Col. William Crawford
Connellsville, Fayette County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Hero of Indian wars, made his home about a half mile from Connellsville after 1766, and was Washington's land agent. During the Revolution, he led a campaign against Ohio Indians; he was captured and killed near Upper Sandusky in 1782.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
William Crawford was a frontier soldier and surveyor who settled near the Youghiogheny River after 1766, serving as George Washington's western land agent at a time when Virginia and Pennsylvania families were pushing across the Appalachians. During the Revolution he took up arms on the frontier, leading a 1782 expedition against Native villages along the Sandusky River in Ohio. The campaign ended in disaster: Crawford was captured and put to death, a killing that became notorious in the bitter borderland warfare of the era.
Why it matters
Crawford's life and violent death embody the entangled story of western settlement, Washington's land speculation, and the brutal Revolutionary-era conflict between settlers and Ohio Country nations.
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Related people
- · William Crawford
- · George Washington
Related events
- · Crawford expedition of 1782
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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Born in Virginia in 1732, William Crawford was a pioneer surveyor and friend of George Washington who built his cabin at Stewart's Crossing on the Youghiogheny in 1765. He first came west with Forbes's 1758 campaign, crossed the Delaware with Washington in 1777, and shared the victory at Trenton. Leading the Sandusky Expedition against Native towns in 1782, he was captured and burned at the stake in Ohio — one of the frontier war's most infamous deaths.
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