Folks, Bob Jordon's note on the Crews line from Granville Co., NC reminded me of an newspaper article originally published in 1915 that I promised to send to Hazel Knight several weeks ago. Since I now have access to scanner, I've decided to post this article here on-line in case anyone else is interested. A note of caution - this is a long article, and anyone not interested in the Granville line should probably hit their delete key now! For those of you who hang in there until the end, I've added a few questions and/or comments that may be of interest. +++++++++ PUBLIC LEDGER, Oxford North Carolina, Saturday, March 13, 1915 OUR COLONIAL ANCESTERS - FAMILY CONNECTIONS OF THE LATE ROBERT T. CREWS His Ancestry on Both Sides Have Been Residents of Granville Since Pre- Revolutionary Times. (Traced by Francis B. Hays) In a Journalistic experience extending over more than a quarter of a century it has been my lot to prepare obituary notices of many men and women who had lived in many sections of the county. I have been impressed by the fact that in the cases of New Englanders and people of New England descent, the biographical data often contained mention by name of the ancestors of the deceased for many generations. In the cases of Southern people this has not been so noticeable. One or the principal differences between the peoples of - let us say, for illustration, Massachusetts and North Carolina - is that the former have an inordinate desire to regulate other folks' conduct, while the other are characterized by a hereditary disinclination to be told by anybody what they shall or shall not do. Accordingly public or semi-public records of family history have been kept in Massachusetts from the earliest times, while in North Carolina, even in this twentieth century, birth and deaths, for instances, are not recorded in anything approaching a systematic manner. While I realize that it is considered in North Carolina to be lese-majesty (or treason to the sovereign people) to suggest that something outside the State is better than anything inside her borders, still I notice in the papers that Senator Hobgood, of Guilford, said that North Carolina had learned something of democracy from Nebraska and New Jersey, and that Judge Clark commends him, so I am going to be equally reckless and express belief that the Old North State might get a few points on keeping vital statistics from Massachusetts. And when she makes use of these points, she will probably at the same time engender in her people, individually, a greater pride in their ancestry. For pioneer North Carolinians, while they may not have landed on Plymouth Rock to escape persecution in England, did settle in their Province or State to rid themselves of the undemocratic rule of the more thickly settled portions of the colonies near the large harbors, and we have every right to be proud of our sturdy and liberty-loving forebears. Some of the foregoing thoughts were suggested to me by the death of Robert T. Crews. His ancestry on both sides have been residents of Granville County since pre-Revolutionary times, and his relatives include many or the oldest families and most influential people in this section of the country. His father was James A. Crews (who used to be familiarly referred to as "Tar River Jimmy," to distinguish him from his father, James Crews; from James B. Crews, of Oxford; from "Red Jim" Crews, who was Sheriff of the County about thirty years ago, and from perhaps others of the same name). James Crews, the father, lived to be some four score years and ten and was a famous man in his community and church. He was one of the founders of Salem church, donated the land on which it stands, and was the leading member of its congregation for many years. He was the son of Gideon Crews, who signed the oath of allegiance to North Carolina in 1778. In 1806 James Crews married Sarah Earl, daughter of John Earl, whose father came from England and was followed by his sweetheart, Mollie Watts (who was a near relative, perhaps a sister, of Isaac Watts, the hymn writer). The blushing maiden was met on the boat by her old swain and a parson, and when she set foot on the soil of the New World she was a married woman. The name Earl seems to have died out in this county as a surname, but is preserved as a Christian name by some of the descendants of the English-American couple. The late Robert T. Crews� mother was Martha Ann Hunt. She was the daughter of David Hunt, who was one of the eleven children of John Hunt and his wife Frances Penn. John Hunt�s mother was Mourning Hunt. Frances Penn was a daughter of Mary Taylor Penn, who in turn was a daughter of John Taylor, who died in this country two years before Washington became President. This John Taylor, a great-great-great grandfather of Robert T. Crews, is the most remote ancestor of his that I am able to trace, although the late Theodore B. Kingsbury refers to John Taylor�s father, James Taylor, as being an Englishman living in Virginia. (Continued in Next Issue). PUBLIC LEDGER, Oxford North Carolina, Saturday, March 17, 1915 OUR COLONIAL ANCESTERS - FAMILY CONNECTIONS OF THE LATE ROBERT T. CREWS TRACED His Ancestry on Both Sides Have Been Residents of Granville Since Pre- Revolutionary Times. (By Francis B. Hays) (Concluded) Now, to go up the line of our ancestors is one thing and to trace all the descendants of these ancestors is quite another. Time and space do not permit me, and if they did I have not the requisite knowledge to name the collateral kin of the man whose recent death set in motion this train of thought. But just to convey some of the extent to which they have aided in the populating and building up of the county I will mention a few here and there. The numerous and influential Crews family of Granville is well known. Most of its members are descendants of Gideon Crews, father of Gideon Jr. and grandfather of three girls who married Manson Breedlove, John Sears, and Solomon Cottrell. The children of Gideon's son James, brother of Gideon Jr., were: James A. (father of Robert T.), Rebecca (married J. Cheatham and was the mother of Theodore, Thomas, William and the first Mrs. A. C. Parham), Mary (married W. O. Wright and went West), Martha (married Joseph Penn Hunt and was the mother of Mrs. Sallie Crews, Mrs. John H. Breedlove, Mrs. B. I. Breedlove, Mrs. Ella Fuller, D. N. Hunt and others), Thomas (father of Norfleet G. Crews and others), Edward N., Isabella (married B. W. Hicks and was the mother of Archibald A. Hicks), Susan G. (the only one surviving, married George W. Hunt, and is the mother of Junius Penn Hunt, the late Mrs. Joseph Parham, Mrs. Charles F. Crews, and others), and Melissa (married Rev. W. S. Hester and was the mother of Mrs. R. J. Aiken, Mrs. D. N. Hunt, Mrs. J. M. Rhodes, of Littleton, and others). Among the descendants of the Earl-Watts couple are most of the Harrises of Granville and Vance counties. One of the Harris girls, a granddaughter of this couple, married Abner Hicks and became the grandmother of Archibald A. Hicks. Another married Dr. Samuel Duty, at one time pastor of Grassy Creek Baptist Church. He had no sons, but thirteen daughters, several of whom married and brought up large families in Granville and elsewhere. The only one of the daughters was has lived in Oxford during the memory of the present generation was the late Mrs. Sally Duty Hays. Mourning Hunt who was, as we have just seen, the great-great-grandmother of Robert T. Crews, married twice, her second marriage having been to William Hicks. It is in the Hunt rather than the Hicks line that we are interested just now. John Hunt, as above mentioned, married Frances Penn, daughter of Mary Taylor Penn, daughter of John Taylor. This John Taylor had a large family. One of his children, Edward, was the father of Lewis, who was the great-grandfather of T. G. Taylor, Mrs. C. D. H. Fort, Mrs. R. B. Hines, J. Arch Taylor, Richard P. Taylor, and others, including Susan and Robert Pelham, who changed their name from Potter, their father having been the brilliant, fiery and notorious Robert Potter. Another of John Taylor's daughters, Catherine, married Moses Penn. These were the parents of John Penn who became immortal by signing the Declaration of Independence. He was a Granville county man although born in Virginia. In a Fourth of July oration delivered in the Orphan Asylum chapel in 1876, the late Dr. Theodore B. Kingsbury made the error of stating that the Hunt family was descended from John Penn, the signer, and this error has been repeated many times and in various places. It appears in the obituary notices of some of the Hunts who died while Dr. Kingsbury was doing newspaper work here in Oxford. In an editorial in the Wilmington Messenger twenty years later Dr. Kingsbury admitted that he might have been wrong in saying that John Penn was the ancestor of the Hunts of Granville. Still another of the Taylor sisters married a Bullock and was the great-grandmother of the late James A. Bullock, Mrs. Lucy O. Gregory and J. M. B. Hunt, all people well known in this county not so many years ago. Through the Taylors Mr. Crews was related also to the Thorps, the Lewises, the Robards and other old Granville families. But this is a digression from the Hunt line. John Hunt and his wife, Frances Penn, had eleven children - seven girls and four boys. One of the girls married Randal Minor, an early member of the well-known Granville family of that name. One of the boys, David, married Miss High, and they were the parent's of Martha Ann (married James A. Crews), Charity (married Mr. Reavis of Franklin County), and Robert (married Miss Terrell, of Franklin County). Another son of John Hunt and Frances Penn was John Penn Hunt, who married Sarah Longmire. This couple were the parents of Hannah (married Franklin Crews and was the mother of the late E. T. Crews), Joseph Penn (married Martha M., daughter of James Crews, some of whose children are mentioned above), Geo. W. (married Susan C., daughter of James Crews, some of whose children are mentioned above), John W. (father of Charles, who lived in Oxford as a young man some thirty years ago. This John was at different times sheriff, register of deeds and clerk of the court of Person County and was not the John W. Hunt who died in Oxford last year), Robert Longmire (father of Mrs. Rom. Parker, Dr. J. G. Hunt, J. Sidney Hunt, and R. L. Hunt, Jr., all of whom have died in recent years), David Alexander (father of Mrs. S. W. Parker, Mrs. John Davis, Miss Flora W. Henry, D. Cameron, and the late Herndon and Rhodes Hunt, and of James T. (father of Mrs. E. T. White and Mrs. Kate White). While but a comparatively few of the relatives of the recently deceased Mr. Crews have been pointed out, enough have been mentioned to show the thread of consanguinity (much attenuated, at times, it is true) which binds together some of the older families in this section of the country. Our people are noted for their conservatism. Many have stuck to their native county for generations. Few immigrants from foreign shores have moved in and intermarried with our natives, so that unmixed, American blood which came down from our Colonial ancestors courses through the veins of a large proportion of the inhabitants of Granville. END OF ARTICLE ++++++++++ Questions and/or comments: 1. Can anyone place "Red Jim" Crews? I'd like to know how he ties in. 2. Mollie (Mary Elizabeth) Watts was probably not the sister of Isaac Watts (who wrote "Joy to the World" and many other hymns), but they may have been related. Isaac Watts was born in 1674, or 40 to 60 years prior to Mary Elizabeth. Has anyone researched this connection? 3. The James Taylor mentioned in this article as the possible great- grandfather of John Penn (signer of the Declaration of Independence) and great-great-great-great grandfather of Robert T. Crews is also reportedly the great-great grandfather of Presidents James Madison and Zachery Taylor. Dan Fawcett