The Isaac Criner Story

The Isaac Criner Story

Isaac Criner

THE CRINER HOME AT NEW MARKET, ALABAMA

From "Historic Homes" published in local paper (the paper’s name is not given).

The present structure, built between 1836 and 1840, still in a sound state on an exposed knoll overlooking a narrow valley, leading south between the ridges of the Cumberland foothill, is the successor to two log cabins, gone years ago, one a quarter of a mile away, the other on the site of the home.

Both the dwelling and the larger part of the estate, through these more than 127 years, have remained in the pioneer’s family, and with out burden of mortgage.

Several sources of information in regard to this father of all local residences are available. Early histories state and county records, old newspapers, data preserved by the family and older persons, who remember Mr. Criner before he died at the age of 93 in 1876, contribute to the account.

In 1803 or 1804, Isaac and his two companions followed the general movement which had brought white families down into Tennessee and Georgia, and crossed the mountains by way of the old immigrant trail later the Winchester road, exploring the northern part of the county around New Market. They found promising country, virgin forests and rich soil, and returned to east Tennessee to get their families.

Upon coming back to this section during the spring of 1805, they began their homes, living probably in crude shacks until the more substantial quarters could be completed. Joseph’s Cabin (Uncle of Isaac) was the first erected, and was located some miles away from the spot chosen by Isaac. McBroom, the last of the three to build, settled his family near Gurley.

While the first to settle in the county, these men were not the first to reach it. John Ditto had come to Huntsville as early as 1802 and had built a shack beside the spring, but this explorer, buying no land, was a trader and not a settler. Soon afterward, he had removed to Ditto’s landing on the Tennessee River, where he set up a Post, later operating a ferry. Hunt also is mentioned as the first here, but before his death, Criner told of this man’s arrival.

Samuel Davis came to the Big Spring prior to Hunt, Isaac recalled, and started the foundation of a cabin, leaving it uncompleted to return for his family. Just after the Criners had moved into Joseph’s home, Hunt accompanied by David Bean, stopped there for the night. The next morning they continued on their way, carrying with them bread which had been baked especially for them. Upon reaching the Spring here they found the work left by Davis. Bean helped Hunt finish the cabin, but was dissatisfied with the country and went back to Tennessee to settle near Salem. When Davis returned and found Hunt occupying the shack he had started, he changed his original plans and settled near New Market.

Though the unbroken wilderness, which lay over this section in 1805, and the habit of living to themselves these early settlers had acquired, makes it impossible to know just how many families came into the county during that year, there is practically a certainty that the Davises, Walkers, Campbells, Browns, Rices, Mathews, McCains, Baylesses, and Reeses also arrived soon after the others mentioned.

In addition to his uncle Joseph, Isaac was accompanied upon his return by his mother, Rebecca, whom he had brought from that part of North Carolina which later became Tennessee, where she had migrated from the German colonies in Pennsylvania. He also had with him at that time his younger brother, Granville, who settled here and later removed to Texas.

For the site of the little Two-room cabin he was to erect, Isaac had selected a spot near a spring on Mountain Fork of Flint River, from which flowed a stream of clear water as that from the large spring in Huntsville. This location was three-quarters of a mile from the boundary line of the land acquired by the government from the Cherokee and Chickasaw Indians in the treaty of 1805 and was situated in a narrow strip that was not bought from the Cherokees until 1819.

Criner often referred to the fact that he and his family were chased from his home by U.S. regulars and that he would move over into the 1805 purchase until the soldiers departed. He also alluded to the time his cabin was burned by the Indians. This may have been the occasion on which be erected the larger log structure near the site of the present home.

Isaac had quite a bit of other trouble of a negligible nature with the Indians. He and his family built up an early friendship with the near-by tribes, exchanged gifts with them, and confessed no fear of bodily harm at their hands but their property fared none too well. Any article, even a pot or pan, left on the outside of the cabin at night most assuredly was to be missing the next morning. There was no shooting at prowling thieves while a horde of redskins occupied the surrounding hills.

Due to his small quarters and large family, his mother and wife kept their looms in a shed near the cabin. Several times they returned to their work the next morning to find that the finished cloth had been cut away during the night, so they at last formed the habit of laboring until the small hours to complete the needed piece, and then took it inside with them.

On another occasion, a hive of bees was found missing, as he passed the Indian settlement a few days later, Criner was invited in to have a bite to eat. Much to his surprise, he was offered honey, and not wild honey either.

Though the valley before this original site now is a rich farming tract, this was not always the case; when Isaac came there it was covered with trees and thick cane-brake. One night as he looked out over this jungle from his cabin up on the hill, there echoed through the bottom land a plaintive cry, as of some wild animal. Shouldering his gun and with aid of a torch, He went to investigate. Less than half a mile from his door, he found a woman from another settler’s family, lost in the maze of the thicket.

Criner hired two negro carpenters, slaves, to build the present home from yellow poplar. A year was required for the work. The second cabin he had erected was moved back to make way for the new building, and later was turned into slave quarters.

In planning his home, Criner arranged with intention of adding to it as he needed. This idea never materialized however, for the Civil War interfered.

Seven rooms were laid off, with the four larger chambers composing the main part of the house. A dividing wall entirely shut off from each other the two upstairs rooms. To pass from one into the other, it was necessary to come back to the first floor and to climb a separate stairway. This was devised so that the girls could have the privacy of one side of the dwelling and the boys the other. The girls’ stairway was through the father’s bedroom.

Huge fireplaces were built at each end of the home downstairs. Ceilings were low and windows few and small. All material, including the weather-boarding, was cut by hand. To carry out the plan of a plantation mansion, he ordered a wide, double porch at the front of the house. Entrance to the upper veranda was gained only from the boy’s side of the upstairs rooms. Slave quarters were placed at the back and on the west side. Other outbuildings included a big smoke-house of cedar logs, a large kitchen with an immense fireplace, and a storeroom.

When the house was completed, Criner moved into it with his wife, Nancy McCain, whom he had married in this county in 1814. His mother had died in 1826, in the second log cabin. Isaac’s family consisted of 12 children; 9 daughters and 3 sons, all of whom were born at the time they occupied the new home, as follows:

Lucinda, wife of James Scott; Rebecca Jane, wife of James Franklin Scurlock; Alfred, who married Elizabeth Walker; Mahala, unmarried; Mary Anne, wife of Seaborn Robinson; William Calvin, who married Henrietta Rigney, parents of Mrs. Holbert Davis, of’ New Market; Almyra, unmarried; Isaac McClure, who married Lucy James Strong, parents of Mrs. George Okes, of Frankfort, Mo. Nancy, wife of Charles Edwin Whiting, (father and mother of Ida Cassady, Julia Pullen, Will and Ed. Whiting, and Ella Holmes, and Woodson Cosine); Elizabeth, wife of William Newton Flippin; Eliza, wife of Newell Whiting of Cleveland, 0.; and Martha Woodson, wife of William Henderson Moore, of Lincoln County, Tenn., parents of Clara Moore and Mrs. Elva Jones of Huntsville.

As soon as they became settled, the home was turned into one of the most beautiful in this section. A large lawn separated from the back by a row of cedars, was laid off and planted with nearly every variety of flower known to this section. Large shade trees towered above, casting such a shadow that the place was called "Shady Hill." The garden at the rear was divided into four squares, separated by wide walks bordered with flowers. Each of these was later assigned to a daughter who, aided by slaves, saw to its care with the desire to have her section look better kept than those of the others. More than one sly thrust at romance occurred while these girls showed their suitors about their respective plots.

As Criner advanced in age and his fortune increased in size, including as assets land in Jackson county and other acreage in Iowa, this home became a veritable retreat for the man who had dared the wilds of the Mississippi Territory. He loved music, particularly that of the violin, and the gayety of the young people about him. More than once, crowds of visitors from Huntsville and other nearby communities enjoyed the favor of his hospitality.

On balmy summer evenings he sat on the veranda of his mansion, given the first choice in county locations, and gazed out into the darkness. Faint lights in the distance marked the settlement of New Market, which had grown up while he watched. Only a few feet from his door, Mountain Fork rolled along almost silently in the direction of the town. Occasionally, the sound of a heifer among his large herds of cattle floated faintly up from the valley, while at the rear darkies murmered contentedly among themselves.

These negroes, descendants of whom are still to be found in the county, were loyal to their master. Many of the 40 or more remained on the plantation for years after the war, while only one ran away to join the Union army.

Locked in the peace of the valley there, only honesty and a man’s word were encountered in the dealings of those people. Neighborliness was the backbone of their livelihood. A bucket dispatched for sugar, or sirup, or lard was expected to come back filled. And once Joseph Miller, a neighbor, desiring money, sent his 12 year son to Isaac with a request for $500.00. The sum was handed the boy without even a pencil mark as a record.

Criner was nearing 80 when Alabama seceded from the Union. He was unable to shoulder his gun in defense of his home, but he stood by and watched two of his sons, the only ones alive, march away, never to return. Calvin, who joined the cavalry, fell dead from his horse in Georgia. Isaac, of the Fourth Alabama Infantry, was killed from ambush at Meridianville.

The Criners received many frights from the Yankees, the worst of which occurred after a skirmish on the Winchester road in which General McCook, a Federal officer, was killed while being borne along in an ambulance. Soldiers accompanying him swore vengeance for his death and set homes afire on all sides. The sight of rising smoke was proof of their wrath, so Isaac and his daughters, his wife having been dead then for several years, moved much of the furniture and stores up into the mountains. On this occasion, one male slave, who died here in the last year or two, was sent to hide dishes under the moss and water-cress growing along the banks of Mountain Fork. It was his opinion, even up to his death that many of these were never located again.

One raiding party came in rather unexpectedly and caught the family napping. Even the sugar hidden amid the cotton seed in the barn, all except all that an old negro woman managed to scoop into her apron was carried off. When these soldiers left, they took with them the entire herd of horses and a negro boy named Allison.

In Nashville, however, this youth managed to steal Isaac’s choice saddle pony away from the stable in which the animals were placed and to ride it back to his master. This was a harrowing experience to Allison, for previously, New Market had been the extent of his worldly visits.

The war was a costly misfortune for Criner. Besides his loss of food and animals and his two sons, he realized an immense drop in fortune. The census of 1860 showed a real estate valuation of $27,000, and a personal property estimate, much of which was for slaves, of $35,000. Ten years later his real estate was valued at $4,500, and his personal property at $1,000.

In the closing years of his life, Isaac became blind. This affliction put an end to one of his most cherished habits. Each morning, according to his routine, found him at the spring beside which he had built his first cabin years before. There he communed with the new day breaking, washed his face and head in the clear, cold water and then returned to the house before using the towel, regardless of the weather, often he arrived with ice in his hair and icicles hanging from his beard. His blindness made this custom out of the question, and also caused him to fall and cripple himself shortly before his death. Old-timers recall that the "heaviest snow in the history of this country" occured on the night of his death. Eighteen inches lay over the ground as they remember. He passed with the surrender of old age, leaving among his last words the thought that he had strictly observed the Golden Rule.

In his will he left to his two unmarried daughters, Mahala and Almyra, who had cared for him in his old age, the home estate, and to the children of Martha Woodson, the present Mrs. G. W. Jones, and Miss Clara Moore of this city. A third daughter, Ena, who also inherited part of the estate, died in 1900.

Upon Mahala’s death in 1885, a part of the original tract of 600 acres was sold. In 1904, when Almyra died, Mrs. Jones and Miss Moore came into sole possession of the property and kept it in partnership until several years ago, at which time the former sold her share to the latter, Miss Moore, to whom it still belongs.

The home is still a desirable residence, but it lacks most of the beauty which once marked it. The lawn is smaller now and has only a few of the old flowers growing there. The shade trees are gone, leaving only a cedar or two. The garden, the slave quarters, smokehouse, kitchen, and storehouse have also disappeared. At the front of the mansion, the veranda has given away to a single porch. Windows, doors, and almost the entire inside of the building remain unchanged except the large fire places which have been reduced to smaller ones.

Henry Fanning, aged resident of the county, who for 23 years has occuppied the home sits in front of the fire-place where Isaac more than once read his Bible, and recalls the only time he ever came in actual contact with this aged pioneer, so esteemed by his neighbors and friends. He and his father were on their way home and were forced to seek refuge from a storm coming out of the west and this house was the nearest.

Isaac was unusually hospitable, he remembers a big man who once had been strong and robust and ready to "lick his weight in wild cats or Indians". They had talked there in the west room until the rain abated, listening to their host’s rare humor and interesting tales. When they left, he waved good-bye to them at the gate.

Descendents of this settler point with pride to the spot where his cabin was built and to another site, a hole dug back in the side of the slope above the spring to obtain a level space for a shack for supplies or other purposes. They consider them a monument. But Madison county itself is a memorial to Isaac Criner.

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Web-Master Jerry Dean Criner April 18, 2004

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