DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker says about Samuel Augustus Erwin, out in Fannin County, Texas. Now, some lives have a detail buried right in the middle that'll stop you cold — and this one's got a good one. So hold on to it, because we're workin' our way there.
Samuel Augustus Erwin was born on March 17, 1786, in Virginia. He made his way to Tennessee, and in 1819 he got married there — married a woman named Sally Rodgers Crisp, born in 1795. And the ceremony?
Performed by the local magistrate. A man by the name of David Crockett. That's right.
Just tucked in there, matter-of-fact, like a magistrate named David Crockett was the most ordinary thing in the world. But Samuel wasn't one for standin' still. He had a surveyor's eye and a pioneer's restlessness, and in 1837 he arrived in the Honey Grove area — the first settler to do so.
First. He wasn't followin' anybody's trail. He was layin' the groundwork for everybody else who'd come after.
He surveyed land grants for other pioneers, which means he was the man with the chain and the compass, walkin' the land and sayin' this is yours, and this is yours. Then came 1848, and Samuel platted the townsite for his friend B. S.
Walcott. Drew it out, block by block. And in the town that grew up from those lines, he served as the first postmaster.
He was also one of Fannin County's earliest justices of the peace — a man who'd measured the land now measuring out a little justice, too. Samuel Augustus Erwin died on July 13, 1854. Sally lived on until 1860.
He arrived when there was nothin' here, mapped the land for others, helped build a town, and somewhere back in Tennessee, a man named David Crockett had once signed the paperwork that started it all. Not a bad thread to pull through a life.
What the marker says
(March 17, 1786 - July 13, 1854) Virginia-born Samuel Erwin was married in 1819 in Tennessee to Sally Rodgers Crisp (1795-1860), in a ceremony performed by local magistrate David Crockett. First settler in the Honey Grove area, Erwin arrived here in 1837 and surveyed land grants for other pioneers. A surveyor by profession, he platted the townsite for his friend B. S. Walcott in 1848. He was the town's first postmaster and one of Fannin County's earliest justices of the peace.