A new article has been added at Newspaper Abstracts > United States > Texas > Harrison http://www.newspaperabstracts.com/index.php?action=displaycat&catid=2418 Also visit our new sister site: http://www.Genealogy101.com Direct link to article: http://www.newspaperabstracts.com/link.php?id=38705 Submitted by: Gigimo Article Title: Dallas Morning News Article Date: June 24 1906 Article Description: Obituary Jeptha Dudley CRAWFORD Article Text: Jeptha Dudley CRAWFORD, who died at his home in Marshall, Tex., at 4 o'clock, June 16th, 1906, was born in what is now Cass County, in the Republic of Texas, December the 20th, 1844. His parents Jeptha D. and Catherine CRAWFORD, were descended from English pioneers, who, in Colonial times, settled in Virginia. Their descendants at a later period immigrated to Kentucky while yet a wilderness, and participated in the dangers and shared the protection of the old BOONE Fort, and helped to lay the cornerstone of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. His parents, the issue of this ancestry, were born in the State of Kentucky in the early part of the nineteenth century, and after their marriage removed to the Republic of Texas in the year 1943, and settled on a farm on the waters of Black Cypress a tributary of Caddo Lake, about thirty miles north from the old town of Jefferson. From this farm his father, with his family, removed to Jefferson and engaged in merchandising, in which busi! ness he continued until 1853, when he retired and bought a plantation in Harrison county, about six miles north from the town of Marshall, where the subject of this sketch grew into early youth. His educational advantages were limited, alternating between the old field schoolhouse and an occasional private tutor. Just before the outbreak of the Civil War his father had sold his plantation and negroes, and had again engaged in the mercantile business at Jefferson. When the war came on the youth, then but little past sixteen years of age, and the baby boy of his family, ran away from home and enlisted in the Confederate Army. He participated in the battle of Shiloh, and the siege of Port Hudson, in both of which engagements he received serious and painful wounds, which disabled him from further active service in the field. When his wounds would permit he was transferred from the hospital to the commissary department, and assigned to duty as purchasing agent west of the M! ississippi River, and in this capacity served the Confederacy until th e close of the war. By reason of his age he belonged to the most unfortunate class of the young men of the South--to that class who gave the four years of their lives from 16 to 20 to war instead of to schools and colleges, in preparation for the pursuits of peace and the advancement of civilization. In after life he thought little of his experience in the war, and rarely referred to it, while it was a proud and patriotic memory it was yet a sad one, and he preferred always to remember and recount the humorous, the beautiful and the hopeful episodes of life, rather than the somber and sorrowful ones. After the close of the war he attended McKinzie College for one year, and then engaged in commercial pursuits at New Orleans and Galveston, in which he continued until the panic of 1873, when he returned to his old home in Jefferson and engaged in the practice of law with his brothers, for which in the meantime he had prepared himself. In 1876, he and his brothers establishe! d a law office in Dallas, Tex., but soon after this he retired from the partnership and the profession and again returned to commercial pursuits. With patient application he would have made a great lawyer. His intellectual acumen and activities unusually fitted him for the arduous and painful task. But the law was not suited to his taste or disposition--it was in its practical operations too closely connected with the disappointments, the misfortunes and the sorrows of life, and was too far removed from life's hopeful activities and happiness. Soon after his retirement from the practice of law he established business relations in New York City, first with BERNHEIM, BAUER & Co., and later with the H. B. CLAFLIN Co. and for years was actively engaged throughout Texas as a drummer. In this capacity he made a broad and popular acquaintance, and formed many and enduring friendships which he gratefully appreciated and lovingly returned. In 1885 he was married to Mis Mary HOB! ART KEY of Marshall, Tex., the daughter of pioneer settlers, always di stinguished for their hospitality, probity and patriotism. After his marriage he located at Marshall, in the ancestral home of his wife, where his children--a daughter and son--were born and brought up under the shade of wide spreading trees, planted in the long ago by the hand of their maternal grandfather, who died before the war. After his marriage he began an earnest business career, which, as the years advanced, was rewarded with a reasonable and gratifying success. He identified himself with many enterprises of commerce, banking and manufacture, and after 1901 was largely interested in the production of oil. In every enterprise he was greatly inclined to associate in business with young men of character and capacity. He was generously helpful to them, and they equally so to him. At his funeral, so largely attended by veterans of the war, by members of various lodges, and by his many friends from every calling in life, in the town where he died, there was no more ! interested or sorrowful group than that composed of W. B. SHARP and Frank BIRMINGHAM of Houston, of J. C. TURNER, W. H. MALONY and Ed MALONY of Commerce, of W. T. MALONY of Wolfe City, of C. L. STEVENS of Cooper and of P. A. NORRIS of Ada, I.T., his kinsman, all of whom were his close personal friends and intimate business associates, who left their homes and hastened to the chamber of death to look for the last time on the placid face of their warm-hearted, genial and affectionate friend, and to help put away his mortal remains in "God's Acre," a beautiful spot situated on the hills of the old and historic VAN ZANDT homestead, overlooking the town of Marshall--dedicated to the everlasting rest of the dead, and to reminding the living that "We live in the midst of graves," and that "It is appointed unto man once to die." His life was a splendid example of optimism and hope, full of energy and discreet activity. In his dealings with his fellow-man he was frank and straight! forward; his home life was happy; his filial and tender affection for his mother-0in-law, Mrs. Edmund KEY, was a beautiful as it was rare, and each was an unfailing source of happiness to the other. He not only loved his wife--he venerated her. She was his mentor and his guide in all that was strongest, best and noblest in his life. He was a child with his children--their playmate, companion and their friend, always indulgent, always helpful, and ever tender to them, and each shared the joys and cheerfulness of the others. His death was wholly unexpected to himself and to his family. He had suffered from a slow fever, but was convalescent. He looked to a perfect restoration to health in the near future and contemplated a trip away with his family for the summer. When he awoke from an evening nap he spoke to his wife, who was sitting with her little boy across the room, and said, "Come over here, Hobart, and sit by me and let's talk." She went joyously and hopefully, not dreaming that the Angel of Death was there, but before she could b! e seated she saw his head fall upon the pillow, then one gasp, then another faint gasp, and she knew "the silver cord was loosed," and that all the words of love and hope and joy from him to her were silenced forever on this earth. But if he had known all and love could have spoken through the pallid lips of Death, he would have said to his weeping wife and children, in the beautiful language of the lamented Dr. STRIBLING, "Come to my grave; but do not come in the autumn time, when the winds are sighing, gloomy clouds veil the sky, and the sere and yellow leaf is falling; but come in a bright morning of the springtime when the flowers are blooming, when the birds carol their sweet lay and all chants the praise of its Creator, and as you plant the evergreen and the flower over my sleeping dust, look up to a home in Heaven and know I am there." ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ TX-Old-News ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ NewspaperAbstracts.com - Finding our ancestors in the news! TM http://www.NewspaperAbstracts.com