1828. And, yes, they were celebrating St Patrick’s day around the world on that day. Places like New York and Boston were already hosting parades.

But, I stray from the story…

During the turn of the century in Alabama, the Creek Indians were in the middle of a civil war, as well as fighting off the white men who were encroaching on Indian territory. The War of 1812 in the North was a fight between the British and the Americans, battling over waterways and trade routes. The War of 1812 in the South was between the Americans trying to expand their newly formed nation and the Indians who were armed by the British. The Mississippi Militia was formed across the Mississippi Territory to battle the Indians. At the time the Mississippi Territory encompassed all of Mississippi and Alabama. Alabama didn’t become a state until 1819.

In 1830, the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek was signed and was the first step in the removal of the Indians from the area. The American government began selling parcels of land quickly to get the area settled, and people soon began moving west from Alabama into Mississippi. At the time of the treaty, Jeremiah was only two, but his family had certainly witnessed great war and great change before he came along. His father had actually enlisted and served in Carson’s Regiment in the Mississippi Militia in 1814, but he only served for two months.

I assume things in the area calmed down a bit by the time Jeremiah became a man. I don’t have an official record of his marriage, but he was married to Sarah Frances Grimes, who was about four years his senior. They had their first child, a daughter whom they named Francis, in Alabama in 1847. Jeremiah was 18.

The whole family moved across the border into Mississippi during the next year, and this is where Jeremiah and Sarah’s second daughter, Emily, was born in 1848. Their third child was a son, George William Crane, in 1850, and all were residents of Clarke County, Mississippi in the 1850 census.

In 1852, they had my 2nd great grandfather Andrew Jackson “Jack” Crane, and in 1856, a daughter, Jerry Elizabeth.

After the birth of Jerry Elizabeth, there are no further records of Jeremiah.

The 1860 census shows Sarah living alone with the children- Francis, Emily, GW, Jack, and Jerry, but there is no husband listed. Above and below their names on the census are many of Jeremiah’s brothers with wives and families, and Jeremiah’s parents. They are all listed as farmers. Next to Sarah’s name, the occupation space is blank.

I don’t know what happened to Jeremiah, but he died somewhere between the ages of 28 and 32. The 1860 census states his wife was now 36 and his children were between the ages of 4 and 13.

Whatever happened to him, I hope he’s resting in peace.

Happy birthday, Grandpa Jeremiah William Crane!

forgetmenots

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Samuel Dawson Grimes – oldest citizen of the county at 110?

Posted on February 10, 2016 by Lori Crane

My 4th great grandfather was Samuel Dawson Grimes. The line from me to him is my father Andy Crane, my grandfather Frank Crane, my great Amos Crane, my 2nd great Jack Crane, and my 3rd greats Jeremiah Crane and Sarah Frances Grimes.

I haven’t researched my Crane side very much, and certainly haven’t ventured into the wives on that side of the family, but today I found something pretty interesting.

Grandpa Grimes was born around 1757 in North Carolina. There are a few records indicating he participated in the American Revolution, but I haven’t been able to verify that (yet). He married Darcass Wall in 1788 and the two had seven children. At some point, the family moved to Brundidge, Pike County, Alabama, where he died in 1857.

brundidge_al

Since I don’t know his exact birth date, I find the following interesting. It’s from Find A Grave.

A newspaper article from the Troy Independent American, published on 22 April 1857, as transcribed by Susie K. Senn in her book “Newspaper Abstracts from Pike County, Alabama 1855-1861”:

The Oldest Man in Pike – Samuel D. Grimes, aged 110 years, and the oldest citizen of this county, died a few days since at his residence. Mr. Grimes enjoyed almost uninterrupted health up to a year or so before his death. For a great part of his life he was a member of the Baptist Church, and died as he lived, an honest, upright citizen and Christian.

110??? Wow! That’s pretty considerable for the times.

I also found his probate records – all thirty hard-to-read handwritten pages. He seemed to be in debt to various local gentlemen, including the local merchant for the purchase of a pair of shoes, a handkerchief, five yards of cotton, and eight yards of calico for $3.45, which was used to “spruce up” his negro woman. His indebtedness was just over $1100.00, and his belongings were auctioned off for $98.00, most being bought by his grown children including his rifle for $1.30. There must have also been a sizable amount of land, as the debtors were paid and there was still plenty to leave to his children and his twenty grandchildren.

The 1840 census shows two adults in his household who couldn’t read or write. It also shows one slave, whom I assume is the “negro woman” mentioned above.

The 1850 census mentions that he is currently 93 years old, living with his daughter, so I think when he died in 1857 he was only 100, but the reporter from the Troy Independent American wasn’t very good at “cipherin’.”

union springs Grandpa Grimes is laid to rest in Union Spring Primitive Baptist Church Cemetery in Brundidge, Pike County, Alabama, where the 2010 census says the population is just over 2000 people, 33% living below the poverty line. I can imagine how small and poor it was in the 1800s when Grandpa Grimes lived there.

52 Ancestors #32 – 32

Posted on August 6, 2015 by Lori Crane

This challenge is set forth by No Story Too Small and this week’s theme is “32.”

For those of you don’t do genealogy, you have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great grandparents, 16 2nd great-grandparents, and 32 3rd great-grandparents. The family tree grows exponentially.

This generation of 32 people in my past have been on my mind a lot lately due to the feeding frenzy of liberals trying to erase the history of the Confederacy. Personally, I don’t have a problem with the Confederate flag, but I understand that hate groups have adopted it and it may no longer represent the South throughout the rest of the United States. Perhaps it is time for a discussion about where it should and should not be flown.

I do, however, have a problem with the hatred that these history-erasing people, including some of my very own friends, are spewing and the way vandals are destroying flags, graves, statues, and monuments. You’ll see why in a moment. I’ve decided to not write about only one of my 32 grandmas and grandpas, but all of them.

Jeremiah William Crane, born 1828 Alabama

Sarah Frances Grimes, born 1824 Alabama

Amos Windham Mercer, born 1799 South Carolina

Amanda Merron, born 1829 Florida

Archibald White, born 1808 North Carolina

Elizabeth B Farrish, born 1824 Alabama

Leonard H Morrow, born 1812 Tennessee

Silvia Truss, born 1814 North Carolina

Robert Theodore Pickett, born 1836 Mississippi

Lucy Ann Rackley, born 1834 Alabama

William Thomas Fisher, born 1819 Alabama*

Elizabeth Ann Butler, born 1834 North Carolina

Green Keene, born 1834 South Carolina

Sarah Tabitha unknown, born 1833 Alabama

William Lafayette Brown, born 1836 Mississippi*

Sarah Ann Elvira Dollar, born 1836 Alabama

Rev. Joseph M. Culpepper, born 1822 Georgia**

Nancy Yarbrough, born 1822 Georgia

William Henry Blanks II, born 1800 Georgia

Nancy Narcissus Young, born 1800 North Carolina

Rice Benjamin Carpenter, born 1828 Alabama**

Mary Ann Rodgers, born 1828 Mississippi

George Washington Spencer, born 1829 Alabama*

Nancy Virginia “Ginny” Holdcroft, born 1839 Mississippi

James C Howington, born 1823 North Carolina*

Amelia Ann Elizabeth Smith, born 1827 Alabama

Of the six missing names; two were in Dublin, Ireland, their son (my 2nd great) arrived on the shores of Florida in 1861; two were Choctaw Indians in the Choctaw Territory of Mississippi but I don’t know their names; and the final two are unaccounted for as I have not been able to trace them, but their daughter (my 2nd great), was born in Alabama in 1848, so they certainly lived in the South.

Notice anything?? Yes, 26 (28 if you count the Choctaws, 30 if you count the folks living in Alabama) of my 32 3rd great-grandparents were born in the Confederate States, and EVERY ONE of my 16 2nd greats lived there also. From the records I have: six of the men above fought with the Confederacy (noted by *) – two died in battle (noted by **). Three of my 2nd greats (sons of the above) fought with the Confederacy, not to mention the countless brothers and other sons who served and sometimes died. Mary Ann Rodgers named above lost three brothers, three brothers-in-law, and her husband.

Off the top of my head, eight to ten of these families were in America during the Revolution, fighting for freedom – the freedom to say and do as you please. You have the freedom to be “offended” by the Confederate flag. It was given to you by MY ancestors who have been struggling since the 1600s to build a great country, even before it was a country.

Here’s where I have a problem. You don’t have the freedom nor the “right” to desecrate Confederate graves, statues, monuments, Confederate cemeteries, or the flags within their boundaries, and you certainly don’t have the freedom to take away my heritage. You will never accomplish that. You will never change how I feel about the men who fought in the Confederate Army. They are AMERICAN soldiers. They will always have my deepest respect for being willing to die for what they believed in, whether you agree with their cause or not. My heritage will not be erased. It will not disappear. Do you want to know why? Because I will fight to keep it alive in my family, my community, my descendants, and my heart. I will fight with the same veracity shown by my grandparents when they fought for their freedom. After all, their blood runs in my veins, too.

52 Ancestors #20 Horace Pappy Crane

Posted on May 14, 2015 by Lori Crane

This challenge is set forth by No Story Too Small,

and this week’s challenge is “Black Sheep.”

This topic made me laugh as the first person to come to mind was my great uncle Horace “Pappy” Crane. Uncle Horace was born 2 February 1905 to Amos Bolivar Crane and Mary Elizabeth “Minnie” White in Lauderdale County, Mississippi. He was the second of six children. In the following photograph, he is on the bottom far left. The boy on the far right is my grandfather Andrew Franklin Crane.

Uncle Horace’s claim to fame was driving car #58 in Nascar and surviving a roll-over crash at Daytona in 1960.

This funny black sheep story about him has been pieced together from various relatives and may be a little fuzzy as I have no documentation of the events.

Uncle Horace lived in a modest home in Mississippi and sold off the acres of his property to a builder. The sale did not include his own home, of course. The builder constructed beautiful, expensive homes on the land and eventually came to Uncle Horace to ask when he was going to rebuild. Uncle Horace didn’t realize it at the time, but he had apparently signed a paper stating he would tear down his shack and build a larger, more expensive home in its place. Well, he didn’t have the money to build a new home, so he figured he could make it happen through insurance money and he burnt his own home down.

The arrest happened when the arson investigators found the home was set ablaze with the same mixture of fuel he used to race with. Ooops.

Fortunately for him, he only received probation for the arson, but a while later, he got into a drunken fight in a bar and had a pistol on him – which was against his probation. He spent time behind bars for violating probation.

Uncle Horace was the family character everyone has stories about, and the above tale is just the tip of the iceberg. He was very loved. He died 6 February 1985 and is laid to rest at Pleasant Hill Cemetery in Zero, Lauderdale County, Mississippi.

52 Ancestors #11 Thomas Weldon

Posted on March 12, 2015 by Lori Crane

This challenge is set forth by No Story Too Small, and this week’s theme is “Luck of the Irish.”

The early 1500s in Ireland was characterized as “His Majesty’s Irish enemies.” The Irish were repressed by England, yet they managed to maintain their own language, social system, customs, and laws. Undoubtedly, life was hard five hundred years ago as many Irish lived off the land, mostly as shepherds, but if you love the land as much as I do, you might find this the luckiest of lifestyles.

Most of my ancestors hail from England, but there are a few from Ireland. One is my 14th great grandfather, Thomas Weldon, or Veldon as it was originally known. My 4th great grandpa, Jeremiah Crane, married Mary Polly Weldon who was born in Georgia. Her family came from Delaware, via Massachusetts in the early 1600s, and England in the 1500s. The Veldons originally came to Ireland with the Anglo-Normans in the 12th century and settled in “The Pale” which includes the County of Meath, just north of Dublin. Thomas was born in 1480 in Meath and died there at the age of 73 in 1553. I think that’s a considerable age considering the times. Even though his life was undeniably hard, imagine the sites, smells, and sounds he was surrounded by every single day of his life. Below are a few photos of the area as it looks today. I say Thomas Weldon was lucky indeed.

On This Day in 1911

Posted on December 3, 2014 by Lori Crane

On This Day in 1911, Amos Bolivar Crane Jr. was born to Amos Sr. and Minnie White Crane in Mississippi. He had three older siblings: Frank 8 (my grandfather), Horace 6, and Evelyn 1. There would be two more children to follow: Tommy and Minnie Ellen.

Amos is seated to the right of his mother in the front row. The names left to right front row: Tommy, Amos Sr. Minnie, grandchild in lap, Amos Jr, Minnie Ellen. Left to right back row: Friend of Evelyn’s, Evelyn, Horace, Horace’s wife, Frank (my grandfather), Frank’s 1st wife Willie.

Amos was in the United States Navy. This photo was taken in the 1930s at the San Diego Naval Training Center. He died at the young age of 29 on 22 Nov 1941 and is buried at Pleasant Hill Cemetery, Zero, Lauderdale County, MS with his siblings. His parents are buried at McGowan Chapel Cemetery in Harmony, MS. He married Ardessa Pierce in 1939. They were only married two years before he was killed in a car accident. They had no children.

This post brought to you by On This Day.

On This Day in 1905

Posted on August 25, 2014 by Lori Crane

On This Day in 1905, my 2nd great grandfather, Andrew Jackson Crane, died.

Jack, as he was known, was born January 8, 1852 to Jeremiah William Crane and Sarah Frances Grimes in Clarke County, Mississippi. He had one brother and three sisters. When he was 21, on December 4, 1873, he married Martha Jane “Mattie” Mercer in Clarke County and had three children: Ella Jane, Minnie Lee, and my great grandpa, Amos Bolivar.

To understand his generation, one must remember Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860, Mississippi seceded from the Union in 1861, and the country went to war. Jack was an impressionable youth during this period and probably watched many of his neighbors go off to fight with the 37th Mississippi Infantry. One must wonder if he was a frightened young boy, hiding behind his mother’s hooped skirts, or a feisty lad, anxious to grow up and go too. As with most of the South, cotton was the main economy of the area, and railroads had been built during the 1850s to transport it, but in 1864, General Sherman’s troops marched through the area and destroyed nearly everything, including the railroad tracks. Once the war was over, the tracks were repaired, but the farmers no longer had slaves to work the fields and cotton harvests diminished. Somehow, through the next 40 years of reconstruction, the economy grew quickly. Homes began adding electricity, running water, and paved streets. People weren’t driving automobiles yet, as the Model T wasn’t introduced until 1908, but the wagon riders were now subjected to less dust, and the roads didn’t wash away with heavy rains. The population of nearby Meridian tripled from 1870 to 1885, doubled again by 1898, and doubled again by 1906. Jack lived through a horrific childhood of war and change, but in his later years, he witnessed amazing growth and technology. I wonder if the electricity reached his house before he died.

Jack passed away at the young age of 53 on August 25, 1905 and is laid to rest near his home at McGowan Chapel Cemetery in Harmony, Mississippi. His wife, Mattie, didn’t die until November 28, 1945 at the age of 93. She never remarried.

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October Ancestry Challenge – Linda Faye Culpepper

Posted on October 30, 2013 by Lori Crane

October Ancestry Challenge 2013

23 days – 23 posts – 23 ancestors. I’d like to thank the folks who participated in the challenge. It has been a pleasure getting to know your ancestors. This will be the last installment in the challenge on my page, and thank goodness, it’s been…well…a challenge to come up with 23 ancestors. I’m posting a little early as I’m participating in a Halloween Blog Hop tomorrow. Stop by tomorrow for a creepy story and a chance to win a free Kindle of “The Legend of Stuckey’s Bridge.” Now, without further ado…

Ancestor #23 – Linda Faye Culpepper

I saved the best for last. ♥

This beautiful woman was my mother. She was born in 1944 in Meridian, Mississippi to Earl Culpepper and Ina Inez Burke (Ancestor #7). She had only one sister and no brothers.

She married my daddy (Ancestor #22) on August 15, 1960 when she was only 15 years old (the same age she was in this photograph). She said her father tried to discourage her from marrying at such a young age, but the woman I knew was always rebellious. When I was a baby, we moved to Tennessee for a while, but by 1966, the marriage was over, and we moved back to Mississippi and lived with her parents.

While she was a young working mother, she had a woman babysit me and eventually met his son. They married and we moved to Michigan. She went to school to become a nurse and worked for thirteen years in the cardiac unit of the local hospital.

The morning of November 17, 2000, she fell from the second floor balcony of her home when the railing broke. She suffered greatly from seven broken ribs, three broken vertebrae, a ruptured spleen, and a broken arm. After months of fighting, her body gave up and she died July 11, 2001.

She is buried at Resurrection Cemetery in Clinton Township, MI in the Angel Mausoleum.

Rest in peace, momma. I miss you every day.

Lori Crane

award-winning author. musician. cute shoes.

Category Archives: Crane Family