William Craig, M. D., Redlands, was born in Pennsylvania, January 2, 1818. His father, Samuel Craig, was a tanner and farmer, and moved to Clark County, Ohio, in 1819. Our subject attended the common schools of Clark County, and in 1848 graduated at the Starling Medical College, at Columbus, Ohio. He then practiced medicine in Shelby County three years, and in Auglaize County three years. The five years following this he practiced in Winchester, Indiana, where he also carried on a drug business. Then he went to Muncie, Indiana, where he engaged in the drug business and practiced medicine for ten years. Then he successfully engaged in the baking powder business for some two years.
In October, 1870, he moved to California, and was one of the first settlers in Riverside, where he pre-empted eighty acres of land and plowed the first furrow ever plowed there. He also built the first hotel in Riverside, and carried on the hotel business for about seven years, or until his hotel was burned. He, having previously purchased 108 acres of fine land three miles east of Redlands, has a magnificent country residence and as fine a vineyard as there is in the valley; also, 500 orange trees in full bearing.
Dr. Craig has been twice married; first at Muncie, Indiana, March 30, 1838, to Joanna Moore. In six months she died, and in 1846, he married Charlotte Moses, also a native of the “Keystone” State. By her he has reared three children: Scipio, Mary E. and Joanna. He was made a Mason in 1849, and is also a Knight Templar. At three different places he has been Worshipful Master of a Masonic lodge. He was a charter member of Evergreen Lodge, No. 259, with which he still affiliates. Dr. Craig has been an active member of and an earnest worker in the Presbyterian Church. He first joined the church in 1848, and has held all the different offices in the church at various times and places, and has been an elder since 1854.
Dr. Craig is an honored and highly respected citizen, and one whose character is beyond reproach, and no name in this work is more worthy of mention than his.