Husband Col. William Crawford 1 2 3
Born: Aug 1722 or 2 Sep 1732 - Orange Co, VA
Christened:
Died: 11 Jun 1782 - Sandusky, Erie Co, OH 4
Buried:
Father: Hugh Crawford ( -1736) 4
Mother: Honora [Unk] ( -1776) 1
Marriage: - Shenandoah Valley, VA
• Residence: : Fayette Co, PA.
• Biographical Sketch: Franklin Ellis, History of Fayette County, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA: L. H. Everts & Co., 1882).
To read this brief biographical sketch of his life, click here.
• Additional Information. For more information about this person, click here.
Wife Hannah Vance 5 6
Born: Abt 1723
Christened:
Died: 1817 - New Haven, Fayette Co, PA 7
Buried:
Father: [Father] Vance ( - )
Mother:
Children
1 F Sarah Crawford 8
Born:
Christened:
Died:
Buried:
Spouse: Maj. William Harrison ( -Abt 1782) 8
Spouse: Capt. Uriah Springer ( - ) 7 9
2 M John Crawford 10
Born:
Christened:
Died: - Kentucky
Buried:
Spouse: Effie Grimes ( - )
3 F Ophelia Crawford 14
AKA: Effie Crawford 11 12 13
Born: 2 Sep 1751 - Virginia 12
Christened:
Died: 1825 - Ohio 12
Buried:
Spouse: William McCormick (1738-1816) 11 12 13
Marr: 10 Feb 1773 - Youghiogheny Valley 12
4 F Ann Crawford 11
Born:
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Died:
Buried:
Spouse: Zachariah Connell (Abt 1741-1813) 15
Marr: Abt 1773
General Notes: Husband - Col. William Crawford
He served in the Revolutionary War; he commanded more than one Virginia regiment at different times, and a year after the war came to a horrible end, being burned at the stake by Indians, on the present site of Sandusky, Ohio, where a memorial service was annually held in honor of his memory.
He was colonel of the Fifth Virginia Regulars, commissioned in 1781. The circumstances of his death are recorded in nearly every U. S. history: He was burned at the stake by Indians, who had captured him, for the evident purpose of wreaking vengeance on their victim in return for the historic massacre at Gnadenhutten, Tuscarawas County, Ohio, many Indians having been there slaughtered by the whites. At the time of his capture Col. Crawford was conducting a campaign against the Wyandotts and Moravian tribes.
He was born in Orange County, Virginia, in the year of 1732. The family afterward emigrated to Winchester, near the foot of the Shenandoah mountains, then the western confines of civihzation. His father dying when he was four years of age, he was reared by his mother, a woman of great energy of character. At the age of seventeen he became acquainted with the youthful Washington, which acquaintance ripened into the warmest friendship, never broken until the death of Crawford. In 1755, as ensign, he accompanied Braddock in the ill-fated campaign against Fort Duquesne, and for gallantry displayed on that occasion was advanced to a lieutenancy. In 1758, appointed to a captaincy by Washington, who was then commander-in-chief of the Virginia troops, he went with Forbes' Expedition against Duquesne. In the spring of 1767 he located a claim at Stewart's Crossing, where the town of New Haven now stands, and in 1769 moved his family there, becoming the first settler west of the Allegheny mountains. In 1773 Crawford was appointed by Gov. Penn, presiding justice of Westmoreland county, a district which then embraced a great portion of western Pennsylvania. Upon the news of the battle of Lexington, he at once raised and equipped a regiment for the defense of the colonies; this not being at the time accepted, he was on the 14th of August, 1776, commissioned as colonel of the Seventh Regiment Virginia Battalions. His regiment was sent to Long Island, and participated in all the principal battles in New Jersey, and was with Washington on that memorable Christmas day when the army crossed the icy Delaware; also at the victorious battle of Trenton, on the day succeeding, and at Princeton, soon thereafter.
In May, 1778, by order of Congress, he was transferred to the western frontier, to take command of the forces sent against the Indians.
Upon the surrender of Cornwallis, it became evident that the contest with Great Britain was drawing to a close, and Crawford gladly accepted the opportunity of retiring to his home on the banks of the Youghiogheny. Having, as he believed, done his whole duty to his country, he now thought only of spending the remainder of his days in quietude and peace, but the attacks of the Indians, becoming day by day more numerous, he, with reluctance and gloomy forebodings, took command of an expedition against them in the spring of 1782, an expedition which culminated in his execution by the Indians, with cruel tortures at the stake, near the present town of Little Sandusky, Ohio, on the 11th day of June, the same year.
He came to western Pennsylvania several years before William M'Cormick. His coming to Stewart's Crossing was about fourteen years later than William Stewart, who lived there in 1753 and 1754, and gave his name to the place.
General Notes: Wife - Hannah Vance
She was described as a remarkably active woman in her old age. Provance McCormick, Esq., of Connellsville, remembers that one day, about 1807, Mrs. Crawford, then upwards of eighty years old, came on horseback to visit the McCormicks in Connellsville. She rode a good-sized mare, and when ready to return home after her visit was ended went to mount her favorite "Jenny." "Wait, wait," called one of the boys, "wait until I bring your horse to the block." "I don't want a horse-block, my boy, to mount upon Jenny's back," blithely replied the old lady; "I'm better than fifty horse-blocks," and so saying she moved briskly towards Jenny, placed one hand upon the horn of the saddle, the other upon Jenny's back, and at a single bound was firmly seated in her place. "There," cried she, "what do you suppose I want of horse-blocks?" Whereat everybody applauded and commended her performance, saying but few women could equal it.
Of course the death of Col. Crawford was a terrible blow to the widow. For years her grief was over-whelming. Uriah Springer says, "When I was a little boy (long after Col. Crawford's death) my grandmother Crawford took me up behind her on horse-back and rode across the Youghiogheny, past the John Reist farm, and into the woods at the left. When we alighted we stood by an old moss-covered white-oak log. "Here," said my grandmother, as she sat down upon the log and cried as if her heart would break, "here I parted with your grandfather."