My Genealogy Hound

WILLIAM L. GRAHAM, farmer and stock-raiser; Allen’s P. O.; was born in Brown Township, Miami Co., July 19, 1834, and is a son of William Graham, Sr.; he was born in Bucks Co., Penn., May 7, 1802, where he received a limited education, and worked on the farm with his father until 16 years of age, when he engaged in blacksmithing; this he followed twenty years; Feb. 17, 1825, he married Clementina Middleton, who was born in New Jersey in 1804; they, in 1832, emigrated to Ohio and settled in Miami, where the village of Lena is now located; there he set up a blacksmith shop, but, soon after, he bought a farm in Sec. 1, Brown Township, on which he moved in 1840, felling the timber and clearing the land; he reduced the land to a good degree of cultivation, and continued farming for many years; Jan. 21, 1875, he passed from the stage of life, leaving a wife and five children to mourn his loss, and share his estate, which consisted of about 300 acres of good land. William L. is the oldest child and only son; he was brought up on his father’s farm and taught the principles of managing the same; in his boyhood days, he received a limited education; in 1870, he had his present farm, in Sec. 1, deeded to him by his father, where he has erected good farm buildings and is well situated. April 12, 1855, he married Lucinda M. Merritt; she was born in Warren Co., Ohio, Nov. 28, 1831; they, by this union, have three children, viz., Arthur E., born March 9, 1859, died Oct. 3, 1861; Clara E. and Ella M., born Feb. 7, 1863. The parents of Mrs. Graham were both natives of Pennsylvania, and emigrated to Ohio early in the nineteenth century, locating in Warren Co.; after which, the father served as a patriot of the war of 1812, under Capt. Curtis; returned home near the close of the war, and remained until 1832 in Warren Co., when they removed to Miami Co., settling about two miles southwest of Lena, where they lived and died, Mr. Graham Dec. 9, 1847, and Mrs. Graham Nov. 15, 1870.