He entered the University of Pennsylvania in 1864 but left in 1867 during his junior year to join the Honey Brook Coal Company of which his father was president.

[3] He worked at the Whitney, McCreary & Kemmerer wholesale coal merchant company from 1870 to 1879.

[3] McCreary supported several charities including the sponsorship of a tea service at the Sunday Breakfast Rescue Mission homeless shelter,[4] the Red Bank Sanatorium, the Whosoever Will Mission and the Pennsylvania Humane Society.

He was also the treasurer of the Philadelphia Sketch Club and vice president of the Franklin Reformatory School.

[2] McCreary died on July 26, 1915, in Philadelphia and was interred in Laurel Hill Cemetery.