History of Lee County, Illinois - Bushnell Historical Society

HISTORY OF LEE COUNTY 45
Joseph Crawford was born in Columbia county, Pennsyl-
vania, May 19, 1811, a son of John and Catlierine (Cassidy)
Crawford. When he was eleven years of age the family removed
to Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, where he acquired his education in
the public schools and through his own efforts, learning many valu-
able lessons in the school of experience and through private read-
ing and observation. In 1831 he began teaching, which profession
he followed for four years. He also took up the study of surveying
and became very proficient along that line. In April, 1835, he
started for the far west, walking all the distance from Pennsyl-
vania to Illinois. He first made his Avay to Chicago, thence to
Dixon and afterward to Galena, but finally returned to Dixon
Perry, as the place was then known, and settled on a fann in the
valley of the Eock river, between Dixon and Grand Detour. This
was in May, 1835. It is difficult to realize the condition of things
which then existed in that part of the state. This was only three
years after the Black Hawk war and northern Illinois was largely
an undeveloped and unsettled wilderness. Two years passed ere
Chicago was incorporated as a city and many of the now thriving
towns in the central and northern part of the state had not yet
sprung into existence, while the fertile fields of the present day,
were then undeveloped prairie land, not a furrow having been
turned on many an acre. Mr. Crawford began surveying and followed
that pursuit until early in the '80s. His skill and proficiency
in that line brought him large success in his work. He made all
the surveys for towns and -^'illages from Rockford to Rock Island
and in 1836 he was appointed by the governor to the position of
deputy county surveyor for all the northwestern portion of Illinois.
In the same year he was elected county sur'^'eyor of Ogle coimty,
which then included Whiteside and Lee counties. It was not until
1839 that Lee county was set off from Ogle and organized as a
separate comity. In 1841 Mr. Crawford was elected one of the
three county commissioners of the new county and at the time
of its organization he was chosen county surveyor, which position
he filled continuously for eighteen years. He was not only active
in directing public interests of his section of the state but also
became a factor in shaping the history of the commonwealth inasmuch
as he was twice elected to the legislature, serving in 1849
and 1850 and again in 1853 and 1854. It was still the formative
period in the history of the state and he was connected with much
important legislation which was shaped at that period.