Crandall, **Thomas Jefferson

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"BLACKFORD AND GRANT COUNTIES INDIANA, A CHRONICLE OF THEIR PEOPLE PAST AND PRESENT WITH FAMILY LINEAGE AND PERSONAL MEMOIRS"; Complied Under the Editorial Supervision of BENJAMIN G. SHINN; vol. II ; THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY; CHICAGO AND NEW YORK; 1914

(Submitted by: Peggy Karol and Karen Overholt to the Grant Co., Indiana website at RootsWeb.com)

"THOMAS J. CRANDALL. Although comparatively a newcomer to Grant county, Thomas J. Crandall has already made a place for himself among the substantial citizens of this part of the Hoosier state, for he has demonstrated his ability as a farmer and stock raiser, his worth as a citizen and his fidelity and loyalty as a friend and neighbor. He is at this time the owner of a well cultivated tract of eighty-eight acres located in section 12, Mill township, and during the four years he has resided here has shown his progressive and enterprising spirit by the making of numerous improvements and by installing a number of innovations. Mr. Crandall was born March 30, 1859, in Cook county, Illinois, and is a son of Jonathan and Jane (Webb) Crandall.
Mr. Crandall comes of an old and honored family, being a direct descendant of Elder John Crandall, who came from England to America during the sixteenth century and established the name in Vermont, from whence it spread to the surrounding New England states. The great-grandfather of Mr. Crandall, John Crandall, was born in Vermont, where he married Eada Austin, and they subsequently moved to Franklin county, New York, where the great-grand-grandfather died at the age of eighty-nine years and five months. Among his children was Philarmon Crandall, who was born in Vermont, and also died in Franklin county, New York, at the age of fifty-four years. He married Eliza Hapgood, a native of the Green Mountain state, and she died in Franklin county, New York, in 1876, when seventy-two years of age, having been the mother of twelve children.

Jonathan Crandall, the father of Thomas J. Crandall, was born in Franklin county, New York, October 16, 1825, and was there reared and educated. He married Miss Jane Webb, who was born in the same county and in the same year, and after the birth of their first child they went to Cook county, Illinois, where they remained three years, then returning to their native county. There they spent the remaining years of their active lives, the mother passing away on the home farm in 1887 and the father in November, 1892. They were the parents of six children: David, who is a Wisconsin farmer and married; Cornelia, single, a resident of Chicago; Thomas J.; Orpha, now Mrs. Price, of Granville, Illinois, and the mother of one daughter; Victoria, the widow of John Goodrich, of Richmond, Indiana, and the mother of one daughter; and John I., an engineer on the Lehigh Valley Railroad, residing at Sayre, Pennsylvania, and married.

Thomas J. Crandall was sixteen years of age when he embarked upon a career of his own. He had been given ordinary educational advantages in the public schools of the East, and had been reared to habits of industry and integrity, and thus felt himself well fitted to grapple with the problems and battles of life. He first chose as his field of endeavor the state of Illinois, but after a short stay removed to Keith (now Perkins) county, Nebraska, where he entered a homestead of 160 acres. This he improved and fitted out with substantial buildings, and after disposing of his interests therein at a good profit went to Wisconsin, and in 1890 became identified with the lumber business as a logger. He spent the following eight years thus engaged in Chippewa and Forest counties, and in 1898 went to Ford county, Illinois, and again turned his attention to agricultural pursuits, remaining in the Prairie state for four years. Succeeding this experience he went to Miami county, Indiana, and purchased 120 acres of fine land, which he operated for five years, this property being now worth $200 per acre. On disposing of this tract he went to Dawson county, Nebraska, where he bought 160 acres of good soil, but in 1909 returned to Indiana, and for one year operated eighty acres of land in Starke county, of which he is still the owner. In the meantime in 1909, he had purchased his present land in Mill township, Grant county, and on March 1, 1910, settled thereon, this having continued to be his home to the present time. Mr. Crandall has decided to remain here permanently, and has made numerous improvements which have added materially to the value of his home. His residence was built by John Mason in 1908. Mr. Crandall is a man of great energy and enterprise, of force of character and resolute purpose, and at all times his business has been conducted along the lines of commercial honor and integrity. He has won the confidence and respect of the people of his new home locality and is well deserving of mention among the representative citizens of Grant county.

While a resident of Illinois Mr. Crandall was married to Miss Eva Crandall, who was born, reared and educated in Cook county, that state. Four children have been born to this union: Fayette, who is residing on his father's farm, in Starke county, is married and has two children, Robert and Thomas F.; David C., also a farmer, is married and has two children, Robert and Thomas F.; David C., also a farmer, is married and has two children, Eva and Helen; Gladys, who has been given excellent educational advantages, being a graduate of the Marion high school and of the schools of Kearney Junction, Nebraska, and she is now a teacher in the schools of Howard county, Indiana; and Lydia, who was given the same training as her sister, and like her is also a teacher in the Howard county schools."
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Thomas' family is enumerated as follows in the 1920 Grant Co., Indiana Census (Mill Twp, pg 7A; Microfilm Roll: T625_434):

~ Crandall, Thomas - age 60, born in Illinois, parents both born in New York, occupation: farmer? (difficult to read)
~ Crandall, Eva - age 62, born in Illinois, father born in Vermont, mother born in New York

(NOTE: Enumerated right after Thomas and Eva is their daughter Gladys Golding and her family)
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