Person Page - 1701

William L. Graves, farmer and stock raiser, was born in Franklin County, Ky., in 1814, the son of John D. and Catharine (Thomison) Graves, the former of English origin, born in Maryland in 1776, and raised in Virginia, and the latter of Scotch-Irish stock, born in Scott County, Ky. The father was a carpenter, and afterward became a farmer. He went to Kentucky in his youth, and made the trip on foot, with a knapsack on his back. He died in 1848 in Franklin County, Ky. He was married four times, and had nineteen children. The mother was his second wife, and died in 1827. Our subject, the fourth child, left his father at sixteen years of age, and began the carpenter's trade at Frankfort. In October, 1831, he came to this county, and split rails in part for a salary of $100 for the first year. He carried the chain in laying out Monticello, and did the carpenter work on the first house of that place. April 16, 1835, he married Eliza J. Dunlap, who came to this county two years before with her uncle Benjamin Williams. She was born in 1819, in Jefferson County, Ky. Our subject's children are Elizabeth; Mary E; Polonzo; Martha, the wife of Isaac Day; William; Anna E., the wife of J. P. Smith; Fannie, the wife of C. Wilson, and Lucretia, the wife of J. L. Thrasher. The following year he bought an estate of 240 acres, two years later he bought one of 360 acres, in La Belle Township, and in December, 1855, came to his present home, where he now owns 400 acres. He is one of the oldest pioneers of this region. He has led a married life of fifty-two years, and is a highly esteemed citizen. During the war he was unmolested by either side. He is a Democrat, and first voted for Van Buren. In 1854 he became justice, and served until the opening of the war. He and his wife are members of the Christian Church, to which he has belonged for forty-nine years, and of which he has been an elder all that time but seven years.²

John D. Graves was born in 1776 in Maryland, and was raised in Virginia.¹