Face of a Frontiersman: The Portraits of Colonel William Crawford
- B.T. Cowden
- Sep 17
- 10 min read
William Crawford was an early influential figure in the settling of the Ohio Country during the 18th century. He lived in a small log house on the banks of the Youghiogheny River in present-day Connellsville, Pennsylvania. It was known as Stewart’s Crossing in his day, and was where he first crossed the river whilst in the ranks of the Virginia Regiment under General Edward Braddock in 1755. He gave the name Spring Gardens to his homestead. The law of the Proclamation of 1763 forbade any British subjects from permanently settling west of the Allegheny Mountains, but Crawford was one of several subjects who did not abide by this law.
Crawford was among the earliest of American Revolutionaries, believed to be present at the signing of the Fort Gower Resolves, just after the close of Lord Dunmore’s War, in which he served as a major. Crawford constructed many forts during the same war, including Fort Gower and Fort Fincastle (later renamed Fort Henry). He was a soldier, farmer, court judge for both Pennsylvania and Virginia, surveyor, frontiersman, and close companion of George Washington. The Revolutionary War battlefield on which he was captured and executed in 1782 has been preserved as a National Historic Place. It is in the context of the 1782 Crawford Expedition and his subsequent unpleasant torture and death at Upper Sandusky that he is almost exclusively remembered for.
Washington had taught the surveying trade to Crawford back in Virginia before the two served together in the French and Indian War. When George Washington began to develop an interest in the lands west of the mountains, he sought out Crawford for help. Crawford surveyed several tracts of land for Washington before the dawn of the American Revolution. He helped him claim the Great Meadows (where Fort Necessity was previously built in Fayette County, Pennsylvania), the Perryopolis, Pennsylvania plantation (known as Washington Bottom), and several tracts along the Kanawha River for soldiers’ bounty lands (near present-day Point Pleasant, West Virginia). Crawford was also the surveyor of Washington’s 2,813 acres on Miller’s Run in Washington County, Pennsylvania, where he built four cabins before many of the earliest settlers had even arrived. Also within present-day Mount Pleasant Township, Washington County, Pennsylvania, Crawford surveyed and claimed 1,000 acres of land for Lund Washington, a cousin of George’s. Henry and William Hogland served as his chainmen, and later established Hogland’s Fort in nearby Cherry Valley, Smith Township.
Crawford’s namesake lives on throughout four counties named in his honor in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana. Because of the adventurous and well traveled life he led, several areas pay tribute to him through statues, museums, school names, and other monuments.
Although Crawford had prominent friends, and was active in many historic events and battles throughout Colonial America, he receives relatively little attention within today’s study of the Revolution. There are no confirmed contemporary portraits or likenesses of William Crawford. Had he not died in 1782, he likely would have done well in the military and political scene of the new nation, garnering enough attention for a faithful portrait by a professional artist.
Triplett Portrait
The earliest known likeness of Crawford is presented in an 1883 book titled “Conquering the Wilderness” by Frank Triplett. On page 178 of the 1895 edition of this book, an engraving portrait is shown, depicting Crawford at the age of 40 in 1762, dressed in what seems to be mid-19th century attire. Certainly Colonel Crawford could not have worn this if he had died in 1782, and so this portrait has been discredited by some past scholars for that reason. He could have been a time traveler, or there could be another more likely explanation. For a long period of history, artists had portrayed historical figures wearing clothing that was modern to the time of the artist, and not when the historical figure had actually lived. Could this be a similar case here? This practice had long since fallen out of style by the 19th century, but this case appears to be an uncommon example. Additionally, engravings of portraits made for book printing were often copied directly from painted portraits. Could there have been a faithful portrait painted of Crawford during his lifetime that this engraving was inspired by? There are examples of portraits having been made during an individual’s lifetime only to be lost to history. A notable local example involves Charles Wilson Peale’s miniature portrait of Major Presley Neville, painted at Valley Forge in 1777, now presumed to be lost forever.
There is yet another possibility that we may never know the true answer to. Perhaps the engraving of Crawford was completely created in the mind of the unattributed artist, but if so, how did the artist decide on what features to give Crawford, and why was this particular outfit chosen? There was no shortage of source material on what Crawford would have worn and how it would have looked.
To add further confusion to the matter, William’s wife Hannah Vance Crawford is also shown in an engraved portrait in the same book. Her engraving was done in a slightly different style and signed “N. Orr-Co,” which would lead us to believe that it was engraved by a separate artist from that of Crawford’s. It is possible that Hannah’s portrait was commissioned for the book, whereas William’s had already existed from a previous project and was reused in this book. It could also be that multiple artists were commissioned to work on this book, and consistency between the Crawford spouse portraits was not of concern.
It is from this portrait that nearly all other interpretations of Crawford are drawn from, except for the next painting, which was created in 1917 by C.S. Kilpatrick in an attempt to replace the first. It was drawn as a design for a statue of Colonel Crawford that was erected in front of the Connellsville Carnegie Library in 1917. It is purely a creative interpretation, and was drawn without supporting historical references. Before the Connellsville statue came about, an earlier statue was erected in Crawford County, Ohio, so let’s take a look at that next.
Crawford County, Ohio Courthouse Statue
In 1908, after renovations were completed to the Crawford County Courthouse in Bucyrus, Ohio, a beautifully worked limestone statue of Colonel William Crawford was erected in a designated niche of the building’s facade. An October 2, 1908 article in the Bucyrus Evening Telegraph states that the statue was contracted to “Mr. Hancock” and drawn by “Architect Jones.” There seem to be no surviving drawings for the statue’s concept, and along with the stylization of the face, it was most likely loosely based on the original Triplett portrait. The colonel’s body was appropriately designed to portray the uniform of a Revolutionary War officer.
Most unfortunately, controversy surrounding Colonel Crawford found its way to Bucyrus in August, 2017. As if Crawford’s original execution was not enough, an insolent vandal decapitated the beautiful work of art, forever condemning it to the statue graveyard.
When questioned on the reasoning for the vandalism, Bucyrus attorney Joel Spitzer told the Bucyrus Telegraph Forum: “I think it might be some sense of carryover from Charlottesville, and it may not be someone who knew the history of Colonel Crawford but it may be monkey see, monkey do.” Spitzer was referencing the controversy surrounding the removal of the Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville, Virginia.
“Crawford was basically a hero. Now there are some people that would tell you that’s not true, but they’re not reading the right books… He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time… Anybody that knows history would know he is not a controversial figure,” said Ted Bruner, local Crawford County educator, in the same 2017 article.
However, we must look at history from a non-biased viewpoint, and realize that despite the achievements of Colonel Crawford, he was not without serious flaws. Crawford’s raid on Salt-Lick Town (now present-day Columbus, Ohio) during Dunmore’s War, is widely regarded as a total British-Virginian victory, and the controversy surrounding this event is often buried. Reports state that the raid was akin to a massacre, with many of the defending Mingo people consisting of women, children, and elderly. Most of the village’s male warriors were absent at the time of the attack. Tradition from this horrible event related through the white Mingo-adopted John Alder tells of how women and children were mercilessly gunned down. The village was looted by the Virginians and the plunder was sold for £400. There is no doubt about the ruthlessness carried out by both sides during Dunmore’s War. Crawford was not entirely innocent of war-crimes when he was famously executed at Upper-Sandusky in response to the Gnadenhutten Massacre of March, 1782. It is true, however, that Crawford was not directly involved in that particular massacre.
Crawford was also a slave owner. In the same November 14, 1774 letter to George Washington that detailed Crawford's actions at Salt-Lick, the colonel even asked Washington about potentially purchasing enslaved people previously owned by George Mercer, but the transaction never seems to have happened. These stains on Crawford’s memory no doubt will continue to cause controversy, and should not be forgotten or intentionally written out of history. Of course, this is no justification for public vandalism.
C.S. Kilpatrick Portrait & Connellsville, PA Statue
“The memorial commission was unable to secure an authentic likeness of Colonel Crawford. The generally accepted [Triplett] portrait, published many years ago in the histories of the old frontier, was rejected, as the clothing shown is of a period some years later than Crawford’s time, and the face is not such as one would expect. A careful search for another picture resulted in failure, and the committee decided to have one painted from historical description. The artist selected for this work was C.S. Kilpatrick, a former Connellsville man, and from the meager descriptions given in history he made a portrait showing Colonel Crawford in the uniform of a Continental officer. The face is much stronger than that of the generally accepted picture. It is just such a face as one would expect on such a man, and it will go down henceforth in history as the likeness of Colonel William Crawford. The statue was modeled from this picture.” wrote Washington County, PA historian Earle R. Forrest in 1917.
As we can deduce from Forrest’s quote, this portrait is entirely fictional and was created to convey an image of man beyond what Crawford was. It was an attempt to replace a face that we thought we had already known with a face of a man who never existed. Even if the original Crawford portrait does not convey the typical face of a soldier, we must give it more credibility with the hope that it was actually drawn from a true likeness. Given the length of time that has passed, we may never know the truth.
Kilpatrick drew the portrait as a basis for a beautiful bronze statue that still stands in front of Connellsville's Carnegie Library. Only grayscale scans are known to exist of this portrait. Details of the medium are unknown. It may have been a color painting, or just a charcoal sketch. The fate of the original is also unknown.
Over 100 years later, this portrait is not generally accepted as accurate, and therefore has not gone down in history as the likeness of Colonel William Crawford as Forrest had predicted.
Robert O. Chadeayne Portrait
The next portrait is a physical painting, in what seems to be acrylic or oil by the artist Robert O. Chadeayne. Little is known about this portrait, presumed to still be in the collection of the Wyandot County Historical Society. It is of typical Chadeayne style, which often leans heavily toward impressionism and little defined detail. His style worked well for landscape paintings, placing portraits in the more uncommon category of his work. Wikimedia suggests that the historical society dated the painting 1877, but this may actually be a typo for 1977, which would make it one of the artist's later paintings. We reached out to verify but did not receive an answer.
This portrait of Crawford is directly based on Triplett’s original engraving, but with some notable liberties taken. William Crawford does not appear as one may expect a man of Scots-Irish descent would – his complexion a bit bronzer than typical, and his eyes very dark. This almost gives the impression of a man of a more southern European descent. The attire in this portrait was corrected to the time period, resembling an officers’ dress in the Revolutionary War, in which he served notably as a colonel.
Chadeayne was born in New York in 1897, meaning the painting must have been done after that date. He led a successful career in art, working as an arts professor at Ohio State University in his later life.
Helen Alt Portrait
Connellsville local artist Helen Alt painted a portrait of William and Hannah Vance Crawford in the same style as the original Triplett portraits, but in color. The two portraits, although displaying the original inaccurate clothing, hang on a wall in William Crawford’s reconstructed log house in Connellsville, Pennsylvania. The style of the portraits evoke an early Americana folk art aura and look right at home inside the log walls.
Alt, originally from Philadelphia, was a distinguished artist in her community. She lived in Connellsville for 69 years and was active in several organizations.
Historic Fort Cherry Portrait
This new portrait of William Crawford attempts to combine the best elements of the previous Crawford portraits in a style evoking an accurate setting and 1750s uniform. As seen in Charles Wilson and Rembrandt Peale’s depictions of George Washington in the Virginia Regiment, Crawford wears a similar uniform, with facings unbuttoned, as per the style of the time in posed portraiture. As ensign, Crawford was among the lowest ranking officers in the regiment. A silver trim was a feature on officer coats and hats, with the latter trim missing from the Washington portraits.
Crawford’s facial features are intended to be more Scots-Irish in this portrait. He wears a cocked hat, hiding most of his curly hair, which is queued in the back, partially visible. Very few sources mention style of gorget in reference to provincial Virginia officer uniforms. Crawford’s gorget here displays the coat of arms of Great Britain.
This portrait, unlike all of the previous, was drawn digitally. Using Procreate on iPad, I drew this portrait for use in various Historic Fort Cherry projects. It took 35 hours and over 36,000 brushstrokes to complete it.
The True Face of Crawford
History seems to be more relatable and real when we can physically see an image of it. Portraiture brings history to life, but only to the extent of the observer’s imagination. Did Colonel William Crawford actually look like this? We will never know. Close estimations of Crawford’s appearance could be made if his skull were ever recovered, assuming it was not destroyed, as he was after all, burnt at the stake. Using similar DNA technology applied to figures such as King Henry IV and King Tutankhamun, facial features, eye color, hair color, and more could likely be determined for Crawford and several other long-since buried historic figures. While these projects are popular with remains of ancient or otherwise famous humans, the technology very rarely utilized for more recent colonial-era Americans.