Isaac Crook: 1811-1883

December 2005. Note: Jan Crook Pierson is collecting information about our Crook ancestors. The remainder of the page contains material from that research. It was written for our children and grandchildren.

Here is something written up in the Falls City newspaper (Nebraska) about our great great grandfather, Isaac Crook. Isaac was Allen's father, and Allen was our grandfather Newton's (Isaac Newton Crook) father...who was Grandpa Cal's father.

"Grandpa Newt" came out to the Seattle area in a covered wagon in the late 1800's with his parents, Allen and Rebecca Ray Crook along with his brother, Jack (Andrew Jackson) and half sister Christine.

Allen, Rebecca, and Christine are buried in unmarked graves in the Auburn Pioneer cemetery which I visited recently with Cousin George Crook.

My pony express story will have Paige and Brooks going back in time, landing in Nebraska in 1860 and meeting Allen Crook who (it was said) rode the Pony Express in 1860-61. Below is a list of your ancestors:

• John Crook b.1740, d.1838 White County TN.
• John Crook b. 1779, d.1859 Putnam County TN.
• Isaac Crook, born in White County TN 1811, died 1883, Cedar County MO.
• Allen Crook born July 10, 1838 in White County TN. He married Rebecca Ray April 5, 1870 in Falls City, NE. She was the daughter of Abner Ray and Mary Keith who are also buried in Auburn WA. Rebecca died before 1915 in King County.
• Newton Crook (Isaac Newton) was born in Falls City NE in 1876 and died April 25, 1959 in Kirkland WA. He married Maude Burlingame who was born in 1884. She died in 1964
• Carol Calvin Crook born in Zillah WA Dec. 25 1904. Died, Oct. 15, 2000.

Extracts of Falls City, Nebraska Newspapers

The Globe-Journal, January 19, 1878

One of the twin babes of Mrs. Aug. Schoenheit died of whooping cough on Tuesday night last.

The Globe-Journal, January 26, 1878 Little Maud, twin sister of the infant child of Mr. and Mrs. Schoenheit which they buried last week died on last Saturday morning.

The Journal, January 28, 1882

Died
At his home in Ohio precinct, Richardson Co. Neb., of dropsy of the chest on Tuesday evening Jan 17th, 1882, William G. Goolsby, aged 63 years 10 months and 10 days.

He was born in White Co. Tennessee on the 20th day of February 1818, and removed to Andrew Co. Missouri in 1840 and from there to Richardson Co. Neb. in 1856. He died as he lived a true and devoted Christian, and was conscious to the last. He leaves a widow and nine children, all of whom attended the funeral except one daughter. There were forty grand children and four great grand children present at the funeral, the services being conducted by Rev. R. Taylor, thirty-four carriages besides a large number of persons on foot joined in the funeral procession.

The Journal, August 31, 1883

ISAAC CROOK Personal Characteristics Given by an Old Friend.

In the death of Uncle Isaac Crook the country has lost one of its best and oldest inhabitants. One by one the early subduers of the wilderness are going away, and it will not be many years until there will be none left.

The writer of this sketch has known the subject of it now more than twenty five years, and I am unwilling to let the event of his demise go by without giving expression to the personal sorrow and regret with which I am oppressed in parting with a man who has uniformly been my friend for a quarter of a century. I very well remember the bright day in May, 1858, when I first met Uncle Ike, as he was then and ever after familiarly know.

There were but few people in the country, and all about us was silence and vacancy, with only now and then a settler by the Muddy and the Nemahas. The beautiful prairies, carpeted everywhere with a green luxuriance, seemed to wear a perpetual smile, as though God when he made them had smiled upon His work, and the smile was yet upon the country.

At that time Mr. Crook had reached the prime of a vigorous manhood, while I was a youth whose face was guiltless ofr either a beard or a razor.

The intervening years have wrought some change in that particular, but they have lessened none in the least my kindly regard for the man, brusk, odd and peculiar though he was, who stood my friend in the day of small things.

He was treasurer of the county at the time of which I speak, and had been for some years before, and continued to hold the office by election of the people till the latter part of the year 1864. His administration of the trust committed to his care was honorable and just, fully meeting the approbation of his fellow citizens. Isaac Crook was not an educated man, but he was an honest man; he had nothing of the polish which refined and polite society gives, but he had as warm a heart in his old breast as ever beat in the bosom of man.

There are those yet hungering in this county who remember the hard experiences of 1860, that year of drouth and failure. The hot sun and winds scorched and burned up almost entirely all the crops in the country, leaving the people scarcely enough to pull through the following winter, and nothing with which to commence the next year. It was then that Uncle Isaac exhibited the sterling, generous manhood that was in him. In the spring of 1861 he converted every available dollar he had into seed wheat and distributed it among the most needy in the county, exacting in return only a like amount out of the crops to be raised therefrom.

There were many men in the county then who had more means than he, and who no doubt enjoyed many laughs at the oddities of our old friend; but they were not with him in the great and generous enterprise. In that he stood alone. The full measure of the noble act, its significance and importance, can hardly be understood and appreciated by a people who never suffered a like experience. It must be viewed in the light of the destitute surroundings of the people then; of their illy fed families, half-clad wives and children, the girls and boys of whom are men and women now, to be applauded as it justly deserves.

The old man's life was full of such acts. They were characteristic of him, though not paraded by him; indeed the effect of many such was often marred by the careless disregard of their author of public sentiment concerning the ordinary amenities of life.

That he had faults in common with the balance of humanity, is a fact; but they were only the faults of a man. We all have something that others call faults or shortcomings, and this is the fate of all the race. Indeed, a man would not be a part of the universal family if he had none. I don't think I should like a fellow who is so perfect that he never sins; for an angel whom God has made and forgot to put in heaven, would not fit all around down here.

He lived to see the three or four hundred people in the county when he came swell into more than fifteen thousand prosperous and happy people; to see the wilderness converted into a garden, and a weak and sparsely settled territory grow into a great and widely expanded state. But he died away from home. This was a matter of regret to all his friends. It seems best and most fitting that one should die at home. The last recollections of this life ought to be associated with what we have loved best, and loved longest; and such are always found at home and amidst its household gods.

But he is at rest, and the flowers we scatter about the grave that is new, are those of a kindly remembrance.

R.

Died. CROOK - At Eldorado Springs, Missouri, Wednesday, August 22nd, 1883, Isaac Crook, aged 72 years, 5 months, and 26 days.

Isaac Crook, or "Uncle Ike" as he was commonly called was one of the first settlers in Richardson county. As such he was identified with all of its earliest history and known and respected by all of the earlier inhabitants.

He was born in Tenn., Feb. 27th, 1811. In 1842 he moved to Missouri and settled in Andrew county, where he lived until 1857, when he came to Richardson county Nebraska, and settled one mile north of Falls City on what is known as the Crook farm, and has been a continuous resident of the county ever since. For several years he was county treasurer, and made an honest and efficient officer.

He leaves several brothers and sisters and a large family of children and grandchildren to mourn his loss. He was buried in Steele Cemetery, August 24, and was followed to the grave by a large number of relatives and friends. The funeral sermon will be preached at some future time, of which due notice will be given.