Male

January 2, 1794

September 22, 1850

Louisville, KY

New Orleans, LA
Louisville, KY
Pittsburgh, PA

Mary O'Hara Croghan (January 28, 1823)

William Croghan, Jr. was born at Locust Grove, his family's home six miles outside of Louisville, KY in 1794. His father had come to America serving as a British soldier prior to the Revolution but when the war broke out, he became a patriot. After the outbreak of the war, Croghan's father served with a Virginia militia unit. In 1784, he was commissioned to survey public lands in Kentucky where he remained and opened a land office in 1791. He later married Lucy Clark, sister of William Clark of the Lewis and Clark expedition. The couple had eight children.

Locust Grove was a prosperous home and farm. Major Croghan and his wife owned 30 to 45 slaves. On November 9, 1806, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark stopped at Locust Grove as they returned from their three year exploration of ...western North America. In 1819, President James Monroe and General Andrew Jackson visited the home which had become a focal point of local politics and society due to the prominence of the Croghan family. Jackson would return in 1825 for another visited, and Aaron Burr, former Litchfield Law School student, was also a visitor.

William Croghan, Jr. was a well educated man who attended Transylvania Seminary and Dickinson College, before studying under Judge Reeve in Litchfield, Connecticut. Finding little happiness in the study halls of Transylvania Seminary, Croghan, with the persuasion of his brother John Croghan, attended Dickinson College. There he received a extensive scientific education, one similar to his brother who stayed in the medical field. This would not be the case for William Croghan, Jr., who seemed to enjoy business and politics much more. Anxious to have him trained to help him in his multiple business interests, his father then sent him to the Litchfield Law School in 1814. Being an ambitious twenty four year old who recently graduated from Reeve's law school, Croghan hoped to obtain a position in a foreign embassy as Secretary to the Legation, but was never granted the position. Croghan then returned to Kentucky in 1817 to work for his father. In 1819, Croghan settled in New Orleans where he worked as a lawyer, served his father's business interests, and ran a cotton plantation. It was there that he met and befriended artist and naturalist James Audobon. Until 1822, he traveled frequently, spending time in Louisville, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia.

In 1821, Croghan married the wealthy Mary O'Hara of Pittsburgh. The couple lived near Louisville and had two children. Tragically, Mary died in 1827 and the couple's young son died in 1828. After these deaths, Croghan moved his surviving child to Pittsburgh, PA. Where, in 1830, he built a grand home for his three-year-old daughter and himself. The house still stands. Croghan was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar in 1835.

In 1842, Croghan's only remaining daughter, Mary (1827 - 1903), eloped from her boarding school in New York at the age of 15 with a Captain of the British Army who was 43 at the time. Croghan was a widower at the time and reportedly suffered a stroke upon hearing the news. He demanded action be taken against the couple and asked the Pennsylvania General Assembly and the United States Government to intercede. He also managed to have his daughters considerable wealth (an inheritance from her mother and her maternal grandfather) withheld from the couple, though eventually he had a change of heart and visited them. Upon his death in 1850, Mary received her full inheritance and became a beloved Pittsburgh philanthropist until her own death in 1903.
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"The Profession of Law, the road to honour and preferment- May its votaries in practice ever prove the preservers of peace and tranquility, and the defenders of our civil and political rights."
William Croghan - Toast at Tribute to Respect on September 2 1816

1815,1817

Attended Transylvania Seminary from 1809-1811 and Dickinson College in 1811.

Lawyer; Agriculture

He was a private student of Judge Thomas Cooper.

Handwritten list by William Samuel Johnson, "Catalogue of the Students at Law in the school at Litchfield Conn. at & after Aug. 15th 1817..", Connecticut Historical Society, Johnson Family Papers, 1722-1863, Box - Johnson Papers; Catalogue of the Litchfie
"Litchfield, September 2 1816 Tribute of Respect," Connecticut Herald, vol XIII, iss. 49, 3, September 17, 1816.

Samuel W. Thomas, "William Croghan, Jr. (1794-1850) A Prominent Pittsburgh Lawyer from Kentucky," The Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine, v. 51, # 3, July, 1968.