Kesiah Crier (Cryer) of Fayette County

Footprints Of Fayette

Fayette County is one of the most historic counties in Texas. In this weekly feature from the County Historical Commission, a rotating group of writers looks back at local history.

Kesiah Crier (Cryer) was born January 19, 1797, the eighth child of Morgan and Barbara Morris Cryer. She was seven years old when her mother died in Georgia. Her father moved the family to Arkansas in 1815. The next year, Kesiah married William Hemphill, a prosperous merchant. The couple had five children but only two, Andrew and Charlotte, survived infancy. William Hemphill died in 1825 and Kesiah married a second time to Thomas Jacobs and they had one child, Henry Franklin Jacobs, before Thomas died in 1829. Kesiah Jacobs and her three children made the journey to Austin’s Colony in December 1830 probably because her brother, John Crier, also a widower with two children, was already living in Texas as a member of the “Old Three Hundred.” Kesiah’s sister Rebecca was married to James Cummins and also resided in Texas. John and Rebecca and their families settled along the Colorado River near the Ross and Burnam families.

On March 14, 1831 Kesiah went to San Felipe de Austin to petition the Mexican Government for a land grand as one of Austin’s colonists. She applied using her maiden name, Kesiah Crier, and stated that she was a widow with a family of three children that wanted to locate permanently in Texas. She had selected a league of land situated on West Fork Creek, a tributary of Navidad Creek. She agreed to settle and cultivate the land according to the colonization laws. The next day, Samuel May Williams, Austin’s agent, gave his approval stating that she was a much respected widow who was entitled to her chosen land. The Mexican land commissioner ordered her land surveyed so a title could be issued.

Kesiah received the title to her league on May 10, 1831, making her one of the first women in Texas to be granted such a large amount of land by the Mexican government. Four twenty-fifths of her league was suitable for farming and the rest of the 4,428 acres were pasture land. The old community of Lyons and the present day city of Schulenburg sit on the Crier league.

The southern section of present day Fayette County was still an unbroken wilderness and largely unsettled when Kesiah and her family arrived at her league. Their only neighbors were the James Lyons family. The two families were the only white settlers in the area. It is believed that Henry Franklin Jacobs died shortly after the family arrived at their new home.

Kesiah married “Yankee George” Taylor and their son John Crier Taylor was born in 1832. The family spent the next few years under near constant threat of Indian raids and Mexican invasions. Family stories relate that during the Texas Revolution, the Taylor family fled to the safety of East Texas during the Runaway Scrape and along the way Andrew Hemphill drowned in Galveston Bay. After the family returned home two more children, Nancy Ann and George Morgan Taylor, were born.

Indian raids continued to be a threat and in the fall of 1837, about two miles from Kesiah’s property line, a Comanche war party attacked the James Lyons family. They killed the father and carried off his son into ten years of captivity.

In 1845, George and Kesiah started selling off pieces of the Crier league to families arriving from the United States. As the population of the south end of the county grew, roads were developed across the land.Atrading post was established near the “Cotton Road” to Mexico and the town of Lyons developed. By 1860 the thriving community had several stores, a Masonic Lodge, church, school, and a post office.

George Taylor died in 1862 and Kesiah moved to Corpus Christi to live with her daughter Nancy. She died after 1870. George and Kesiah Taylor may be buried in unmarked graves in the Taylor section of the Old Navidad Baptist Cemetery.

After the Civil War the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway extended its line toward San Antonio and passed two miles north of Lyons. In 1874 the post office, the local businesses, and the Masonic lodge moved to the railroad and formed the nucleus of the new town of Schulenburg.

In 1881, Kesiah’s youngest son, George Morgan Taylor, sold off the family’s last interest in the Crier league. The last of Kesiah’s descendants to live on the K. Crier league, a great-graddaughter, died in 1965.