My Genealogy Hound

T. Y. Crawford. It was fifty-six years ago when the subject of this sketch was born, his birth being in St. Francis County, in this State, and he now occupies a position among the agriculturists of this county which is by no means an inferior one. He is the eldest of nine children born to Moses and Evaline (Wright) Crawford, both of whom were natives of South Carolina, the former coming to the State of Arkansas in his youth, and was married near Helena. He first busied himself in rafting and hunting, and also did a little farming, but other occupations at that time were more profitable. They resided here during our subject’s youth, then went to the State of Mississippi, but returned to Osceola, Ark., in 1844, and made one crop, after which they settled on land in Chickasawba Township, which is now known as the Cook farm. Here they cleared thirty-five acres and lived ten years; then selling the farm and moving to Pemiscot Bayou, which farm is now occupied by our subject, and on which the father died October 23, 1888, at the age of eighty-three years, and the mother at the same place, August 24, 1876, aged fifty-two. He was among the men who early cast their fortunes with the then new county of Mississippi, and he is remembered with esteem and respect by the few remaining pioneers, who are one by one passing to their long home. At the age of seventeen years, T. Y. Crawford began working for himself, being engaged in hunting and working in wood yards on the river, and previous to his marriage, at the age of twenty-three years, to Miss Myra Potter, he had purchased a farm in Missouri; this farm he traded to his father for the home place, and here he has since resided. His farm comprises 274 acres, sixty of which are under cultivation, and is improved with fair buildings, fences and orchards. In 1888 he began running a trading boat down the bayou, but the next winter he brought the stock of goods to his home and started to keep a store, which has proved fairly successful. The children born to himself and wife are as follows: John T., George W., Wesley, Margaret P., W. Richard S., Isaac Y., Mary Bell, Edward M. and Henry L. Mrs. Crawford is a true Christian lady, and always tries to do as she would be done by.