Introduction to the Crawford Collection

              The Crawford Collection

Jasper T. (Toby) Crawford was a printer, a professional photographer and a man who "loved to tell the story of Liverpool". He descended from
Gideon Crawford , a brickmaker, who arrived in the Liverpool area about 1804. Gideon's son, Jasper T. Crawford I, was born in the village. He later
became a salt commissioner and a house builder. Jasper's son, Amos Herbert Crawford, was born in 1848. Amos Herbert liked to write and many of
his recollections about village life were printed in the Liverpool Telegraph.  His son was Jasper T. Crawford II, Toby's father. Toby was the
fourth generation of the family to be born in Liverpool and the third son to be named Jasper T.

Toby's interest in the history of Liverpool began during the 30's when he heard Crandall Melvin lecture at several Chamber of Commerce
meetings. Crandall was a historian and he had a great influence on Toby. Once the interest was there, Toby discovered that he had a lot of materials at
home to research.

Toby's father had been a photographer and he had saved a box of glass-plate negatives taken sometime in the late 1800s. Toby made contact
prints of the glass negatives and started asking long time residents of the area to look at the pictures and help him identify locations or people. Soon
Toby was recording the interviews and asking if he could look through old scrapbooks or photograph collections. When he found a picture that he
didn't have, he would make a copy stand print of it and add it to his collectiorh

The part of the Crawford Collection presented to the Liverpool Public Library included ninety one glass negatives, five hundred eighty seven
35mm negatives, one hundred ten safety negatives, three hundred three historical photographs, a scrapbook containing copies of local history articles
printed during the 50s, seventeen historic post cards, two tintypes, a bust of Toby Crawford, fourteen audio tapes of interviews conducted during the
mid 70s, and two slide shows - "Liverpool: Past & Present" and a "Historic Walking Tour of Liverpool".

The glass plate negatives are the oldest part of the collection. They were taken by George "Waxy" Miller and James T. Rogers during the late
1800s. Both gentlemen once were professional photographers with studios in Liverpool.

The 35mm negatives are from photographs of the area taken by Toby Crawford or his father. Others are copies of photographs taken by long
time Liverpool residents or by Ted Schuelke. Mr. Schueike photographed streets scenes, business places, churches and parks in Liverpool during the
1920s In 1974, Toby was given access to the Schuelke photograph collection and permission to copy parts of it.

Toby's two slide shows were put together for the bicentennial of the United States and they were popular during Liverpool's Sesquicentennial
Celebration in 1980. One featured the history of Liverpool and the other was a walking tour of the village highlighting its architecture. Both are now
available on videotape.

A circulating CD Rom, with low resolution JPEG images of 89 of the original glass negatives, has also been added to the collection.

All four of the Crawford Collection photograph albums have a Table of Contents and identifying information has been mounted under each
photograph.