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Stories and Family Tidbits

Parts of this first story was sent to be by Barbara Chappell Ridley:

The Crains were indeed a wild bunch. I guess some of us still are! Jesse Wilson Crane or Crain was a mover and shaker in his time, and knew how to make money. He would go to the courthouse to see who had lost their land due to unpaid taxes. He also owned or ran the Poor House. That's how the eldest daughter Martha Ann Crain Neal Freeman (Mattie) met and married John Freeman. He was farming next door to the Poor House at Itasca in Hill County Texas. She was a beautiful young widow with a small son named John Neal. Click here to see a photo of Mattie and John Freeman.

Mattie was said to have ground corn by the fireplace and practice the Cherokee ways of her mother Mary Jane Gosnell Crain. There is some dispute as to the Cherokee blood. Some say that Jesse Wilson Crane just wanted a part of the Indian lands that were being awarded to the Cherokee descendants. Mattie and her granddaughter Addie say that their step-mother Matilda threw them away. Mary Jane Gosnell died not long after Clara was born and before Jesse Wilson Crane had the children apply to the Dawes Commission for the Cherokee papers.

Lots of people hid their Cherokee heritage due to the way they were treated and for fear they would be forced to live on the reservations. Who can blame them? The Trail of Tears was a terrible burden on many families.

This next story was sent to me by Karen Crain Harris:

Our Great Grandpa William Jefferson Crain was a real critter from all accounts. Uncle Leon said he wasn't so awfully tall, not as tall as Henry Lee Crain, but he had really broad shoulders and was near sighted, squinted when looking off in a distance. He was a horse trader to boot.

He was close to one of Grandma Emma Lee Higginbotham's brothers or uncles, I can't remember which. But I think his name was Johnny Higginbotham. Johnny would tell the story that the two of them went up to a coral where they were braking broncs. There was one horse that no one had been able to stay on.

W. J. as he was called, bet $1 to the crowd that he could ride that bronc, and not only that but he'd put Johnny up on the horse with him backward to hold the horses tail up and make him real mad. Well, he no sooner put out the challenge than he had a stack of $1 bills to cover on his bet. He crawled up on the bronc as they held it, eyes covered, and Johnny up on in back, double, holding that horse's tail up over its back, and they rode that bronc and won the money.

Johnny would finish the story by saying that's the last time I let him get me up on a horse with him, he near got me killed! After I heard the story, I consulted with a vet about it. He laughed and said my Great Grandpa was a con man. First the horse was already tired, second they put double weight on it, and third, holding the tail up over the back somewhat restricts the horse's movement by obstructing the spinal nerves...that is how they castrate calves without putting them to sleep...hold the tail hard up over the back, they can't even kick!

How about a Family Secret?

Unknown to me until I began searching this side of the family was the marriage of Henry Lee Crain and Minnie Pearl Simpson in Hill Co. Texas No one had ever mentioned to me that he had been married before he met my grandmother Emma Lee Higginbotham. I can understand why the marriage was never discussed.

It appears that William Jefferson Crain stole Minnie Pearl Simpson from his son Henry Lee Crain who divorced Minnie and then his father married her and they had two more sons. I knew that there was alot of tension between the half siblings of Henry but I never dreamed the reason why!

Well I told you this was a Wild Bunch! It seems that Henry was a ladies man as well since he married several times after the death of my grandmother Emma.

Here is a photo of Henry and Emma Crain with a group of people who are unknown to me but I recently received an email from a man who has verified that Emma Crain was working at the Corsicana Cotton Mill during the same period as the photo. So if anyone knows someone else in the photo please contact me at the email below.

Murder of Tom Crane

Thomas Perry Crane was the brother of our great grandfather William Jefferson Crain. He lived on the Pearce Ranch in Johnson County in the late 1890's. He was a share cropper raising cotton with his wife and three children. The foreman of the ranch John Shaw would room at their house. Shaw was a very short man with a bad temper. According to the Johnson County Newspaper in Cleburne Texas 1897, John Shaw made some remarks to Tom's wife that were not proper. He apologized and asked her not to say anything to Tom about what he had said. She told her husband anyway and the next day the two men had words about it.

Several days later while Tom was in the field picking cotton, his wife went to take him his noon meal but could not find her husband. His sack was lying in the field partly full but no sign of him. When he didn't return that night his wife was very worried. She sent one of the hands out looking for him but no one could find him. John Shaw told her that her husband had just run off but she asked him to go look for him anyway. Shaw came back the next day with Tom Cranes horse. She sent for the sheriff who came out a few days later and found Tom's body in a break off the Brazos River in a ravine. He had been shot three times in the back and head.

The sheriff trailed the horse tracks back to the horse Shaw had been riding and to the black man who was with Shaw that day. The black man confessed and told what John Shaw had done. The horse tracks also showed where Shaw came back for Cranes horse the next day. It appears that John Shaw was angry and planned the killing thinking perhaps Tom's wife would want him once her husband was out of the picture. John Shaw escaped from custody but was later recaptured, tried and hung. Shaw later plead insanity and Johnson County had a sanity hearing for him in which Shaw was found to be sane. He received the death sentence and was hung.

The next page contains the Newspaper Clippings from the Johnson County Review 1887 - 1889

Many thanks go to Karen Crain Harris and Barbara Chappell Ridley for all the pictures and research documents which they have given to me, without which I could not be putting this Crain Site together for the family.

Thank You So Much,

May God Continue to Bless You and Your Family!

Patti