The Rev. John Craig (1709-1774)

A-119

John Craig, born in County Antrim, Ireland, and educated in Edinburgh, Scotland, immigrated to America in 1734. Ordained pastor in 1740 of the two churches later known as Augusta Stone and Tinkling Spring, Craig was Virginia's first settled Presbyterian minister west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. He led the construction of Augusta Stone Church and its defensive reinforcement. Craig, an Old Side minister who resisted the Great Awakening, traveled the backcountry to preach, baptize settlers, and organize congregations. With his wife, Isabella, he established a farm and raised six children. The Craigs are buried in the cemetery to the east.

Department of Historic Resources, 2015

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

“Autobiography of John Craig” (ca. 1770) Calder Loth, ed., Virginia Landmarks Register (University Press of Virginia, 1999), 46. Dorothy A. Boyd-Bragg, Katharine L. Brown, and Nancy T. Sorrells, Shenandoah Presbytery: A Heritage of Service (Staunton: Lot’s Wife Publishing, 2012), 3, 4, 146. “John Craig,” Dictionary of Virginia Biography, vol. 3. Katharine L. Brown, “John Craig: Augusta’s Frontier Minister,” Augusta Historical Bulletin 39 (2003), 15-28. Kerby A. Miller, et al., eds., Irish Immigrants in the Land of Canaan: Letters and Memoirs from Colonial and Revolutionary America, 1675-1815 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 381-400, 736-737. NRHP Nomination Form (1973) “Record of the Names of the Children Baptized by the Rev’d John Craig….” (1740-1749).