My Family Tree

Find A Grave Memorial# 101270188
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Occupation: Attorney.
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HON. OSCAR CRAIG, A.M.
When Oscar Craig, of Rochester, N.Y., died on Jan. 2, 1894, that city lost one of its ablest and most philanthropic citizens, the State of New York a faithful and noble official, and Union College a highly honored Alumnus.

Mr. Craig was born in Medina, N.Y., Nov. 14, 1836. His father's ancestors were Scotch, his mother's English, including one of the Archbishops of Canterbury. Mr. Craig's preparation for college was thorough, and while in college he was elected a member of the Psi Upsilon fraternity. He was graduated in the Classical Course and at the end honored with a Phi Beta Kappa key. The next three years he studied law with a leading Buffalo firm, and in 1859 was admitted to the bar, receiving also the A.M. from his Alma Mater. In 1860 he began practice in Rochester, and that city was his home the remainder of his life, excepting a short sojourn in the South in quest of health. His life was overcharged with earnest labors, kindly feeHng and good deeds. An important part of his life consisted in his private charities; year by year he sought out needy persons and relieved them.

In 1871 Mr. Craig was appointed attorney for the Monroe County Savings Bank, and retained the position, with that of trustee, until his death. In 1880 Gov. Cornell appointed him one of the State Board of Charities, and he remained a member of that important Commission during the subsequent fourteen years of his life — the last four years as its president. During the previous ten years he had been chairman of the committee on the insane, and as such made a thorough study of conditions, peculiarities and methods of these unfortunates. He visited many asylums, corresponded with prominent alienists, read extensively on the subject, and wrote several illuminating and efifective reports. He was earnestly active and largely instrumental in securing the passage of the bill which took the care of the insane from the counties and gave it to the State.

After Mr. Craig's election to the presidency of the board, he made a personal investigation of the penal institutions of the State, and fully informed himself of abuses and defects in their management, and studied out needed reforms. He caused the abandonment of some of the brutal, too severe and unnecessary punishments or means of discipline, and recommended plans for the comfort and more rapid improvement of the convicts, and was leader in the movement which radically changed prison treatment to the more humanitarian and educational system which now prevails.

Many tributes were paid to his memory. The Rochester bar characterized his life as "useful, stainless and honored." The Board of Charities resolved that "his death must be regarded as an irreparable loss to the State." A neighbor of discriminating judgment wrote of him for a Rochester newspaper: "He was a scholar without pretense; a Presbyterian without harshness; a lawyer without casuistry; a gentleman without formality."

Mr. Craig was happy in his domestic relations. He married a daughter of Hon. Levi S. CHATFIELD, of New York City, who survives him.

— An almost verbatim transcript of a (1907) sketch prepared by a distinguished citizen of Rochester.
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Source:Union College: half-century history of the Class of 1856
http://www.archive.org/stream/
cu31924030628048/cu31924030628048
_djvu.txt
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United States Census, 1880
Name: Oscar Craig
Event Place: Rochester, Monroe, New York
Sex: Male
Age: 43
Marital Status: Married
Race: White
Occupation: Lawyer
Birth Year (Estimated): 1837
Birthplace: New York
Father's Birthplace: New Hampshire
Mother's Birthplace: Massachusetts
Relationship to Head of Household: Self
Sheet Letter: A
Sheet Number: 84
Person Number: 0
Volume: 2
Household Role Sex Age Birthplace
Oscar Craig Self M 43 New York
Helen Craig Wife F 45 New York
Alice Congdon Other F 28 Canada