Cranston family

Alfred Cranston (1840?-1919) and Elizabeth Petford (dates unknown)

Alfred Cranston was born in Savannah, GA around 1840, the eldest of seven children. At the age of four, his family moved to Brooklyn, N.Y. As a young man, he served with Engine 17 of Brooklyn's Volunteer Fire Department, and enlisted in Company 1 of the 14th Regiment of the New York State Militia in 1861. The regiment, known as Brooklyn's "Fighting Fourteenth," was in turn part of the 84th New York Infantry Regiment. Cranston fought in the Civil War from 1861 to 1864, eventually reaching the rank of Captain. Throughout the war, he maintained an active correspondence with his fiancée Elizabeth Hollington Petford. Cranston and Petford married in 1864 following his discharge, and Cranston became a member of Citizens Lodge No. 628, F. and A.M. (Free and Accepted Masons) in Manhattan. They had three children: Alfred Petford (b. 1865); Henrietta, or "Etta" (b. 1866); and Ella Maude (b. 1870). In 1865, Cranston was officially discharged from service as a firefighter during the reorganization of the Brooklyn Firefighters brigades, but seems to have remained a member of the Brooklyn Volunteer Firemen's Association until his death. In 1893, Cranston became superintendent of the Postal Telegraph Building in Manhattan, home of the Postal Telegraph-Cable Company. He retired in 1898.

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