Page 3 - The CRAIG family

The reason why the entire grown family left without their parents is unknown, but William Craig and his wife Margaret Elizabeth Lindsay Craig remained. Four brothers, and their families, and three sisters, landed in the Pennsylvania port: William (b. circa 1685), Daniel (b. circa 1691), Thomas (b. circa 1695), James (b. ?), Margaret (b. ?), Jane (b. circa 1694) and Sarah (b. circa 1706).
In the 1720’s, the oldest brother, William, and his wife and sons are the first identified in Chester County, southwest of Philadelphia, while brothers Daniel and James are found north of the city in Bucks County. Brother Thomas and sister Sarah, with her husband Richard Walker, Esq., are known to have lived in Philadelphia. Around 1728, James and Thomas Craig, together with their sister Jane Craig and her husband John Boyd, traveled north into the Lehigh Valley with other Scotch Irish pioneers – 16 families in all.
Along the Catasaugua Creek in the future county of Northampton, these families created the Craig Settlement, and by 1731 the growing town became known as the Irish Settlement. A few years later, Daniel Craig traveled to the farther north end of the settlement near the Montoquasy valley, to what would be known as Bath, and became the first white settler in that area. The Delaware Indians remained a prominent threat in these valleys throughout the mid 1700’s.
James Logan wrote the Penn family in 1724 warning that the Ulstermen used “as their excuse when challenged for titles, that we had solicited for colonists and they had come accordingly.” The Scotch Irish ventured outside Philadelphia and into the wilderness, working and fighting to make it safer for later pioneers. But the land wasn’t theirs to settle; their claims and deeds meant nothing to the proprietors of Pennsylvania.
John, Thomas and Richard, the sons of William Penn, set aside 5,000 acres for Joseph Turner on May 18, 1732, but on September 10, 1735, Turner handed the land over to William Allen. While Allen was friendly toward the settlers, the homes in the Irish settlement were located on this estate and now belonged to Allen and his family. Some settlers purchased their properties, a few like James Craig were given their land, but in time most of the others just moved on.
When the colonies rebelled against the crown, Pennsylvania was filled with Tories like William Allen and his sons, but the Scotch Irish were strong and able supporters of the revolt. The Scotch Irish pioneers continued into the wilderness and settled Pennsylvania and Virginia, as the Dutch and German Quakers moved in around the original settlement, and by the 1800’s had taken over most of the Irish properties.