James Allison York

James married Mary Willmirth Johnson Abt 1852, Dewitt, Texas, USA. Mary (daughter of Willis F. Johnson and Nancy Reddick Greer) was born Abt 1832, Chambers County, Alabama, USA; died 21 Jun 1855, Kansas, USA; was buried Jun 1855, Mormon Grove, Kansas, United States. [Group Sheet]

1. Nancy Adeline York was born 20 Jan 1854, Cuero, DeWitt, Texas, USA; died 1 Mar 1920, Logan, Cache, Utah, USA; was buried 5 Mar 1920, Laketown, Rich, Utah, USA.

Notes:

YORK, JOHN (1800?1848). John York, Indian fighter and soldier in the Texas Revolution, was born in Kentucky on July 4, 1800. He moved to Texas in 1829, when his family settled near San Felipe de Austin at the site of future Industry, Texas. York was soon engaged in leading expeditions against the Indians. During the Texas Revolution, the Convention of 1835qv at San Felipe appointed him a first lieutenant in the regular infantry in the Texas army. As such he participated in James W. Fannin's search in the Frio and Medina river areas in November 1835 for Domingo de Ugartechea, then bringing Mexican reinforcements to Martín Perfecto de Cos at Bexar. That same month Stephen F. Austin appointed York, along with Edward Burleson, as appraiser of horses and equipment of the Texan volunteers at Bexar. In early December 1835 York participated as a captain in the siege of Bexar. On December 20, 1835, he was elected a captain in the legion of cavalry under Lt. Col. William B. Travis. Later the General Council appointed him one of the agents to raise a mounted company to fight Indians in the Mill Creek (in present Austin County) and Colorado River areas. York married Letitia Crain and reared ten children. John Henry Brown described him as "a man of portly and commanding presence" with blond hair and blue eyes. York settled on Mill Creek in Austin County. In January 1837 he was serving as county sheriff, and in 1840 he was listed as owning one slave, twenty-five cattle, twenty workhorses, and one "pleasure carriage." In March 1844 York was among the six men appointed commissioners by the Republic of Texas Congress to select the seat of Austin County, and in 1846 he was elected one of the commissioners for newly established DeWitt County, where he had resettled on Coleto Creek. Two years later he sold his half interest in a league of land for one dollar in cash. The purchasers agreed to lay out the town of Yorktown, named in his honor, and York was to retain each alternate lot, block, and acre lot. The veteran soldier was chosen to lead his neighbors, including Robert Justus Klebergqv, in a retaliatory campaign against Indians in October 1848. York and his son-in-law, John Madison Bell, were among those killed on October 11 on Escondida Creek in a battle that generated much notorious publicity. York was buried eight miles east of Yorktown in the same grave with Bell. The state erected a marker at the gravesite in 1936.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:

J. H. Kuykendall, "Reminiscences of Early Texans," Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association 6?7 (January, April, July 1903). Nellie Murphree, A History of DeWitt County (Victoria, Texas, 1962).

Source: http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fyo05


John York was born in Kentucky July 4, 1800. His father was James York and his mother was a Miss Allison before her marriage. James York and his family came to Texas in 1821 and first settled in Austin County. Their children in order of their birth were: John, James Allison, Sarah, Phoebe, Patsy and Mary York. John York married Lutitia Gain. She was born in Alabama, January 10, 1804. Children of John and Lutitia Cain York in order of their birth were: Miriam, Jonathan, James Allison, William Griffin, John Pettus, Thomas, Sarah Jane, Elvira, Adaline and Robert York. While still living in Austin County, Captain York commanded a Company of Volunteers who participated in the Storming and Capture of Bexar, December 5-10 1835, the fiercest battle of the Texas Revolution. Many of the men from Captain York's company fought at San Jacinto. Captain York engaged in farming and ranching in Austin County. Besides his agricultural interests, he was the owner of the Winedale Inn in Fayette County (Round Top) from 1840 to 1848. The John York family moved to DeWitt County in 1846, establishing their home near the Coleto creek, a short distance from where the present town of Yorktown is now located. John York engaged in farming and ranching in DeWitt County. He owned a large area of land in the area and he was interested in colonization and settlement. He and his friend, Charles Eckhardt, a former Indianola merchant, founded Yorktown in 1848. In October 1848, marauding Lipan Indians from Coahuila, Mexico entered Texas to plunder, steal and murder. To repel them, a company of volunteers was raised in DeWitt County. Captain York was placed in command. In a fight on the banks of the Escondido Creek, fifteen miles west of Yorktown, on October 10, Captain York and his son-in-law James Madison Bell, were killed and son James York was wounded. The bodies of Captain York and James Madison Bell were buried in a single hand-made oak coffin in the York Cemetery about eight miles east of Yorktown. Mrs. John York died July 12, 1851 in DeWitt County and is buried in the York Cemetery. Margaret Sturges (From DeWitt County History, reprinted by permission of the Curtis Publishing Co., Dallas, TX)

Author John Henry Brown in Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas writes of Capt. York as follows:

"This gallant pioneer, whose name was long familiar in every cabin in the land, was an early settler and ever ready to meet a public enemy, whether Indian or Mexican. He was, physically, a man of portly and commanding presence, a pure, blue-eyed blonde, with a native suavity and dignity deemed by book worms and cloistered scholars unattainable attributes to men of cabin and forest life-a complacent assumption disproven by many of the early and buckskin-attired defenders of infant Texas, Capt. York was one of two brothers (Allison York being, the other), besides several sisters, who first settled on the Lavaca and afterwards west of the Brazos in Austin County. He participated in numerous expeditions against the Indians and always exhibited the ability to lead. In command of a company in the citizen army before Bexar in 1835 he and all his men volunteered to follow the intrepid Milam in storming that strongly fortified place, defended by Gen. Cos and about 1,500 Mexicans. The contest lasted from the 5th to the 10th of December, though Milam fell on the 8th, and terminated in the capitulation of Cos to his three hundred assailants. No royal insignia of merit or valor bestowed ever conferred greater honor on a body of men than was won by the citizen heroes who triumphed at Bexar, and none of that gallant hand exhibited more determined courage than Capt. John York. In 1846 he removed to the Colleto creek, in DeWitt, where the pretty village of Yorktown perpetuates his name. His death, in command of a company west of the San Antonio river, in 1848, in a contest with ambushed Indians, is elsewhere narrated."

Yorktown in DeWittCo was named after Captain York. His company of Texians at the Siege and Battle of Bexar 5 through 10 Dec 1835 included multiple DeWitt Colonists. He and his men responded to old Ben Milam's call for volunteers to break the siege by storming into San Antonio de Bexar where General Cos and about 1500 troops had occupied. His son-in-law, James Madison Bell, who was in the company, was beside Ben Milam when he was felled in the Battle December 7 or 8.

Source: http://www.tamu.edu/faculty/ccbn/dewitt/dewitt.htm


Military summary - http://www.tamu.edu/faculty/ccbn/dewitt/captains.htm


Yorktown (Wikipedia) Founded by Captain John York and Charles Eckhardt and named in honor of Captain John York, a famous Indian fighter and was in command of a company of citizens who, under Ben Milam, defeated General Cos in 1835 at the Siege of Béxar. For his military services, York received many acres of land in the Coleto Creek area. In October 1848, in a battle with Marauding Indians at Yorktown, Captain York and his son-in-law, James Madison Bell, were killed. They were buried in a single hand-made coffin in the Yorktown Cemetery some seven miles (11 km) east of Yorktown. A historical marker designates York's grave seven miles from town.

Charles Eckhardt, started a mercantile business in Indianola which at that time was a major Texas seaport. Eckhardt participated in the Texas Revolution and may have met Captain York during military service. Charles Eckhardt contracted with John A. King, one of the pioneers of West Texas, to survey a road from Indianola through Yorktown to New Braunfels, later known as the Old Indianola Trail. From its inception in February, 1848, this road remained the chief thoroughfare for this part of the state to New Braunfels and San Antonio. This trail shortened the former route by twenty miles and established Yorktown as an important relay station for freighters, prairie schooners, trail drivers, and stagecoaches bringing mail and passengers. The trail came through upper town on North Riedel Street.

Early in 1848, after the founders had the proposed town surveyed, they offered 10 acres (40,000 m2) and the choice of a lot free to the first ten families to settle the townsite. Many German, Bohemian, and Polish families came and soon changed this wilderness into one of the most prosperous sections of the entire state (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yorktown,_Texas)

John married Lucretia Letitia Cain 1821. Lucretia was born 10 Jan 1804, Alabama, USA; died 12 Jul 1851, DeWitt County, Texas, USA. [Group Sheet]