Jacob Henry “Jack” Croft

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Prepared: August 17, 2026; revised September 27, 2026
Subject: Jacob Henry Croft, Brooks and Colquitt counties, Georgia
Research purpose: Identify the J. H. Croft who conveyed part of Brooks County Land Lot 227 to McNeil & Rozier in 1890; reconstruct his family, military service, landholding, and later life; and assess his relationship to the 1887 schoolhouse fires and the settlement later developed as Foster.

Bottom line

The Land Lot 227 grantor was Jacob Henry “Jack” Croft, born in South Carolina about 1834 and dead in Colquitt County, Georgia, in 1906. He was a farmer, livestock raiser, Confederate veteran, and amputee who lived in Colquitt County in 1860, Brooks County by 1870 and 1880, and Colquitt County again by 1889. He was not his same-named son, Jacob Henry Croft, born in Georgia in 1854, who had moved to Florida by 1880 and remained there through his death in 1931.[1–10]

The decisive land evidence is an original Brooks County deed. On October 9, 1890, J. H. Croft conveyed McNiel & Rosier—standardized elsewhere as McNeil & Rozier—about 325 acres on the north side of Land Lot 227 in the 12th District for $1,000.[11] During Croft's residence, the tract lay in the Morven district; the McNeil & Rozier company village developed there after the Crofts had left. A Foster newspaper column dated March 2, 1892, reported that the “old Croft House” had been taken down and removed and a new cottage was being built in its place. The item discussed the house with the company cottages and commissary, associating Croft's former improvement with the emerging village.[12]

The deed does not prove that Croft founded Foster, operated a turpentine business, or owned the Foster post office. Postal evidence uses the name Foster in early 1890, before the October deed, but it does not show that the later company village already existed while Croft lived there. The deed identifies the land acquired by McNeil & Rozier, while the 1892 house reference shows that a Croft-associated building survived into the development period. No located source calls him a member, employee, or financier of the naval-stores firm.[11–14]

Identity verdict

The correct man

The records form a continuous household and geographic chain:

• In 1860, Jacob H. Croft, about 25, born in South Carolina, was farming in Colquitt County with Jerona A. Croft and their young son Jacob H.[1]
• In 1870, Jacob Croft, about 38, born in South Carolina, headed a large household in Brooks County near Quitman. His wife was indexed as Jerony, and the children included Henry, Charles, Jonathan, Ansell, Isaac, Robert, and Francis.[2]
• In 1880, Jacob H. Croft was a farmer in the Morven district of Brooks County with Jerona Ann and a substantially matching child set. The schedule marked him as maimed or crippled and unable to read or write.[3]
• Contemporary evidence places Jacob H. Croft in Colquitt County by February 1889, where he was known for raising his own horses and mules.[15]
• He married Elizer Hires in Colquitt County on May 15, 1890.[16]
• In 1900, the census enumerated an older South Carolina-born farmer in Robinson, Colquitt County, with wife Eliza and children or grandchildren whose names fit the established family. The index reads his middle initial as F, but the household, age, birthplace, location, and wife identify the same man.[4]
• His estate was administered in Colquitt County in 1906. A surviving record certifies the discharge of O. C. Croft as administrator of J. H. Croft’s estate.[17]

This chain is stronger than any isolated name match. It links the grantor to the right county, age, family, occupation, and post-sale destination.

Rejected namesake: his son in Florida

The older man’s son was also named Jacob Henry Croft. The son was born in Georgia about May 1854, married Susan Elizabeth Newbern, and was farming in Lafayette County, Florida, by 1880. Federal censuses keep him in Florida in 1900, 1910, 1920, and 1930; Florida’s death index and his cemetery memorial place his death in Suwannee County on September 30, 1931.[5–10]

The son cannot sensibly be substituted for the Brooks County grantor. When the 1880 Brooks census placed the older Jacob with Jerona and their younger children, the younger Jacob was already maintaining his own Florida household with Susan. In 1890 the father had the documented Brooks-to-Colquitt land and residence chain, while the son’s documented life was in Florida. The deed’s abbreviated “J. H. Croft” therefore refers to the father with high confidence.[1–11]

Chronology

Birth and early family

A cemetery-derived record gives Jacob’s birth as January 11, 1834, and identifies his parents as Jacob Henry Croft and Abigail Croft. The federal censuses consistently place his birth in South Carolina, although the ages reported in 1860, 1870, and especially the indexed 1880 entry do not agree perfectly.[1–4,18] The exact day and parentage should be treated as well-supported derivative information until a family Bible, church record, or other contemporary birth source is found.

The 1860 census shows Jacob and Jerona A. Croft in Colquitt County with their five-year-old son Jacob H. The enumeration says the adults had married within the preceding year, but that conflicts with the child’s age and may reflect an enumerator or indexing problem.[1] No original marriage record for Jacob and Jerona was located in the online collections searched.

Civil War service and amputation

A compiled Confederate service profile says Jacob H. Croft enlisted at Colquitt County on March 22, 1862, as a private in Company H, 50th Georgia Infantry. It reports that he was wounded in the left knee at Chancellorsville on May 3, 1863, hospitalized in Richmond, and underwent amputation of the left leg.[19] The 1880 census’s disability notation provides independent household-level corroboration that the Brooks County farmer was maimed or crippled.[3]

The compiled profile is not flawless: it gives a death year of 1918, which conflicts with the 1906 probate record and cemetery evidence.[17–19] The service and injury are strong probable, but the exact military chronology should be checked against the complete compiled service record and pension file before quoting every detail as final.

Brooks County farmer

By 1870 Croft was living in Brooks County and working as a farm laborer. The census credited him with $600 in real estate and $400 in personal property.[2] In 1880 he was a farmer in the Morven district. An agricultural schedule dated July 16, 1880, also indexes Jacob H. Croft in Brooks County’s fourth district; the older man is the best fit because the younger Jacob was then enumerated in Florida.[3,20]

Georgia tax indexes place a Jacob H. Croft in Brooks County’s Morven or Morrow district, militia district 660. The online database displays inconsistent year ranges while citing an 1890 tax digest, so these entries confirm locality more safely than they establish a precise annual tax history.[21–22]

The 1887 schoolhouse episode and departure

The harshest episode found in Croft’s public record appeared in several Georgia newspapers in July 1887. A Quitman account said a very young son of “Mr. Jack Croft” confessed to burning two schoolhouses and attempting a third near the Golding place. Local residents adopted a resolution requiring Croft and his family to leave within three days and remain twenty-five or thirty miles away; the report said Croft agreed.[23–25,29]

These reports document a coercive, extra-legal community expulsion, not a court judgment against Jacob. They do not accuse Jacob himself of setting the fires. The fullest account names the boy as Hope Croft and prints the father as “H. J. Croft,” while the shorter reports call the father Jack Croft. Jacob Henry ordinarily appears as J. H. Croft, so the reversed initials may be a newspaper error, but the conflict remains in the record. The boy was reported as eight years and five months old. That age closely matches Jacob's son recorded as Abba, age two, in 1880 and Abner, born in January 1879, in 1900. Hope and Abba/Abner are therefore strong probable as the same child, not verified.[3–4,23–25,29]

The expulsion provides a possible explanation for the family's movement, but the timing cannot be reconstructed precisely. A February 1889 newspaper described Jacob H. Croft as a Colquitt County man who raised his own horses and mules and sold older stock as younger animals matured.[15] The evidence places him there by that date. It does not show when each family member left Brooks County or whether they moved together.

Second marriage

Colquitt County’s marriage index records Mr. J. H. Croft’s marriage to Elizer Hires on May 15, 1890.[16] The 1900 census calls his wife Eliza and reports that the couple had been married eight years, implying about 1892 rather than 1890.[4] The dated marriage record is the stronger source for the legal marriage date; the census figure is treated as an ordinary reporting discrepancy.

The cemetery-derived record lists both Jeronia Ann and Eliza as spouses and is consistent with a remarriage after Jeronia’s death, but no directly inspected death or probate record for Jeronia was found in this search.[18]

Croft, Land Lot 227, and Foster

The original 1890 conveyance

The original deed is recorded in Brooks County Deed Book K, page 116, and preserved in the FamilySearch image group titled “Brooks. Deeds 1890–1893, Mortgages 1890–1893,” image 67 of 383. It is dated October 9, 1890. The instrument identifies the grantor as J. H. Croft and the grantees as McNiel & Rosier. It conveys 325 acres, more or less, in the 12th District, being a portion of Lot 227 on the north side, for $1,000.[11]

This resolves what earlier Foster research could only treat as a derivative deed-index claim. The date, parties, consideration, acreage, district, lot, and north-side placement are now verified from the record image/transcription.

The spelling variations are not different firms. Contemporary sources variously print McNiel, McNeil, McNeill, Rosier, and Rozier. Other evidence identifies the partners as James T. McNeill and Thomas A. Rozier.[26–27]

What the deed proves

The deed proves that Croft held and conveyed a substantial northern portion of Land Lot 227 to the partnership in October 1890. It supplies a concrete land base for the firm that developed the Foster naval-stores settlement.

It does not prove:

• how or when Croft acquired the tract;
• whether his house, the post-office counter, the later commissary, or the turpentine still stood inside the 325 acres;
• that Croft sold timber, naval-stores equipment, labor contracts, or a going turpentine business;
• that Croft was a partner or employee of McNeil & Rozier;
• that the first Foster post office opened on this tract.

The timing matters. Croft's residence belongs to the pre-company landscape of Land Lot 227, not to the developed Foster village. Postal evidence uses Foster in early 1890, months before the October deed, but does not identify the precise premises or establish that the later settlement had already taken shape. The federal site diagram places the Foster office in Land Lot 227 by 1897; it cannot retroactively locate the April 1890 office.[13–14]

The old Croft house

The most revealing corroboration appeared in the Valdosta Times on March 12, 1892. A Foster column dated March 2 reported that the old Croft house had been taken down and removed and that a new cottage was being erected in its place. The same passage discussed another small cottage east of the commissary, called “Bachelor’s Hall,” and the partners’ prospective use of the buildings.[12]

The OCR is damaged—“House” appears as “Honse,” and several short words are missing—but the identity of the named building and the construction context are clear. This item shows that a Croft-associated building survived at the company village after the sale. It is the best available evidence that Croft’s former home place became part of Foster’s built environment.

It still does not establish that Croft named Foster or operated its post office. No located source identifies the person for whom Foster was named.

Later title chain

On January 27, 1900, McNeil & Rozier conveyed Mrs. B. M. Williams an aggregate 450 acres: the 325-acre portion of Lot 227, fifty acres in the northeast of Lot 234, and seventy-five acres in the southeast of Lot 228.[28] The repetition of the 325-acre figure helps track the Croft tract through the partnership’s later title chain. It does not remove the need to find Croft’s own acquisition instrument or a survey showing the tract’s exact boundaries.

Later life, death, and estate

The 1900 census placed Jacob and Eliza in Robinson, Colquitt County. Jacob was a farmer, unable to read or write, and the schedule appears to show the farm as owned. The household included Abner, a daughter whose indexed name is uncertain, and grandson John.[4]

A cemetery memorial gives Jacob’s death as May 7, 1906, and burial at Hempstead Church Cemetery near Berlin in Colquitt County.[18] The date is consistent with a Colquitt County probate proceeding opened or recorded on June 6, 1906.[17]

The probate packet contains a certified copy showing O. C. Croft discharged as administrator of J. H. Croft’s estate, with the letters recorded in Administration Letters Book A, page 347. The file supports the death and administration but does not, on the inspected dismissal page alone, state O. C. Croft’s relationship to Jacob.[17] The cemetery-derived family record identifies a son Oscar C. Croft, making that identification likely, but the dossier does not treat the relationship as proved by the dismissal page itself.[18]

No satisfactory contemporary obituary was located in the searchable Georgia newspaper collections. No will was found in the inspected online probate index; the surviving packet is an administration file. That does not by itself prove intestacy without a complete probate-court search.

Family reconstruction

The censuses support the following household reconstruction, allowing for spelling and age errors:

• First wife: Jerona/Jerony/Jeronia Ann Croft.[1–3]
• Second wife: Elizer Hires, later enumerated as Eliza Croft.[4,16]
• Children appearing across the census chain: Jacob Henry, Charles, Jonathan, Ansell, Isaac J., Robert Lee, Frances, Cornelius, Oscar C., a child indexed as Mozzie O., and Abba/Abner; the records are not perfectly consistent and should not be used as a final child list without individual follow-up.[1–4]
• Likely administrator son: O. C. Croft, probably Oscar C. Croft, but the relationship is inferential unless another probate image or vital record states it.[17–18]

The online cemetery profile adds children and parents, but it is a compiled memorial rather than a contemporary family register.[18] Every child’s exact name, birth date, and mother should therefore be independently verified before use in a formal genealogy.

Evidence grades

Conflicts and cautions

1. Age variation: the census ages do not produce a perfectly stable birth year. The cemetery date, January 11, 1834, is plausible but derivative.[1–4,18]
2. 1900 middle initial: the online index reads Jacob F. Croft. Household and locality evidence identify the same Jacob H. Croft; the initial should be checked on the image before quoting it.[4]
3. Military death error: the compiled military profile gives 1918, contradicted by the 1906 probate and cemetery evidence.[17–19]
4. Marriage-year conflict: the original marriage index says May 15, 1890, while the 1900 census implies about 1892.[4,16]
5. Tax-year labels: the Ancestry tax database’s displayed date ranges conflict with its source citation. The entries are used only as locality evidence.[21–22]
6. Damaged OCR: the 1892 “old Croft House” item has missing words. Claims are limited to the legible substance and not reconstructed beyond it.[12]
7. No initial Foster-office proof: the deed followed the post office’s establishment. It cannot by itself locate the first office.[11,13–14]

Research coverage and negative findings

This investigation searched the existing Foster and Barney project files first, then checked FamilySearch deed images, Ancestry census/military/marriage/probate/tax/cemetery collections, Newspapers.com, local Colquitt County newspaper archives, general web indexes, and derivative genealogy pages.

Searches included the name forms "Jacob Henry Croft", "Jacob H. Croft", "J. H. Croft", "Jack Croft", "Croft House", "old Croft House", and combinations with Brooks, Morven, Moultrie, Colquitt, Foster, McNeil, McNeill, Rosier, Rozier, Land Lot 227, obituary, probate, cemetery, and deed. Searches were constrained across the likely lifetime and expanded around 1887, 1889–1892, and May–June 1906.

Reproducible search ledger

No online source located in this pass supplied:

• Croft’s acquisition deed for the Lot 227 tract;
• a survey or metes-and-bounds description fixing the old Croft house;
• a direct statement that Croft operated a store, post office, or naval-stores concern;
• a complete contemporary obituary;
• a death certificate;
• a first-marriage record for Jacob and Jerona;
• an original census or vital record explicitly connecting the newspaper name Hope with Abba/Abner Croft;
• a final, independently verified list of all children.

Best next records

1. Brooks County grantor/grantee indexes and deed books before 1890: identify Croft’s acquisition of the 325-acre tract and any spouse release, mortgage, or timber instrument.
2. Complete 1890 deed image and recording endorsement: capture the deed book/page, witnesses, execution formalities, recording date, and any language omitted from the searchable transcript.
3. Colquitt County probate packet: abstract all twenty-two images, especially petitions, inventories, accounts, heirs, and land descriptions.
4. Georgia Confederate pension and compiled service record: replace the compiled summary with image-level service, wound, amputation, residence, and family evidence.
5. Brooks County court and school records, 1887: determine whether the schoolhouse fires produced a juvenile, criminal, civil, or county-board proceeding.
6. Hempstead Church and cemetery records: verify birth, death, spouses, and burial from church or sexton material rather than the memorial alone.
7. Colquitt newspapers, May–June 1906: inspect non-OCR or missing issues for an obituary, estate notice, or funeral report.

Sources

1. 1860 U.S. census, Colquitt County, Georgia, Jacob H. Croft household, Ancestry record 10950556: https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/7667/records/10950556
2. 1870 U.S. census, Brooks County, Georgia, Jacob Croft household, Ancestry record 13952899: https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/7163/records/13952899
3. 1880 U.S. census, Morven, Brooks County, Georgia, Jacob H. Croft household, Ancestry record 40730297: https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/6742/records/40730297
4. 1900 U.S. census, Robinson, Colquitt County, Georgia, Jacob Croft household, Ancestry record 8568735: https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/7602/records/8568735
5. 1880 U.S. census, Lafayette County, Florida, younger Jacob Croft household, Ancestry record 5818842: https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/6742/records/5818842
6. 1900 U.S. census, Florida, younger Jacob Croft household, Ancestry record 34089994: https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/7602/records/34089994
7. 1910 U.S. census, Florida, younger Jacob Croft household, Ancestry record 3003157: https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/7884/records/3003157
8. 1920 U.S. census, Florida, younger Jacob Croft household, Ancestry record 82308284: https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/6061/records/82308284
9. 1930 U.S. census, Florida, younger Jacob Croft household, Ancestry record 103579306: https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/6224/records/103579306
10. Florida Death Index, Jacob Henry Croft, September 30, 1931, Ancestry record 5082001; Find a Grave memorial 120369515: https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/7338/records/5082001 and https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/120369515/
11. Brooks County Deed Book K, page 116, J. H. Croft to McNiel & Rosier, October 9, 1890, “Brooks. Deeds 1890–1893, Mortgages 1890–1893,” image 67 of 383, FamilySearch ARK: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C9BC-V3DG-R
12. “Notes from Foster,” Valdosta Times, March 12, 1892, p. 1, report dated March 2, Newspapers.com image 889758242: https://www.newspapers.com/image/889758242/
13. National Archives, Post Office Department site-location reports, M1126, roll 102, Foster/Barney packet, NAID 68271694, images 0028–0031 and 0061–0062: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/68271694
14. The Heritage of Brooks County, Georgia, 1858–2006, post-office chronology attributed to Folks Huxford; used as a derivative chronology and checked against the federal packet. No public direct URL was located; print-volume citation retained.
15. “Mr. Jacob H. Croft, of Colquitt County,” Macon Telegraph, February 19, 1889, p. 3, Newspapers.com image 825367314: https://www.newspapers.com/image/825367314/
16. Georgia marriage record, Mr. J. H. Croft and Elizer Hires, May 15, 1890, Colquitt County, Ancestry record 292178: https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/4766/records/292178
17. Georgia wills and probate records, J. H. Croft estate, Colquitt County, probate June 6, 1906, twenty-two images, including administrator dismissal recorded in Administration Letters Book A, p. 347, Ancestry record 593473: https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/8635/records/593473
18. Jacob Henry Croft, Find a Grave memorial 50723831; Ancestry memorial index record 16534430: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/50723831/ and https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/60525/records/16534430
19. Jacob H. Croft, compiled Confederate military profile, Company H, 50th Georgia Infantry, Ancestry record 3146004: https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/1555/records/3146004
20. 1880 U.S. Selected Federal Census Non-Population Schedules, Agriculture, Brooks County, Jacob H. Croft, Ancestry record 5335737: https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/1276/records/5335737
21. Georgia Property Tax Digests, Jacob H. Croft, Morven district 660, Brooks County, Ancestry record 2729835: https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/1729/records/2729835
22. Georgia Property Tax Digests, Jacob H. Croft, Morrow/Morven district 660, Brooks County, Ancestry record 5746320: https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/1729/records/5746320
23. “School Houses Burned,” Savannah Morning News, July 5, 1887, p. 5, Newspapers.com image 852602296: https://www.newspapers.com/image/852602296/
24. Quitman Free Press resolution concerning “Mr. Jack Croft and his family,” reprinted in the Valdosta Times, July 9, 1887, p. 2, Newspapers.com image 889721379: https://www.newspapers.com/image/889721379/
25. Schoolhouse-burning report, Macon Telegraph, July 1887, Newspapers.com image 825342067: https://www.newspapers.com/image/825342067/
26. McNeil & Rozier Foster-business transaction, Valdosta Times, November 7, 1891, p. 1, Newspapers.com image 889756744: https://www.newspapers.com/image/889756744/
27. McNeil & Rozier correction, Valdosta Times, November 14, 1891, p. 1, Newspapers.com image 889756841: https://www.newspapers.com/image/889756841/
28. Brooks County deed, McNeil & Rozier to Mrs. B. M. Williams, January 27, 1900, image 327 of 347, FamilySearch ARK: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C9BC-V7QJ-4
29. “Burned by a Boy,” Valdosta Times, July 2, 1887, p. 2, Newspapers.com image 889721320: https://www.newspapers.com/image/889721320/; reprinted as “A Precocious Kid,” Columbus Enquirer-Sun, July 2, 1887, p. 5: https://gahistoricnewspapers.galileo.usg.edu/lccn/sn84024799/1887-07-02/ed-1/seq-5/

Citation audit note

The dossier distinguishes original or contemporary records from database indexes, cemetery compilations, and later historical summaries. Newspaper allegations are reported as allegations or reported events, not converted into judicial findings. Unlocated records and contradictory data remain explicit rather than silently harmonized.