Grapeland Texas
Queen City Of The Sand Flats
Joseph Randolph Yarborough came to Texas with his father, John Swanson Yarborough, Sr. in 1834.
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."