Individual Details

" Mary was older than her sister Sarah by some years. She was in her twentieth year when she met John Craig. Mary was a plump, rosy-cheeked girl with handsome features, dark hair and blue eyes. Her usual weight was about 120 pounds. John Craig and Mary Barfield were married October 16, 1823, and Alfred Barfield and Matilda Perkins were married a few minutes later in the same room and in the presence of the same guests.
My precious mother was a devoted wife, and in prosperity and adversity alike was the same loving and patient companion. I can truthfully say that I never heard her utter one cross word to papa. Her quiet dignity of manner won for her the friendship and esteem of those in the highest circles of society, and by those in the lower walks of life she was loved for her unostentatious bearing and ready sympathy. Her religion was deep and earnest, and her implicit trust in God was unshaken by trial. She had a beautiful voice and loved to sing the good old songs. When prospects were bright she sang songs of praise to the Giver of all good, and when storms of adversity raged around she still sang words of trust and sweet assurance. I think that the earliest religious impressions upon my mind were made by her songs."
After her husbands death, Mary moved with her children back to Winston County, Mississippi. There she struggled with what assistance her older children could give her to raise her flock in the name of the Lord. Her oldest girls, Jane and Pauline, both taught school.
In 1850 Mary moved with the children still remaining with her to Texas. Jane had moved there a year earlier with her husband. When Jane's husband died, Jane lived with her mother and helped provide for her own children and her younger sisters."
(Pauline Craig Hughes)

"With so large a group of children to be reared and educated, heavy tasks lay ahead of my dear grandmother when my grandfather died that autymn day in 1841. Being endowed with more than an average degree of courage, determination, and patience, she shouldered these tasks unflinchingly. Soon after grandfather's death, grandmother moved from Mississippi Springs, where they were at the time, to Winston County, where her parents, Lewis and Catherine Barfield were then living. Thanks to timely aid given by Uncle William Craig, who was grandfather's older brother, the older girls, Jane and Pauline, were enabled to continue attendance at good girl's schools, and, and, in a few years, became well-fitted to be teachers as their father before them had ben, and both were soon able to help their widowed mother in the support of the younger members of the family." Betty Hughes

Mary (Barfield) Craig did not move to Texas at the same time as her oldest daughter, Eliza, as Mary was still in Winston Co., MS. in the 1850 census living close to her brother Henry Barfield and her father Lewis Barfield. She did move to Texas soon after that census and lived near Henderson Co. With Mary Craig 45 was William 19, John 16, Sarah 14, Matilda 12 and my Louisa 10. My sister said when Mary came to Texas she and her children stayed with John's brother William who owned land in Smith County (or she believes this was what she heard). Mary Barfield Craig could be buried in Smith County, Texas, but not sure.
(Norma Walker Anderson )

Birth	22 Apr 1803	Duplin, North Carolina, United States
Marriage	16 Oct 1823	Marengo, Alabama, United States - Dr. John Craig
Census (family)	1830	Marengo, Alabama, United States - Dr. John Craig
Census (family)	1840	Dr. John Craig
Census	1850	Winston, Mississippi, United States
Census	3 Jul 1860	Mt. Vernon Beat, Smith, Texas, United States
Death	Aft 3 Jul 1860	Texas, United States

Spouse	Dr. John Craig (1801 - 1841)
Child	Eliza Jane Craig (1824 - 1894)
Child	Pauline Craig (1826 - 1910)
Child	Mary Craig (1828 - 1841)
Child	William Henry "Will" Craig (1831 - 1880)
Child	John Craig (1834 - 1861)
Child	Sarah C. Craig (1839 - )
Child	E. Matilda Craig (1838 - 1862)
Child	Louisa Anna Craig (1841 - 1887)

Father	Lewis Barfield (1767 - 1854)
Mother	Catherine McCulloh (1775 - 1852)
Sibling	James Barfield (1792 - 1822)
Sibling	Jesse Barfield (1795 - )
Sibling	Henry M. Barfield (1798 - 1883)
Sibling	Alfred Barfield (1801 - 1880)
Sibling	Thomas Castillo Barfield (1805 - 1890)
Sibling	Sarah Barfield (1808 - )
Sibling	John Pugh William Barfield (1811 - )
Sibling	Nancy Barfield (1814 - )

Notes