Alexander L. Crawford,
President and General Manager of the New Castle and Beaver Valley
Railroad, Pennsylvania, was born near Norristown, Montgomery County,
Pennsylvania, February 5, 1815. He came of old Irish stock, his
paternal great-grandfather having migrated to this country from Ireland
about the year 1720, and settled near Norristown, where his grandfather
and father were born. The farm which was the birthplace of the subject
of this sketch was in the possession of the Crawford family for nearly
a century. Both Andrew and Elizabeth Crawford, the parents of
Alexander, were natives of Montgomery County, where the father died in
1834, the mother having died in 1828. Andrew Crawford carried on an
extensive farm and lime-kiln business in Montgomery County up to the
period of his death. Alexander was raised on his father's farm and
worked upon it until the latter's death in August, 1834, when he took
charge of the large lime-kiln interests of the estate, for Messrs.
Thomas and Hooven, who rented the property and carried on the business,
which employed about fifty men, and burned about a thousand bushels per
day for three years.
Alexander
then sold the property, and in 1836, married Miss Mary R. List, of
Montgomery County. He now went into farming, in which he continued
until 1841, when he abandoned that business as not sufficiently
profitable, sold his farm and removed to New Castle, Pennsylvania. He
went into the flour mill business, started a rolling mill, and
continued at these vocations until 1864. At that time money was plenty
and everybody wanted to invest in substantial lines of business,
therefore those in which Mr. Crawford was engaged ranked high. He was
so shrewd as to see that this was the time to turn his capital at a
profit, and accordingly sold out, at "war prices." In 1842 he had
purchased the Springfield furnace, and made charcoal iron for the use
of the rolling mill, and in 1847 he built the Tremont blast furnace,
near New Wilmington, Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, which he sold out
ten years later. In the summer of 1853 he bought the Mahoning furnace,
situated at Lowellville, Ohio. He built a railroad two miles to the
coal mines to cheapen the cost of the coal used in the furnace. He ran
this furnace a month, when he blew it out and instituted many
improvements in it. By bringing the gas down from the tunnel head to
the boilers and hot blast, he was able to make a saving of thirty
dollars a day; making this the first furnace run in the United States
with gas, successfully, with the boilers and hot blast located on the
ground. The increased quantity of iron per week was from thirty-five to
eighty-five tons--with the same quantity of blast. In May, 1864, he
sold this furnace out at a good price. In 1868 he built the two Etna
furnaces at New Castle, sold them out in 1872 when iron was high, and
gave the owners for four years' interest, one hundred and fifty per
cent., besides their original capital. In 1872-4, he built two blast
furnaces at Terre Haute, Indiana, one of which was afterwards removed
to Gadsden, Alabama, and both of which are still run by Mr. Crawford's
sons, Andrew and James P. In 1876 he built the Sligo furnaces, in Dent
County, Missouri, which are still in operation, making fifty tons of
charcoal iron daily. In 1875 he built the Wabash rolling mill at Terre
Haute, Indiana, still run by his sons, Andrew and James P. In the fall
of 1884 Mr. Crawford bought the Neshannock furnace in New Castle. He
made many changes in this furnace, increasing the output from seven
hundred and fifty to thirteen hundred tons per week of Bessemer pig. As
early as 1855 Mr. Crawford had sunk the first coal shaft in Mercer
County, Pennsylvania, in the block coal, which works raw in the furnace;
and in 1866 he sank the first coal shaft in the block coal in Clay
County, Indiana, and of this district the daily product of coal is now
about four thousand tons. The first iron ore ever shipped from
Marquette, Michigan, was five tons shipped by Mr. Crawford for
experimental purposes. The result of the experiment was so satisfactory
in quality, that the increase in shipment grew enormously, the Lake
Superior district sending out in 1889 over seven million gross tons,
enough ore to make more than one-half of the pig iron used in the
United States in 1889. Mr. Crawford's remarkable discernment in regard
to everything connected with his business was shown in the year 1857,
when the first blast furnace was built in Pittsburgh by Graff, Bennett
& Co. They undertook to run the furnace on coke made from
Pittsburgh coal. Mr. Crawford assured the firm that the attempt would
be unsuccessful, which proved to be the case. They tried it for some
time, piling up iron which could not be used, until it grew to be more
than they could carry. They were in a bad position, when Mr. Crawford
offered to get them out of the scrape, provided they would implicitly
follow his directions, which they agreed to do. He sent them up to
Connellsville to get a coal bank to coke the coal on the ground, until
they could build some ovens, and bring it to Pittsburgh and use it in
their furnace, when he would guarantee they would make good iron. All
turned out precisely as Mr. Crawford had predicted. Mr. Bennett was
very anxious to find out how Mr. Crawford knew this, but the latter
would not tell him, and chuckles over the fact that he never has to
this day. From that small beginning arose the vast Connellsville Coke
industry, whose daily output is now over ten thousand tons, increasing
about as rapidly as the Lake Superior ore trade. Mr. Crawford made his
first attempt at railroading when he was nineteen years old, and he put
in the first switch ever applied up to that time, 1834, for
switching a car or cars from the main track. The practice before that
was to have a turn-table, turn them by hand, and run them one at a
time, out at right angles with the main track. There were at that time
just four locomotives in use in the United States. The Philadelphia,
Germantown and Norristown Railroad had the first one built by Mr.
Baldwin, and called the "Ironsides." It only weighed about twelve tons,
and had no cab, so that the company advertised that on pleasant days
the locomotive would pull the cars, but on rainy days the horse cars
would run as usual. Since that period Mr. Crawford has built the New
Castle and Franklin Railroad, and a number of short coal roads, while
assisting to build the Youngstown and Ashtabula Railroad, the Lawrence
Railroad, the St. Louis, Salem and Little Rock, the Newcastle and
Beaver Valley, and the Nashville and Knoxville Railroad in Tennessee.
One hundred miles of this latter road extends from Lebanon to the block
coal fields of Overton County. These are the largest fields of that
kind of coal in the United States. It will make iron in the raw state,
as it comes out of the mine. This road, when completed to Knoxville,
will shorten the distance over the present route via Chattanooga, some
sixty miles, from Nashville. Concerning this last enterprise, Mr.
Crawford says, --"When I get this road to the coal mines, of which I
own many thousands of acres, I shall quit building railroads, as my
health is poor, and my age seventy-five years." Mr. Crawford is
President of the New Castle and Beaver Valley Railroad, Treasurer and
General Manager of the Nashville and Knoxville Railroad, Vice-President
of the National Bank of Lawrence County, Pennsylvania,
Vice-President of the Sligo Furnace Company, of Missouri, President of
the Kimberly Iron Company, of Michigan, and President of the Crawford
Iron and Steel Company of New Castle. Of late years he has sold out his
interests in many more extensive corporations, and retired from his
official connection with them. Mr. Crawford has had eight children, and
has four sons and one daughter now living. Andrew J., the oldest son,
and James P. the third son, are located in Terre Haute, Indiana, where
they manage large furnaces and control the local electric plant. Hugh
A. Crawford, the second son, is engaged in the iron business in St.
Louis, and is Vice-President of the Continental Bank of that city. The
youngest son, John L., is interested in the iron business in Newcastle.
Mr. Crawford's only daughter married L. S. Hoyt, Esq. formerly of New
Jersey, now of New Castle, Pennsylvania. Mr. Crawford was a pioneer in
the three most important industries in the United States: the
production of coal and iron, and the building of railroads. He has seen
these interests grow from small beginnings to vast proportions, and now
can enjoy the satisfactory reflection that he materially aided in their
advancement. Indeed it is doubtful if the progress of either would have
been so rapid in the beginning of their history, were it not for the
shrewd, far-seeing judgment of Mr. Crawford. He has been a man of
national as well as local reputation, for the quickness and keenness of
his perception, and the accuracy of his judgment in regard to all those
matters which he has made a life-long study. Gifted with a memory of
marvelous strength and accuracy, he can give the cost of prospecting
and running coal mines from the time the fields are discovered; and the
cost of material and building, and the earning of every mile of
railroad with which he has ever been connected. With regard to these
subjects he is an indisputable authority, sought after and respected,
far and near. His life has been one full of earnest and faithful work,
crowned with success and with the respect and admiration of all who
know him.
Source: (Encyclopedia of Contemporary Biography of Pennsylvania, Volume II, 1868)
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