Mercer County PAGenWeb

Alexander L. Crawford


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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