Eliza Robbins Crafts was a pioneer educator and local history writer in the early days of San Bernardino County, California. Photo Credit:
There are many intriguing stories about intrepid pioneer educators who helped to settle the Wild West during the late 1800’s. One of them was Eliza Robbins Crafts, a teacher and writer who had an unmistakable impact on the settling of the San Bernardino area of Southern California.
Eliza was born Eliza Russell on Nov. 29, 1825, in Unadello Center, Otsego County, New York. As a young girl, she attended Madam Willard’s Female Seminary. She graduated from the school in 1847. The education she earned there was far greater than the typical young woman of her day. Once she completed school, Eliza migrated to New Orleans, Louisiana, where she worked as a teacher on a sugar plantation. There she met and married Ellison Robbins, a fellow educator from her home state of New York. Before long, the couple relocated to Santa Clara, California, where they taught school for three years. In 1858, the couple was persuaded to relocate to San Bernardino, where they were hired to lead the school system. The system was comprised of two one-room adobe structures that were built next door to each other. One was named Washington and the other was named Jefferson.
Unfortunately, Ellison succumbed to pneumonia in 1864. He was only 43 years old. Shortly thereafter, Eliza married Myron Harwood Crafts. But that marriage did not last long, as in 1886 Myron also succumbed to pneumonia. At the time, Eliza was 61, and found the estates she inherited from Ellison and Myron too much for her to handle. She sold her assets and moved to Redlands to live with her daughter, Rosabelle. During the next few years, Eliza authored a local history book entitled Pioneer Days in the San Bernardino Valley, which was published in 1906. The book contained a description of life in San Bernardino County in the early days, the disastrous flood of 1862, the Civil War years, the assassination of President Lincoln, and how the residents defended themselves when they received news that a marauding band of Southern sympathizers was headed their way.
Eliza Robbins Crafts was 85 years old when she passed away in February of 1910. She is interred at Hillside Memorial Park in Redlands, California. She will always be known in the San Bernardino area as a pioneer educator and local history author. To read more, click on this link to the online article published about her by the Redlands Area Historical Society.
