Have you ever wondered why the Town of Crawford was named that way?

Who were the Crawfords? Where did they come from? Where did they go?

And what is that mediaeval looking town crest all about?

The crest is actually a version of the official crest of Clan Crawford. The Crawfords are a southern Scots clan, so they are a "House" and not a Highland clan. There's a big difference. The definition of the name itself offers up the Gaelic "Cru" which means "of, by, or with blood" and "ford," which means a crossing, in this case. Thus, Crawford is most likely derived from a crossing in blood, i.e. marriage, between two previous family entities that are lost in the mists of time.

We do have a general location � Lanarkshire, in lowland Scotland � today on the outskirts of the city of Glasgow, and a note that by the late 1000s, that area was known as the Barony of Crawford. In 1127, Gregan Crawford, son of main line of the clan, saved King David of Scotland from the charge of a roe buck. In gratitude the King knighted him and later built Holyrood Abbey.

Thus, in the main Crawford Coat of Arms, we see the following: the shield is gules (red), with an ermine fess (fess = middle third of shield). A fess stands for a military belt, or a girdle of honor, and designates readiness to serve king and country. The ermine means white with little black tails. At the top is the knight's helmet, and above the helm a roe buck is placed to commemorate the event of 1127. A cross was added too, in honor of the Abbey.

In 1296, a Sir Reginal Crawford was Sheriff of Ayr, a large county of southern Scotland. From this time and place come the three main branches of the family. One of these lines died out in the mid-20th century, when the 21st Lord of Auchinames died in Canada. The others continue.

Back to 1297; that was when Margaret Crawford, sister of the Sheriff of Ayr, was wed to a Sir Malcolm Wallace. Their son would be William Wallace, better known to the world these days as "Braveheart," whose story, with suitable Hollywood embellishments, became such a hugely popular movie in the 1990s.

Fast forward to the colonial era in North America. A considerable number of Crawfords seem to have made the voyage over the Atlantic Ocean to the New World. There are Crawford Counties in most states of the Union. President Bush, famously, has his ranch near a town called Crawford.

In the early colonial period, large land grants were made to settlers, sometimes in return for payment, at other times in return for political favors. At some point in the mid-18th century, some Crawfords obtained a considerable slice of the land in what is today Northern Orange County. However, at this point, the whole area of today's Town of Crawford was part of the Town of Montgomery. There are town records in Montgomery that show this from 1768 to 1777.

A Johannes Snyder was one of the first inhabitants of the township, and he began a settlement in 1740 on the banks of the Dwaar Kill near the present day hamlet of Searsville. Other mills sprang up, making use of the power of the streams to saw wood and grind grain. It has to be assumed that the Crawfords sold their land at various times, so that while there were Crawford land parcels here and there across the township, the bulk of the land was farmed by others.

Through this period, as America won its independence and grew as a nation, the area went from wooded frontier to general farming and then to a specialization in dairy farming. By 1813, the town of Crawford, which had taken on that name by then, was referred to as "the butter capital of the world."

Which brings us to the modern day Town of Crawford's crest. There's been a color change, as it now appears as either a blue shield with the fess ermine, or in black and white. The Knight's helmet remains, but the Roebuck of Dalmegregan is gone, as is the Phoenix of the Crawfords that were allied with William Wallace. In its place is a slightly mysterious assemblage that may be a butter churn with a heart resting atop it. This symbol is still being studied, and no definitive description yet exists.

Another recent change is on the shields painted on the Town of Crawford official vehicles. The fess ermine has become a fess with stars, since it appears nobody told the paint crew that the little star-like objects in the original are actually the tails of ermines (like mink).

The motto, "Stant Innixa Deo," would appear to mean, "Stand by leaning on God."

COMMENTS about this article (7)