My Genealogy Hound

D. H. Crebs. The Planters’ Compress & Storage Company of Helena, Ark., is one of the largest establishments of the kind in Southern Arkansas, and the amount of ground used by them for the successful conduct of their establishment comprises four and three-quarters acres, it being purchased by our subject in August, 1886. He immediately erected one of the finest cotton-gins in the South, and in 1887 built a compress, which was the first erected in Helena, and the first year pressed 18,000 bales of cotton. This is a large brick structure, and was owned and operated individually by Mr. Crebs until the spring of 1889, when a stock company was organized, and took the name of the Planters’ Compress Company, in which Mr. Crebs has a controlling interest, and is president of the company; J. H. Lawrens is secretary, and L. Lucy, treasurer. The cotton-gin has a capacity of twenty-five to thirty bales of cotton per day. Mr. Crebs was born in Winchester, Frederick County, Va., October 30, 1836, and is a son of Henry Crebs, who was also a Virginian, and a soldier in the War of 1812, he being then only about seventeen years of age. His father was a Revolutionary soldier, and was of Scotch birth, an early settler of Virginia. Henry was a farmer by occupation, and eventually died in the town in which he was born and reared. Of his six children, four are now living. His son, D. H., was eleven years old when his father died, then began learning the machinist’s trade, and in 1862 he enlisted in Company A, Second Virginia Regiment, and was wounded at Seven Pines by a gunshot, which necessitated his remaining in a hospital for some time. He was in Mat. Marra’s command, but afterward joined Col. Tanner’s battalion and was in all the general engagements in which his regiment participated. After the war he was left, like all soldiers, destitute, but he worked at what he could find to do, and in 1867 came to Helena and began doing business for a Mr. Barbarbroux, of Louisville. At the end of two years the company dissolved, and Mr.Crebs then began an independent career, and is still dealing in machinery. He built the first oil mills in Helena, also the first opera house, but the latter burned down in 1885. Mr. Crebs has been one of the live business men of the place, and his interest and support in all public affairs, his honesty and industry, as well as his progressive views on all matters of importance, have won him the respect of all who know him. He is a stockholder in the First National Bank and the Peoples’ Bank, and by his shrewdness and tact is one of the wealthy men of the county. He has one of the handsomest residences in the city, it being situated on a natural building site, in full view of the Mississippi River, as well as the city and surrounding country. In 1876 he was united in marriage to Miss Mary Carruth, and in 1880 took for his second wife, Miss Jennie Cook, by whom he has two children: Maggie and Harry.