Background
Isaac Edwin Crary was born on October 02, 1804 in Preston, Connecticut, United States. He was of Puritan stock, the oldest son of Elisha and Nabby (Avery) Crary.
Isaac Edwin Crary was born on October 02, 1804 in Preston, Connecticut, United States. He was of Puritan stock, the oldest son of Elisha and Nabby (Avery) Crary.
Isaac was educated at Bacon Academy, Colchester, and Trinity College, Hartford. He graduated from the latter institution in 1827.
In Hartford Crary read law with Henry W. Ellsworth, practised law for two years, and assisted G. D. Prentice in editing the New England Weekly Review. Early in the year 1832 the tide of westward emigration carried him to southern Michigan, where he bought 240 acres of land, located in Bellevue, Eaton County. The next year he began to practise law in Marshall, Calhoun County. Here he became intimately acquainted with Reverend John D. Pierce, in whose house he lived for a time. They owned a sawmill in Marshall, and sponsored a plan to have a railroad constructed through Calhoun County.
In the militia organization of Michigan Crary was nominally a brigadier-general; hence the title of General Crary, so often applied to him. In October 1835 he was elected territorial delegate for Michigan, and two years later he became the first representative of the newly created state. He served in this capacity till 1841. Although a man of considerable ability, he was not a statesman of the first order. Particularly unfortunate was his decision to speak slightingly in Congress of the military career of Gen. Harrison, for he so aroused the anger of John Quincy Adams that the latter permitted Tom Corwin to attack Crary in scathing terms, whereupon Adams and others referred to the representative from Michigan as the “late General Crary”. From 1842 to 1846 he was a member of the state legislature, and during his last term he was speaker of the House. Throughout his whole career he was an ardent Democrat.
He was far more widely known as an educator, however, than as a statesman. He was not only one of the founders of the University of Michigan, but was chairman of the Committee on Education, in the constituent convention of 1835, and prepared the Article on Education. This Article proposed a school system closely patterned after the Prussian model. It provided for the first superintendent of public instruction in any state, which office was first filled by Crary’s friend, the Reverend J. D. Pierce. Provision was also made for the founding of a state university “with such branches as the public convenience may hereafter demand. ” These “branch universities” were established in various parts of the state.
In 1837 Crary was appointed a member of the board of regents of the newly created university. Twice he was reappointed; in 1844 he resigned the office. He served as a member of the state board of education from 1850 to the time of his death. His last years were spent in Marshall.
Crary was cold in temperament, and careless in his dress. It was his habit to walk along the street with swinging gait, his hat cocked on one side.
Crary was married twice, but left no children.
