HENRY W. CRAIG

HENRY W. CRAIG, deceased, was born in New Jersey in 1824. He was married in Iowa County, Wisconsin, in 1846, to Miss Esther Landford, a native of Knox County, Ohio, and a daughter of Isaac L. and Sarah (Elwell) Landford. The father was a native of Virginia, and the mother was born in Maryland. Mrs. Craig was a girl twelve years of age when the family removed to Edgar County, Illinois; the father died in Illinois, and then the mother and children removed to La Fayette County, Wisconsin. During the great civil war Henry W. Craig enlisted in 1862, in the Twentieth Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, Company C. He died of disease contracted when he was capsized in the Gulf of Mexico, December 23, 1863, leaving a wife and children to mourn his loss. Mrs. Craig lived in Grant County, Wisconsin, until 1874, when she removed to Shelby County, hoping to better her circumstances and give her children greater opportunities for doing for themselves. She bought a farm of 160 acres, and with the assistance of her children she has placed it under good cultivation, and has made many other valuable improvements. There are five children in Mrs. Craig's family -- Henry Ben., of Jefferson Township; Mary S., wife of William Loomis, of Grant County, Wisconsin; Emma Jane, wife of George Ayers, of Shelby Township; A. W., John A., of Shelby County. Two children died -- Lorinda Sabrina, aged seven years, and Sarah Ann, aged nine months. Mrs. Esther Craig is a consistent member of the Methodist Episcopal church. A. W. Craig affiliates with the Republican party, and is a member of the United Workmen.

Source: 1889 Biographical History of Shelby County, Iowa, pp. 631. Transcribed by Marthann Kohl-Fuhs.