Freed-Hardeman Connections
Researching the Restoration Movement in Mississippi and West Tennessee
William Allen Crum
1837-1911
William Allen Crum,
Born
Sept. 10, 1837,
Died
May 24, 1911.
In Life, Non-Sectarian:
An humble Disciple of Christ --
A Christian:
Always Advocating the
"Unity of the Faith in the
Bond of Peace."
He worshipped God and Loved
MANKIND.
His Creed, The BIBLE.
Rev. William A. Crum was born in Tipton County, Tenn., on Sept. 10, 1837, the youngest of the two children of Eli and Rachael (Ayers) Crum. His father was a native of North Carolina: his mother of Tennessee. His grandfather on his father's side moved from North Carolina to Alabama in 1812, and lived out the balance of his life in that state. The father of our subject was reared in Alabama, and from there went to Tennessee while yet a young man.
* CRUM, Sgt. William Allen - was born in Tipton County, Tenn., in 1837, the youngest of the two children of Eli and Rachael (Ayers) Crum.
His father was a native of North Carolina: his mother of Tennessee. His grandfather on his father's side moved from North Carolina to Alabama in 1812, and lived out the balance of his life in that state.
The father of our subject was reared in Alabama, and from there went to Tennessee while yet a young man. There he met Miss Ayers, whom he afterward married, in 1829. He removed from Tennessee to what was then Tippah County, Miss., in 1837, before the (Chickasaw) Indians had left the country, and he may be properly termed one of the oldest settlers of the state. For a number of years he was a member of the Tippah county board of supervisors. He was well and favorably known throughout the state as a high minded, Christian gentleman, and was an elder in the Cumberland Presbyterian church for many years.
The mother of our subject died in 1858, his father in 1860, at their old home in Tippah County. William A. Crum was educated in the common schools, and during his entire life he has been engaged in planting. In 1855, at the age of eighteen, he married Miss Mary M. Smith, a daughter of John Smith, of Tippah County. They had nine children, named as follows: Emma, wife of John P. Smith; Rachel, now Mrs. J. T. Armor; William E.; Mallie O., deceased; C. Lee; Sarah E., wife of W. H. Cox, Jr.; Mary L., wife of J. T. Wall; Benjamin, deceased; and Martha C.
Mr. Crum enlisted in company G, of the Seventeenth Mississippi infantry, under W. S. Featherstone, of Holly Springs, in 1861, and was in the battle of Bull Run, the seven days' fight at Richmond, and other engagements in Virginia. At Gettysburg he received two severe gunshot wounds - one in the leg and the other in the body - and was captured and taken to the hospital at Baltimore, Md., where he was shortly afterward paroled. As soon as he was able he returned to his home, too badly disabled to rejoin his command, and having to walk with the aid of a crutch for about four years. After he became able to work he resumed his farming occupation, and has tilled the soil with considerable since. He was a delegate to the state constitutional convention to conform the constitution of the state to the reconstruction policy of the government in 1865, and 1875 he was elected a member of the legislature from Benton County. He is a very prominent man in the community, and has been active in the political affairs of his town and county as well as those of his state.
He and his wife are members of the Christian church, in which denomination he has been a well known and efficient minister for the past twenty-six years. He owns six hundred acres of land, one hundred and sixty of which are under cultivation, and on the old homestead where his parents lived and died he may be said to have lived all his life, having been only three months old when his parents located thereon. For the past ten years, he has been postmaster at Hickory flats, where he has taken a deep interest in all local affairs, and where his family is in high esteem among a large circle of acquaintances.
Mr. Crum is the only living representative of his family. He is everywhere looked upon as a progressive citizen, and an honorable, straightforward business man. In the former period of his life he read law, was admitted to the bar and practiced for eleven years at Ripley and seven at Hickory flats. In all the various pursuits to which he has devoted himself, he has been successful always, as planter, preacher, lawyer and public official he has won for himself the respect of all with whom he has had dealings.
Memoirs of Mississippi, 606-06, Corinth, Miss. Public Library
A second biography:
Crum, William A., a pioneer citizen Hickory Flat, Miss., was born in Tipton County, Tenn., in 1837. He is descended from noble lines of pioneers on both sides. His paternal grandfather, David Crum was of Buncombe county, N. C., and his father, Eli Crum, came to Mississippi 1837, locating on the place where the subject of this memoir now resides. Here the father died in 1860 at the age fifty-four years. His mother was Rachel Ayres, and the maternal grandfather Moses Ayres, was a pioneer of that part of Tippah County which is now Benton County, coming in 1837 from Hardeman County, Tenn.
William A. Crum was reared on his father's farm and has never known any other home. He received his educational advantages in the schools of the vicinity, and after school days settled down to farming. When the somber cloud of war was ascending the horizon, Mr. Crum enlisted as a private in the Seventeenth Mississippi infantry of the Confederate army, and participated in all the engagements in which his regiment was concern until the battle of Gettysburg, in which action he was severely wounded and incapacitated for further service. After the cessation of hostilities, when it became necessary for the Southern States frame and adopt new constitutions, Mr. Crum was a representative of Tippah county in the convention which drew up the constitution later endorsed and adopted by the people of the State. Politically he has always been a devout and ardent advocate of the principles of Thomas Jefferson and as the representative of the Democratic part of Benton County, he served in the State legislature of 1876 and 1877, and for four successive years he was mayor of Hickory Flat. Shortly after the close of the war he studied law and was admitted to the bar, and for ten years engaged in the active practice of that profession.
In 1864 he was ordained as a minister of the gospel of the Christian church and has been a local preacher of that faith ever since that time, most of his ministerial labors having been in northern Mississippi. On June 28, 1855, Mr. Crum married Miss Mary M. Smith, a native of Jackson county, Ind., and daughter of John Smith, born in Kentucky, who came to what is now Benton county from Indiana in 1830. Her paternal grandfather William Smith, entered the Continental army during the Revolutionary war when but fourteen years of age, and served six years.
To Mr. and Mrs. Crum were born nine children: Cleopatra, the eldest, is Mrs. C. E. Smith of Memphis, Tenn.; Rachel is the wife of J. T. Armour of New Albany, Miss.; William E. is a minister of the gospel at Hickory Flat, Miss.; Charles Lee, an attorney of New Albany, represented Union county in the State legislature from 1896 to 1900; Sarah E. married W. H. Cox, Jr., of Hickory Flat, Miss.; Lou E. is the wife of J. T. Wall, also of Hickory Flat; Martha C. is Mrs. G. W. Calthorp of the same place. On June 28, 1905, Mr. and Mrs. Crum celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary. At the celebration there were present seven children, thirty-seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Mississippi Biographical, 170-71, Corinth, Miss. Public Library
Burial Location
William Allen died 24 May 1911 in Old Hickory Flat, Miss. He is buried in Old Hickory Flat Cemetery on Highway 2 near Hickory Flat, Miss.
