Granvil C. Craig

   Ancestral File Number: C36.

  General Notes:

Craig County OK is named after Granville

Information received from Bob Lynch a Craig decendant in MO:

The following information and history on Granville was published inthe book Called "The Story of Craig County Its People and Places" This bookwas complied by Craig County Heritage Association and published in 1984. The information was furnished in an interview in 1977 with Annie Taylor of Bluejacket, OK. Also from an article that appeared in the VinitaNewspaper on August 18, 1964 that was sent to me by Dennis L. Craig of Lawrence,Kansas, and form other information based on my research of the Craig Family Tree. Granville C. Craig, for whom Craig County, Oklahoma was named, was born in Warrnesburg, Missouri, on May 6, 1849. He was the son of Samuel Craig and Eliza J. Harlan Craig. The latter was an eighth-blood Cherokee Indian and descendnat of the Ward Family (Nancy Ward - in Cherokee families this isthe Ghigau Family - the Ward Family is the descendants of John Ward - BryanWard's son by a prior marriage - Bryan was the second husband of Nancy Ward - Granville is a descendant of Nancy Ward through her first husbandKingfisher and their dauther Catherine and Ellis Harlan) (Census records show hewas born in Jefferson Townhship in Johnson County, which is south of Warrensburg, Missouri)
Samuel Craig (1805-apirl 25, 1871) the father of Granville emigratedwith the Cherokees from East Tennessee to Indian Territory in 1838 and settledon Honey Creek south of the present-day town of Grove. The following year,June 21, 1939 a feud among the Cherokees arose over the signing of theDecember 29, 1835 Treaty that moved the Cherokees west. Major Ridge who was murderedover the disagreement, was a neighbor of Samuel Craig on Noney Creek. thefeud, which lasted some seven years, caused many Cherokee families of bothparties to move from the territory. Samuel Craig among them. He settled inWarrenshburg, Missouri where Granville was born. (Samuel at the time he went to Johnson County, Missouri already had a brother living there by the name of RobertBurns Craig)
Granville Craig moved form Warrensburg settlement with his wife,Lucinda Jane Craig and his oldest son, Warren L. Craig, then a year old, to theIndian Territory and purchased land from Solon James, a prominent farmer, whosewife was a first cousin of his. This land was lcoated on Cowskin Prairie,near what is now Fairland.
Granville Craigbuilt a two-story log house there for his family.The youngest sister of Granville, Louisa Jane Craig (Coats) came to the Indian Territory with her husband, H.D. Coats, about 1872 and took up land,building a log house at the edge of Timber Hill,west of Bluejacket. About 1872, Granville Craig moved to land west of Bluejacket, later the I.N. McDonaldfarm, where he lived for five years. (I.N. McDonald was Issac Newton McDonaldwho was a son of Sophraonia Adaline Craig the sister of Granvile) Then herented the Foster fram on Russell Creek and his children attended Russell Creek School.
An early newpaper describes Craig this way. "Granville C. Craig wasa man of good sound judgment to whom many people were accustomed togo foradvice and counsel. He was known far and wide, among a large circle of friends, andon the advent of Oklahoma Statehood in 1907 he was considered as a delegateto help from the constitution. However, he felt he lacked executiveability, so he lent his support to W.H. Kornegay of Vinita, a very close friend atthis constitutional convention the county was named for Craig, with nodissenting vote".
"The Father of Craig County" died poor, but honest. He raised aboutsix chidlrenbesides his own. He gave away more money for charity to those in distress than he ever used for himself. He was a father to the orphan, a friend to the freindless and all he cared for money was to cast it on thewater taht it might benenfit someone in need."
He died on March 2, 1926, at the home of his daughter, Mrs. W.Marker, in Kansas City, Missouri, and is buried near his old home in the cemetery at Welch.

On the 1900 Census report showed he was lviing in Indian TerritoryinOklahoma. Later since Granville was the oldest settler in the area when they madethe area he was living a county they named the county for him. Isaac (Ike) McDonald was the next oldest, but Granville had lived there 7 yearslonger than Ike.The Census report showed Granvilee as 15/16 part Cherokee Indian.

Granvil married Lucinda Jane Means. (Lucinda Jane Means was born on 9 Mar 1850 and died on 10 Nov 1910.)