JOHN GIVENS CRADDOCK, was born in Harrison County, near the Bourbon line, and about nine miles from Paris; during his boyhood his father resided part of the time in Bourbon and part in Harrison, without changing neighborhood. His father, Richard Clough Craddock, was a Virginia, born in Amelia County; his mother, Ruth Givens, was born in Mecklenburg County, N. C., his father lived to be called, as he was, an old bachelor before marrying; while traveling from Virginia home to some lands owned by him in Green river country, Ky., he stopped for the night with an old Virginia friend near the Bourbon and Harrison County line, who said to him, "Craddock, why don't you marry? The best woman I ever knew in my life lives just over the way; she is of a highly respected family, her husband, Maj. John Givens, having died while a member of the Legislature, and although she has six children, there is an ample estate to take care of them." The old bachelor so little thought of ever marrying that he had given a great part of his estate to his widowed sister and her children; especially did he feel that he would as soon think of suiciding as marrying a widow with six children; he had his horse caught to pursue his journey, when a storm came up and prevented his leaving, causing him to stay over; that afternoon he met the widow, and at once surrendered; he felt that she was the woman that the Lord intended him to marry; had there been sixteen children instead of six, it would have made no difference. They married, and had two children born to them; the first one a daughter, Anna Craddock, died a young lady; the second, John G., resides in Paris, Ky., and is editor and proprietor of the Paris True Kentuckian. His father died suddenly, at the homestead, March 4, 1849, aged seventy-two years; his mother died in Paris in 1852. In religious faith she was Presbyterian, but followed her husband into the Methodist Church, caring little for sects, but cherishing the spirit of Christianity to the end of life. ...
