John Crittington VanBebber

     John Crittington VanBebber was born on 22 June 1861 at Linn County, Kansas. He was the son of Isaac Chrisman VanBebber and Sarah McWilliams. John Crittington VanBebber first married, at age 21, Margaret Belle Wilson, daughter of Alfred M. Wilson and Elizabeth A. Lawler, on Friday, 5 January 1883. John Crittington VanBebber married a second time, at age 25, Emarine Gossage on Monday, 28 March 1887. John Crittington VanBebber married a third time Martha Virginia Ashton, daughter of B. Frank Ashton, in 1892. John Crittington VanBebber died on 31 March 1926 at Bowie, Montague County, Texas, at age 64 years, 9 months and 9 days.
     From Gary R. Hawpe, ed. and comp., 'John C. VanBebber,' Van Bibber Pioneers E-Newsletter, Vol. 4 No. 9 (July 2001), pp. 3 - 4.

JOHN C. VANBEBBER

From the orthography of the name it is apparent that our subject's lineage traces, on the paternal side, back to the little Dutch kingdom of the Netherlands and, if the truth were known concerning the family's American founder, his history might disclose him as belonging to the early Knickerbockers of New York. However, as we have no facts, beyond the name, which would lead us to a warranted conjecture regarding any ancestor of our subject earlier than his father, we shall drop the unsolved mysteries of the past and present Isaac C. Vanbebber as the most remote ancestor in this personal review.

Isaac Vanbebber was born in 1827 in Claiborne County, Tennessee, and became a resident of Livingston County, Missouri. He was a Mexican war veteran and is believed to have enlisted from Missouri. He married in Kentucky, his wife being Sallie McWilliams, born in 1827 in Kentucky, who died in Linn county, Kansas, during the rebellion, to which locality she and her husband had migrated, and from which county and state Mr. Vanbebber enlisted in the Union army and served throughout the war. The children of their marriage were: Catherine; James N; John C., Louisa; and Mary. For his second wife Isaac C. Vanbebber married Mrs. Margaret Bennett, and their two children are Andrew J. and Isaac C., Jr.

The Vanbebbers came into Texas October 29, 1875, as settlers from Livingston County, Missouri. After the war Isaac C. Vanbebber had taken his family back there from Kansas and had housed them in a rural home. The time of the children was taken up with the works of the farm and little knowledge of books came to any of them as pupils in the public schools. On coming to Texas the father first settled in Cooke County, but afterward removed into Montague County, and still later to the Territory, where he finally died. He was a man with a few youthful advantages himself and he failed to appreciate the value of an education for his own children, and some of them grew up absolutely unlettered.

John C. Vanbebber was born in Linn County, Kansas, June 22, 1861. He was several years minus his majority when he accompanied the family to Texas, and at seventeen years of age was unable to read. He became restless under the restraints of home and assumed responsibility for his own keeping at about the age of sixteen years. His labor was all he had to sell and for some four years he worked for wages on a ranch. He first came to Montague county in 1875, but a year or two later he went to Tarrant county and was employed on a ranch there for some two years. Immediately following this he hired to a man in the Territory and went up the old Chisholm trail with a bunch of cattle to Sweetwater, Kansas, where he remained as herder of the stock for a couple of years.

When Mr. Vanbebber returned to Montague county from his Kansas journey he bargained for a farm of eighty acres on the Queens Peak road, but after two years he sold it and followed his decision to locate in Arizona. He went to Cresno to stay, but ten days of that western health resort was sufficient for him and he returned to Indian Territory, where he raised one crop and again sought Montague County, Texas. After renting a year he bought one hundred and seventeen acres of his present place, upon which he built a dug-out for the reception of his family. This temporary subterranean retreat gave place to a twelve by twelve box shanty the same fall, and this, in turn, to his modern home of today. All the main products common to Texas soil grew on his place and in the main his era in the county has been a prosperous one. His farm has increased to one hundred and sixty two acres and he is regarded as one of the sage and conservative farmers at the head of Denton creek.

January 5, 1883, Mr. Vanbebber was first married, his wife being Miss Belle Wilson, who died in Montague County in 1885, and has no living issue. March 28, 1887, Mr. Vanbebber married Mrs. Emerine Dane, a daughter of Mrs. Nancy Gossage, of Georgia. After the birth of one son, Claud, Mrs. Vanbebber died; in 1890, and in 1892 our subject married his third wife, Mrs. Mollie Johnson a daughter of B.F. Ashton. The issue of her marriage with Mr. Vanbebber is: Emma E., Lillian Beatrice, Andrew Jackson, Joe Bailey, George Washington, Ben Franklin, and May.

John C. Vanbebber maintains himself a plain, quite citizen, and mentions the chief points in his somewhat checkered and eventful career with becoming modesty and with no attempt to add to or subtract from the facts as presented above. Nothing outside the business of the hour has attracted him and the material prosperity he enjoys has come to him as a reward for the toil of years. He clings to the principles of Democracy and owns a membership in the Missionary Baptist church.

History and Biographical Record of North and West Texas, Capt. B. B. Paddock, Editor, Illustrated Volume II., The Lewis Publishing Co., Chicago -- New York, 1906, Pg. 707 & 708.