Page 9 - The CRAIG family

The newspaper article went on to say that in all probability, the limb would have to be amputated. Jake got gangrene in his leg from the wound and several weeks later, his son took him down the Ohio River to Cincinnati and carted him in a wagon from the banks of the Ohio to Good Samaritan Hospital. By then, however, it was too late to save him and he died in late May, 1888.
The family account of this incident differs from the newspaper account. According to the family, Jake and his son, William, were hunting and had some words earlier with George Craig, on whose land they had tied their house boat. George Craig supposedly saw them coming across the field with their guns and rabbits and hid behind a stack of fence rails and shot Jake. William took his father home and he tried to care for the wound himself as most people did in those days, saying he would not prosecute for the shooting. Family says he meant to take care of things himself, as was the custom in those days.
Note: I have been in contact with Jakes great grandson who lives in California and he remembers his grandfather, who was there during the incident, and he talked about the events of that day. He has provided much information about the family.
After Jakes death, his family continued to live on the shanty until it suddenly caught fire and burned about 3 months later. Inez and her 8 children(ranging from ages 18 to 2) were then taken care of by first one member of the family and then another until, finally, she went to the county poor house, where she remained until 1893, when her son William (age 22) helped get her out by working in coal mines with his great uncles (his grandmother, Dove Rex Craig Horton’s brothers) Inez started a restaurant and kept a rooming house and with the children’s help, managed to raise her family. Before she died she was living in Boone County with her daughter and son-in-law. All of Jake and Inez’s children were 7th cousins to the 11th President of the United States, Benjamin
Harrison. Their common ancestor was Barbabas Horton. Jakes son William married his wife Inez on a horse and buggy. Jakes son, Jake, Jr., married a distant cousin who was descended from the same Horton line as his mother. Jake and Inez had 4 boys and 4 girls. Jake is buried on top of a hill at Big Bone Lick Baptist Church Cemetery. Inez died of hemiplegia, which is paralysis of one side of the body. She is buried in the front of the Burlington I.O.O.F. Cemetery in Burlington, KY. The tombstone refers to her as “Grandmaw”.
Of special interest: For many years, Dove Rex Craig Horton had a parchment that entitled her family to a large Craig inheritance – probably originating from land. However, being illiterate, she never pursued the claim. The document was lost when her son Jake’s shanty boat was destroyed by fire in 1888. In 1890, Jake’s wife, Inez, hired a lawyer who travelled to Louisville to research the inheritance. The inheritance was held in the old Louisville Bank. Inez’s lawyer confirmed that Jacob “Jake” and his brother Thomas “Newton” Craig were indeed entitled to part of the inheritance, which at the time was valued at about one million dollars. None the less, he told Inez that it would be costly to prove her family’s claim without the document. Inez, being poor, was never able to pursue the claim. In 1930, the Louisville Bank folded during the Great Depression and the rest of the inheritance was lost to the government. Jake and Thomas were the only two surviving Craig sons or grandsons of William Craig, Sr. who never saw a cent of their rightful inheritance.
According to an old family bible from a descendent of the Craig family in Rabbit Hash, Kentucky, Dove Rex died in Rabbit Hash, Ky. in 1905. She is buried in Big Bone Baptist Church Cemetery with her second husband, John Horton, in an unmarked grave. It is not known if her first husband, William Craig, my 3x great grandfather, is buried in Trimble County, KY or in Jefferson County, Indiana.
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