Tuscaloosa, AL Articles About Daniel Cribbs

STILL FOR GENERAL JACKSON

        Daniel Cribbs of Tuskaloosa has spent the week in Birmingham taking in the fair and the other attractions about the city. In talking with a party of friends in Capt. A. B. McEachin's law office yesterday, he said that he voted for General Jackson for president, and since that time has annually voted the straight democratic ticket, without a scratch or blemish. "And," he said, "I have always had a desire, at every election, to put in a vote for old Jackson, and I feel like doing it yet. But I am now over 90 years of age, and may meet General Jackson over on the other side of the river before I cast many more votes."
        Mr. Cribbs fought the Indians with Jackson, the greasers with Davis in Mexico, and the negroes and republicans with the true democrats in Alabama. He lived in California when John Phoenix was there surveying land with his patent attachment; and many have been his ad ventures on the frontier in days of old. And, through it all he was true to himself and to his friends; and now, in the twilight of a long and eventful life, extending over almost a century, he is distinguished for his honest and his true democracy.
        His allegiance to General Jackson reminds me of what I once heard the late Judge Heflin say on the same subject. He said: "The democrats are divided into two classes, the democrats and the dimicrats. The democrats are those who vote with the party as long as they find it to their interest to do so, but bolt whenever they can profit by their desertion; and the dimicrats are the died-in-the-wool fellows, who often wear wool hats and one suspender, but who never fail to be at the polls and vote the regular, unscratched democratic ticket, and then put in a vote for General Jackson."  Old Friend  (Copied by Joan Keith from an article in an unknown Birmingham, Alabama newspaper circa 1890-91)
 
 

DEATH OF AN OLD CITIZEN

Mr. Daniel Cribbs Passes Peacefully to Rest

        On Tuesday night at about 9:30 o'clock, Mr. Daniel Cribbs, one of the oldest citizens of this county, died at the residence of his son, Harvey H. Cribbs in this city. The death of Mr. Cribbs was not unexpected, as he had been in feeble health for some time, sinking gradually each day.
        At the time of his death, he was in his ninety-second year, having been born in the year 1800. He was a man of remarkable vitality and until a few months ago had never known from experience what sickness was.
        He came to this county about 1840, since which time he has always been one of its most useful and highly respected citizens. He held the office of sheriff of Tuskaloosa county before the war and made a faithful and painstaking official. He was a member of the Baptist Church, an uncompromising democrat and a good citizen; and leaves behind him a record of a well spent life, an example that young men would do well to emulate.
        Of the large family that he reared, only three sons survive him, vis:-  Messrs. Harvey and Ed Cribbs, of this county, and P. A. Cribbs, of Texas.  To them and their families the Gazette joins with the community in extending sympathy in this hour of bereavement.
        The funeral services were conducted by Rev. David M. Ramsey assisted by Dr. C. A. Stillman, at 4 o'clock yesterday
afternoon in the Baptist church in this city, and were largely attended.  At the conclusion of the impressive services the remains were conveyed to Evergreen cemetery, where all that was mortal of the good old man was laid to the rest in the silent city of the dead.    (Copied by Joan Keith from an article in the Tuscaloosa Gazette, circa September 29, 1891)
 
 

Death of Mr. Daniel Cribbs

        The venerable Daniel Cribbs departed this life last night at 10 o'clock, at the residence of his son, Mr. H. H. Cribbs.
For several months he had been slowly journeying towards the verge of that bourne from whence no traveler returns, and the end was not unexpected.  He closed his eyes as gently as a little child wearied of play falling asleep on it's mother's breast.
The earnest sympathy of the TIMES is extended the sorrowing relatives in their great bereavement.
        The funeral will be held from the Baptist Church this afternoon at 4 o'clock, after which the body will be laid to rest in Greenwood cemetery.
 
 

IN ONE LIFE TIME

For the Times:
        In the death of Mr. Daniel Cribbs this city loses its oldest citizen and the county its oldest inhabitant, save one.  He was at the time of his death in his 92nd year, having been born in 1800.  He numbered his years with those of the present century, and died having enjoyed the confidence and esteem of this community in all seasons and under all circumstances, during a period longer than the memory of man runneth.
        At the age of 12 he served as a courier upon the staff of an American officer engaged with "Old Hickory" in the battle of New Orleans. He was thirty when the same man as the "Hero of the Hermitage" was elected President. He was thirty-one when Webster replied to Hayne, was fifty when Scott marched back from Mexico, was sixty-one when Lincoln was elected, was seventy-six in the Centennial year, and was eighty-four when Cleveland was inaugurated. At the age of forty-eight he was a pioneer in the gold fields of California. Before Fremont had made a name, Mr. Cribbs had returned from the far West.
        He was a grown man when the Missouri Compromise was first agitated. He was a small boy at the time of the Louisiana purchase. He was nearing middle life when the United States Bank Bill fight engaged the attention of Congress.
He was nine when Napoleon was divorced from Josephine, fifteen when the battle of Waterloo was fought, and was a voter when the "man of destiny" died at St. Helena.
        The dead citizen was too far advanced in life to bear arms in the greatest war of modern times.
        Contemporaneous with the Union, he saw it expand from thirteen states to forty-two, and from less than four million to more than seventy million people.
        The Union on which he first looked was a coastwise congeries of jealous and flabby states. The Union on which his sightless eyes are now denied by death to look, is bounded on three sides by oceans, and has extended beyond mountains and deserts which were unexplored country in his youth.
        The slave trade prevailed when he began life.  Freedom had prevailed in all the land for more than a quarter of a century when he died. He antedated the cotton gin. He was thirty when the first railway was started. He was forty-four before Morse had strung an out-door wire, and about the same age when the ocean was first crossed by steam.
        He lived almost as long as the Republican form of government has existed among men. He lived in the greatest period of moral, mental and material development the world has ever seen. Age is a gift of the gods or a benison of nature; or it may be the reward of temperance and virtue.
        The citizen, entered into rest, died full of years, and his duration coincided with events which have transformed the world and made nature the servant courier and bearer of man.    Wm. Cochrane Fitts   (Copied by Joan Keith from an article in the Tuscaloosa Times, circa September 28, 1891)

DANIEL CRIBBS

        The recent decease of our venerable fellow citizen, Daniel Cribbs, probably breaks the last link which connected our generation directly with the generation that lived during the Revolutionary war.
        Mr. Cribbs was well acquainted with Maj. James Robinson, commonly known as "Horse Shoe Robinson," who spent many years of his life, and lies buried in the Robertson cemetery near Sanders' Ferry in Tuskaloosa county.
        "Horse Shoe Robinson" was a gallant soldier of the Revolution in South Carolina, his native state. His exploits as a soldier, in the days that tried men's souls have been woven by John P. Kennedy, of Maryland, into the famous novel "Horse Shoe Robinson."
        Mr. Cribbs knew "Horse Shoe" well. Many a time in the early days of Tuskaloosa, the two hunted deer together, then "Horse Shoe" was a hale old man, and Mr. Cribbs was still in the vigor of early manhood.  (Copied by Joan Keith from an article in an unknown Alabama newspaper, circa 1891)

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