Category: Text, Letters, Washington University

About Wayman Crow The youngest in a family of twelve children, Wayman Crow was born in Hartford, Kentucky, on March 7, 1808. Crow first entered the dry goods business in 1820, when he began a five-year apprenticeship in a general dry goods store in Kentucky. By 1828, he was operating his own dry goods store, and he moved to St. Louis in 1835. In partnership with his cousin, Joshua Tevis of Philadelphia, he established the wholesale dry goods house of Crow & Tevis. In later years, the business would be known as Crow, McCreery & Company Crow, Hargadine & Company, and Hargadine-McKittrick Dry Goods Company. In 1840, Crow was elected to the Missouri state senate, on the Whig ticket. He was elected to a second term in the senate in 1850.