Neoclassical sculptor best known for his colossal figure of “Freedom,” which was posthumously cast and hoisted atop the dome of the Capitol in Washington, D.C., amidst great festivities in 1860.

Crawford trained as a stonecutter in New York City. In 1835, he went to Rome, where he received some instruction from the Danish Neoclassical sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen and where he remained for most of his life. At the time of his death his reputation rivaled that of Hiram Powers and Horatio Greenough as a leading American sculptor. The novelist Francis Marion Crawford was his son.