William Van McConnell

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. William Van McConnell was born on April 18, 1855, right there in Crockett, Texas. A native son.

His father, John McConnell, had come all the way from Ireland and taken up the blacksmith's trade, and young William learned that trade working alongside him. There's something about a man who starts with iron and fire and ends up building a dynasty, and that's more or less what happened here. McConnell stepped away from the anvil and opened a mercantile store on the square in Crockett.

Just a store on the square. But that store grew into a family business that lasted nearly a century. Nearly a century.

Let that settle for a moment while the road rolls by. McConnell was also a charter member of the First Christian Church, one of those founding voices that helped set something lasting in place. Now, life handed him grief along the way.

His first wife, Jennie McLean, was born in 1868 and died in 1888. Gone young. What came next is the kind of thing a small town remembers quietly.

McConnell married Jennie's sister, Daisy, born in 1875. Daisy would live until 1935. William Van McConnell himself passed on March 17, 1919.

He left behind a church he helped found, a business that would outlast him by decades, and a name rooted deep in Houston County soil. Not bad for a blacksmith's son.

What the marker says

(April 18, 1855 -- March 17, 1919) A native of Crockett, William V. McConnell was the son of Irish-born blacksmith John McConnell. After helping his father with that trade, McConnell opened a mercantile store on the square and developed there a family business that lasted nearly a century. McConnell was a charter member of the First Christian Church. After the death of his first wife, Jennie McLean (1868-1888), McConnell married her sister Daisy (1875-1935). Recorded - 1985