John Henderson Craft, June 15, 1898.

My great-grandfather, Achaelaus Craft was born on a vessel enroute from England toAmericain 1750.  His father settled in N.C.  I do not know where.  He had but two sons.  My great-grandfather was in the Revolutionary War.  He never saw his brother after the war closed.  In 1867 I went to N. C. on a visit to see my brother-in-law, Col. Ben Caudell.  In Wilkes Co. I was on the farm that my great grandfather owned before he came to Kentucky. As Wilkes County was the home of Daniel Boone, it is not strange that he followed the pioneer to the wonderful land which he explored.  Consequently, after the war, he came to Fayette Co., Kentucky and laid his claim where a part of the city of Lexington now stands.  But his wife feared the Indians and to please her he retreated to the very border of the "Promised Land" and located near the head of the North Fork of the Kentucky River, five miles from the Virginia line.        Later he removed to Colley Creek which falls into the North Fork, a little below where he made the first settlement.  There he lived until his death which occurred somewhere from 1850 to 1854.  I was born December 20, 1834, and when he died I was 19 or 20 years old.  Another tradition is that he was 14 years old when he ran away from home and joined the Army of the Revolution.  At the earliest this would place his birth at 1762, and make him about 92 years old when he died. (I think this was the more probable story. J.J.D.)  His wife, or first, was an Adams, Elizabeth, I think, and was connected with Governor Owsley.  She was the mother of all of his children.         The youngest son of Archaelus Craft, William Craft, died last winter, 1898, in Letcher Co., very old.  I saw him 5 or 6 years ago on the road from his home to Whitesburg, carrying a small spinning wheel which he had made.  He was a wheel wright.  Archaelous Craft had children as follows:  Ezekiel, John, James, Stephen, Archelous, William, Simon and Anncy (William Caudell).  These are all I remember.  I remember only one daughter, Malinda, never married.  James, my grandfather married Druscilla Hammonds. He lived most of his life in Letcher where my grandmother died but he died in Wayne.  Their children were: Archalaus, Joseph, my father, Mahala married Campbell Grace who moved to Magoffin.  Elizabeth married Jason L. Webb.  They had about six children. Sarah married John Adams and they lived and died in Letcher, about 1862.  John Adams wanted some gun powder to kill a squirrel for his sick wife, and that article being very scarce, he undertook to open a bomb that had been dropped by Gen. Humphrey Marshall's army, in order to get the powder.  It exploded in his hands and blew him into atoms.  Benjamin married Jennie Adams.  He still lives in Letcher.  They have a large family. Nehemiah married Artie Thornburg.  His wife died in Letcher; he removed then to West Va.  Do not know whether he is living.  He had a large family.  Archelous married Nancy Polly.  They lived and died in Letcher, reared a very large family.  William married a Parky.  They lived and died in Letcher, both died last winter, reared a large family.  Stephen went to Alabama and remained 28 years, none of his people knowing where he was.  He married and raised a family of children and his wife died.  After his visit home, he returned to Alabama.  This was 43 years ago.  Ezekiel went west, don't know what state, I think Missouri.  Some of William's sons now live in Scott Co., VA.  My father, Joseph, married Martha Bates.  They had children as follows:  I am the oldest, Sarah, Drusilla, William, Martha, Mary,  Joseph, Eliza, Nancy, Morgan, Robert, James - 12.  Sarah married Smith Mullins, they live in Pike Co; Drusilla married a Reynolds, both dead and all the family but one son lives near Huntington, W. Va.; James died single; William married a Sergeant, in Letcher Co., reared a family; Martha married a Foutz, she lives in Laurel; Mary married James Mullins, lives in Dickenson Co., Va., he is dead, she is living; Joseph lives in Louisville, a lawyer and has one son; Eliza (Reynolds-Hensley) Clay; Nancy married William Greer, lives in Laurel; Robert lives in Clay; Morgan married Sallie; Pearl died in London, he was a lawyer and auditor.  My mother, Martha Bates, was the daughter of John W. Bates of Letcher Co.  Her mother was Sarah Waltrop.  Welsh extraction.  Source:  John J. Dickey Diary