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)