Thomas Crane

Children include James

Thomas Crane of Richmond, Cheshire County, New Hampshire, married Sarah Barrus on 4 August 1768, at Winchester, the next town to the west. She was the daughter of Abraham Barrus, who had brought his family to Richmond from Cumberland, Rhode Island, three years before.

Thomas was the first settler on Lot 13, Range 5, at Richmond, the farm later owned by Robert Swan and his son Ebenezer. There he and Sarah raised six children: Abraham; James, born 28 February 1773; Mary, called Polly; William; John, born 6 November 1776; and Thomas.

When the Revolution came he did not side with his neighbours. The town's history, written a century later, says: "It is reported that he was a Tory, and fled to Nova Scotia, leaving his family behind him, in the time of the Revolution." Nova Scotia stayed loyal to the Crown and took in thousands of Loyalists who left the rebelling colonies. Thomas died there.

Sarah stayed at Richmond and died there. Their son Abraham kept the farm until 1813 and died in Madison County, New York, in 1841. William became a cooper at Dalton and Bethlehem, New Hampshire. John taught school for many years at Dalton and sat two years in the New Hampshire legislature. James moved to St. Johnsbury and Danville in Vermont.

The Crane genealogy of 1895 could not fit Thomas into any of the four main Crane lines it traced. Its compiler believed he had come from Connecticut and descended from Benjamin Crane of Wethersfield, some of whose family settled in Cheshire County.

Children

James Crane (b. 1773)

Sources

Ellery Bicknell Crane, Genealogy of the Crane Family, vol. 2 (Worcester, 1895), addenda, pp. 557-559, entries 1, 3, 10, 11 and 33; archive.org genealogyofcrane02cran.

Rev. William Bassett, History of the Town of Richmond, Cheshire County, New Hampshire (Boston, 1884), genealogies, pp. 300-301 and 377 (archive.org cu31924028836613).

Rev. William Bassett, History of the Town of Richmond, Cheshire County, New Hampshire (Boston, 1884), genealogies, pp. 300-301 and 377 (archive.org cu31924028836613); Ellery Bicknell Crane, Genealogy of the Crane Family, vol. 2 (1895), addenda, pp. 557-558, entry 1 (archive.org genealogyofcrane02cran).

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Cite: Heirology, "Thomas Crane", https://heirology.com/ancestors/thomas-crane-342d3e.