The town of Crosby is one of the oldest settlements in Texas and has a rich history that began in 1823, when Humphrey Jackson built a cabin on Jackson Bayou near the San Jacinto River. Humphrey was a lawyer readying for a position in the Irish parliament. His family was part of the Irish aristocracy and had supported a bloody rebellion that lost to Great Britain. Like Humphrey, many of his family members fled to America. His cousins included US president Andrew Jackson and state senator James Jackson, the wealthiest man in Alabama. Humphrey faced tremendous challenges in his dream to build a new settlement in what would be East Harris County. The Karankawa Indians, who often cannibalized their enemies, occupied much of the area. Unfortunately, the early death of his wife and the eventual premature death of Humphrey himself ended the dream. The settlement he started sat virtually idle for over a decade until 1860, when one of the state's earliest railways renamed the settlement Gentry.