Harrison County Iowa Genealogy

HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY, IOWA, 1915
BIOGRAPHIES
Page 648
BENJAMIN F. CROASDALE

It is not an easy task to describe adequately a man who has led an eminently active and busy life and who has attained a position of relative distinction in the community with which his interests are allied. The subject of this sketch has for many years been engaged in the retail merchandise business and is known widely and well throughout this section. His honorable methods and kindly disposition have won for him a wide circle of friends. He has some time since passed the allotted "threescore-and-ten" mark and is today one of the most active and well-preserved men of his years anywhere in the county.

Benjamin F. CROASDALE was born in Richboro, Bucks county, Pennsylvania, on March 4, 1837, of sterling Scotch and English ancestry. He was a son of Benjamin and Agnes (HARDING) CROASDALE and was the youngest of a family of nine children. All have passed into the Great Beyond with the exception of one sister, Ann E. BLAKER, who resides in New Town, Pennsylvania, and is in her ninety-sixth year. She is wonderfully well preserved for her years, active and in full possession of all faculties. Mr. CROASDALE's parents were farmers and he received his earliest training in that vocation. The CROASDALE family is one of the oldest families in the country of which there is definite tracing. They are all descended from one Ezra CROASDALE, who came from England to the American colonies about the year 1682. He too was a farmer. His grandson, Joseph CROASDALE, was the grandfather of the immediate subject of this sketch. All trace has been lost of the name of Joseph's father, but the record is clear since that time.

Mr. CROASDALE's mother, Agnes HARDING, was the daughter of Thomas and Tacy (ROBERTS) HARDING, Tacy ROBERTS being the daughter of Thomas and Sarah (KIRK) ROBERTS. The genealogy of the KIRK family has been carefully traced and prepared in book form, giving the family history from 1687 to 1912. All of the family in America are descended from one John KIRK, who came to America in 1682 or 1683 and located in Bucks county, Pennsylvania, on the tract of land granted to William PENN by the king of England. Tacy ROBERTS HARDING lived to be ninety-seven years of age.

Benjamin F. CROASDALE remained under the parental roof until he was nineteen years of age, when he decided to venture into life on his own account and his first independent enterprise was school teaching. He had received a good education for his day but after one year's labor as an instructor of youth, he decided that vocation was not his forte and for the following two years he did clerical work in a lumber office. These three years of his life were passed in Bridgewater, Shane county, of his native state. Still he had not found his proper place and went back to agricultural work, engaging in this for two more years. This labor he abandoned to become one of the preservers of the nation at the outbreak of the great civil struggle, enlisting as a private on May 10, 1861, in Company C, Third Regiment Pennsylvania Reserves. This body of men was later known as the Thirty-second Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. Mr. CROASDALE served almost two years in the Army of the Potomac and was in all of the battles in which his division was engaged up to the battle of Antietam where he was wounded severely and has since been partially disabled. Throughout his service he was color guard and was right under the flag at the time he received his wound. For a year he was compelled to go on crutches and later used a cane, abandoning that in August of 1864. Shortly after that he started westward in search of greater opportunities and for a time located at Brazil, Indiana, where for eight months he worked as a clerk in a general store. In June of 1865 he arrived in Council Bluffs, this state, and for a year and a half was employed in a retail store. It was in November of 1866 that he became a citizen of Harrison county, locating at Little Sioux and in that town he passed another two years as clerk in a general store. By the end of that time he had saved some money and acquired a good store of general information along commercial lines, with which equipment he felt justified in engaging in the retail store business on his own account. It was in 1868 that he opened his store with a small stock of general merchandise and in this business he has since continued. In 1908 he admitted his son-in-law, C. B. SMITH, as a partner and the two have since that time conducted the business successfully. Mr. SMITH does the active work and Mr. CROASDALE takes care of the books and accounts and when his labors in that line are finished he greatly enjoys the out-of-doors. Mr. CROASDALE's success has not been spectacular, but it has been a steady growth and in his old age he finds himself comfortably situated. In the spring of 1914 he erected a very pretty-six-room cottage just south of his old home.

Mr. CROASDALE was married on January 1, 1873, to Alice M. HALE, who was a native of the state of Michigan, born August 15, 1855, in Cass county, a daughter of Rollin C. and Sloa (BASSETT) HALE, natives of Vermont and New York, respectively. The HALES were engaged in agricultural work and in 1857 came to this state and made their home in Little Sioux.

To Mr. and Mrs. CROASDALE were born three children, two of whom are now living. Ivey S., born on January 6, 1879, is located at Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she is a teacher in the grade schools. Clara M., the other surviving child, was born February 19, 1885, and is the wife of Carl B. SMITH, of Little Sioux, Mr. CROASDALE's business partner.

Mr. CROASDALE holds his fraternal affiliation with the ancient order of Freemasonry and is the only living charter member of Frontier Lodge No. 382. He received his first instruction in Masonry in 1867 in the old Magnolia lodge. Both Mr. and Mrs. CROASDALE are members of the order of Eastern Star. Mr. CROASDALE is also a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, holding membership in Mitzsch Post No. 139, at Little Sioux. Mr. CROASDALE and his family are active members of the Methodist Episcopal church, although his parents were both Quakers. Politically, Mr. CROASDALE is aligned with the Republican party and has always taken a keen interest in politics, especially as related to local matters. In 1888 he was elected auditor of Harrison county, and served one term efficiently and to the satisfaction of all. Since then he has felt that his business interests demanded his entire attention and has never since aspired to public office.

This pioneer merchant of Harrison county very properly possesses the highest regard of all the people throughout the wide range of territory which his trade covers, few men in the county having a wider acquaintance. He has been so long identified with the business interests of the county that its needs are as familiar to him as an open book and his advice and suggestions on matters relating to the development of the community with which he has been so prominently connected during the greater part of Harrison county's history are regarded as valuable in the various departments of the county's administration.

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