The Crawford house was the home of four generations of the Crawford family, who ran their family abattoir (slaughterhouse) and butcher shop on the property from 1865 to the mid-1960’s.
John H. and Rebecca Crawford established a wholesale butchering business, and raised 8 children in the house. In 1897 John H. retired, leaving his two sons, John C. and Albert B., in charge of the firm of Crawford Brothers, and sold the house to John C. and Ella W. Crawford, his wife. John C. Crawford also ran the general store (now the adjacent Portofino Restaurant), delivering groceries by horse and wagon to the surrounding farms.
John C. and Ella’s son, Allen E. Crawford, took ownership of the house and business in 1924. Allen and his wife Ruth continued the butchering business, and also acted as tax collectors for the town. Ruth Crawford assisted her husband, who was tax collector, for 20 years, and then acted as tax collector herself for another 25 years, retiring in 1973. During most of that time the tax office was in the Crawford home. Ruth’s daughter Ann succeeded her in the position until the mid-1980’s.
The house passed out of the family after Ruth’s death in 1987. It is currently owned by the Borough of Tinton Falls and has been renovated for public use.
Ruth Crawford’s Piano
Ruth’s piano is a rare changeable pitch piano. It contains a mechanism that allows the instrument to change pitch by a semi tone without requiring re-tuning of the strings. With only a few thousand produced at the beginning of the twentieth century, a fraction of those pianos still exist today (from the evaluation by Curro Piano Service, 2018).
