Bourbon County Biographies
GEORGE ADDISON CRAWFORD.
Geo. A. Crawford was born July 27, 1827, in
Clinton county, Pennsylvania. He was the son of
Judge Geo. Crawford and Elizabeth Quigley Crawford, his father was of Scotch-Irish and his
mother of German descent. He received his early
education at a school presided over by his father,
and finished his education at Jefferson College,
Pennsylvania. The first money that he earned
was in Salem, Ky., where he went with some other
students to teach the young blue grass generation
of that date: among them relatives of President
Zachary Taylor. The fall of 1847 he joined
hands with his room mate, Sam Simmons, in the
management of a select school at Canton, Miss.,
(by the way this same Sam Simmons to whom he
introduced me some forty years ago is still
living in St. Louis, where he has resided for some
fifty years). A year or so later Geo. A. returned
to his Pennsylvania home, and undertook the
profession of law, during these studies he became
editor of a Lockhaven paper. He took an active
part in the politics of the day. In 1853 he
accepted a clerkship in the post office department
in Washington, D. C. From that date until May,
1867, the most of his time was spent in the city of
Washington. While there he took an active part
in politics. Among the different parties who were
up for office from 1850 to 1857 was Gov. Packer,
who when elected offered him the position of secretary of state, which Mr. Crawford declined. In
the spring of 1857 he concluded to take Horace
Greely 's advice and go west. I have often thought
that if he had remained in his native state, instead
of coming west he would have filled many important offices in politics. I first
met him in the summer of 1857, when he came to Fulton City, Ill., to
see his friend, William Gallagher, a Pennsylvanian.
A month or so later Mr. Gallagher told me he
was going to Kansas and had arranged with Mr.
Crawford to go with him. The next time I met
him was in St. Louis, December 2, 1857. He told
me he had been out to Kansas and had established
the town of Fort Scott and wanted me to go there
with him. I told him I had paid my fare to Pittsburg via the Mississippi & Ohio River to visit my
mother that winter before going farther west, but
promised him I would come to Fort Scott the following spring, which I did; so
Crawford and Gallagher were the cause of me locating in Fort Scott.
In the summer of '57 he met some parties in
Lawrence, consisting of Eddy, Holbrook and
others and went to Fort Scott (which at that time
was an abandoned Fort) and bought a claim of
some 320 acres of land, (the land at that time not
being in market by the government for sale) and
laid out the present Fort Scott. He took into the
company Col. H. T. Wilson, who at that time was
the mercantile business and had been sutler at
this Post. George A. Crawford was made President and H. T. Wilson, Secretary and Treasurer
of the Town Company, they being the only resident members of the company,
handled the property to the best advantage. These two men worked
in perfect harmony and were a good team, but
mated in size as a Norman horse and a Shetland
pony. As they went about town transacting business, they reminded one of father and twelve-year
old son.
In the early days of Fort Scott in the time of
border ruffians and jayhawkism, Mr. Crawford
took a very important part. He was the leader of
the law and order party and was between the two
fires and was in danger of being burnt, but ran
the gauntlet and came out ahead. After the border troubles were all over, his main aim was to
build up Fort Scott. At the same time he took an
important part in politics in the early days of
Kansas, and no man did more for the good of the
state than Little George, as we used to call him.
As fast as he received money for lots sold he
invested it in improvements as he thought best
to help his idol. Fort Scott. In 1863 he built the
first flouring mill in Southern Kansas, on the
banks of the Marmaton, and later on about the
close of the war, he built adjoining this a large
woolen factory for manufacturing cloth, the first
I think built west of the Mississippi river. This
was quite a venture in business of that line, for so
frontier a town as Fort Scott. (I have worn several suits made from cloth woven at Crawford's
Woolen Mills). He was not content with what he
had done in the way of manufacturing interests,
but still progressive, built the first foundry and
machine shops here, in 1869 I think. About the
same time he became sole owner of the Monitor,
our leading paper, and connected with it a book
bindery. A year or so previous, he and his associates established the town of Osage Mission.
In 1871 he was elected one of the committee of
the Kansas State Agricultural Society. The
same year he was appointed by President Grant
Commissioner for Kansas to the Centennial Fair
to be held in 1876. He applied himself closely to
the interests of this fair, from the time of his
appointment until the close of '76. The credit
that Kansas received at the Centennial was wholly
due to the energy and management of Mr. Crawford. May, 1877, he went to Short Creek, the
newly discovered lead regions, helping start a
town there, but I don't think he ever gathered
any moss in the venture. In 1870 Mr. Crawford's
woolen and flouring mills were destroyed by fire,
which proved a severe loss, as he was without
insurance. Some years later on his foundry and
machine shops and paper and book bindery
becoming a financial failure in the hard times that
Fort Scott experienced from '74 to '78, he concluded to strike out for Colorado, which at that
time was considered the frontier, full of danger
and hardships.
His experienced eye told him that it was the
land for his second attempt to lay out and build
up a town and retrieve what he had lost in Kansas.
He looked around and selected a site at the junction of Grand and Gunnison Rivers and believed
this was a place for a city. He formed a Town
Company and located the now present Grand
Junction. He renewed his old time energy; caused
ditches to be built to supply the town with water,
erected a hotel, planted shade trees, established
brick yards and other industries, and liberally
advertised the town from Maine to California.
He founded the Grand Junction Star and was
president of the Grand Junction Publishing Co.
He had a hand in every industry that built up
Grand Junction, and by his exertions and enterprise he retrieved the fortunes he had lost.
But Little George did not live to enjoy the
fruits of his industry, as he died in that city on
the 29th of January, 1891; (by the way, this date
was the anniversary of the admission of the State
of Kansas, "his first love," into the Union) . The
article in regard to his death published in the
Grand Junction Star, which gives him no more
credit than he deserved, I think most appropriate
in regard to this biography:
GEORGE ADDISON CRAWFORD.
The brave little governor is gone. A life
struggle with death is ended, and one of the grand
heroic souls that men love in life and venerate in
death, has gone to the Great Beyond. Death has
never claimed a more determined opponent, and
life never possessed a more useful and active
servant. An invalid from infancy, the life period
of Geo. A. Crawford of over sixty years was spent
in a continual battle with sickness and disease,
sustained only by a will power remarkable in
intensity, and an intellect wonderful in extent.
To most men the life bestowed upon Gov. Crawford
would have been a burden to self and friends; but
through his wonderful will, his genius for leadership), his quiet intelligence and bright, kindly
disposition life was made a grand success; and a
blessing to self and fellowmen. He was never
discouraged, he never gave up, and he was never
aught else but a true, kindly gentleman. Those
who knew him as he stood on the banks of the
Grand and looked across on the wild sage brush
country in which he then proposed to found a city,
cannot forget the bright prophecies then so clearly
foretold. Those who have struggled with him,
over desperate adversities that followed for seven
long years will never forget the cheering smile,
and ringing words of encouragement that caused
adversity to become prosperity, and not one will
ever forget that on all occasions the Little
Governor was always a gentleman. Much as all
had admired him in the past, the heroic struggle
made the last three months with death has but
increased that admiration. In this struggle there
was no fear of death, but a wish, a true unselfish
wish to behold the city he had founded and did
so much to build, become what it is surely destined
to become, a grand and glorious city. Grand
Junction is the crowning work of Gov. Crawford, and many a citizen not only in Mesa
County, but in the entire state will grieve that his
dream could not have become with him a reality,
and yet while we grieve it is with a deep pride
of true citizenship that we feel and know that he
belonged to Mesa county and western Colorado.
Successful in his youth in his native state, a
distinguished and respected citizen in the state of
Kansas, honored throughout the entire nation,
he came with all the honors that state and nation
could bestow, to create in the wilds of Western
Colorado, a city which would become the crowning
work, and triumph of his life; he well succeeded,
but his success, as many such triumphs have been,
has been crowned with death. Many will
mourn, many a tear will be shed o'er the grave
of the brave little man, whose life filled with
adversity and affliction, yet became, through a
magnificent will and genius, the most earnest
and useful we have ever known."
Geo. H. Crawford, or Gov. Crawford as he was
commonly called in Kansas, as well as his new
home Grand Junction, was inclined to literature,
but his ill health compelled him to abandon it.
Little George was a bachelor, but quite a ladies '
man. He was never more content than when
surrounded by the ladies. But from rumors
afloat at the time of his death, if death had not
claimed him a fascinating widow, whom he had met
the previous summer, at the sea shore, would
have become his wife before the opening of the
spring buds of '92. He after forty years or more
mingling with the ladies, succumbed as the most
of men to Cupid's arrow. He was not a church
member but the churches had no warmer friend
than he, both in attendance and support. He was
considered something of a politician in the early
days of Kansas and was what we then termed a
Free State Democrat. Later on in the late 60's
and in the 70's up to the time of his leaving Kansas, he was what I would call a conservative republican.
The appellation of governor arose from his having once been nominated for that high position in
Kansas. He was quite an orator and I have heard
him make some fine speeches. The worst trouble
was that his physique was too feeble for his brain
and his strength failed him, when he was most
interesting. He enjoyed the frolics of the boys in
the early days of our town, but was usually a
looker on, as his strength prevented him from
being a participant, and was never happier than
when he had a good joke on some one of them.
He was of a happy disposition, and he enjoyed
seeing others happy. Everybody liked him, and
enjoyed his society and there was not an old Fort
Scotter that knew him, but that mourned when he
left Fort Scott, and doubly so when they heard of
his death.
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This website created August 22, 2011 by Sheryl McClure.
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