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Have you ever come across a webpage with details information about the Cockrell family, or an individual Cockrell which you found to be particularly fascinating?
If you have, please share with us the story or article you ran across and provide a link to the original website.
Here's something I found online about a Simon COCKRELL who allegedly was involved with Quantrill or Quantrell - it seems to be from a letter written to a Missouri newspaper before the turn of the century, and I'm hoping to run across the actual article which I believe was published in a newspaper in Texas.
This old newspaper article was found by the late Bella Hughes at the Historical Library at Warrensburg, in Johnson County, Missouri, and she posted it years ago on the COCKRELL-L mailing list. Her original post is here:
http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/cockrell/1997-08/0871507463
The Weekly Standard, Warrensburg, Missouri, Friday, July 28, 1899
SENATOR COCKRELL'S BROTHER
Leads an Active Life at the Age of Ninety-Eight
Wichita Falls, Tex., Letter in the St. Louis Republic.
No other state ever had a nobler set of pioneers than Texas, but they are now nearly all dead. Among the few survivors is S.N. Cockrell, now in his 98th year. Mr. Cockrell, is a half brother of J. V. Cockrell, who represented this district in the fifty-second and fifty-third congresses, and of United States senator Francis M. Cockrell of Missouri. He had reached middle life before they were born.
This venerable man, who has done a great deal toward making history, was in this city a few days ago. He was on his way from Coryell County, in Central Texas, to Fisher County, near the border of New Mexico, a distance of more than 400 miles. He was making his journey alone in a two-horse wagon, camping out at night, cooking his own meals and sleeping in his wagon. He spent a day in this city and then drove eight miles in the country to the residence of Allen Parmer where he remained two days.
His acquaintance with Mr. Parmer began when he was one of Price's trusted scouts and Parmer was one of Quantrell's followers, and a close friendship has existed ever since.
On this trip Mr. Cockrell had with him a Winchester rifle and a double barreled shotgun, and was killing a good deal of time by shooting jack rabbits and plover. He has had no settled home for several years and spends his time among his relatives, who reside in widely seperated portions of the state.
Mr. Cockrell, or "Uncle Si," as his old acquaintances call him, was born in Petersburg, Virginia in March 1801. In childhood his father moved to Kentucky, where he lived until the son was 27 years old. The family then moved to Johnson County, Missouri, where the young man remained until 1833, when he came to Texas, where he has ever since lived.
He was a soldier in the Texas army under Sam Houston, and among the engagements in which he participated was that of San Jacinto. After that war was over, he went through the trying experience of the early settlers of Texas - fighting Indians and protecting the border from Mexican depredations, until the Mexican war, when he again joined the army and performed valuable service under both Generals Scott and Taylor.
Although 60 years of age when the war between the north and south began, he at once took up arms in defense of the confederacy, and served through the entire four years of that struggle.
In the early part of the war he acted as a recruiting officer, and at one time took 400 recruits out of Missouri to General Price's army. Parmer and others, who were at the battle of Lone Jack in Missouri, say that it was due to him more than any other man that the confederacy gained the victory.
After that battle he continued to serve as recruiting officer and scout until the close of the war, when he returned to Texas, and has lived a quiet and unpretentious life ever since. Mr. Cockrell was married in early life, but his wife and their children are dead, and for more than fifty years he has been a widower.
Notwithstanding his great age he does not show its infirmities. His step is firm, and he reads and shoots without glasses. He has been reading the Republic for fifty years and keeps himself well posted on all of the leading topics of the day. He lives in the present, believes in progress and thinks the latest improvements the best. Coming into the world at the beginning of the present century, he will, no doubt, see the dawn of the next, and be among the very last of the Texas pioneers to pass away.
http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/cockrell/1997-08/0871507463
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