It took a few days, Mary, before I recalled where I had seen the name Mary Crosby. I believe that she indeed may be Mary Long Crosby.

I have my great-great uncle Walker Porter’s copy of the transcript of the February 1909 Choctaw County Circuit Court trial, in which he and Will Turner were accused of murdering Wiggins Shaw. Alfred Wiggins Shaw (1854-1907) was the husband of Luella Porter Shaw (1856-1931). William Walker Porter (1858-1940) and Luella Porter Shaw were brother and sister to Lucy Susannah Porter Bailey (1860-1886), wife of John R. Bailey. William Thomas Turner was their nephew, son of Thomas J. Turner and Sarah Ann Matilda Porter Turner (1849-1902).

Mrs. Mary Crosby was the first witness called to testify in the 1909 trial. She stated that she lived on the Webster Road, three miles southeast of Ackerman, and that Wiggins Shaw died across the road in front of her house. She was in the house with her four-year-old son. The transcript goes on to state that Mary Crosby’s husband was M. L. Crosby and that M. L. Crosby’s sister was the wife of Oscar Shaw, brother of Wiggins Shaw. M. L. Crosby was called as the second witness in the trial and stated that he was plowing in a nearby field when he heard the gunshots. Mary Crosby stated that the first neighborhood people who arrived after Wiggins died were John R. Bailey and Alfred Edward Shaw (oldest son of Wiggins and Luella).

Uncle Wiggins Shaw was the son of James Porter Shaw and Mary Amony Collier Shaw, whose farm was located at the Shaw Spring at the intersection of the Webster Road and the Pigeon Roost Road in northern Winston County. His younger brother Oscar Shaw later moved to western Tallahatchie County, in the Delta. Oscar Shaw’s wife was Alice Crosby, daughter of William O. Crosby (1836-1917) and Martha A. Crosby (1836-1907) who are buried in the cemetery at Poplar Flat Baptist Church. Oscar and Alice were married by Rev. J. T. Sargent on December 21, 1890, at the home of her parents in Winston County. John R. Bailey was bondsman with Oscar Shaw in obtaining the marriage license.

Alice Crosby Shaw’s brother, identified in the trial transcript as M. L. Crosby, was Luther Crosby, the youngest child of William O. Crosby. In 1900 he was listed in the census as 19 years old and living with his parents. His birth date was given as April 1881. According to the transcript, Luther and Mary Crosby had a son who was 4 years old at the time of Wiggins Shaw’s death in April, 1907. The Mary Long, listed in the 1900 household of John R. Bailey with a birth date of April 1883, would be the right age to be the Mary Crosby, wife of Luther Crosby.

The second published volume of Winston County marriage records goes to the year 1908. The marriage record of Luther Crosby is not found there. If he did marry Mary Long, who was living in Choctaw County in 1900, the marriage probably took place there. The published Choctaw County marriage records only go to 1887. On my next trip to Mississippi in November, I’ll check the marriage records in the courthouse in Ackerman.

Billy Weeks