Craft's on "Little  Juniper Creek", NC

By: Wanda Bostic Dunlap
June 1984

Traveling down Cypress Creek Road one Sunday afternoon; we’re taking a trip back to my dad’s childhood memories. Going to see his great Aunt Fancy  Mobley, that still lived on the land he remembers so fondly.

We pass swampy land full of black water; it’s hard to imagine dad and fifteen other kids diving off the old wooden bridge from a make-shift diving board, into what looked to me like a snake and alligator ridden swamp.

Dad spent twelve summers at “Grandpa John F. Crafts” before grandpa died in 1934.
Stories of his great times finding just the right fishing holes on the “Juniper”, a creek that didn’t look like much more than a stream; but dad tells of the “whopper” fish he caught there.   

Nothing’s left standing of the one story log cabin that Grandpa John Craft built; but in dad’s mind it’s all still there. Dad tells of how grandpa built the cabin from logs cut in “Uncle Johnny’s”  mill; and how he set the logs in place using cypress poles. Later Grandpa John found out that this was a mistake because the cypress poles didn’t rot above or below ground; but they do rot where they entered the ground. So all the poles had to be replaced. Grandpa split the cypress to make shingles for the roof. The floor was dirt, the lights were kerosene lamps, the stove was iron and a kettle hanging over the fire, and the beds were cypress frames holding feather mattresses. 

Grandpa was a “Master Craftsman”; Dad remembers watching Grandpa John split elm strips and soak them so he could stretch the reeds over the chair frames that he built. I now can understand me dad’s fascination with trying to build furniture.

Dad said there was so much to do there as a kid. He never got bored there. Grandpa John was never to busy to show him how to build something in his wood workshop, or how to be a blacksmith in the stable. He made time to spend with all his children and grandchildren. Dad said he had lost track of how many times all of them piled in the horse drawn wagon and went for a ride to the saw mill to help out a little while. Grandma “Lindy” always fed them well before they went off to the swimming hole, or fishing on the “Juniper”. Dad said they “always had time for us” and they always made room for as many of us that wanted to spend the summer there.
If Grandpa John Craft and Grandma “Lindie” Brown Craft only knew what those memories meant to their great-grandson Milton Bostic. It’s the only time he shared his childhood memories before he ran off to join the Navy at age 18 and served them 26 years.
For years I wondered who originally owned this land on "Little Juniper Creek"; who was my dad referring to as "Uncle Johnny's", the Uncle Johnny that owned a mill;  and who were the relatives of John F. Craft and Linda Brown; where did the originate from?

My questions would be answered 24 years later in 2008 during my research on the "THOMAS" family of Anson/Richmond county, NC.  My research would reveal the family connections between the Thomas, Bostic, Craft, Brown and Mobley families of NC.

My great Aunt Fancy Mobley showed us through the family graveyard behind her house in 1984.. At the back of the graveyard were 10-30 old decaying and ineligible tombstones that even looked as though they had been made of old wood. Aunt Fancy explained that this Craft land was once owned by the Brown’s. Grandpa John F. Craft b. 1853 married Lindie B. Brown b. 1853 and all this land was Grandma Lindie’s dowry. She inherited the land from her parents Riley “Flex” Brown and Nancy Jean Horne Brown. The old graveyard is the forgotten Browns.  In 1799 Samuel Brown purchased over 200 adjoining acres  of land from William Thomas (b1742 in Talbot Co., MD) (d. 1800 Anson/Richmond Co., NC).   William Thomas is an ancestor of my great grandmother Elizabeth "Libby" Thomas Bostic (b1870).  Mother of Rushin Bostic my grandfather. 

In the late 1780's the Browns, Thomas's, and Mobley's  purchased and shared the lands divided by creeks (Potlick Creek, Cypress Creek, Little Juniper Creek, Budd Creek, all branching off of Richardson Creek and Big Branch creeks near Burnsville, NC.  Anson County became Richmond County, NC.   See the "Thomas Family" link for more details on the land.

Dad often mentioned that he believed that the Browns were of Asian decent because they were such little people with olive skin and dark hair. Grandpa John Craft was over 6 ft. and looked like a giant beside Grandma Lindie Brown Craft’s barely 4 ft. tall. Their daughter Elizabeth Ann Craft b. 1874 married Edgar L. Mobley b. 1875. So this land continues to be populated with Mobley and Crafts. 

My grandmother Lucretia Mobley Bostic b. 1903 was the daughter of Edgar &  Elizabeth Ann Craft Mobley and she wasn’t five foot tall either. Lucretia grew up in Maple Hill, NC and married Rushin Bostic and lived in Beulaville, NC the rest of her 87 years. Their oldest son Milton Bostic is my father that shared these childhood memories with me before his death; memories that I will always cherish. 

John F. Craft  B.08-26-1853 D. 05-12-1934
Linda "Lindie" Brown  B 01-10-1853 D. 03-21-1936

The Craft family migrated to Duplin County from Colby, Kentucky

UPDATE OCTOBER 15, 2008

Myrtle Bridges of Richardson County NC has come forward today with priceless information on my great great grandparents.  John F. Craft is the son of James Craft of Onslow County, Richlands, NC.  They  lived on Buck Swamp Road.  In 1930 John F. and Lindie Craft were living with their son David R. Craft age 36.  David had one son John R. Craft age 17 and one daughter Edna Craft age. 16.  THANKS SO MUCH MYRTLE!!!!!!!!!    

UPDATE:  JULY 2010 

Source:  "Kentucky Explorer Magazine" Vol. 10, No 5, Oct. 1995 pg 84-85

James Craft, Jr was born about 1720 in Bertie County, NC and married Sarah Hammons in1748. His father John Craft died in 1760; John's parents (James Craft Sr immigrated to America in 1680, arrived in PA on one of William Penn's ships.  He made his residence in Buck Co., PA).    John Craft had three sons:  James Jr, Samuel, and Thomas.

James Craft Jr and Sarah Hammons  son Archelous Craft Sr was born on a vessel enroute from England to America in 1749/5. He settled in, Roaring River, Rowan County, N.C.; he died in 1853 in Craft's Colly Creek, Letcher County, Colby, Kentucky.  Arch Sr (b 1749)  married in 1785 in Wake County, N.C. to Elizabeth  "Betsey" Adams b.1770 in Loudoun County, Virginia.  Elizabeth was the daughter of  John Adams and Nancy Caudill.   Elizabeth died in 1825  in Kentucky; and Arche remarried Scenia Wright in 1828; she was born in  1770

.Archelous Craft  Sr. was a Revolutionary War Patriot. In 1780 her participated in the Seize of Charleston, Battle of Monck's Corner, Battle of Hanging Rock, 1781 Battle of Eutaw Springs

Arch Sr. and Elizabeth Adams  had  eleven children:  They had seven sons:  Ezekiel, John W, James W, Stephen, Simon, William and Archeleous Craft, Jr.

Arch Sr. arrived in Letcher County Kentucky in 1804 by crossing Pine Mountain from Virginia where he met Elizabeth Adams; and they settled in Crafts Colley Kentucky near Ermine.  They purchased tracts of land in Perry County on Colley Creek at the North Fork of the Kentucky River. They had eighteen children:   Arche died in 1854 and is buried in Ermine, Letcher County, Kentucky,  Arche  Sr lived 105 years,  on his 100th birthday he split 100 fence rails. 

Reason for Craft and Caudill Families Migration from NC to KY in 1804:

In the early 1800's a band of 100 Baptist settlers  came to  to Letcher Co., KY from VA and NC;  to escape the strick relious rule of the English Colonies farther east; and in 1810 established the first church in Letcher Co., KY called the "Indian Bottom Church"   now known as "Blackery" KY.

Among the first settlers were John Adams (b 1747) and his wife Nancy Ann Caudill; and their family of  five sons and two daughters. One of their two daughters; Elizabeth "Betsy" Adams married Rev. Archaelous Creed Craft, Sr..; coming from Roaring River, Rowan Co., NC.  The Adam's family settled near the mouth of the Bottom Fork, KY in 1800.  Archaelous Craft and Betsy settled on Colly Creek, KY.  . Nancy Caudill's brothers James and Stephen settled near the mouth of the Sandlick Creek, KY in 1801.  

 .Archelous Craft, Jr. born 1802 in Wilkes County, NC; died 1853 in Colley Creek Letcher County, Kentucky;    he married Nancy Jane Polly in 1822 in Perry County, Kentucky; daughter of Edmond Polly and Mary Mullins of Carter County, TN.

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 Archelous Craft, Jr. (b1802) in Wilkes County, NC;  and Nancy Jane Polly  had eight sons:  Wiley, Henry, Samuel, John P, David, Edward, Jessee and my John Franklin Craft b.1845/53 of Juniper Creek.

BOSTIC’S OF DUPLIN COUNTY, N.C.
By: Wanda Karyn Bostic May 2008
chantileee@mydunlap.net