Joseph Anderson IRWIN

The following bio was taken from page 256 of the book entitled “Rusk County History” compiled and edited and used with permission of the Rusk County Historical Commission.

Transcribed by Gloria Riley

Submitted by Gloria Briley Mayfield, Rusk County TX Coordinator

My great great-granddad, Joe Irwin, was born in Pennsylvania in 1796. His mother was from Scotland and his father, from Ireland. He married Miss Logan and then moved to Tennessee and raised two girls and ten boys. They then came to Texas, where he died and was buried in the Irwin Cemetery that is east of the Crims Chapel schoolhouse. To this couple was born the father of my granddad, John Winston Irwin, in 1832, near Knoxville, Tennessee. John Winston came to Texas with a boyfriend, who he had met in McMin County, Missouri, and joined the army to fight for the United States against Mexico in 1846-1848. He fought for two years under the leadership of General Zachary Taylor. He then fought for four years in the Civil War under M. D. Ector, who was at one time District Judge of this District. John W. married Miss Killingsworth, and to them were born three girls and one boy. The mother Mrs. Irwin died in 1859 in Hopkins County, Texas, when their younger child, Joseph Anderson, was one year old. John W. then settled in Van Zandt County, Texas, and died there in 1871, leaving his young children there. My grandfather, Joseph Anderson Irwin, lived with his Uncle Charles Clark Irwin until he was the age of eighteen. Joseph was born November 3, 1858 in Hopkins County, Texas. He has lived in and near Rusk County ever since. My grandmother Irwin’s mother was America Crim Honeycutt Smith. America married George Honeycutt. They were both born in Shelby County, Calera, Alabama. George's parents were Jim and Thaney Cob Honeycutt. One of George and America’s two daughters was my grandmother Martha Honeycutt, who was born May 13, 1861, in Alabama. She came to Texas in a covered wagon with her mother and spent the rest of her life here. Martha and Joseph, my grandparents, met each other for the first time in a little log school house just a mile south of the Crims Chapel school building of today, near the home of Mr. Yandle. Martha Louisiana Honeycutt married Joseph Anderson Irwin, December 28, 1879, at the home of Uncle Wes Crim’s father in the place that is now known as Crims Chapel. Born to them were five sons, who are living in East Texas. My mother’s grandmother, an O’Quin, married a Thompson. To them was born my grandmother, Martha Lynn, February 8, 1855. Martha Lynn married Alfred Hezikiah Walton. He died in March 1897. Grandmother died April 27, 1908. To them were born three boys and two girls, one of who was my mother. My mother was only three when her father died and fifteen when her mother died. Two sons and one daughter born to them are still living, and one daughter and son are dead. The sons are living near El Paso, Texas, and the daughter who is my mother, is living near Henderson, Texas. Written by Ruby Lois Hudson