CENTENARIAN PASSES

Northern Advocate, 9 April 1934, Page 5

CENTENARIAN PASSES

SEBASTOPOL VETERAN. 70 YEARS IN' N.Z. (Special to "Northern Advocate.”) DUNEDIN, This Day. The death occurred at Naseby oh Saturday of Mr James Archer Crawford, a veteran of. Sabastopol, at tho age of 104 years. He had resided in the Dominion for 70 years and had been successively sailor, miner and world wanderer. He had braved Crimean winters, sweltered under Australian suns, been wounded by a Russian swordsman, -waylaid by a gang of bushrangers, and had missed fortune by the barest of chances. Mr Crawford was born in 1830 in the little village of Carnoustie, near Dundee, 'Scotland, -where his father was stationmastcr. He came of a. family noted for longevity, his father living to be 00 years and his grandfather 105.

The outbreak of tho Crimean War found him a sailor on board H.M.B. Trafalgar, which was ordered to Malta and then to the Black Sea. * In the next year or two he saw a good deal of active service, of which he carried one memento, in the shape of a scar from a wound received when he w r as run through tho log by a Russian during a boat encounter at Sebastopol. He took part in the siege of that town, and had the Sebastopol and Crimean medals, together with one given him by the Church. Shortly after the Crimean War had ended he returned to Scotland, and then came out to Australia, where he followed the gold rushes. On one occasion he was captured by a gang of bushrangers, who gave him bade half a crown with which to make his way to Melbourne.

Arriving at Otago in 18(11, lio again followed mining pursuits, with the customary ups and downs of those days. While visiting Dunedin in the early sixties lie was offered a quarteracre section, where the Grand Hotel now stands, for £2O, hut he refused to buy and lived to realise that he had missed a glorious opportunity. About 1870 he married and for a 8 years he and Mrs Crawford had lived happily in their cottage on the outskirts of Nasebv.

Now the old Crimean veteran and pioneer has gone, and his wife, with whom -he had gone down the years hand in hand, is left to mourn her loss,