Gaylord Graves

Graves was born on May 22, 1804, in Richfield Springs, New York.[3] He received a common school education and, at age 18, went to work as a farm hand. In 1824, he had gathered enough money to purchase a small farm in northern New York. After several unproductive years farming, he sought new opportunities in the west. He moved first to Oswego, New York, then traveled to Chicago, by way of Michigan. Finally, he went by foot into the Wisconsin Territory and established a claim in the town of Spring Prairie.[3]

In February 1838, Graves was appointed justice of the peace by Governor Henry Dodge. He went on to serve more than a decade in that role. During those years he was also elected to the Walworth County board of supervisors and the House of Representatives of the Wisconsin Territory, running on the Democratic Party ticket.[3] When Wisconsin achieved statehood in 1848, Graves was elected to the first session of the Wisconsin State Assembly as the representative of Walworth County's 1st Assembly district—then-comprising the northeast corner of the county.[4]

In 1855, Graves moved to Iowa and settled near Des Moines. In 1859, Graves settled in Emmet County, Iowa. He died on August 29, 1889, in Northwood, Iowa.[5]

Graves was married three times. He married his first wife, Nancy Tuckerman, on January 18, 1824. They had two sons and three daughters before her death due to typhoid fever in January 1845. Near the end of the year, Graves remarried with Keziah Freeman, but she died the next year of Tuberculosis. On March 15, 1848, he married his third and final wife, Mary Ann Pike (née Wheeler), the widow of Colonel Calvin Pike.[3]

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