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Description
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Starks Cockrill, Jr., born in 1823 in Missouri, was the second of eight children born to Starks Cockrill, Sr., and the first born in Missouri after the family moved from Kentucky. Cockrill, Sr. obtained land grants on what is now Tyson Research Center Property, and in 1830, the Cockrill family held three people in slavery in Bonhomme Township. By the recording of the1850 census, Starks S. Cockrill Sr., Starks Cockrill Jr., and Christopher Cockrill had all established separate households next to one another and worked as farmers. The families of Starks Cockrill Sr. and Jr. moved to Texas by 1860, whereas Christopher Cockrill continued to live in Bonhomme Township, where he enslaved five people according to the 1860 census and held land on what is now Tyson property according to an 1870 plat map. The Cockrills were enslavers. The 1830 Census for Bonhomme Township lists two girls and a boy aged between 10-23 as enslaved by Starks Cockrill, Sr. In the 1850 Census, he is recorded as enslaving three men aged between 22-35, four boys aged between 4-10, a 30-year old woman and a 2-year old girl in Bonhomme Township. In 1860, "SS Cockrill” enslaved ten people according to the census records for Fayette County, Texas. It is unclear whether that name indicates the father or the son -- one 35-year-old female, and nine males between the ages of 2 and 21. It is likely that both father and son continued to profit from enslaved labor in their farm enterprises in Texas. Starks Cockrill, Jr. served in the Confederate forces during the Civil War.
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Bio
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The Cockrills owned multiple plots of land from 1838-1893 where the current day Tyson Research Center stands. Starks Cockrill, Jr. (1823 – 1875), was born in Missouri to Starks Cockrill Sr. and Barbara (Barbary) Cotton. His father, Starks S. Cockrill Sr. (1795-1862), born in Virginia and was a veteran of the War of 1812 during which he served as corporal in a Kentucky regiment, moved his family to Missouri in the 1820s. By 1830, Cockrill Sr. held three people in slavery in Bonhomme Township. He received United States land grants in the region on several occasions, including in 1835, 1840, and 1853. The families of Starks S. Cockrill Sr., Christopher Cockrill, and Starks Cockrill, Jr. (1823 - 1875), all described as farmers in the 1850 census, lived next to one another in Bonhomme (lands that are now Tyson) and held nine people in slavery. The families of Starks Cockrill Sr. and Jr. moved to Texas by 1860, but retained land in Missouri according to plat maps of 1862 and 1870. Cockrill Jr. fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War. He enlisted in April of 1862 in the 16th (Flournoy’s) Regiment, but received a certification of disability status by July of the same year. Starks Cockrill Jr. married Sarah Williams in January 1846, who appears to have died and is buried in the Burns-Stuart Cemetery that borders Tyson’s property. Several of the Cockrills married into the Williams family, who also lived on property that is now part of Tyson. He later married Rebecca Williams in February 1851. Together they had Mary Jane Cockrill (b. 1853), Margaret Cockrill (b. 1854), Francis Cockrill (b. 1856), Charles W. Cockrill (b. 1859), and Rufus C. Cockrill (1860-1932).
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Birth Date
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1823
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Death Date
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1875
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Keywords
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Tyson landowner
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Dates of Tyson Land Ownership
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1870
