BIO:  William F. CROUSE, Littlestown, Adams County, PA

Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Kathy Francis

Copyright 2005.  All rights reserved.
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History of Cumberland and Adams Counties, Pennsylvania
Chicago:  Warner, Beers & Co., 1886
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Part III, History of Adams County, Page 421

WILLIAM F. CROUSE, retired, is a substantial and representative citizen of 
Littlestown, and was born one-half mile south of the borough, January 22, 1834, 
a son of Daniel Crouse, whose sketch appears above.  He learned the tanner’s 
trade with his father, and June 6, 1854, married Sarah Louisa Bishop, the only 
surviving child of Christian Bishop (deceased).  April 1, 1856, he opened a 
general store on the northeast corner of the public square in Littlestown, and 
conducted the business for twenty-five years in this town.  He then auctioned 
off his stock, and has since been out of mercantile trade.  He has been 
principally engaged in building on and improving his property, which at present 
consists of eight or ten houses and stores, some twenty lots in the borough, and 
a farm in the township.  He was an original stockholder and a director in the 
Littlestown Railroad, and voted for its extension to Frederick; was a charter 
member of the Littlestown Savings Institution; was its first secretary, and has 
been a director and the secretary of same for upward of ten years, which 
incumbencies he still fills acceptably.  He was the first Burgess ever elected 
in Littlestown; was a charter member of the Mount Carmel Cemetery Company, and 
its secretary and treasurer for a number of years.  He drew the plans from which 
the large brick public schoolhouse was built in Littlestown, and when a member 
of the school board in the borough was appointed by that body building-director, 
and was building-director of the large public schoolhouse in the borough, also 
three schoolhouses in the township.  During the war of the rebellion he and 
Alonzo Sanders were appointed by the township, and, after the incorporation of 
the borough, by the borough to act for it in filling its quota under the draft.  
This duty was discharged to the satisfaction of the citizens.  He was formerly a 
member of the United Brethren Church; helped to re-build its edifice in 1862, 
and contributed $200 cash and a summer’s labor, and is at present a trustee.  He 
was also a teacher for one term in the town and one term in the township, and, 
in fact, it would be hard to name any enterprise of a public character in 
Littlestown during the past twenty-five or thirty years with which he has not 
been prominently identified, and to which he has not generously contributed.  
Mr. and Mrs. Crouse had nine children, one being deceased:  Mary Jane, now the 
wife of Dr. S. B. Weever; Bishop A. C., Elmer O., Horace A., Vinton A., Romaine 
V., Ivy B. (deceased), Myrtle M. and Etta F. L.