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Facts and Events
Lt. John Crawford was one of the Early Settlers of Augusta County, Virginia
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Military Service
- American Revolutionary War Veteran
Revolutionary War Pension Information
Information from “Virginia/West Virginia Genealogical Data from Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty Land Warrant Records”, Vol. 1, compiled by Patrick G. Wardell, Lt. Col. U.S. Army Ret. :
Crawford, John, entered service in Virginia; soldier born in Augusta County, Virginia & died there 1/13/1832 age 91; married 2/24/1797 there to "last wife" Sarah Newman; widow born 3/1771, & applied for Pension 1849 in Augusta County, Virginia, when affidavit made by children: eldest daughter Mrs. Nancy R. Newman born 5/25/1800, eldest son James E. Crawford born 10/25/1802 & son William Crawford bonr 8/30/1807; widow's Pension Application rejected, insufficient proof of [military] service. R687.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Ancestry.com. Public Member Trees: (Note: not considered a reliable primary source).
- Graves, William T. Southern Campaign Revolutionary War Pension Statements & Rosters.
Pension Application of John Crawford R2472
Transcribed and annotated by C. Leon Harris
State of Virginia } SS:
County of Augusta }
On this fourteenth day of May in the year of our Lord one thousand eight
hundred and forty nine, before the undersigned a Justice of the Peace in and for the County aforesaid, personally appeared Mrs. Sarah Crawford, (sometimes called Sally Crawford,) a resident of said County, aged seventy eight years in March last, who being duly sworn according to law, doth on her oath make the following Declaration in order to obtain the benefit of the provisions of the Acts of Congress above mentioned passed in 1828, 1836, and 1848, granting Pension to Officers, Soldiers, and Widows, for Revolutionary Services: —
That she is the widow of John Crawford, who was a soldier and an Officer in the Regular Army in the Revolutionary War and served for several years, first as a Soldier and afterwards as an Ensign, a Lieutenant, and she believes a Quarter Master: but as she was not married to him until several years after the War, and her memory is weak from age and infirmity, she is not able to state particulars of his service, further than that she has often heard him say, he served under Generals [Nathanael] Greene, [Daniel] Morgan, and several other Officers whose names she cannot now recollect, and that he was in the Battles of the Cowpens [17 Jan 1781], Guilford Court House [15 Mar 1781], and others which she cannot name, as she has heard him relate hundreds of scenes which he witnessed; that she has often seen the wounds which he received at the Battle of the Cowpens, that she has often heard him converse with Officers and Soldiers who served with him, of the many thrilling scenes through which he passed, and that she has now in her possession an Officers Sword which she has known ever since her marriage and has always regarded as the identical sword used by her said Husband in the War of the Revolution; and that he was born, and always held his home in this County of Augusta, she believes he was in the Virginia Continental Line to the close of the War [see endnote]:
That she knows her said Husband never received a Pension, and that she has often heard Maj’r. Samuel Bell [pension application W12267], a Pensioner urge him to apply for a Pension but her said Husband always replied to him and many others who urged him, that he did not fight for any thing but liberty, and would not have a Pension, especially as he was always able to live without one.
She further declares that she was married to the said John Crawford in the County of
Augusta aforesaid, on the twenty fourth day of February in the year Seventeen hundred and ninety seven (1797) by the Rev’d. Archibald Scott; that her husband the aforesaid John Crawford died in said County and in the house in which she now occupies, on the 13th January (1832) Eighteen hundred and thirty two; that she was not married to him prior to his leaving the service, but the marriage took place previous to the second of January Eighteen hundred, viz: at the time above stated. She further swears that she is now a Widow and that she has never applied for a pension – also, that her maiden name was Sarah, or Sally Newman.
Sarah herXmark Crawford
State of Virginia } SS:
County of Augusta }
On this 19th day of May 1849, before the undersigned a Justice of the Peace in
and for the County aforesaid, personally appeared, Mrs. Nancy R. Newman, (formerly Nancy R. Crawford) a resident of said County, aged forty nine years on the twenty fifth day of the present month, May, who being duly sworn according to law, deposeth and saith – as follows:
I am the eldest Daughter of Mrs. Sarah Crawford, who is now applying for a pension, and is the Widow of John Crawford who was an Officer of the Revolutionary War. From my earliest recollection, I have heard my said Father converse with many individuals relative to his long service in said War and the many scenes in which he participated, particularly the Battle of the Cowpens in which he was wounded in the leg; the Battle of Guilford CourtHouse, and several others which I cannot name. My Father was a Member of the Presbyterian Church in this vicinity for many years before I was born and continued a member of said Church to the day of his death, 13 January 1832. The said Church th was for many years under the Pastoral care of Rev. Archibald Scott, by whom my Mother was married to my said Father on 24th February 1797: it was afterwards and for many years in charge of Rev. William Calhoun who now resides in this neighborhood, and who attended my Father’s funeral on the 14th of Jan’y. 1832: – said Rev. Mr. Calhoun often visited my Father to converse with him on the subject of religion, and such was my Father’s love of liberty that he always mixed into the conversation some of the trials through which he passed while serving as an Officer in the Revolutionary War for several years. – I have often seen my Father’s Commission and many other papers relative to the War, and have often heard him speak of pressing Waggons, and provisions into the service, and from many other statements he has repeatedly made in my hearing I have no doubt he was a Lieutenant and Quarter Master, and am certain he was in service at the close of the War. His Sword has been kept in the family ever since, and a few weeks before his death he gave it to his youngest son with a charge to keep it, in memory of the service it had done. It is the identical sword which is now in possession of Edmund F. Brown having been delivered to him by my Brother William, to be conveyed to Washington to aid in establishing my Mother’s pension claim. – Among my Father’s papers which have been destroyed, was a letter written to him while in service by General Morgan which I once heard my Father read to Mr. Carlisle of Bath County who had been in service with him, and the said letter intimated that Gen’l. Morgan depended much upon my Father in some engagement which was expected to take place soon [probably Battle of Cowpens].
I do not recollect the names of any Officers under whom he served except Generals Morgan and Greene, but he said he had seen Cornwallis and [Lt. Col. Banastre] Tarleton of the British Army, the latter of whom he much despised. During most of my Father’s life he owned a large quantity of land and his circumstances were very comfortable, which probably accounts for the fact that whenever pensions were mentioned in his presence, he always declared that he never would have one, for he fought for liberty and not for pay, and besides; he was able to live without asking Government for help. These expressions I have heard from him more than a hundred times; and his neighbors always considered him a modest man and said his relations of the many incidents of the Revolution were not given in a spirit of boasting or desire for self praise, but he possessed so much genuine patriotism that he could not avoid repeating the many scenes which he had witness – this was true to such an extent that some thought he loved patriotism as much as religion. – He having been dead seventeen years I cannot distinctly relate his statements, but I am as certain that he was a Lieutenant and Quarter Master to the end of the War, as I am of anything which occurred before I was born, as I have always understood that he did not return home to live, until the Army was disbanded. [signed] Nancy R Newman
[Certified by William Calhoon]
NOTES:
Reference to the pension applications of Thomas M. Caul (S18342), Berryman Jones
(S5632), and Samuel McCune (S11042) suggest that Crawford was actually in the Augusta County Militia rather than the Continental Line. The file contains records of a different John Crawford, pension application S8256, who served in the 2nd Virginia Regiment of the Continental Line.
On 14 May 1849 William Crawford, aged 42 on 30 Aug 1849, deposed to the above facts
and also that the record in the family Bible contains the entry that “John Crawford died January 13th 1832, Aged 91 years.” He also stated that his mother, Sarah Crawford, was living with him “and has five other children besides himself.”
On 15 May 1849 Catharine Wallace, 59, deposed that she witnessed the marriage of her
sister, Sarah Crawford, to John Crawford, and that she later lived with John and Sarah Crawford until she herself was married to James Wallace in 1810.
On 15 May 1849 Robert Craig, 56, deposed that he had lived about 12 miles from John
Crawford from 1806 and among the events he had heard Crawford relate was one in which “some British had stolen some of our cattle, said Crawford pursued, overtook, and recaptured the cattle, and drove the British away, and that said Crawford’s force was much smaller than that of the British…,” and “that his Father, Alexander Craig, was in the Revolutionary War and told [him] that said Crawford was a Lieutenant in said War; but said Crawford was not a boasting man.”
The file contains a letter dated Monroe County MD, 4 June 1849, from James E. Crawford stating he would be 47 on 25 Oct 1849, that he helped burn the commission and other papers of his father, John Crawford, after his death, and that he recalled his father saying “he was in several battles, was slitely wounded once, and if I mistake not purued corne Wallace into Carolinea, aided in routing the tories in that Section &c.”
Sarah Crawford’s application was refused, because no record of John Crawford’s
commission could be found, as was required for Continental but not Militia officers. In an appeal her agent, Edmund F. Brown, stated that she was paralyzed.
http://revwarapps.org/r2472.pdf
- Waddell, Joseph A. (Joseph Addison). Annals of Augusta County, Virginia: with reminiscences illustrative of the vicissitudes of its pioneer settlers biographical sketches of citizens locally prominent, and of those who have founded families in the southern and western states : a diary of the war, 1861-'5, and a chapter on reconstruction by Joseph Addison Waddell. (Staunton, Virginia: C.R. Caldwell, 1902).
III. John Crawford, third son of Alexander and Mary, was married three times successively. His first wife was Peggy, eldest daughter of his uncle, Patrick Crawford, by whom he had one daughter, who married Daniel Falls and went to Ohio. His second wife was Mary Craig, by whom he had a son, Samuel, and five daughters. Samuel went to Illinois, and is said to have had sixteen children. Nothing is known of the five daughters, except that one of them, Polly, was the wife of the Rev. Samuel Gillespie of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The third wife of John Crawford was Sally Newman of Fredericksburg, and she had five children who lived to maturity: James, William and John, all of whom emigrated to Missouri, about 1838; a daughter, Nancy, wife of LeRoy Newman, her first cousin ; and another, Fanny, wife of Henry Rippetoe, who still survives. John Crawford was a man of great energy and activity. It is said that he was engaged in all the expeditions of his day against the Indians, including Point Pleasant. He was a soldier during the whole Revolutionary war, and when not in the field was employed in making guns and other weapons, having acquired his father's skill as an iron-worker. The day after the battle of the Cowpens, in which he participated, he was promoted from the ranks to a first lieutenancy on account of his gallantry in that celebrated battle. He was also at Guilford, and with General Greene in all his southern campaign. Yet he never would accept pension or bounty lands. Like his father, however, John Crawford was desirous of acquiring a large landed estate, and there was a brisk competition between him his neighbor, Francis Gardiner (pronounced by the old people " Francie Garner") as to the ownership of the Little North Mountain range. As related, each discovered about the same time that a certain tract of a hundred acres had not been patented, and both sought to acquire it. Gardiner got ahead of Crawford by starting to Richmond first, but the latter mounted a blooded mare and never rested till he reached the capital, passing his rival on the way. Crawford emerged from the land office with his title complete, and met Gardiner at the door going in. The mare, which was no doubt worth much more than the land, died from the effects of the trip.
It is a pity to spoil a grand story by suggesting a doubt in reference to it, but it must be mentioned that such a trip to Richmond could hardly have been necessary in order to obtain title to vacant land, as the county surveyor was authorized to make the entry. Nevertheless, the main portions of the story are well authenticated. The rivalry between the two neighbors waxed hot, and meeting one day while prospecting on the mountain, they became engaged in a fight, of which one or both, no doubt, duly repented.
John Crawford died at his home on Buffalo branch, in January, 1832, and was buried in Hebron church-yard. His tombstone gives his age as ninety-one years, and, if correctly, he was the oldest son of Alexander and Mary, instead of the third.
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