Grapeland Texas

John Randolph Yarborough

Joseph Randolph Yarborough came to Texas with his father, John Swanson Yarborough, Sr. in 1834. Under the leadership of Captain H. Arnold, John Swanson Yarborough and his eldest son Joseph Randolph Yarborough (18 years of age) served in the Army of theRepublic of Texas at the battle of San Jacinto in 1836. Joseph Randolph Yarborough was one of the guards that took General Santa Anna to General Sam Houston after his capture. Joseph Randolph Yarborough married Phoebe Clementine Yarborough in 1840 and they lived in Anderson and Cherokee Counties, moved to Louisiana, then to Houston County. The Yarborough farm was out the Daly road about one and a half miles from Grapeland. At the time Grapeland was selected as a town site on the I&GN railroad the Yarboroughs lived within the town site area at the "Crossroads" where the Augusta to Daly road crossed the Palestine to Crockett road. Mail was dropped at the Yarborough home for people of the area before Grapeland had an official post office. Joseph R. and Phoebe Clementine Yarborough had eleven children: Georgiana Elizabeth married George Whitley and had five children: Mr. S. M. Hodges, Mrs. L. H. DeBolt, Mrs. W. D. DuMont, W. M. Whitley, and J. C. Whitley M.D. Melissa Ann married James Thomas Herod and had six children: Orrie Lena married William Thomas Warner; Mollie Clementine married Charles Allen Storey; Georgia Emma married Jim Wilson; Martha Eugenia married Evander Monroe Frisby Carson; Addine died young; Thomas McDaniel married Vesta May Martin. Mary M. Yarborough married W. Rufus Morris. Joseph S. Yarborough married Mollie Hollingsworth. Isabella Yarborough married R. L. Owens. Scott Yarborough married. Helen Kansas (Miss Kitty) Yarborough. Sam Houston Yarborough. John R. Yarborough married Mollie Smith and had a daughter named Laura Belle, Lucinda Yarborough married Lee Whitescarver and had 3 sons and 2 daughters. James D. Yarborough died at the age of ten. In 1935 eight of the above children of Joseph Randolph Yarborough were still alive with their ages ranging from 73 to 93. The Yarborough family exhibited one of the classic symptoms of old age -palsy. One great-nephew of the Yarboroughs once stated that his aunts shook so hard that the windows in the house rattled. Luther Warner, grandson of Melissa Ann Yarborough Herod, noticed that his Great-Aunt Mollie's hands shook all the time, but that her husband, Rufus' did not. He asked "Aunt Mollie, how old is you?" "I'm 82, Luther," answered his aunt. "Well, how old is Uncle Rufus?" "He's just 76," she answered. "Aunt Mollie," asked Luther, "Why did you marry a man younger than you are?" Mollie Yarborough answered "Well, you see Luther, I grew up during the Civil War and all the men got killed in the war and some of us girls had to marry boys."