My Genealogy Hound

R. T. GRAHAM, justice of the peace, Etna, was born Feb. 9, 1822, in Butler county, Pa. His grandfather, Patrick Graham, of County Derry, Ireland, was a pioneer of Butler county, where he died at the age of ninety-nine years and four months. He married Elizabeth McKee, of Scotch descent, and to them were born eight children. Of these, Joseph, father of R. T., farmed part of the homestead, where he died aged eighty-eight years. He was a soldier in the war of 1812; was county commissioner three years, and a Presbyterian elder nearly fifty years. He married Nancy, daughter of Robert Thompson, a native of Glasgow, Scotland. The subject of this memoir is one of five children, and was educated in his native county, where he also learned the bricklaying trade. In 1845 he came to Etna, and assisted in building the residence and pipemill for Charles F. Spang, Sr.; he also built the Park, McCurdy & Co. copper-mill, Pittsburgh, in 1859. During the war he ran a steam ferry in Sharpsburg, and since then has been in the sawmill business, and has also been interested in gold-mines in Colorado and South Carolina. Mr. Graham’s first wife was Permelia Buffington, who died leaving three children: Edwin, Mrs. Zelas McCord and Dr. Norman R. His present wife, nee Jane M. Ayres, has borne him two children—Mabel and Charles. Mr. and Mrs. Graham are members of the M. P. Church. He has held all the principal offices in Etna; was twice elected burgess, and served as justice of the peace fifteen years in Sharpsburg and Etna boroughs. In early life he was one of the best sharpshooters in the state, and has many medals and trophies of his victories. He also took great pleasure in collecting rare coins, native and foreign, and has in his possession one of the finest collections in the county. This collection, which now numbers some three thousand pieces outside of duplicates, was commenced in the year 1840 by a number of odd coins coming into his possession. But few were added to this stock until the year 1845, when a silver half-dollar of the date 1818 was picked up by Mr. Graham in the debris of the Pittsburgh fire, and from that time the collection steadily grew. A hint of coins for sale, an announcement of a coin exhibition, or a newspaper item concerning the finding of any, was, after that year, sufficient to start Mr. Graham on an investigation, from which he rarely returned without a coin or coins to pay him for his trouble. The arrangement of the coins is systematic, and in strict numismatical order.