CRISP, JOHN H. (ca. 1797-1888). John H. Crisp, planter and physician, was born in North Carolina about 1797. He practiced medicine in western Tennessee and northern Mississippi before moving to Texas shortly before 1855, when he purchased 1,476 acres of land on the east bank of the Colorado River northwest of Columbus in Colorado County. By 1860 he reportedly owned 800 acres of improved land worth $32,000, which produced 6,000 bushels of corn and 260 bales of cotton annually. He owned 146 slaves-the second largest number in the county. The value of his personal property at that time was recorded as $98,200. In 1867 Crisp sold his holdings in Texas and joined the Confederate exodus to South America. He died on July 8, 1888, near the colony of American expatriates at Americana, Brazil.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Colorado County Historical Commission, Colorado County Chronicles from the Beginning to 1923 (2 vols., Austin: Nortex, 1986). Ralph A. Wooster, "Wealthy Texans, 1860," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 71 (October 1967).

Charles Christopher Jackson