California Biographies

Source:
History of Napa and Lake Counties
San Francisco, Slocum, Bowen & Co., Publishers. 1881

Transcribed by Peggy Hooper 2011

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives 
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm


SILAS M. CRADDOCK.   Was born in Pittsylvania County, Virginia, December 25, 1825. Leaving there in 
his tenth year, he moved to Wilson County, Tennessee, where he resided until 1846, being then 
twenty-one years of age. He moved with his parents to Laclede County, Missouri, and there followed 
farming until 1852. April 1st of that year he started across the plains with an ox-team, and driving a 
drove of cattle, arriving in Napa County in December of that year, having first stopped a few weeks in 
the mines. He located at Yountville, and remained there until the fall of 1853, when he returned to 
Missouri, where he remained until April 14, 1856, when he once more returned to California, driving a 
drove of cattle to Sonoma County for his brother-in-law, Elija H. Duncan. He then again returned to 
Yountville where he fanned until he removed to Chiles Valley in 1873, purchasing his present farm, 
consisting of four hundred and fifty-three acres.