| rdfs:comment | - In 1732, Crawford was born in Orange County, Virginia, at a location which is now in Berkeley County, West Virginia. He was a son of William Crawford and his wife Honora Grimes, who were Scots-Irish farmers. After his father's death in 1736, his mother married Richard Stephenson. Crawford had a younger brother, Valentine Crawford, plus five half-brothers and one half-sister from his mother's second marriage.
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| abstract | - In 1732, Crawford was born in Orange County, Virginia, at a location which is now in Berkeley County, West Virginia. He was a son of William Crawford and his wife Honora Grimes, who were Scots-Irish farmers. After his father's death in 1736, his mother married Richard Stephenson. Crawford had a younger brother, Valentine Crawford, plus five half-brothers and one half-sister from his mother's second marriage. In 1749, Col. William Crawford became acquainted with George Washington, then a young surveyor the same age as Crawford. He accompanied Washington on surveying trips and learned the trade. In 1755, Crawford served in the Braddock expedition with the rank of ensign. Like Washington, he survived the disastrous Battle of the Monongahela. During the French and Indian War, he served in Washington's Virginia Regiment, guarding the Virginia frontier against Native American raiding parties. In 1758, Crawford was a member of General John Forbes's army which captured Fort Duquesne, where Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania now stands. He continued to serve in the military, taking part in Pontiac's War in 1763. In 1765 Crawford built a cabin on the Braddock Road along the Youghiogheny River in what is now Connellsville, Fayette County, Pennsylvania. His wife and three children joined him there the following year. Crawford supported himself as a farmer and fur trader. When the 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix with the Iroquois opened up additional land for settlement, Crawford worked again as a surveyor, locating lands for settlers and speculators. Governor Robert Dinwiddie had promised bounty land to the men of the Washington's Virginia Regiment for their service in the French and Indian War. In 1770 Crawford and Washington travelled down the Ohio River to choose the land to be given to the regiment's veterans. The area selected was near what is now Point Pleasant, West Virginia. Crawford also made a western scouting trip in 1773 with Lord Dunmore, Governor of Virginia. Washington could not accompany them because of the sudden death of his stepdaughter. At the outbreak of Dunmore's War in 1774, Crawford received a major's commission from Lord Dunmore. He built Fort Fincastle at present Wheeling, West Virginia. He also led an expedition which destroyed two Mingo villages (near present Steubenville, Ohio) in retaliation for Chief Logan's raids into Virginia. During the expedition, Crawford's men rescued two captives held by American Indians, killing six and capturing 14 Indians. Crawford's service to Virginia in Dunmore's War was controversial in Pennsylvania, since the colonies were engaged in a bitter dispute over their borders near Fort Pitt. Crawford had been a justice of the peace in Pennsylvania since 1771, first for Bedford County, then for Westmoreland County when it was established in 1773. Arthur St. Clair, another Pennsylvania official, called for Crawford to be removed from his office, which was done in January 1775. Beginning in 1776, Crawford served as a surveyor and justice for Virginia's short-lived Yohogania County.
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