Mr. Craig represents the blooded cattle interests of Young county and is the surviving member of the firm of Craig Brothers, who identified themselves with the county as citizens and business men in 1888. Their ranch comprises owned and leased land to the extent of six thousand acres and lies on the waters of Fish creek chiefly, reaching also to the waters of the Brazos. As breeders of Short Horn cattle the brothers have established a reputation and standing throughout the cattle regions of Texas and have the distinction of having produced the prize Short Horn male exhibited at the Fort Worth show and sale of 1905 and bought by J. W. Burgess.
In the beginning the Craig ranch was devoted to the production of stock and beef cattle and for some seven years it was to this industry its owners held themselves to the breeding of fine stock along somewhat experimental lines. Convincing themselves that Short Horn breeding here would bring desirable results the firm closed out their common stock and built up a herd of “bloods” numbering from seventy-five to one hundred head and registered with the purest strains of America.
George H. Craig, the successor of Craig Brothers, came to Texas on an “outing” tour for rest and recreation in 1888, and the pure air, the clear sky and the “free and easy” manner and friendly welcome of the Young county people so interested and attracted him that he bought land here and decided to remain. He was a young man with education, energy and ambition and the open country of his new home encouraged his freest and most independent effort and he bore an equal share in the subsequent career and achievements of the well known firm. He made his home always on the ranch and gave it his personal oversight for years, and not until his marriage did he establish his home near Graham, at The Point, the summer home of his late brother William D. Craig.
At Plainfield, New Jersey, November 2, 1865, George H. Craig was born and he was trained in youth in its public schools. His father, Dr. Lewis Craig, was born in Monmouth county, New Jersey, in 1803, received his literary training in Rutgers College and his professional education in Jefferson Medical College at Philadelphia. His grandfather was William Craig, also born in New Jersey, and passed his life there as a farmer. The senior Craig married a Miss Drummond and three sons, Lewis, Dr. John and William, were born to him. William Craig moved out to Ohio in an early day and reared a family somewhere in that state, while the older sons remained near their native home and left descendants to perpetuate their name and fame.
Dr. Lewis Craig married Mary, only daughter of Drummond and Catherine (Burgess) Hunt, of Fayette county, Kentucky. The Doctor died in 1887 and his wife passed away in 1880, leaving two sons, William D. and George H., the subject of this sketch. Dr. Craig’s professional career spanned an era of fifty years of active practice in Plainfield and he grew in professional, business and social prominence with the lapse of time. When he retired from his life work, in 1880, he did so with a competence sufficient as reward for his years of toil and with a career filled with acts and deeds whose substantial results are not all measured by dollars and cents.
Upon leaving the public schools George H. Craig entered Pingry School, in Elizabeth, for some further preparation for a college course and when this preliminary was finished he entered Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City and completed the course to the senior year. At this juncture he made his trip to Texas with the result that he became a “cowman” instead of a physician.
January 12, 1905, at New Albany, Indiana, Mr. Craig married Miss Mary E. Kintner, a daughter of J. P. Kintner, of Harrison county, Indiana, who was a pioneer and a prominent farmer on the banks of the Ohio river some thirty miles below Louisville, Kentucky. Mrs. Craig was born and reared at beautiful Cedar Farm, the old Kintner family home. Mr. and Mrs. Craig are Methodists and their influence and helpfulness are felt in both religious and social work in Graham, their favorite town.
Source: B. B. Paddock, History and Biographical Record of North and West Texas (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Co., 1906), Vol. II, pp. 314-315.