Benjamin Elliot Crane was born in Athens, Georgia on December 19, 1835. He was the son of Ross Crane of Athens who died in 1886. He graduated from the University of Georgia in 1854 and went to Troy, New York, where he studied civil engineering at the Polytechnic Institute of New York. He entered the Troup Artillery in early 1861, serving as a private in the Confederate Army for twelve months. In 1862, General Thomas R.R. Cobb nominated him as Quartermaster for Cobb's (infantry) Legion. In 1863, he was promoted to Brigade Quartermaster with the rank of major. After the was he was a partner in the firm of Langston, Crane, and Hammock, a wholesale grocery business in Atlanta, Georgia. He was also a member of the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce and served as president. In 1867, he married Miss Sallie Conley Clayton, daughter of Judge W.W. Clayton of Atlanta. They had one daughter, Carolyn Clayton Crane who married Mr. W.P. Nicolson, Jr. They had three children: W.P. Nicolson, Jr., who married Elizabeth Tuller whose father was president of the 1895 Cotton Exposition; Robert Lowry Nicolson, and Carolyn Nicolson. W.P. Nicholson, Jr. and his wife had one son, W.P. Nicolson, III who married Betty Barnes. They had two children: W.P. Nicolson and Elizabeth Tuller.