Lead Mining and William Graham

We haven't made much headway in figuring out where William Graham is from and who his parents are, but we feel we are making some progress.  We have known for some time that he was involved in Lead.  Click here for an earlier post on his lead business

William Graham's Jefferson County Farm

As Dwight says, the Graham farm was in the heart of lead mining.  Click here for a court case involving William Graham with mining being the topic.  Click here for what the area to the right looks like today.

Nearby in Washington County, Mo were Grahams also in the lead mining industry. Click here for a document on that area.  Note that it mentions Moses Austin who is buried in Potosi, Mo (capital of Missouri's leadbelt)  which is in Washington Co. not far from the Graham farm in Jefferson County. Moses Austin went broke in Wythe County, VA and fled to the other major lead district which was in Missouri. After that time, the Major Robert Graham family of Wythe County VA became the dominate lead mining family in the USA. Is it possible that they sent one of their poorer relatives to Washington County MO to work with Moses Austin?

We do know William Graham lived in Knox County, TN before coming to MO because he was involved in a lawsuit there.  The lawsuit was for infringement on property between James McCarrell, Wm Graham and B. McGhee against McClellan. Click here for the link to the document.

Dwight hypothesizes: "I always asked, what does Barclay McGhee have to do with this...

When I learned last week that he had a Ferry business, I put 1+x, together in an algebraic equation and solved for x. Margaret McCarrell told me that there were two lawsuits between the two parties for infingement (I have only seen one). One that we won, and one the other side (McClellan) won. Interestingly, she said the lands were across the river from each other". And this was also possibly lead country.  The ferry that Barclay McGhee operated was out of Vonore or Von (from) Ore when one of the town leaders renamed it with hopes they would become a mining town.

So, we are going to try to follow the Lead Belt to find our roots, or we may just let DNA help us out thanks to a cousin we have located in Canada!