ELIZA SIMS AND TWO LIBRARIES

By Clinton F. Cross

12. The Texas Migration

In 1848 Frances Sims Daniel, youngest daughter of William Sims and Judy Cross, moved from Tuscaloosa, Alabama to Texas with her eight children, slaves and relatives, making a party of thirty-one. They camped on what is at present the Southern Methodist University (SMU) campus. In time, Frances purchased a total of two thousand one hundred acres in what is now University Park and North Dallas.

P.C. Sims may have been a member of the party. In any case, P.C. Sims purchased land in what is now Ellis County, Texas from Archibald Greathouse around 1850.

At the time, Texas was a part of the American frontier. The United States had just waged a war with Mexico that established the Rio Grande River as the boundary between the two countries. The region was sparsely settled. There were numerous Indians living in the Dallas-Waxahachie area (“Waxahachie” is, incidentally, an Indian name), and the Indians constituted a potential threat to the new-comers.

It is believed Nicholas P. Sims arrived shortly after his Aunt Daniel. Nicholas built a mill on Greathouse Creek (Texas) around 1851.

Judge Brack, married to Lucy P. Sims, Nicholas’ sister, also built his house near what is now the Greathouse Cemetery.

13. Eliza’s Third Marriage

In 1848, Eliza married Samuel Dunlap. At the time, she still had three children to care for: James, Jehu, and Isabella. In 1850, however, Isabella Cross, the youngest of the Joseph Oliver Cross’ children, died of “consumption” in Chickasaw County, Mississippi.

Eliza Harlan Dunlap, 1874 (Age 60)

In 1852 James Fleming Cross married Margaret Rose Dunlap. Margaret Rose Dunlap was the daughter of Sam’s younger brother John (1799-1856) and Elizabeth (the author believes “Baskin”).

John Dunlap's Home, Clinton, Alabama

John and Elizabeth had six children. Margaret Rose Dunlap (1831-1871) was their fourth child.
John died in 1856, and his wife Elizabeth died in 1869. James F. Cross and his wife Margaret Rose Dunlap moved into the Dunlap home in Clinton, Alabama, where their children were born and grew up.
 

Tombstone of Elizabeth Dunlap, Ebenezer Cemetery, Clinton, Alabama

In 1868 Sam Dunlap and Eliza moved to Waxahachie, Texas. Sam’s daughter by his first wife, Martha Bond, Patsy Ellen Dunlap, also moved to the area. In 1875 she married Dr. R. P. Sweatt, a prominent member of the Ellis County community.

In 1872, Eliza’s third husband, Samuel Meriwether Dunlap, died.

Samuel Meriwether Dunlap's Tombstone

(Eliza's Third Husband)