James Craft (ca. 1730) was probably born in Pennsylvania, but possibly in Germany. He married Sarah Hammons and they had at least one child. Their son, Archealous Craft (1749-1853) was born in North Carolina. He married Elizabeth Adams and they had ten children. They moved to Kentucky ca. 1806- 1807. Their descendant Maude Craft (1905- 1991) was born in Letcher County, Kentucky. She married three times and had two children. Descendants and relatives lived in Kentucky, Iowa, Indiana, Tennessee, North Carolina, Illinois, Virginia, Missouri, Texas, Arizona, Louisiana, Oklahoma, California and elsewhere.

18 years a miner, 9 years on the railroad, 6 years a soldier, and 5 years a politician. This is the life of Corporal Fess Whitaker. Whitaker spent most of his life in the Kentucky Mountains, with stints in Virginia as a coal miner, in Texas with the Fort Worth & Denver Railroad, and abroad as a soldier. He includes a good deal of pioneer history and reminiscences of old timers, including those of Uncle Wesley Banks, the "Bugger Man" schoolmaster.