Peter CRAPO

                   Historical information included in notes.




Peter Crapo's family
"The children may have been born in Freetown but appear in Dartmouth records. Birth of the last one in the first marriage, Deborah, appears in Westport records but may have been recorded there after her marriage and while she and her husband lived there. All the sheets had Peter as the oldest but it is more likely Richard as he is named first in his father's will and his marriage date is earlier than that of Peter. The 1770 birthdate would make him only 19 years of age at time of marriage.
From "Certain Comeoverers" by H. H. Crapo, 1912: "Peter Crapo, second of the name, son of John, the son of Peter, ... seems to have been a stirring sort of man of strong character, great energy and considerable achievement. There are many stories of his forceful methods and abounding vitality. When fifteen years of age it would appear that he volunteered from Rochester in the French and Indian War. At all events there was a Peter Crapo who was one of the company that met at Elijah Clapp's in Middleboro on the morning of 29 May 1758 and at a little after sunrise commenced its' march to and participated in the bloody and disastrous battle of Ticonderoga in which their General, Lord Howe, was slain. It certainly seems more probable that the Peter Crapo who went on this expedition was this Peter, the son of John, born in 1743, rather than his uncle, the only other Peter then existant, who was born in 1709 and would consequently have been almost fifty years of age. "With such an experience in his boyhood it is not surprising that in the alarm of 19 Apr 1775, (the battle of Lexington of which Paul Revere gave warning on the evening of the eighteenth), Peter Crapo as a private, and his brother Consider as a Sergeant, marched under Captain Levi Rounseville from Freetown to the camp at Cambridge, as is set forth in the muster rolls at the State House in Boston. How long he served at this time I know not." "Mass. Soldiers and Sailors" says he served 3 days. "It is somewhat interesting that in response to this same alarm of 19 Apr 1775, the muster of the Rochester Company of minute men contains these two names in sequence, 'William Crapo, corporal, Caleb Coombs, private.'" (It will be remembered that this Peter's grandfather, Pierre, was raised by a Francis Coombs. William was probably the son of Pierre's oldest son, Francis. Other Crapos listed in "Mass. Soldiers and Sailors" were Elnathan and John, Jr., in 1777 and 1778. Another source says he was a Lieutenant in July 1781. "In the records of Rochester's quotas throughout the war the name Crapo appears many times. "Peter again appears on the muster rolls as a private, his brother Consider as a sergeant, and his brother Joshua as a corporal, in Lieutenant Nathaniel Morton's company of militia from Freetown belonging to the regiment commanded by Edward Pope, Esquire, which marched out on the alarm of 8 Dec 1776, 'agreeable to the orders of the Honorable Council thereon.' On this occasion Peter was given twenty days' pay, to wit: 2 pounds, 10 shillings, 8 pence.
"It was, however, as an active man of business that he has left his footsteps on the sands of time. You will remember that the first Peter was something of a lumberman since he bound himself to deliver 'one thousand good merchantable rails at Acushnet landing,' and his grandson Peter's greatest effort in life was as a lumberman, logging the cedar and pine trees of Dartmouth and Freetown and sawing them at his mill at Babbitt's Forge at the head of the Quampanoag River. Afterwards his grandson, Henry H. Crapo, became a lumberman and logged the pine forests of Michigan, sawing the lumber at Flint. ..... "At what date Peter, the second, moved from Rochester to Freetown is not certain. I find a deed of land in Freetown from Bigford Spooner in 1770 to Peter's brother Joshua. This land was in the vicinity of the land which Peter later occupied. Joshua did not remain in Freetown. He is said to have immigrated to Maine.
   "Peter and his brother Consider were settled in Freetown in 1773. They were engaged in the lumber business. In 1774 and for nearly twenty years thereafter, Peter and Consider were actively engaged in logging and sawing as appears by the numerous recorded deeds to them. Their sawmill was 'partly in Freetown and partly in Dartmouth' at a place called 'Quampog where a forge formerly stood called Babbitt's Forge.' At one time an Abraham Ashley and a Mereba Hathaway, a widow, were partners in their business. John Crapo, their father, conveyed several tracts of land to them and seems to have been interested with them in their business and may have lived with them for a time. He is always described, however, as 'of Rochester'."
From "Old Dartmouth Sketches" section on "Mills of New Bedford and Vicinity before the introduction of steam" by H. B. Worth: "About 2 miles west of Brayley's station on the line between Freetown and Dartmouth is a region called Quanapog. At this point the Noquochocke River crossed the line and in 1774 a large tract was laid out to Nathaniel Babbitt and he established a forge on the town line. Babbitt's forge passed into the hands of the Crapos. Then Peter Crapo and his associates built two other mills a short distance south of the forge. The Quonapog mills at one time were largely controlled by Malachi White and later by the Collins family and in modern times was owned by Gilbert N. Collins. The iron industry was changed to a sawmill soon after the Crapos became owners."
   Continuing from "Certain Comeoverers": "Some time after 1790 Consider withdrew from the business and moved to Savoy, Mass. The deeds of partition between the brothers are dated in 1797. Both brothers were owners of considerable tracts in Dartmouth, owning salt meadows on Sconticut Neck, and lots in Belleville in New Bedford and in Troy, now Fall River. In 1793 Consider sold his homestead farm to Thomas Cottle of Tisbury, Dukes County, who removed thither. This was in the immediate vicinity of the sawmill since he reserved to his brother Peter a right of flowage above his sawmill. Afterwards, Peter Crapo appears to have taken in Richard Collins as a partner in the business. In 1793 the sawmill burned down but it appears to have been rebuilt. Down to the time of his death in 1822, Peter Crapo, as abundantly appears by the land and court records, was actively engaged in business.
   
Children of Peter Crapo and Sarah Waste
"Peter had a large family of children, fourteen in all, and it would seem that his manner of caring for them was distinctly patriarchal. As each child came of age and was about to be married, he summoned all the other children, the married and the unmarried, to undertake some special work whose profit might be devoted to settling the child to be married. In the case of a daughter with a dowry, in the case of a son with a homestead farm. ....... "Peter kept the title of the various farms acquired for his sons in his own name and, when he died, left them severally by his will, dated 20 Feb 1822, to their occupants, devising his own homestead farm which, as appears by the inventory of his estate, was much the most valuable, to his youngest son Abiel, the baby of the family, on whom he placed the duty of caring for his widow. To his widow he also gave fifty dollars, one cow, and "the use and improvement of the south front room in my dwelling house with a privilege to pass and repass through the kitchen and porch and to the well to draw water, as well as a privilege in the cellar and the use and improvement of all the household furniture during her life." She was his second wife. "Considering her somewhat limited domain all the furniture may have been too liberal, but it is to be hoped that Abiel really did do his duty and made his mother comfortable. He gives to his 'seven daughters' three hundred and fifty dollars each and all his household furniture after his widow's death. His estate was inventoried at something over $10,000, which was in those days a considerable estate." The will actually says "unto my seven daughters ... the sum of three hundred and fifty dollars being fifty to each of them".
Peter died at seventy-nine and was buried "in an old private burial ground, where many of his descendants lie buried, in North Dartmouth, not far from Braley's Station, and near the dwelling house formerly of Malachi White." Sarah's gravestone "of grey slate with carved cherubims and a scriptural verse stands on the right side of Peter's stone." She died in the forty-second year of her age. On his left is the stone of his second wife Content, who died in the 68th year of her age. All three stones were well preserved at the time of writing of "Certain Comeoverers", 1912.
Sarah Waste was the daughter of Charles Waste and Deborah Williamson. She was born in Freetown, Bristol County, Massachusetts on Sept. 4, 1748. Sarah's brothers included Bezaleel and Eli Waste. She married Peter Crapo (pronounced Cray' po) on Nov. 13, 1766 in Dartmouth, Bristol, Mass. They had many children together. It's notable that Sarah's sister Mercy married Peter's brother Consider Crapo. Many remarkable details about Sarah and Peter's family are below on this page. Sarah Crapo died on May 16, 1789, age 42.
"The Historical Tour of Rochester, Massachusetts", by Judy Gurney includes this:
". . . Left up Snipatuit Road, through what we call the Crapo neighborhood, for it was first settled by Peter Crapo. Peter was a ten-year-old boy when his brother's ship wrecked off Cape Cod. Peter was French, spoke no English, and couldn't even tell the settlers his name, so they translated Pierre the Frenchman into Peter the Frog, and frog was supposed to be Crapeaux, or a word something like that, in early slang. So Peter Crapo he became, and all Crapos today are his descendents.....This land was not part of the purchase from Plymouth that became Rochester Center. This was purchased from Chief Tispaquin by three men, one a Lothrop, and two Thompsons. Thus it was the Lothrop and Thompson purchase, later designated North Rochester and sometimes Snipatuit Quarter or Pond Village . . ."


   	
   Crapo Cemetery in Freetown, Massachussets	

   
Tombstone of Peter Crapo 
Tombstone of Sarah Waste Crapo			
Peter and Sarah's descendants at the Crapo homestead, Sniapuit Road

This may be Luther and John Crapo at the Crapo homestead on Sniapuit Road
   

Crapo homestead, Sniapuit Road