Husband Maj. Isaac Craig 1 2 3 4
Born: 1741 - Hillsborough, County Down, Ireland 2
Christened:
Died: 14 Jun 1826 - Montour's Island, near Pittsburgh, Allegheny Co, PA 5
Buried: - First Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh, Allegheny Co, PA
Father: [Father] Craig ( - )
Mother:
Marriage: 1 Feb 1785 2 5
Wife Amelia Neville 2 6
Born: 4 Apr 1763 - Winchester, Frederick Co, VA 5
Christened:
Died: Feb 1849 - Montour's Island, near Pittsburgh, Allegheny Co, PA 5
Buried:
Father: Gen. John Neville (1731-1803) 6 7
Mother: Winifred Oldham (1736-1797) 5 8
Children
1 F Harriet Craig 9 10 11
Born: 26 Dec 1785 - Fort Pitt, Pennsylvania 1
Christened:
Died: 6 May 1867 - Neville Island, Allegheny Co, PA 1
Buried:
Spouse: John Huntington Chaplin (1783-1822) 9 12
Marr: 28 Mar or 28 Jun or Jul 5 1809 10 11
2 M Neville B. Craig 10 13 14
Born: 29 Mar 1787 - Pittsburgh, Allegheny Co, PA 10 14
Christened:
Died: 29 Mar 1863 - Pitt Twp, Allegheny Co, PA 15
Buried:
Spouse: Jane Ann Fulton (1789-1852) 14 16
3 F Matilda Craig 13
Born:
Christened:
Died:
Buried:
Spouse: Reese E. Fleeson ( - ) 13
4 M Percy Craig 17
Born:
Christened:
Died:
Buried:
5 M Henry Knox Craig 17
Born:
Christened:
Died:
Buried:
6 M Isaac Eugene Craig 17
Born:
Christened:
Died:
Buried:
7 M Oldham Craig 10
Born:
Christened:
Died: 4 Oct 1874 10
Buried:
General Notes: Husband - Maj. Isaac Craig
He was born in Hillsborough, County Down, Ireland, and came to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, about the close of the year 1765. He had learned the trade of a carpenter in his native town, and after working as a journeyman for a time to familiarize himself with the mode of doing business in his adopted city, became a master carpenter and builder, acquiring some eminence and material success prior to the breaking out of the Revolution. In November, 1775, he was appointed first lieutenant of the first company of marines, recruited and sent out by the new government of the American Colonies. He served for ten months on the "Andrew Doria", commanded by the gallant Captain Nicholas Biddle, of Philadelphia, who later lost his life on the Carolina coast, by the blowing up of his ship, the "Randolph'', in an action with a British cruiser. The "Andrew Doria" formed one of the fleet under the command of Commodore Hopkins, and among its more noted achievements was the descent upon the Island of New Providence, West Indies, and the capture of the two forts, Nassau and Montagu, with a large amount of cannon, military stores and provisions, of which the struggling colonies were in great need. The capture was effected by the landing of the marines, under the command of Captain Samuel Nichols and Major Isaac Craig. In the expedition were also others who later achieved great distinction in military and naval warfare, among whom were John Paul Jones and Commodore Abraham Whipple. Soon after his return to Philadelphia with the captured stores, Lieutenant Isaac Craig was promoted to a captaincy of marines, and Captain Nichols became a major. In the autumn of 1776, Major Nichols and his corps of marines were ordered to join the army as infantrymen, and as such they took part in the capture of the Hessians at Trenton on Christmas night, 1776, serving with Colonel Thomas Proctor's Artillery. He was commissioned captain of artillery, March 3, 1777, in Colonel Proctor's regiment, with which he continued to serve until the close of the Revolution. He took part in the second battle of Trenton and at Princeton. He was wounded, though not dangerously, at the battle of Brandywine, had command of the company which cannonaded the Chew House during the battle of Germantown, and spent the winter in the log huts with Washington's army on the bleak hillsides of Valley Forge.
Early in the spring of 1778, Captain Craig was sent with other officers to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, to take instruction in a chemical laboratory, under one Captain Coren, in order that they might be able to assist in and superintend the manufacture of gun-powder for the use of the army. The proficiency there acquired, in the military laboratory, was especially valuable to him and the country he served, long years after, when, as quartermaster and storekeeper at Pittsburgh, he was called upon to furnish munitions of war to the armies of St. Clair and Wayne, on the Western frontier. He remained at Carlisle until August, 1778, and then joined his regiment in New Jersey. On March 30, 1779, he was ordered to the command of the fort at Billingsport, but remained there barely two months, being ordered on May 20, 1779, to report with the regiment at Easton to join General Sullivan in his expedition against the Six Nations and their white allies at Wyoming, in which expedition the artillery, of which Captain Craig was an officer, took an active part. They returned to Easton in October and proceeded soon after to the headquarters of the army at Moorestown, where the winter was spent. Captain Craig was detailed to command the expedition of January 14, 1780, against the British fortifications on Staten Island. On April 20, 1780, he was ordered to move the artillery and military stores from Carlisle to Pittsburgh, and accomplished the journey by May 29th, without expense to the Continental treasury. He was in command at Fort Pitt until July 29, 1781, when he embarked with his command for the falls of the Ohio, to join General George Rogers Clarke in his expedition against Detroit, which failed for want of funds and means of transportation. In November Captain Craig began his laborious journey back to Fort Pitt, where he arrived forty days later, on December 26, 1781, having been promoted to the rank of major during his absence. Fort Pitt and the town of Pittsburgh was destined to be the residence of Major Isaac Craig during the remainder of his life. The fort itself was rebuilt under his direction in 1782, and an attack by the British and Indians thereby averted. In November, 1782, Major Craig was sent with a small detachment to examine and report upon military posts said to have been established by the British at Sandusky and at the mouth of the Cuyahoga. After a toilsome and perilous journey through the wilderness, he reached his destination and accomplished the purpose of the journey, but, by a misunderstanding with those in charge of his provisions, he failed to find them when he started to return, and had a very painful and trying journey back to Fort Pitt in the winter season.
At the close of the war, Major Craig formed a partnership with Colonel Stephen Bayard and carried on the mercantile and trading business at Pittsburgh. They also dealt in lands and received a grant from the Penns for the first land sold within the limits of Pittsburgh, on January 22, 1784, the territory thereabouts having been previously claimed by the Province of Virginia and included in the county of Augusta, the seat of which was for a time at Fort Pitt. The town was laid out four months later by the Penns, and Craig and Bayard, waiving their rights under the previous purchase, received a deed for thirty-two lots in the town, dated December 31, 1784. They formed a partnership with William Turnbull, Peter Marmie and John Holkar, of Philadelphia, established branches near the present site of Youngstown, Ohio, and elsewhere, and greatly extended the scope of their business.
Major Craig, "who had a taste for and a very respectable knowledge of mathematics, was an excellent carpenter, and was fond of mechanical arts generally and of philosophical experiments," was unexpectedly to himself elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in May, 1787. He was named as one of the trustees and incorporators of the Presbyterian Congregation of Pittsburgh, by Act of Assembly in September, 1787. Colonel Bayard retired from the firm of Craig & Bayard in the spring of 1788, and, in October, 1789, the Philadelphia partners bought out Major Craig's interest.
With the organization of the new government under the Federal constitution, his old commander and friend, General Henry Knox, was appointed secretary of war, and in February, 1791, Major Craig was offered and accepted the situation of deputy-quartermaster and military storekeeper at Pittsburgh, then really a frontier town, and destined to be for many years the most important post for the distribution of troops, arms and provisions to the forts extending from Mackinaw to Fort Adams on the Mississippi. In this position his duties were various and at times very onerous. He had to provide flatboats to convey the troops, military stores and provisions down the Ohio and Mississippi, as well as keel and other boats to convey similar supplies up the Allegheny river and French creek, to Fort Franklin and le Boeuf, and ox and horse sledges and wagons for overland supplies to Presque Isle, now Erie, and other points. With his experience in the artillery regiment and in building fortifications, it frequently devolved upon him to superintend the erection of fortifications, under orders of the war department, building at Pittsburgh, in 1791, Fort Lafayette, and later similar works at le Boeuf, Presque Isle and Wheeling. Likewise in 1794 he undertook the establishment of a line of mailboats on the Ohio, to Fort Washington, the superintendence of which devolved upon him.
Major Craig was the trusted representative of the War Department during the Whisky Insurrection of 1794, and in the equipment and transportation of Wayne's expedition against the Indians in the same year, and was offered the position of commissary-general of Wayne's army, but declined. The correspondence of Major Craig, while holding responsible positions in the public service, constitutes a very important addition to the history of that part of the country in which the busy years of his life were spent. Seven folio volumes of manuscript, copies of correspondence of Major Craig with the secretaries of War and Treasury, with quartermaster-generals, commanding officers of the various military posts along our whole western frontier during the twelve years, 1791-1803, and three bound volumes of letters from these various officials to him during the same period; as well as all the commissions of Major Craig, from lieutenant of marines in 1775 to major in 1781; various memorials addressed to the Marine Committee, the Commander-in-Chief, and letters from Washington, Gates, Irvine, George Roberts Clarke, etc., were in the possession of Neville B. Craig, the son of Major Craig, at the time he prepared his "Sketch of the Life and Services of Isaac Craig", published in 1854.
In 1797, in connection with James O'Hara, Major Craig established the first glass works, erected west of the Alleghenies. He seemed destined to be linked with every important event in the history of our western frontier beyond the mountains. In 1798, when the trouble with France loomed large on our national horizon, it was decided to erect two row-galleys at Pittsburgh, to be used on the lower Mississippi, and the duty of superintending their construction devolved upon Major Craig. On May 25, 1798, he writes to the Secretary of War that the galley "President Adams" was launched on the 19th inst., and was then lying at anchor in the Allegheny, and that the keel of the second galley, the "Senator Ross" is laid, the completion of which he reports on July 27, 1798, and the launching on April 5, 1799, the water being too low in the interval for her launching.
Major Craig was a strong Federalist, and soon after Jefferson became president was removed from office. During the War of 1812-14, his experience as a military officer, and the knowledge he had acquired in the military laboratory under Captain Coren, were again valuable to his country in preparing munitions of war for the north-western army. This was his last public service. In 1815 he removed to a valuable farm inherited by his wife on Montour's Island in the Ohio river nine miles below Pittsburgh, where he passed his latter days in comfort, dying June 14, 1826, at the age of eighty-four years. His remains were followed by a vast concourse of people to their last resting place in the graveyard of the First Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh, of which he had been one of the founders, and long a consistent member.
Another source: he died on Montour's (later Neville) Island, May 4, 1825, and was buried in Trinity churchyard, Pittsburgh.