"Originally, the name, ""Crawford,"" identified
an actual place in Lanarkshire, Scotland, ""where the
Clyde River winds down through the high moors of a marshy valley
toward the Irish Sea."" Clydesdale horses were bred on
farms famous for their orchards and most of the land was valualble
only for its minerals of coal and lead. ""There, where
the sandy gravel of the Clyde formed a shallow firm bottom for
the river ...where the crows wheeled in the empty air over the
open heather that stretched away toward the mountains, there the
Crawford family began."" Johannes Crawford was the lord
of the fief of Crawford and the earliest anscestor of the Crawford
name.In the year 1140 he took as his own name that of the lands
he held as a feudal baron. His decendents did the same. Sir Reginald
de Crawford was the sheriff of Ayreshire in 1294. His sons founded
the several branches of the Crawford family.(Dismukes 4). Sir David
Lindsay became the first Earl of Crawford in 1398, and the coat
of arms above derives from this period.
"