JAMES POLK CRIM

The following bio was taken from page 165 of the book entitled "Rusk County History" compiled and edited and used with permission of the Rusk County Historical Commission.

Transcribed by Shirley Koym

Submitted by Gloria Briley Mayfield, Rusk County TX Coordinator

At the beginning of his book "Roots and Branches of the J. P. Crim Family," my uncle, the late Colonel Sterling M. Crim, states that "after tremendous amounts of research and compiling of data, it appears that the name Crim (Grimm, Crim, Krim) is of Germanic origin." Some genealogists would relate the name to the German brothers Grimm who wrote the famous fairy tales. My uncle quotes B. C. Heltzelaw who states in his book about German immigrants to American "Johnannes Crim or Grim, and Johannes Jacob Crim, or Grimm, arrived in Pennsylvania, December 3, 1740 on the Ship Robert and Alice. John and Jacob both later settled at Little Fork in Culpepper County, Virginia. These brothers, born in Obercheiden in the Oberfischbach Parish, Germany, were the sons of Christian Grim and Elizabeth Spilman, a sister of the immigrant, John Spilman. John Crim was born in 1701 and brother Jacob in 1705. It is believed both were married when they came to America, though this particular passenger list does not mention the names of women. John was almost certainly married when he settled in Virginia in 1750, because a John Grim was paid (according to military records) in 1756 for service in the French and Indian Wars. This could hardly have been John Grim, immigrant, since he would have been fifty-five years old at the time."

It is believed that my great-great-grandfather, Peter Crim, was the son of Johannes Grim mentioned by Heltzelaw. The first census of the United States was taken in 1790. A Peter Crim is listed in this census report as a resident of Kershaw and Fairfield Counties, South Carolina, with eight members of his family. Peter, who died in 1801, is again listed in the 1800 census of Kershaw County with eight members in the family. The household headed by a John Crim (Peter’s oldest son) was again registered in the 1810 census. One of the four males registered here as (under age ten) was undoubtedly my great-grandfather, Abraham, born in 1807.

Abraham B. Crim went to Shelby County, Alabama, from South Carolina between 1820 and 1830. There were older members of the Crim family who went to Alabama between the above dates. They were probably Abraham’s uncles. According to the Alabama census of 1830, Abraham had married Joanna Armstrong of Tennessee in January of the same year. The 1850 census shows that twelve children had blessed the household. The youngest male, a James Polk Crim, age three was my grandfather. (See Crim family stories).

An 1866 Alabama census shows that four of Abraham’s sons were casualties of the Civil War. One soldier was killed, two died of illness, and one was disabled. There is no record that any of the direct Polk Crim family line served in the American Revolution, but they are well represented in all the later wars and conflicts that the country became involved in.

Interestingly, the respective trails followed by my grandparents almost parallel each other as they traveled west in the late 1860’s from South Carolina through Georgia, finally settling only a few miles apart in Rusk County. The Crims settled in 1867 at a place that became known as Crims Chapel, and it still bears that name.

Traveling from Alabama by wagon train, the Crims ferried over the Mississippi at Vicksburg. The Mims family traveled by wagon train from Georgia, but over a different route. They ferried across Lake Ponchatrain near New Orleans, then headed for Texas and settled in Rusk County near Old Millville. The two families met for the first time in Texas. After my grandfather, James Polk Crim, and grandmother, Julia Ann Mims, married, December 27, 1870, they established their home about five miles north west of Henderson near Pleasant Hill. All twelve of their children were born and reared there.

They children were: Walter Benjamin, 1871-1945; Joseph Rondo, 1873-1944; Allen Belton, 1876-1942; Basil Malcolm, 1877-1944; Lunda Dexie (Sample), 1880-1968; Bessie Alma (Ramsey), 1882-1942; Rudolph Sanford, 1885-1953; Clifton Lee, 1887-1979; Susan Fay (Price), 1889-1948; Sterling Manly, 1891-1980; James Preston, 1895-1925; Hubert Mims, 1897-1976. All these children were born in Rusk County, Texas.

James Polk Crim and Julia Ann Mims Crim were a hardy pioneer couple and are buried in the Pleasant Hill Cemetery along with seven of their twelve children, one of whom was my father, Clifton Lee.

Submitted by Donald L. Crim