Crow, William H. B.

The following data is extracted from Illustrated History of the State of Idaho.

William Henry Byron Crow was born in Greene county, Illinois, June 16, 1S52, and came of English ancestors who emigrated to America before the Revolution. His paternal great-grandfather was born at Bennineton, Vermont, iii 1754 and with his son, Mr. Crows grandfather, went to Ohio in 1818, where the elder Crow died in 1844 aged, ninety years. Stephen Crow, father of William H. B. Crow, was born in New York in 18 16, and was two years old when the family removed to Ohio. He married Miss Elizabeth Prater, a native of Indiana, born in 1823, who was brought up and educated at Dowagiac, Michigan, where her father was a prominent pioneer settler. Stephen Crow and his wife are both living, he being eighty-three years old, she seventy-four. They are Baptists and have been almost literally pillars of the church, Mr. Crow having been one of its deacons for many years. They had ten children, nine of whom are yet living. William Henry Byron Crow, their fifth child, was educated in district schools in Iowa, in the Missouri Valley (Iowa) high school and at Lincoln University, and he was a professional teacher in Iowa and eastern Nebraska during the years from 1870 to 1880. A close student, a logical thinker and conclusive reasoner, he gained a reputation as one of the most successful educators in that part of the country. In 1880 he came to Idaho Falls and filed on one hundred and sixty acres of land and a desert claim, both adjoining the Idaho Falls town plat on the east, which he subsequently platted and sold and which tract has come to be known as the Crow Addition to Idaho Falls. Not finding an opening in his accustomed vocation, he found employment in the erection of the railroad shops, and as foreman for the railroad company directed their removal. From the day of his advent in the town he has been active in the up-building of all its important interests. He was the organizer of the Idaho Falls Waterworks Company, which supplies water to the town from Snake River, and is now its sole owner. He is the owner also of considerable valuable ranch property and of other town property, including a fine home. His career as a teacher naturally inclined him to concern himself in the public schools of Idaho Falls, and he has been a tireless and very efficient promoter of their best interests. Since the organization of the school board of the town he has been almost continuously one of its members. He helped to incorporate Idaho Falls and was a member of the first board of trustees. He was one of the organizers of the Bingham County Agricultural Fair Association and was influential in securing the location of the state experimental station at Idaho Falls. He is a charter member of Bingham Lodge, No. 14, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and had much to do with bringing about the building of the Odd Fellows' Orphans' Home, having been a member of the board of trustees that had the supervision of its erection at Idaho Falls. He is an active Republican and serves his party unostentatiously, as he does everything else, but always effectively. In 1888 he was elected a member of the last Idaho territorial legislature. He was a useful legislator, especially active in the irrigation legislation, and represented Bingham County before the senatorial committee on irrigation in 1890.

Mr. Crow married, in 1882, Miss Sarah E. Murphy, a native of McHenry County, Illinois. Mrs. Crow is an active and useful member of the Methodist church, and Mr. Crow, while not one of its communicants, is one of its ardent and generous supporters. Mrs. Crow possesses much musical talent, which has been cultivated most generously, and she is an invaluable help in the musical department of the church work. No children have been born to bless their union and they have an adopted daughter, Emma Owena Crow, who has been to them as their own child since she was two weeks old.

Source: Illustrated History of the State of Idaho

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