Toliver Craig and his wife were the parents of three sons, all of whom became Baptist preachers. Elijah and Lewis Craig were often incarcerated in Northern Virginia jails for preaching Christ without a state licence, although they were usually charged with being vagrants, “strollers” and disturbers of the peace. The Craig’s third son, Joseph, to whom I’ll return in a minute, later helped his brother Lewis lead almost 600 people through the Cumberland Gap from Virginia into Kentucky, where they established what is said to be the first Baptist Church in that territory.
On this day in 1768, there is a record in the Orange County Virginia Court House, charging Joseph Craig and several others with absenting themselves from the local parish (Episcopal) church. This was because they had been born again through the preaching of the gospel, and could no longer worship under that Protestant system. The authorities tried very hard to jail Brother Craig, but they were never able to bring him to their “unjustice” – he always escaped. On one occasion he was preaching at Guinea Bridge when the officers came after him. He ran out the back door of the building and fled into a swamp where he climbed a tree, but the enemy came equipped with dogs. He was eventually flushed out like a treed racoon. After some discussion, he was apparently tied up and placed on a horse to be led away, but he reasoned with himself, “God’s men ought not go to prison. I will have no hand in it.” He threw himself off the horse and would neither ride nor walk. The men eventually grew so tired of lugging their captive toward jail that they let him go.
(Taken from “This Day in Baptist History” – Thompson and Cummins)
