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Among his forefathers were gallant soldiers and men of affairs who left their impress on different states and colonies of the East. Mr. Crain is one of the two white men who received formal adoption into the Seminole tribe, and has been on the rolls of citizenship since 1883. He was born in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, March 10, 1847, a son of Dr. Joseph and Rebecca Gibson (Wills) Crain. His great-grandfather was Ambrose Crain, who as captain led a company to battle in the Revolutionary war, being part of a New Jersey regiment. Grandfather Richard M. Crain also had a prominent career. He was surveyor general or deputy surveyor general of Pennsylvania for about thirty years. He was also a member of one of the early Pennsylvania Legislatures when that body met at Lancaster. He served as a colonel of artillery during the War of 1812 and was at Fort Henry during the defense of Washington. Col. Richard M. Crain married Eleanor Whitehill. Her father, Robert Whitehill, was a member of the convention that drafted the Constitution of the of the United States and Afterwards sat in Congress representing a Pennsylvania district for more than twenty years. Mr. Crain's father, Dr. Joseph Crain, was born at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1893, spent his active career as a physician in Cumberland County and died there in 1876. His wife was born in Cumberland County and died when Alex W. Crain was three years of age. Two of their children died in infancy, and those who reached maturity were two daughters and three sons. Doctor Crain also had children by a second marriage, but all of them are now deceased. Mr. Crain's brother, Richard M., fought during a part of the Civil war as member of a New Jersey regiment, afterwards took up medicine, and he died while in the employ of the government at the Sac and Fox Agency in Oklahoma. The early life of Alex Will Crain was spent in Pennsylvania, attending the public schools, and he was also a student in the State College of Pennsylvania. In June, 1863, he left college to enlist from Center County as a member of Company D in Lutzinger's Battalion for three months' duty. In June, 1914, Mr. Crain visited Pennsylvania College, and at that time received a certificate of recognition for membership in the class of 1864, and of that class only fourteen were known to be living in 1914. Mr. Crain was promised by the college authorities in recognition of his services in leaving school to fight for his country a diploma, and this diploma was awarded at the commencement in June, 1916, at which time Mr. Crain returned to Pennsylvania to accept the honor. For two years during his early youth he also worked on a Pennsylvania farm, and he spent two years on the plains of Nebraska, driving ox and mule teams and getting a taste of frontier existence which finally caused him to become a permanent resident of the southwest. Returning East he spent another two years at home, and then went to Texas, where he was a cowboy for a year, and about 1872 he came into the Creek nation. His services here for about twelve years were as teacher in the tribal schools, and he has also clerked in a store about four years. In 1883 he was adopted into the Seminole Nation and has ever since been a member of that tribe. He and the late E. J. Brown were the only white men ever formally adopted by this tribe. Mr. Crain served as assistant district Indian agent under the Department of secretary. From 1884 to 1909 he resided on his farm and applied himself successfully to the raising of cattle, horses and hogs, and in the early days the range for his livestock was unrestricted and his herds could wander for pasture where they would. Mr. Crain still has a farm in the northwestern part of Seminole County along the North Canadian River. In politics he is a republican, though he was reared a democrat. He has a life membership in the Masonic order, having attained thirty-two degrees in the Scottish Rite, is a Royal Arch Mason and a member of the Mystic Shrine. In 1880 at Sasakwa he married Lucy Brown, a half-blood Seminole and a sister of Governor John F. Brown, reference to whose career will be found on other pages. Mr. and Mrs. Crain have three children: Anna, wife of T. H. Oliver of Wewoka; Allen, of Sasakwa; and Ambrose, who lives on his allotment along the North Canadian River. Mr. Crain has one of the most interesting and attractive homes in Seminole County. All his life he has been a diligent reader, though his career on the whole has kept him in close touch with practical events. Some time ago during a general discussion of the question of state legal holidays for Oklahoma, Mr. Crain suggested that they make a ground-hog day of general observance, but he ceased to advocate this when the people apparently began to take his proposition seriously. Transcribed for OKGenWeb by Norma Capehart March 6, 2003. SOURCE: Thoburn, Joseph B., A Standard History of Oklahoma, An Authentic Narrative of its Development, 5 v. (Chicago, New York: The American Historical Society, 1916).