Page 7 - The CRAIG family

WILLIAM CRAIG, SR. (my 3x Great Grandfather)
William Craig, Sr., is the furthest back this Craig family has been positively traced. He was born in Pennsylvania, descended from an old and influential family. It is uncertain but records indicate that he was born October 12, 1800, to the parents of George and Ann Craig. Christening records show that he was christened February 18, 1801 at the Second Presbyterian Church. William was a farmer. Between 1826 and 1832, William, Sr. and his family moved to Ohio. (The name of Williams’s wife and mother of his children cannot be found). Between 1832 and 1835 they moved to the Dearborn County and Veevay, Switzerland County, Indiana area. According to family legend, they traveled from Pennsylvania to Indiana via the old trail or trace in a wagon train. They traveled in a covered wagon drawn by one horse. The Craig boys walked alongside while helping lead their ox. They drove their wagon on ferries to cross the Ohio River into Indiana. The land William moved to in Indiana was allegedly left to him from older generations.
In 1840 or 1841, William, Sr.’s first wife died and he married his widowed neighbor, Marjorie O’Neal Gordon on August 26, 1841, in Dearborn County, Indiana. William’s youngest child was 1 year old. Between 1847 and 1850, they moved to Trimble County, Kentucky, where William, Sr., bought 93-1/2 acres on Pollens Creek near the Ohio River Bottoms. This tract was worth $2,805.
After his son William, Jr. died it is unknown whether William, Sr., moved his family across the river back to Jefferson County, Indiana. There is no record of him after the 1850 census when he, his wife Margury (Marjorie) and 5 of his children lived in Trimble, Kentucky. Other Craig researchers say they may have moved back to Indiana before his death. No death certificates can be found in either Kentucky or Indiana.
Children of William Craig, Sr. and wife unknown
Larry Craig reports that William and his wife (unknown) had two sons that were born between 1820-
1825; however, no further information can be found.
1) William Craig, Jr. – Born about 1826 in Pennsylvania - died 1854-1857. Married Dove Rex 6-22-1847. William was illiterate and a laborer. He and his wife had 2 children, Jacob (Jake) and Thomas Newton (Newt). Dove’s father was, allegedly, a great grandson of King George, III of England. It was never known what side of the family was allegedly Indian, but after William died, Dove remarried to John Horton of Boone County, KY, and Dove and Williams’s children, Jacob and Newton were ridiculed by their stepbrothers and sisters for their alleged Indian ancestry. According to family tradition, Jake and Newton were descended from Shawnee Chief Whitefeather of Ohio, who was present at treaties signed by the Piqua, Ohio trading post in 1817 and 1834 to sell Shawnee land to the government. Chief Whitefeather was a tribal chief who led over 600 people. Legend says that he is buried on the banks of the Great Miami River in Wapakoneta, Ohio. It is unclear whether the Indian ancestry was from Jacob and Thomas’s mother, Dove Rex, or his father, William Craig.
The younger son, Thomas, who went by Newton, was a quiet, brooding boy who argued and never got along with his mother because of his supposed ancestry. He was in the Union Home Guard at age 11 and helped guard the Covington, Ky. Railroad. Due to differences with his mother and heritage, at age 16 he moved out of the home and to Aurora, Dearborn County, Indiana, where he raised a family. He married Elizabeth Jane Cunningham on August 15, 1879. He is last seen in the 1880 census and died
002