BCGHS Journal Vol V, No 2, Apr-Jun 2023, by Ves R Box, Jr, BCGHS 1890 Project Committee Chair

In his application for a military pension in 1878, Roden Taylor Crane of Bosque County, Texas, stated that he was fifty-nine years old, making his birth date about 1819. Family and other published sources state that he was born in Hardeman County, Tennessee, on April 29, 1819. Various sources listed his name as Roden Crain, Roden Crane, Rodden Crane, and R.T. Crane.

Family sources also state that his father was Ambrose H. Crain, but this is believed to be in error. Only three heads of family named Crain or Crane with sons aged 10-14 were found in the 1830 census for Hardeman County, Tennessee. These were [Raden [?] T.] Crane, born between 1791 and 1800, John Crain, born between 1771 and 1780, and William Crain, born between 1771 and 1780. No heads of families with the last name Crain or Crane were found in the Hardeman County census for 1840. Family researchers believe Roden Taylor Crain arrived in Texas in October of 1834.

A Headright Certificate issued to an R. T. Crane by the Board of Land Commissioners for San Augustine County, Texas, certified that R. T. Crain came to Texas in 1835. An 1835 census report for the Sabine District, Coahuila y Tejas, listed Rodden T. Crain as a single man, sixteen years of age, Catholic of religion, and employed as a farmer. He was living next to the family of Ambrose Crane [born c1789], which included a son, Joel B. Crain, age twenty-one. Joel B. Crain later stated that he had fought in the Texas Revolution in the same unit as his cousin, Roden T. Crane.

The 1835 tax lists for Sabine District listed seven taxpayers with the last name of Crain or Crane: A. H. Crain, Ambrose Crain, Joel B. Crain, Patience Crain, Rodden [T?] Crain, Rosamon Crain, and William H. Crain.

Roden T. Crain was a veteran of the Texas Revolution, serving in Capt. William Kimbro’s Company of San Augustine, Texas, between March 10, 1836 and October 6, 1836.

Eighteen Minutes, by Stephen L. Moore, an excellent book documenting the Battle of San Jacinto mentions: “On April 3, General Houston did follow through on his plans to guard the key Brazos crossings. He ordered Captain William Kimbro’s company to report to “some position near to San Felipe and unite his command with that of Capt. M. [Moseley] Baker and remain until further orders.” The book also mentions: [Kimbro’s company] “were ordered by Houston to go assist Captain Baker’s men in holding San Felipe. One of Kimbro’s men was Anderson Buffington … There was also Roden Taylor Crain, another former Tennessean, just shy of his seventeenth birthday, and his cousin, Joel Crain.”

R. T. Crain stated in his military pension papers: “I was wounded by Santa Anna’s advance guard at the time that the Mexican Army arrived at San Felipe on the Brazos River.” Mr. Crain later reflected in the 1872 Texas Almanac: “You stated in your issue of the first of the month, that you wished to hear from men who served in our struggles for Texas Independence.I am one of them… Our Captain was William Kimbro… I was slightly wounded in the head, by an escopeto ball, at San Felipe, when Santa Anna’s army first arrived at that place. Our company joined Houston’s at Groce’s Retreat and was ordered down to San Felipe to guard that crossing… There were two other companies in that place to keep the Mexicans from crossing. Capt. Moseley Baker commanding the whole guard. We burned the town, crossed to the other side and entrenched.”

On April 8th, the Texas forces were under cannon fire by Santa Anna’s forces and Santa Anna had given orders to build two flatboats to cross the Brazos. Mr. Moore continued: “Another solder, Roden Taylor Crain of Captain Kimbro’s company, was wounded in the action.” On April 16th, General Houston ordered Major Willie Williamson to “go with all possible speed to the Red Land Company with directions that they should join the army, as it had now changed its course to Harrisburg.” The Red Land Company was Capt. William Kimbro’s command and was named for the iron-rich crimson soil of the San Augustine area. Capt. Kimbro’s company arrived in the Texas camp during the early morning hours of April 18th. They were allowed to rest until 11:00 a.m. that morning and then followed the rear guard of the army to join General Houston at Harrisburg.

On April 20th, Rodden Crain, with five other men from Captain Kimbro’s San Augustine company, was selected for a scouting patrol, led by Colonel Robert M. Coleman. The patrol captured a large flatboat crewed by ten Mexican soldiers and loaded with provisions. The patrol brought the craft up the bayou near the Texian camp and were well received by the soldiers as they unloaded much needed barrels of flour, coffee, meal, and salt.

On the day of the San Jacinto battle, April 21, 1836, Captain Kimbro’s men were attached to the Second Regiment under Colonel Sidney Sherman and “took part in the impetuous charge which overthrew the Mexican Army and the victorious pursuit that followed.” One of the great bronze wall plaques in the San Jacinto Museum lists Roden Taylor Crain and Joel Burditt Crane as participants in the Battle of San Jacinto in April of 1836.

Rodden Taylor Crain joined Capt. Richard Hooper’s Company of San Augustine Cavalry on July 6, 1836, and was discharged on October 10, 1836. For his service with Capt. Hooper, Mr. Crain received Bounty Certificate #309 for 320 acres of land. Family researchers believe he may have returned to Tennessee after the Texas Revolution and bought land there before returning to Texas. R. T. Crain was not found in the 1840 or 1850 census for Tennessee.

A list of Mounted Volunteers [also called militia and Texas Rangers] shows Rodden Taylor Crain as a private in Capt. Henry William Augustin’s Mounted Volunteers between August 8 and 22, 1838. During the Cordova Rebellion of August 1838, General Thomas J. Rusk sent Major H. W. Augustine and 150 troops to help suppress the rumored combined forces of Mexican forces and Chief Bowl’s Cherokee warriors near Nacogdoches.

In 1840, a list of taxpayers for Nacogdoches County listed one Rodden T. Crain, with property including ten slaves. This is believed to be a different R. T. Crane who was born in Georgia in 1798 and is often confused with the Roden T. Crain of Bosque County. It appears that R. T. Crain of Georgia arrived in Texas in 1839 and first settled in Nacogdoches County. He married [two] widow Cassandra [Cassa] Clark Blankenship in 1842 in Nacogdoches County and was living with his family in Harrison County, Texas, in 1850. He died in 1855 and is believed to have been buried in Harrison County.

During the Mexican War, Rodden T. Crain enrolled on September 24,1846, in Bell’s Regiment, Texas Mounted Volunteers, U. S. Army under Captain John J. Grumbles and served until September 23, 1847. He was listed as a private, age twenty-six. On September 28, 1847, about a week after his first discharge, R. T. Crain enrolled in San Antonio, Texas, to serve in Captain Crump’s Company, Bell’s Regiment, Texas Mounted Volunteers. Company records listed him as private Roddin T. Crane, age twenty-seven. He served in Crump’s company until mustered out in San Antonio on September 30, 1848.

Family researchers state Roden T. Crain received a patent of land on Childress Creek in Bosque County in 1847. Roden T. Crain of Bosque County was not found in the Federal Census for Texas in 1850, 1860, or 1870. It is believed that R. T. Crain was living in Bosque County in 1872, when he contacted the editors of the Texas Almanac concerning his service in the Texas Revolution. Mr. Crain was listed in the Bosque County Tax rolls from 1875 until 1890.

In the 1880 Federal Census for Texas, R. T. Crane was listed in Bosque County as a single man, age sixty-three, working as a farmer, disabled [eye out], and born in Tennessee. Family researchers state that R. T. Crain of Bosque County never married. The 1890 Bosque County tax rolls listed R. T. Crane with no property and one buggy or wagon, valued at $10, and two horses valued at $60 total.

In a biographical sketch in Bosque County: Land and People, Texas historian, Mrs. Rebecca Radde, wrote: “Crain was drowned in the Bosque River in 1891. He had about $48 in money on his person. His bed clothing, tools, watch, grindstone, buggy, wagon, etc., was almost enough to pay for his funeral and for a tombstone.”

On Tuesday, July 21, 1891, The Fort Worth [Texas] Gazette newspaper printed a report from a special correspondent in Bosque County. Dated July 20, it read: “Valley Mills, Bosque County, Tex. – July 20 – Roden T. Crain, one of the old San Jacinto veterans, was drowned in the Bosque at this place about noon to-day. The old man had become almost totally blind, but would ride around in his buggy, trusting to his horse to carry him where he wanted to go. This morning as he left town to go home in his buggy his horse did not go on the bridge, but went down the bank to the ford. Several parties who were near the river called to him and warned him that the river was up, but he paid no attention to them, and some little children ran after him and pleaded with him not to drive in, but he forced his horse into the swollen stream without giving any answer to them and was drowned. The horse also drowned. The body has not yet been recovered owing to the high water, but search is being made for it. He had no near relatives living.” This story was copied to The Austin [Texas] Weekly Statesman newspaper on July 23, 1891.

On Wednesday, July 22nd, a follow-up story by the special correspondent appeared in the Gazette: “R. T. Crain – Further Particulars of the Tragic Death of the San Jacinto Veteran in the Bosque – Valley Mills, Bosque County, Tex. – July 20 – Valley Mills was the scene of a drowning to-day which takes away one of the survivors of San Jacinto – R.T. Crain, aged seventy-two years. He owned property seven miles north of here and came to town this morning on business, and started for home at 11 o’clock. While he was in town the Bosque River, which he had to cross, rose about five feet. When he reached the river some parties who were fishing nearby earnestly entreated him not to attempt to cross, but despite the entreaties he drove into the desperate waters. The horse was soon washed down and drowned, and the buggy in which he was riding soon turned over, and Mr. Crain was heard to speak no more. Parties have been searching for the body… His history is that of a warped and woofed nature, and is full of adventures incident to the early, pathetic history of Texas. He was born in Tennessee in 1814, and at seventeen years of age he was engaged with other noble patriots in the battle of San Jacinto. He told your reporter this morning that he was the only man left who guarded Santa Anna after his surrender to Houston. He gave the following names as the parties who were commissioned to guard Santa Anna in five minutes after he had been brought into camp: Harry Hall, Milton Swisher, Daniel McGary, and R.T. Crain. Swisher died a few months ago in Austin. McGary died soon after the San Jacinto battle. Hall was killed at San Antonio in 1842 by the Mexican forces. Mr. Crain was never married, and made no pretensions to Christianity. He leaves a large tract of land north of here. He had lost all confidence in mankind. It can be furthermore stated that he was for years a close companion of Big-foot Wallace, Capt. Jack Hays and others of daring bravery. He lost his right eye in a fight with the Indians while carrying the mail from San Antonio to Santa Fe, when Texas was a republic. He was almost blind, and partially deaf, and had he profited by the warnings of those who were fishing, he would have been a live man now.” Roden T. Crain was buried in the Valley Mills Cemetery, Valley Mills, Texas. His monument at the grave reads: “Roden T. Crain – born April 29, 1819 – Died July 20, 1891 – A Texas Veteran of San Jacinto in 1836.”

A Texas Historical Marker was placed at the grave, which reads:
“Tennessee native Roden Taylor Crain, a member of Capt. William Kimbro’s Company of San Augustine County volunteers, was a soldier in the struggle for Texas Independence from Mexico. He fought at the Battle of San Jacinto on April 21, 1836, and later received a land grant and pension for his service. He settled on his land in present Bosque County, where he lived the rest of his life. He drowned in the Bosque River and was buried here in 1891.”

On March 22, 1936, an article in the Waco [TX] Tribune Herald reported: “WPA Workers Unearth Timepiece That Went Through the Battle of San Jacinto.” The article continued: “A watch which is at least six years older than the Republic of Texas, and which went through the battle of San Jacinto, has been discovered in central Texas … J. B. Layne of Comanche is the current owner. He says that the watch, made of warrant coin silver by the Elgin company, was purchased by Roden T. Crain, and an inscription in it bears Crain’s name with the legend “Veteran of San Jacinto, April 21, 1836.” Layne relates how Crain used it as a timepiece at San Jacinto, and how he and the watch owner had a conversation about it one summer day in 1890… [Crain] had no relatives, so his personal possessions were raffled off to pay his funeral expenses and the watch, found on his body was bought by Frank Sparks. Layne bought it from him before he ever put it in his pocket.”

In October of 1939, Mrs. J. B. Layne wrote to L. W. Kemp of the San Jacinto Museum of History, stating that her deceased husband had kept the watch until his death in 1937 and she offered to sell it to the museum. She also mentioned that Mr. Crain had worn the watch while guarding General Santa Anna after the battle. In a letter dated November 13 of that year L. W. Kemp wrote to Mrs. Layne saying that he would certainly like to see the watch exhibited at the museum, but no funds were available to purchase items.

Sources

1880 United States Federal Census-Bosque County, Texas. Internet. Ancestry.com

U.S. Compiled Military Service Records for American Volunteer Soldiers, Mexican War 1845-1848. Internet. Ancestry.com

Ancestry.com Gamble Family Tree. Monica Berglund. In The Bosque – Roden T. Crain, One of the San Jacinto Veterans. Fort Worth [TX] Gazette. Vol. 15, Number 279. Tuesday, July 21,

1891. Bosque County Collection. Roden T. Crain. Bosque Letter. Meridian, TX, March 2011.

Bosque County History Book Committee. Bosque County: Land and People – A History of
Bosque County, 1985; Dallas, Texas.

United States Mexican War Index and Service Records 1846-1848. Internet.
Familysearch.org

Find A Grave. Roden Taylor Crain. Valley Mills Cemetery, Valley Mills, TX. Internet.
http://www.findagrave.com

Grear, Donna. Editor. Valley Mills [TX] Progress, Valley Mills, Texas. 2022

Kemp, L.W. Veteran Biographies. San Jacinto Museum of History. Internet.
http://www.sanjacinto-museum.org/Library/Veteran Bios/

Kubacak, Hannah. West Waco Library and Genealogy Center. Waco, Texas. 2002.

Library of Congress. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. “An Old Veteran
Drowned.” The Austin Weekly Statesman, Austin, TX. July 23, 1891. Internet.
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Moore, Stephen L. Eighteen Minutes – The Battle of San Jacinto and the Texas Independence Campaign. Republic of Texas Press, 2004.

Spurlin, Charles D., comp. Texas Veterans in the Mexican War. Victoria College, 1984.

Struthers, Lisa. Library Director. San Jacinto Museum and Battlefield. La Porte, Texas. 2022.

Texas State Historical Association. Military Rolls of the Texas Republic. Internet.
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University of North Texas. Portal to Texas History. The Texas Almanac for 1872 and Emigrant’s Guide to Texas. Internet. http://texashistory.unt.edu/

University of North Texas. Portal to Texas History. “In The Bosque – Valley Mills, July 22”.
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University of North Texas. Portal to Texas History. “R.T. Crain”. Fort Worth [Texas] Gazette.
Vol. 15, No. 280, Wednesday, July 22, 1891. Page 8.

University of North Texas. Portal to Texas History. “Roden T. Crain”. The Sunday Gazetteer
[Denison, Texas]. Vol. 10. Number 13. Sunday, July 26, 1891. Page 3.

University of North Texas. Portal to Texas History. “In The Bosque – Valley Mills, July 22”. The Post Mirror [Pilot Point, TX]. Vol. 4, Number 25. Friday, July 24, 1891. Page 4.

U.S. Genweb Archives. Census Report of Sabine, 1835, Internet.
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Waco [TX] Tribune Herald. “Watch is 6 Years Older Than the Republic of Texas”. Sunday,
March 22, 1936. Page 21