| Notes |
- Married by William Henry Hord, Justice of the Peace in Dallas County, Texas
[Gloria J.Tune1.FTW]
Crawford and Anna Minerva came from Illinois in 1845 by c overed wagon and
settled west of what is now the Santa Fe Railroad near the T rees family
cemetery in the southern edge of Duncanville. They were issued the first
marriage liscense of Dallas County. A copy of it is reported to be on
the cornerstone of the Dallas County Courthouse.
Resource:Ovilla, Texas History Book, Ovilla Historical Society, page
206, The Trees Family, by Mrs. Bobby (Sherry) Waddle
William Henry Hord (1809-1902) was justice of the peace in Dallas andmarried the first couple after the county was organized, a Mr. CrawfordTreese and Miss Annie Kimble.
Source:http://www.hocc.org/pages/about_us/our_history.htm
1919
Added December 11, 2004:
Story of the First Couple
Married in Dallas County
By Mildred Gladney
The cool of the summer twilight lay about them. The dog slept attheir feet. The old man gazed close at the print of his newspaper as thelight waned, and his wife sat quiescent, idle, dreaming, perhaps, of theyears of activity which had been left behind. The fruitful acres, uponwhich decades of labor had been put by the family, surrounded them. And,the story of this man and woman, who were born and who grew to maturity,and, in time, established a home of their own in Dallas County, is thehistory of the county itself, and of many others who have seen Dallasgrow from a ford in the Trinity River, to a prosperous city.
Mrs. Jess Ramsey, nee Trees, is one of the ten children of Mrs. AnnaM. Trees and Crawford Trees, who were the first couple ever married inDallas County. This marriage took place in the days when there was nocourthouse, and the office of Justice of the Peace was a hazardousposition. But, the license was issued to Miss Anna Kimmel, whose fatherhad come pushing across the Texas prairies with his little family and allhis worldly possessions stowed away in a homemade wagon, and CrawfordTrees, whose parents entered Dallas County in the fall following theimmigration of the Kimmel family in the spring, on July 23, 1846.
No Wedding Journey.
The bride was not honored with showers and did not wear a going-awaysuit of blue tricotine. She had made her own dress of homespun.Afterward, they made their way through the undergrowth and the slightwoods between the log cabin, in which their parents lived at Cedar Hill,to that which was to be their home. There was no wedding trip for thefirst couple married in Dallas County, for trips in those days were morestrenuous than the ordinary course of existence. Their furniture wasimprovised from the materials at hand, and several pieces were given themby their parents. The log cabin, the floor of which was made from logssplit in half by the men of the families of the bride and bridegroom, wasnot large, but it housed, comfortably, all of the worldly goods of thetwo young people taking up life within its walls.
They were not within calling distance of their parents, butcommunication was comparatively easy, even in those hard times. In thedays that followed, they took up the life of the pioneer, as they hadknown it from childhood. Instead of helping his father to clear the treesfrom his land, Crawford Trees began on that which he had appropriated forhimself. He was the head of a family, and their welfare depended solelyupon the fruition of the acres about them. Instead of helping her motherto spin and weave for her brothers and sisters, Anna Trees now had herown spinning machine and spun for her husband and kept the house.
Civil War Breaks Out.
The virility of the life that followed, with its goodly portion ofmonotony, and its difficulties, did not daunt the family. It grewsteadily, and at the outbreak of the Civil War, there were ten children.Crawford Trees gathered his old rifle and his knapsack together and wentoff to the war, leaving his wife to look after the ten children and tomanage the farm and the negroes. After a year, he was back, with hishealth so impaired, that Mrs. Trees still continued the work of the farmand cared for the family. And, with the sturdy little boys who weregrowing up, she managed well. The father died in 1889. The boys and girlsgrew to maturity, married and moved to new cabins about her. Eight of thechildren made their homes near Cedar Hill, and their children, and theirgrandchildren, have also made their homes in Dallas County. Mrs. Treesdied about six years ago at the home of her oldest daughter, Catherine,Mrs. Jess Ramsey, after seeing numerous grandchildren ready to take upthe work of cultivating the fruitful acres, which she had taken out inthe days when Dallas was marked by a ford in the Trinity River, andBonham was the only settlement on the Red River.
Still at Cedar Hill.
And now, this daughter of the first couple ever married in DallasCounty has grown old on the land of her parents, within sight of the oldhomestead. But, her declining years are spent in a modern farmhouse,which has water piped to it from a cistern that is never exhausted. Thescreens keep out the flies and other insects, which she remembers hermother kept away with leaf brushes. The woods are gone, and in theirstead, plowed acres and huge haystacks, and a pike road, upon which themodern knowledge of engineering has been expended, are to be seen fromher front porch. Her front lawn is mowed with a lawn mower. Her childrenvisit her in automobiles. And, in the calm of the summer evenings, whenthe work on the farm is done for the day, she sits on the porch of herhome and thinks of the days when her mother ran the farm and her fatherwas at war.
"During the war," she said, "we used to go across the river onhorseback and take our wool to be carded, for we made all of the clotheswe wore at home. There was one little store and several log-houses and ablacksmith shop. The goods we got at the store were brought in ox wagonsfrom Houston or down the Red River from Jefferson. We saw the first brickhouse go up, and we saw the Indians disappear, going farther and fartheraway from the settlements of the whites.
Troubled by Indians.
"I can remember hearing my mother tell about the time when she hidseveral protesting babies away between the feather beds and stood at thedoor with the shotgun as the Indians approached. When I got big enough toremember, there were too few of them for us to have any trouble. The onlything they bothered us about was the horses. We simply couldn't keep any.One of our neighbors tried putting iron hobbles on the feet of his horsesso they couldn't drive them away. But, the Indians just cut off the feetof the horses and went their way, when they found they couldn't get them.
"First Negroes Ever Saw."
"I can remember, too, the first negroes I ever saw. My fatherreturned one night and brought with him some slaves. I was asleep, andthe next morning, when I waked up and crawled out of bed, I saw twolittle negro girls asleep on a pallet at the foot of my bed. They like toscared me to death, and then they got funny to me, and my father couldn'tget me away from them. We kept those negroes, I guess, until the war wasover. They stayed with us for about a year afterward, and then they went.
"Mr. Ramsey and I went to school together at the Bethel Schoolhouse.It was opened in 1853, and Mr. Scott was the first teacher. Jess used tocome home with me after school, and we would take turns about grindingthe meal we used. You know, we would hollow out a stump and put the corndown in that, and then grind it with a pestle. We didn't have any flourat all. Mr. Scott was awful hard on us, and we were all scared to deathhe would lick us. I don't believe Jess ever got a whipping at school inhis life. We studied writing and reading, and geography and figures. Iwent to school at Lancaster, too. Then, when we grew up, we married andstarted out life as my mother did, in a log cabin of one room. We addedto it, later, and had two rooms, and then we got this. We have just threechildren.
"Our children are all grown and married now, and we are worse offthan when we started. Sometimes, I believe ten wasn't any too large afamily.
Old House Still Standing.
"We had 1,200 acres here to start with, but we gave all but 200 ofit to our children as they grew up and married. We have a little grandsonabout 6 years old, who goes to school in Dallas to Miss Edna Washington.She is teaching him how to talk without hearing. My mother died when hewas about a month old. She lived here with us until then. You can see theold home place. It is the first two-story house on the main road towardDallas from here. Our children live up there on the pike, too, but welike it back here where it's quiet. How did you get that gate open whenyou came in? That's a patent lock we got on there."
"No, we haven't any car. Wouldn't know how to drive one, if we hadit, but our daughter has one, and she comes up here in it. Get down; getdown, dog. She'll put her muddy feet on you, if you let her. Come backand see us and spend the day some time. We'd be glad to have you."
July 13, 1919, The Dallas Morning News,
Magazine Section, p. 4.
http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~jwheat/miscellany6.html
History of Cedar Hill, Dallas County, Texas
"Early wagon trains brought the families of Hart, Penn, Rape, Anderson,Stewart, Kimmel, Coombs, Billingsby, Baggett, Holveck, Trees, Hamilton,Ramsey, Fuller and White, and many more. On July 22, 1846, CedarMountain settlers, Crawford Trees and Anna Kimmel, received the firstmarriage license issued in the Dallas County area."
http://www.cedarhilltxgov.org/opencms/opencms/CityHall/city_history.html
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