Nancy Hainsworth

Notes:

Wynema McGrew writes (p. 10) that Nancy eventually married a Phillips and later took up Thos. M'Gee (sic), who was the murderer of Raleigh Hightower.

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"Bill" was only two years old when his father was ambushed, and his mother Nancy Hainsworth McGrew Phillips did not maintain such an honorable family reputation. In the "Voice of Sumter," August 9, 1836, she was denounced by Regulators, as a "Jezebel" for harboring mixed Indians and borderers among her clan, and for aiding and abetting the Kemp-McGrew feud. The article by Louis C. Gaines called for her to be driven from the country, but she said she would "die on the grit." Evidently, she did choose to return to Texas. She had been listed in the failed Wavell's colony in Texas in 1830, causing her to remain in Alabama, but 1850 she was in Leon County, Texas, whether by choice or force is unknown.

Family/Spouse: William McGrew. William (son of John McGrew and Elizabeth Clark) was born before 1788 in Mississippi Territory; died in 1813 in Clarke County, Alabama. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

William "Black Bill" McGrew along with his cousin William "Red Bill" McGrew, in their early twenties, had killed two teenage boys in Sumter County, Alabama in 1835. In May, Alabama Governor John Gayle put out an $800 bounty for their apprehension. From the Commercial Register of Mobile:

"Wanted - A Proclamation - On or about the first day of April of the present year [1835], William McGrew and William P. McGrew, in the county of Sumter [Alabama] murdered a couple of boys in the foulest manner, and under the most shocking and aggravated circumstances. The oldest of the lads was 16 or 17 years of age, and his little brother about 11 or 12. Their name was Kemp. They were peaceably at work, earning a subsistence for the indigent family to which they belonged, having given no offence or provocation whatsoever, when they were cruelly shot down at the same time, in a very wantonness of deliberate and cold blooded murder."

Notices of the reward appeared in Mobile, New Orleans, and even in Texas. Soon another reward of three thousand dollars was raised by the citizens of Sumter and Marengo. Published in Mobile, New Orleans and in the Brazoria, Texas Republican 24 October 1835 was this descriptions of culprits:

"William P. McGrew ("Black Bill") is about twenty four years of age, hair a little dark, fair skin and blue eyes; mild, and retiring look when sober; six feet high. William McGrew, ("Red Bill") the cousin of the other, is about 21 years old, red hair, fair skin, eyes between gray and blue, six feet high, down look and forbidding countenance. Both addicted to intemperance."

"Black Bill" McGrew fled to Texas, to a place "about 125 miles from Nacogdoches" where bounty hunters from Alabama " handed a letter, perhaps from some authority in Texas, to a man there by the name of Bowie with the expectation of getting his assistance in the taking of McGrew; but he being the friend of McGrew showed him the letter. The party in pursuit of McGrew immediately became alarmed and fled," according to the Voice of Sumter paper, Nov. 6, 1837. Eventually McGrew was betrayed by a man posing as a friend and turned over to the three bounty hunters. He was returned to Alabama where he escaped from the Mobile jail and was subsequently recaptured by the sheriff in Little Rock, Arkansas. As he was being returned to Alabama, he created such a commotion on board the steamboat trying to escape that the Captain was obliged to put him and the sheriff off at Vicksburg. He was then shackled and the sheriff and a contingent of men delivered him for trial in Sumter County. Tried for murder, he received a $500 fine and one year for manslaughter since evidence proved the Kemp boys had readied guns in an ambush position. In addition, the Kemp boys' mother, who was the only eyewitness, told at least three different stories to different people, and did not fare well under cross-examination. Yet within the year, "Black Bill" died from his prison experience.

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