DeCrow, Daniel D. (unknown–1837)

Daniel D. DeCrow (Deckrow, Deckro, Decro), one of Stephen F. Austin's Old Three Hundred colonists, was one of at least seven children of Daniel D. DeCrow, Sr., of Lincolnville, Waldo County, Maine. He moved from Maine to Texas by 1823 or 1824, about eight years before five more of his brothers arrived. He and his partner, Thomas McCoy, received title to a sitio of land in what is now Matagorda County on July 24, 1824. In the 1820s one Captain DeCrow, probably Daniel DeCrow, operated a sloop between the Brazos River and San Jacinto Bay, often carrying mail and messages for the colonists and once rescuing Dr. Johnson Calhoun Hunter, who had been wrecked in Galveston Bay. In October 1825 DeCrow was in the Cedar Lake area and reported on Karankawa Indian activities there. By 1829 he was among the soldiers stationed at a small fort built near the future site of Matagorda to protect incoming settlers. Later he was awarded a Matagorda town lot for making improvements to the land. In 1835 Samuel Rhoads Fisher reported leaving some property salvaged from a shipwreck under Daniel DeCrow's care at Cavallo Pass. Though apparently neither served in the army, both Daniel and Thomas DeCrow transported supplies and soldiers for the Republic of Texas. DeCrow died at Caney on January 20, 1837, and by August of that year Thomas DeCrow was made administrator of his estate. The Daniel DeCrow papers are housed at the Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas at Austin. They have been reprinted in Volume 1 of Historic Matagorda County (1986). Decros Point, at the extreme western end of the Matagorda Peninsula by Cavallo Pass, is named for Daniel or Thomas DeCrow.