James Harrison Cravens was born in Virginia in 1802, was admitted to the bar in 1823, moved to Jefferson County, Indiana, in 1829, and established a law office in Versailles, Ripley County, in 1833. He served four terms in the Indiana General Assembly and was elected as a Whig to the U.S. Congress in 1841. He later lost races as the Free Soil party candidate for Indiana governor in 1849 and as the Republican candidate for attorney general in 1856. A well-known debater, he opposed the extension of slavery, the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act requiring citizens to return escaping slaves to their owners, and Article 13 of the 1851 Constitution prohibiting blacks from moving into Indiana. He served briefly in the Civil War, moved to the Osgood area before 1860, built a home here circa 1865, and died at Osgood on December 4, 1876.