The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1909-12-01
THE RESCUE HOME FOUNDER
The RECENT DEATH OF CHAS.
n CRITTENTEN IN THE WEST.
Oh Il Tour Visiting the Institutions
when Taken Ill. Philanthropy
Started nv Mon,n,,r Annoa1

started by WOman's Appeal. =,
The death of Chas. n. Crittenton.
the philanthropist who had visited
Dawson and held meetings in this
city, was, told of in the last issue
OF The News. Mr.. Crittenton died in
San Francisco Cal, and the follow
ing dispatch from that city gives fur
ther particulars of his passing.
Charles N. Crittenton of New
York, widely known throughout the
country as the millionaire founder of
the Florence Crittenton rescue homes
for girls, died in this city of pneumo-
MIA after an illness of less than a
week. He was 76 years of age.
Crittenton founded seventy-three res
cue homes for girls in this country
and several in Japan and China,
which he named in memory of his
daughter, Florence, who died in her
youth.
"CrittentOn was on a tour visiting
the many rescue homes throughout
the country which he had established,
and arrived in San Francisco ten days
ago He was taken i'll within few
days after his arrival, pneumonia
quickly developed and on account of
his age the attending physicians held
out little hope for his recovery.
"Crittenton was the senior mem
mer of the firm of Charles n. Crit
tenton & Co., wholesale druggists of
New York.
Charles N. Crittenton was born
on farm near Adams, N. Y, in
1888. At the age of 20, having only
common school education, he went
to New York. At the end of his
first years work he counted out $65
as the sum of his savings, and with
this amount he was married His
wife was Miss Josephine Slasson Of
New York.
"Crittenton during the next year
founded the large drug concern Of
which he was the head by going
about with a wheelbarrow load of
drugs in a house-to-house canvass.
At the end of the first year he had
saved $500, and soon afterward he
established a store.
"Crittenton proved unusually sue
cessful as a business man, and when
his daughter, Florence, died in her
fifth year he was independently
wealthy. The child was his favorite,
and grief over her loss so weighed
upon him it nearly drove him to in
sanity.
Zone evening, while walking to a
mission with a friend, they were ac-
costed on the street by a woman of
the underworld. Crittenton stopped
and talked with her for a while and
pleaded with her to change to bet
ter life. The words of Scripture
came to him, and as he left the young
woman he said to her, eco and sin
no more" After the services that
evening he was restless. He asked
himself how the young woman could
heed his advice since she had no
place to go to.
HE returned to his home that
night to pass a sleepless night, think
ing and planning to save the life of
such women.
The next morning his mind was
made up. He leased room in the
downtown section of New York and
dedicated it to the rescue of fallen
women. He started out in search of
the woman he had met the night be-
fore and found her.
'She was taken to the home, and
remained there until she had re-
gained her self-reliance and courage,
and was fit to meet the world on even
terms. This woman was Nellie Con-
roy, who died few years later, at
testing to the last the value of rescue
homes"