In the matter of guardianship

 

FamilySearch. Clinton County, IL. 15 Sept 1851.

Thanks once again to FamilySearch Full Text Search, I've been able to continue along the path of records for the estate of Thomas Crutcher to Clinton County, Illinois. The snapshot above names David Earhart, John Albert Earhart, Elijah Earhart, and Virginia Thomas Earhart as orphan minors due proceeds from the estate of Thomas Crutcher. The same page shows Elizabeth and Thomas Perry Maxey named as orphan minors also due proceeds from the Crutcher estate. Elizabeth and Thomas were children of Mary Ann Crutcher Maxey, a daughter of Elizabeth Curtis.

FamilySearch. Clinton County, IL.

The next two records from 1854 show guardian bonds for the minor children of Elizabeth Earhart, naming them grandchildren of Anthony Crutcher of Montgomery County, Tennessee, brother of Thomas Crutcher late of Davidson County, Tennessee. The record says the children were entitled to a portion of Thomas' estate according to the Chancery Court in Nashville.

FamilySearch. Clinton County, IL. 1854.

The adjoining page shows a guardian bond filed on behalf of Elizabeth V. Maxey and her brother Thomas P. Maxey, orphan minor children of A. G. Maxey and Mary Ann Crutcher Maxey. Yet another guardian bond identifies another female descendant from Elizabeth Crutcher Earhart. Her daughter Eliza Ann Earhart married Elijah Bail. She died in January 1850, and had children Mary Ann and William Riley Bail. They're also listed as entitled to a portion of Thomas Crutcher's estate.

FamilySearch. Clinton County, IL. 5 July 1853.

These names point us back to the chancery files in Davidson County, as some of the descendants of Elizabeth Earhart were still seeking funds from the estate in 1874. According to the file, Virginia Earhart married James F. Taylor, and moved from Illinois to Montana, and later to Ogden, Utah.

The trail of maternal line descendants from Frances Carter Curtis shifts to Sarah Crutcher Rogers, who moved with her family to Missouri. I'll pick this up in the next post.

Champions

 

Indiana University. 19 Jan 2026.

The Indiana University football team completed a historic run last night, beating the Miami Hurricanes 27-21 for the school's first college football national championship. The team finished the season unbeaten, 16-0. This was a miracle finish long suffering Hoosier fans could never have imagined a few years ago.

Thomas' legacy to education

 

Tri-Weekly Nashville Union. 12 Mar 1844.

Yesterday I covered the lengthy chancery case involving the Crutcher family. Before I continue down the trail of descendants of Frances Carter Curtis, I have a post on Thomas Crutcher and his lasting impact on education in Nashville, Tennessee. When Thomas died in 1844, he was the President of the Nashville Female Academy. Thomas did not have children of his own, it appears that he gave decades of service and funding to the academy. Shortly after his death, the academy board published a set of resolutions honoring Thomas for his service.

Nashville Female Academy (TSLA and Belmont Mansion).

A daughter of one of the founders of the academy built Belmont Mansion in Nashville, and this later became Belmont University. The resolutions honoring Thomas are below.

Nashville Rep. Banner, 13 Mar 1844.

Crutcher v Crutcher

FamilySearch. Davidson County, TN. 1861.

Chancery cases can be a great resource for unraveling a complicated family tree. An example is Crutcher v Crutcher, which found its way to the Tennessee Supreme Court in 1850. The citation is 11 Humphrey 377 (or 30 Tenn 377), although I haven't yet found a full copy of the decision. This case provides a helpful description of the extended Crutcher family, and I found this using FamilySearch Full Text search.

FamilySearch. Davidson County, TN court records.

The purpose of this journey down the records from Frances Carter Curtis has been to identify possible maternal line descendants who could potentially take a mtDNA test and help resolve the mystery of the wives of John Carter. I've thankfully been joined in this hunt by distant cousin and fellow blogger Jacqi Stevens of A Family Tapestry.

The case is part of a complex set involving the Crutcher siblings, particularly the estate of Thomas Crutcher. He was a one-time mayor of Nashville in 1819, and importantly the executor of the will of Frances Carter Curtis. For our purposes the Crutcher case helpfully names the heirs of Thomas' brother Anthony and sister-in-law Elizabeth Curtis Crutcher, including the states of residence for those who left Tennessee. This is an essential piece of the puzzle, connecting several of the daughter lines descending from Frances Carter Curtis into the era of census records.

Daily Nashville Patriot. 19 Oct 1858.

James Crutcher of Hardin County, Kentucky brought a suit in Davidson County Court stating that John Crutcher owed him $1262. John did not own property in Kentucky, but he did in Tennessee, and also had an interest in the estate of his brother Thomas who had died without heirs and an unsigned will in Davidson County in 1844. Thomas had a sizeable estate of his own, worth about $60,000 in 1844, which is about $2.5 million or more today. James challenged the validity of the will, noting that John Crutcher and Thomas' siblings would be due to inherit some of the funds, and those would be payable to James. In his complaint, James described the descendants of his brothers and sisters, which is incredibly useful for our efforts today.

FamilySearch. Davidson County, TN.

According to the complaint, Elizabeth Crutcher Earhart and her husband John, and her sister Mary Crutcher Maxey and husband Albert, had moved to Illinois. I was able to trace them to Clinton County, Illinois, where John Earhart became Justice of the Peace. Another daughter of Elizabeth Curtis Crutcher, Sarah, had moved with her husband Washington Rogers, to Missouri. It looks like she lived into the 1880s and had at least five daughters, so her path is a promising one for maternal line descendants from Frances Carter Curtis.

James Crutcher died while the case was progressing through the courts, and his suit was revived by Thomas S. Crutcher, executor of his estate. After a lengthy series of proceedings up and down the Tennessee court system, it looks like James prevailed in the case, and funds were paid out to the heirs between 1858-1861. The image below is important for our pursuit going forward.

FamilySearch. Davidson County, TN.

A Deed of Gift

In February 1807, Mary Curtis provided a deed of gift to her niece, Mary C. Crutcher. In the same record, she also named the other children of her brother-in-law Anthony Crutcher and his wife Elizabeth Curtis Crutcher. When viewing the typed version of this record on Ancestry, as part of the Tennessee Wills collection, the document is listed as a probate file, and gives an inferred death date for Mary as 1807. But this is not a probate document, it is a deed of gift, similar to the slave transaction made in an earlier record from her grandfather John Carter's estate in 1784.

Viewing the original handwritten record on FamilySearch as part of the Montgomery County, Tennessee Will Books 1795-1825 gives a different perspective.

FamilySearch. Montgomery County, TN. 23 Feb 1807.

Mary Curtis' deed of gift was a slave girl named Nancy (a child of Poll or Polly), and all her household furniture, clothing, and all her other goods and chattels, except for three slaves who were to be sold and proceeds divided equally among the other children of her sister and brother-in-law: William, Carter, Thomas, George, Fanny, Patsy, Elizabeth and Sally Crutcher. Patsy and Elizabeth Crutcher were later named as beneficiaries in the will of their grandmother Frances Carter Curtis in 1827.

A later document in the Montgomery County Court minutes in July 1807 shows this was a deed of gift, and not a will.

FamilySearch. Montgomery County, TN. 15 Jul 1807.

On 7 August 1811, William Curtis signed a marriage record for his sister Mary Curtis to Daniel Dunnivant in Davidson County, Tennessee. Mary is listed as Molly Dunnivant in the will of Frances Curtis in 1827.

FamilySearch. Davidson County, TN. 7 Aug 1811.