Much of Mr. Crawford's fortune had been invested in the South. This vanished during the early years of the civil War, and Mr. Crawford did not long survive the shock and disappointment. Mrs. Crawford withdrew with her family to Ury, and friends sent their sons to her to share the tutors who had provided for the education of her younger boys. From this nucleus developed Ury House Boarding School for Boys, which was famous for twenty-one years during the sixties, seventies, and early eighties.
Notable Women of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1942), p. 152.
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Ury House -- 1863
After [Stephen R. Crawford's] financial reverses and death in 1863, Mrs. [Jane] Crawford devoted her life to the instruction of youth, and Ury House became an institution of education, at which many of our leading men received the careful training which fitted them for their future responsibilities.
Rev. S. F. Hotchkin, M.A., The York Road, Old and New (Philadelphia: Binder & Kelly, Publishers, 1892), p. 410.
In 1860, Mrs Crawford started a boys' boarding school at Ury and continued it until 1881, when it was moved and became St. Luke's, Bustleton.
Harold Donaldson Eberlein and Cortlandt Van Dyke Hubbard, "Colonial Philadelphia No. 13 Ury House" (Evening Public Ledger, 1939.10.03).
She did one of the few things a lady could do in those days--added a wing and opened a fashionable school for young gentlemen. To it came such material as John Drew, the actor. Later the school was moved and became eventually the nucleus of Valley Forge Military Academy.
Manning Smith, "Sisters in Historic Mansion Hold Off Invaders" (Philadelphia Record, 1940.01.29.
She [Jane Crawford] opened a fashionable boys' boarding school after adding another wing to Ury House. Some of her pupils later became famous, among them actor John Drew, uncle of the Barrymores.
Rex Rittenhouse, "Ury House Guest Was Victim Of Jittery Maid" (Philadelphia: The Evening Bulletin, 1945.10.21).
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