George Crawford

George Crawford was born July 5, 1835, at Pennington, England, the son of William and Sarah (Brough) Crawford, also natives of England, both of whom are deceased. In his native country Mr. Crawford spent his first twenty-three years of his life, and then came to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he resided about two and a half years. He subsequently lived in London, Ont., until 1863, coming, in November of that year, to Detroit, where he has since remained. Here he entered the employ of Heffron, the restaurant keeper, with whom he remained until he came into the government employ in 1864. His first service was on the Search, and he was later transferred to the Surveyor and the Little Ada, after which he remained on shore for a period of four years and engaged in business. In 1875 he was steward on the barge Chauncey Hulburt; in 1876 on the Annie L. Craig; 1877-78 on the W. R. Clinton; 1879 on the Alaska, and from 1880 to 1885 on the J. S. Macy, with the exception of the winter seasons, which he spent on the rivers Arkansas (one winter), Mississippi and Tennessee (two winters). He then returned to the lakes, still remaining in the government service, and spent four years on the lighthouse tender Warrington, transferring thence to the Marigold, when she first came out. From the Marigold he transferred to the Hayes, upon which he has continued five years as steward and cook.

Mr. Crawford was married to Miss Mary Culin, of Richmond, Va., in June, 1870. Their only child, George W., is fireman at the present time on the United States steamer Dahlia, at Chicago.

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Volume I

This version of Volume II is based, with permission, on the work of the great volunteers at the Marine Captains Biographies site. To them goes the credit for reorganizing the content into some coherent order. The biographies in the original volume are in essentially random order.

Some of the transcription work was also done by Brendon Baillod, who maintains an excellent guide to Great Lakes Shipwreck Research.