George C. Kimble

George C. Kimble
Born March 6, 1803
Beechwoods, Pennsylvania (USA)
Died March 6, 1836 (aged 33)
The Alamo, San Antonio, Republic of Texas
Allegiance Texas
Service/branch  Texas Army
Years of service 1836
Rank Lieutenant
Unit Gonzales Ranging Company
Commands held Gonzales Ranging Company
Battles/wars Battle of the Alamo

George C. Kimble (alternately spelled Kimbell or Kimball, March 6, 1803 – March 6, 1836) was a defender and officer of the Alamo Mission in San Antonio, who died at the Battle of the Alamo. Kimble County in the hill country of Texas is named in his honor.

Early life

George C. Kimble[A 1] was born on March 6, 1803 in Beechwoods, Pennsylvania to Chester Kimble and Lucy Satterlee Kimble. In 1825 at the age of 22, he moved to Texas as a member of the Green DeWitt Colony. There he met Prudence Nash, who was widowed from her first husband and had three children, and they married on June 26, 1832. They moved to Gonzales, Texas, and together with his business partner Almaron Dickinson started a hat factory on Water street. His son Charles C. Kimble was born in 1834.[1]

George C. Kimble (Kimball) was my 3rd great-uncle. According to family records, he was born in New Berlin, Chenango, N.Y. in 1803, and a number of other genealogies support this. While his family had originated in Connecticut, they moved to New York and later descendants of mine to Michigan. A memoir written by my g-grandmother, Lydia Avery KIMBALL Finster, a niece of George C. Kimball, reported that “George was with Davy Crockett’s band in eighteen hundred and thirty-six (1836). They were under Co. Travis’ command at San Antonio De Bexar (as they then called it), and with one hundred and eighty-four others were massacred by the Mexicans under Santa Ana. This is now called the massacre of the Alamo. His name is on the column erected to their memory. [2]

Legacy

Kimble County, Texas is named in his honor.[3]

Notes

  1. ↑ Various last name spellings are used for George C. Kimble in primary documents, including Kimball, Kimbill, Kimbell and Kimble. His decedents use the spelling Kimble and the county in Texas was spelled Kimble, so that spelling is preferred in this article.

References

  1. ↑ Daughters of Republic of Texas, Volume 1 1995, p. 161
  2. ↑ article Kimball Family News, November, 1898
  3. ↑ Wallace L McKeehan (2006), The DeWitt Colony Alamo Defenders, Texas A&M University

Bibliography