Biography of William P. Crawford; Madison Co., ILL., then Richland Parish, Louisiana
Submitted by Mike Miller


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 William P. Crawford, president of the Macon Ridge National Bank at Delhi 
in Richland Parish, organized that bank and was its first cashier, the other 
officers of the organization being C. K. Hawley, president, and John A. Hunt, 
vice president.  At the present time, besides Mr. Crawford, the vice president 
is B. Skidmore, and J. R. Thompson, cashier.

Mr. Crawford came to Louisiana about ten years ago.  He was born at Godfrey in 
Madison County, Illinois, November 20, 1886, son of A. W. and Jennie (Stuart) 
Crawford.  His father was a noted man in democratic politics in Southern Illinois, 
being a protégé of Congressman William R. Morrison of that state.  It is said that 
A. W, Crawford, when only seventeen years of age, had the appointive power of state 
and federal officials in Madison County.  For a number of years he was a member of 
the State Board of Equalization and in 1914 was the nominee of his party for clerk 
of the Supreme Court of Illinois, being defeated with the rest of the ticket, though 
he ran ahead of the state democratic boss Roger Sullivan.  In his later years, A. W. 
Crawford was an extensive dealer in coal lands and had his home at Carlinville.  He 
lost his life as the result of an automobile accident at Wood River, Illinois, when 
sixty-one years of age.  He belonged to the lodge of Elks at Litchfield, Illinois, 
and his son, William P., has membership in the same lodge.  His first wife, Jennie 
Stuart, was a member of the Episcopal Church. She died in 1893, the mother of two sons, 
Alexander M. and William P., and daughter, Louise S., the former a coal and land dealer 
at Carlinville, Illinois.  By a second marriage there was a son, John T., now connected 
with the Chicago Tribune, and two daughters, Mary Ann E. and Sue H.

William P. Crawford acquired his early education in Alton and Girard, Illinois, and as 
a youth went to work as shipping clerk in the Duncan Foundry & Machine Works at Alton.  
The head of the Duncan plant and Mr. Crawford's father were firm and fast friends.  In 
seven years' time, Mr. Crawford knew all the technical details of the foundry business 
and had been advanced to chief clerk of the plant.  Following that until 1914 he was 
associated with the management of the Collinsville light plant.

Mr. Crawford in 1914 came to Delhi, Louisiana, to engage in the land business and in 
1916 organized the Macon Ridge National Bank.  He married m 1916 Miss Ruth S. Karpel, 
daughter of E. Karpe of Delhi.  She was educated in a convent at Vicksburg and in a 
finishing school at Selma, Alabama.  They have two children:  Alexander W. and  Clara Jane.

A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), p. 238, by Henry E. Chambers.  Published by The American 
Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 1925.