Blair County PA Archives Biographies.....Crawford, Colonel Jesse R. June 28, 1810 - ????
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Judy Banja http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00004.html#0000757 December 21, 2024, 9:53 am

Source: Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Blair Co, PA: Philadelphia, 1892.
Author: Samuel T. Wiley

COL. JESSE R. CRAWFORD,
of Gaysport, ex-register and recorder of Mifflin county, and who was
prominently identified for several year with the iron industry of Blair
County, is a son of Capt. James and Rachel (Reynolds) Crawford, and was born
in Mifflin county, Pennsylvania, June 28, 1810.  His paternal grandfather,
James Crawford, was born in Ireland and settled in Juniata county, where he
followed his trade of weaver until his death, in 1823.   He was a democrat,
and a member of the old seceder Presbyterian church, and married Anna Black,
by whom he had six children:  Samuel, Captain James, David, Esther, Jane, and
one other.  Capt. James Crawford (father) was born in County Derry, Ireland,
and settled in what was Mifflin, but now Juniata county.  He was a farmer by
occupation, a democrat in politics, and a member of the old seceder
Presbyterian church.  He was commissioned captain in the State militia, and
commanded a company which served along the southern shore of Lake Erie prior
to Commodore Perry's great naval victory on the waters of that lake.  Captain
Crawford died at the age of eighty-three years.  He married Rachel Reynolds,
of Cecil County, Maryland, who died in 1827, aged thirty-eight years.  She
was a daughter of Jesse Reynolds, who was a native of Cecil County, Maryland,
and removed to Juniata County where he died in 1830, aged sixty-eight years,
and left a family of eight children:  William, Mary, Rachel, Susan,
Catherine, John, Hannah, and Benjamin.
   Jesse R. Crawford was reared in Mifflin county, where he received his
education and resided in Mifflin County until 1851, when he removed to
Hollidaysburg.  The next year he came to Gaysport, which he left in 1866 to
become superintendent of Mahoning furnace, at Lowellville, Ohio, which
position he held for five years.  He was then variously employed up to August
31, 1870, when he returned to Gaysport, and was a member, for two years, of
the iron manufacturing firm of Crawford, Johnson & Co., which operated during
that time a furnace in Freedom township, Gap furnace and Rebecca furnace in
Huston township.  In 1873, when Mr. Crawford withdrew from the above named
firm, he established a foundry at Osceola, Clearfield County, which he
operated for two years, and at the end of that time retired from active life.
On April 24, 1835, Mr. Crawford married Margaret P. Wingate, of Mifflin
county, and to their union have been born eight children.  Jane B., who died
in childhood; Maria M., widow of B. M. Johnston; Rachel R., married to James
A. B. Melvin, a former merchant and present real estate dealer of
Hollidaysburg; Mary E. widow of Samuel Slade; James R., who was a clerk for
the Cambria Iron Company, and died October 16, 1865, from the effects of a
blow received at the hands of an employee of the company; William W., married
Annie E. Derno, and is a clerk in the railroad freight department at Altoona.
In politics Colonel Crawford is a democrat.  He has served is borough as
school director as secretary and president, and has been a member of the
common council.  He was elected and served two terms, from 1840 to 1846, as
clerk of the orphan court and recorder of deeds and register of wills in
Mifflin county.  During his official terms he was commissioned by Governor
Porter as a notary public.  In 1861 he was instrumental in raising a regiment
of Pennsylvania infantry, of which he was commissioned lieutenant-colonel, but
as it was not called into active service he resigned.  Col. Jesse R. Crawford
is a member of the Presbyterian Church, a respected and popular citizen of
his borough, and has been for some time enjoying the fruits of his many years
of active business life.

Additional Comments:
Originally submitted 2001. Transcribed by Cheryl Heny  MHeny@Prodigy.net.

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