University of Virginia Library

CRAVEN.

The parents of John H. Craven belonged to Bucks County,
Pennsylvania. He himself came to Albemarle from Loudoun
County in 1800; in that year he became a renter from
Mr. Jefferson of the land that now comprises the farm
of Tufton. The lease was evidently drawn by Mr. Jefferson
in the clear and exact language with which he

usually wrote, mentioning the fields each by its own name,
and the order of their crops, and providing for the payment
of the rent in gold and silver, and the continuance
of the ratio between them at that time existing, even
though it might be changed by law during the term of the
lease. Before its expiration—it was to run for five years—Craven
began to purchase land from Isaac Miller, and from Tucker
and Samuel H. Woodson, till he was the owner of more than
six hundred acres lying north and northwest of Charlottesville.
In 1819 he bought from Richard Sampson, Pen Park,
then containing four hundred acres, and two years later from
the same person nearly five hundred acres on the east side of
the Rivanna; so that his possessions extended from the top
of Rich Mountain to Meadow Creek, opposite the present residence
of H. C. Michie. He owned the mill now known as
Cochran's, but then called the Park Mills. He was considered
one of the best farmers of the county. After the death
of his first wife Elizabeth, he married Mary, widow of Julius
Clarkson, and daughter of Jesse Lewis. His children were
John D., who married Jane Wills, George W., who married
Susan, daughter of Alexander St. C. Heiskell, William, who
married Ellen Craven, his cousin, removed to Illinois, and
died in Jacksonville in that State in 1868, Elizabeth, the
wife of Stapleton C. Sneed, Amanda, the wife of Malcolm F.
Crawford, and Sarah, the wife of Robert W. Lewis. All
these were the parents of large families, and their descendants
have for the most part emigrated to other sections of the
country. The old home of John D. Craven on Rose Hill,
still occupied by his remaining children, is the only portion
of the great estate now belonging to the name. John H.
Craven died in 1845.