The Continental Army recorded the desertion of James Crookham in April 1780. He had been listed as a bombardier, matross, and artificer stationed at Carlisle, PA during the war.
He appears shortly after the war in the tax records of Bedford and Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania. Huntingdon County was formed from Bedford County in 1787. Both counties are situated along the central mountain region of Pennsylvania. Huntingdon became the north half of Bedford County.
In 1782, he appears in the Tax List for Shirley, Bedford County, which is before Huntingdon was carved out of Bedford. Shirley is located in the part that would become Huntingdon County, on the eastern side of the mountains. On the tax list, he is listed as “poor” with no property or animals listed.
In 1783, he appears in the Tax List for Shirley, Bedford County, and he is reported as paying 17 shillings in tax as he has acquired a horse.
1788, he appears again in the Tax List for Shirley, Huntingdon County, and like in 1783, he pays tax on a single horse.
The next year, in 1789, he appears on the Tax List for Shirley, Huntingdon County and he has acquired a cow in addition to the horse.
In 1795, he made two applications for land. The first was for 400 acres in Huntingdon in conjunction with William Wright. The second was for 300 acres lying to the west of Jack’s Mountain.
In 1798, he appears on a Tax Lists which describes the buildings of those taxed. Jas. Crookham is listed as the owner of one house (no barn, outbuildings) on 200 acres of land in the counties of Huntingdon and Somerset. He is living near a Samuel Cornelius. In the list of the tax collector, he records collecting 25 cents from James for 200 acres in Springfield next to Peter Cornelius.
In the same year, James Crookham is recorded as having land, nearly 330 acres, near Hopewell in the same counties. It is listed as near the waters of Little Trough Creek and Haystown Branch.
He is listed in the Septennial Census of Pennsylvania as living in Springfield as a blacksmith next to the Cornelius family.
Sources:
Pennsylvania, Land Warrants and Applications, 1733-1952 | ancestry.com
Pennsylvania, Septennial Census, 1779-1863 | ancestry.com
Pennsylvania, Tax and Exoneration, 1768-1801 | ancestry.com
Pennsylvania, U.S. Direct Tax Lists, 1798 | ancestry.com
Finding the Yellow Bricks 