Pike County AlArchives Obituaries.....Crowder, James H. February 28, 1893
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Alice Folmar Kelley http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00033.html#0008183 March 17, 2017, 4:36 pm

The Troy Messenger March 9, 1893


CROWDER, JAMES H.    (b. 5-9-1798 – d. 2-28-1893)
	
AN OLD PATRIOT GONE
	Died at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Caroline Simms, near China Grove, Pike
County, [Alabama] on the 28th of February last, at the ripe age of ninety-four
years, nine months and seventeen days, Hon. J. H. Crowder.
	The subject of this sketch was a son of Frederick Crowder who was a Virginian
by birth and raising and was married in Georgia to Mrs. Milley Heals on the 9th
day of July 1789.
	James H. Crowder was born in Jasper County, Ga., on the 9th day of May 1798. 
While quite a young man, he left Jasper County and settled for a short time in
Putnam County [Ga.], where he married the third time having lost two wives
previously, who were before marriage Miss Jemima Folds and Miss Caroline
Hamrick.  The third wife was Brena Tillery [seen as Triburnah and Buny in some
records], who died in 1850, after which he married Mrs. Juliette Tuttle who died
in 1871.  He had born to him four children by his first wife, two by his second,
seven by his third, and his last wife died without issue.  There are only three
of these children living, who are of the third wife, to wit:  Mrs. C. L. Simms
and Mr. R. H. Crowder of China Grove, Ala., and Asa H. Crowder, [who] is a
minister to the Methodist Florida Conference.
	He [Mr. Crowder] came to Alabama in 1828 and settled on a lot of land which he
entered, located in the northwest portion of Pike County near where China Grove
is now and about thirty-seven miles southeast of where Montgomery was located. 
The men who lived in the settlement where he made his change in 1828 were Eli,
Sam and Andrew Townsend, Asa Grantham, Alfred Tillery, and the widow Tillery. 
The first store that was opened anywhere in reach was started by Andrew
Townsend, and when a post office was started there it was given the name China
Grove.  The office was located on the only paved road to that section of country
and ran through from Louisville in Barbour County to the Alabama River at or
near where Montgomery now stands.
	Father Crowder, by his untiring energy and interest in all matters of general
interest to the early settlers such as school and church enterprises, gained the
confidence of his neighbors, and at a very early epoch of Pike, he was nominated
by a convention of [ ? ] as a candidate for the Legislature and was elected by a
complimentary majority.  His colleague was Harrell Hobdy.  The State capitol was
at that time in Tuscaloosa.  He was the choice of the people of his beat for
Justice of the Peace for many years, and it is said of him by those who knew him
that he made it a point to waive discord between his neighbors by good counsel
and reasoning, whereby litigation was swindled out of many victims.  There are a
few yet living who were voters when he was a candidate for Representative.
	Although this old patriarch lived to count his children of four generations, he
was heard to repeat a piece of poetry which was brought up doubtless by the ever
dying love which he entertained for the memory of his mother, a part of which
ran thus:

Oh, where is the mother who watched over my childhood?
Where is the bosom friend dearer than all?

	He persisted in remaining at home on the farm which he entered in 1828 or 29
until only five years ago, at which time he went to Mr. Simms,’ his son-in-law.
 While he was an active man, he accumulated a sufficient quantity of land to
give each of his children a good farm.
	He was in a demented state of mind for four years, only at intervals.  His
hearing was considerably blunted, but he could hear better when in a crazed
spell.  His eyesight failed about three years ago.
	His mind seemed to return on the night before he died, as he talked to those
who were with him, and the last word he was heard to say “God pardon priest and
people; I am going to Jesus,” and said to his daughter, “Farewell, All Farewell,
I am going to Jesus to stay.”
	He never joined the church.  Yet he never was a man of reckless or dissipated
habits and was regarded by all as a practical Christian.
[See comment following]




Additional Comments:
Mr. Crowder is shown in an 1860 census to have owned personal property valued at
$6000 and real property valued at $9000, which was a lot more than some around
him and yet not nearly as much as a couple of near neighbors.  A Pike County
slave schedule for that year shows that part of his property was seven slaves
and two slave houses.

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