My Genealogy Hound

S. H. GRAVES. Connected with the banking interests of Buffalo county are a number of men who deserve more mention in this volume than the mere statement of their official positions. This is so because of the fact that the banks owe their origin and success in a great measure to these men, their history being in truth only a cross-section of the personal history of their founders and managers.

A man falling within the scope of this statement is S. H. Graves, cashier of the Shelton Bank. The bank with which he is connected is the oldest one in the town of Shelton. Mr. Graves is not the founder of it, but he has been the principal stock-holder in it for a term of years and has practically made it what it is. The bank was started as a private affair in June, 1882, by Coleman & Leachey. They were succeeded in about a year by Huggins & Leachey, and these in turn were succeeded in June, 1883, by H. J. Robbins and S. H. Graves, under the firm name of Robbins & Graves. For the first year Mr. Robbins carried on the business alone, Mr. Graves not taking up his residence in Shelton till 1884. For a year following the bank was under the joint management of Messrs. Robbins & Graves till June, 1885, when Mr. Graves purchased Mr. Robbins’ interest and assumed exclusive control, conducting the bank still as a private affair till July, 1889. At this date it was organized under the state banking laws, retaining the name of the Shelton Bank and having an authorized capital of $50,000.00, half of which was paid in. The charter members were J. S. Hedges, D. P. Junk, George Mortimer, S. H. Graves and L. F. Stockwell. Mr. Mortimer was elected president, Mr. Junk vice-president and Mr. Graves cashier. By reason of his greater term of service and his official position, Mr. Graves was given, and continues to exercise, chief control over the bank’s affairs. These, it is fair to say, are in a prosperous condition and have been at all times. It is also fair to say that the fact that they are so is due in no small measure to the judicious management of the cashier. Mr. Graves is not a born and bred banker, having had his first experience at banking in the present institution; but he is a thoroughly competent business man and has had a training as such that would enable him to take hold of any general enterprise with a reasonable hope of conducting it successfully. He is a hard worker, clear headed, systematic, painstaking and attentive. He knows the value of a dollar, as he has made what he has himself, and this knowledge of the labor value of money all the better qualifies him to jealously guard the earnings of wage-workers intrusted to his custody and management.

Prior to coming to Nebraska, Mr. Graves was a commercial traveler for ten years, and he has, therefore, seen a great deal of the world and knows much of the ways of men. He started on the road at nineteen years of age for a New York drug house, Curtis & Brown, and during the term of his service with them he “made,” in the parlance of the craft, all the towns in the province of Ontario, Canada, and those in six of the chief states and territories of the west in this country. He traveled three years in Canada, and for seven years he traveled in Dakota, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico. Mr. Graves has swung a sample case and “bached” in a grip over thousands of miles of territory; he has taken thousands of tradesmen by the hand and felt their pulse as to their commercial wants, and he has supplied those wants in instances without number and in a way which only the accomplished salesman knows how to do. What his success was, or whether above that of the average commercial man, need not be elaborated on here. But this much can be said: He did what not one traveling man in a hundred ever does— he quit the road with a good share of his earnings and settled down to a pleasant and remunerative business. The ordinary man of fixed habits and circumscribed views of living will hardly appreciate the amount of self-denial and rigid husbanding of resources that it takes to do this. Only the man who has once been “in the swim,” as it were, and knows what life on the road is in all its phases, will be able to understand the self-imposed discipline under which Mr. Graves constantly kept himself.

“All, well for him whose will is strong:
He suffers, but will not suffer long;
He suffers, but can not suffer wrong” —

An excellent thought to which Mr. Graves has given point and practical force worthy of note.

But this sketch must, in pursuance of the plan of the work, embody some other facts to which we now turn. These are a few facts in reference to the subject’s birthplace, earlier years and ancestral history in which those of his name who come on in after years will feel most deeply interested.

S. H. Graves was born in Chazy, Clinton county, N. Y., March 19, 1855. He is descended from two old New York families, tracing his ancestry back by family tradition for at least four generations, beginning with himself. His paternal great-grandfather, Seth Graves, was a pioneer settler in northeastern New York, going into Clinton county when that and all the surrounding country was a wilderness. He was in his life, habits and exploits a “path-finder,” not strictly of the novelist’s kind, but one of the practical sort. After locating in Clinton county he spent the remainder of his days there. He was succeeded among others by a son named Chauncy, who was the grandfather of the subject of this sketch. The latter was a miller by trade — a quiet, sober, earnest man, who devoted all his years to the industrious pursuit of his calling, and died, leaving a family, one of whom, Joel W., was the father of our subject. Mr. Graves’ father is still living in Clinton county, where he was born and reared. He is a farmer, a man also of modest pretentions, a respectable and fairly well-to-do citizen.

Mr. Graves’ mother, who is yet also living, bore the maiden name of Louisa J. McCulloch. She is a native of Clinton county, N. Y., and a descendant of an ancient family of respectability in that state.

Mr. Graves is the only representative of his father’s family who has ever come West to live. The advantages of the West, and particularly of Nebraska, were brought to his attention during his travels over the state, and in fact, as already noted, he bought the interests which finally brought him as a resident to the state, while he was yet on the road. He still has interests, however, in his native county and his people living there; he has for years paid occasional visits to his old home and has kept up an acquaintance with the scenes of his childhood and the friends of his youth. These visits led to an attachment some years ago, which resulted, later, in his marrying a neighbor girl of Chazy, who, though not a native of that place, was mainly reared there, and, like Mr. Graves, is a descendant of an old Clinton county family. This lady was Miss Myra W. Fisk, daughter of Hiram C. Fisk. The marriage here referred to took place September 22, 1884. Mrs. Graves was born in Vermont, in which state her father lived for some years, although he was a native of Clinton county, N. Y., being reared there and dying there on the old Fisk homestead in the town of Chazy. Mrs. Graves’ father was a man of note and above the ordinary run of men. He was distinguished for his persevering industry, his great energy and determination. He was a shrewd man of business, and in the course of his lifetime accumulated a considerable fortune. The one wish of his life was to become able to re-purchase the old family homestead which, through misfortune, had passed into strangers’ hands — a wish which he fully realized, buying this place as he did and spending his declining years there.

It will hardly be necessary to add that the subject of this sketch has no political triumphs or defeats to record in this connection. Having set out with the fixed purpose of making of himself a man of business, he has had no time for politics. Even had he had the time and taste, his mode of life has precluded the possibility of gratifying any ambition in that direction. The extent of his public service has been his five years’ term as treasurer of the Shelton public school fund, an office he has filled acceptably, handling the funds thereof with care and discretion; also as member of the board of trustees of Shelton. As a citizen, Mr. Graves naturally takes considerable interest in public questions and public enterprises, and he can usually be relied upon to perform his duty and bear his share of the expense in securing for his town and community any enterprise, institution or interest of a public nature. In ordinary social and business intercourse he is exceedingly approachable, and has for friend and stranger alike a cheerful word and a hearty grasp of the hand. Having spent a large part of his life among strangers and in a situation where the friction of business competition brings out all the unpleasantness of men’s natures, along with some of the noblest qualities as well, he has learned to place a proper estimate on the value of those little social amenities which go far towards sweetening human intercourse and lessening the cynic’s charge of “man’s inhumanity to man.” We use no honeyed words of doubtful import or propriety when we characterize him as a worthy citizen and a pleasant, affable gentlemen.