JOHN G. CRUMP, M. D. The medical profession has an able representative at Saint Jo, Texas, in the subject of this sketch, Dr. John G. Crump, who has been identified with Montague county since its early settlement.
Dr. Crump was born in Bedford county, Virginia, December 19, 1839; was reared on a farm, receiving his elementary education in the subscription schools near his home, later attending Cedar Bluff and Lakeland academies, after which he taught school three terms in Arkansas. While teaching he took up the study of medicine, having for his preceptor , with whom he was associated for five years, as student and assistant. In 1870 he came to Texas and located at Head of Elm, near which the town of Saint Jo was platted three years later, where he began the practice of his profession and has continued successfully. In 1880, feeling a need of further preparation for his life work, he took a course of lectures in the Texas Medical College at Galveston, and in 1881, ’82 and ’83 he attended lecturers in the University of Louisiana at New Orleans, where he graduated with honor. Also at different times he has taken post-graduate courses at the Chicago Polytechnic School of Physicians, and thus has kept himself in the advance line of his profession. At the time of his location in Montague county Dr. Crump and Dr. J. A. Gordon were the only physicians in a radius of many miles and his practice soon extended over a wide stretch of country, reaching into Clay county and over into the Indian Territory. It was not unusual for him to ride seventy-five miles to attend a patient. His long practice here has gained him a very wide acquaintance. Indeed, few men, if any, in Montague county are better known than he, and none are more highly respected. For thirteen years he has been surgeon for the M. K. & T. Railroad Co., and is medical examiner for a number of insurance companies.
Dr. Crump, like most Southern men of his age, has a record as a Confederate soldier. He had moved with his parents to Arkansas in 1858, and was in that state at the opening of the war of the rebellion. Enlisting in Company D, First Arkansas Cavalry, which was assigned to the Trans-Mississippi Department of the Confederate army, and later to the Army of the Tennessee, young Crump took part in many of the hardest fights of the war. He was captured at Black River, Mississippi, and was taken to Fort Delaware and alter to Fort Lookout, where he remained seven months, after which he was exchanged in December, 1863, at City Point and joined his command at Camden, Arkansas, with which he continued until the close of the war, June, 1865. During that time he received several slight wounds and once had some ribs broken, but was never laid off. It was after the close of the war and he taught school and took up the study of medicine.
In 1878 Dr. Crump married Miss Carrie L. Perkins, a native of Virginia, and a daughter of Hezekiah Perkins, who had moved from Virginia to Texas some years previous to that time and was engaged in farming here. This happy union was severed by the death of Mrs. Crump, June 19, 1879. She left no children. August 6, 1880, Dr. Crump married Miss Florence E. Irwin, a native of Peoria county, Illinois, born in 1861, a daughter of Samuel and Sarah A. (Miller) Irwin, the former a native of Ireland and the latter of North Carolina. The Irwin family moved to Texas in 1872, but Mr. Irwin family moved to Texas in 1872, but Mr. Irwin returned to Illinois in 1876 and died there in 1881. Subsequently Mrs. Irwin came back to Texas and made her home with her daughter, Mrs. Crump, and died here December 23, 1899. They were worthy members of the Methodist church. Dr. and Mrs. Crump have six children, namely: John T. and Earl F., engaged in farming; Lizzie, Henry I., Carrie F., and Joe B., at home.
The Crump family worship at the Presbyterian church, of which both the doctor and his wife are members. He is also a member of the numerous fraternal organizations. In the I. O. O. F., he has filled all the chairs, and for six years has been identified with the Knights of Pythias. He has membership in the State Medical Association and the North Texas and Montague county societies.
Dr. Crump is a son of Beverly and Frances M. (Gray) Crump, and grandson of George and Mary Crump, all natives of Virginia, both the Crump and the Gray families ranking with the “first families” of the “Old Dominion.” Beverly Crump was the youngest of seven children, the names of the others in order of birth being Mrs. Sarah Bramlitt; Susan W., unmarried, died at the age of eighty years; John G., who was a prominent lawyer; Abner, who died in Arkansas at the age of ninety-seven years; William W., a Missouri farmer and stockman; and Rhoda, unmarried, died at the age of ninety-five years. In the Gray family were three children: Salina S., who died unmarried, Frances M., and Mrs. Elizabeth Wiggington. Beverly Crump moved with his family to Arkansas in 1858 and died on his farm there four years later, in 1862. His wife survived him until 1872. They were the parents of ten children, namely: Henry M., who died while serving in the Confederate army; Phoebe, who died at the age of two years; John G., the immediate subject of this review; Napoleon B., who was accidentally killed; George A., an Arkansas farmer; Mrs. Mary S. Cantrell; Mrs. Josephine S. Jenkins; Rebecca; Mrs. Susan W. Bacon; and Rhoda V., wife of Dr. L. Kirby, of Arkansas.
Source: B. B. Paddock, History and Biographical Record of North and West Texas (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Co., 1906), Vol. II, pp. 45-46.