Halls of Education

One 19^th century educator who spent some quality time in Fairfield was Albert Newton Crecraft, who had come to Franklin County from Butler County, Ohio, via Princeton College, an Ivy League school. Crecraft had done post-graduate work at Princeton.

Crecraft, who was born in Reilly, Ohio, settled in Mt. Carmel in 1880 and a year later moved to Fairfield.

A biography by August Reifel in the 1915 History of Franklin County, says of Crecraft: “With an attractive personality, affable, industrious and alert to each child's needs, he was soon master of the situation. His work so fired the ambitions of a number of his pupils that they sought a continuation of his services in a subscription term immediately following the short winter term of public school.”

At age 23, Crecraft wasn't having it at the time and a year later became the Principal at Brookville High School. That was 1882.

However, Crecraft went back to Fairfield in 1883, where he met Mary L. Tyner, daughter of Fairfield merchant Richard Tyner. “Before another autumn came, he returned to Fairfield and brought away as his wife one who had probably been a source of much inspiration in his excellent work there, one of his lady assistants of the previous year,” the Reifel tome reveals.

Crecraft replaced H.M. Skinner as superintendent of the Brookville schools in 1884. “But he was not to tarry long in that position. Upon the resignation of M. A. Mess as county school superintendent in the spring of 1886, Crecraft was selected to fill the vacancy.”

This position he held for five years.

In 1890 he purchased the Brookville Democrat, stayed there a year and saw bigger game on a distant plain.

“During this year he installed many improvements in his printing apparatus, and more than doubled the circulation of the paper.”

In October 1891 he sold the paper to the present editor. Maynard (LINK HERE) Irwin, and bought another newspaper in Franklin, Indiana. Crecraft was evidently enamored with the words “Franklin” and “Democrat,” since the Johnson County paper he bought was called the Franklin Democrat. He retired in 1941.

“Some misgivings as to his health caused Crecraft to quit school work, but he has given to the profession a son, Earl, who, inheriting the talents and personal magnetism of both father and mother, bids fair to sustain with due credit the name Crecraft among educators

Earl Crecraft became an educator/author as well and served as a liberal arts dean at Kent State (Ohio) University.

Crecraft's rapid promotion from a village school to the most important position in the county “is proof enough of his ability as an educator. An indefatigable worker himself, he had little patience with shams, sluggards or disturbers. Any such were sure of a stern rebuke with language and means to suit the case.”

Crecraft died in 1946. He was 86. Mary (Mattie) Tyner Crecraft died in 1941.

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Earl, 18 at the time of this concert, was evidently talented. Ethel Irwin was the niece of Maynard Irwin. Olive Robertson played the piano. Crecraft bought the Franklin Democrat in 1891.