[I was given a copy of these letters by another Criner researcher. I believe they were in the possession of and transcribed by Pauline Jones Gandrund. These letters were typed just as they appear. Nothing was changed and only notes added were added as foot
notes. Joseph Christopher Criner added notes within the letter himself.
Please contact me directly about any of the immediate family of CRINER, GALLOWAY & STANFIELD. I’ll be glad to swap information on just these families. Don’t have a lot on the others.]
Mandy Queen, awqueen@bellsouth.net
Houston, Texas Feb. 14, 1940 Dear Miss MOORE, I appreciated your letter of Jan. 21 very much. My two brothers and I still own the old CRINER land in Chester County, Tennessee that my great grandfather, John CRINER, settled on about 1823. I arrive at the date 1823 as follows: My uncle H.D. (Dug) CRINER told me that his father told him that he was too young to be positive, but judged that he (John Anderson CRINER) was about six years of age when his father and mother (John and Elizabeth GALLOWAY CRINER) moved from Lincoln Co. to Henderson Co (now Chester Co). My grandfather (John A. CRINER) was born Feb 23, 1817 in Lincoln Co. Tenn. My uncle Dug CRINER has told me more than once how his grandfather happened to move to Henderson Co. A horse had strayed from the Lincoln Co. home and he started out to recover it and after staying on its trail a number of days he caught up with it in Henderson Co. on what is now the CRINER land. That land was then virgin soil and had plenty of good water, which made it attractive. My great grandfather was very favorably impressed with the country and so he determined to return to Henderson Co. and settle, which he later did, obtaining the land from the State of Tenn. There is a family burying ground on the old CRINER homestead in Chester Co. but it has been forty years since any one was buried there. My grandfather and grandmother CRINER lie there and their graves well marked with dates of birth and death and in the case of my grandfather, the place of birth, i.e. Lincoln Co. Tenn. My great grandfather and great grandmother are also buried there, but their graves are not marked. I do not know when they died, nor do I know the date of their births. There was a times when I was a very young lad that I was shown where various ones were buried, but in the case of unmarked graves, I cannot now recall which is which. The oldest marker there is at the grave of Martha E. LONG, Born July 5, 1822 died Feb. 21, 1853. My great grandfather and great grandmother died so long ago that there is no human living who ever saw them, so far as I have been able to determine. They died long before my uncle Dug CRINER was born. He was born Oct. 9, 1853. He (Uncle Dug) talked with people who knew his grandparents and has told me that my great grandfather spoke with a very thick Scotch accent (Note: Don’t see how it could have been Scotch, or even German, because even his father may not have been the first of the family in this country), so much so that people had difficulty understanding him. Also that he was a very large man. After my grandmother’s death, my mother and father lived with my grandfather CRINER. The home in which they all lived burned completely to the ground about 3 years before my grandfather’s death. He died at the age of 76 years. Records that I would prize highly were lost in that fire. It was a severe loss in many ways. There are no buildings on the land now. The land has been idle for many years because we do not want any one using the land for the pittance they are willing to pay. It is a small farm now, but originally it was several times larger than now. My great grandmother, who was Elizabeth GALLOWAY, may have had brothers and xxxxxx there may have been descendants in that vicinity now and those descendants might have some records. The names of brothers and sisters of my grandparents were recorded as related to me by Uncle Dug CRINER. Also the information that my great grandfather CRINER had brothers Isaac, Granville and others, whose names he could not recall with sufficient clearness to be positive. He also told me that his grandfather’s brother settled at Grand View, Texas; that is how I happened to stop at Grand View Cemetery in Dec. 1938 and began to look around for the name of CRINER. Uncle Dug also told me that Granville took slaves with him to Texas and that one of them was called “Big Caesar”. There are some negroes in Texas by the name of CRINER, whose forefathers were owned by CRINERS. Some of the slaves took the name of CRINER after the war between the States. Mrs. TEMPLETON of Grand View Texas told me that the WHITING brothers who married CRINER sisters were Union soldiers from Iowa and that the marriages occurred during the war. (note: wrong. Both marriages occurred before the war) H.J. CRINER wrote that he was my name and address listed in some “Manufacturer’s Magazine” (Trade Journal, I presume) and wondered if we might be related. I replied to his letter, giving him my family history and other information, but never heard from him again, About 1908 there were (and probably are yet) some CRINERS living in and around Ardmore, Okla. Who claimed to be part Indian. There are CRINERS in Little Rock and other parts of Ark. In Dec. 1937 I met a young man in Little Rock and talked with him briefly. He was evidently unable to recall more than one generation. I left my address with this young man, who was operating a service station- McGUIRE & CRINER, 14th & Park Ave. Little Rock, Ark. He promised me to have some older member of the family write to me, but I heard nothing more. I was in St. Louis in 1937 and noticed CRINER-STIEN Co. listed in the telephone directory, but did not have time to investigate. Yours very truly, J.C. CRINER