Colonel William Crawford - PLAQUE
Connellsville, Fayette County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
In memory of Colonel William Crawford, born in Berkeley County, Virginia, in 1732. Friend of Washington -- pioneer -- patriot. This monument is situated 1260 yards S. 69 E. 16' of the spot where he built his log cabin in 1765 on the west bank of the Youghiogheny River, at the historic Stewart's Crossings. He first visited the region west of the mountains in 1758, as an officer in the expedition of General Forbes against Fort Duquesne. As colonel of the seventh Virginia regiment, he crossed the Delaware with Washington in 1777, and shared in the victory at Trenton. Fighting in defense of the frontier, as commander of the Sandusky Expedition, he was captured by the Indians and burned at the stake near Crawfordsville, Ohio, June 11, 1782.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
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.
Why it matters
Crawford's life traces the arc of the trans-Appalachian frontier from settlement through Revolution, and his grim end became a symbol of the era's brutal borderland warfare.
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Related people
- · William Crawford
- · George Washington
Related events
- · Crawford Expedition
- · Battle of Trenton
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Col. William Crawford
Connellsville, PA · est. 1966
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.
Fort Gaddis
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