John Graham, Joseph’s Brother

John, in ear­ly man­hood, went to the state of Ken­tucky, pos­si­bly about the year 1780 to 1785, and seems to have been lost sight of by his rel­a­tives in lat­er life, but it is now believed that he became a very large landown­er, as well as a man of promi­nence in that state. Recent research dis­clos­es the fact that a man by the name of John Gra­ham, who came from Vir­ginia and was of Scotch-Irish descent, locat­ed large tracts of land in Lawrence, John­son, Floyd and oth­er coun­ties of Ken­tucky. In fact, near­ly all the valu­able land in the Big Sandy Val­ley was entered and sur­veyed by him and one John Pre­ston, he doing the sur­vey­ing. He was known as Judge Gra­ham and the large tracts of land owned by him in his time are still known as the Gra­ham lands. He mar­ried a Miss Whit­ten of Tazewell coun­ty, Vir­ginia, and had one son, Thomas, who was also a sur­vey­or, and six daugh­ters, two of whom are [109] still liv­ing, one in Floyd coun­ty, Ken­tucky, and the oth­er in tile Indi­an Ter­ri­to­ry. We are indebt­ed to his grand­son, John Gra­ham Johns, of Pre­ston­burg, Ken­tucky*, for this infor­ma­tion, who fur­ther states that he was one of the pio­neer set­tlers of that state and was there doing busi­ness before the state was formed, as this cor­re­sponds to the time when Joseph Graham’s broth­er, John, went to Ken­tucky, we are inclined to the belief that he is the same man here­in described. This John Gra­ham died about the year 1836 and his son, Thomas, pre­ced­ed him about 4 years, hav­ing died in 1832. David Gra­ham, father of John and Joseph, died in ear­ly life, in what is now Bath coun­ty, Vir­ginia, and had but two chil­dren. His wid­ow after­wards mar­ried a Mr. Stu­art of Augus­ta coun­ty and to them were born sev­er­al chil­dren, one of whom was named David, who, for a time lived at Sum­mersville, Nicholas coun­ty. He moved to Gale­na, Ill., in 1836.

* In answer to a recent inquiry, Mr. Johns, in sum­ming up all the infor­ma­tion in his pos­ses­sion con­cern­ing his grand­fa­ther, says that he has no doubt but that he (judge John Gra­ham) belonged where we have placed him, a son of David Gra­ham, Sr., and a broth­er to Joseph.

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