Born ‎after 1753‎

Born ‎after 1753‎

Born ‎after 1753‎

Born ‎before 1753‎

Born ‎after 1753‎

Born ‎before 1753‎

Born ‎1761 at Amwell Township, Hunterdon County, New Jersey, United States, died ‎8 Apr 1829‎, age 67 or 68 years, buried at Westminster Presbyterian Cemetery, Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pennsylvania, United States. Occupations: FARMER, HUNTER, DISTILLER, Tavern Keeper

Extract from "Genealogy of the McCrum Family" by E.B. McCrum:

William McCrum married Hepsibah Stout about 1794; however this date may have been in error. A hypothesis that Hepsibah may have been a second wife is not too attractive; it seems unlikely that John, born 1789, would have named one of his own sons John Stout McCrum if Hepsibah Stout had been only his step-mother.

At the time of his death, William McCrum was the heaviest taxpayer in Milford township with the exception of John Patterson and Benjamin Kepner. He did an immense amount of business, trusting many who never redeemed their notes. Bundles of these still remain in the archives of Juniata county, monuments of his trusting disposition.

From conversations overheard when I was a boy, I gathered that Wiliam McCrum shortly after he came to the Juniata Valley bought or erected a log house on the east bank of the Juniata river on land now included in Miffintown. In this house he kept "tavern," as lodging places for travelers, It was the first and only tavern in that locality for many years. It was the stage office for the first line of stage coaches established to carry the U.S. mail and passengers up and down the Juniata valley. The old log house was still standing in my boyhood days, an evidence of the durability of such structures. In those days the tavern keeper was an important and influential person in the community. The tavern was a rendezvous for the settlers of the community, and the landlord was its oracle. Tavern keeping was a profitable business. The tavern keeper ranked in influence and respectability with the minister of the gospel. The tavern was headquarters for news, foreign and domestic, and the tavern keeper was supposed to know all that was going on, and largely to dictate what should and should not go on. At this time all travel was by stage coach or horseback. Carriages and spring vehicles were unkown.