Bennett Crain, Lawyer Had Role in Bay Bridge
Bennett Crain, 73, a retired Washington and Baltimore lawyer, died Thursday at his home in Mount Victoria, Charles County, Md. He had suffered several strokes.
He had practiced law in Mount Victoria until retiring about 10 years ago. During the 1930s, he served with the Justice Department and the Farm Credit Administration.
Mr. Crain was active in politics at both the national and state level. In 1962, he sought the Democratic nomination for governor of Maryland.
He was involved in the construction of the first Chesapeake Bay Bridge and the Potomac River Bridge, which connects Maryland and Virginia by way of U.S. Rte. 301. The road also is known as Crain Highway, named after his father, Robert Crain, a lawyer who helped open up Southern Maryland to access by highway.
Mr. Crain was born at Mount Victoria. He attended Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., and graduated from the former Washington College of Law, now part of American University.
During World War II, he was president of the District of Columbia chapter of the Navy League of America, and was an officer in the Maryland Civil Air Patrol.
He belonged to the Metropolitan and Chevy Chase clubs in Washington, the Maryland Club of Baltimore and the Southern Maryland Society. He had been the first president of the Charles County Historical Society.
He is survived by his wife, Eloise Miller Crain, and a daughter, Suzanne, of the home; another daughter, Hampton Addis, of Elverson, Pa.; a son, Bennett Jr., of Annapolis; and two sisters, Margaret Downs, of Baltimore, and Eleanor McPeck, of Washington.
The family suggests that expressions of sympathy be in the form of contributions to the Cobb Island Volunteer Fire Department, of which he was a longtime member.
