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Collection: GRAHAM, WILLIAM ALEXANDER, PAPERS
North Carolina (Hillsborough, Raleigh)
Washington, D.C.
Virginia (Richmond)
1776-1789, 1820-1918
Physical Description: ca. 1600 items. Correspondence, speeches, essays,
reports, notes, newspaper clippings, journal, biographical material,
pamphlets, envelopes.
Acquisition : Biennial Reports: 1910-1912, Major William A. Graham,
commissioner of agriculture and son of Governor Graham donated 496
letters; 1922-1923, Major Graham donated 471 items. Smaller gifts
made in 1912-1914 (43 items); 1916-1918 (2 items); 1922-1924 (type¬
scripts of two letters from Graham to W. L. Herndon, February 15,
1851; papers of Graham as legislator and governor, n.d., of which
twenty pieces concern the charter of the N. C. Railroad Company and
related legislation, 1848-1849; letter from George W. Graham, April 27,
1906).
Description: William Alexander Graham (1804-1875) was the son of Isabella
Davidson and General Joseph Graham of Lincoln County. He graduated from
the University of North Carolina in 1824, studied law with Judge Thomas
Ruffin in Hillsborough where he settled and opened his law practice in
.1828. He married Susannah Sara Washington of New Bern in 1836. He
served as state representative, 1833-1840; U. S. senator, 1840-1843;
governor, 1845-1849; secretary of the navy, 1850-1852;. was Whig candidate >
for vice-president on the Winfield Scott ticket of 1852; state senator,
1854-1856; delegate to the Secession Convention, 1861; state senator
again, 1861-1863; senator in Confederate Congress, 1864-1865; elected
U. S. senator, 1866 (not seated); trustee of Peabody Educational Fund,
1867-1875; member of Conservative-Democratic Convention, 1868; leading
counsel for managers of impeachment trial of Governor William W. Holden,
1871; one of arbitrators in boundary dispute between Maryland and
Virginia, 1874-1875. His seven sons were Joseph, physician, Charlotte;
John W. , lawyer, Hillsborough; William A. , farmer and commissioner of
agriculture; James A., lawyer, Washington, D. C.; Robert D. , lawyer,
Washington, D.C.; George W. , physician, Charlotte; Augustus W., lawyer,
Oxford. His daughter Susan W. married Walter Clark, chief justice of
the N. C. Supreme Court. For additional biographical information see
Vol. 1, Papers of William A. Graham, (ed.) J. G. deRoulhac Hamilton,
1957, and General Joseph Graham and His Papers on North Carolina
Revolutionary History, William A. Graham (Jr.), 1904,. pp. 182-184.
See also genealogical chart at end of this description.
