26 February 2001
All Rights Reserved
Our earliest known ancestor was John Crooks. He was born somewhere in Lower Canada in the early 1820s. John was the son of a Scottish-born father and a Canadian mother. We do not know when he immigrated to the United States, but he was living in Texas by 1858. John’s first wife was Mary A. Pinson. She was born 16 May 1828 in Georgia. John and Mary were married in Ellis County, Texas on 28 December 1858. They had at least six children, two girls and four boys. Two years later, in 1860, John and his family were living in Johnson County, just next to Ellis County. By 1870 John and Mary had relocated their family to Travis County where they remained until their deaths. Mary was almost forty-five when she died on 20 February 1873, probably in Travis County. She was buried in the Old Rock Church Cemetery in Austin, now known as the Walnut Creek Baptist Church Cemetery. Mary’s death left John with five small children ranging in age from 15 years to four months old.
Almost two years after Mary’s death, John re-married. His second wife was a Mrs. Mary Broadway. They were married in Travis County on 9 November 1874. John’s second marriage was probably short-lived because it seems that Mary Broadway Crooks probably died sometime prior to 1880 because when that year’s census was taken, John was living as a boarder in the household of an Irishman by the name of Patrick Bolin. It is not known exactly when John died but it is assumed that he died around 1890. He was probably buried next to his first wife at the Walnut Creek Baptist Church Cemetery. The four surviving children of John and Mary A. (Pinson) Crooks were:
1. Drucilla P. or Josilla Crooks (ca. 1856-?)
An exact birth date has not been found for Drucilla, but it is estimated that she was born around 1856 or 1857. She only appears in the 1860 and 1870 census enumerations. It is not known if she died as a child or perhaps married and moved away.
2. Matthew Robert Crooks (1859-1947)
Matthew R. Crooks was born 1 August 1859 in Waxahachie, Ellis County, Texas. He married Georgia A. Brown in Williamson County, Texas on 5 July 1887. They moved to the May community in Brown County around 1901. Matthew was a farmer and an active member of the Baptist Church and the Woodmen of the World. He and Georgia had 9 children. Matthew was almost 85 when he died on 16 June 1945. Georgia died soon after Matthew on 8 February 1947. Both Matthew and Georgia are buried in the May Cemetery in May, Texas.
3. Henry Charles Crooks (1861-1944)
Henry Charles "HC" Crooks was born in Ellis County, Texas on 9 August 1861. By 1867 Henry had moved along with his family to Williamson County, Texas. Henry’s mother died when he was only 12 years old. Henry had already left home by the time he had turned 19 and was living as a boarder in the home of William R. Bird in Travis County, where he worked as a farm hand. In 1886 Henry sustained an accident that eventually robbed him of his eye site over the next several years.
Henry married Mattie Martha Fulkes on 23 November 1887 in Travis County, Texas. She was born on 25 May 1866 in Travis County, one of eleven children born to Albert Alling and Elizabeth (Huston) Fulkes. Henry was 26 and Mattie was 21 when they married. Shortly after their marriage, Henry and Mattie moved to Williamson County where they lived in the Bagdad and Blockhouse Communities. While living in Williamson County, the Crooks attended the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church. In 1904 Henry moved his family to Burnet County where they settled on a 250-acre farm in the Mount Zion Community.
Henry was born during a war and died during a war. Throughout his eighty-two year life span, he bore witness to many exciting events in our nation’s history, some of these events he no doubt experienced on a very personal and painful level. While he would have been too young to remember the hardships of the Civil War, as a teenager he would have experienced some of the tensions and difficulties of Reconstruction. Henry was in his early 50’s when World War I began. At the beginning of that war, a wave of exuberant nationalism spread throughout the country. As the father of two boys that were eligible for service, any exuberance he may have felt was probably tempered with anxieties over his son’s safety. There was no escaping the miseries of the Great Depression; everyone suffered to some degree. Henry and his family were no exception. They did, however, have their farm and a lot of family close by to work it. According to one of their granddaughters, Henry’s family made out better than most during those difficult times. When he died on 20 July 1944, our nation was nearing the end of World War II. Henry was buried in the Mount Zion Cemetery outside of Bertram.
Mattie survived Henry by almost three years. She continued to live at home until her death on 2 February 1947. Mattie was 80 years old and had experienced many of the same events as Henry. Throughout her lifetime, Mattie witnessed the deaths of four of her own children, one of whom, Herbert, died only ten days before she did. Mattie was buried next to Henry at Mount Zion Cemetery.
4. Maggie Mary (Crooks) Brown (1867-1951)
Maggie Mary Crooks was born in Williamson County, Texas on 10 October 1867. Maggie was only six years old when her mother died. Maggie was blind from an early age, sometime after her mother’s death, Maggie went to live in a boarding school. She came down with a case of pink eye. The doctor that was treating her died so a younger doctor took over in his place. The new doctor insisted on operating on Maggie’s eyes. The scar that was left after the operation grew too close to her pupils and she slowly began to loose her eyesight. Maggie went to live at the Texas Institution of Learning for the Blind. Here she learned the skills necessary to function as independently as possible. By the time of her marriage, Maggie’s eyesight was very limited. She later went completely blind after her first child was born. Maggie married Crockett Wilburn Brown (27 November 1867-20 April 1921) at the age of 22 in Travis County, Texas around 4 September 1889. They moved to Callahan County around 1904 and had four children, one boy and three girls.
Despite her blindness, Maggie ran a "tight" household. It was said she could thread a needle faster than a sighted person could and her children were convinced that she had eyes in the back of her head! Maggie was a member of the Baptist Church where she played both the piano and the pump organ. After Crockett’s death on 20 April 1921, Maggie went to live with her daughter, Mary Ellen (Brown) Nigar. Maggie died exactly 30 years after Crockett on 20 April 1951. They are both buried in the Admiral Cemetery near Baird, Texas
