INFORMATION ON JOHN BLACKSHEAR

John Houston Blackshear was born in Trinity County, Texas on February 25, 1868 and died from heart failure in Trinity County, Texas on October 25, 1933 at the age of 65 years, 8 mos, and 8 days.  His father was James Blackshear from the state of Alabama and his mother’s maiden name was Liza Ann Davis from the state of Mississippi.  John Blackshear was a farmer and lived his entire life on the Blackshear farm in Trinity County near Glendale, Texas.  He married Elizabeth Arnold and they lived on the farm until John’s death in 1933, they did not have any children.

The memories from Elizabeth Arnold Blackshear’s nephews, Archie and Russell Arnold of Glendale, Texas who was 8 and 10 years old at the time as follows:
 

             John Blackshear was a real quiet man, chewed tobacco and did not appear to like children

           very much.  Apparently John inherited the property and homestead from his family before he

                married their aunt Elizabeth because when he died she received a child’s part of the property.

            All the Blackshear family was buried in the Blackshear Cemetery located on

            the family property about 300 yards southwest of the homestead in a grove

            of evenly planted cedar trees, there are 7 graves with sandstone markers

            with no names.  Elizabeth Arnold Blackshear did not want to be buried

            there so she is buried in the Glendale Cemetery.

            The day John Blackshear died, his brother-in-law, Ben Arnold, took him to

            the doctor in Trinity then took him on home.  Later that afternoon Lanham

            Shipman, came to Ben Arnold’s home and told him that John fell dead at the

            cow pen gate.  The funeral was held the next day, family and friends carried

            his body in a casket from his home across a pasture to the burial site

            mentioned above, it seemed like a long ways to two small boys.

            Another memory of uncle John was one dark night he went to separate the        

            milk cows from the calves and stepped on a hoe, the handle hit him right

            between the eyes,  he stepped back and said “ you sob, do that again”

            thinking it was a person.