T. P. Crawford was born and raised between Bowling Green and Glasgow, about half a mile north of the main road and three-quarters of a mile east of the 'Pilot Knob'.

Baptized in Clark's River, Calloway County, Kentucky in March 1837. He graduated 1851 from Union University, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, at the head of his class.  Ordained as a Baptist Minister at the Denmark Church in Tennessee, in April 1851.  Application for foreign missionary approved during the May 1851 meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention which met in Nashville, Tennessee. He was appointed as a missionary to China.

In Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Martha Elizabeth Foster asked her pastor to correspond with the Foreign Mission Board.  Martha Elizabeth Foster sent a letter to the Foreign Mission Board, Southern Baptist Convention, in Richmond, to ask if the FMB would send an unmarried as a missionary to China.  The FMB would not, but showed the letter to T. P. Crawford, who took it as a proverbial indication and immediately set out on horseback for Alabama. They were married within three weeks.

Sailed from NY (?) on November 19, 1851, arrived Hong Kong February 17, 1852, arrived Shanghai before July, 6, 1852.  Served in China 1851-1892. Suffered a stroke in 1878, returned to San Francisco, California for treatment.

Author: "Evolution in my Mission Views" 1852 - 1902.  Published by Editor JA Scarboro, copyright 1903; Regan Publishing House, Chicago.