John Price Crozer was an American manufacturer, philanthropist.
Background
John Price Crozer was descended from James Crozier, a French Huguenot, who in 1700 went from France to Antrim, Ireland, whence he emigrated to America and settled in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. He married Esther Gleave.
The son James Samuel Crozer married Sarah Price, and John Price Crozer, one of their five children, was born on January 13, 1793 at West Dale, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, in the house where some years before Benjamin West, the painter, had been born.
Education
Educated locally and surrounded by Quaker and Baptist influences, Crozer gained a religious training which governed his subsequent life.
Career
From 1810 to 1820 he farmed the 173 acres left by his father. About 1820 he traveled on horseback for 2, 700 miles through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Kentucky to see the country, but returned to his native county.
About 1822, with his inheritance of $3, 400, he bought second-hand machinery and began the manufacture of yarn, but his product was poor and he went in for weaving. A timely loan of $600 saved him from disaster.
In 1824 he bought a near-by mill-seat and farm, which he named West Branch. In the new location his business undertaking succeeded.
In 1828 he built his first meeting-house, which served as a church and school-house for his employees. In 1839 he bought power machinery on borrowed capital and succeeded rapidly thereafter. He took great interest in his employees and visited them personally in sickness, but in 1842 he had the leaders of a strike convicted for conspiracy.
An overturned sleigh in 1843 crippled him for life. A flood in the same year swept away his mill-dam buildings at a loss of $50, 000. Nevertheless, in 1845 he purchased the Flower estate, near Chester, Pennsylvania, which he called “Upland, ” and on it he built a mansion and a meeting-house.
In 1847 he retired, admitting his son Samuel to partnership, and thereafter found his chief interest in his philanthropies. Fie enjoyed the sharing of his wealth and bounty. Crozer’s local benefactions were numerous.
He founded a normal school at Upland which served the Government as a hospital during the Civil War. In 1861 he and George H. Stewart were selected as the Philadelphia members of the Christian Commission.
Fie contributed to raising a company for service in the Union cause, and his son George K. Crozer was its captain. He entrusted various funds to the American Baptist Publication Society, built a Baptist church at Upland, and endowed a professorship at Bucknell University.
A younger brother died in Africa in connection with the work of the American Colonization Society, in which Crozer was greatly interested.
Achievements
His will established a $50, 000 Memorial Fund for “Missions among the Colored People of this Country. ” His widow and children established the Crozer Theological Seminary at Chester, Pa. , as a memorial to him by adding $195, 000 for buildings, library, and endowment to the normal school property, then valued at $80, 000.
