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Descendants of CHRISTOPHER GRAYHAM
3.WILLIAM3 GRAYHAM II (WILLIAM2, CHRISTOPHER1) was born Abt. 1725 in Yadkin County, Virginia, and died 1809 in Caswell County, North Carolina3.He married RACHEL.She died Unknown.
Notes for WILLIAM GRAYHAM II:
Per Lonina Louise (Sicard) Moore source:
"MENTOR GRAHAM The Man Who Taught Lincoln" by Kunigunde Duncan and D.F. Nickols; published 1944 by University of Chicago Press.
According to "Mentor Graham," page XIX:"How long these Virginia GRAHAMS remained in Virginia is not clear. Evidently the Virginia GRAHAMS joined the 1754 exodus of Baptists from New England and Virginia.Refusing the confession of faith as outlined by a Philadelphia Baptist convention, they rose up almost to a man, went south, and wrote their own confession.Most of them settled on Sandy Creek in North Carolina; and the 'plantation grew until it reached the Yadkin River, forty miles to the west.Early in 1760 the GRAHAMS were settled on Hogan's Creek, Hillsborough District, of what is now Caswell County, North Carolina."
William II had the following children:Edward, George, Jojn, Peter, William R. III, Charity, Polly, and Lena.
Vol. XIX, No. 1, Spring 1968, published by North Carolina Genealogy, listed the Caswell County 1786 Census of the Caswell District as follows:
Graham, William0-6-6-2-4
"William1-3-5
"Edward1-0-0
"John1-2-1
"Peter1-0-3
Elmore, Charles1-3-3
"Peter1-5-5
"George0-1-4
(1 - white males 21-60, 2- white males under 21 and over 60, 3 - white females all ages, 4 - blacks 12 - 50, 5 - blacks under 12 and over 50)
A cousin of our William II, James (son of John GRAHAM, Sr.) was a Revolutionary soldier under General George Rogers Clark and one of the Long Hunters.An article by Brent Altsheler which was published in The Filson Club History Quarterly, Vol. 7, No. 2, April 1933, Louisville, Kentucky, states:"The Long Hunters, it will be recalled, were bands of picturesque pioneers who came from the Atlantic watershed and visited Kentucky during the five-year period extending from 1769 to 1774.They numbered about two score, had as their leader Colonel James Knox, and engaged in two or three expeditions into Kentucky.They were bold frontiersmen, big game hunters, and great adventurers.In those days what is now our State was covered by an almost unbroken forest, mostly hardwood, the finest trees in the world.The rich virgin land was teeming with big game, wild turkey to buffalo, in great flocks and herds.Both were fine species, but are now extinct in their primeval haunts, and their scanty survivors are found today only in some of the remote states."
William III was also a Revolutionary soldier (Mentor Graham" page XXV) and one of the Long Hunters, along with his father, our William II.The following is quoted from "Mentor Graham," pages XXII and XXIII:"More than twenty men made up the hunting party of Nancy Elizabeth's William (William III).Known to history as the Long Hunters, these men who started a few weeks before Boone exceeded his time away by five months.Their trip took twenty-seven months; Boone's, twenty-two.William had mighty tales to tell of the pack horses half buried in peltries, stumbling along under their weight.They had made bull boats of buffalo hide, filled them with melted fat, and paddled them down the Cumberland River to the lower settlements.Fat and pelts brought good profit, some of the pelts selling as high as twenty shillings each.They had ranged far to the west of Boone's party, as far west as the Green River country, and thence south into Tennessee."
"Nancy Elizabeth's (wife of William Graham) brother, Ben (Lynn), had been along.He had been the guide of the party, taking them to the "Land of Beechwoods," as the Indian's poetic name described Kentucky's Green River country."
"When the hunters were all in camp one night, after having hunted in separate parties during the day, Lynn failed to rendezvous at the appointed knoll.One of the wits, missing Lynn, said:"Well, here's the knoll, alright; but no Lynn!"Then and there the stream upon which they were camping, later to become famous as the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln, was named No-Lynn.They searched for Lynn; and when they found him camped alone a few miles off, they called the nearby brook Lynn Camp Creek; after all, it had been quite an effort to go hunting after dark."
"Thus it happened that petite Nancy Elizabeth (Lynn) Graham, patient and full of courage, waited in her cabin on Hogan's creek, in the year 1769, for the return of William who had gone through The Gap with other hunters into a wilderness they called 'Kaintuck,' with a man named Knox as their leader.After a while Nancy Elizabeth went to stay with her man's kinfolks.She bore her absent hunter a son, a redhead, strong-willed little William who was running about when his pappy got back.Gandpap had gone, too; but the womenfolks didn't mind.They were in the midst of the Graham 'plantation - the families of Edward, George, John, and Peter Graham were settled on land all about.Nancy Elizabeth's William had land too, well cultivated; ordinarily he did not prefer hunting.The old folks' home was here also; and as their daughters--Lena, Polly, and Charity Ann--had not married yet, it made five women to keep things going and to spoil baby William."
As well as can be established William II did not make the trek to Kentucky eith his children.As far as can be told from land records, the Grahams Probably arrived in the spring of 1787.They settled in the Brush Creek community, known as Graham's station."Mentor Graham" further states (page 11) "True to form, the Grahams had become a sizeable clan, having been increased by William's four brothers and their families from Caswell County, North Carolina, and two or three families of Elmore kinfolks."
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I also have a copy of William Graham II will from Caswell County, North Carolina dated 1809.
Children of WILLIAM GRAYHAM and RACHEL are:
| i. | EDWARD4 GRAHAM, d. July 04, 1823, Greensburg, Kentucky; m. NANCY; d. Unknown. | ||
| ii. | GEORGE GRAHAM, d. Unknown. | ||
| iii. | JOHN GRAHAM, d. Unknown. | ||
| 4. | iv. | PETER GRAHAM, b. Abt. 1760, Virginia; d. 1828, West Fork, Washington County, Arkansas. | |
| 5. | v. | WILLIAM R. GRAHAM III, b. 1750; d. Unknown. | |
| vi. | CHARITY GRAHAM, d. Unknown; m. ? DAVIS; d. Unknown. | ||
| vii. | POLLY GRAHAM, d. Unknown; m. ? ELMORE; d. Unknown. | ||
| viii. | LENA GRAHAM, d. Unknown; m. ? ELMORE; d. Unknown. |