USA > South Carolina > Marion County > A history of Marion county, South Carolina, from its earliest times to the present, 1901 > Part 14
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went through life in a hurry. His younger brother, Wm. H. Crawford, grew up and married a Miss Durant, sister of Rev. H. H. Durant, of the South Carolina Conference of the South- ern Methodist Church; he married, 10th February, 1840, the same day of Queen Victoria's marriage to Prince Albert. Captain Crawford started out in life with fine prospects; he went into a large mercantile business at Marion, in partnership with his brother-in-law, D. J. McDonald, who had had some training for such business-a man of push and enterprise, but lacking in business judgment. The firm seemed to do well for a few years and then began to go down, and finally failed alto- gether, and Captain Crawford's whole property was swept out, and he with his family were left penniless. McDonald emi- grated to Arkansas, and was said to have built up again; but Captain Crawford remained poor to the day of his death; he lived in Marion until three or four years ago, when he moved to Georgia, and died there about two years ago, eighty years of age. Captain Crawford was a good man, but the reverses to which he had been subjected soured his disposition, and he became apathetic as to all mankind; he left two sons, George and William, who are the only hope of perpetuating the name in that branch of the Crawford family. George Crawford is married and has children, whether sons or daughters, is un- known to the writer ; William is yet single. The connexion is yet large, but the name, like many others, may become extinct at least in that branch of the family, in another generation or two. What changes are wrought in one hundred and sixty years! The first James Crawford married a second time, and had a daughter, Sallie, who became the wife of the late Barfield Moody, a prominent man in his day in Marion, of whom more may be said hereinafter. Recurring to the late Chapman J. Crawford, it is proper to say that he was elected to the lower House of the Legislature in 1844, as hereinbefore stated, and again in 1846, and served two terms. In 1852, he was a candidate for the Senate against Dr. Robert Harllee, and after a very heated campaign, he was beaten by 171 majority, and, like Horace Greeley in 1872, did not survive the campaign more than a month. It was thought and said by some that his defeat killed him or contributed to his death; he was a very ambitious man.
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We have traced oue branch of the family of old John Craw- ford, who was one of the first settlers at Sandy Bluff (after- wards called Solomon's Landing, and perhaps later called Bird's Landing). Old John Crawford had three sons, James, John and Hardy. We have traced it through James, the eld- est; of John and Hardy's posterity we know not how they ran. There have been other Crawfords here, but whether from John or Hardy, or both, we can't say ; for instance, James, called Cype, lived upon and owned the grove lands, now owned by the estates of Governor Ellerbe and James G. Hasel- den; Cype Crawford died there, back in the '40's; never mar- ried. He had a brother, Willis Crawford, who married Sallie Bethea, and raised a large family, and died in 1851, in what is now Bethea Township; his sons were James, Hardy B., Thomas C., Willis G., William and Gibson G. Crawford; his daughters were Rhoda and Margaret. Of Willis Crawford's sons, James died before he was grown; Hardy B. married a Miss Platt, and went to Mississippi years ago, and is yet living, and is said to be doing well; Thomas C., well known and now living in Florence County, and one of the best of her citizens, married, first, a Miss Morgan, of Charleston, who died a year or two after marriage, childless; he married again, 16th May, 1866, Miss Carrie R. McPherson, in West Marion (now Florence), where Thomas C. Crawford has ever since resided, and where he now resides .* His wife died suddenly about a month ago, childless. Willis G. Crawford was a doctor; mar- ried a Miss Morgan, of Charleston, a sister of his brother Thomas' wife. Not long after his marriage he was on a fox chase, and galloping his horse through the woods, his horse bogged down and threw the doctor, whose gun was lying across his front, and in the fall of his horse and himself, the gun was discharged and he was killed; he left no child. Wil- liam Crawford died unmarried, some years after the war. Gib- son G. Crawford married a daughter of the late Colonel James R. Bethea; the fruits of the marriage were two sons, James G. and Samuel B., and two daughters, Jessie and Mary; the sons are now young men. James G. married, a week or two ago, a Miss Evans, of Society Hill; the daughter, Jessie, married
*Thomas C. Crawford died since writing the above.
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W. Ellis Bethea, who lives at Latta; Samuel B. and Mary are yet single, and live at Latta with their father, G. G. Crawford. Of the two daughters of Willis Crawford, Rhoda married Henry Easterling, about 1850, and he was killed in the war; the widow, Rhoda, is also dead; she left three sons, Willis C., Thomas and Frank; and two daughters, Ella and Florence. The three sons are married-Willis C. to a Miss Legette; they have a family, some of them grown and married. J. Frank Easterling married a Miss Watson, daughter of the late Samuel Watson. Thomas Easterling went to Florida, where he mar- ried, has children, and is Sheriff of the county in which he lives. The Easterling boys are men of character and doing fairly well. Of the two daughters of Henry Easterling and his wife, Rhoda, Ella married Leroy Bethea, a son of Captain D. W. Bethea; they live in Marlborough, and are doing well ; I know not of their family. Florence Easterling, the other daughter, married Robert McPherson, in West Marion; she is dead ; left one child, a son. Margaret Crawford, the young- est daughter of Willis Crawford, never married; she died a few years ago. "Cype" and Willis Crawford had another brother-think he was a brother-named Gadi. The writer never saw him; he died unmarried. There was another family of Crawfords, descendants of old John, but in a different branch of the family-Hal Crawford and a brother, named John, and two sisters, the wife of Cross Roads Henry Berry, and Mercy Bass, wife of Joseph Bass (senior). Berry's wife was named Charity. Hal Crawford married and went West ; John Crawford never did marry. I suppose they are both dead. "Cype" and Willis Crawford had a sister, named Rhoda, who became the wife of the late Hugh Godbold ; she has been dead some years, and left no children. There were two Crawford brothers from Alabama of the same family, named John H. Crawford and Dr. James Crawford; they were here during the '40's. John H. married a Sarah Ann Moody, oldest daughter of the late Barfield Moody. They went back to Ala- bama. The wife of John H. died, leaving a son, named Albert, but was called Dock Crawford; he came back to this State and lived here for years ; was a merchant at Marion, and was County Auditor for a while, but resigned the office. It
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was said he went crazy or became a lunatic, and in a lucid in- terval went or started back to Georgia, and died, it was said, crazy in the woods. He was the nephew of our fellow-citizen, E. J. Moody.
MURFEE .- Bishop Gregg, p. 71, says : "Of the Murfees there were four brothers, Moses, Malachi, Maurice and Michael. Of these, Malachi became the wealthiest. He is said to have given one hundred slaves to each of three sons; he died before the Revolution. Maurice had a son bearing his name, who was destined to occupy a prominent place in the subsequent history of the Pee Dee." Maurice Murfee, of the second gen- eration, was a Colonel in the Revolution, and did valiant ser- vice for his country. He was an ardent Whig, of daring and reckless courage ; he was a man of violent passion, so much so, as to lead him to the commission of violent and brutal acts ; he killed his uncle, Gideon Gibson, in a fit of anger, and for which he had no valid excuse or even palliation; he was a violent man through life, and finally died in prison for debt. Malachi Murfee, of the second generation, was a Captain in the Revolution ; he was wounded and escaped at Bass' Mill in a fight with the Tories; another account says he was killed. He was a first cousin of Colonel Maurice Murfee. The Mur- fee family must have been numerous, not only in the name, but also in its connections. There were four brothers of them to start with; they all had descendants, males as well as females. They intermarried with the best families in both ways, males and females, and by the third and fourth genera- tions must have been numerous. We have no account of their emigration to other parts, and yet in a period of one hundred and fifty years, the name (from that family) has entirely dis- appeared, and their connections are unknown. The last one of them has disappeared. Mrs. Arline Mooneyham, nee Mur- fee or Murphy, died childless, about ten years ago, in the Pee Dee slashes ; she was the last; she had no children or known relations to inherit her lands-some 600 or 800 acres in the slashes ; she made a last will and gave all she had to Dr. J. E. Jarnigan; he attended her in her last illness. Such are the results of the action of time. Change and decay pervade all
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things terrestrial. The present actors in the drama of life, in a few years will have passed into the forever beyond, and their successors will not know, in many instances, that a particular one lived.
BERRY .- Another settler at Sandy Bluff (Solomon's Land -- ing), mentioned by Bishop Gregg, was a Berry. He does not say what his name was, or anything else about him. The writer takes it for granted that he is the progenitor of the ex- tensive family by that name, in the county, and such suppo- sition is not in conflict with the traditions of that family, but rather corroborate it. The writer a few years ago, and not long before her death, talked with old Mrs. Fama Tart, who died in her ninety-fourth year, and who, as she said, was the grand-daughter of the first Berry in this region of country, and she said his name was Andrew Berry-a small man in stature; he settled at Sandy Bluff, on Pee Dee River. How long he remained or who he married, is not known; but, according to Mrs. Tart's statement, he had and raised a family of ten children, six sons and four daughters. From the Berry family and its connections is derived much of our citizenship. The sons of old Andrew were six. Henry and Stephen were both known to the writer. Henry was a man of family, and had lands granted to him on Little Reedy Creek in 1786; he married a Miss Hays, and settled on said Reedy Creek; he raised two sons, Dennis and Slaughter, and four daughters. Dennis and Slaughter married sisters, two daughters of David Miles, an old citizen of upper Marion. Of the four daughters, Elizabeth married Bryant Jones; Fama married Nathan Tart; Martha, called Pattie, married John M. Miles ; and Mary married William Rogers. The father, Henry Berry, was a capital man and intelligent for his day and time; he served as Justice of the Peace for some years, evidenced by his official signature to the probate of deeds for record seen by the writer ; he accumulated a good property for his time; he founded or built the Catfish Baptist Church, not where it now stands, but back from its present location on Little Reedy Creek. In his old age he divided out his property among his children, and then lived among them himself till his death, about 1853 or
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1854; he was over ninety years of age at his death. His brother, Stephen, also lived to a great age-perhaps as old as his brother, Henry. I do not know whom he married; he raised a considerable family, only two sons, and several daughters ; his sons were Henry (known in later times as Cross Roads Henry), and Andrew Stephen Berry; he was a good citizen, an honest man, bore a good character through life, but not as useful a man as was his brother, Henry-perhaps, not so well educated; he died about 1862. Dennis Berry, the old- est son of old Henry, raised only one son, Frank A. Berry, who died childless, a few years ago. Dennis Berry lived to an advanced age, over eighty; he, too, was a Justice of the Peace in his day-but few in his locality competent for such position, and still fewer in his father's day. The second son of old Henry Slaughter, and youngest child, as before stated, married a Miss Miles ; he raised a small family-two sons, Charles and Henry, and two daughters; he and his family removed to Florida in 1854 or 1855. Elizabeth, daughter of old Henry, married Bryant Jones, the father of our fellow-citizen, Henry Jones, and the late F. D. Jones and James E. Jones; the two latter are dead. James E. never married; and two daughters, Nancy and Polly. Fama Berry, who married Nathan Tart, born in 1791, and died in 1884, was a most remarkable woman, physically and mentally. The writer went to see her a year or so before she died; she was very large and corpulent, suppose she weighed 250 or more; she said she had never in her life been sick but little, and had never taken any medicine, except what she prescribed for and could procure for herself; her mental powers were unimpaired and her memory of persons, families and events excelled anything of the kind I ever met with. I wrote her obituary and published it in the "Marion Star" newspaper, soon after her death. She was not sick when she died, as it was told the writer by her son-in-law, Wilson Hays who called in a physician to see her, who said the fat had overgrown the heart so as to prevent its action, and no relief was possible. Fama Tart raised several sons, Enos, James H., H. Tart, Thomas E. and Gadie, and several daughters. The sons are, perhaps, all dead; also the daugh- ters, except Jane, who married Willis Waters, who lives in
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Florence County ; and Wilson Hays' wife. H. H. Tart, who was an excellent and energetic man of high character in his sphere of life, died last year, about seventy-eight years of age. Fama Tart's children and great-grand-children, and even another generation of them, are numerous. Pattie Miles has been dead for years, the third daughter of old Henry. If there are any of her children or grand-children now in the county, it is unknown to the writer, except the widow of H. H. Tart, deceased, and her children and grand-children, all of whom are unknown. Mary, called Polly Rogers, wife of the late William Rogers, has been dead for more than twenty years; she was the youngest daughter of old Henry Berry ; she has several descendants now in the county, to the third and fourth generations. Our good citizens, Philip B. Rogers and Lot B. Rogers, are sons of hers; and of her daughters, Mrs. Mastin Stackhouse, Mrs. D. F. Berry and Mrs. Maggie Ivey are still living. Of the dead and the living they, perhaps, number more than a hundred, among the Hays, Stackhouses, Lewis, Adams, Berrys and others, her descendants are to be found. To trace all from old Andrew down through males and females is and would be an impossibility ; if it could be done, it would run up into thousands. Heretofore in this work the writer has in most cases pursued that course-that is, commencing with the first settler and tracing it down through every branch of the family to the present generation, male and female- which in many instances is very difficult and in some cases impossible, for want of knowledge; but he will have to aban- don that mode for want of space and time, and in a book of the size contemplated, the fourth part could not be told. Andrew Berry, a grand-son of the first Andrew, and brother of Cross Roads Henry, lived to the advanced age of eighty-nine, and died only a few years ago; was a harmless, inoffensive man; raised by two wives several sons and daughters-Captain Stephen F. Berry and Bright Berry by the first marriage- (the latter of whom is now dead, leaving a considerable family, sons and daughters, names unknown), and by the second mar- riage, Henry, Nathan, Joseph and two other sons, nicknamed "Close" and "Tight." Nathan married a daughter of Daniel A. Platt, and died, leaving a son named David. Joseph Berry
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married his brother Nathan's widow, and has a considerable family. Of the brothers, "Close" and "Tight," the writer knows nothing, and can, therefore, say nothing more. An- drew Berry had several daughters, but knows not to whom they married; no doubt but that there is a numerous progeny from Andrew (second) Berry, but they are unknown to the writer. Cross Roads Henry Berry, a grand-son of the first settler, Andrew, and a brother of Andrew, the second, became the most noted of any of the Berry family, except, perhaps, his Uncle Henry, already referred to. He was born January 13th, 1796, and died 9th July, 1876, and was cremated, July IIth, 1876, near his home.
Cross Roads Henry Berry was a man of fine business sense, honest and upright in all his various dealings with his fellow- man; he applied himself strictly to his own business (farm- ing) and succeeded therein, not for show and ostentation at county and State fairs, but for profit. He settled on 150 acres of land, acquired through his wife, Charity Crawford (then unimproved), and with very little means otherwise began life at the Cross Roads, afterwards and yet called Berry's Cross Roads, where he lived and where he spent his whole life, and there and thereabouts made his large property. He entered into no schemes of speculation; he at first acquired slowly but surely ; he took care of what he made and kept adding to it, making it larger and larger year by year; lived well at home, but without ostentation; made most of what he used on his plantation ; he acquired a large landed estate around him, more than ten thousand acres, most of which he deeded to his children before his death; his lands were very valuable; he avoided debt through life; he raised to be grown five sons and three daughters. The sons were Cade, Gewood, Elihu, James and Stephen, all of whom are now dead, except James, who lives on the old homestead of his father. Cade Berry, the old- est son, never married; he died more than twenty-five years ago; Gewood, a graduate of the University of North Carolina, and the only one of the family to whom a collegiate education was given, married Joanna Ellerbe, a daughter of the late John C. Ellerbe, and a sister of the late Captain W. S. Ellerbe; the fruits of this marriage were five sons and a daughter; the
II
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daughter died in childhood, the sons were all raised to be grown. Three of the sons, John H., Edward Burke and Thomas Wickham Berry, are among our best and most re- spected citizens ; the two others, William E. and Ashton, emi- grated West; William E. Berry is dead, leaving a family some- where in the Western States. Ashton lives in Florida, and is doing well, as is said. Elihu Berry married, first, Miss Jane Haselden; and she, after having three children, Sallie, Sue and James H., died. Elihu married, a second time, to Miss Mary Ellen Hays, a daughter of the late John C. Hays, and by her had four daughters and two sons. The sons are E. Lide Berry and Eugene Berry, the latter now a minor; the daughters, Telatha, Emma, Lucy and Leila. Telatha married J. W. Davis, of Marion, removed West, and is now dead, leaving two little daughters, twins, who are now being raised by their Grand-mother Berry; Emma, the next daughter, mar- ried Dow Atkins, who is one of our good citizens; Lucy and Leila are both young girls-one at the Columbia Female Col- lege, the other at Rock Hill. E. Lide Berry, a very worthy young man, is yet single. James Berry, a son of Cross Roads Henry, the only survivor of the family, resides on his father's old homestead, advancing far into life, sixty-seven years of age, a very successful farmer and exemplary citizen; he married Miss Harriett Alford, a daughter of the late Neill Alford, and has raised a large family of sons and daughters. The sons are Robert A., Neil A., Henry, James, Quincy and Downing; the daughters are Telatha, Julia, Florence and Etta-all married, except Florence and Downing. Robert A. and James are
doctors, residing and practicing their professions in Birming- ham, Ala., and are said to be doing well. Robert A. married a Virginia lady, a Miss McChesney; James married a Miss Carpenter, of Charleston; Henry married a Miss Deer, of Marion; Quincy married a Miss Oliver, of Marion, and daughter of Squire D. J. Oliver ; Downing is yet single. Of the daughters of James Berry, Telatha married a Mr. Guy Lovejoy, and is in some of the Western States; Julia married Mr. Ed. R. Hamer, who resides at Little Rock; Miss Etta married a Mr. Drayspring, of Birmingham, Ala .; Miss Flo- rence is yet unmarried. Of Elihu Berry's children by his first
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wife, Jane Haselden, Miss Sallie married Willis Fore; they raised five children, three sons and two daughters. The sons are Linwood, Tracy and Willis. Linwood married a Miss Dudley, of Marlborough; Tracy married a Miss Hays, daughter of our fellow-citizen, H. R. Hays; Willis is yet un- married. Of the two daughters, Janie married James Dudley, of Marlborough ; Rebecca, the younger daughter, married John C. Hays. The second daughter of Elihu, Sue, married our re- spected fellow-citizen, Captain W. B. Evans ; they have several children, sons and daughters, noted among the Evans family. Of the children of Elihu Berry by his first wife, is a son, James H. Berry, one of our energetic and prosperous farmers ; he has been married twice. His first wife was Miss Mollie Stack- house, daughter of the late Colonel E. T. Stackhouse; she died some years ago, leaving seven children; the husband, James H. Berry, married, a second time, a daughter of John H. Davis, of Marion. Of the sons of the late Gewood Berry, John H. married Miss Madge Fore, a daughter of Tracy R. Fore; they have only one child living, a daughter. Edmund Burke mar- ried Miss Mary Manning, daughter of the late Thomas J. Manning ; they have only one child living, a boy, named for his father, Edmund Burke. Thomas Wickham Berry, the youngest son of Gewood Berry, married Miss Tommie Man- ning, a sister of Edmund Burke's wife; they have several children, all girls; they are in the Little Rock community. Stephen Berry, the youngest son of Cross Roads Henry Berry, married Miss Euphemia Watson, a daughter of the late old Isham Watson; Stephen died in about a year after his mar- riage, childless. His widow married the late F. D. Jones, of Marion, and raised a family of five daughters and one son, about whom more may be said hereafter; Mrs. Jones is also dead. Of the daughters of Cross Roads Henry Berry, Mary, the eldest, married Stephen Fore, 20th February, 1845. The writer was one of his best men upon that pleasant occasion. Stephen Fore and wife are both dead; he died 11th March, 1881 ; Mrs. Fore died some four or five years ago; the fruits of their marriage were five daughters and four sons, viz: Flora, Amanda, Florence, Annie and Ida ; the sons are George, Oliver Cromwell, J. Russell and Clarence. Flora, the eldest
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daughter, married James D. Bethea, who survives her, she having died two or three years ago; she left several daughters and three sons, viz: Mary, Blanche, Maude, Clara, Maggie and Leslie, all of whom are grown. Blanche and Maude are married-the former to Dan Dillon, the latter to Chalmers Biggs; the other girls are single. The sons are Kemper, Charles and Lonnie; of these, Kemper, the writer thinks, is married, and is in the city of Washington, in the employ of the government in some of its departments; Charles is about grown; he and his younger brother, Lonnie, remain with their father and unmarried sisters. Amanda, the second daughter of Stephen Fore and wife, Mary, married David S. Allen; she died some years back, and left at her death four girl children, the oldest of whom, Mary, is the wife of John D. Coleman, a very excellent man and worthy citizen ; her three sisters all live with her. D. S. Allen, the father, married a second time ; his wife is the sister of his son-in-law, John D. Coleman. The writer is curious to know what kin the children of D. S. Allen, by his second wife, are to the children of John D. Coleman, the son-in-law of D. S. Allen? The third daughter of Stephen Fore and wife, Mary, Florence by name, married D. McL. Bethea; she died in May last, leaving seven children, six daughters and one son, named James Stephen; the daughters are Estelle, Nellie, Lutie, Annie, Ida and Florence Alline; Nellie, the second daughter, lately married Mr. Maurice Man- ning, a promising young man; the other children are with their father, the youngest about two years old; the son, James Stephen, is about fifteen or sixteen years of age. D. McL. Bethea is a very prosperous man. Annie, the fourth daughter of Stephen Fore, married Willie Watson, son of William Wat- son, deceased; they have ten children, seven sons and three daughters; the sons are Lawton, Julian, Burke, Hoyt, Jasper, Pratt and Memory; the daughters are Nora, Pauline and Alma-all single and live with their parents. The two oldest sons, Lawton and Julian, are in Wake Forrest College, in North Carolina. Ida, the fifth daughter of Stephen Fore, married Mr. Emerson M. Duffie, at Marion, who is a genius in machinery, and is the owner of the extensive iron works in the town of Marion ; he is not only a useful man in his profes-
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